loops and lapbars

Phantasialand – The first visit

19th Jun 202310th Aug 2023 Loops&Lapbars

Phantasialand was the park I was looking forward to the most out of all the parks we’d lined up to visit. I’ve heard rave reviews for Taron and F.L.Y. as well as the Rookburgh and Klugheim themed areas, so I was quite excited! Coupled with he fact we were staying in site at the Charles Lindbergh Hotel and were there 2 days, it all lined up to be one of the best park visits I’ve ever done.

We set off from our accommodation with plenty of time to spare but soon hit all the traffic going into Phantasialand and this lost a good 45 minutes, something I’ve never seen at any other park we’ve been to. Even at Thorpe Park, Alton Towers and Chessington, we’ve never been late for a rope drop but there was nothing I could do so we waited in the traffic and eventually got to the car park across the road from the hotel.

This was pleasant at least as we didn’t have to wait in more traffic to get to the main car park, so I’m thankful for that! Once we were parked up, we grabbed our park bags and headed into the hotel to check in as we needed our park tickets. We checked in online and this went through incredibly smoothly and we were in Rookburgh in no time. I’ll review the Charles Lindbergh in a separate blog (same with the Loonsche Land Hotel from Efteling).

Rookburgh really did blow us both away with how beautiful and heavily themed the area was. Nothing look like it was out of place, even down to the details of all the coal bunkers below the area that were filled with props and real stones made to look like coal (at least that’s what I think but I could be wrong).

F.L.Y. was doing circuits above us and since we had been to the hotel first, we got our fast pass tickets for F.L.Y. so we headed there first.

The boarding process is very unique, at least to us, as you have to remove everything from your pockets and take glasses off for the ride. Even this was themed to fit in with the ride which was good to see.

The boarding process is simple and the station is very pretty too. I won’t spoil the ride in any way as I found it fascinating seeing how it worked and the different approach Vekoma has taken to making a new generation flying coaster.

As for the ride experience itself, it was great, but not amazing, purely because of the restraints. Where Galactica has big bulky restraints that are actually quite comfortable and hold you in place nicely, F.L.Y. has opted for a minimalist design, and this is probably the only issue the ride has. When we first rode it, we found the leg parts to be quite uncomfortable and have left Tracy with bruises. We did ride it again on our second day and tried different seating positions but any difference was marginal.

It’s such a shame as the ride looks amazing and rides very well, if a little tame compared with other large rides. I’d say it was about as thrilling as Galactica is, and Galactica spends more time on it’s back than F.L.Y. does, but overall F.L.Y. is much better!

After we left Rookburgh, we headed into the next part of the park, Berlin. This is themed around Berlin from the 1920s and is very pretty too. It has a few calm rides and quite a beautiful and imposing looking Carousel.

We didn’t spend much time here as we were quite hungry and headed off in search of something to eat. Our search literally took us all over the park which helped with orientation too! Though while we were looking for something to eat, we found the entrance to Talocan and I insisted we have a go.

Talocan is the bucket list flat ride for me so I had to have a go! Tracy wasn’t looking forward to it in the slightest, but I knew I was! Talocan is a very heavily themed Huss Top Spin and looks absolutely stunning, and I rarely use that to describe things!

The ride itself was everything I had hoped for, as it was very intense but didn’t make me feel ill at all. Tracy hated it as it’s really not her idea of fun as it goes upside down a lot! I’ve looked forward to this one for a while and I’d readied myself for it to be a bit of a let down as I’d overhyped myself for it, but it stood up to all I hoped it would be, definitely the best flat ride I’ve ever been on!

After Talocan, we continued our search for food and ended up in the Mexican area at La Cantina Tacana for burritos and these were incredibly tasty! Definitely the best burrito I’ve ever had and it wasn’t too expensive either at €15 (around £12.80) for a burrito, nachos on the side, 300ml drink and 3 dips.

After we’d had some dinner, we had a slow wander around to let dinner settle a bit before heading into the ghost train, here it’s called Geister Rikscha. This is another omnimover/Endless Transit System and goes through a lot of Chinese mythological scenes.

