Benin Posted June 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2011 So the morning came along, and Heide opens the park at 9, yet opens the rides at 10... Since hotel guests don’t get anything ERT based, we decided we’d go in at 9:30 thinking it wasn’t going to be busy... Oh....Turns out half term started the same day we were there... Meaning THIS... On every ride... In the entire park... Why on earth the Germans have their half term start in the middle of the week I don’t know, but this was NOT the best start to the day... Still, Krake looks very good... Impressing everyone in the vicinity... But as we did not approve of the long queue, we went elsewhere... It’s a nicely landscaped park here... Another ride with a queue leaving the entrance... Urgh...I really don’t see the point in parks opening the entire place up for an hour... There was certainly enough room further from the entrance to have a rope drop like thing a la Towers/Chessie... But... This lacked that, and as a result, hotel guests get absolutely no benefit from the super secret entrance bar getting to Krake first, if you’re up at 9 of course...Rant aside, we eventually found a ride that did not have a long queue in the sun...GrottenblitzWooo Mack... This powered mine train was interesting... And not really in the good way... After NOT having our bars checked (taking one man op to the next level) we dashed around a helix and headed into a tunnel, where the ride just got weird as...You see giant horses fighting, with some form of small bear (I think, I was too confused to care) in the middle as you do a MASSIVE helix around this cave before leaving and repeating the circuit once more...Tbh, this is one of the worst types of this ride I’ve been on... Even Runaway Train at Chessie is more fun than this... It’s definitely precisely average and nothing more...5/10That out of the way, time for a proper coaster... ColossosHeide is a strange enough park, but using music you’ve heard at Thorpe forever is really strange, especially as this is a relatively silent (bar the top of the airtime hills) woodie... It also stands as the only ride at Heide that displays a queue time at the entrance... That’s not a good thing to be...After a 30 minute queue, we boarded on the back row, expected that our idea would backfire on us... And once at the top of the quick lift hill, the slow turn over towards the steep as hell drop was cool, then... SMOOTHNESS...Yes, I believe this ride has no soul, as a wooden coaster is not MEANT to be smooth, it’s meant to have that rickety feeling, but this lacked it... Only in the random helix did it rattle, but every hill was taken so smoothly you’d be forgiven for thinking you were on a B&M hyper (aside from the fact it makes silly noises at the top of each hill)...Not to say that it’s a bad ride though... It is actually good fun, and fairly more re-rideable than some other wooden coasters in the world... But... To me, it just isn’t a proper wooden coaster... Even in the back row it’s smooth... That’s wrong...8/10 Not sure why, but it seems parks around the world seem to be developing Intamin corners... So our next stop was the Rita clone...Desert RaceIt’s weird seeing this... It looks so tiny in comparison to Rita, but, at least it has a covered station and the most epic bag cage system I’ve ever seen at a park... This has one of the old X:/NWO soundtracks, which is very annoying after 10 minutes, let alone 30 or more... Regardless, we got up to the front of the train, and got to see the bag system in action...Essentially, they have several turntables which are split into 3 sections... 1 empty waiting the next lot of riders, the next is hidden away with the bags of those currently on the ride, and the final section holds the bags of those on the exit... It’s a brilliant idea and saves having to have extra staff giving out stuff that could be lost...The ride itself was a surprise... It was SMOOTH! Two smooth Intamins in an hour is bad enough, but this is a Rita clone... Considering how much I despise Rita, this is the complete opposite, and was actually really enjoyable... A shock... 7/10 So after that, it was time for a meander and search for short queues... Which didn’t happen, but we did find this... Ich liebe Germany...Since everything I was interested in going on had a long queue, the bullet was bit and we headed into the Krake queue... Or we would have done if it wasn’t outside the entrance... Luke_A 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2011 KrakeSo the newest addition naturally had the longest queue (90 minutes), and the queue is very boring, with just a view of the brake run, and neither is it well designed, with many hidden cattlepens and lack of shade... Did they use Thorpe’s ideas of queues?Eventually we reached the bag drop area, where you get lanyards (a weird idea), and you eventually head into one of the most disorganised stations I’ve ever encountered...Firstly, it’s compact, with very little room to breathe at the bottom