Germany & Netherlands : (15 parks, 69 coasters)

[davidm]

Re: Germany:Hansa,Heide,Belantis,Plohn,Bayern,Skyline,Trips,

...continued

Little bit of a drive (hour-ish) later and I'm at park #2 for the day - so instead of doubling up Tripsdrill with Schwaben I
decided that the lure of the intamin was too much to pass up on my way through Germany and I should stop off
at Holiday Park for a little while.

Entrance plaza sure had improved since the first time I came here ~10 years ago when it was just a hut next to a fence.



Had been here for a day on that CF live in 2012 too, so I was really only here to have a play on their newish Sky Rocket (since
I'd never done one of these) and ride EGF for a while.

Cred-hungry I headed straight for the back of the park where their corkscrew used to live hiding away in the tress and they have
really improved this area of the park since '12 too





They'd seemingly cleared out a lot of the space where the old corkscrew used to be and plonked this thing down in its place;



Sky Scream - the aforementioned Premier Sky Rocket.



Was expecting a bit of a Q for it (weekend afternoon and all), but was only a couple of trains wait, so I got a few rides in
straight away. Quite liked it - more than I thought I would to be honest ; launches were all good fun and the ride lasts a lot
longer than I'd supposed a little shuttle would (and of course its not really little either).



Not really sure of the capacity/throughput on the thing, but they seemed to be able to despatch it pretty rapidly too (whether
that was good coaster design or just Germanic efficiency I don't know).

Wasn't too impressed with the theme of it though ; some horror related things going on and the Walking Dead theme tune on repeat
blaring around the outside of the ride - bit odd.





Could do with a UK park getting one of these perhaps I think?





Next to the Sky Scream area used to be a condor in the middle of a big round area ; the condor has gone to be replaced this
season with another sky fly thing (and the area it is in was all looking upgraded, themed around an Air Show and the like)



No great inclination to ride this since I'd ridden one a couple of days earlier and there was a reasonable Q for it anyway
(coaster thruput >> skyfly thruput).



I wanted to have a look around the rest of the park as there was a kiddy zone that I had not seen before, so wandering by I took
a quick spin on this fairly useless thing ; Holly's Wilde Autofahrt which is a bit lumpy for a standard mouse. Ouch.







The kiddy area was new and only kinda-open when I was last here but I hadn't explored it ; so wandered around for a short
while - was all quite well done and in keeping with the other Plopsa-places I'd seen (actually just de Panne thinking about it)







Nothing for me to play on really here though, so onto the main course...



The absolutely fantastic intamin that dominates a huge chunk of this park Expedition GeForce



Negligible Q (one/two train wait) as long as you didn't need the front row (did ride the front once though) so I could just
cycle it for a while before pausing for a rest and a coffee before a few more laps.





This is one of the world's best coasters no doubt ; worth the trip alone just to ride it for a while. I didn't feel any trims
on it either (used to feel some as the last of the twisty bits turn into the airtime hills as you start to head back to the
station) so the ride was even better than the last time I was here (when it was raining too I remember which added a different
dimension to the thing)





Great stuff - best coaster of the trip naturally (and there were some very good coasters on the trip besides this one).





For some odd reason there suddenly appeared a Q for the thing that stretched well out of the station, so I felt I had had my fill
of intamin greatness and called it a day.

Holiday Park then ; 2 great coasters (one of which is one of the best there is) ; some filler rides but not a lot else to do. Hard
to justify a full days effort unless its busy, but a great place to spend half a day for some excellent coaster-ing.

--

Happy with my replanning then, hit the road and drive North for a bit towards Cologne. Pausing only to get stuck in some German
traffic for a while.

Got to Hotel Matamba at Phantasialand for the next few nights - I had somewhat of a lingering concern that I might not be booked
in since they had not returned an enquiry to confirm my booking (stupid web-system only let me request a room rather than book
one). I wasn't concerned enough to worry much about it though and when I turned up the place was seemingly pretty empty.

Room was good, two sleeping areas anyway which was a bit overkill





not such a great view from my widow tho', over the top of the buffet restaurant where I ate dinner (zebra on the menu!)



No prizes for working out what I'm up to the next day then.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

Re: Germany:HansaHeideBelantisPlohnBayernSkylineTripsHoliday

You're racing through these Thoroughly enjoying this report! Tripsdrill looks amazing, but I think I'd have to spend a whole day there. That log-flat ride in Holiday park looks beautiful - I guess that's Plopsa's doing...

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany:HansaHeideBelantisPlohnBayernSkylineTripsHoliday

Each "update" seems to take a couple of hours to sort so it just depends whether I've been staring at a computer too much at work that day whether I can face doing it again in the evening - weekends are more productive TR time usually

and yeah if you'd never been to Tripsdrill before you'd want much more time than I gave it the other week - its just a really nice park. I too raised a smile at Holiday Park's Rockin' Tug / Log ride - was cool.

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany:HansaHeideBelantisPlohnBayernSkylineTripsHoliday

Day 10 : Monday 6th June

Right so today was spent at Phantasialand.

Been here once before, 10 years ago, and obviously one of the draws of Germany this year was the idea of Phantasialand adding
a new super-coaster. So as I was "planning" this trip and the dates got nearer and nearer with no sign of the new coaster opening
I had given up on the stupid thing - this was all somewhat annoying, since we all know the thing was testing ages ago and the park
season started a while ago too, just seems odd that with all that planning involved (been building the thing for a couple of
years after all) that they'd open mid-season - but nothing I could do about that so tried not to dwell on it too much (not sure
I succeeded in that though).

