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To me, Symbolica was the biggest new European attraction for 2017 for theme parks. It's not exactly a difficult feat to achieve, with little of note actually happening this year. But I found the prospect of Efteling, a park known for creating highly detailed and love dark rides, investing their biggest sum in a ride ever, much more exciting than Port Aventura sticking Ferrari Land at the edge of their park and adding a taller and faster Stealth to their line up. It's difficult to review a dark ride without giving spoilers, but I'm going to try my best to not spoil anything. Knowing as little about Symbolica will, of course, be advantageous if you come to ride it - though if spoilers are really your thing, just check out Efteling's YouTube... For some context, the storyline of Symbolica is simple - you're have a feast with the King, but Pardoes, the King's jester, has other ideas and takes you on a behind the scenes tour of the 'Palace of Fantasy'. The pre show sets this story up brilliantly, is easily understood in any language, includes 2 incredible animatronics and a real piece of magic which bought a huge smile to my face. After the pre show, you make your way down the cellars of the palace towards the station. Symbolica has 3 slightly different routes you can take (themed as 'tours' - Music, Knights and Treasure), and you choose these after the pre show but before you board. After doing all 3, they're all of equal standard, and don't differ THAT much, but each one has its own special little feature. The ride itself is trackless, with 2 rows of 3. You go around the palace, exploring several different rooms, whilst Pardoes makes an appearance and does some magical stuff. Each scene is very Efteling, in that it's just whimsical, magical and doesn't quite make sense (in a good way!). Most importantly to me though, there are no dead spots and no wasted moments. Each transition between scenes is themed and makes sense. Each scene is themed 360 degrees. Everything flows in its own weird sort of way. This was a huge issue I had with all other Efteling dark rides (and indeed many dark rides in general) - they either have dead spots where nothing happens, other there's some part of the rooms which are unthemed and make no sense with what's going on. Symbolica, in that sense, is perfect to me. An interesting feature is that the front row has 2 touchscreens. These screens allow the front row to choose their language (it doesn't affect any audio, it's just a message at the start and end of ride), make some of the animatronics do 'things' during the ride, and make your vehicle 'dance' during the finale. It's an interesting idea, but doesn't quite work - I found it more of a distraction during the ride, and it never really added much. Also, it leaves the back row a bit left out - why they couldn't have one screen per row confuses me. So yeah, in short - Symbolica really is a fab attraction. It's clear to see where the 35 million euro budget went, it looks and feels great, it's interesting and immersive to be in and, most importantly, it is fun. Efteling are onto a winner of an attraction, and definitely worth a trip!

Better late than never ey? I've condensed down this entry so that it's easier for me to write / more people read it / I actually decide to write it... With Baron already ridden, and 2 full days (10-8) at Efteling left, we knew we'd be able to take our time with the park, and were in no rush to do anything straight away. We covered the whole park easily within those two days, and had plenty of time to reride our favourites too. So, to cut to the chase, I adored Efteling. I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did, as usually the fairytale thing isn't always my 'thing', but I just loved the place. From the rides, to the ride themes, to just the general setting and atmosphere of the park - it's all just beautiful and brilliant. I won't go through both days extensively like I did with the other days, but just touch on some stand out attractions to me... Vogel Rok, the park's indoor coaster, was surprisingly fab, mixing a fun layout, with nice theming and effects, and pretty cool onboard audio too (and you don't realise just how loud it is until you get back into the station!). Solid ride. Whilst Vogel Rok was an instant hit for me, Droomvlucht left me a bit unsure after my first go. Droomvlucht is an awesomely themed dark ride with a great story and neat finale. But after my first go, I was left a bit unsure what to think of it; I could really appreciate the theming and everything, but the ride didn't leave me with as big a smile as everyone else in the group. I'm not too sure why; I think it might have been because it was one of the first rides we did on our first day there, and I still hadn't got into the proper fairytale mindset (if that makes sense). I enjoyed it more on the second day, but again, still not as much as everyone else. I can really appreciate it as a ride, and do think it is a great attraction, but I guess it's just not really my cup of tea.. Had a mighty impressive entrance though! Sticking to the dark ride theme, Villa Volta - the park's madhouse - was a ride that left me a bit disappointed. The ride itself was actually great and I really enjoyed it, but one thing which really ruined the overall experience for me was the doors. You could easily see that there were two sets of doors to the ride area when they opened and closed, and it spoils the illusion completely for me. Maybe because this was my 4th madhouse in 5 days I was subconsciously looking for flaws, but it's just a shame really, as it did let the experience down for me a bit. To round off my noteworthy dark rides from Efteling, I'd have to mention Fata Morgana, the absolutely fab boat ride. The