of the staircase (especially with Q-Bot merge coming in at the same point), but the main problem is that every single person is waiting for the front row... Which causes a bottleneck of people waiting for it, then no-one heading into the other two rows... Why the hell they don’t have a member of staff allocating seats is beyond me, especially when you are used to decent German efficiency... It’s actually terrible and I don’t think even one of the UK parks would allow it...Since we couldn’t be arsed, we headed straight into the empty back row on the left hand edge, and after the incredibly quick lift hill and turn, we found ourselves semi-cresting the drop (a common problem with 3 car Dive Machines), and after 3 seconds, the rather forceful descent happened past the mouth of the Kraken before we hit the splash zone... Which resulted in me getting lots of water down my back due to my seating position, which was beautiful... Then the loop happened followed by the floaty airtime hill and we hit the brakes...Now Krake is a hit... Plain and simple, enthusiasts may not like it, but the Germans LOVE it, and that’s not an understatement... Everyone in the area was watching or riding it, and they were all so excited about it... Heide have a real gem on their hands, but was it as good as Blivvy?No... It definitely isn’t, but it is still a really good coaster in my view, it felt more forceful than SheiKra and didn’t outstay it’s welcome in a similar way of Oblivion... It is also nicely spectator orientated with the splash and drop being visible from all around the lake area... Unfortunately the Krake mouth does look rather pathetic in its current position, and hopefully they do fix that, because I reckon this ride would gain an extra point or two if that happened...8/10 This was the result of my sitting in the back edge... Cannot stress how nice it was in the heat... After Krake, it was certainly time for some lunch, so as we walked towards an Information Centre in the hope of finding out when the park closed (which didn’t work, some poor organisation again), we passed a small BBQ area, which had epic Bratwurst... Caption Comp much?After lunch, more meandering followed, looking at the general niceness this park had in places... And the fact that Germans can be trusted not to try and drown themselves... Vekoma corner is not my favourite place...With more long queues around the park, we decided that more Intamin would happen, so we hit up...ScreamThis is their noisy Gyro Drop Tower with awesome soundtrack that Det stole a few years back... With the queue snaking around the base of the ride as well, it provided some amusing times with the reactions of people coming down off the very tall drop... At one point the staff had rage towards silly guests who HAD to sit together... I do dislike people like that, cos when you’re on the ride it won’t make a bloody difference if you’re together or not... Gah...Anyways, we got on, and after the long rotating ascent, the spinning stopped, and the drop began...And kept going...And still kept going...It was just so constant... It kinda got boring after a while because you just hit terminal velocity and it seemed to last about 3/4 of the way down... Give me Det (or Extremis) anyday of the week in that regard...Still, another solid ride...7/10 After again ignoring the Vekomas, we headed towards their Aztec show (which in hindsight, was a mistake), which lacked ANY shade at all... I’m all for park shows, but they need shade/shelter to make it actually enjoyable... It was a pretty decent show with some random stunts and clever ideas, but the unbearable heat of DOOM didn’t help...After the show, we headed towards the entrance to investigate shop based times, and I brought a Krake hat (too late to prevent anything though) before it was time for some credit whoring...IndyblitzCha-Ching, it’s a kiddie credit, and not a very good one at that... Regardless, we went on it and then straight away ran off to avoid any strange looks...It’s not even greatly themed tbh... And it’s just... bland... I dunno... Just a bit blergh about the whole ride... Oh wells...5/10 So after this, it was time for a Vekoma, this one was...Big LoopOh boy... This needs retracking/removal... This was rough... Corkscrew was smoother, and now one of it’s trains is on it... Bugger...Yeah as soon as you hit the loops that was it, rough, rough, rough... Not a lot else to say about it really aside from OW...5/10 After that we elected to queue again for Krake to finish off the day... Still good but lack of organisation... We then returned to the room when the sunstroke finally hit and completely killed me... Urgh... The lack of shade was not a good thing throughout the park... It was so weird in that respect because it was very much a mis-mash of all our Tussauds parks... It had a bit of each with both pros and cons...Final part of Heide and the trip is next... Luke_A, Mark9 and Nicky 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 Final part woo!Day 5 – Heide Park Part 2So after the sheer pain and mehness of the park being stupidly packed, an alternative plan needed to be devised... So we left the hotel at 9, and sauntered against the tide of people entering back to the entrance to grab an Express Butler... After waiting for the place to open (park opens at 9, rides open at 10, Butler building opened at 9:30... Sense, it made none), we handed over 28 euros for the two of us and my driving license (ID security) and we had my first ever Q-Bot... I’m gonna have a natter about this, now I thought this worked very well for us as part of our relative one off trip as it included every coaster (bar Grottenblitz and Indy-Blitz), and considering my desperate need to not be stood in the sun for numerous hours we essentially spent all our time waiting for the time slot sat down in the shade somewhere... Now I think these worked very well, with the time frames meaning that there was barely any Q-Bot based queue (aside from one time which I’ll come to later), which is relatively good news for both sets of queues... You feel like you haven’t wasted your money, and there wasn’t 20 seats taken up by Q-Botters (aside from the Bobsleigh)... It definitely worked better than the none-time-frame based Fast-track we have over here in my opinion... But as we were trying to take the day slow it wasn’t a major issue for us...As we couldn’t use it till 10, we decided we’d hit a ride first, and the nearest one was...Wildwasserbahn 1For some reason Heide have TWO log flumes, on opposite ends of the park and they are very different from each other, but we only hit up the one nearest the entrance, and it was quite fun... A small drop followed by big drop combo on it... And not much else to say about it... It’s a log flume for crying out loud...6/10 It appears I only took one photo of this one... Sure I had more... Oh wells...Just before we went on the ride we elected for Colossos to be our first Butler ride, and after a quick saunter over after the flume, we headed straight into the front row queue...In the front, the best thing was seeing how steep the drop actually was... It’s something you didn’t notice much in the back, but it was actually rather cool seeing it just disappear away from you... Again, it was just too smooth for a woodie, though was slightly rougher in the front than the back, but that may have been due to my head pounding more than anything...We placed ourselves in the Krake Butler queue, and faffed over to one of the two Onion Boat rides the park has...Kapt’ns TornLike most of the Pirate area, it seems that just a quick rename means it’s piratical... Minimal pirate theming seemed to be a general theme of the area... Oh wells... It’s a nice relaxing boat ride very much out of the way of the rest of the park as the hotel means that few people head over there... We had a bit more time till our Krake ride, so we faffed around the area... One of the two epic playgrounds on the park... Love Germany... Like all good B&Ms, it’s a very photogenic ride and just glides about... And as I said in the last part, it’s a real hit with the guests... Just hope they put in the mouth proper next year... So we had a go in the second row this time, and it was again, a fun ride... I really like it and think it actually could kick-start Heide a fair bit into putting some more quality rides into the park... Certainly my fave ride out of all of them...So after buying some merch (KRAKE BEAR <3) we went to watch the unshaded pirate show... Which had some fun moments in it with the audience as seen below... Really random songs and stunts in this... Still better than the Mutiny Bay show though...Time for another Butler coaster, and this time it was up the hill and past Scream to... Luke_A 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 BobbahnCertainly the biggest Bobsleigh I’ve encountered on my travels, and it does certainly use the hilly terrain to it’s advantage very nicely, involving some sections that actually go UP! Practically unheard of with the Bobsleighs I’ve on... However, it was excessively rattly, which meant it was not the most enjoyable experience ever... Give them credit for the layout though, would’ve been fun if not so rickety...Was also the only Butler ride that involved going up the exit, and preventing people going on a train... Oh the looks we got were funny, but at least everyone avoided (for some reason) the front row, so the main queue got that...6/10 Quick aside, Wildwasserbahn 2 also resides in this area, and has quite an amusing finale for unsuspecting guests... Yeah looks like an ordinary terrain following drop don’t it? But the bottom involves the splash getting people returning to the station... Much amusement is had watching this, as people suddenly realise that they aren’t finished getting wet... But we couldn’t do this for long, as our Butler bleeped that our doom was approaching...LimitA SLC... That should be enough to describe what this ride is all about... It’s the usual rough thing