People rave about Phantasialand - rightly so - but its not beyond criticism, so I hope I can get across some of the stuff thats
worth raving about along with some criticism (stupid Taron) along the way - think its fair to be much more critical of the place
that I am about some of the lesser (rubbish) parks because they do set a very high standard for themselves (which they hit in a
lot of places).

And I can't really recall the order I did stuff in either, the order of my photos aren't helping me either since I wandered
back and forth through the park all day (its not that big a place) - so this is going to be a bit of a sequential photo-dump
into which I'll drop my comments...

Few shots from the hotel in the morning, hotel was really good - minor criticism is that when I stayed at the other hotel 10
there was a hotel-park entrance that could be used, but the Matamba hotel didn't have one despite the infrastructure obviously
being there for one (the bridge to nowhere thru Mamba's loop ends up in the hotel). So to get to the park you exit the hotel
onto the street and walk there - no big deal, but exposes the posh-park-resort-hotel punter to the crappy street outside and
the also very crappy main entrance.







Once inside the crappy park entrance (pic later) its all nice again though ; nice carousel on the Berlin street that serves as
the entrance plaza.



ONRIDE!



Maus au Chocolat opened early, so everyone who was in the park Q'd for that (apart from me, rode it later with no Q)





I wandered around a bit before the rides opened and encountered the first painful-reminder of my spite.



The new area was pretty well hidden from view - not that it was hiding, it was very obvious it was there, just that you could
not really see into it at all due to the walls. Suspect when these come down it would be hard to imagine how they managed to
hide it so well as the place is right bang in the middle of the park directly opposite the new water ride.

They also hid access from the back of the new area, this is from between River Quest and the chinese area.



Mystery Castle was smaller than I remembered...



Oh,







In a fit of extra-spite, by the end of the day they had announced the opening date of the new stuff and it was proudly
displayed on the screen here. Just to rub it in. Grrr.





The central Berlin square area was nice, this is one of the passageways leading off it towards the lake area. I was struggling
to remember what this area looked like on my previous visit - I remembered a Condor ride and an odd transport ride with a giant
monster you got eaten by in this area but couldn't work out where they fitted. Looking at Google Earth since I've been back
explains why I couldn't work it out because the whole Berlin square area was "new" (to me) and covered where that transport
ride was - and I couldn't find the Brandenburg Gate that they had - because that had gone. D'oh.



So some of the stuff that they do very very well is the themeing on their newer attractions like the top spin - even if the
entrance to the thing is a bit hard to find (from where this pic is taken anyway)



fire makes everything better of course



The park is oddly/cleverly laid out - its not huge and there are two distinct "sides" to it - the side nearest the local town
has a nice lake and the big indoor sections, obviously so as not to annoy the local neighbours too much - look on Google maps
and you can see the park's path around the lake is literally at the end of people's gardens.

The other side is further away from the town and where all the big stuff is ; and what is clever is that its all really crammed
in tightly together, but still with distinct themed zones. Its Disney-like in the way that you don't see into one area from
another that much, yet theres literally just the back of a building or a wall between them. For example the wall behind Talocan
that looks so good with the ride in front of it, is from the other side a façade that looks like some Mexican shops/buildings.
All really well done anyway.

Black Mamba is a great invert though - Nemesis like in the way a lot of it is seemingly dug into the ground. A few rides
on this brightens any day - excellent coaster.





that not-hotel-entrance-way;



Proof I went on Talocan (usually skip these because of headaches, but this one was so good looking I had to have a go)



inside Mystery Castle



Vekoma madhouse, which are always fun, but pretty awful preshow on this one



Temple of the Nighthawk is their old indoor kinda-space-mountain (obviously not themed to space nor a mountain though).
Its a bit rubbish though, but not as useless as I remembered it being, perhaps I'm more forgiving these days?



The other indoor coaster(s) are the two Maurer spinners Winjas - Fear & Force. Rode both a few times since it was a quiet day with negligible Q. These are really good though - being indoors and intertwined in places really works for them. Not the
biggest, scariest coasters out there but certainly some of the most fun.













Another indoor ride (sharing the build with Night Hawk) is the truly awful Hollywood dark ride - a boat ride through various
badly presented movie scenes. Just rubbish.





Reign of Kong?



back in the Berlin area is the Maus au Chocolat ride - which is the same sort of ride as Disney's Toy Story Midway things. The
characters in this are less engaging than the Toy Story one, but the scenes had more variety I think (Toy Story are all just
variations on midway games, this is all set in various scenes). Liked this a lot then and rode it a few times, oddly though my
best score (by some margin) was my first ride when I didn't really know what I was doing.





Some more criticism now, they have a 4D cinema showing Pirates4D. Good god how old and lame is this now, isn't everyone in it
dead by now as well.



The new-ish water ride Chiapas though, thats superb - great modern flume type ; particularly liked the disco-room.





This was about all you really could see of Taron, one break in the wall to tease me.







The mine train ride Colorado Adventure (fm. Michael Jackson Thrill Ride I recall) is a very good version of this type of
ride - really long ride yet (like a lot of this place) pretty compactly done.





I'd ridden the rapids ride earlier in the day ; hard to take pics of since its all kinda inside a building ; but again its a
great version of this sort of ride - vertical lift, drop, whirlpool section and all built ontop of itself. Perhaps rivalled
only by Lotte Worlds indoor rapid ride for its engineering-bonkers-ness.











Crap pic of Chiapas loading station



More spite







Over in the lake there is a splash-battle - looked nice but no people on it made it a bit useless today.



Did like the water-feature-wave-swinger thing in the central plaza - its the central feature now instead of the Brandenburg
Gate that was about here I think.





Ok so this is the crappy entranceway from the street - looks like a bus station rather than the entrance to a world-class theme
park.



But this is cool - this is from outside the park and thats Black Mamba track coming right up to the exterior park wall - from
inside the park you just wouldn't realise that. Clever stuff.



