MannekenPis
Roller Poster
I can't quite decide my position on Drievliet, on the one hand I feel I should have paid more heed to a report by @Rob Coasters about the sheer number of school trips and the relentless pushing in, on the other, I thought some of the theming efforts were decent for a small park and Formule X was a good little coaster and I'm surprised we don't see more of them.
I suppose the penultimate question is did I have a good day at the park? I enjoyed aspects, I hated others, I did not have a terrible day, I had an OK day. The ultimate question: would I go back? I do not think I would go back even though I think my daughter would absolutely love twistarix
In fairness the website marks today (21st May) as a school trip day, but then again it marks every weekday as such, so it seems unavoidable. Might it actually be better on a weekend? I pulled up in the carpark and there were coaches everywhere, outnumbering cars. Inside, matching t shirts or yellow tabards as far as the eye could see. Also worth noting, these kids are I guess 8-10. I thought maybe there would be teens but absolutely not. The relevance is that one can't really tell off an 8 year old for pushing in without looking a bit like the bad guy, especially when the adult in charge of them has seen it and is ignoring it.
First impressions: Not good, you park over a bridge so you cross the motorway for a view of another empty concrete carpark you have to cross to get to the park. Serious Wally World vibes.
Drievliet:
Wally World:
Entry through the giftshop, no maps at the front and no indication of queue lengths but could see Formula X so headed to it.
On the way I noted that whilst obviously not something I was going to do, the theming on a tractor ride was cute and whimsical, I warmed to the park.
Cute no?
No idea whether the queue for Formula X was long or short but joined it. The theming for this is really just tyres and oil drums, have been to fairgrounds with those for real! It was fine, but thought it was odd that their flagship ride had the worst theming. The queue took 35 minutes and the ride lasts 30 seconds. Not a great ratio. Two 6 person cars, and ops were not urgent but fine, just a lot of kids to get through. I can live with the queues but the constant pushing in, and the responsible adults not doing anything about it put a huge dampener on it for me. It's odd enough going to a family theme park on my own, I really don't want to spend my day either being taken advantage of or telling off 8 year olds. As Rob noted, the path is just too wide so pushing in is too easy. 3 different groups tried to go past, they all got told no, but I felt I looked like a bad guy, the teachers were giving me side eye rather than, you know, telling their charges not to push in. It's not BTW that I joined in the middle of a group and should have held back, this was groups joining long after me and trying to get past to join their friends.
What about the ride? It's really good, not 35 minutes queue and having to teach the entire population of the Netherlands the concept of queuing good, but judged on its own merits, great. For loads of kids I guess this must be their first inversion, decent hangtime, force on the heartline roll, a properly strong launch. It packs a lot in to a small footprint. It is short but I can't really praise it for being quick and fitting so much into a small area and complain it's over quickly, I guess they're sides of the same coin. I really enjoyed it and am surprised we don't see more of these. I didn't find it rattley and prefer the odd lap bar to an overhead.
Koppermijn was visible so I headed there. On the way I went past a Kiddie train ride I obviously wasn't going on, but noted that the theming was really sweet, some moving animatronics, tbh better than the children's rides at my local park Walibi.
Koppermijn is a Maurer wild maus, and as an aside, I find it baffling how many people criticise a wild maus for having forceful turns. Might as well complain water is wet. It's a really good ride of its type. The theming is the wild west you'd expect, but some OK rock work, you go through a rock tunnel with smoke and light effects, honestly pretty good effort. There's also a little pop of air after the drop. A fun wild mouse, I laughed a lot. Oh, also the queue looked bad but took 20 minutes, operations were slick, banging the cars out. Obviously some children pushed in. So did a teacher. If I hadn't lost time elsewhere would have happily gone again.
Twistrix, A 30 minute queue, another little bit of pushing in, that I let ride, having used up my energy on Formula X. Sometimes you have to remember a ride isn't meant for you, a really simple little circuit. But it did spin an insane amount. Honestly I know my daughter would love it, did little for me but is the sole reason there is some small prospect of my return.
If I'd done the creds quickly I might have gone to Duinrell but that outside chance was over so I decided to do the Mack Powered Coaster, Dynamite Express. The ride itself is quite short, decent helix on the first go, but early breaking just makes it uncomfortably banked second time round. However, again I think the theming particularly in the queue, is decent. Standard wild west but there is an interactive element with a detonator kids push in the queue making a coyote pop up. Quite good. This however was the worst for attempted queue jumping, 1 girl in front of me attempted to get her entire class to go in front. Absurd but she's 8 so OK, say no, move on. But no, her teacher, in the group of 20 behind, basically sided with her. Incredible. It didn't happen because no way, but it made the whole queue awkward and unpleasant.
I would have fancied troika, I haven't done that type, but I was broken by the queues. I love an enterprise but it was down. I didn't fancy the water rides, not quite warm enough and maybe a bit weird. Had some chips which were in fairness decent and fairly priced.
Saw that Formula X had a lot smaller queue than my first go, so decided to finish with it. Queue took 15 minutes, much better, but it's bad for pushing in because it's so wide. Just made it feel more than 15 minutes because so much dealing with the cheating. I think this was the worst because a teacher did actually go the whole hog, not turn a blind eye, not take her pupils side, this one actively joined in pushing in. I was done on dealing with it by this point. Maybe it's a cultural thing. But I hadn't seen it at all at Efteling? But the fact the teachers think its fine suggests it runs deep. It actually puts me off Netherlands parks full stop tbh.
Edit: Forgot I've also been to Toverland and no queue jumping there, so I won't write off the whole country, but it was odd not so much that kids pushed in, but their adults, many times and from different schools, thought it was fine.