and this is the sort of reason why we also got the Butler, as I would’ve felt excessively miserable if we had queued very long for this...Rough as hell is an understatement...4/10 Next up, Nicky was really desperate to ride the park’s Breakdance, so we headed over to their recently rethemed Huss Land... This area is quite well done (Even if some of the names are still bland genericness) but is very very compact and does not work well with a busy park...Nicky sauntered onto the Breakdance alone, as I wanted a drink and didn’t particularly feel like being thrown around... I despised being ill over this trip... After this we opted for a quick Butler ride on Desert Race, opting for the back row this time and again it was SMOOTH... Still as shocking as it was the day before... Was good times... Why can’t Rita be like that?So after this we had another long space for Krake, so elected for some nice relaxing rides which began with...MonorailStarting next to Grottenblitz and going around the lake, it’s a nice and airy car and provides some really close-up views of some of the coasters... So after that it was time for Onion Boat 2, or....MarchenfahrtBasically this is part of the traditional German ride thing of going past small scenes depicting some random fairytale... In these cases we spotted Snow White, Cinderella and some ones we didn’t know... And as per the norm, the animatronics were SCARY... That finished, we had a quick saunter around again with time still before Krake... Including walking past this very secure area... In Germany, that small chain is a deterrent... If that was here it would be a challenge... Why are we so crap in comparison to our well-behaved European cousins?We meandered back to the entrance for some last minute shopping before Krake, and decided to hop on the train over to it... Upon arrival to Krake, we were surprised to see the Q-Bot queue full, but we went in (as the time moves on if you are late), and once again into the insanely claustrophobic station, train came in, but... The floor remained down...EPIC SPITE...This resulted in lots of annoyed guests leaving the station through fire exits and arguments happening which were all amusing... But eventually they evacuated the queue and we decided that enough was enough so we dropped off our bots and returned to the hotel...So Heide is a very weird park... There’s some really nice parts but also some really bland areas too... The Pirates area is very poorly done as an area and the same can be said of all of their ‘themed’ areas bar the Mayan section... Most of the rides are just average and it’s so similar to all our Merlin/Tussauds parks in many ways... Not sure what my final thought of it was... It needs more continuity with theming and several more additions to the level of Krake... Re-doing Big Loop and Limit would also help... I think they have a fair area to expand too so the park could easily build more rides... Hopefully more filler as to me there wasn’t too many flats surrounding rides like Colossos, Desert Race, Limit and Krake, so it’s a lot like Towers in that respect... Plus the lack of shade needs to be sorted, so much like Thorpe...It’s a weird park... So it’s hard for me to give a final score... But... I feel 6/10 is a suitable number... It just seemed very Merliny with the staff as well as once we had paid that was it... Very little niceness and lots of staff just nattering...Hansa was a far superior day out in the end...Regardless, it was a good trip and entirely worth it for FLUCH!Thanks for reading... Sheepie and Luke_A 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark9 Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 You know, after reading your report I don't feel any little niggling to go to Heide Park anytime soon. The only ride I find myself interested in is Krake and even with that, I can do similar in this country. It's interesting that your report reminds me of similar ones on Gardaland....So yeah, thanks. I'll go to Hansa soon though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheepie Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 Loved your trip reports Benin. I must say, I don't think I'll be visiting both parks any time soon, at least not until both make some modifications. That's not to say that they're bad parks, but there are other parks I'd rather go to over these right now.Love Europe though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pickles Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 Do you think if I went I could go on the play areas? So want to. I'm not allowed on Legolands one =( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 Do you think if I went I could go on the play areas? So want to. I'm not allowed on Legolands one =(I think adults are allowed in them, but I can't say for definite since we didn't use them...And Sheepie, it's worth going for Fluch... Completely worth it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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