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Last Cred Review

In Paris for a few days and I made it to Jardin d'Acclimatation for the first time and rode my first Soquet coaster!

Speed Rockets was super fun! Rode it like 5 times and loved it. I wish the US could have these Gert Bob things. I'd ridden the 2 big German ones but wasn't expecting the baby one to also be awesome

Souris Mécaniques was kinda dumb but I guess it's meant for kids. Didn't really spin, at all.

Dragon Chinois had been closed when I got to the park but I saw maintenance actively working on it and it did open eventually. The other Soquet never opened so I missed out in it but I was more concerned with Dragon since the park is removing it this year.

Annddd then by chance I found a fair going on in the City and it had a Wacky Worm, so I paid my 4€ to ride it.

Also made a return visit to Disneyland Paris but there was nothing new, new for me but I did do the Ironman overlay for RnRC
 
Double post, y'all.
Yesterday I took the train from France to Luxembourg to try do sightseeing in the city center ....but I found out there was a fun fair going on, so I went and rode rides instead 🤷‍♂️

#1,090 Wild Mouse, surprisingly good spin action

#1,091 Ring Renner, meh, credit.

But also, I got to ride Hangover ❤️

And did some goony BS
 
I rode Sik last week and it it really blew me away. I love the relentless pacing but I think it's the mist-filled tunnels and the near-misses over the heads of the people on the path below that really made it for me.

I'm still thinking about it but this could be as high as #2 in my UK rankings, probably around #5 at the very worst. It's a huge step-up for Flamingo Land both in terms of ride quality and operations (never thought I'd see a single rider queue at FL!).

Sadly the ops haven't improved across the old rides, with the Kumali operators still seemingly unaware of how air gates are supposed to work, and a 1 hour queue for Hero. We still had a great day out though and my daughter got her third cred on Dino Roller, not bad for an 18 month old!
 
Recently back from Denmark and have a few thoughts!

Piraten
Best coaster in the country and more intense than expected. The first turn pulls big Gs for a sustained amount of time. It doesn't tip into discomfort or grey out territory but it goes on for a while. Great start to the ride then the genius of the layout is each leg of hills feels so varied. I went into this thinking it would be a pure airtime machine but there's so much more to it, namely the positive Gs and also the insane laterals and side to side whip on the s-turns. Feels amazing not just being thrown out your seat due to the ejector but also side to side due to the shaping. In the last hour of the day there was no queue and I was able to re-ride on the same train if a row was empty so had a lovely marathon.

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Juvelen
Went into this with high expectations as I've never seen a bad word said about Juvelen and it was everything I wanted it to be. Very Taron-esque due to the layout of turns and transitions and the way it slightly dies before blasting into the second launch. I also like how you can't see much of the ride from the queue or main path so the first time you see the spaghetti bowl of track is after you've already launched into it. Loved the dispatch audio into the show scene too, great coaster.

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Fonix
Loved this but it's a very different experience to Lech. For a short(ish) coaster with so many elements, weird banking and bunny hills it rides a bit clinical. From off ride I think I expected it to rip through that layout with the rawness of an RMC but it's not that type of coaster at all. It's glass smooth and feels more like you're controlling the coaster rather than the coaster controlling you. After a few re-rides I got the feel of it and enjoyed it more each time. The drop provides great airtime and whip in the back and all 3 inversions are great. The stall is unique and feels like time stands still when inverted. Both the rolls are taken at speed and are such a rush. The airtime hills don't do much but in the context of the whole layout I don't think that matters much.

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Polar Explorer
Given my previous experience with Legoland parks is all the kiddie stuff at Windsor I was surprised to see the coaster section on this is actually fabulous. There's two hills with pops of airtimes and the drop and helixes provide some force. The drop sequence felt more effective than previous ones I've done thanks to being synchronised with a large video screen. I assumed this would be a tamer drop but it felt identical to the one on Verbolten, a lovely surprise. My only criticism is the queue and ride area could do with a splash of colour. Everything is a shade of white, black and grey and especially compared to the Lego Movie land next door the coaster is visually bland.