Had a wander around the hotel at the end of the day - was seeing if I could see into the park from anywhere (i.e. into the new
area)



Couldn't see that far though, but did find a high up window with a good view of the last few rides of the day on the beemer.







--

So a really good day at a really good park - my criticisms are just where it lets itself down but I am being deliberately
harsh. Its nearly a perfect place - get rid of the odd rubbish bits and open your new coasters "on time" and it would be.

--

and to add to the spite/irony, Taron opened today didn't it.

 

[Hixee]

Re: Germany: 9/15 parks, now up to ...Phantasialand...

Phantasialand is one of my top "must do" parks, and every time I see pictures of it I get even more frustrated with myself that I haven't made the trip.

Next year... it needs to happen.

Thanks for sharing (again) and sorry for the Taron spite.

 

[SimonSays99]

Re: Germany: 9/15 parks, now up to ...Phantasialand...

I hope Phantasialand will remove the old and crappy Holldywood darkride and indoor coaster quite soon. These two rides take up tons of space and are the least popular rides in the park.

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany: 9/15 parks, now up to ...Phantasialand...

Day 11 : Tuesday 7th June

OK, so no riding any coasters today.

For reasons that I'll get in a bit, wanted to be in Cologne this evening so had scheduled a culture-day to spend having a look
around the city.

<significant digression>

I'd been to Cologne once before, albeit very briefly ; the summer after finishing University (yes quite a while ago before anyone
starts making those ageist jokes) I was at a loose end - no schooling, no job, been dumped by the girl I had been seeing through
Uni (right in the middle of my finals as it happened, my that was fun) when I realised that I could actually get to a summer
music event that I had previously assumed was just a no-go for me. Roger Waters was performing The Wall in Potsdamer Platz in
the middle of Berlin partly to celebrate the coming down of the Berlin Wall (this is 1990 I'm talking about) and partly to raise
funds for some charity (but probably mostly to satisfy his not-insignificant ego).

So I had booked myself on an organised coach-trip from the UK to Berlin and this randomly included a stop off in Cologne there
and back. So after a day on a coach from Nottingham (mostly drinking beer and smoking the drugs that the older people on the
coach seemed to have no qualms about smuggling across Europe and even less qualms about sharing with this lonely "kid" on the bus
(I was easily the youngest person on it) we ended up dumping stiff at a hotel in Cologne and then the coach dropped everyone off
in the city centre for a few hours tourism (this would have been the Friday evening, the concert was on the Saturday).

I don't honestly remember much of the city - apart from the impressive Cathedral - I do remember that some of the coach-people
had gone off to a local-fair that evening (obviously goons before I even knew of such things!)

Anyway the next day the coach drove across to Berlin, watched a gig along with 400,000 of my closest friends and got back to the
same hotel in Cologne sometime Sunday. Monday the coach drove back to the UK and my Dad picked me up from Nottingham with the news
that his dad had died that Sunday from a big heart attack - having seen the concert that I was at been broadcast live on C4 on
the Saturday night (these facts are not related of course).

So quite a weirdly significant memory in my life for various reasons. Still got the Wall T-Shirt somewhere as well I think.

</significant digression>

But before I headed into Cologne for the culture, I took a quick wander around Phantasialand with my silly spherical camera -
mostly to see if I could get any interesting shots of Klugheim with it (but it didn't really work)

[ For these 360 degree pics to "work" you need to click-through to my Flickr site where it should show as a dragable 360 image,
but oddly Flickr can't handle making that image fullscreen yet ]

Breakfast at the hotel;



Loitering in the hotel garden;





Hotel bar ; had spent a bit of time in here



Mamba (camera poked around from the hotel side).



Showing the silly camera off to the hotel staff who were a bit confused as to what I was up to



Into the park itself;



Yay, Taron - stupid wall in the way really though



Poking the camera-on-a-stick into the only bit of Taron they were really letting you see



Michael Jackson's Mine Train



More Mamba (poking through the netting - ride wasn't running yet)





I realised that none of this was really "working" though, so headed out.



I had a 3 day ticket for Phantasialand because it was included in the 3-night hotel offer I had booked - and I had booked that
3-night offer since it was basically the same price as a 2-night deal and since I wanted to be in Cologne that evening saved
me finding a hotel in the city ; and thats why I could just wander into the park for 1/2 hour before the rides opened in order
to take a few un-fulfilling snaps.

--

Drove into Cologne then and parked up near where I needed to be later - took a pic of the car park so I could find it again
later!



and got the train into the city centre.

First stop was the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum (the city museum)



Which was a bit rubbish to be honest, have some pictures though;

















Wandered up to near the cathedral (but didn't go in until later on) - this amused me though ; there is some modern civic thing
between the cathedral and the Rhein and part of that apparently contains the concert hall of the city philharmonic orchestra.
This concert hall is built underground though, so you can walk over the top of it across this public square - but it seems
that when you do so, it upsets the people in the hall below - they must have practising or something because there was a bunch
of security guards preventing people walking across the public square. Daft planning that then.



So theres a cool railway bridge across the river near the cathedral, so wandered across that for some views.



More stupid locks littering the place though







Nice views though





360 shot;



This was the Rathaus (town hall) - was a model of this in the city museum earlier





Done enough random wandering by now so headed back to the cathedral



Got a ticket to the belltower and headed up the 533 steps



Part way up the tower was the belfry itself



Timed my visit mid-ding-dong - it was quite loud.







Carried on up a bit further to the lookout areas - vertigo starting to become an issue on some of the higher exposed
staircase sections



But the view was well worth the trek



Even if the graffiti had made it up here as well







Back down on the ground the cathedral itself was very impressive - I'm not at all a fan of religion of any sort, but I do like
some of the monuments that mankind have made over the years to their various flavours of doctrines ; and this was a particularly
grand example of that.





