I should start this one all the way back in 2022 when Nemesis closed to the public and the marketing campaign for the ride began with the Phalanx being created and taking over Forbidden Valley.
Alton Towers showed that they know what they’re doing when they put their mind to it. The Smiler Takeover wasn’t that, neither were some of the scare maze decisions last year, but to close the ride and hold an event for it, then keep up the hype train all year with various marketing details and documenting the rides retracking is masterful work.
There wasn’t a single enthusiast in the country that didn’t know what was going on with the ride. Even the general public had a much better idea than you’d expect when a ride is being built and it’s all down to that excellent marketing campaign. The creation of characters, the Phalanx and Nemesis herself were all done justice.
Fast forward to 2024 and the marketing is coming to a close, we know what the new beast will look like, we know what the new story is (to some extent) and excitement for the rides return is at an all time high.
Opening day arrives on the 16th of March 2024 and people are talking about camping out to get as close to the front of the queue as they can. The park opens and 5 hour queues form to get onto the new ride as we’ve all missed it in the last year.
Only 90 minutes when I queued!
I wasn’t in the first 5 hour queue, I got to the area to see what else had been done around Forbidden Valley. I knew that they’d replaced the original Nemesis cannon with a helicopter and I wasn’t that enthusiastic about the change but getting into the area and seeing that first instantly changed my mind. It’s massive!
It’s one of many changes through the area to bring Forbidden Valley and the Phalanx Research facility to life, and in my opinion, make it a world class area now.
The area isn’t just Forbidden Valley and the ride area isn’t just Nemesis, it’s now the Phalanx Research facility and the Nemesis containment area and the little details really sell it. The signage for the containment area is all twisted and bent, as though something large has pulled at the signs and almost attacked them.
Then there’s the station. My god, the station. It’s been overhauled and tidied up, and new effects added. Inside the station platform now resembles the innards of the Nemesis beast, with what looks like ribs and viscera all over the ceiling. The outside looks incredibly smart and the biggest new feature is the eye.
This appears to be a curved screen that loops animations of Nemesis’ eye and it gets angry as the train passes by and vents smoke onto the train. This looks visually impressive and because of the trains design, it pulls the smoke across the top of the station, adding even more to it!
The queue line has been moved around a little and has a large, if unaspiring looking canon built into it that ‘fires’ at the train as it passes by the first corkscrew. I say fires, but it’s just a sound effect and the canon is a little on the plain side compared with other parts of the queue line.
There’s also a container in the queue that belongs to a group of Nemesis sympathisers that want the beast setting free as they feel it should be left to its own devices and they claim the Phalanx are up to no good.
It is heavily implied that the Phalanx are now conducting experiments on the beast and forcing it to lay eggs that can be turned into weapons. What I got from all this is that they’ve lost control and are now panicking and are trying to save themselves from the wrath of Nemesis as well as those that would find out what they’ve been up to!
It’s very sinister and almost feels like it should be part of X Sector. Even the new Forbidden Valley sign feels very X Sector, but I won’t be complaining in the slightest!
As for the ride itself, it is still Nemesis. It does have a little of the iconic roar as it bounds around the layout, it is nice and intense where it used to be and it’s comfortable. The only issue, and it’s a fairly big one, is that the trains seemed to have developed a rather annoying bounce to them. It almost judders around certain parts and I hope this can be rectified in time as it’s about the only negative I can give for the ride!
Otherwise, John Burton has done John Wardley proud, his team have taken what Mr Wardley started 30 years ago and improved on it in almost every way possible in my view. Merlin have shown what they can do and I really hope Alton Towers gets even more of the good stuff in the years to come so they can thoroughly cement themselves as the UK’s premier theme park and a world class destination.
From left to right Me, John Burton, Tracy and John Wardley
So I feel the blog took a massive back seat last year thanks to YouTube and I hope to get back to writing about our exploits more regularly this year! So what better way to start than by having a brief run through of the season ahead.
Starting off, there’s the new additions to the UK, of which there are 4 main attractions to talk about:
Nemesis Reborn at Alton Towers
Hyperia at Thorpe Park
The ‘Intamin Launch and Lift Coaster’ at Drayton Manor
Minifigure Speedway at Legoland
I’ve also listed them in order of preference where Nemsis is my most anticipated addition this year. Hyperia is certainly the more impressive looking machine but I think it’ll be too short to take the top spot from Nemesis this year. I don’t think it’ll even be the best coaster at Thorpe Park as it currently stands!
Then there’s the new coaster at Drayton Manor, the so called ‘lift and launch’ coaster. I do like the idea that this will possible have spinning trains on it and the photos coming out of the new attraction do look good, if a little lacking in height and length so far. I suppose I should also mention Shockwave’s changes too. I don’t think it should be put along side the other 4 as its just a new train, name and some theming, and I really don’t agree with the changes myself but it might be fun!
Finally there’s Minifig Speedway at Legoland. I think this one will be a bit of a sleeper hit to be fair. As it currently stands, I think it’s the one I’m looking forward to least as its competition is just more appealing, but given how Velociraptor manages to be thrilling and quite fun, as well as it being Legoland, it may very well surprise us all!
Then there’s the events we plan to visit this year too. We’ve already booked to go to Oakwood in July as part of the Your Experience Guide event. I couldn’t turn this one down as they hosted the first event we ever went to last year and it’s at Oakwood, a park I’d like to get back to and ride Megafobia and Speed to death.
Love2Explore are also working on events too, as are Attraction Source, so a few more events on the cards with these guys too!
This year, Merlin have decided to scale back their park events, which I think is a bit of a misstep myself. Yeah, sure, Festival of Thrills wasn’t the best last year, but Mardi Gras seemed to do well, same with Carnival at Thorpe Park. I hope this means that the money saved will be invested in making Oktoberfest, Scarefest/Fright Nights and the fireworks the best they can be!
Our European excursions don’t seem to be stopping this year either, with the hopes that we can get to Denmark for Legoland Billund, Lego House, Bakken and Tivoli Gardens. We also have a rough plan in to visit Bellewaerde, Bobbejaanland, Movie Park Germany, Walibi Holland, Hansa Park and Heide Park on a road trip if we can.
We’re also due to visit Efteling and Toverland this month. We’re going for Tracy’s birthday as well as taking a couple of friends along for a sort of honeymoon trip. And yes, Baron 1898 is due to be running this time around so I can’t wait for that! There’s also the fully finished Avalon area at Toverland too.