The ride system is good and it’s quite long too, but the animatronics and scenes you go passed are looking very tired and could do with a good overhaul. I’d still say it’s worth riding as we walked straight on, but its not worth losing time queung for in its current form unfortunately!

Feng Ju palace was next as this was another gentle ride and as it turns out, is another Vekoma Madhouse attraction. This is another ride that looks a bit older and definitely feels it! The preshow was decent but very cheesy. Almost like watching mortal Kombat, but with 80s technology! The ride part didn’t fare much better either as it also looks a bit tired too. I hope these two attractions get a bit of attention or replaced in the near future as they’re about the only rides we found that didn’t have the same quality or appeal as the others around the park.

Next up was Colorado Adventure, a Vekoma Mine Train coaster. This will be my first ever proper mine train as all the other I’ve ever ridden are powered coasters like Runaway Mine Train at Alton Towers.

We both enjoyed this coaster with Tracy going as far as to say it was better than Big Thunder Mountain, though I can’t comment on that! It was certainly the best mine train I’ve ever done as it was a really long ride and thrilling in places too! I wish it were a little more unhinged and savage in places but it was perfectly fine as it is. It interacts with itself plenty of times, as well as with Chiapas too.

Our next visit was Mystery Castle as the queue was short and we had no idea what the ride was like. I was expecting something like Feng Ju palace or the ghost train but was pleased to find a ride I had actually heard about, though a very long time ago!

This is a drop tower ride that is entirely enclosed and unlike any other drop tower I’ve ridden (besides Apocalypse) as it features multiple towers. The ride can seat 48 people all in.

Once we’d got ourselves sat down and our restraints were checked, the ride begins and it starts off very slow. There’s a sudden jerk as the gondola is taken up about 10 feet, before it’s catapulted into the air and left to freefall back down. The ride then slowly returns to the start and I felt myself asking the question, is that it? The answer came very swiftly as we were hurled skyward once more and this time it’s right to the top of the tower where a little show plays out as you’re held near the roof before being dropped back down to the floor once again.

All this is done on near darkness with only the odd strobe effect lighting things up and I would go as far as to say this is the best drop tower ride I’ve ever ridden. It was excellent, comfortable and thrilling whilst being pleasant and an absolute joy to ride. Definitely worth a visit for this attraction alone! I’d say it was my favourite flat ride if it wasn’t for Talocan!

Taron was next on the agenda and we knew the queue would be lengthy so we headed into the queue for about an hour wait. We both knew it would be worth the wait so didn’t mind much at all. The queue did keep moving so it wasn’t too bad.

As for the ride itself, I remember getting off and thinking it was excellent but missing something, and I think that was partially my fault as I think I’d overhyped it in my head. The launches were great, especially the second one in the deepest part of the ride, the trench reverberates sound and the train make a right noise as it flies through.

The whole ride was very comfortable, the trains were very open and roomy and the lap bar restraints kept you planted but not stapled in. It was smooth as glass and even managed to have 2 transitions that will wake you up as they are very jarring without being rough though!

We did 2 rides on Taron over the two days we were there and the second ride was much better. Expections were lowered a little and it now sits very comfortably as a highly rated coaster, if not quite as high as I would have liked! It currently sits at number 5 on my list but it is more likely number 4 as it really does fight with The Smiler as to which I prefer! Loved it much more after the second ride so maybe more rides will increase this?

After Taron we headed over to the Africa section of the park and had a go on Deep Into Africa, which is a very lengthy walkthrough/climbing frame designed for all ages. There were great interactions with Black Mamba, and the attraction had water features, stepping stones, rope bridges, climbing frames that were very tight, and finished off with a slide back out of the attraction.

On paper it wasn’t much to write home about, but having done it, both of us had a right laugh and enjoyed it. It was simple but effective and I wish I’d taken more time in the attraction as it gives some phenomenal views of Black Mamba!