Their star-attraction here in religious artefact terms apparently contains the remains of the three-wise-men ; yeah of course it
does.



There was a Treasury area below the cathedral too that contains a whole host of other similarly odd remains-of-the-saints
artefacts and the like - was all quite shiny and interesting but no pics are allowed down there.



Walking around the city for most of the day I had really failed to see anywhere that reminded me of my brief visit here 26 years
before - apart from the stupid big cathedral itself of course. This was the only "view" that rang a bell with me though, the
view up towards the cathedral from where I think the coach dropped us off/picked us up on that evening long ago.



To be honest though - cathedral aside - I wasn't that impressed by the city itself - the other German city centres that I'd
wandered around that week had been much nicer I thought. Cathedral definitely worth a look though.

Grabbed some food from the local Hard Rock and headed back on the train to find my evening's entertainment...

--

So whilst scoping out my trip around Germany earlier a few months before, I had randomly also spotted that there was concert tour
going on that I would have liked to see - checking the itinerary I had worked out that I could make mine intersect with the
tour's and so had grabbed a ticket for tonight's performance by BABYMETAL in the city.

But first I needed to get into the place ; was taking place at this venue "Live Music Hall" a couple of stops from the city
centre - I had driven past the venue in the morning before finding a nearby place to park but when I turned up a little before
"doors open" (which was an hour before advertised showtime) the Q to get in was rather massive. The venue was in some crappy
side street in a semi-industrialised / semi-rundown area and the Q of peeps had snaked around the local streets quite some way
by the time I found its end.



Q was really frustrating as well. Got in the Q about 10 mins before doors-open ; fair enough don't expect it to move for a
while. Doors-open time comes along and we all shift forwards a 100 yards or so. Then the Q doesn't move again for about 1/2 hour.
When it does restart moving its really slow - one train ops speed.

Time is moving on and everyone is getting a bit stressed as showtime approaches and the Q to get in is still barely moving. Lots
of people have joined the Q behind me as well, can only image the stress level back there.

Finally get to the entrance way though ; about 10 mins to showtime - so I've Q'd for an hour just to get in.



Its just seemingly really slow door operations causing all this ; daft really, if they got people into the venue quicker then
punters have more time to spend money on beer and tat before the concert. More bad German planning then.

Venue itself is little more than a industrial shed with a stage at the end and a couple of bars ; really grotty place.





(these are all crap phone pics this evening by the way, excuse their quality but wasn't taking a camera to the gig and had dumped
it back in the car)

Band appeared abut 20 mins after advertised start time - hope the rest of the Q had been processed by then!



It was nice and loud and pretty good though.

Had situated myself just behind where the main moshing was happening - which was fine for me, my days of being crammed down the
front of concerts are long over and I never really understood that mosh-pit mentality at even some the heavier bands I've seen.



Mosh pit was quite well organised by the locals though ; all sitting down at one point allowing a quick snap or two



But I was really here to watch the band not take pics so only snapped one or two.



The crowd was mixed ; probably a bit older than I expected it to be more rocker than trendy kids anyway. Few people in cos-play
and a few Japanese youngsters too. This guy was bonkers though - heavily into the moshing he was dressed in a kinda
BABYMETAL/Pikachu cross-over cosplay; he had on a red/black BABYMETAL dress but then a Pikachu yellow-hoody that itself was
covered in sewn-on Pikachu toys ; like 20-odd of them and he was moshing like a trooper too.





Live Music Hall was an atrocious venue though ; as well as the crap door logistics, crap hall itself - it was stupid hot in there
once the band and the crowd got going ; sauna-like ; ugh.

Good gig though, a bit short perhaps ; http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/babymetal ... e2c4f.html
but it seems they played the same set the next day in Stuttgart too.

Heres a video from youtube I found of it ; not all the gig though : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsoD74AE3QI

Retrieved my car and headed back to the hotel afterwards ; found that the place was so empty they had shut the hotel bar so had
to get my post-gig beer from one of those wonderful beer-vending machines that Europe has.

So after a day of "culture" of various differing kinds, you'll be pleased to know that the usual goonery shall resume tomorrow.

--

Processed pic from the belfry (6 shots merged into a vertical panorama and HDR-ified)

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Re: Germany: up to ...Phantasialand... (+ BABYMETAL)

Great stuff m'Lord. I've never yet managed to find the time to see Cologne when visiting Phantasialand, but the cathedral looks like a must see. Great report, can't wait to read the rest.

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany: up to ...Phantasialand... (+ BABYMETAL)

^ ta!

--

Day 12 : Wednesday 8th June

Right, had enough of Germany, so a couple of hours drive in the morning from Phantasialand and I'm here...



Again its been 10 years since I'd been to Efteling - had been nearby a couple of years ago and thought about popping in
for 1/2 day but decided it wasn't really a 1/2 day place. The last time I was here the water coaster thingy had been built but
was delayed in opening - so by now there was a small pile of new-to-Dave coasters to have a play one. Good stuff!

Much like Phantasialand, all my photos are kinda out of order of the sequence I rode stuff, but I'll batch the pics up at the
relevant ride.

Turning up at the car park I was a bit horrified to find that it was heaving busy - that wasn't my plan. But to be honest it
didn't affect the Qs much - Baron was the only thing with anything like a big Q most of the day and I SRQ'd that.



And it was to Baron 1898 that I headed first, that being a newest shiniest thing here for me. Thought it was very nice
looking as I made my way up to it and sussed the Q out. There was a SRQ so headed straight into that and worked out the odd loading
protocol during my short wait (basically theres an op batching people into a train's-worth at the head of the Q, then giving
everyone a ticket to the relevant train and row before you enter the station. Must go through a lot of tickets then).