All of this pales in comparison to the park and attraction that I’m most excited for this year, Europa Park and their newest coaster, Voltron. Europa Park is a park I’ve heard so much about and it’s all good stuff. Voltron looks like they tried to cram as many elements into a coaster and it looks insane because of it!
As part of LoveTwoexplores weekend, on the second day we ended up at Gulliver’s Kingdom in Matlock Bath.
The first thing that strikes you when you approach the park is the terrain the park is built on. It’s essentially a mountainside! There’s definitely been some creative uses of the land throughout the building of this park.
Once we were parked up and got into the park we headed to our first of our two exclusive ride times. The first was on the only roller coaster called The Log Coaster. We only had one go around but it did mean we had more time for the next attraction which was the Riggers Revenge Zip Line.
Now I’ve never done one of these before but I have done similar and the idea is that you’re strapped into a harness and then attached to the rail above allowing what is this essentially free flight around the park. You start off the attraction by climbing a small hill and then you jump off and it swings you around the roof tops and trees before bringing you back into what is essentially a station. For all intense purposes it is a roller coaster though it’s not really classed as such!
By the time we’d had a few goes round on the zip line the park had open to the general public so we headed down to the chairlift for the first of many trips up and down the hillside. This lift takes you from the very bottom of the park to what is the second highest point in the park and onto our first ride up here the Laser Dodgems.
These are exactly as the name implies dodgems with laser guns! Though throughout the whole day the gun scoring systems didn’t work unfortunately. It was still a good laugh as these dodgems seemed faster than the ones yesterday and they had forward and backwards pedals which is unusual!
After a couple of cycles on the laser dodgems we moved on to the Drop Tower attraction. It looks quite small compared to other tower rides in the UK but it does have great views over the park and surrounding area. It’s also quite intense as it doesn’t mess around with the drops. It takes you up then drops you then takes you back up then drops you again and it is quite forceful, a lot of fun as well as being quite comfortable too!
Once we were done with the drop Tower we headed up to the the highest point in the park which is another Western themed area but getting there you get the chance to use something called The Travelator! This is a transport Ride of sorts that takes you up the final little hill to the very top of the park. This only covers about 75 m or so but it’s a unique thing I’ve never seen in a park before!
At the very top is the western themed area as mentioned earlier which includes two rides; a dark ride and the log Flume. We all had a go on the log flume first and like a lot of other rides at the Gulliver’s parks it feels like this should be more to look at but it does make up for it by going through what looks like a purpose-built gorge that does actually look really impressive considering the demographic of the ride! The drop was short and sweet and you didn’t get too wet overall so I’d say this is quite a pleasant little ride!
The next stop was Silver Mine but it didn’t open for about 20 minutes so we ended up having a bit of a break and then queued up for the dark ride. Much like yesterday’s Tombstone Mine this one is set in a Western mine area but this one retains its guns so there are targets to shoot at. Unlike other interactive dark rides in the UK though this one doesn’t keep score, the guns are simply there to activate things as you go around the ride. It was quirky but probably not as exciting as it could have been!
We then spent the rest of the afternoon riding very similar rides to Gulliver’s Valley, such as the Dino Explorer Cars, Crazy Barrels, Carousel and Gully’s Pirate adventure. A couple of standouts were The Cycle Monorail and Gully’s Magic Bikes.
Both of these are pedal powered attractions (of sorts) where the monorails is entirely powered by your peddling and the Magic Bikes raises and lowers depending on how fast you peddle. Great fun, but quite tiring if you’re as out of shape as what I am!
For dinner, we stopped in the parks chippy and had chips, sauce and a drink. The curry sauce was one of the best I’ve ever tasted and the portion size was decent for the price too. Food options were pretty standard across both parks, offering the usual fast food but it was tasty.
The vast majority of the afternoon was spent re-riding the attractions and just enjoying the scenery around the park. We had a look in the toy and puppet museum as well and this was a nice distraction from the rides!
To finish up, I’ll say that Kingdom is a great little park and definitely the more scenic of the two parks we visited but I think I prefer Valley. Purely because it’s newer and therefore it’s a lot tidier to look at. Kingdom seemed in desperate need of a pressure wash here and there and some of the scenery tidying up a little. That’s not to say that Kingdom is bad, far from it, but it would be better than Valley if it had a bit of work done here and there!
The Gullivers family of parks is a group that I wouldn’t normally be able to visit as they have a very strict adult to child ratio which means only adult groups can’t usually go.
However, thanks to Love2explore setting up a little event, 29 of us were allowed to visit as part of a larger group! We jumped at the chance to try something completely new to us and had a great day along the way!
Our first stop was the Gullivers Gears area of the park, which includes Carfari, a tracked car ride, Dodge City, a dodgems, and Grand Prix Racers, which is the biggest rollercoaster at the park. As part of our visit we were allowed 30 minutes with Grand Prix Racers all to ourselves so we cycled it over and over again. Though it’s hardly the most insane coaster we’ve ever had for an exclusive ride time, it was definitely one of the funniest!
The ride itself is a clone of Junior Red Force at Ferrari Land in Portaventura World but not quite as extensively themed. It is a nice, fun ride, if a little jarring on some of the transitions. Nonetheless, we had a right laugh riding it, and Gulliver’s were even happy with us recording on the rides, so we got a lot of footage through various different cameras!
Dodge City was the next stop and we had a great time here too, even if there was only six cars on the track and the track was pretty small!
Car fari came next and this feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity. The ride itself meanders round very short oval shaped course but doesn’t really have anything to look at, however right next to the Gears area there’s a little farm and it feels like it would be better if it went around the farm!
Once we had finished in the Gears area we moved on to the Wriggler. This is your standard wacky worm though when compared to other models, this one is incredibly smooth! You couldn’t fit two adults in each car but that didn’t take away from the fact that we all piled on the train and had a right laugh doing it!
Our final stop before dinner was the Rocking Tug, which is exactly as you would expect, a rocking tug! It does have some nice theming to it but overall it’s just a rocking tug.
Next up was dinner and we ate in the Lilliput Restaurant while a show was playing. The restaurant offered your standard thoroughfare of park food such as burgers and sandwiches and wasn’t too expensive. The only issue was that the digital boards for ordering food didn’t really tell you what was included in the price so Tracy ended up ordering more than she really needed!
After dinner we headed into the Western themed area of the park and had a go on the three attractions there. These were the Rocky Ridge Railway, Apache Falls and Tombstone Mine.
Rocky ridge railway first and unfortunately there’s not really much to talk about. The best part about the ride is arguably the fact that it feels like a wild mouse mixed with a conventional long train coaster as the layout is very back and forth like a wild mouse is. However unlike a wild mouse it’s incredibly slow, but this does make it a perfect fit for a kid’s first roller coaster.
