Chunnel

[Mega-Lite]

What do you do when it's your best friend's Birthday and you are both coaster nerds? Mop up some more of the Euro creds!

 

We plumped for the trip that was the cheapest and easiest this time round, save the fun stuff for later in the year!

 

Day 1

 

An extremely early start sent us flying towards the channel tunnel (chunnel) at half 4 in the morning, can't moan too much though, we were pretty much the only car on the road!

 

Surprisingly for us the whole channel tunnel bit went very smoothly and we were soon on French soil.

 

Parc Saint Paul https://rcdb.com/5024.htm

 

After parking my incredibly low car (low by design, not rude boy lowered) in the worst car park in the World (I could literally hear boulders scraping the exhaust), we were at the entrance to Parc Saint Paul. Now I must admit I knew very little of this place beforehand but I quite enjoyed this strange little park!

 

I'm not joking when I say the 2 security guards at the turn styles were 7 and a half feet tall, literal giants doing bag searches, off to an amazingly weird start here. We found out in the park later they are famous or something. They amused me, I hope WWE offer them a contract one day!

 

Pomme https://rcdb.com/3223.htm - Starting the day how I wish I could start every day, with a Wacky Worm! This wasn't just any old Wacky Worm though, this was the best themed Wacky Worm in the World!

Wild Train https://rcdb.com/1354.htm - My first ever PAX coaster. For those who don't know about PAX, they are Russian company who are completely mad. This coaster was no exception. Points of sustained ejector, laterals that attempt to injure you, weird rough parts and transitions that shouldn't exist. I loved it.

Une Souris Verte https://rcdb.com/3845.htm - This Zamperla spinning mouse did get a bit fruity for us but stills pails in comparison to the Brighton Pier one that almost made me black out.

Formule 1 https://rcdb.com/2664.htm - Another mad PAX coaster, what a company! This was great fun, hilarious and felt like it was about to collapse from the word go. Literal live tigers in circus cages inches from the ride area added to the excitement, Christ this park is brilliant.

Mini Mouse Cartoon https://rcdb.com/2665.htm - I regret to inform you, this coaster has developed a bit of a shuffle.

Aerotrain https://rcdb.com/6718.htm - +1

 

Made a complete tit of myself trying to order fries, I'm awful at French and have no interest in trying to learn it at all, I pulled it off in the end though!

 

Left the park content, weird as hell little park but it left an impression on me, wouldn't rush back but will burst into laughter thinking about it for years to come.

 

Fully exploiting the fact the French allow you to do 80mph on their motorways (why can't we?), we blasted our way to...

 

Parc Asterix https://rcdb.com/4790.htm

 

I recently saw a member of this forum say something along the lines of, "forums are about sharing opinions, please don't get upset", please remember that as we dive into Parc Asterix.

 

After almost crashing (which isn't fun being my own car and all) at the site of OzIris from the motorway, we pulled into the car park and buttered ourselves up, it was hot as hell by this point.

 

Parc Asterix is a park I've heard stories both great and god awful about for years so I really wasn't sure what to expect.

 

We got the 1 go on most attractions fast track for £20, which isn't bad at all really.

 

Vol D'Icare https://rcdb.com/755.htm - Black engulfs the dying light, as he falls, on frail wings of vanity and wax.

Tonnerre de Zeus https://rcdb.com/752.htm - First major disappointment of the day. I was tricked into expecting great things from this large CCI woody, what a mistake. As a man who rather enjoys Megafobia I was expecting that, but bigger, I was wrong. Very little air time to be had on this thing, very few forces and no sense of speed. 90% of the coaster is shaking around turns, not what I was expecting or wanted, meh.

Goudurix https://rcdb.com/753.htm - Either this thing has had some major work done to it very recently or most coaster enthusiasts are dead wrong. Goudurix is not at all rough, it's rather fun actually. Saw, Colossus and The Smiler on good days are all more violent than Goudurix, I've no idea how it got the reputation it has.

Pegase Express https://rcdb.com/12555.htm - Now I have something positive to talk about! This brand new Gerts family coaster is very good fun, great little ride this!

OzIris https://rcdb.com/9675.htm - Oh boy... I really wasn't a huge fan of this B&M invert, that pains me to tell you. Easily the weakest B&M invert I've ridden. Weird flow to the layout, almost forceless and rattly. I was sitting on the brake run the first time thinking to myself, this can't be real. Second lap was slightly better but still disappointing.

