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Day 1 What better way to spend the UK closed season than by visiting a park that doesn’t close? Goodbye depressing Merlin situations and hello Efteling, who certainly are the opposite end of the ownership scale, what with being owned by a non-for-profit organisation who happily throw €42 million on a show. So a blustery Saturday morning greeted us, with a flight to remember as the winds took hold of our plane throughout, providing an intense experience I never wish to repeat again in my life. But fortunately the flight was short and Rotterdam was reached (just). A bus to the train station, a train to Tilburg and another bus (Total of about 90 minutes travel time, especially if you get the connections right), and we had reached our destination of the Efteling Hotel! We got our park tickets and through the super secret mini-gate we were in, greeted by a DJ Set-up in front of our first coaster, Vogel Rok. This Vekoma indoor variant is hidden behind a fantastic entrance background and a giant animatronic bird welcoming you into his giant building. A short indoor queue led us into the station and the cattlepen of death (Efteling LOVE hidden cattlepens of death, fortunately we used none of them), and before long we were sat on the ridiculously spacious seats (pros of lap-bars of OTSRs on a Vekoma, given the way Space Mountain at DLP is), and sent off into the pitch black. The ride itself is fun, with a few laser effects and animatronics dotted around as you swoop around the building accompanied by some fantastic music. Very re-rideable (as we found out during the ERT sessions for hotel guests), and probably the smoothest Vekoma I’ve ever ridden. Solid ride and a solid start for Efteling. 7/10 Next door was our first dark ride in Carnival Festival, which is a Small World rip-off in Omnimover form. A really fascinating dark ride; and something that seems to be an institution in Efteling as Bubbleworks once was to Chessington. Catchy theme music, bright colours, moving sets/animatronics, this ride has it all, even some good old-fashioned racism (bless Continental Europe) fill this tour of the world up, from Holland to France (complete with prostitute), London, Japan and Africa; certainly a classic example of a classic style dark ride. Moving on from the area in search of other coasters, we wandered through the park to the opposite corner, taking in the lovely setting of lakes and woodland, before arriving at our second Vekoma, Python. In classic Vekoma white and green, this ride is famous for THAT incident where during an evacuation on the lift hill the train suddenly moved forward due to the unloading procedure. Since then though, it’s had the new Vekoma trains added on with a sexy looking vinyl finish to it. The new trains help this ride a lot though, whilst not as smooth as Vogel, it was certainly the best Vekoma looping thing I’ve been on in a while. Can all of the existing ones have these trains please? A decent helix finale too, but an amazingly bland layout cannot be held up by such an alright finish. 6/10 Efteling have a coaster corner, with Python, Flying Dutchman (closed for off-season maintenance during our visit, so didn’t get to ride it), and Joris en de Draak, the racing GCIs. At the end of last year I thought Stampida was the best example of a well designed (at least, initially) racing style coaster, however, Joris has taken over that mantle exceedingly well, with a layout that is atypical of GCI, and adding in a finish that is often tighter than Merlin’s purse-strings. Even added onto that is the return of the trains to the station; where the winner returns to unfurling banners and cheers, whilst the loser trots in afterwards to boos and jeers. Simple additions that would be deemed as unnecessary in certain parks, but not here; and obviously capped off by a giant animatronic dragon that breathes fire. The choices here are Water and Fire, and generally they don’t differ that much until after the journey back over the station. With the usual array of quick turns, airtime dips and near-misses, it was hard to determine which of the two was preferred to the other. Water tends to gain some lead, but the finale removes that as it goes on a longer journey around the lake next door, where Fire holds back into tighter turns and drops (arguable holding the best drop of both as it dives under the lift hills). In the end they are both excellent coasters, and certainly with the 1.1m restriction they fit into Efteling immensely well. I also get the feeling that Europa were inspired by it slightly, as the swampy queue-line looked very familiar. 