Next up was arguably one of the best rides in the park, Apache Falls. This is a river Rapids ride very similar to the one that Fantasy Island installed last year though this one is a permanent fixture. It didn’t really have much theming to it but unlike the vast majority of other rides it did have some music playing which was nice to hear and added character!
Do be aware though, you will probably get very wet on on this rapids ride despite its deceptive size. The reason being is that Gulliver’s have installed wooden partitions in the trough which catches water and throws it back at the boat so you get a nice showering effect right off the lift hill. It feels very similar to storm surge at Thorpe Park though a lot more thrilling and more interesting!
The final ride in the Western themed area is Tombstone Mine which at one time of day was an interactive dark ride. However the shooting element has since been removed leaving a decent ride but not quite as good as it could be. I think the shooting element would have definitely improved this one, at least for me!
After the Western themed area we headed into the pirate themed area and had to go on the pirate ship and teacups ride which are both as you would expect. The teacups ride, here called Blackbeard’s barrels, is somewhat interesting in the rotates both ways so it will stop halfway through to rotate the other way and you’ll get decent spin in the cars.
The final area of the park is The Lost World and as the name would imply is heavily themed around dinosaurs. This theming extends to the five rides that we had to go on starting with Jurassic Jeeps.
Jurassic Jeeps is another car ride similar to carfari earlier however this one has a lot more things to look at. It’s not quite as good as the one at Paulton’s in my opinion but it’s still a great ride for kids.
Speaking of great rates for kids next up was Paragliders which is a swing ride but unlike most others, this one doesn’t lift and tilt it keeps a level spin which makes it once again perfect for kids.
The next stop was the thing that pretty much everyone was looking forward to, Gyrosaur. This is the most thrilling ride at the park and is a gyro swing ride which means it completely inverts.
Though it’s not quite as thrilling as Cyclonator or Maelstrom it’s still a great addition to the park as it means older kids have got something to go on while the younger kids go on the young rides. As a group of enthusiasts, we thoroughly enjoyed it naturally!
Finally there’s T-Rex Towers and Lost World River Tour which are both water rides of differing thrill level. T-Rex Towers is a fun set of dingy slides where two will race and the third does its own thing but is faster and covered. I had to go on the cover tunnel myself.
The river ride feels like an extension of Jurassic jeeps as both do the same, they traverse a short course surrounded by dinosaurs whether they be static or animatronic and with river rides case there’s a little show scene of dinosaurs playing Walk The Dinosaur by Was Not Was which is a bit of fun.
After we’d all had to go on the right and lost World we headed back to the entrance to have a walk through the final traction monster Manor. This is essentially a ghost house but very kid-friendly. You can tell a lot of effort has been put into this one as there are many scenes to see with plenty of details within. It’s not the scariest attraction but it does have a little bit of character to it and the Facade is quite impressive outside.
Once we’d finished in monster Manor we had a go around the shop and I was surprised to find PIN badges and patches but other than that there wasn’t really much Gulliver’s related merchandise which is a bit of a shame but I can understand it with the park appealing more to kids.
So how did we find it?
Despite the fact that we were all a large group of enthusiasts I felt like I had a really good day. Yes the rides weren’t the most thrilling but we still had a right laugh. It would be nice if Gulliver’s had days where no kids were allowed and groups of adults could come and enjoy the rides for themselves as everyone can enjoy every ride there, which means no one’s left out.
If you do have kids Gulliver’s is definitely worth your time and money, I think Paulton’s Park is still better but that’s because it appeals to a wider audience and has things that really really interest me. However don’t let that take away from the fact that Gulliver’s are still great fun and great value too. As we were part of a large group we ended up getting discounted tickets which came to around about £15 which is incredible value considering how much we got done during the day as well as having exclusive ride times on the roller coaster!
It wasn’t so long I was writing a post about Shockwave, how it was an under appreciated gem of the UK coaster line up and how I adore it, even with its faults.
Now Drayton Manor have announced that Shockwave, in its current stand up form will be no more starting next season and I thought I’d like to say my part on this.
As I mentioned in my other blog, I really do like Shockwave. I like the sensation of riding standing up, I like the noise and the thrills. I think it fit nicely into Adventure Cove, the area they built around it and it looked great with the station refresh.
But converting it to sit-down only will kill it for me! I know the park is going down a family friendly route but top level thrills are part of a family line up, at least in my opinion! The best parks are those that cater to everyone and Drayton Manor had plenty of variety back when Pandemonium was still there.
You had Apocalypse, Shockwave and Pandemonium right at the top of thrills, then Air Race and Maelstrom the next level down. Then there’s Accelerator, The Bounty Pirate Ship, The Rapids, Drunken Barrels, Sherrif Showdown and The Haunting next. Then you have Thomas Land for younger kids (and adults alike).
Now there’s only Shockwave left at the top of the pile and taking away it’s stand-up train will be a big loss to it. I’d be more than happy if it ran two trains, so they can use the same layout but allow younger audiences to ride it, and still offer a top level thrill for those who want that too.
I don’t feel like this is the best decision, but it is decided and we’ll just have to move on without the stand up trains. What I’d love to see though is either Floorless trains, so it remains a unique ride in the UK, or even better, spinning trains.
I’m not entirely sure whether putting spinning trains onto Shockwave will keep it at the 1.2m height restriction the park is going for, but it would definitely be a worthy replacement for the stand up trains in my opinion!
I’ll keep an open mind about what Drayton Manor does with Shockwave but it’s a real shame that it’s going and I hope they can capture at least a small amount of what made the original so special when they change it.
For now at least, Shockwave still stands and will do so until season’s end, so we’ve got until October 27th to enjoy what we’ve got before it is no more!
I’ll be riding the life out of it when we go for the Vikings event later this year and that will be the final farewell from me. Expect a lot of posts about it on that day!
This is also my 100th post and I think it’s somewhat fitting making such a special milestone a blog about such a special coaster!
While we were at Portaventura we obviously had to try the new Intamin built Uncharted ride. This is a collaboration of my favourite ride manufacturer and favourite game franchise so what’s not to love? I’ll be going into everything that we saw and felt so please don’t read on if you don’t want spoilers!
Overall, it was a good ride, the layout was fun and snappy and there were a few surprise elements included in the ride such as the cars rotating and turning to face different directions as the ride progresses.
The experience all starts with the queue as you’ll go through 2 scenes in the show building, one is just an old West saloon looking building, and is very loosely themed to the franchise, at least in my opinion!