sets, theming and effects are just outstanding, and I really was blown away by the quality of it! The park's headline show, Raveleijn, has clearly had a pretty penny Euro spent on it. It's a good show, and it was easy enough to follow the plot despite the language barrier. Some real top quality effects used as well. But at times, it felt like there was just too much going on, and you just didn't know where to look. Maybe not necessarily a bad thing to some people, but it just felt like too much was being crammed in at times. Turning attentions to a couple of the more thrilling rides the park has to offer, the first ride we headed to was De Vliegende Hollander (aka Flying Dutchman). This water coaster was beautifully themed (naturally) and had a decent outdoor section to go with it. Unfortunately, much like Supersplash at Plopsaland, I found the actual coaster somewhat uncomfortable, which is a shame. The thoughts of the discomfort have stayed with me almost as much as the amazing effects, theming and atmosphere inside the attraction, so it's just a bit of a shame. I did really enjoy it, and did it a couple of times of course, but the discomfort just stops it from being a truly magnificent ride for me. The park's duelling GCI woodies, Joris en de Draak, were much more of an overall hit with me however. The layouts of both the coasters are brilliant fun with some good airtime moments. I do like how the coasters do actually 'race' as well, with the winner being announced and everything. Originally, we thought it was fixed to some degree (as we were seeing alternate sides winning), but it does seem to be a true race? Of the two sides - fire and water - I slightly preferred the fire side, just because it seemed to have slightly better airtime. I also enjoyed the theming for the ride, including a fully animatronic, fire-breathing dragon, though I guess it's a bit of a shame you don't really notice it on ride. (As a side note...After being treated to brilliant rides on Troy as well, it was hard to tell which woodie I preferred. I think if you had asked me after my first day at Efteling, I'd have said Troy. However, after my second day, I would have to say Joris; it's just got sheer fun and joy factor in its side!). The other attractions on park are a bit of a mixture. I enjoyed Piraña, the park's rapids, but then rides like Python (Vekoma looping coaster), Carnival Festival (carnival-themed dark ride) and Bob left no impression on me other than disappointment unfortunately. Some of the other filler rides are fun though. Worst attraction in the park goes to Spookslot, a completely random 'show' which was laughable for all the wrong reasons. The Fairytale Forest area, however, was absolutely fantastic - we spent a good couple of hours walking round on our second day! Also loved the Aquanura fountain show; fantastic way to end the day. The only good thing about Python is the signage. Fairytale Forest is full of characters. And, because I love it so much, just one final word about Baron. Despite the lengthy queues during our visit for it, I ended up riding it 5 times. I guess that it speaks volumes about how much I enjoyed it that I was happy to wait up to an hour for it when other rides on park had 10 minute queues, and even leave the rest of the group to join the single rider queue whilst they did other rides.. Overall Efteling thoughts: Like I said at the beginning, I adored Efteling, perhaps more than I thought I would. Genuinely somewhere that I just love and can't wait to go back to. --- Leaving Efteling was a hard thing to do, and after having dinner at the Bosrijk restaurant, we left and set our sights back to Belgium. We arrived at our last hotel of the trip just before 11pm, and fortunately was only 10 minutes away from Bobbejaanland.. Though more on that park next time...

*Once again, a long time between entries into this trip - sorry to anyone who is still reading this! Reports will probably be shorter from now on so I can finish this thing before Christmas...* After a nice sleep in Dusseldorf, we said out goodbyes to Germany and ventured into The Netherlands. Out first stop was Toverland, which, despite being a relatively small park, was one I was looking forward to a lot. The 10-6 opening time would surely give plenty of time to give everything a couple of rides, before heading off to try and get a sneaky ride in on Baron at Efteling for its opening day (yes, this report is all the way back from July 1st). We arrived to a very empty-looking car park at opening, and got in. We were told that the ropes course was closed for the day and that the park's signature coaster, Troy, would only be open 12-5. With half of the park basically being indoors, we decided to start off in there and do the big rides that there were. We started the day off with Boomerang, a Vekoma junior coaster. A neat little coaster which feels surprisingly high when at the top. After a quick ride on the Teacups - where my bag flew out of mine and Adam's cup despite minimal spinning! - we did the nearby waterslides, which were good fun. We then ventured outside and did the random hedge maze, before heading to the second half of the indoor part of the park. We had planned to get the bobsleigh ride done, but it has suffered a technical fault, so we instead did the adjacent funhouse and the nearby logflume, Backstroke. It was a nice flume, with it being partially indoors and outdoors, and has a nice bit of theming. It doesn't get you very wet, but has a nice backwards drop and a weird turntable mid lift to turn you forwards... Blitz Bahn, the redone bobsleigh ride, has opened by the time we were done with this. It had a nicely themed queue, which was good as this had the longest queue of the day at a staggering 15 minutes. The ride itself was fun, can't really add much more to it