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Ride To Happiness

I Did not expect to be blown away by this ride, but I sure was! From start to finish it relentlessly gave you moments of wow! The theming is great for a small park and staff kept the queues low by quickly loading the trains. Re-rode it 7 times before feeling a bit sick :) Sitting at the rear there were some great pops of airtime. We had been aware of Time Traveller @ SDC for a while but never thought for one minute that it would be this good. We did Kondaa during the same trip and Ride To Happiness was still our favourite!

We left feeling like the UK could really do with something this exciting and really looking forward to what Plopsaland De Panne have in store for the future!
 
Blue Fire 6.5/10

Finally got round to visiting Europa Park and I have to say this coaster was a let down. It's just not that exciting for some reason. Average launch, lacked intensity, lots of similar inversions, only a few airtime moments. The trains are great and it looks the part but yeah I found it a pretty underwhelming experience. Icon is better for sure, but not hugely. Helix is miles above this thing.

Silver Star 9/10 back row 6/10 front row

This coaster blew me away riding in the back row. Three days of 30c+ seemed to do well for this ride - every drop had me lifting out of my seat, and the plunge from the MCBR was pure ejector. It's long, keeps up the speed and had me clapping at the final brakes.
But then after a few back row rides I rode it on the front row and it was juddery, had far less airtime airtime and just seemed to feel sluggish. Definitely a back row coaster - and genuinely stood out as the star for me at Europa Park.

Wodan 8/10

Not what I was expecting tbh. It's imposing and very noisy, and rides with incredible pace. But not much airtime - more off-axis sideways moments. It felt absolutely out of control and was a blast, but it's over so quickly and doesn't do that much except zoom through corners. I wanted more traditional airtime hills, more variation in pace. So yeah 8 for this one - strong but expected a little better (I thought this might have been my new number one).
 
Silver Star 9/10 back row 6/10 front row

This coaster blew me away riding in the back row. Three days of 30c+ seemed to do well for this ride - every drop had me lifting out of my seat, and the plunge from the MCBR was pure ejector. It's long, keeps up the speed and had me clapping at the final brakes.
But then after a few back row rides I rode it on the front row and it was juddery, had far less airtime airtime and just seemed to feel sluggish. Definitely a back row coaster - and genuinely stood out as the star for me at Europa Park.
Interesting thoughts!

I loved Silver Star, but weirdly, I loved the front row just as much as I loved the back, if not more; my front row ride was spectacular, with a sense of speed that wasn’t quite the same on the back and some phenomenal floater airtime as I was pushed over the hills! And to be honest, even the ejector moments that you’d think would be best experienced in the back were still pretty good in the front!

After my front row ride, I initially thought I preferred it in the front row for sure… I then rode in the back and started second guessing myself, because that back row ride was absolutely spectacular! I then decided that I didn’t really have a favourite row on Silver Star; both front and back were spectacular in their own ways!

Could you have gotten a particularly bad train for your front row ride? Or could I have gotten a particularly good one for mine?
 
I rode Fonix today, it was very good. Not as intense as Lech, but great fun and the better coaster. Really good ride for the park I think.

Did make me feel a bit ill after several rerides in a short space of time, but that's probably a function of my age too.
 
I rode Fonix today, it was very good. Not as intense as Lech, but great fun and the better coaster. Really good ride for the park I think.

Did make me feel a bit ill after several rerides in a short space of time, but that's probably a function of my age too.
Yeah, this ride is really unique in a way. I wrote it about three weeks ago and I think one can safely say, this is as smooth as it can get both from the profiling of the transitions as well as the tracking. It's magical smooth. What Vekoma does here is the perfection of designing the forces the rider experiences. It's subtle, but I'd not be surprised if they do some things distinctively different than other manufacturers when it comes to computing the track. Anyway, I agree with what many others said before. After the first lap you may think it could have a bit more bite to it. Still it's a very action-packed and varied layout and that drop has good ejector in the back and some decent g's in the valley. Sure, far from going to the limits, but very fun. My wife loved it from the start while I needed a couple of rerides to fully appreciate it. Unfortunately, the day I rode it, it began to rain heavily after my first few rides. So I did a couple of laps in the pouring rain which, surprisingly, were a lot of fun. Well, at least until I realized I was completely drenched and getting cold...
 
Been on a short Belgium trip - here's my thoughts on each one of the most notable coasters from each park.

Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne
This is really very, very good. Overlooking quite how out-of-place it is in Plopsaland (it's more than a little out of step with their line-up and a fair leap if they're starting to broaden their range), it's a wonderful addition. The theming is well done and the aesthetic is lovely.

