Theme Park Discussion / European Tour 2012!
- 09-March 12
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Louis! Offline
MezzoMix <3
Oh and SF, it's like a ghost town because it's 7:00pm (half hour after closing) and we are heading towards the back of the park to the hotels (where everyone else is heading to the front) so the areas were pretty empty at this point. -
FredD Offline
Nice to see you Fred operating Draak. Speed up your operation though you had a quite a big queue later in the day lol
I can't help it, it's just the way of working that they teached me. It'd be much better if they put 2 more operators there but yeah... savings... It really bothers me too, you just can't work fast at de Draak. I don't like working there. And he was broken for 1,5 hours at noon, so that's maybe also a reason for the big queue I hope you 2 had a nice day at Plopsa, despite it was one of the busiest days so far and it was really cold. -
Airtime Offline
Haha yea I know Fred. I thought the amount of staff operating each ride was minimal. Obviously to keep costs down. Didn't realise it broken down in the afternoon. Quite a few things broke down. Lewis broke the starflyer. We sat down and his restraint wouldn't lock, everyone elses worked though, so they had to fix that. Then the starflyer was down again as well as the Mack Supersplash. So we had to wait around for that to get our last credit. Didn't realise it was one of your busier days. It was quite busy but thought it still could of been busier lol. The cold was awful though!
Thank you Chorkiel, I'm getting quite good with a blackberry camera
Let's continue:
The view from the top.
In the morning we had access to Bluefire and a few other rides before park opening because we we're hotel guests. So we hit up bluefire a few times. Another surprise of the trip. I wasn't expecting it to be that good! The launch was as good as an hydraulic launch if not better. The top hat was a little bizzare, created quite a bit of hang time. The turn after the loop was great so were the two corkscrews. Finally the inline, that was brilliant, one of my favourite inversions.
Cant really remember what we did next.
Wodan's got great interaction and look greats but that's about it. It's nothing special, it's fun dont get me wrong but GCI's are extremely over hyped if Wodan's supposed to be one of the best. The first drop is awesome and that's about it. I rode it twice in the front as well as a few other places and it was pretty similar in all rows.
The queue's got some great themeing. It's such a shame it was a large indoor section that's basically a tunnel that takes around 30 mins to get through
At one point in the day we searched for some food. I wanted to try something foreign but everything we came across had no pictues so we had no idea what it was because it was in German. So we settled for trying bratwurst. Although we did ask for one Currywurst and one bratwusrt...
We figured out we're a lot of European builders get their inspiration for these sort of churchs
Love the stereotypical architecture in each land.
The Swiss area impressed me the most. The architecture around the bobsleigh is incredable! Even more so to think that whole area was built quite a few years after the coaster.
Backside of France.
The haunted mansion style ride was pretty apart from the random water that seemt to spray at my knee's everytime. Now did this come before Disney's or after? There's nothing between the pair hardly!
That night we had a real big storm hit us. Had a great view on the balacony. I went in the shower then apparently lightening hit the ground around the park or hit something to cause a power cut across the whole resort whilst I was in the shower. So everything went black which was lovely but it was back on in about 5minutes, quite interesting.
We went to the top of our hotel on the 9th floor to the bar for a cocktail. We both had Wodan's that were really nice.
Amazing view to wake upto in the morning!
Pegasus was a fun little coaster.
I love the monorail station in Germany!
Eurosat was amazing! I loved it to bits, a lot better than Wodan. I'm quite a fan of indoor coasters becuase there hard to see where your heading next.
Silverstar looking amazing as well.
The Histrama was interesting, shame it was in German but still understandable. More parks should have one.
We went for another search in the name of food. Whatever Raclete is, it stinks. I tried this:
Not bad but I thought I could make it better, so I turned it British by making it into a sandwhich
Lewis had a currywurst this time.
"Not bad"
Euromir was pretty awesome. Again better than Wodan. The rave music is good. The coaster's slow to pick up pace but once it gets going it's pretty good. It slams into the breaks though!
The rapids soaked us! For once I got wetter than Lewis but thankfully he got assulted by a wave later on in the ride...
Looking European with the dark clothing...
Silverstar dominating the skyline around the entrance.
Whatever the fuck that is, it's cool looking.
That's the end of our Europa section of the trip. It's an amazing park a hell of a lot better than the Disney's I've been to. Mackland<3
We had a 6 hour drive back that night getting to Dunkirk around half 1 at night. Pretty eventful towards the end of the journey trying to stay awake and getting completely confused by a petrol garage...