than that really! I was rather happy to see some maths on a 'chalkboard' in the queue... With the noteworthy things inside done, we ventured outside and headed over to the Magic Valley to ride the park's newest coaster, Dwervelwind, a Mack spinning coaster. Rather unsurprisingly, it was practically a walk on, so we made our way through the nicely themed queue and into the station building. I really loved the station; nicely styled and there's a neat little dispatch sequence with some lights when a train leaves. The ride itself was pretty fun with a nice layout that even could be enjoyed on a non-spinning coaster. We got some decent spinning on our first ride too. Temperatures we soaring, so we went and did Djengu River, the park's rapids. Again, not a particularly wet ride, but they were a fun set of rapids with some good spinning in the boats. Certainly a much more welcome rapids ride than River Quest to me! The queue line was themed beautifully as well, which was a bonus. We went back on ourselves to Booster Bike, a motorbike coaster, which was now open following a small closure. I've wanted to try one of these out for a while, for the obvious novelty factor of them, so was a bit excited. I was surprised at how comfortable the seating arrangement was, which was a bonus. The ride's layout was fun, but I just can't help but feel the ride would be much better if it just had a normal seating arrangement with lapbars. The novelty is alright, but I think I'd have enjoyed the ride so much more with just lap bars. 12 o'clock was approaching, so we headed over to the Troy Area to get ready for Troy's opening. Before that, we did Scorpios, a pirate ship with some cool water effects. I wear I read somewhere a couple of years back that this was the tallest or the steepest pirate ship in Europe, so the whole group was really excited for this, but was understandably underwhelmed when we were greeted by a quaint little ride. Don't trust everything you read on the internet guys... It was now time for pretty much the main reason why we visited the park - Troy. The coaster really does dominate the park and the immediate surrounding area, and it really does look impressive. Again, the ride was basically a walk on, which was fab. Back row awaited us, and off we went. And wow. The ride is truly relentless, with a great first drop, awesome speedy moments, nice pops of airtime, and the out-of-control feeling woodies are known for it. The ride really is fab, and shot straight up to my favourite ride of the trip so far. *ORP to come here soon..* With no queue and everyone loving Troy, we went straight back on for another go, and all loved it again (I think I got front row this time and it was still fab). We then decided to retreat indoors and have some lunch; I had some form of spaghetti and it was nice and reasonably priced. It was just coming up to 1 o'clock now, and we'd done everything major already. We stayed inside for a bit and did a couple of the smaller rides in there that we missed out on, before doing some rerides. According to my ride count I wrote up in the car to Efteling, we'd done all the coasters multiple more times, and the water rides again (including the surprisingly wet indoor water slide which was so much fun!). I remember riding Dwervelwind one time and smacking the back of my head against the seat quite hard mid-way through the ride, and the rest of the ride being quite uncomfortable. The rest of the group did another ride on it straight away whilst I sat out. Troy was the most ridden ride on the day, and despite the temperatures soaring (34-35 degrees; possibly the hottest I've experienced in my life..), I was happy to keep on riding it during the day. We also watched the Fountain show, and in general had some fun by the fountains, which was nice. Pictures don't really do the show justice... I continued doing all the rides till about half 4, before the constant high temperature had finally gotten to me and I had to stay inside. It was a shame to miss out on a couple more rides on Troy, but despite staying well hydrated during the day, the heat had really just gotten to me. We left the park not long after 5, so that we could set off to Efteling to try and get the ride on Baron... Final Toverland thoughts: Toverland is a fantastic little park with some really good attractions. Their coasters are all good fun, and having pretty much half the park indoors is great too. One or two more attractions would be nice to help give the park just that little bit more ride-wise, but still is a great little park as it is! Not a park I'm dying to visit again any time soon, but that's not a bad thing I suppose. --- Now, I don't want to steal the thunder from Toverland, but since I'm doing these blogs in days, I can't not put a bit about Baron here. With Efteling a little over an hour away from Toverland, we made our way to the park, hoping that we'd be able to get to the park before the 8pm close and sneak a quick ride in on Baron, on it's opening day. We made good time on the road, and checked into our room in the Efteling Bosrijk Village (which was lovely!). By the time that was all done, we got into the park just after 7 and headed straight to Baron. I won't go into it too much, since my ride review is here, but the hour-or-so queue for front row in the heat made it quite a long and gruelling experience, but oh so worth it! We then went to the nearby town to try and find dinner, and almost had no luck before finding a kebab shop which did nice and cheap-ish food. A short walk back to our room and I quite happily collapsed into bed at some point around 1am I think (goodness knows where all the time had gone...). And that's where I'll leave it for now. The next report will combine our 2 days at Efteling, and hopefully shouldn't be too long before I post it!