9/10 We continued our circuit around the park, walking the long way around due to the mass of construction happening at the Rapids, ending next at the final coaster of the trip, Bob, the Intamin Bobsleigh. I remember enjoying Disaster Transport before Cedar Point spited it so I was looking forward to riding another one. An enjoyable romp through the woods followed, with some surprisingly large drops and some fair amount of lateral Gs. Part of me thinks that these single car versions are better than Mack’s multiple car trains, mainly down to the speed this one achieved, but Avalanche at Blackpool is similar. Oh well, either way, a solid enough ride. 7/10 How to refurb your ride 101 Pictures of Bob are extremely difficult We were hungry at this point, so food was required, and there was a place I had been told (read, ordered) to eat at, Polle’s Keuchen. A pancake place of sheer and utter deliciousness that you so rarely see in a theme park. Heavily themed with a central feature that spun in time to music, open cooking area, waiter service and a bar, all for one little pancake place? Truly, this is the stuff of rare legend. After stuffing ourselves full of pancake goodness, a dark ride was required, so step forward Fata Morgana, Efteling’s answer to Pirates of the Caribbean. From an unassuming queueline of relative blandness around the loading platform, into one of the most well themed dark rides I’ve seen. It uses the tow boat system to its complete advantage, making the scenes feel a lot more involving of the rider for the majority, yet still managed to pull off the impressive large set pieces off as well. Plus some excellent bonus effects were used throughout it. I’ve never been so surprised by a dark ride since Gardaland’s pirate effort, but this is another level. This is truly Disney level dark ride goodness, which resulted in me sitting in awe of the entire thing. Yay for random park entertainment! We had a quick look at the main entrance building (House of the 5 Senses, the most impressive park entrance architecturally speaking) before moving along to the opposite corner of the park again, home to 3 of Efteling’s well-known attractions (unfortunately Ravelijn, the €42 million show, was closed, but the outside of it looks incredible). From one amazing dark ride, to another, this time Dreamflight, an inverted dark ride with an extremely bland cattlepen queue of death (apparently it was once actually themed and didn’t use a side-door) and a station that shared its locale with a café (a very weird one there Efteling), so not the most enticing of starts. Then the ride begins. And after the impressiveness of Fata Morgana, this continued the theme, I was once again blown away by the details, multiple animated characters, the size of the set pieces, and of course the infamous coaster-like finale. It had recently had a bit of a refurb, which did show, but still, my first ride of it, full of the unknown led to even more jaw-dropping moments as gigantic set-pieces revealed themselves. Again, this was some Disney level stuff going on, if not vastly superior. This photo is blurry because it’s the coaster section After a second go on Dreamflight, it was time for another famous one in Villa Volta, the first Vekoma Madhouse. Said to be one of the best ones, it unfortunately suffers from the same issues as the rest, dialogue heavy story-telling. Granted, most Madhouse stories are reduced to “The place is cursed”, but the interesting part is always, “Why is the place cursed?” “Why did the Earl lock up a branch?” “Why is there a Pervy Wizard?” all important questions that rarely get answered if you don’t speak the local lingo. Villa Volta’s first room is an exceptionally bad example of this, as the dialogue comes from speakers in the roof, so you have nothing but people talking about the feared Goat-Riders. The next room improves slightly with the addition of Hugo, the main character and his fabulous animatronic (again, Disney standard), but it still involves a LOT of dialogue. Hex is probably the only Madhouse which manages to get the balance right, as the first pre-show has the accompanying video to tell the story, and the second show has minimal dialogue and is obvious as to what is happening. The ride room though is beautifully themed, and a slightly different (and more forceful) ride cycle to go with it. The music is another feather in the bow of the ride, with another catchy theme which fits the ride perfectly. I would easily say Hex is a better overall product that Volta, but that’s not to say it is bad, indeed, it’s better than its Italian cousins and Feng Ju Palace. But the dialogue is the issue more than the ride itself. Projection Mapping screens live here We had some time to kill so we wandered around to the Laaf Village and did their Monorail thing, which was alright, a very required sit-down attraction. Another go on Vogel Rok followed as we were nearby before walking back to the park entrance for Aquanura, Efteling’s answer to World of Colour, only without projections and just pure fountain action so amazing Amanda Thompson would never leave it alone. Set to various classical music and some of the park’s own music (Villa Volta, Ravelijn, Carnival Festival), it really is a fantastic show, though the wind at this point was problematic and got us extremely wet in the “Optimal Viewing Area”. Nowhere near as bad as watching Disney Dreams in a blizzard that’s for certain, but the timing, colours and various fountain type (and FIRE, because it makes everything better) worked together to create an entertaining spectacle. And that was it for the first day, finding an empty park was not what I was expecting, as was getting every major ride done in a few hours. But we still had 2 whole days, and a Fairytale Forest to visit, so we checked into the hotel, had a nice meal and looked forward to another day of pancakes.