In terms of the coaster - Mack have finally gotten something resembling a decent launch, and the layout is very good. Highlights are the climb and level-out after the first launch, the flying-snake-dive thing after the second launch, and the final airtime hills. The jojo-roll out of the station is an abomination, though. The ride experience itself is varied. The forces are decent throughout, and are enhanced by a good spin - sideways, backwards and spinning airtime is divine. This does, however, lead me to the downside - the quality of each individual lap is highly dependent on the amount of spinning. If you get a 'bad' spin, it's genuinely a bit naff, and you can spend the whole lap facing backwards, or possibly worse, forwards. I didn't find it markedly better later in the day, although the front row was better, but it was mostly just based on the spin.

In terms of where it'll shake out in my rankings - let's see. Probably somewhere in the Top 20 (yes, it really is that good), but I don't expect it'll be Top 10 material - it's simply not consistently good enough to knock something out. Perhaps I set my expectations too high based on what I've read from other people, perhaps I got unlucky with the spinning, perhaps I don't value 'lucky good rides' as much, but yeah... not Top 10 material.

Fury - Bobbejaanland
Will keep this one short as it's not hugely interesting - overall this was good. The land/theme/area is decent, and clearly a good step up for the park, and they've done a good job in bringing together a little plaza at the entrance to this, Typhoon and some fountains. The voting system is only marginally effective, as everyone who wants to ride backwards ends up in the voting train, and therefore the majority (I'd wager 1/20) go backwards. Forwards, the ride is good, there are some nice pops of airtime and good twists. Backwards isn't really my cup of tea, but is was good, all things considered. Launches have a good punch, and the weird inverted spikes ride much better than I was expecting. Yeah, solid addition for the park.

Kondaa - Walibi Belgium
Almost opposite to RTH, I went in to this with relatively low expectations. I've heard it's [very] good, but not quite the most insane thing going. We rode first thing in the morning, and towards the mid-afternoon, and this kicked ass on every lap. Consistent, solid airtime, a great layout and sense of speed, smooth as you like (the back row audibly rattled, but didn't feel very much).

I do think some of the twists at the end are a bit unnecessary, and the first half of the non-inverting-cobra-roll isn't particularly good (I liked the second half a lot), but overall I thought this was brilliant. Definite Top 20 stuff.

In comparison to RTH - I think the best rides on RTH were better than the rides on Kondaa, but the average or weak rides on RTH were panned by Kondaa. Kondaa wins it on consistency.

Wakala - Bellewaerde
Chessington should've got one of these instead. I'm sure the B&M will be fab, but this was genuinely fantastic and would be such a good fit. Don't wanna write War & Peace, but it was smooth, had lovely twists and turns, great theming, decent throughput and a nice spike gimmick.

- - -

All in all, Belgium is now home to one heck of a coaster selection across the spectrum. Amazing!
 
Hixee, I think I had similar experiences to you regarding Kondaa and RTH. Kondaa over delivered based on the hype and RTH underdelivered, but was still a great ride. I went into it expecting this and thought RTH just doesn't look like a ride that will blow me away, and it didn't. I also thought on Kondaa that non inverting cobra roll turnaround thing was semi pointless and they could have done something better there, as well as the end elements not really working for me. Even with those flaws the rest of the ride blew me away. I rode it the day after RTH and it made up for the semi disappointment of RTH not being a "top 10 coaster" as many people seem to allude to. RTH is perhaps a top 20 Europe coaster (for me) if it plays its cards right.
 
153. Wakala
First new credit of my 2022 Benelux trip. I adore Pegasé Express at Parc Asterix, so I went into this with decently high expectations. It's not as good as Pegasé since it lacks some of those really intense moments that one has (though the booster wheel lift hill threw me off-guard with how it suddenly sped up), but it was still a very fun family coaster all around. Love the decor and the fact that it has a Single Rider line as well.

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154. Keverbaan
I made sure to make this a morning priority since I've heard this gets long lines, especially now that it's confirmed to be closing. If you've ridden one Zerier Tivoli you've kind of ridden them all, but this was okay for what it was. I'm surprised Bellewaerde is putting that much effort and noise into its send-off since I sort of assumed they'd just let it go away quietly.

