After last years visit was dominated by nearly continuous rain, I was eager to return to Parc Asterix for the chance to experience most of their rides in a good weather.
Thanks to their great hotel deals (we paid ~520€ for 2 nights + 2 days at the park with 3 people), I had a chance to go back there for a redemption trip. And the results were… mixed. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Day 0:
We arrived after a day of counting and had a quick look around our Hotel and checked in before heading to a Asian buffet about 15 minutes away (with 6 of them being the road from the hotel to the motorway).
The Hotel was Les Quais de Lutece, were I stayed last year as well. With the promotion, it was below 20€ per night upcharge compared to the Trois Hiboux, which is their oldest and by far least themed hotel. Go for it, if the upcharge is this low – but the upcharge isn’t worth it, if you can get one of the other hotels with the promotional package.
Let me tell you: Quais de Lutece is art:
This is something that Disney used to build at their parks. In my opinion, this is easily the best themed hotel in the world – at least the best themed I’ve ever seen.
The hotel (and the other 2 as well) offers a buffet which costs 41€ per person, if you purchase it in advance, it might be a bit cheaper. Drinks are quite pricy, 0.5l beer costs 10€, 0.33l of Cola are 5.10€.
You can view the full menu and prices here:
https://www.parcasterix.fr/sites/default/files/2024-03/pa24-qdl-carte-restaurant-a4-v2-080324.pdf
Wine and champagne are comparatively cheap, though.
However, I wouldn’t recommend their buffet. The quality is mediocre, and the food selection was pretty limited. That’s why we chose an Asian restaurant instead. We paid 23€ per person for their buffet, which did not only have much more to offer, but also a better quality as well.
Ok, that was way too much about their hotels. Let’s go to sleep and get started with the park.
THE PARK:
We got up early enough to go to the breakfast buffet (which is actually decent; and the timeslot they give you is more of a suggestion than a fixed slot) before heading to the park. As hotel guests, you can enter the park via the hotel entrance, which is located behind Gouderix and also get a 30-minute head start for some of their attractions. They let you enter the park 15 minutes ahead of this, but block the crowds a bit into the park until ~09:25.
The first ride was an obvious one: Toutatis.
I really enjoyed it last time, when I had the chance to ride it a total of 2 times without any rain over the course of 2 days. But I wanted to see out it would fair on a summer day and after 1 year of operation.
It did not disappoint. Although there are still a few elements that I find not too comfortable (the first outward banked hill, the micro Stengel dive after the top-hat). I won’t give you a full run down of the ride, but it is one of the few coasters that I’d consider world class. The airtime is sudden and intense, and thanks to the low position of the seats, you can easily make sure to have some room under the restraints.
We left the ride close to 10am and immediately joined the queue for their Mack Bobsled. It is nothing spectacular, but still my favorite bobsled.
Afterwards, we headed to the Egyptian themed area to get our friend the Zierer Tivoli, which was still empty at this point. It does 3 laps and does not brake at all, so the second and third lap are surprisingly intense. Upon joining the crew for Oz’Iris, our lucky streak ended, and we joined a 40-minute queue. The ride itself is still good and my second favorite B&M invert right after Walygator’s Monster. The positives are intense, and especially the last inversion offers a slight, but sustained hang time. As for most Inverts, it has some dead spots, but the overall package is still great.
Next stop was L’Oxygenarium, a waterslide style rafting. We got a “boat” for ourselves, which was nice for a change. The slide portion gets some decent speed, but the ride was nothing to write home about.
From now on, I am not sure about the exact order of rides.
Vol d’Icare was still close to a walk-on, so we quickly grabbed that one. Half of the ride rides worse than you expect, and the other half is just a glorified run-of after the final brake run. Looks way better than it is.
We also gave Epidemais Croisere, the parks only darkride a try. It is a boat ride which mostly goes outside and goes by some simple scenes. I know that I start to repeat myself, but it is also nothing special.
Pegase Express on the other hand is still a cool attraction. Although the 45 minutes queue was annoying, but the whole park looked like this by now. The 2 “launches” are surprisingly intense, the layout is simple but enjoyable. Great family ride!
While my friends went to the musical show (which I was told is actually really good!), I opted to go for the Single Rider of Toutatis, which was just open. They tend to close the SRL quite often, as the queue is fairly short and tends to spill out quickly. After 35 minutes, which was still 15 minutes less than the normal queue, I got another great ride.
However, I experienced something that should never happen. They take a cart and go by the gates for you to throw your bags in, and the carts will be moved to the exit once the ride is over. This takes 2 or 3 additional employees and makes the job of the grouper significantly more difficult. Feels chaotic und unorganized. They also did the same with Oz’Iris, where they got rid of the classic locker system in favor of the carts.