SOS Numerobis https://rcdb.com/754.htm - +1

Trace Du Hourra https://rcdb.com/1038.htm - Never really been a fan of Mack Bobsleds and this is easily the worst example I've ridden, oh well.

Menhir Express - The park's log flume is fantastic, it's been a while since I've done a flume and I really enjoyed myself.

Le Defi De Cesar - Very well done mad house with insane preshow section.

 

Let me say some more positive things before you accuse me of being too negative about the park.

 

The army outside ready and waiting to deal with crazy people as well as the very large number of security guards in the park is reassuring in this current environment.

The park is fantastically themed in places, it would be a nice place to relax if it wasn't for the locals.

Operations on all attractions were amazing, lightning fast all round.

The pizza restaurant we found was very well priced and the food was lovely.

 

In my opinion then, the park itself is quite nice and I can see the appeal of it. As for the coaster line up, it's nothing special.

 

We raced the sunset over the next 2 hours to get to our hotel, I hadn't worked out how to put on the stupid light reflector things and didn't want to get a ticket, just about pulled it off though, nicely done.

 

Next time, Bellewaerde and Plopsa De Panne, stay tuned.

 

 

[Charlesberg]

Based on your comment about Goudurix, it had retracking back in 2013. So most of the negative reviews were from before 2013 (when it was considered the worst roller coaster in the world).

 

It does make me wonder why they can't do any work like this to Colossus (it's probably too late anyway).

[Mark9]

Oz'Iris seems to be the most marmite of B&M's out there and for every person that loves it, I can find another that despises it. Ive loved it ever since my first ride and my trip this year only cemented that love. I like its unconventional layout, its near perfect zero g, the way it dives off the lift hill through the first drop. 

[Benin]

Did you only do half a day at Asterix? That feels... poorly organised...

 

Missed out on the fab shows and the silly indoor Victorian area...

 

Ton of Air was very rough the other year, perhaps it needs a retracking because it is a fab coaster when it can be; Oz'Iris is just fun as well, and that queueline is Goudrix is seemingly starting to get more stature now in Europe as "actually not awful", which is good to see, wonder what new trains would do to it?

 

Parc Saint Paul is weird, the tiger show is TERRIFYING, and the PAX creds are ridiculous...

[Mega-Lite]

The Zero G was one of the better examples of one I must admit Mark, shame about the rest. 

 

I feel a whole day at Asterix would of been a waste having now done it. One go on everything interesting then a couple of re rides on Oz and Zeus and that's me done, each to his own though.

 

On that note, 1000 degrees and the smell of the French confined is all I recall of the Oz queue, not my idea of fun!

 

Benin I MUST know, what happens in said tiger show? Seeing them pacing in cages inches from the PAX was concerning enough!

[Benin]

Urgh, your disinterest in high quality shows disappoints me...

 

The Tigger show basically is like any other animal show, person in enclosure making them do tricks... The only difference is the fear/excitement prospect that he could be ripped limb from limb at any possible moment... It's pure car crash stuff...

[Mega-Lite]

I've no doubt anything Parc Asterix is flogging in the way of a show would be lost on me anyway.

 

Disappointed about that tiger show, was half expecting you to say they let them loose in the tent or something!

 

Day 2

 

Our hotel was quite good, certainly better than Hotel New York at Disneyland Paris, although I'm sure at points it hit 40 degrees, oh well it was cheap and very well located.

 

We set off at a much more reasonable time today on route to Bellewaerde. Assuming we had already crossed the France/Belgium border imagine our surprise when 10km from the park we took a right turn into a small road with 15 heavily armed soldiers standing there! While slowing down to stop to show them passports, the bloke in charge beckoned us to pass regardless, we must have trustworthy faces or something.

 

For context, me and Belgium don't get on. We did Walibi and Bobbejaanland last year and I really didn't like either. Learnt on that trip too that it's impossible to do 2 parks in 1 day, let's see how we fair this time round.

 

Bellewaerde https://rcdb.com/4848.htm

 

Getting to the park for 20 minutes before opening and assuming we'd dust it off in 1 hour we were rather worried when the car parking bloke sent us down some narrow awful roads to get to car park number 2. Parked up and we knew we had to get fruity in order to get this park done before it was too late to do Plopsa, game on.

 

As with France the locals were trying to out chain smoke each other at the turnstyles, so with more reason than ever now we ran to the first cred of the day.