So in conclusion, some surprisingly decent theming, a fun little headline coaster and a really decent wild mouse. But nonetheless unbearable.
I suppose the penultimate question is did I have a good day at the park? I enjoyed aspects, I hated others, I did not have a terrible day, I had an OK day. The ultimate question: would I go back? I do not think I would go back even though I think my daughter would absolutely love twistarix
In fairness the website marks today (21st May) as a school trip day, but then again it marks every weekday as such, so it seems unavoidable. Might it actually be better on a weekend? I pulled up in the carpark and there were coaches everywhere, outnumbering cars. Inside, matching t shirts or yellow tabards as far as the eye could see. Also worth noting, these kids are I guess 8-10. I thought maybe there would be teens but absolutely not. The relevance is that one can't really tell off an 8 year old for pushing in without looking a bit like the bad guy, especially when the adult in charge of them has seen it and is ignoring it.
First impressions: Not good, you park over a bridge so you cross the motorway for a view of another empty concrete carpark you have to cross to get to the park. Serious Wally World vibes.
Drievliet:
Wally World:
Entry through the giftshop, no maps at the front and no indication of queue lengths but could see Formula X so headed to it.
On the way I noted that whilst obviously not something I was going to do, the theming on a tractor ride was cute and whimsical, I warmed to the park.
Cute no?
No idea whether the queue for Formula X was long or short but joined it. The theming for this is really just tyres and oil drums, have been to fairgrounds with those for real! It was fine, but thought it was odd that their flagship ride had the worst theming. The queue took 35 minutes and the ride lasts 30 seconds. Not a great ratio. Two 6 person cars, and ops were not urgent but fine, just a lot of kids to get through. I can live with the queues but the constant pushing in, and the responsible adults not doing anything about it put a huge dampener on it for me. It's odd enough going to a family theme park on my own, I really don't want to spend my day either being taken advantage of or telling off 8 year olds. As Rob noted, the path is just too wide so pushing in is too easy. 3 different groups tried to go past, they all got told no, but I felt I looked like a bad guy, the teachers were giving me side eye rather than, you know, telling their charges not to push in. It's not BTW that I joined in the middle of a group and should have held back, this was groups joining long after me and trying to get past to join their friends.
What about the ride? It's really good, not 35 minutes queue and having to teach the entire population of the Netherlands the concept of queuing good, but judged on its own merits, great. For loads of kids I guess this must be their first inversion, decent hangtime, force on the heartline roll, a properly strong launch. It packs a lot in to a small footprint. It is short but I can't really praise it for being quick and fitting so much into a small area and complain it's over quickly, I guess they're sides of the same coin. I really enjoyed it and am surprised we don't see more of these. I didn't find it rattley and prefer the odd lap bar to an overhead.
Koppermijn was visible so I headed there. On the way I went past a Kiddie train ride I obviously wasn't going on, but noted that the theming was really sweet, some moving animatronics, tbh better than the children's rides at my local park Walibi.
Koppermijn is a Maurer wild maus, and as an aside, I find it baffling how many people criticise a wild maus for having forceful turns. Might as well complain water is wet. It's a really good ride of its type. The theming is the wild west you'd expect, but some OK rock work, you go through a rock tunnel with smoke and light effects, honestly pretty good effort. There's also a little pop of air after the drop. A fun wild mouse, I laughed a lot. Oh, also the queue looked bad but took 20 minutes, operations were slick, banging the cars out. Obviously some children pushed in. So did a teacher. If I hadn't lost time elsewhere would have happily gone again.
Twistrix, A 30 minute queue, another little bit of pushing in, that I let ride, having used up my energy on Formula X. Sometimes you have to remember a ride isn't meant for you, a really simple little circuit. But it did spin an insane amount. Honestly I know my daughter would love it, did little for me but is the sole reason there is some small prospect of my return.
If I'd done the creds quickly I might have gone to Duinrell but that outside chance was over so I decided to do the Mack Powered Coaster, Dynamite Express. The ride itself is quite short, decent helix on the first go, but early breaking just makes it uncomfortably banked second time round. However, again I think the theming particularly in the queue, is decent. Standard wild west but there is an interactive element with a detonator kids push in the queue making a coyote pop up. Quite good. This however was the worst for attempted queue jumping, 1 girl in front of me attempted to get her entire class to go in front. Absurd but she's 8 so OK, say no, move on. But no, her teacher, in the group of 20 behind, basically sided with her. Incredible. It didn't happen because no way, but it made the whole queue awkward and unpleasant.
I would have fancied troika, I haven't done that type, but I was broken by the queues. I love an enterprise but it was down. I didn't fancy the water rides, not quite warm enough and maybe a bit weird. Had some chips which were in fairness decent and fairly priced.
Saw that Formula X had a lot smaller queue than my first go, so decided to finish with it. Queue took 15 minutes, much better, but it's bad for pushing in because it's so wide. Just made it feel more than 15 minutes because so much dealing with the cheating. I think this was the worst because a teacher did actually go the whole hog, not turn a blind eye, not take her pupils side, this one actively joined in pushing in. I was done on dealing with it by this point. Maybe it's a cultural thing. But I hadn't seen it at all at Efteling? But the fact the teachers think its fine suggests it runs deep. It actually puts me off Netherlands parks full stop tbh.
Edit: Forgot I've also been to Toverland and no queue jumping there, so I won't write off the whole country, but it was odd not so much that kids pushed in, but their adults, many times and from different schools, thought it was fine.
So in conclusion, some surprisingly decent theming, a fun little headline coaster and a really decent wild mouse. But nonetheless unbearable.
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