Speaking of Black Mamba, this was our next ride. This is the parks B&M inverted coaster and is quite similar to Nemesis. Not only is it the same model, but it looks to have been built to the same specifications as Nemesis in that it’s all very low to the ground and claustrophobic too. Just like Nemesis though it packs a punch, and rides very well. I’d even say it rides better than what Nemesis did and I’ve gone as far as to say it’s number 7 in my overall rankings, just behind Taron and Stealth!

It would be very easy to miss Black Mamba as it’s quite hidden away, only the lift hill and loop are easy to spot and the entrance is very subtle too, but make sure to head to this and give it a go as it’s another excellent coaster!

At this time in the first day we were starting to wind down and had 1 more attraction left in us which was Maus Au Chocolat. This is in the 1920s Berlin area and going into it, we had absolutely no idea what the attraction was about. The queue line takes you through a bakery’s stores and then through its production line a little bit before showing you a video giving some story to the ride.

Keen eyed riders will pickup exactly what’s coming, and I hoped I was right in thinking it would be an interactive dark ride, and sure enough as we got to the station, we found vehicles equipped with guns!

What we didn’t expect was how charming and brilliant the ride would be. Though it’s all screen based and requires the use of 3D glasses, the experience is excellent. The premise is that you’ve been brought in to help with a rodent infestation but can’t use traditional methods incase it contaminates the baked goods so a new method is needed.

This is where the weird shaped guns come into play as they’re shaped to look like icing bags and the idea is that you’re using icing to fight the mice, I think I recalled saying let’s ice some mice and maybe that should be the tagline!

Though this is all screen based, it doesn’t take away from it in my opinion. It does make it feel less of a ride and more of a video game but that’s fine by me! In-between the screens, there are some nice scenes and set pieces that make it feel more like a ride again, and the queue line is well themed too. Arguably the best shooting ride I’ve ever done but easily missed as its front fascia blend sin so well!

Once we’d finished with Maus Au Chocolat, we had a wander around the gift shop to see what merchandise was like. I’d heard that it wasn’t that great at Phantasialand but we did decently well here. There are the usual T Shirts and such but there was loads of different kitchen things with the Maus Au Chocolat logo on it and plenty of different things themed to the parks dragons (I’ll touch on this later). The merchandise for F.L.Y was very lacking though, especially considering the amount of effort put into making the ride as special as what it is!

After the gift shop we headed back into Rookburgh to check into the Charles Lindbergh, I’ll go though the hotel on a separate blog so look out for that one!

The next morning we were up bright and early for breakfast and into the park for about 9am. We had a little to wait at the Rookburgh gates but eventually we got in and headed to Wellenflug (a Wave Swinger) in the central square. This is a very pretty ride as it has a ring of fountains that surround it and follow the wave motion of the ride, it’s very pretty and well decorated.

Maus Au Chocolat was next as we had a lot fo fun on it the previous evening (even with the hot and lengthy queue), and next up was the Fantasy area and Wuze Town. In Wuze Town you’ll find the Winjas twins and a few flat rides designed for kids, but it’s all indoors and therefore covered from the weather.

Our first stop was the Winjas twins, Fear and Force. I don’t recall which one was which however we found the one you board on the left of the station to be the slightly better one of the two, but not by much. Other than a couple of surprise elements at the very end of the ride, both coasters mirror each other and they are pretty decent. They’re Maurer Spinning coasters, though they don’t spin too much. Apparently the ride controls how much spinning each car gets, but I’ve only read that so I’m not sure if it does or not!

You have to take your bags on these and it can be a bit of a squeeze, especially if you bring as much stuff to parks as what I do, but it was comfortable enough and both are fun, if a little tame.

While we were here we had a go on Tittle Tattle Tree as it was a walk on. This is a tower ride and gives nice views around the Wuze Town area before we headed outside for a go on Crazy Bats.

This was something I was quite looking forward to as it’s an indoor coaster that has VR headsets, something I missed out on on Galactica. I was fully expecting to be ill after the ride though as I’ve done VR before and so long as I’m stationary, I don’t have a problem with it but rapid movement can cause me to feel woozy.