 

Huracan https://rcdb.com/10979.htm - The ride was meant to open at 10 but in true Belgium spite style it opened at 10:15, thanks. Rather enjoyed the coaster though, the dark ride section before the main event was really cool and the coaster itself was good fun.

 

We ran to the parks tivoli coaster to discover they were doing a Stealth and increasing the amount of rows used each cycle, they were only on 4 when we ran over and the queue was huge, Belgium man!

 

Boomerang https://rcdb.com/926.htm - We did the park's boomerang in the mean time, it was fine, I've ridden much worse of these things.

 

About 8 rows of 1000 were now being loaded on the tivoli, WHY?!!

 

Dawson Duel https://rcdb.com/14196.htm - We decided to check out the queues for the park's brand new dueling alpine coasters, only about 30 minutes, that'll do. You walk up about 100 feet worth of wooden walkways until you reach the ride station, then you pick a side (blue or green) and off you go. It was quite good fun and a nice sit down, nothing special though, if you could control the braking yourself like on a proper alpine coaster I'm sure it would of been much better.

 

Keverbaan https://rcdb.com/927.htm - Finally they were loading all the rows and we got the cred.

 

We grabbed a panini and hit the road but not before screwing up finding the exit of the car park no less than 3 times, smooth!

 

Plopsaland De Panne https://rcdb.com/4850.htm

 

We got to the park about 2 and knew we had to leave at about 5:40, in most other countries this wouldn't be a concern but in Belgium it was. Adding to the Belgium based concerns were the Plopsa concerns, when I did Holiday Park, which Plopsa own, I found operations to be bad and staff to be lazy.

 

Viktor's Race https://rcdb.com/1006.htm - Wasting precious time walking around in circles looking for the Anibus entrance we finally decided to just ride this, +1.

 

Noticing the operations were indeed even slower here than at Bellewaerde, it would indeed imply the Plopsa curse continues.

 

Rollerskater https://rcdb.com/997.htm - +1. The operator quized me on my count though, was it that obvious?

 

Anubis: The Ride https://rcdb.com/4181.htm - Finally something exciting! This Gerts launched coaster was very good. Great launch, the airtime on the top hat was as good as you can get with OTSR and the pacing for the rest of the ride was great. I think I prefer Lynet in Denmark if I'm honest though.

 

SuperSplash - Operations on this thing were laughable, the ride is boring and the water gave me hepatitis but got the cred!

 

By this point it was 4 and we concluded we weren't going to get all the creds today, so we decided to go ride Heidi, the park's brand new GCI woody and cut our loses.

 

When we got to the coaster, we noticed it was closed with a member of staff at entrance so we sat down and camped it out for a bit. 10 minutes later and the queue was opened and a bunch of us powered in, only to be told to leave by security, fair enough.

 

We spent the next hour waiting and watching about 40 different staff members show up, do nothing, then leave. Exactly the same thing happened to us at Holiday Park on our first visit with Expedition GeForce, so this has to be some kind of Plopsa job practice. At 1 point a security man showed up and mocked those waiting and pretty much told us, ride closes at 6:30 it's almost 4:30, what would be the point now, amazing.

 

Draak https://rcdb.com/2447.htm - Losing the will to live and even more faith in Plopsa and Belgium we opted to ride the park's powered coaster, this wasn't wise. Operations were now so bad it was almost a joke, taking minutes to load the train and then having to put up with the locals screaming as it did the station fly through.

 

Time to leave, without Heidi (a coaster I needed being a stupid GCI fanboy) and Vleermuis, we went to the parking ticket machines, broken, Plopsa man! Went into guest services to buy the parking ticket and ask about some kind of reduced ticket to come back after Heidi spite. One grumpy old lady was running the whole thing, all 4 tills, leaving us waiting there money in hand for over 10 minutes while she slowly did some annual pass stuff for some other bloke. Here she comes, no wait she's on the phone, here she comes, no wait another guy needs an annual pass printing. Finally she took our money, walked over to get the ticket for us and went on the phone again, Plopsa!!!

 

We powered out the turnstyles, now slightly late for our hour drive back to the chunnel, when suddenly Heidi goes down the drop with guests on board, what do we do? In a split second decision and against better judgement we ran to the turnstyle lady and begged her to let us back in without a hand stamp, she agreed. We RAN to Heidi, literally through a restaurant with the shutters lowering at 1 point and reached the ride only slightly dying. There was a 10 minute queue, but we didn't just run for nothing and I can't leave without this coaster!

