A Gold Rush To The Fall of Phantasialand: Operation BillyBird

[Mega-Lite]

Since it's announcement, Star Trek: Operation Enterprise, the brand new Mack shuttle launch coaster at Movie Park Germany has been hot on my radar and we decided to tie in some other new creds and a special event at Phantasialand at the same time.

 

Day 1

 

Read Mark's recent post in the rant thread to some up how our day started, Gatwick you heartless bastards.

 

Arrived at Amsterdam airport at about 10:30 and went to the hire car people. As you may know by now we don't get on with the hire car industry. This time we chanced our luck with Hertz, as of yet they haven't screwed us over with after rental changes but I will keep you posted. We ordered a Ford Fiesta (or similar) and got a hybrid baby Toyota, despite their being 6 Fiestas in the rental bays, spite.

 

Slagharen https://rcdb.com/4842.htm

 

After about an hour and a half we arrived at Slagharen, the second most visited theme park in the Netherlands, I assume they use their holiday park resort stuff to boost their numbers to claim that fame because the park itself on a sunny Saturday in the school holidays was very manageable.

 

Gold Rush https://rcdb.com/14011.htm

 

We went straight away to the brand new Gerts shuttle launch infinity coaster, Gold Rush. The colour scheme is beautiful, crimson track and black supports, a scheme I use far too often on RCT2. Coaster itself is very good fun. Soothing first launch to get you started, exciting backwards launch with silly hangtime in the back as you go half way up the dive loop and then a thrilling final launch to send you into the full layout. A layout that has intense moments of airtime (oh yes) and lovely flowing inversions. To cap it all off the coaster uses extended Karnan trains, which means lapbars and loads of freedom, sadly it also means the seats try to cut your legs off but that's a small price to pay. Great little coaster this, Gerts have done it again, more of these please.

 

Mine Train https://rcdb.com/1031.htm

 

+ 1

 

Much to Benin's dismay, after 2 laps on Gold Rush and 1 lap on the stupid Vekoma Junior and a cheese toastie, we hit the dusty trail. There was literally nothing else of interest (to me at least) in the park. Gold Rush is a damn solid coaster, it's such a shame they don't have much else for the thrill seekers. As a park though, it was nice enough, friendly staff and everything looked clean and in good shape, nice to see.

 

Phantasialand - You've probably heard of this park, I won't bother posting the RCDB...

 

The reason we threw this little trip together so fast was to get to experience the midnight closure, special 50th Birthday event at Phantasialand, I wish we hadn't bothered and instead just hit more new stuff on the German/Netherlands border. I wasn't really a fan of Phantasialand "as a park" from my last visit and this time further enforced my opinions of the park not being what many call "the best park in the World". I proudly repped my Liseberg shirt while on park and looking back I couldn't stand by that statement more.

 

After about 2 hours of driving, we arrived at Phantasialand at about 5:30, to a rather aggressive parking man screaming "NEIN" at the customers trying to park, friendly!

 

We tried to enter entrance 2 as the only new rides we needed at the park were Feng Ju Palace and River Quest, which are at the back of the park. But no, wasn't allowed, this isn't a great start.

 

Walked a million miles to the wrong end of the park to finally enter, the 2 staff women manning the gates not even caring were fantastic.

 

We now learned for the fireworks, "selected attractions and pathways are closed before the 11:30 show", spite...

 

Feng Ju Palace

 

This attraction was closed on my last visit so we made sure to experience it first on this trip. It's a very good madhouse attraction, it's just a shame the story kind of doesn't get resolved, if the pretty Chinese girl still isn't united with her lover, let it be known I'm very much willing.

 

River Quest

 

River Quest was also closed on my last trip and I was gutted by that, I'm so glad I got to experience this torture device. This ride is actually scary, in both the silly amounts of water it dumps on you and the stupid things it does in order to dump that water on you. We actually had to save a man's life, as he was stupid enough to stand up between the 2nd and 3rd drops, we screamed at him to sit back down and he survived, idiot. I loved this ride so much, easily more fun than Chiapas in my opinion.