The second room is the one you’ll have seen all over social media with the two animatronics of Chloe and Nate. They have a decent likeness to the film renditions of the characters but I’ll assume they couldn’t use full likenesses of any of the characters for whatever reason! It is a bit of shame that they couldn’t use the games character designs but what we have is good enough.
Following the first two rooms, you’ll move into another area that looks like underground catacombs with stalactites and the occasional mist effect. I will say that the queueline did spoil the experience a little bit as we queued outside the building, then batched inside, then batched a 3rd time after the animatronics and all the time your thinking ‘how many more queues are there’!? It is to be expected though as the ride has always had long queues whenever we’ve seen it or passed any board with ride times on. I think we queued for about 2 hours all in.
Once you’re into the station though, the fun begins as you’ll drop your bags off and board the ride vehicles, themed around explorer Jeeps, and then sent off onto the ride!
You’ll see a static scene or two throughout the ride portion but a lot of the story is told through video screens. It feels very Uncharted: Drakes Fortune with the gun fight you’ll see and the helicopter lifting artifacts out towards the end.
There are 5 launches and they are all quite tame compared with other attractions I’ve been on, and some of them barely push the car faster than it already was, but they don’t feel unnecessary in my opinion.
There are a couple of fun elements such as a turntable, a return spike and a fairly sharp drop but other than those, it is quite a tame, but still enjoyable ride. Less of a coaster and more of a dark ride with coaster elements.
I wasn’t going into it with very high expectations as early reviews seemed a bit so so, praising the hardware but criticising the lack of scenery during the ride. I can see why people would think that, but it wasn’t devoid of scenery and there were always things to look at so I’d say it exceeded my expectations!
A very enjoyable ride in my eyes, a little lacking in places and much more enjoyable on a shorter queue, but definitely worth visiting for, especially if you like Uncharted as much as I do!
On our little holiday we spent a grand total of 5 days on Spanish soil, and 2 of those days were spent entirely in the main park, Portaventura World. Our first day consisted of our first ride on Uncharted as well as a good sweep of a the main attractions.
Day 1
We ended up buying Express Passes on the first day which entitled us to quicker access to 10 of the parks bigger attractions. These are:
Shambhala
Dragon Khan
Furius Baco
Stampida
Templo Del Feugo
El Diablo
Tutuki Splash
Silver River Log Flume
Grand Canyon River Rapids
Angkor
We started off on Uncharted, I’ll be writing a dedicated review for the ride as there’s a fair bit to cover, but in a nutshell, it had a very lengthy queue that lead into a very enjoyable ride afterwards.
Next up was Stampida, a Custom Coasters International wooden racing coaster. This one is a bit of a rough ride and in places is goes beyond comfortable but it doesn’t stay uncomfortable for too long leaving a very thrilling, unhinged woodie that’s definitely worth riding!
Our next stop was El Diablo, an Arrow Dynamics hybrid mine train. This is the first Arrow mine train coaster I’ve ever done and it was a good start! Not quite as unhinged as it could have been, but forceful where it needed to be, decently long and it interacted well with the log flume beside it. A great family fun coaster with something for everyone.
Onward to Dragon Khan and Shambhala next as they were the next closest attractions on our express passes. I’ll tackle Dragon Khan first as it’s the older of the two and one I knew little about before coming to Portaventura.
Dragon Khan is a Bolliger and Mabillard sit down steel coaster and a beast at that. It inverts 7 times, has great pacing and is very intense. It feels somewhat similar to Nemesis Inferno in a few ways but obviously not inverted. It makes a tremendous racket as well, as I assume the track spine isn’t filled with sand here!
Dragon Khan is also one of the rides that seems to get the best dispatch times as there was almost always a train on the circuit whenever we were looking at it. A long queue might not take as long as it looks as they really do fly through dispatches. We managed 2 rides during our visit, one was via express pass and the other was a regular wait and it didn’t feel very long at all.
The other coaster in the area is Shambhala and this coaster needs little introduction. Simply put, it doesn’t do much, if anything wrong really. It is incredibly smooth, not so intense that it makes it difficult to ride but not boring either. It truly is a brilliant coaster. The only small thing that could be improved is having restraints for larger people as Tracy couldn’t ride it unfortunately, and we did see a few stockier men having to get off too. Maybe a new car could be added with extra room for the larger folk so everyone can enjoy this immaculate ride!
Something that is also worth mentioning is that Shambhala, Furius Baco and Red Force all feature on board video recording, so you can watch your own run. We bought all 3 as they were a first for us and great fun too! It makes up for the fact I couldn’t record on the rides (I asked 2 different members of staff for permission).
As for the ride experience itself, it is very thrilling, offers some spectacular views over the park and surrounding area and it’s so smooth it feels like it’s skating on glass throughout the whole runtime. It’s a pure joy to ride and it has a bit of character to it, at least that’s what I felt anyway! The water splash is a nice element but it would have been nice if the coaster actually caused it rather than jets in the trough but that’s a very minor thing! I absolutely love Shambhala!
After I’d finished on Shambhala, we went back to the Mediterranean themed area for a ride on Furius Baco. Now I knew a fair bit about this one as it’s in the family of rides I really enjoy, the Intamin Accelerator coasters.
Furius Baco is somewhat similar to Rita at Alton Towers because it emphasizes speed and low twisting track over height. How it differs from Rita is the speed it launches at, around 80 miles an hour, and the single in line twist inversion towards the end of the ride. It’s probably also worth mentioning the fact that this is a wing coaster too.
It differs from the B&M wing coasters as you can cross the ride vehicle to get to the other side, allowing one side loading and unloading. Though this does come with quite a big caveat, the quality of the ride. If you’re in an outermost seat, the ride will be quite rough and ready, but those on the inner most seats won’t fair too much better!
Now I’ll be completely honest and say that I loved everything about this ride. I felt the launch was excellent, the layout was fun and thrilling, especially with the in line twist at the end. Even the roughness of the ride felt like it was designed to be part of the overall experience. It took us until our second ride to fully understand the story behind the ride and for it all to make sense.
The ride is called Furius Baco which translates to Furious Bacchus, where Bacchus is the Greek god of the vine. The story goes that the ride is a sort of experimental device for harvesting grapes and through some mishaps causes the mechanism to catapult riders out into the vineyards. If you like Rita and Stealth, you’ll probably like Baco too.
With all the big coasters done, we changed into wet shoes and put our stuff in a locker before having a go on the water rides, starting with Tutuki Splash.