 

Heidi The Ride https://rcdb.com/7645.htm - Really enjoyed this cute little GCI woody, much better than Zeus that's for sure! Easily the weakest of all the GCI's I've ridden but that's to be expected considering it's size, it is what it is and that's a lovely little family coaster.

 

So for the record I'm still not really a fan of any Belgium park and it's still impossible to do more than 1 park in a day there, oh well got Heidi.

 

We were 3 minutes late for our check in at the chunnel which meant we had to be relocated on the 9:20 train, which was delayed by an hour. So we ended up waiting for about 2 hours, which actually went quite fast in all honesty.

 

Busy couple of days but I didn't mind, was good fun, thanks for reading!

 

[JoshC.]

I'm guessing you didn't do Jungle Mission at Bellewaerde?  A shame if so, since that's easily the best ride there.  I found Huracan a bit of a disappointment, the queue a pre-lift section are fab, but the coaster section complete wastes the theme and is very average.  It's just so sad.

 

Sounds like you had a bit of bad luck with Plopsaland.  My first visit (in 2015), we had a few shutdowns and rides not open, and last year was a bit lacking with no Heidi and Vleermuis.  But generally operations have been decent and quick - especially considering most of their rides are 1 man ops - so it's a shame to hear you didn't see that good side.

[Benin]

I've never honestly had any issues with Plopsaland (or the others), sure the operations are nothing special, but they're at least of a standard...

 

More fool you for trying to do such parks in a day really, whilst I've never really spent a full day at Plopsa (and the only time I have was due to a morning tour/talk of EVERYTHING down to the uniform drop) it still warrants far more attention than as a cred run...

[Mega-Lite]

I'm not sure I agree with you there Benin, sure rushing around isn't the best option but I don't think it's fair to say I should have done 1 park a day and accepted things are bad. That to me is glossing over the issue.

 

These parks were cred runs from the word go. Nothing at Belle was of interest to me and only Heidi and to a far lesser extent Anubis were at Plopsa.

 

I don't enjoy forcing myself to stay at parks I don't feel warrant a full

day, I've learnt this from experience. No doubt if we hit Plopsa at opening we would have ridden everything by lunch then just spent the rest of day walking around looking for things to do.

 

I didn't do Jungle Mission Baron, you are the first man to speak of it's greatness, always next time.

 

 

[Benin]

There in lies the issue, cred running parks that don't necessarily warrant cred running (Belleweird has a decent number of zoo enclosures for example), Plopsa is a harder one but I mostly enjoy the atmosphere and randomly finding the Forest of Plop (another must ride)...

 

Horses for courses, I've cred run a fair amount of parks, but I wouldn't look at places like the parks you visited as ideal ones for such a venture...

[Mark9]

5 hours ago, Mega-Lite said:

I'm not sure I agree with you there Benin, sure rushing around isn't the best option but I don't think it's fair to say I should have done 1 park a day and accepted things are bad. That to me is glossing over the issue.

 

These parks were cred runs from the word go. Nothing at Belle was of interest to me and only Heidi and to a far lesser extent Anubis were at Plopsa.

 

I don't enjoy forcing myself to stay at parks I don't feel warrant a full

day, I've learnt this from experience. No doubt if we hit Plopsa at opening we would have ridden everything by lunch then just spent the rest of day walking around looking for things to do.

 

I didn't do Jungle Mission Baron, you are the first man to speak of it's greatness, always next time.

 

 

 

This is kind of the reason I don't do the credit running thing to be honest, if I'm only going to treat a place like a tick box exercise, then I don't see the point in visiting. 

[Mega-Lite]

I feel I've been slightly misunderstood, it's probably my fault, so it's fine.

 

I see absolutely nothing wrong with tagging a few "lesser parks" onto a trip in the quest for creds, with a friend or 2 blasting through smaller less exciting parks is great fun, certainly better than sitting at home!

 

Time on coaster holidays abroad is always too short so grouping a couple of the smaller parks together in a day makes sense right? Surely going out and experiencing more is better than waiting around in a park you feel content you have completed, or is that just me?

 

I actually do have a strange rule I keep to which is I won't go on a trip outside the UK without at least one coaster on the trip I'm dying to ride, whether those coasters actually deliver, which in case of OzIris and Zeus they did not, is half the fun finding out. 

[Mark9]

Oh no, I completely understand why people do the 1/2 day at a park thing. It's just not for me.