None of that here though! Even though there is a lot of action on the screen and you do move around a lot, it synched up that well with what the coaster was doing that it felt almost natural. I was very impressed with the whole thing! Tracy however, managed halfway up the lift hill before taking hers off!

I’d definitely ride this one again even if the ride itself was very tame and offered very little for those who don’t want to use the VR headsets.

Back outside and straight onto Würmling Express which is a pleasant monorail ride that takes your around the fantasy area of the park and borders the lake. A nice and smooth ride with good views over the area.

After we’d finished in the Fantasy area, we headed back into the gift shop to see if anything had changed and to be fair to Phantasialand, they had stocked the shelves and put out different sizes of the T-shirts on offer which meant I bought even more!

The rest of the day was spent doing rerides and generally wandering around the park, but we did get on Raik, River Quest and Chiapas towards the end of the day.

Raik is a bigger, meaner version of Accelerator or Velociraptor and it does give some impressive forces for the ride type it is. The station is well themed too and the trains were comfy. We both thoroughly enjoyed Raik!

As for thoroughly enjoying rides, River Quest and Chiapas were next and these two are, in my opinion, the current top rides of their type as they are both excellent!

River Quest first, and I’d love to tell you all about it but there are elements that need to confronted on your own so as not to spoil the ride! Needless to say, there is a sizable drop that you can see from the path and it has a lot more in store for you that that! Do be aware though that you will get very wet on both River Quest and Chiapas.

As for Chiapas, this was my favourite of the two water rides, and I think I’d go as far as to say it’s my favourite water ride overall. There is plenty to see and the ride is fairly lengthy, has 3 hills and a decent section of the ride is spent going backwards!

It also has a very intimidating final drop that you can see from almost anywhere in the Mexican area if the park. This drop reaches 53 degrees, the steepest of any log flume in the world and it drops 66ft (20 meters).

There are plenty of scenes set around the ride and it interacts nicely with Colorado Adventure as mentioned earlier. You will get wet on this one as there are parts of the ride that drop water onto you and it’s probably fair to say that the final drop got you the least wet!

After we’d gotten dried and sorted, we finished up the last few things we wanted to do before heading to the car to close out Phantasialand.

If you’ve seen my vlog of our visit, I might come across as a bit underwhelmed by Phantasialand or negative about the park but I can assure you that the park was excellent throughout! There are a few nit picks that I have, such as how incredibly busy it was on the first day, a Friday too, and how traffic was managed on when we arrived.

These small issues were quickly forgotten about though as we made our way through the park and experienced the attractions on offer. The other thing that’s worth noting, as I mentioned earlier was the parks dragons. In the gift shop, they sell a lot of merchandise relating to the dragons of the park. Each area has one relating to it, but I don’t remember seeing anything of them in the park besides the merchandise in the shop. I thought this was a bit of a weird design choice and I’d like to know more about them and what they are all about!

To close out this blog I’ll finish up by saying the park looks beautiful throughout, it has some standout attractions of various types, such as B&M inverted coasters (Black Mamba) and Intamin Log flumes (Chiapas). There wasn’t much of a language barrier either as everyone was multilingual and the park offers signage and leaflets in 4 different languages too.

I don’t think Phantasialand was quite as good as Efteling but it was certainly a close second here. I did prefer the rides at Phantasialand though! Can’t wait to get back and see what the come up with next to follow Taron and F.L.Y!

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Toverland – First visit

14th Jun 2023 Loops&Lapbars

Toverland is excellent.

I could leave it there, but I’m going to elaborate, in detail, why Toverland is excellent.

Our day started at Troy and though it was delayed a little in opening, we eventually got into the queue line and already there’s things to point out. Firstly the queue line is tidy and looked after, but also very pleasant to look at. Though there isn’t much in the way of theming besides some stakes and such, the way the queue is separated using water for parts of it looks great!