Cool little pre-show room handling 2 train's-worth of punters ; something to do with mines and ghosty women all being projected
around the place and then another batching room with some animatronic mine-owner guy rambling away in Dutch at you and then
you get to load.

The station itself is great too, all very well done



Particularly liked the despatch-button-thingy being part of the themeing



Got lucky with the batches on a couple of rides on this in that I got the front row (pretty essential for a dive coaster) and it
was good, fun little ride - not great by any means because it isn't that big (drop on Krake seemed much bigger, even if its not
that much bigger) but what it does it does nicely ; drop into a tunnel (ala Oblivion), nice immelmann exit from the drop and
then a zero-g (best bit) before wandering around a helix and done.







Really well themed though ; because of that its better than Krake but nothing like the rides that the bigger dive machines
give (for context, I've never really rated Oblivion, but enjoyed Griffon/SheiKra).





Still a bit concerned by crowds at this stage (there was a big normal Q for Baron) I rushed off to see the ride(s) that I was
really much more interested in - the dual wooden coasters Joris en de Draak. Not really sure why the ride is called
something AND something and then the two sides of the ride are called somethingelse AND somethingelse, but that didn't stop me
rushing around to grab a ride on both sides (negligible Q, was happily worrying for nothing).



Again nicely (if a little confusingly) themed, big plastic dragon half way round and all this winners/losers stuff going on.







Really liked this though ; both sides great fun ; top top ride(s). Much better in the back than the front though, and not at all
rough in the back so thats all good.



Next up - since its right nearby - was my spited ride from 10 years ago Vliegende Hollander - was a bit of a Q for this,
maybe 20 minutes and it was probably better than I expected (but I had low expectations) - though the indoor bit was (again)
really well themed and the kinda-dark ride bit to start with was pretty good. The outside bit was OK, the splash didn't do much
though so was a bit pointless - indeed if you watch the splash you can see it isn't even the 'boat' making the splash its the
undercarriage of the vehicle, the boat drops down into the water well after the splash has sploshed.









All my +1s done I then just wandered around the park for a while ; hit up Vogel Rok next, which was better than I remembered
it being I think ; an older, indoor ride which has just occurred to me is essentially the same as the night hawk thing at
Phantasialand isn't it - well it rode better and at least this one had the feathered-animal it was named after rather prominently
featured in its themeing.





The parks big expensive show Raveleijn was also new-to-me so I wanted to catch that, and by pure fluke found myself nearby about
5 minutes before a show was going to start, so headed in.



Pestered a staff member for a set of headphones though ; wasn't worth the effort at all though, just had random people shouting
"Thomas" in English rather than Dutch as far as I could tell.







Liked the big monster effect, but don't think my seat had the best view of it - a consequence of a late arrival - since it
was blocked by some building for the most part





Show was OK then ; well done I suppose but not something I'd go out of my way again to see.

Another madhouse (not the last on the trip yet though)



Themed to something to do with goats it seems



The not-a-cred-dark-ride Droomvlucht is a good old 'traditional' dark-ride though - I like this for that then.



I recall the vast cattle-pen Q line amusing me for this 10 years before ; and it did again (this is only about 1/2 of it)



Crap pics inside though, and a crap pic of the vehicles too





Oddly, the time I came here before I had managed to completely miss the one area of the park which I think is the original
reason that the park is even here ; this being the fairy-tale forest bit Sprookjesbos. So I made sure I wandered around it for
a bit today, even if there was nothing really in it for me I could see how little kids would like it ; lots of scenes with
stuff you could operate with a button. All very pleasant anyway.





Pinocchio was the best one I thought (he is inside the whale)



The long-neck guy was not working though



Minataur Wonderland has nothing to worry about from their Diorama exhibit;





Not Mickey Mouse then;



Finished my lap of the park with a go on the coaster with the rather friendly name of Bob



Had to Q a bit for that and seemed not to have bothered taking any useful pictures of the thing either!



Wandered back around the park again, picking up stuff that I hadn't ridden earlier,

Fat Morgan - can't even remember if I'd ridden that before



Water show thingy was SBNO (scheduled maintenance I think) though;



Almost forgot about the last coaster Python



Longest Q of the day for me this about 30mins!



Flying Island for the views, especially of their next-year attraction taking shape







Couldn't remember if I'd ridden their rapids before either, so rode them - and I don't recall much about them now only a couple
of weeks later so hardly a surprise I don't remember if I'd ridden them before!

Having 'done' the park, the only sensible thing was to go and reride the good stuff a few times now, so cycled Joris en de Draak
for a while (alternating the sides of course) - really re-ridable thing this ; hope Alton's SW8 will end up with the same fun
factor.

Grabbed a final ride on Baron too just as the park was closing this time in the back row and was pleasantly surprised that
there was still a good first-drop view to be had from there courtesy of the floorless trains.

Burdenous Qs were at the exit though in order to get tokens to get out of the car-park ; top-tip then get these on your way into
the park (or from the customer services desk like I did after waiting at the burdenous machines for 15 minutes).

Really nice day at a really nice park then - very happily drove off to find my anonymous hotel on an Dutch industrial estate
(Ian would be so proud) for the evening.



--

Couple of processed pics from today;













Silly-ness;

 

[Pink Cadillac]

Re: Germany&Netherlands : 11/15 parks done - now up to Eftel

Nice to see another person enjoy Joris en de Draak. It's so much fun! Was the single rider line not open for Bob? Also, which of the last two parks do you prefer?

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany&Netherlands : 11/15 parks done - now up to Eftel

^ SRQ on Bob? Never heard of it.