Apparently, they changed their loose item policy. My glasses with an additional strap are no longer considered safe, which I was only told a moment before the gates opened. I took the glasses of, held them in my hand and expected the employee to take them from me (I did clearly show them). Well, he didn’t, and the train was dispatched, while I still had a loose item in my hand. For obvious reasons, I put it on and secured it, to make sure that I won’t lose it and hit someone. But it will get worse later.
The queue for Toutatis was by the way overflowing and sometimes even reached the entrance to the area; they ran only 2 trains throughout both days and the queue was not completely opened.
We then went to their Vekoma Looper. Gouderix is often considered one of the worst coasters in the world, but a cred is a cred. And due to the bad weather last year, I didn’t have a chance to give it a second chance after my first visit in 2017. I did not look forward to it, especially not combined with a 40 minute wait – but I felt obligated to share the pain with my friend.
It was bad, but not horrible. It has one big jolt in the second inversion, but otherwise it is as rough as a normal MK1200 coaster. The positives are intense and sustained, the transitions are awkward and the brake run is the best part. One thing it has going for it: It is easily the most photogenic MK1200 coaster.
We also did the rapids, which don’t have the most amazing layout, but some fun water effects. It should also be noted that the water on the water rides is colored – might cause some stains on white clothes.
The final cred of the day was Tonnere 2 Zeus. The original ride has a special place in my heart, as one of the worst, if not the worst, rollercoaster I’ve ever had to endure. I had 2 goes on the Gravity Kraft version last year, and this year was also quite enjoyable. I got floater-flowjector airtime on every hill, but unfortunately a girl 2 rows behind me was tortured for the whole duration of the ride and screaming in agony. Poor girl, I hope she found a doctor afterwards. Our ride on the second day was more pleasant for the ears (although Tonnere 2 Zeus is loud), but our seats in row 10 had a few rough spots which were not the most comfortable ones. But it was still bearable and by far better then the original. Most of the rattle was the typical Timberliner rattle we thoosies know.
But I witnessed something crazy on the second day. On the first day, I was also asked to take down my glasses and hold them in my hands. On the second day, nobody cared about the glasses anymore (I did put them in my zipper pocket anyway). But the train before us had a couple of phones, which they couldn’t put in their pockets anymore because the restraints were already closed. So, the staff told the 3 people to just hold them in their hands. Well, and that is what the group did, riding a rollercoaster with their phones in hand… I am speechless. But strapped and secured glasses are dangerous (on one day).
We also did the Grand Splash, which was a rethemed to now be a training parcours for the pirates. Great idea, but most of the scenes were too static for my liking. Still good to see that they touched it up.
The final ride for the day was of course on Toutatis. Luckily the park doesn’t close its queues prematurely, so we were able to get it line shortly before park closure. Still an amazing ride
For day 2, we got in line 2 times during our early entry, with the first ride being the last row. Upon reaching the station, they just opened the front row queue, so we could easily get the front row without additional wait. Toutatis was also our final ride before leaving the park, which was also a front row. Due to the layout of queue, most people don’t even realize that there is a queue for the front row, so there is usually little extra wait.
We also gave their 4-D cinema a try, which might be the best I’ve ever done. Lots of movement, plenty of effects and the 3D was fairly sharp.
I do like the park, but I have some issues with how it’s run. The Toutatis queue was pretty much overflowing for the whole day, but the queue was not completely opened. They also just ran it with 2 trains instead of 3. Overall, their ops felt worse than last year, even though the queues were significantly longer for this visit. Oz’Iris and Pegase express regularly stacked trains, and their new cart based storage system causes more chaos than it actually helps. They also open their SRLs quite late, making it hard to get early into the SRL. At least the one for Oz’Iris was constantly available after it was first opened. By the way, the SRL is now on the exit side, and a member of staff has to check every gate in advance and hopefully count the correct amount of single riders needed for the train. That worked about 50% of the time, with some single riders having to return into the queue or some seats still being empty. The old SRL exit was located next to the grouper, which made for a way more efficient solution. This line is now used for their skip the line service, called Filotomatix.
To be fair, even though the park was crowded, but certainly not overcrowded. The major rides had 40-60 minutes queue, and we still got a decent amount of rides during the day. The 30 minutes hotel entry are worth a lot, and the 10% discount you receive as a hotel guest in the shops and restaurants are also nice to have.
The major issue for the park is a lack of capacity. Most of its rides don’t have a huge capacity, and their new coaster won’t help either. They do really need 1, better 2 darkrides with >2,000pph, which would also be a nice upgrade to their lineup. The Asterix theme lends itself well to a darkride, they could easily just retell the story of one of the comics.
Would I recommend the park? Yes, but be prepared for either long queues or to shell out extra money for their skip the line. Due to their limited ride capacity, lines are very common occurences.
Would I recommend staying at their hotels? Yes, but only if you can make use of one of their promotional offers. But if you can, they are totally worth it!