Tutuki Splash is an Intamin Shoot the Chutes boat ride, in the same vein as Tidal Wave at Thorpe Park, but not quite as tall, but much longer. Where Tidal Wave has a shorter runtime and a huge splash, Tutuki has a longer runtime, 2 drops and a comparatively smaller splash. It’ll still get you quite wet, but not thoroughly! It’s worth mentioning that you’ll have to take any bags on with you too, so make sure valuables are in something water resistant!
The next ride we had a go on was Angkor, which is a somewhat hidden gem. Located at the very back of the park, underneath Shambhala’s hills is a nicely themed Splash Battle ride, Angkor. The ride does feature targets to shoot at but the best part about this ride is the soaking you’ll get from others in other boats. Naturally you’ll want to return the favour, and thus you’ll regularly be seeing two boats going hell for leather on each other as they get close. It’s fun to watch and even more fun to participate in! Short of the log flume, this is probably the wettest you’ll get.
This is assuming you don’t have a large and heavy boat load of people on Silver River Log Flume! We had a full boat and got very wet because of it. The ride has 3 drops of differing heights and is quite a lengthy ride. The station is themed around a lumber mill and has a large waterwheel that seems to rotate using water rather than a motor which is nice to see.
The final water ride we had a go on was Grand Canyon River Rapids and this is a bit tame and a little dull to be honest! It is well themed as it has a lot of nice rockwork around the layout and a couple of waterfalls, but there wasn’t much of a rapid feel to it. It felt very similar to the rides we have over here in the UK. Portaventura has done so well with everything else, I think it’ll be fair to let them off on this one ride! It’s not like it’s terrible or anything, just a bit dull.
After the rapids, we headed back to the hotel to get changed, have dinner and head back into the park for rerides on whatever we could get on. I got another ride on Shambhala as Tracy didn’t have to wait with me having the express pass and we finished off the day by watching the parade and FiestAventura show again.
The Second Day
We had a break after day 1 and did Port Caribe Water Park and Ferrari Land, which left our 3rd full day in Spain as another full day in the main park. The intention with this was to get on the flat rides and attractions that weren’t on the Express pass.
We started off at Serpiente Emplumada or The Feathered Serpent, which is a Schwartzkopf Polyp attraction. These usually have an Octopus theme or something similar but this seems to be themed around a Mayan wrestling with snakes. As for the ride itself, it is more intense than it looks! It gives some really good force but doesn’t disorientate you too much with all the spinning!
After Feathered Serpent, we head up to Hurakan Condor, which is Apocalypse’s bigger brother. That is literally what Condor is, a 5 tower, 350 ft+ drop tower. It even features cameras at the top so you can capture the moment the fear sets in!
There were only 2 towers working throughout our visit which is a bit of a shame as it does mean queue times are longer than they need to be, but we got there as it opened so only queued for about 15 minutes.
Once we’d finished on Condor, we had a go on The Secrets of the Maya, which is a mirror maze. I don’t feel it quite fits the Mexican/Mayan theme so well but it was still a bit of fun to go through, and we finished it quite quickly too. I think we were a bit lucky in the choices we made but we had a laugh doing it anyway!
Templo Del Feugo next and I’d heard mixed things here. Some were saying it was bad and that effects didn’t work all the time, very much like Valhalla actually, while others praised it.
We went in with an open mind, not really expecting much due to the comments I’d heard and it starts off a bit slow. You’re in a room with an archeologist who’s trying to open the temple, he interacts with the crowd and is quite funny, even in Spanish! The room goes dark and the roof lights up with an ominous face, but this doesn’t stop the archeologist from carrying on and taking us into the temple.
Inside the main room, you’ll see a grand set of a waterlogged temple and the archeologist starts jumping from rock to rock to make his way to the temple itself. Once on the main structure, his escape route is cut off, unbeknownst to him. He then opens up the treasure vaults and takes the single largest piece he can find, activating the temple and this is where the fun begins!
The room comes alive with fire effects, splashing water and animatronics moving around. All the time the archeologist is trying to escape but finds he can’t and ends up having to drop down back into the temple to try and put the treasure back when the room is pretty much entirely engulfed in flames. It is truly an awesome site seeing everything working and getting the full experience first time. To finish the show, while your distracted with the flame effects, the floor your standing on will drop ever so slightly and violently at that. This really adds to the immersion and excitement of the attraction. It is most definitely a hidden gem!
After we’d calmed down from all the excitement, we had a go on Yucatan, a Mack Rides Superbob. It is a nicely themed ride and has a decent runtime but doesn’t really do a whole lot, but it is very comfy!
Now we’d finished the Mexico section of the park, we headed around to China to take some photos of Shambhala and Dragon Khan, then moved into SésamoAventura, which is the parks Sesame Street area, primarily aimed at children of course! That didn’t stop us from having a great time here. We tried many of the rides that we felt we could go on such as Magic Fish, Coco Piloto, La Granja de Elmo and Street Mission.
Magic Fish is a similar ride to Hydras Challenge at Legoland, though only has 1 ride mechanism and no interaction with water jets. Coco Piloto is a monorail that travels around the area and gives great views over the park. La Granja de Elmo is a tractor ride but for some reason the on board audio plays Disney tracks? I’m not sure why, or even how they got away with that, but it sort of fits the attraction.
Then there’s Tami Tami, a Vekoma Sit-down coaster. I think the trains look identical to Thorpe Park’s Walking Dead, but the models are apparently different (Walking Dead is an Enigma, where Tami Tami is a Junior Coaster 207m). Maybe they use the same trains? I don’t know.
Anyway as for the ride, it’s a nice little kids coaster in a very nicely themed area. It was once part of the Polynesian area, but was closed for the construction of SésamoAventura where it now resides. It does feel like it should still be in the Polynesian area as it doesn’t really have any resemblance to Sesame Street. It’s a fun ride nonetheless!
Finally there’s Street Mission. The only thing I knew about this was that it has its own separate Express Pass so I expected a long queue for a good ride. We managed two rides during our stay and one was a walk on, the other was a 10 minute queue, so I do wonder why an Express pass is needed here. As for the ride itself, it’s wonderful!
It has a good mix of screens and physical props and sees you shooting cookies on the screens. The idea is that you’re trying to help Grover to find out what happened to the giant cookie that is needed for a street party (as it’s disappeared). There are plenty of scenes to see, and there is extensive use of smell pods in the ride which is the first thing I noticed to be fair!
Then there’s the room where the action happens, and I mean that literally. The car seems to race through Count Dracula’s castle and it feels energetic and fun, helped by the 3D glasses you’re wearing and the motion of the ride vehicle. This is most definitely one of those rides you have to try while here at Portaventura World as it’s one of the better interactive dark rides. It’s not quite as daft as Popcorn Revenge, or as serious as Challenge of Tutankhamun but as a kids ride, it’s perfect!