Efteling & Phantasialand are both great places ; for me though its Phantasialand by far (vaguely trying to convince myself that I could go back there later this year for the spiteful Taron) - peeps with a family in tow might well disagree though as Efteling is more family-friendly I think.

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany&Netherlands : 11/15 parks done - now up to Eftel

Day 13 : Thursday 9th June

So a short trip from my little hotel on a nondescript Dutch industrial estate and I am parked up at a little amusement park on
another nondescript Dutch industrial estate...



Only after sitting there for 10 minutes (waiting for opening time to get a bit closer) did I realise I wasn't parked up in the car
park but in some back-entrance. D'oh.

A quick bit of repositioning and I'm actually at the right bit now ; Drievliet Family Park



Wasn't expecting much of this place, but to be fair it was a bit nicer and larger than I had envisaged it being. Was reasonably
busy with school-groups running around making lots of noise so that and the staggered opening of the rides was going to scupper
my quick credit-run plan

Only coaster running to start off then was this very odd thing Twistrix, the like of which I'd never seen before.







Suitability bored ride-op marshalling the little kids and the one odd-Englishgoon.



Looked more interesting than it rode to be honest ; controlled spins and a pretty flat track - not much surprise that it seems to
be only one of its kind ever made.



Rest of the coasters opened at half-ten, so I figured I should loiter around the entrance of one of them until it opened, just
to beat the rush of kids to it. Picked the mouse Kopermijn...



Its a mouse, not a lot else to say.



Next to the mouse is a little powered Mack coaster Dynamite Express - which was at least a little bit more interesting than
another mouse I guess as it had a bit of a themeing attempt to it.





Last coaster (and most significant) is a smallish Maurer X-Car Formule X (a lot smaller than Bayern's from the other day
anyway)

But this had a bit of burdenous Q full of the little school kids plus most of the bigger kids silly enough to go to the park
that day. One train ops not helping either, but they did add the second train after about 20 mins Q-ing which sped things up
a bit.





This was quite fun ; launched, couple of inversions, bit of speed - would have rode it a bit more if the Q was a shorter anyway.















Wandered around the rest of the park for a bit snapping some pics of the place ; had a lot of the usual smaller park rides but
nothing too exciting. Place was clean and looked well kept up though and the hordes of schoolkids running around seemed to
be having a good enough time.



On my way out I noticed they had a little "park history" room so had a look at that - I like it when places have these sort of
things, there should be a rule that everywhere has them I think. </goon>





I'd spent about 1.5 hours here, that was enough really ; could have spent a bit more time I suppose and got some rerides on the
X-Car but nothing else really merited much attention past the +1 nature of the visit.

...

 

[Howie]

Re: Germany&Netherlands : 12/15 parks done...Efteling..Driev

One day Dave, I'm gonna do a big solo Dave-trip like this, it looks so awesome. It won't be easy - having a missus who is non-goon means I generally have to take my gooning in small, bite-size chunks wherever I can, but one day.
One day...

 

[Serena]

Re: Germany&Netherlands : 12/15 parks done...Efteling..Driev

I love your processed photo of The Flying Dutchman. Looks like such a great trip!

I agree that Baron is much tamer than other D.M.'s - but that's exactly why I like it! It has all of the vertical drop, but none of the tension!

Did you not do Spookslot at Efteling though?!

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany&Netherlands : 12/15 parks done...Efteling..Driev

^ ta

Baron : tamer but prettier.

and no didn't do Spookslot this time ; had recollections of the two things in that area (that and the panda-thing) just being rubbish - or at least I remember the panda-thing being very rubbish, maybe that clouded my memory of the spook-place?

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany&Netherlands : 12/15 parks done...Efteling..Driev

(...so apologies for the delay between instalments, was distracted for a little while...)

Thursday 9th June (Continued)

After my quick trek around one of the area's parks, a short drive later I am at the other one ; Duinrell.





Wasn't really sure what this place was going to be like ; was aware it was part of a bigger holiday village type affair so had
kinda thought it might be all a bit "Butlins" to it, but turned out a lot nicer than I expected.

Headed in, and couldn't immediately see any rides'n'stuff but a little stroll through some trees and park-like surroundings
I started to encounter stuff





The park is set in amongst loads of trees and was very pleasant ; plonked in the middle of it is an indoor swimming pool complex
that was a bit ugly though





I eventually come across the coasters - they are all sat together at the far end of the park from where you come in so are a bit
of a trek from the main entrance.

First up, a tivoli Kikkerachtbaan ; one of the larger figure-eight ones, but still a bit unthrilling and not as good as
the one at Bayern a few days earlier











Next door to the tivoli (layouts intertwined to some extend in that the tivoli is at ground level whereas this one is a bit more
up in the air) is Dragon Fly - hadn't realised at the time but this is a clone of the Amun Ra ride at Belantis that I'd
been on the previous week in the rain (or rather Amun Ra is a clone of this one).









Was pretty fun in a family-ride way ; nice first drop and a tight little helix at the end. Made a difference not riding it in
the rain as well.

And next door to that is the final coaster ; Gerstlauer euro-fighter Falcon (a clone of Southend's Rage)



Good fun (little) ride then, being nicely set amongst trees made it a better experience than Rage I think. And the colour scheme
is better.









Nearby is the oddest "splash" ride that I've ever seen. A smallish shoot-the-chutes job, its bizarre because of the boats - you
have 2 choices, firstly the "dry" choice, a fully enclosed boat (i.e. pretty pointless)



or the "wet" choice, a partially covered boat ; a big cover than you poked your head thru - (i.e. so mostly pointless but
significantly less pointless than the other boat at least))



New for this season apparently was another one of these;





but it was broken ; the man from Gerstlauer was there going something "engineering" to it via a crane;





Was originally unsure whether I was going to rush around this place and then try to get to another little place near where I was
spending that night (Zwolle), I'd done all the coasters and pondered this for a few minutes before thinking spending a while
wandering around the woods was preferable to rushing across the country to grab a kiddy-credit.