 

With the 2 new rides out of the way, it was time to ride Taron until we bled. We now ventured over to read 2 awful things on the queue screen. 110 minute queue, CHRIST! Queue closes 9:30, are you serious?!?!

 

They were closing the queue of Taron at half 9 in order to clear the area for the fireworks at half 11. I don't care if you disagree with me here, but the fact this wasn't mentioned on the website when I ordered tickets frankly insults me. To close the queue of your major new attraction 2 and half hours before park closing, without informing the masses on your website is stupid.

 

What choice do we have then, 2 hour queue for Taron it is!

 

During this 2 hour queue, everyone and I mean everyone was smoking or vaping around us, it was disgusting. At no point did the staff attempt to stop anyone.

 

Taron

 

I'm glad to say we managed to get on the ride without serious lung damage. I'm disappointed to say either the coaster isn't as intense as I remember it or being 200 coasters up since I last rode it has weakened it. Regardless it's still fantastic and easily one of the best coasters in the World. It isn't Helix though.

 

Knowing in order to get 1 more go on Taron we'd have to almost instantly rejoin the queue, we opted to have almost pizza from the almost pizza place near Taron, the man on the bar next to this eatery, when I ordered a Sprite in English, was a idiot.

 

The Taron queue was now full and extended back into the area, so we opted for the single rider queue, big mistake.

 

We queued with a fellow ride geek, I know this because she had Helix as the background on her phone, at 1 point she looked visibly upset, probably knowing Taron isn't as good as Helix and if we were at Liseberg we could of ridden Helix 12 times in 2 hours.

 

Just over an hour into the single rider queue, I needed to bail in order to use the toilet. While in the stall, I hear knocking on the door and a German women shouting, these things can't be rushed sweetheart. 10 minutes later I emerge and more German shouting happens, to which I reply "I'm sorry my German isn't good". She replies "you must leave!", "why?", more German shouting where I'm able to make out they were closing the Taron toilets, Christ.

 

Knowing I'm not able to rejoin the now fully bolted up Taron single rider queue, I ditch my friend and go for a walk. German shouting and hand signals informs me I can't go that way out of the Taron area, ffs.

 

Over the next hour I walk around the park getting increasingly more uncomfortable, as they are closing paths left, right and centre and the remaining ones are stupidly busy. I opt to wait for my friend and calm down in the Asia area of the park, when it doubt, go Asian.

 

Black Mamba

 

Now reunited we powered to Black Mamba to see if we could get in a ride before 11:45 close. We did and I'm pleased to say the experience we had was so good, it stops me for fully resenting the time I spent in the park.

 

The staff were fantastic and being completely over the top and excitable. Pitch black Black Mamba is one thing but the fireworks show starting as you go up the lift then on every inversion you catching the show upside down is wonderful. Add this to the coaster finally delivering the experience everyone raves about and I was very happy. We got another lap straight away without getting off, staff still going bonkers, the fireworks getting even more intense and the coaster hauling even more ass. OK Mark, I'm finally a Black Mamba fan.

 

We caught the end of the fireworks as we tried to make our way to exit, they seemed quite well done. Cue thousands of people leaving the park all at once and an hour to leave the car park....

 

So yeah, once again, I'm let down by Phantasialand, nothing big and awful happened, just small issues that all add up to take you out of the moment. Best park in the World it is not.

 

Next time, one of the supposed worst parks in the World ends up being more enjoyable than Phantasialand, stay tuned!

 

[JoshC.]

Feng Ju is easily the worst madhouse I've done, largely because the story is so awful and the 'upside down' section is do meh.  

 

The harsh closing times are very annoying, especially since EVERYTHING stops bang on close time in my experience.  But I wonder if that's a cultural thing?  I had basically the same experience at Movie Park Germany where everything except the main shop was closed at park closed.  And similar things happen on all my European park trips come to think about it.  And on my visits to Phantasialand, the park seems to be dead very quickly after opening.  