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155. Huracan
Might be my favorite coaster in the park just because of its theming and its indoor section being surprisingly intense. The onboard audio was prone to technical issues, though, and it made the dark ride part at the beginning a bit awkward when there wasn't any audio playing.

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156 & 158. Dawson Duel
This was one of my most frustrating times trying to get a pair of coaster credits, not just because the ride's awful capacity meant horrible lines on a somewhat unstable platform high up in the air (my vertigo kicked in several times while waiting for these), but because the blue side kept breaking down, and it took me until the last hour of the day to score that one. As for the two rides themselves, both were alright. Haven't done one of these before, so it was a bit tense riding down an elevated slope with only a seatbelt holding you in.

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157. Boomerang

Another credit that was surprisingly difficult to get, and all for a cookie-cutter Vekoma boomerang. I had to wait until rain started pouring down and the lines cleared out for it. If you've ridden one, you've kind of ridden them all. Only thing I can say as a positive is that I didn't badly bang my jaw on this one like I did on Cobra over at Walibi.

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Urgh Dawson Duel was suuuuuch a burden when we went.

They couldn't keep either side operating for longer than about 15 minutes before it packed up and they dropped to one side ops. Pain in the arse when you're waiting for the second cred.

Apart from the height of the first section, the ride itself is pretty crap too. The best things those Wiegand slides do is those short little drops and dips and this had none of them. It's also all left turns, so the green side will always win.

Finally, the big sloping ramp thing is stupid and a burden, and completely over-engineered for a ride as basic as that.

All in all - stupid ride. :D
 
159. Elliot (Foire du Midi)
So I went to Foire du Midi with the expectation that I was going to ride the spinning wild mouse that I know for a fact was there less than a week prior. However, I showed up at its designated lot, only to find said lot empty. Apparently, both it and the log flume had just packed up and shipped somewhere else, even though the fair wasn't even over yet (it was the last Saturday of the fair's run)! So that was massively disappointing, and it ended my day in Brussels on a sour note.

The only coaster still operating at the fair was this small kiddie coaster that would surely make any copyright lawyer foam at their mouth with how many Disney characters were plastered all over it. I didn't take any pictures of it since I was in such a sour mood at the time that I didn't bother, but I paid a good three euros to ride it, just so I could say I walked away from the fair with at least one new credit at hand. Still wish the spinning mouse was there, though.

160. Schtroumpfeur (Plopsa Coo)
So this probably flew under everyone's radar here, but the coaster previously known as Halvar actually underwent a Smurfs re-theme for 2022. The final result is lacking compared to the concept art you find on RCDB (there's a lot of decor in the concept art that doesn't seem to have materialized in real life), but the station building itself is pretty nice. Since this was using the same single-file trains as Revolution at Bobbejaanland, a coaster I grew increasingly fond of during my visit to the park in the days prior, I was decently excited for this one, but I found it to be pretty underwhelming. The brakes at the end are surprisingly sharp for a coaster that doesn't use more than one train, so that caught me a bit off-guard.

161. Vicky: The Ride (Plopsa Coo)
This was my first encounter with the Gerstlauer spinning coaster, where passengers face inward instead of outward like they do on the Maurer and Mack versions. I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy it, but uninspired name aside, I found it to be a decently smooth and fun ride. How much you spin is heavily dependent on the weight distribution between the two sides, so you can have a balanced ride where the car barely spins at all or an unbalanced ride where the car would spin like crazy. The coaster was only running three cars, so lines were moving rather slowly, but given that it's at a small park in a remote location I could forgive it.

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162. Xpress: Platform 13 (Walibi Holland)
Let me start off by saying that the queue line, including the haunted house-style walkthrough you go through before arriving at the station deck, is sublime. Given the middling theming effort elsewhere in the park, there was a lot of thought put into this one, and that train jumpscare gets me every time. As for the coaster itself, it was far from the roughest Vekoma I've been on, but it still had its jolty moments, particularly during the corkscrew. The launch was decently powerful, but I found that a lot of the layout past the inversions just kind of meandered around without that much excitement. Goes to show the length Disney goes to make Rock n' Rollercoaster a lot better than it has any right to be, for Xpress is kind of its underwhelming cousin in that regard.