Then there’s the ride itself. This is one of the taller wooden coasters in Europe, standing around 8th at the time of writing, at a height of 104.5ft (31.9 meters), dropping near enough 100 ft (30.7 meters) and reaching speeds of 54 mph (86.8km/h) over its 3534ft (1077.2 meter) length. It passes through the station (above and behind as the second train loads) and makes a phenomenal noise as it does so.

The ride is just rough enough to be enjoyable but not too smooth to make it bland and it does have at least 2 jarring transitions that really make it feel like it has a bit of a mind of its own and I love it all the more for that. Troy is a fantastic coaster with plenty to love.

The station is very basic and not much to write about and leads out into the gift shop where there are plenty of themed merchandise on offer, as well as ride photos.

Our next stop was Skorpius, a pirate thip themed to a Trojan ship and it looks good. After that was Paarden Van Ithaka, a horse ride very similar to Sleipnier at Drayton Manor, only this is themed around Greece and Ithaca. Both rides were good fun and did their jobs as intended.

After we’d finished on Paarden Van Ithaka, we wandered around for a bit, looking in the indoor section of the park and a few of the restaurants before heading to Dwervelwind, the parks Mack Spinning Coaster.

Dwervelwind is a lovely little ride, very smooth and just intense enough without being over bearing for the height restriction is requires. The ride features on board audio and it syncs up nicely with the lift hill and first drop, a lovely little addition. I feel it wasn’t quite as good as Storm Chaser at Paultons Park, but it was still better than a lot of junior coasters we have, at least in my opinion! The station was a nice place to be too.

Next up we headed into Avalon to be greated with one of the better views in any park I’ve ever been to. As you walk in, you’ll see the lake that sits nicely in the middle of the area, with Merlin’s Quest, a boat ride sailing around it. There’s construction work going on at the very back of the area as they build a tower ride that adds to sight line. Finally, there’s Fenix, which has a large airtime hill crossing from left to right of the area and then a zero-g roll on the way back and couple it all together and it just looks magnificent!

As for Fenix, we ended up getting two rides on it during the day (I’ll talk about both here) as we wanted to try both sides. We first tried the front left and then the rear most seats on the right hand side. I don’t think there was a lot to choose between them, but I think the back row was better than the front, the left hand side better than right so maybe we’ll need more rides to completely decide!

Anyway the ride itself is very smooth and thrilling, incredibly comfortable too. After the first dive drop, you head into the airtime hill I mentioned before and this is excellent. You get a good amount of airtime before it barrels into an immelmann and a large helix that surround Pixarus, a new attraction still under construction. After the helix is the zero-g roll and under the main path way where the cameras for the on ride photo sit. These are in a great position as they get great shots of the ride, and don’t look like an after thought too. A few twists and turns and you’ll be back on the breakrun ready to get off.

This is another ride I really enjoyed too. It’s very similar to The Swarm, but has a theme I much prefer with it being more magical in nature. The queue line is very pretty and the station is vast, though not quite as well themed as others are, but it’s still a pleasant place to be.

After we’d finished on Fenix, we headed to Merlin’s Quest, which is a lengthy boat ride. Merlin’s Quest is for the most part, quite slow and not much happens, but there is an indoor section that I won’t spoil and needless to say, it was very surprising!

With all the rides in Avalon (currently) finished, we moved indoors to see what we could find in the Land Van Toos and Wunder Wald areas. We had a look at the food offerings in Wunder Wald first and decided on pasta for Tracy and a pizza for me. It was reasonably priced and very tasty too.

After we’d finished our food, we moved onto the rides and first had a go on Villa Fiasko, which is a fun house and we had a good laugh navigating the moving walkways and slides. I wouldn’t say fun houses are my kind of thing but they are growing on me as they’re daft and just plain fun! Next we had a go on Karussell (which is a carousel) and the parks Rockin’ Tug, Alpenrutsche (which means Alpine Slide). These were exactly as you’d expect them to be, though nicely themed as all the other attractions have been.