 

So maybe the Europeans see and understand a, say, 8pm close as 'everything is closed by 8pm'.  I do think we in the UK are a bit spoilt by our closing times in that respect, as it's only queues that close at park close, and many snack places and shops remain open later too.  Just a shame park close in generally quite early..

[Benin]

Jesus Christ a person who dislikes Phantasialand!

 

Slagharen has a fab little dark ride, but that's all you missed, besides, only one other park on the same day? Pfft, I did 4 when I did Slagharen (and it DOES annoy me that I have to revisit)... But trying to do not even half a day at Phannyland is ridiculous at the best of times, let alone a big event day...

 

It's definitely a culture thing, and probably works better given that the parks tend to be open for decent periods during busy days...

[Mega-Lite]

While the actual madhouse part of Feng Ju was a bit crap. I'm a sucker for Asian theming and there's no denying the exterior and pre show rooms are incredibly detailed.

 

Benin, I was really only at Phantasia for night rides and to get River Quest and Feng Ju. It's just a shame and a learning experience that even that's too much to ask from the place!

[Benin]

Also I'm sure there is a "definitive ending" on Feng Ju where the couple embrace (but because of how suddenly it ends if you blink you'll miss it)...

[Mega-Lite]

Day 2

 

After no where near enough sleep we were soon up again and on our way to...

 

Movie Park Germany - https://rcdb.com/4869.htm

 

I had only ever seen average to negative reviews of this park and I'll happily admit I was expecting the worse. Being directed to the over overflow car park in the shadow of the SLC and Bandit didn't help reassure me. The smell of actual s**t greeted us as we opened the car doors too, lovely!

 

Continuing to assume the worse as we went through the gates, we decided to be super nerdy and run to Star Trek, which isn't easy when you don't really know where the actual entrance is!

 

Star Trek: Operation Enterprise -  https://rcdb.com/13796.htm

 

We were one of the first groups of people to arrive at this brand new Mack shuttle launch coaster. I won't pretend for a second I know anything about Star Trek, I spent most of the nicely themed queue lines and pre shows asking my friend what was meant to be happening, something about a big cube is the best I can explain. I'm sure the pre shows would be quite exciting to Star Trek fans but were completely lost on me and during our reride they became quite annoying. The coaster then, it's great fun. I found the launches to be a little less thrilling than the Gold Rush ones but at the end of the day they are only there to get things rolling so it's no big deal. Once the full layout starts it's a fantastic little coaster, full of airtime, silly Mack moments (the double down being the best bit) and funky inversions, it's great. The coaster of course has the fantastic modern Mack seats, or as I call them Helix seats, a seating arrangement that has yet to be beaten in my opinion.

 

Van Helsing's Factory - https://rcdb.com/9539.htm

 

Moving fast from Star Trek straight to what we assumed was the second most popular ride at the park, Van Helsing's Factory. This Gerts Bobsled coaster was fantastic, it's about time this coaster type was done justice. The whole experience is really well themed, from the exterior, to the queueline, to the actual coaster section and even an added bit of fun on the exit path. It's fast, it's surprisingly intense in places, it's just fantastic fun.

 

We then powered over to the kiddie creds noting how well we had done to get 2 of the most popular rides done in super quick time. It was at this point we cut our losses and purchased the 29 Euro one go on everything (except Star Trek) pass, owing to the fact we wanted Van Helsing again and all the kiddie creds had long slow moving queues. We weren't in the mood to queue over an hour for a Vekoma Junior!

 

Backyardigans: Mission To Mars - https://rcdb.com/968.htm

 

+1.

 

Ghost Chasers - https://rcdb.com/966.htm

 

Mack wild mouse coaster, the Mack ones are better than the Maurer ones but still a +1.

 

Jimmy Neutron's Atomic Flyer - https://rcdb.com/3675.htm

 

Ugliest and dullest Vekoma suspended family coaster yet.