Theres not many high points in the country, so for the park to have a small-hill to walk up was a nice, and there was a little
observation tower at the top of the hill that gave some views of the trees at least







Another reason to hand about was to have a go on their toboggan-thing which had a bit of a queue - was good though even if the
local oiks were messing about on it a bit much (all stopping so their gang made a big-train - blatant disregard of the 20m
rules there!)





Rest of the park had a few more rides dotted amongst the foliage, but I didn't ride anything else apart from the chair-swings



So quite a pleasant place really ; nothing too exciting but nice enough to spend a few hours in - one of my pals back home
is booked up to stay at the holiday-village here (his family are definitely non-goon) in the summer so I've been trying to
convince him to go on the big-nasty roller-coasters that they have ; he is not convinced yet (I think they were all traumatised by
a visit to Legoland a few years ago ; I assured him at least 2 of the 3 coasters would be "safe" though.)

Park mascot is some frog it seems;



--

Should have only been 2 hours drive to Zwolle for the night, but burdenous Dutch-traffic made that a bit longer so I was glad that
I hadn't attempted to rush for a kiddy-cred (rushing for a kiddy-cred only to arrive too late would have just been awful)

I'd picked Zwolle as a place to stay entirely at random; it just being a slightly significant town near where I needed to be and
my hotel was on the outskirts of the town (just off the motorways to be fair).

I headed into the town in the evening, just for a looksee - and it was really nice. Lovely old centre full of bars and restaurants
surrounded by a few canals and nice buildings ; just lovely.



















Thoroughly recommended as a place to stay in the Netherlands (much better than anonymous industrial-estates anyway).

 

[ECG]

Re: Germany&Netherlands:13/15 parks ...Drievliet...Duinrell.

Thanks for the tour of Zwolle. I've never been there since we (andrus & I) toured around Den Haag (The Hague) when we visited Drievliet/Duinrell as we were doing the trip the other way round and spent the night in Germany on the way to

Spoiler

Attractiepark Slagharen/Avonturenpark Hellendoorn & Walibi

.

 

[SimonSays99]

Re: Germany&Netherlands:13/15 parks ...Drievliet...Duinrell.

I found Duinrell the major pleasant surprise of my tour also. The SkyFly was running when I was there but ops were rather slow as Gerstlauer engineers were still on site to train the ride ops. While not a big park one I would revisit any time in the Netherlands - next to Slagharen and Efteling - all others only if they have anything new.

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany&Netherlands:13/15 parks ...Drievliet...Duinrell.

Friday 10th June

So I was staying in Zwolle as its pretty close to...



Walibi Holland ; where I will be spending the day.

Again it had been 10 years since I'd been here and in the mean time they had seemed to have done very little to the place to entice
me back (removing, closing, reopening various coasters) - well, that was until this season, when they had only gone and dumped in
a very interesting looking Mack ride...

This 'Hard Gaan' (go fast) logo/motto was all over the place ; didn't really think it worked



Prime example!



Anyway had to loiter around a bit before they opened up at 10, but the place was pretty quiet so there was no crowd-related stress.



Obviously goon-rushed straight over to the new Mack thingy Lost Gravity and headed in.

Highly themed queue-line was really good ; lots of wrong-way-up stuff and and general weirdness happening

Odd plastic cars and stuff in the entrance-way







Favourite bit of the queue-themeing was this set of stairs, themed as an escalator (well, I found it funny)



Almost the last bit of the queue is a shipping container job (there are lots of these) but all mirrored on the inside with
some spikey bits at the one end. Really hard to tell from the pic because the effect is behind me taking this, but the effect
with all the mirrors was as if the spikey bit was part of a huge sphere you were walking past - really cool anyway.



Quickly onto the ride - ride op at the station entrance batching everyone efficiently into two lines of 4 and I had a quick few
rides on the thing.

And really good it is too.

(bit of a photo-dump now)















Quick lift, twisty-drop-turn thing into a speed-hump and weird-almost-top-hat element, big airtime hill and then up into a
mid-course pause ; the brakes here do trim off a lot of speed and they are really noticeable, but you probably don't want to
go into the next elements too fast because its all a few hang-time inversions and corkscrews as the train does the second
half of the ride.

Think this is a real winner of a ride then ; a bit different, comfy restraints ; ideal "big-ride" for a medium-sized park I
would think. Throughput might be a concern - only 8 peeps per train, they were running 2 trains pretty quickly it seemed
but as I said earlier the place wasn't busy so I was only waiting a few minutes between rides.

Anyway, I approve.



Right, needed another +1 for the day ; for some reason 10 years ago I had decided that riding kiddy-rides was beneath me and
skipped "Wok's Waanzin" (as it was then) - but I've obviously got over that now and had a quick ride on their small tivoli
ride Drako which had been conveniently moved a few years ago to be just behind where Lost Gravity was installed
(previously this was where their mouse was).







Special treat next up, a Vekoma woody Robin Hood - not many of those about, probably for good reason



Nothing too wrong with the thing I suppose, just nothing too right. Kinda lumbers its way around the course in an all very
unexciting way and then its done. Hmmmm.





Even worse Vekoma-ness would have been next;



But it was down all day, so I was saved!

Instead I carried on around the park a bit, back to where I started and hit up the spaghetti-bowl coaster Xpress: Platform 13.