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163. Condor (Walibi Holland)
So I've been ranting a lot about how much I hate these goddamn SLCs, but I've also said that I find these to have promising layouts and if they just got new trains then there's a good chance they could be solid rides. Well, Walibi Holland decided to answer my prayers by getting new trains with vest restraints from Vekoma, and I was at least curious to see if Condor, known otherwise as one of the worst of its kind, would be any better with them.

Well... it's better, but I still wouldn't call it good. In fact, it just went from awful to bad, pretty much. The vest restraints spared me from any headbanging, but after a couple of rides on it, I realized that there's more that brings these SLCs down than just the trains. I think the track profiling is the main culprit here, as the train kept jolting its way through every inversion (including a bizarre moment during the sidewinder where the train kept shuffling forward, which wasn't pleasant) and would still shake like mad at every turn. There's still also the problem of the sharp brakes at the end, which the vest restraints did nothing to alleviate. I think these older SLCs are just kind of doomed regardless of what you do to them (outside of a complete Great Nor' Easter-style retracking), but I would still call Condor the best out of the four I've ridden (MP-Express, Vampire, and Limit), if nothing else because I was spared from hurting my ears on it.

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235 -- Wonder Woman Flight of Courage at Magic Mountain

This is the only B+ RMC I've been on while the rest are all in the A+ to A- range. I rode once in the front and once in the back -- the back had some decent ejector on the first drop and a couple of the hills. Front only had mild floater on a few of them. Back was clearly the better seat. No whip on this ride really in any spot. Having said that, my opinion is that this is the clear #4 coaster in the park after Twisted Colossus, X2, and Tatsu. It's smooth and fun, but ultimately not the most memorable if you've ridden a bunch of other RMCs. Also, while the park was much less crowded than usual, the line for this ride didn't seem too long for a first-year ride. It doesn't seem too popular.

Two side notes:
1. X2 was running much rougher than usual. It felt unsafe almost. Sat on the right side of the track, front row, inside seat... which is where I usually sit.
2. Magic Mountain has been getting more love than most Six Flags park with the relatively new Underground area, but I'm curious what the plan for the rest of this park is -- if there is one given the new corporate management. Maybe I'm biased against it since it's my home park, but it has a depressing vibe... food and landscaping aren't great. Locally among the general public, it doesn't have a good reputation, and if they do want to cater to a more family-oriented audience, it has a long, long way to go.
 
Got back from a couple of days at Phantasialand this morning, finally got to experience the #FLYPE of Rookburgh (2 years late, but not too late fortunately). So here's my Fly review.
Sorry, my F.L.Y. review.

I really enjoyed it. Fly is a ton of fun, with a cool layout that feels varied and different. The on ride pre show is neat, if a little odd. The launches are fun. The pops of airtime are cool, and help give you a rest from leaning on the restraints. The second inversion is a real highlight, as is flying through the 'steam'. As a coaster by itself, it's nothing special, but obviously the tight layout and incredibly detailed theming throughout truly enhances it. I also really love the dispatch sequence in the station; perfect level of drama!

I have a couple of negatives though.
One is the restraints. They're a bit uncomfortable, especially towards the end. Maybe the ride just goes on that smidgen too long?
The other is the operations. It was a quiet day, but only seemed to be running two trains. In comparison, Taron was running 4 (and later 3, as it got so quiet). Felt very pedestrian. The baggage lockers are a bit of a faff too, but I appreciate that the system they've got to get them to work is pretty cool.

A more general point I want to discuss though, more related to Rookburgh. Phantasialand have done a terrific job with the theming and styling of the area. I was truly awe-struck by it, and a little bit giddy when I checked into Hotel Charles Lindbergh (I'll talk about that another time). But they've gone very all-in with the 1920s industrial vibe. To the point where some of the area felt a bit......un-theme park-y? There's a lot of 'coal' scattered around the area, which whilst helping set the tone, didn't feel very exciting. Fly's queue features a lot of posters related to worker safety, which I just didn't really get. Again, it transports you into the world and immerses you into the story of the land. But it loses that appeal of fun almost.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVED the area and exploring it. But I wonder if it's quite the right tone for a theme park? I'm really curious how well it's received by the wider audiences...
 