 

It was now time to check out the park's rapids ride, Mystery River, it was really good! Good rapids sections, crazy speed at parts and loads of strange theming, what's not to love!

 

Time for lunch now, the park has a great deal of different and exciting foods to choose from, it's not often that happens believe me! We opted for noodles and spring rolls from the Asian place, because of course.

 

While eating it dawned on me that I'm really enjoying my time on park and that once again I'm going against the enthusiast grain because I can't see why this park gets so much slack, day was young I told myself, maybe the terrible stuff is to come.

 

Lost Temple next, my first ever immersive tunnel. The theming on this attraction is fantastic and maybe because I went in with low expectations I found it really good fun. The T Rex on the exit path is brilliant too.

 

We rerode Star Trek on our way to the other creds, this time in the back row, even more fun.

 

MP-Xpress - https://rcdb.com/969.htm

 

Might be one of the funniest coasters ever etched into steel. The presentation of this coaster is so bad it's funny, it must take effort to make something look this bad. SLC itself rode fine apart from several moments of it riding like something awful was unfolding, hit the brakes laughing my ass off, can't complain.

 

Bandit - https://rcdb.com/967.htm

 

So this is meant to be one of the worst coasters in the World is it? F**k off! It rode no worse than the Vekoma woodies and because of the statement worst in the World not even slightly coming true I ending up laughing so much it hurt.

 

Next up was Time Riders, a simulator ride that was more intense than Taron, was brilliant.

 

Still not understanding what the problem with this park is, we rode Van Helsing again, this time in the back of the car and noticed even more funky theming!

 

I then spunked some Euros on some lovely crepes, I told you there's alot to choose from here, probably second only to Lotte World in terms of food.

 

We ended our lovely stop off at Movie Park with a go on Burmuda Triangle, Christ it was great!

 

As we headed for the exit, we caught the end of the parade and watching all the staff have a great time dancing along once again made me think why is this place disliked?

 

We had a couple of hours left before we needed to start the long drive back to Amsterdam airport, so we opened Coast2Coaster and assessed our options.

 

Schlossbeck is literally outside but Zierer Tivoli's are starting to drain the life from me.

 

BillyBird - https://rcdb.com/6038.htm

 

It was decided our only option was BillyBird or bust. Sat Nav told us we would arrive 5 minutes before the stated last admission. If there was a ever a time to get fruity it was now! Pushing the stupid little car to it's limit (which was more intense than Taron) and doing a fuel stop that involved me jumping out of a moving car and fueling up while friend waited in the shop for the signal, meant we made it with time to spare!

 

Famileachtbaan - https://rcdb.com/4479.htm

 

My first "tub coaster". Such a cute little thing and gave us a lovely little sit down.

 

The park itself was really well presented and truly did look like a lovely day out, if you are into relaxing on the fake beach and sailing a boat onto the lake, not for me but I could see the appeal.

 

Grabbed a slush, relished in our victory and relaxed for a while before making the 1 and a half hour drive to Amsterdam airport.

 

Read Mark's recent post in the rant thread to help explain what happened to us when we arrived, Easyjet you heartless bastards!

 

Got home and slept for 12 hours, was great. Thanks for reading.

 

[Benin]

The BillyBird cred is so daft, I'd love to have ridden it more if it wasn't for the stupid climb back up to the station...

 

Movie Park does have a bad rep, though I wonder if that's a leftover from the days before it had anything good? Bandit is bloody terrible though, however not as awful as Coaster Express... I'd be happy to see that entire end of the park levelled tbh...

[Mark9]

I said so little about Movie Park when I wrote about it last month, I thought I'd said more. I think it's an average theme park but its not awful. I think it just has a bit of an identity crisis; the part near Bandit with the drop tower and the SLC are pretty shoddy compared to the entrance area which is where a lot of the problem lies. Van Helsing is an excellent little coaster though and definitely a highlight.