Our next stop was a ride on the train that takes you around the park, we did the whole trip and got off at SésamoAventura to finish off the area before we headed back around to the Mediterranean area. We were intending to have another ride on Furius Baco but we didn’t think we could get through the queue in time for our reservation at The Iron Horse.
I should explain a bit about eating at Portaventura World. If you stay on site and have a meal plan with the hotel, such as half board like us, then you can book different restaurants to eat at.
The hotel El Paso had a traditional restaurant and a buffet, the latter of which we ate at for most of our meals, because we missed out on booking the other places. You see, you can eat at the hotel or get a €19 spend in the parks restaurants but these need to be booked in advance and as we weren’t as organised with what we were doing and when we were doing it, we ended up only trying 1 park restaurant, The Iron Horse.
All booking is done through a web based app of sorts and is simple to use but does take a little understanding! There are a fair few options though and I hope we can try them out in future visits.
As for The Iron Horse, it was a nicely laid out and themed resting the Old West section of the park, so had a saloon feel to it. Even the staff uniforms were in-keeping with the feel of the place. The food was nice, if a little pricy, but we managed 2 burgers and 2 beers for our tea and only had to pay about €4 on top of our allowance. I don’t think I’d eat there if I was paying full price but with it mostly included in the meal plan, I’m not going to complain here!
One of the final things we ended up doing was watching the Bang Bang West stunt show which was excellent! It’s just around the corner from the Iron Horse and is about a band of outlaws trying to rob a bank.
The show is full of comedy and effects and it felt like we were watching a slapstick cartoon brought to life. Definitely a departure from the more serious tones of Raveleijn horse show (at Efteling, which was also excellent). I highly recommend taking some time out of the day to sit and watch this one, plus the seats are covered so you’re not in direct sunlight!
To round out the day we had a few rerides on Stampida and Tomahawk as well as a night ride on Shambhala making use of the single rider queue and we went off to watch the parade and FiestAventura once more (all in we ended up watching the show 3 times and each time is was just as good as before!)
Summary of Portaventura World
Portaventura World is a truly wonderful park. It has a great range of stellar attractions from Shambhala and Dragon Khan to Street Mission and Tutuki Splash. All the areas are themed wonderfully and even if you’re not a thrill seeker, you’ll be able to find something to do here, whether it’s the more gentle rides, the water rides or the shows (as there are so many shows!)
The park is incredibly pretty and sits in its own plot of land surrounded by mountains on one side and a bit of industry on the other which can spoil the view from the top of Shambhala a little bit, but look passed that and you’ll see the sea and the local towns.
Food is great, though a little pricy in places, the quality is good and it’s very tasty! We didn’t have anything that we thought was subpar, though I do wish we could have had longer to try more things!
The hotel was great if a little dated in places but the rooms were comfy and had plenty of storage, the bed was comfortable too and the shower was excellent, if a little too powerful when turned on to full! (It blew itself right off the wall when we first tried it).
The little web based app they have is good though I’d love to see that integrated into the Portaventura World mobile app, much like Efteling does so you can open your door with your phone and have all your photos and reservations in one place too.
I loved the digipass they offered as it was recently priced at €60 for the duration of our stay (€40 for a single day) and though if have liked to have gotten more photos, that’s not necessarily the parks fault there!
Overall, I was very impressed with Portaventura World, and I’m sure Tracy was too. I feel that we didn’t quite come across as enthusiastically on the accompanying vlog we did, but rest assured, we will be back to a phenomenal park! I can’t wait to see what they do next and I wish them the best of luck. Thanks for such a great time!
Once we’d gotten back from our European road trip, I had the travel bug so almost immediately we started talking about our next visit. We eyed up Legoland Billund, Tivoli Gardens and Liseberg but settled on Portaventura World.
This is the first time we’ve flown to a park and my first experience with Ryanair. I wasn’t expecting a very good experience with Ryanair as I’ve heard of lot of negative things about budget airlines but we found it to be quite straightforward. We paid for additional bags (and priority boarding which comes with those) as I was worried we’d struggle to get everything in both our allowed carry on bags.
Not once were our bags physically checked for size or weight which wouldn’t have mattered as all our baggage was within all the limits. I was told it was very strict but found it to be overstated. Maybe it was just this flight, I’m sure we’ll see in future!
We flew from Leeds Bradford and short of going to a check-in desk unnecessarily, we were straight through security and into duty free. A bit of waiting around later and we’re walking across the tarmac to board the plane and set of for Spain!
Onboard the flight, I found the seats to be quite comfy and had room enough for my legs. It was quite a warm flight as the overhead blowers are fairly asthmatic on any flight I’ve been on but other than that, it was uneventful.
Landing at Reus airport was pleasant and we even got a sneak peak of Portaventura from the runway too. We had a small wait at passport control before following the crowd and finding a lovely gentleman with a board with our name on it! This was about the only thing I even remotely worried about as I wasn’t sure how we’d find our transport to the hotel. He directed us to a travel agency’s booth and they told us the bus number and in so we headed off to board the bus to the hotel!
At the hotel we checked in easily as I’d already done online check-in (which was available up to 5 days before arrival). We got our room keys and a card with a QR code on it and headed to the room to see what it was like.
We were probably the furthest away from reception but fairly close to the pool. The rooms do indeed have air-conditioning, though it isn’t quite as powerful as it is in say Mexico or America but it was serviceable and kept us from melting too much!
While exploring the room, we found a little mould in the bathroom and when we tried the shower it blew the head right off the wall but literally as we’d finished cleaning up the water, the room’s phone rang and it was reception doing a courtesy call to check if everything was ok. We explained about the shower and they couldn’t have been more happy to help!
As the maintenance man didn’t need us there, we had tea in the buffet restaurant before heading into the park for a few hours to see what it was like!
I’ll go through Portaventura as a whole in the next blog as there is so much to see and do. We ended up getting on a few rides on Stampida, Dragon Khan and El Diablo before heading back to the start of the park to watch the parade and end of day show.
We were not expecting quite as big a welcome as the parade and FiestAventura gave us. Standing by the lake, with a tasty cold beer watching the fireworks, the water displays and the floating puppets performing their routines was right up there with something I will never forget. It was magical, and felt special. Efteling levels of special. It set us up for a very special and amazing few days at a fantastic park!
I wanted To write this blog to not only summarise our trip, but also give a bit of advice where I can about travelling around Europe.