(I'll get to my reviews of the rest of WH's coasters and the coasters at Toverland and Efteling at some point, but since I had already typed out a massive review/rant for this, I thought I'd share it)


(re-review) F.L.Y (Phantasialand)
Back when I visited Phantasialand in 2021 and had my one and only ride on F.L.Y., I said that I was unable to form a complete opinion on it because said ride was impacted by multiple factors, including a sense of nausea I felt that may not have been the ride's fault. During my 2022 trip, I made a very last-minute decision to return to Phantasialand, traveling all the way from Kaatsheuvel down to Brühl and back in one day. This wasn't the smartest decision, especially since I had stayed in Venlo the weekend prior (and used that to go to Movie Park Germany) that would've been a much better spot to travel to Cologne from, but I hadn't realized until after I left Venlo that traveling to Phantasialand and back in one day was possible.

Due to a few complications, I wasn't able to arrive at Phantasialand in time for its 10 A.M opening, but an 11 A.M arrival was at least better than I feared. Since it was the last Monday in August, I was hoping the park would be less crowded than it turned out to be (Movie Park was relatively sparse the Friday prior, although garbage operations on Star Trek still made that line absurdly long), but it was still the least crowded I've been able to experience the park. It was a big shame that the single rider lines had all been replaced by the Quick Pass, which itself had become more restrictive than before—River Quest wasn't even on it, but Talocan was! RQ always gets atrocious lines unless the weather is piss poor, and I've never seen Talocan with more than a ten-minute wait, so why does the latter get priority over the former?! Really bizarre decision on the park's end. At least Taron being on the Quick Pass now meant I could skip waiting for re-rides on it later in the day, even if it was exclusive to the more expensive option.

Before I talk about F.L.Y, I also want to mention the messy way Phantasialand seems to deal with its waiting times, at least for the day I was there. Several rides advertised far higher waits than they actually had. Taron's hour-long wait at noon turned out to be fairly accurate (I waited 55 minutes), but for some reason, Raik was advertising a 45-minute wait when that didn't seem plausible at all looking at the empty queue line. I decided to investigate this, and I found out it was a damn near walk-on! The same was true of Black Mamba a bit later on, as it advertised a 35-minute wait when, in reality (and I timed this), I waited three minutes for it!

My theory as to why it was like this is that the queue boards for both rides probably broke at some point, and so the staff decided to put a physical sign at the ride's entrance with what I guess was an assumption as to how long the queue was expected to get. The problem is that the park's app then stated a 45/35-minute wait for both coasters all day, even though this was never the case. I assume both stated wait times scared people away from riding them, meaning they were instead running close to empty for most of the day.

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Anyway, back to F.L.Y. When I arrived at the park, neither it nor Chiapas had opened yet due to technical issues. Instead of heading straight to Taron, I decided to go into Rookburgh and ask the staff stationed at the entrance if F.L.Y. was expected to open at all today. The staff told me they were trying to get it open, but they had yet to figure out what the issue was. At that point, I discovered on the app that Chiapas was up and running (to my relief, since that's my favorite ride of all time and I didn't want to miss out on it either), so I went over there and had my first ride of the day on it. After then riding Taron, Raik, and Colorado Adventure in that order, I looked at the app at about 12:45 P.M and discovered that F.L.Y was finally up and running. I can't remember the last time I made such a mad dash to get to a ride's queue line, as I sprinted straight from Colorado Adventure all the way over the Rookburgh in maybe three minutes. I knew instinctively that F.L.Y was going to get a horrendous line (the app was already advertising a 40-minute wait), and if I wasn't fast enough, I might've gotten stuck in a line that could take up a lot of the limited time I had at the park. In the end, I only had to wait 25 minutes in total, which was at least a bit of a relief.

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While in the queue, I realized that F.L.Y is a very difficult coaster to even attempt to marathon. I don't mean in the sense that the ride isn't re-ridable, but that the whole process is such a hassle that you would tap out just because you wouldn't want to do it again constantly.

For one, the queue is crazy long in terms of physical length. Taron at least lets you skip what I call the "Cattle Pen of Death" if the line's short enough, but since no such skip exists on F.L.Y. it's an exercise in and of itself just to get through it. The mandatory lockers are themselves a hassle to work with, and getting the wristband around my wrist was more difficult than it may appear at first glance. The security checkpoint where only riders with a certain colored wristband were allowed to go through at a time (I had a blue wristband, while others appeared to have a green(?) one) also slowed things down a bit. It's a lot of extra effort just to get on a coaster—I understand why it's done like this, but I feel like there are areas where it could be improved—and even if the park was dead like Hansa-Park was back when I visited in late June, I'd still be discouraged from doing multiple rides in a row. I could stomach the hassle for Kärnan, despite its multiple pre-shows and low capacity, but F.L.Y. would've pushed me to my limit.