I hope you enjoyed my report. I did try to find a balance between details and lenght.
Thanks to their great hotel deals (we paid ~520€ for 2 nights + 2 days at the park with 3 people), I had a chance to go back there for a redemption trip. And the results were… mixed. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Day 0:
We arrived after a day of counting and had a quick look around our Hotel and checked in before heading to a Asian buffet about 15 minutes away (with 6 of them being the road from the hotel to the motorway).
The Hotel was Les Quais de Lutece, were I stayed last year as well. With the promotion, it was below 20€ per night upcharge compared to the Trois Hiboux, which is their oldest and by far least themed hotel. Go for it, if the upcharge is this low – but the upcharge isn’t worth it, if you can get one of the other hotels with the promotional package.
Let me tell you: Quais de Lutece is art:
This is something that Disney used to build at their parks. In my opinion, this is easily the best themed hotel in the world – at least the best themed I’ve ever seen.
The hotel (and the other 2 as well) offers a buffet which costs 41€ per person, if you purchase it in advance, it might be a bit cheaper. Drinks are quite pricy, 0.5l beer costs 10€, 0.33l of Cola are 5.10€.
You can view the full menu and prices here:
https://www.parcasterix.fr/sites/default/files/2024-03/pa24-qdl-carte-restaurant-a4-v2-080324.pdf
Wine and champagne are comparatively cheap, though.
However, I wouldn’t recommend their buffet. The quality is mediocre, and the food selection was pretty limited. That’s why we chose an Asian restaurant instead. We paid 23€ per person for their buffet, which did not only have much more to offer, but also a better quality as well.
Ok, that was way too much about their hotels. Let’s go to sleep and get started with the park.
THE PARK:
We got up early enough to go to the breakfast buffet (which is actually decent; and the timeslot they give you is more of a suggestion than a fixed slot) before heading to the park. As hotel guests, you can enter the park via the hotel entrance, which is located behind Gouderix and also get a 30-minute head start for some of their attractions. They let you enter the park 15 minutes ahead of this, but block the crowds a bit into the park until ~09:25.
The first ride was an obvious one: Toutatis.
I really enjoyed it last time, when I had the chance to ride it a total of 2 times without any rain over the course of 2 days. But I wanted to see out it would fair on a summer day and after 1 year of operation.
It did not disappoint. Although there are still a few elements that I find not too comfortable (the first outward banked hill, the micro Stengel dive after the top-hat). I won’t give you a full run down of the ride, but it is one of the few coasters that I’d consider world class. The airtime is sudden and intense, and thanks to the low position of the seats, you can easily make sure to have some room under the restraints.
We left the ride close to 10am and immediately joined the queue for their Mack Bobsled. It is nothing spectacular, but still my favorite bobsled.
Afterwards, we headed to the Egyptian themed area to get our friend the Zierer Tivoli, which was still empty at this point. It does 3 laps and does not brake at all, so the second and third lap are surprisingly intense. Upon joining the crew for Oz’Iris, our lucky streak ended, and we joined a 40-minute queue. The ride itself is still good and my second favorite B&M invert right after Walygator’s Monster. The positives are intense, and especially the last inversion offers a slight, but sustained hang time. As for most Inverts, it has some dead spots, but the overall package is still great.
Next stop was L’Oxygenarium, a waterslide style rafting. We got a “boat” for ourselves, which was nice for a change. The slide portion gets some decent speed, but the ride was nothing to write home about.
From now on, I am not sure about the exact order of rides.
Vol d’Icare was still close to a walk-on, so we quickly grabbed that one. Half of the ride rides worse than you expect, and the other half is just a glorified run-of after the final brake run. Looks way better than it is.
We also gave Epidemais Croisere, the parks only darkride a try. It is a boat ride which mostly goes outside and goes by some simple scenes. I know that I start to repeat myself, but it is also nothing special.
Pegase Express on the other hand is still a cool attraction. Although the 45 minutes queue was annoying, but the whole park looked like this by now. The 2 “launches” are surprisingly intense, the layout is simple but enjoyable. Great family ride!
While my friends went to the musical show (which I was told is actually really good!), I opted to go for the Single Rider of Toutatis, which was just open. They tend to close the SRL quite often, as the queue is fairly short and tends to spill out quickly. After 35 minutes, which was still 15 minutes less than the normal queue, I got another great ride.
However, I experienced something that should never happen. They take a cart and go by the gates for you to throw your bags in, and the carts will be moved to the exit once the ride is over. This takes 2 or 3 additional employees and makes the job of the grouper significantly more difficult. Feels chaotic und unorganized. They also did the same with Oz’Iris, where they got rid of the classic locker system in favor of the carts.