This had just been 'Xpress' on my previous visit (and had been a 'Superman' back in the Six Flags days) - the 'Platform 13'
business was the addition of a spooky walkthru queue (which I guess might have had actors in it on a busy day) and the station
was an an enclosed affair themed like some train stations (previously had all be open) - in that 'closed' meant you wait
behind some doors that only open when the train is ready for you.

Ride was a bit painful to be honest ; certainly more painful than the similar Disney versions of this model (Rock'n'Roller) I
think.



(some more pics of it later on in the day)

Right I'd missed two coasters out in my initial loop of the park, one I was deliberately waiting to 'savor' later on in the
day and the other one I wasn't particularly looking forward to since it was 'just' a boomerang, but headed over there next ;
Speed of Sound.

Along with Xpress, another re-themed / re-invigorated job this one since my last visit this one had even been SBNO for a fair
few years, which I didn't think boded well for it...

No queue, in fact only about 5 people riding it. This also didn't bode well I thought.



Off we go, and lots of techno-muzak accompanying us we are dragged up into the tunnel-enclosed hill for the usual boomerang
experience.

Only this time I loved it.



Thats not right, I've never felt that way on a boomer.

So much so I stayed on for another ride.



Honestly, thought it was great. Most confusing for me that was!



Ok, time for the main event I guess;



The lovely green intamin machine Goliath of course



One of the best rides out there is this I think, not quite as great as EGF a few days before, but its up there.





Negligible Q ; by the time I've walked around the Q after riding its often straight onto the next train.

So after doing that for quite a while, I need something gentle and have a spin on the big wheel to see if I can get any snaps.



























I like the big wheels.

Couple of things I wanted to ride left, so had a go on the madhouse



and the rapids





mid-afternoon by now, had a quick lap on the train to see if there was any interesting views to be had









so finished off the day with some re-rides of the lovely Lost Gravity and taking a few pics of it as well





Like this bit ; its the quick-queue option where the Q takes you through a bus









and I snuck in another ride on Xpress and the fantastic-er-ang as well to finsh me off.

--

Really nice day here then, not the best park perhaps, but couple of great rides though (and the surprisingly great boomer too)



Still the six flags out front tho' ;-)



Curry in the hotel restaurant and sort my bags out (last night away) before watching the first match in Euro2016 in the hotel
bar - no-one else in the bar seemed to care about it though.

--

Bit of processing...

 

[davidm]

Re: Germany&Netherlands:14/15 parks ...Walibi Holland...

Saturday 11th June

So this is the last day - I had stayed in the same place in Zwolle the night before ; the rough-idea being that there are a few
small parks dotted around here that I could maybe have dropped into on the way here (on the Thursday) and/or today on the way back
to Bremen for my flight home in the afternoon.

Was initially thinking of Hellendorn (+3), but then this topic popped up on CF and my decision was made viewtopic.php?f=3&t=40080

Took a bit longer to get here that I thought it would (lots of country roads) but ended up at Attractiepark Slagharen just
around opening time - was a lot bigger and a lot busier than I expected it to be to be honest. So it was a Saturday but compared
to Walibi the day before the place was heaving!

I was somewhat time-constrained ; figured it was going to take me 2 hours to get to Bremen and I don't like turning up "late"
for flights so figured had about 90 minutes to "do" the park.

Two coasters here ; headed for the junior vekoma Mine Train first because I wanted to spend more time at the other one
and I was soon on it.





Not a lot to say about this really ; dull Harry Potter roller coaster without the theming ; move on.









Headed to the other end of the park (park has a big long left-to-right main street with tat shops and restaurants and the odd
ride on it, at either end of the street is a big-ish themed area or two with the main stuff attached) and soon arrived at the
venerable old, soon to be demolished Schwarzkopf looping-star Thunder Loop.



Small Q and was soon on - yay







World's slowest lift hill though. Really struggling to get up it - suppose that might be why its for the maintenance chopping
block.





After that its real good fun ; obviously a standard model job so ridden a couple of these before but knowing that this one
is on borrowed time made it a bit special I guess?







They enjoyed it anyway







Had a few rides and then set off for a brief explore of the place.



Yeah, don't approve;



Main street thingy, was heading for the big wheel (I like big wheel) but the Q for that was burdenous so that was not happening
given my time-constraint (was about 11 by now)





This thing was nearby though, and no Q so quick trip up that













That looked interesting...







The one themed zone was all Jules Verne-ified ; and not too badly done either







Jaws?



So that interesting thing in the Jules Verne zone was a chair-swing thing, looked really quite impressive so figured I'd have
a go





To be fair it looked better than it rode, which was a bit dull compared to normal wave-swinger affairs since it just went round
in circles rather than up/down like a swinger does. But it did get up a fair speed as you hurtled around so was worth
doing (had to Q for it too!)



Was running a bit late by now (only 10 mins or so), but headed off.

Took ages to get onto the motorways ; the park is seemingly in the middle of a motorway free zone, so it was all burdenous single
lane roads for an hour or so stuck behind slow traffic ; was starting to get a bit concerned about making my flight.



Eventually hit the motorway though - straight through to Bremen now I thought...



Only not. Got to within about 30 miles of Bremen and hit traffic. Lots of traffic. Mostly stationary traffic.

Sat in the traffic, slowly moving forward for about an hour and a half. Was seriously getting a bit concerned now.



Eventually got free of it, topped up the car with petrol and dumped it at the airport. Guy at the check-in reckoned I'd got about
15 mins to spare when I dumped my bag. That was a bit too close for me anyway.

Bremen airport's RyanAir terminal is basically a cheap-shed tacked onto the end of the main buildings, so perhaps it was not such
a bad thing that I didn't get to hang around here too long after all?



But given I was in Bremen, Germany - had just enough time for knock back a swift local beer before the uneventful plane home.