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Speaking of capacity, F.L.Y. seemed to be running at a less than ideal number of trains, as there was always a large gap between one train leaving the boarding platform and the next one arriving. I assume the technical issues earlier were the cause of this, and it led to the coaster having atrocious waits for the rest of the day (at one point exceeding 105 minutes on the app, though I never checked to confirm that). I knew already then and there that this was going to be the only ride I was going to get on it, so I needed to make the most of it.

The restraints themselves did tighten a bit around my chest, but other than that they were relatively simple to get in and out of for a flying coaster. I need to re-iterate the praise I made last year of how boarding the train while the track is on its side and the train then shifting to a flying position while the ride is already in motion was a brilliant design move on Vekoma's part, for it allowed the train to enter and leave the boarding platform just as fast as a regular coaster train would. None of that extra faff you'd find on a B&M flyer is to be found here.

Since my memory of the dark ride section was foggy at best and no POVs of it exist online (still don't know what stops the park from just releasing a POV of their own and thus making people's attempts to sneak a camera onboard redundant), seeing it again felt like a brand new experience to me. It is a bit sparse and doesn't really offer any additional story to the ride, but the effects that were on display were fairly neat, and hearing the dispatch theme really got me pumped up for the ride ahead.

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Going into the first launch, I was for some reason dreading that it was going to be really forceful (an Intamin/Gerstlauer-style launch while in a flying position would've been really uncomfortable), but it was fairly gentle. Swooping into the first turnaround, however, I realized perhaps why I got so nauseous last time—the ride is really disorienting. Most of the time, you're either staring straight down at the ground or up in the sky, and any attempts to tilt your head up and look straight ahead are blocked either by the car right ahead or the theming surrounding the coaster. It's thus nearly impossible to tell where you're going, or what forces you're about to experience. Most coasters allow you to see ahead and anticipate whatever comes next, but F.L.Y. gives you no such opportunity, and so you get thrown around a lot with no way to prepare for it.

Luckily, I avoided getting sick this time around, probably because it wasn't my first coaster of the trip unlike last time and so my body was a lot more accustomed to forces I don't normally experience. That allowed me to enjoy the ride a lot more. It's also a really long ride, and you feel its length before you even hit the second launch. The second launch was so gradual I barely noticed it, unlike Taron's which is really aggressive, even as you enter it with a lot of speed already accumulated. The two corkscrews do have a surprising amount of whip to them, but other than that it was fairly smooth from beginning to end.

That said, I'm still not sure if I can form a complete opinion on F.L.Y., because I again only got one ride on it. There's so much to it, both as a coaster and as an experience, that even two rides a year apart from one another don't really do it justice. It made me want to visit Phantasialand at a time of year quiet enough where I could have multiple rides on it without much stress. After experiencing both Hansa and Heide on quiet days earlier this summer, I really want to experience Phantasialand the same way, especially since it's a park I've had its share of frustrations with in the past and the present, even as I do think it's still one of the best parks in Europe. Walk-ons on the likes of Taron, Winjas, and River Quest would be sublime to experience as well, and it's something I'm definitely looking into for a future trip.

What I can say right now though is that I think it's a good ride. With more rides on it, I could potentially call it great, but I'm sticking with "good" for now. There are still things to it I appreciate more than I actually enjoy, and with the lack of POVs available, my memory of the experience is bound to fade once more. I do think it's one of the most ambitious rollercoasters built in recent decades, though, and much like Kärnan, I can adore it on that level. Unlike Kärnan, though (which remains firmly in my top three of all time), the experience on F.L.Y. itself still keeps it out of being top-tier for me. Maybe in a few years, that could change—or the ride could become rattly, for all I know. Here's hoping Phantasialand works past the various issues it seems to constantly have and takes good care of it. Knowing that Taron still runs fairly well (albeit not as smooth as when it first opened), I have high hopes.
 
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