Apparently, they changed their loose item policy. My glasses with an additional strap are no longer considered safe, which I was only told a moment before the gates opened. I took the glasses of, held them in my hand and expected the employee to take them from me (I did clearly show them). Well, he didn’t, and the train was dispatched, while I still had a loose item in my hand. For obvious reasons, I put it on and secured it, to make sure that I won’t lose it and hit someone. But it will get worse later.
The queue for Toutatis was by the way overflowing and sometimes even reached the entrance to the area; they ran only 2 trains throughout both days and the queue was not completely opened.
We then went to their Vekoma Looper. Gouderix is often considered one of the worst coasters in the world, but a cred is a cred. And due to the bad weather last year, I didn’t have a chance to give it a second chance after my first visit in 2017. I did not look forward to it, especially not combined with a 40 minute wait – but I felt obligated to share the pain with my friend.
It was bad, but not horrible. It has one big jolt in the second inversion, but otherwise it is as rough as a normal MK1200 coaster. The positives are intense and sustained, the transitions are awkward and the brake run is the best part. One thing it has going for it: It is easily the most photogenic MK1200 coaster.
We also did the rapids, which don’t have the most amazing layout, but some fun water effects. It should also be noted that the water on the water rides is colored – might cause some stains on white clothes.
The final cred of the day was Tonnere 2 Zeus. The original ride has a special place in my heart, as one of the worst, if not the worst, rollercoaster I’ve ever had to endure. I had 2 goes on the Gravity Kraft version last year, and this year was also quite enjoyable. I got floater-flowjector airtime on every hill, but unfortunately a girl 2 rows behind me was tortured for the whole duration of the ride and screaming in agony. Poor girl, I hope she found a doctor afterwards. Our ride on the second day was more pleasant for the ears (although Tonnere 2 Zeus is loud), but our seats in row 10 had a few rough spots which were not the most comfortable ones. But it was still bearable and by far better then the original. Most of the rattle was the typical Timberliner rattle we thoosies know.
But I witnessed something crazy on the second day. On the first day, I was also asked to take down my glasses and hold them in my hands. On the second day, nobody cared about the glasses anymore (I did put them in my zipper pocket anyway). But the train before us had a couple of phones, which they couldn’t put in their pockets anymore because the restraints were already closed. So, the staff told the 3 people to just hold them in their hands. Well, and that is what the group did, riding a rollercoaster with their phones in hand… I am speechless. But strapped and secured glasses are dangerous (on one day).
We also did the Grand Splash, which was a rethemed to now be a training parcours for the pirates. Great idea, but most of the scenes were too static for my liking. Still good to see that they touched it up.
The final ride for the day was of course on Toutatis. Luckily the park doesn’t close its queues prematurely, so we were able to get it line shortly before park closure. Still an amazing ride
For day 2, we got in line 2 times during our early entry, with the first ride being the last row. Upon reaching the station, they just opened the front row queue, so we could easily get the front row without additional wait. Toutatis was also our final ride before leaving the park, which was also a front row. Due to the layout of queue, most people don’t even realize that there is a queue for the front row, so there is usually little extra wait.
We also gave their 4-D cinema a try, which might be the best I’ve ever done. Lots of movement, plenty of effects and the 3D was fairly sharp.
I do like the park, but I have some issues with how it’s run. The Toutatis queue was pretty much overflowing for the whole day, but the queue was not completely opened. They also just ran it with 2 trains instead of 3. Overall, their ops felt worse than last year, even though the queues were significantly longer for this visit. Oz’Iris and Pegase express regularly stacked trains, and their new cart based storage system causes more chaos than it actually helps. They also open their SRLs quite late, making it hard to get early into the SRL. At least the one for Oz’Iris was constantly available after it was first opened. By the way, the SRL is now on the exit side, and a member of staff has to check every gate in advance and hopefully count the correct amount of single riders needed for the train. That worked about 50% of the time, with some single riders having to return into the queue or some seats still being empty. The old SRL exit was located next to the grouper, which made for a way more efficient solution. This line is now used for their skip the line service, called Filotomatix.
To be fair, even though the park was crowded, but certainly not overcrowded. The major rides had 40-60 minutes queue, and we still got a decent amount of rides during the day. The 30 minutes hotel entry are worth a lot, and the 10% discount you receive as a hotel guest in the shops and restaurants are also nice to have.
The major issue for the park is a lack of capacity. Most of its rides don’t have a huge capacity, and their new coaster won’t help either. They do really need 1, better 2 darkrides with >2,000pph, which would also be a nice upgrade to their lineup. The Asterix theme lends itself well to a darkride, they could easily just retell the story of one of the comics.
Would I recommend the park? Yes, but be prepared for either long queues or to shell out extra money for their skip the line. Due to their limited ride capacity, lines are very common occurences.
Would I recommend staying at their hotels? Yes, but only if you can make use of one of their promotional offers. But if you can, they are totally worth it!
I hope you enjoyed my report. I did try to find a balance between details and lenght.