The highlights
Thinking about things that stuck out on our trip, I’d have to say that most of Efteling, Rookburgh and the Charles Lindbergh, most of Toverland and The Ride to Happiness as a start. So to make it a bit more fun, I think I’ll go through highlights of anything and everything starting with the coasters.
The Coasters
Fury and Ride to Happiness are the clear standouts here. I was expecting Ride to Happiness to be great but wasn’t expecting as much from Fury but it sure delivered! Anubis was also noteworthy, as was Typhoon and Taron. Kondaa was quite impressive too, Revolution and Psyke Underground were very interesting and Troy is the best wooden coaster I’ve ridden so far!
The Flats
But rollercoasters aren’t just all a park has to offer, there’s the flat rides too. Here, the clear standouts was Talocan. I looked forward to this for a long time before going and it held up all I wanted it to be! I wish the fire had been working on our visit but it didn’t take away from what is a phenomenal ride. Mystery Castle is also a ride that I’ll never forget riding the first time either! Then there’s King Kong at Bobbejaanland, Le Rondes des Canards at Plopsaland and Scorpius at Toverland for how great it looked.
The Dark Rides
Then there’s the great selection of dark rides we had a go on! Popcorn Revenge, Challenge of Tutankhamen, Maus Au Chocolat, Carnival Festival, Droomvluct and the almighty Symbolica! Efteling truly is one of the dark ride capitals of Europe!
The Water Rides
Finally there’s the water rides, though Pulsar and SuperSplash are rollercoasters, I think they stand out more for their water elements. Though the rapids rides we had a go on are definitely memorable, River Quest being the absolute champion of rapids rides! Chiapas is the best log flume we’ve been on, but Flashback and Terra Magna were great too!
As for the park that stood out as the one that impressed me most, it’ll definitely be Toverland. Though Efteling and Phantasialand were the better parks, I felt that Toverland was so well done and we enjoyed everything there was to do at the park so much. I feel Efteling could do with a few more thrill rides personally and that would make it easily top of all parks I’ve visited. For now though, Toverland is up there along with Efteling and Phantasialand, with Walibi Belgium and Plopsaland being tied and Bobbejaanland being slightly behind those two. That’s definitely not to say Bobbejaanland was bad or anything, far from it! It’s better than the vast majority of parks here in the UK! It’s just competition is stiff!
All the hotels we stopped in were not much to write about besides the Loonsche Land Hotel and Charles Lindbergh which were very well done. It is worth noting though, that most of the hotels we stopped in didn’t have tea and coffee making facilities and the beds all seemed to use foam mattresses too. I suppose I should really mention Schwerelos Suite here as the host of this overnight stop went truly above and beyond with how they accommodated us!
Some advice about Europe
I’ll have an accompanying video for you to watch here if you prefer, but I’ll try and go into a bit of detail here as it’s easier to write!
The first piece of advice I’d say is to make sure you plan what you’re doing to within an inch of its life! I had an Excel spreadsheet with all sorts of information on it while we were going through the motions of deciding what parks we were doing, what hotels we were stopping at and our route. We ended up deciding on 6 parks and 9 hotels in total (2 being booked alongside their park tickets). The route we decided on was the most fuel efficient way that I could find as I used Google Maps to decide what was best.
Once we’d gotten our actual hotels and tickets booked, we turned our attention to what we’d need. This includes your V5 for the car, travel insurance, car insurance details (including European cover), passports and such. I’ll make a list at the very bottom to help out with what you might need to make it much easier to plan! It’s also worth noting how you’re getting there. By road you’ll have 2 choices, ferry or Eurotunnel. We opted for the Eurotunnel as it was a lot cheaper, but the ferry might have offers on or be more suitable to you.
Driving in Europe wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be as you are guided straight onto a french motorway as you leave the eurotunnel and it sort of clicks as you go. The first few roundabouts are interesting as cars are coming from the other way and you are used to looking right instead of left.
Having a basic understanding of French/Dutch or German will help you out plenty in France/Belgium/The Netherlands and Germany and it certainly helps if you have allergies or specific needs as we had a little issue with onions. I’m not allergic to them per se but they can seriously upset my stomach and it’s much easier to not eat them at all. We did had a few issues trying to say ‘no onions please’, but it didn’t always come across, which is on us for not knowing how to speak a foreign language!
Obviously the currency is Euros and I took a bank card with me, where Tracy went entirely cash. Either works fine and depending where you’re going depends on what you’ll need. Bobbejaanland for example is entirely cashless so you can convert cash into their own on park currency, but Phantasialand was easier with cash as some of the vendors didn’t take card.
Things you’ll need for driving in Europe
Passport
Travel Insurance
Car Insurance
V5C
High Viz Jacket for each occupant of the vehicle )reachable from within the behicle)
I’ll preface this blog by saying that the only things I knew of Walibi Belgium was that it was a Six Flags park and featured on Roller Coaster Tycoon, a game I grew up playing (and still play to this day), and Kondaa. That was it!
We arrived at the park nice and early as our hotel was only 10 minutes away and even though we arrived at about 9:15, the car park was already starting to fill up.
We got through the gates into the park and had a wander around the shop before joining the mass of people waiting to enter the park proper. We looked around and thought there was a lot of people here and made the executive decision to look into fast passes for the day. Their offers are incredibly reasonable and we paid €50 euros for our speedy passes. This equates to about £43 and it got us onto 18 rides, including Kondaa so I cannot fault the value here!
Our first stop in the park was Loup Garou (Werewolf), the parks Vekoma built wooden coaster. We’ve started each park that has a woodie with that woodie so didn’t break tradition here! Loup Garou is a decent ride with very comfortable seats that are well padded and very roomy too.
The ride experience is good, it’s not the best wooden coaster I’ve ridden, but it’s far, far from the worst! It does rattle about a bit and is somewhat forceful, but felt a bit more rattly than thrilling. Still a good time though, especially as it’s my first Vekoma wooden coaster.
After Loup Garou, we headed towards Vampier (Vampire if you didn’t guess) which is a standard layout Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster (SLC). It is identical to Infusion at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and rides just as well as Infusion. Though I do think Vampire was a little more comfortable than Infusion, maybe it’s the front row or the fact I’d braced myself for a beating but I found it to be decent, especially for an SLC!
Next up was the parks carousel and then onto the next big ride, another Vekoma! This time a mine train coaster called Calamity Mine and this is the same model as Phantasialand’s Colorado Adventure. Though not quite as good as Colorado Adventure, this ride is still great fun and arguably the second best runaway mine train I’ve ever done. It’s nice and smooth and a little tame but this does make it good for people who don’t like too much intensity!