Plopsaland coming later. -
FredD Offline
Well it wasn't the real big busiest days we're used, but compared with the visitors the days before, you could call it a busy day. It was warm in my workplace I don't like working at the Draak, lucky for me I only have to do him every Thursday in these 2 weeks. Thanks for the pictures of EP, I can't imagine that Wodan is so bad, I'll have to test it myself. If I get there hopefully... -
Louis! Offline
You really have a knack of taking the worst pictures of me and posting them on the internet for everyone to see. -
Airtime Offline
So last day of the trip.
We stayed in an Etap. Enough said. I felt dirty there tbh
We hit Plopsaland that day and wow it was cold! Colder than England's recent weather. We didn't realise the park was right on the edge of a town/village and has a tramline going through the car park...
Always thought it looked like it had a weird entrance. Once your on the main street though it's really nice which I was surpirsed by.
The batflyer was fun even though it had a large queue and small circuit. I really struggled to get into the seats! Made a fool of myself getting both credits on each side.
The park has some really nice themed buildings, just the rest of the park lets it down by it's tackiness caused by the tv shows.
We came across Fred operating Draak, which isn't a bad coaster but I've been on better mack powered.
The castle themed area of the park is good again but seemed really open and sparse kinda ruining the themed buidlings, don't get me wrong though, it's a nice area.
Rollerskater of randomness.
The view over the lake.
Anibus was a great coaster! Another surprise of the trip. The launch really shocked me how quick it accelerates the train in such a small length of track. The rest of the layout isn't too bad, a hell of a lot better than some of the crappy Gerstlauer I've been on (Saw!).
The indoor area (Mayoland?) was really nice, well themed and most importantly warm! We had lunch in the resturant near which was rammed like the rest of the park's resturants. I played it safe and had chicken.
Lew got adventurous and had meatballs.
After that we pretty much had done the whole park by lunch bar the starflyer and last credit, Supersplash.
We waited for the starflyer to open. When Lewis sat and went to lock the restraint it wouldn't lock. After several ride ops came over and talked to us in Flemish, which we can't speak but they didn't realise we were English so we just nodded like fools, they fixed it. I've got a new found love for starflyers. Combining my two favourite things, great views and (somewhat) thrilling rides. It was really cold up there though!
We went to get our last credit just before were going to go home but it was broken, so we had to sit around a few hours waiting for it. We took shelter in one of the other resturants waiting to see the coaster test which took a while.
It opened eventually! So finally we had no obligation to stay after we got our final credit.
It's got a picturesque drop, you don't get wet though thank god!
It's a nice park in places. Some areas really brought it down for me, mainly the back of the park where it's themed to general tv shows that's tacky...
We left the park quite a few hours earlier than we were going to but it was so cold we had enough so went to trying a catch an earlier ferry.
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FredD Offline
Thank you for the nice report and pictures of 'my' park! You were lucky to come to the Draak in the morning, 'cause at noon he broke down. And after that I had quite a big queue. Was nice to see some NE-fellows, unfortunately we couldn't really have a chat because the station doesn't really allow it. Yeah Anubis his launch is very good, I'd say he's better than Blue Fire's launch (but in all the other aspects, BF wins off course). -
FredD Offline
I always thougt plopsaland was a childrens park
Yes, but they are more & more trying to reach teenagers. They want to be a family park so they must also have some things for the older kids. That's why they've build Anubis wich is definitely NOT a children's coaster. Oh and sorry Airtime, for you being a coastercredit hunter, but they're planning to place a new coaster in 2013 for which they have a budget of 7,5 million euro! There were rumors about a B&M hyper but I think that's bullshit, not with that budget. I guess it could be a Intamin Mega-Lite, I hope so. -
Airtime Offline
I'm (reasonably) tall trav
I'd probably rate Anibus and blue fires launch equally both the best I've been. So powerful and they don't let up unlike others (stealth, Rita).
Fred lets hope you get a new coaster. It's never going to a Beamer on 7.5 million. Hope it's something thrilling and fun. I could see them getting a spinner to be honest. Either way it'll still be there in quite a few years when we come back for it. -
Dimi Offline
Nice trip report! 'Rappel' means something like 'reminder'. The sign reminds you that you can drive 110 km/h in case you forgot. If even France looked grim and industrial to you, then how did you like Belgium? -
FredD Offline
Fred lets hope you get a new coaster. It's never going to a Beamer on 7.5 million. Hope it's something thrilling and fun. I could see them getting a spinner to be honest. Either way it'll still be there in quite a few years when we come back for it.
It won't be a spinner, they placed a spinner in their other park in Coo and also Bobbejaanland has build a spinner. And I think there's more to get for 7,5 million.
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