While we were in the area, we had a go on Dalton Terror which is the same ride model as Apocalypse at Drayton Manor once was. It even has 5 towers like Apocalypse, though no standup towers here. It is taller though at 252ft (77m) making it the tallest drop tower we’ve done so far! This was exactly as you’d expect, slow ascent with a thrilling and quite lengthy descent too!
Our next stop in the park was the newest addition, Kondaa. This is an Intamin built coaster and features no inversions but does have a one of a kind non inverting cobra roll. The ride is fairly tall at 168ft and features a lot of whippy transitions and airtime hills. The trains are comfy and the restraints are very open allowing you to feel all the ride has to offer. I thoroughly enjoyed Kondaa, so much so that it had managed to break the top 10 of my all time favourites (at least currently!).
Also in the Kondaa area is a little junior ride called Kondaala and it slowly rotates you upwards and then back down again, it’s very tame and perfectly suited to smaller guests who can’t yet ride Kondaa.
Challenge of Tutankhamen was next up and I hadn’t really looked into this one too so didn’t quite know what to expect. What we did get though was Legolands Laser Raiders on steroids though! The ride system is almost exactly the same, though the rid wish trackless but the guns make the same sounds and the targets are identical. How it differs from Laser Raiders is how it feels more mature and serious I’m it’s presentation. Not only does it look good and work perfectly, but it also takes different routes on subsequent rerides. We managed two during our time here and got a few new scenes on the second ride around. Definitely worth a visit!
After Challenge of Tutankhamen, we stopped off for some dinner in one of the restaurants. We had what was essentially Walibis version of KFC and it was good, if a little pricey. What is nice to see though is the refillable drinks cups they offer. Though not as good as coca cola freestyle, the offer here is that you pay slightly more for your first drink and then can trade the cup back in for a return, making your drink much cheaper. I think it was something like €3.80 euros for a drink and returning The cup got you €1 back. You can of course keep the cup, which is what we ended up doing.
Tiki Waka was our next stop and I was looking forward to this one as it’s a Gerstlauer Bobsled coaster, similar to Cobra at Paultons Park, but a bit longer. This is a very smooth ride, not too thrilling but fun none the less! I love the theme of the area it’s in, the ride itself and the ride vehicles too!
Once we’d had a go on Tiki Waka, we tried Golden River which is a boat ride around the lake, before heading to Flashback for the first of 2 water rides.
I do remember flashback being in Roller Coaster Tycoon 2s version of Six Flags Belgium, so I was looking forward to riding a ride I only knew from the game. I wasn’t disappointed with it at all as it was just good fun all the way around. It features 3 lifts and drops, 1 is done backwards and it has a few lengthy sections in tunnels too. The final drop is quite a thrill too and despite it’s splash, it didn’t really get us that wet!
The same can be said for Pulsar, it looks intimidating and like a thorough drencher but it ended up being very pleasant and didn’t soak us through, which made the ride all the more enjoyable! Pulsar is essentially a shuttle launched water coaster and is the fastest coaster in Belgium! It uses linear induction to push the train backwards and forwards 3 times along it’s length with the final part being a splashdown into a big trough of water. What is quite unique about this ride, is not only the turntable loading system, but also the trough the boat passes through
The turntable means a boat can be on the track and another in the station, once both are ready, the align next to one another and the turntable rotates, taking on into the station and vice versa. As for the water trough, the boat passes through it 3 times when the water level is low and as it’s about to pass the 4th and final time, the trough floods quite quickly and causes the boat to splash down into it, slowing it down too, it’s quite clever and fun to ride!
Now that we’d finished on the water rides, we got dried off (travel towels are a must) and had a go on Spinning Vibe which is a Huss Breakdance, though not quite a full size, full throttle model. I was expecting to be a bit ill with all the spinning but found it to be quite pleasant though maybe a little repetitive by the time our cycle was done.
Pyske Underground was next up and what a ride this is! The station is quite unassuming and very calm, but when the ride starts, there’s a video that plays with some characters trying to initiate the start sequence for the ride. The countdown starts, then speeds through and the train launches into a dark tunnel, a loop, up a spike and back again in reverse. It took us completely by surprise as to how well executed this shuttle loop is!
We then decided to wander over to Fun Pilot and Palis Du Génie, two family rides towards the back of the park. Fun Pilot is a bit bigger Farmyard Flier, it has the same trains and a similar layout, though this is a bit longer. Rides as well as Farmyard Flier though! As for Palis Du Génie, this is another Vekoma Madhouse and though we didn’t quite understand what was going on in the preshow, the madhouse part was well executed rode well.
Further around the park we went until eventually we got to Popcorn Revenge, a trackless interactive dark ride that is probably the most wacky idea in Belgium, if not the whole of Europe!
The ride takes you’re through a lot of screen based sets that are made to look like cinema screens. The idea is that popcorn, that is apparently thrown at screens during terrible films has come to life and is getting it’s revenge so you have to fight your way through the cinema! Now this ride is definitely memorable and incredibly fun too! There’s just something about shooting popcorn versions of Marvel characters and other film icons!
The fun doesn’t just start on the ride though, the queue has plenty of mock posters advertising films such as The Corn of the Rings, Avacorn (Avatar) or Harry Popper. From entering the queueline to leaving via the gift shop, we had a blast on this ride!
Finally we had a go on Cobra which is a Vekoma Boomerang model, and is identical to Wipeout at Pleasurewood Hills. Not much to say here that I didn’t talk about with Wipeout but it was comfortable for the most part and very thrilling, especially backwards!
Once we’d done on Cobra we had a wander back around the park and had a few rerides on attractions we liked the most such as Challenge of Tutankhamen and Popcorn Revenge. We were hoping to have another go on Psyke Underground but it seemed to break down after we’d had a go and didn’t get back running again
The gift shop at the very end was well stocked with plenty of park specific merchandise as well as lots of other stuff such as Funko Pops and things for the kids. It was one of the more expensive parks but as I alluded to in the video log we took, I don’t mind paying more for things when I’ve had a great time and Walibi Belgium was definitely a great time!
I look forward to getting back there to re-ride Kondaa, Psyke Underground and the other coasters and since we’ve gotten back home, planning permission has been sought to build another rollercoaster too so I look forward to that!
With this brings the end to our European Parks. I don’t think there has been a single thing to properly moan about the whole way around all the parks we’ve been to, at least nothing that really matters all that much! I’ll be doing a blog going through highlights of the trip as well as a lot of advice to anyone who wants to do a trip like this for themselves!
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