We were intending to have a go on Maximus’ Blitz Bahn, a powered toboggan run, but the queue never seemed to drop below 60 minutes, so something for another visit! As we were doing Expedition Zork later, we headed into Land Van Toos. The first ride we went on, teacups, were well, teacups but one of the standout attractions in here, beside Toos-Express, is the Toverhaus. This is a peculiar attraction that you need a wand (whichis provided) and it allows you to activate things within the attraction. Almost like a shooting dark ride, without the ride or scoring elements, a good bit of fun and something different, though we found our wand didn’t work but we got enough out of the attraction by seeing others activating things.

As mentioned before, we had a go on Toos-Express which is a junior mine train coaster. It’s pretty much as you’d expect, a few helixes here and a hill or two there. Very comfortable and not too thrilling which is perfect for kids.

There were a few other small attractions that we skipped, such as a chair swing and playground so we headed outside and had a go on Wunderball. You pay €6 at a vending machine to get a wooden ball that is used in the attraction and all this equates to, is a marble run but bigger.

We both thought it was a really nice way to reuse and recycle some old props, as well as offer something that is unlike anything else we’ve seen in a theme park. There are two runs for you to put the ball onto and both are different in the effects and parts they use, but ultimately, the balls start and end at the same location. Some will see this as a bit of a rip off or a waste of time, but we enjoyed it, and you get to keep the ball as a souvenir!

By the time we’d finished on Wunderball, we’d been on most of the major attractions, leaving only Booster Bike, Djengu River, Expedition Zork and a few re-rides so we headed back to Troy. Back row this time and I can’t really decide whether front or back is better, but no matter where you sit, the ride is a beast.

Our next stop was Djengu River, a rapids ride that has a very nice indoor queue line but was quite slow to load as the boats kept stopping on the conveyor belt in the station. As for the ride itself, it was quite a pleasant little attraction. It was certainly one of the more tame rapids rides, especially when compared with another we’ve yet to talk about, but it was perfectly fine as a ride. Though there were plenty of waterfalls around the area that made up for the tame ride I’d say.

Booster Bike was next and much like Velocity at Flamingo Land, it only runs one train and made this a longer queue but it was something I wanted to do as this is the original model of Vekoma’s Motorbike coaster. When compared with Velocity, it is a bit slower and shorter, but this is the prototype so the evidently made changes to improve it with subsequent installations!

That’s not to say that Booster Bike was bad or anything, far from it! It was thrilling and smooth and the launch is nice and punchy, but not quite as violent as Rita, Stealth or even Anubis at Plopsaland. Great ride nonetheless!

Back into Wunder Wald to have a go on Expedition Zork, the parks log flume. You start off inside the Wunder Wald building and even have a backwards drop indoors, before the large lift hill takes you outside for a decent drop into a nice refreshing splashdown. This is a somewhat unique version of a log flume in that it uses a lot of turn tables. First to turn you backwards, then forwards part of the way up the large lift hill, then again at the top so you’re facing the drop.

You don’t get too wet on the ride and besides the two drops, there is a nice amount of scenery to look at and the free flowing sections and very pleasant and relaxing.

As the day started to wind down, we had another ride on Dwervelwind and Fenix, before heading back to the Port Laguna entrance plaza for merchandise and something to eat (fish and chips which were excellent!)

Merchandise was extensive and covered a couple of the rides, Fenix and Troy in particular, and you could get the usual staple of T shirts and clothing, but they also did wristbands, posters and little models themed around the two bigger rides. I ended up with a cup, some wrist bands, a poster and photos, where Tracy did a lot better picking up 2 of the models as well. I would have bought all the T shirts, but I was a little worried they might not fit and as I didn’t thy them on, so they’re still there for our next visit!

Overall, Toverland is arguably the park that has impressed me most so far. I went in expecting something around the Flamingo Land/Drayton Manor sort of level and found it to be more like and adult version of Paultons Park. The theming in the areas is lovely, the food was good and not too expensive, there was plenty of merchandise and rides that catered for everyone! Troy was definitely a standout, as was Fenix. Both are now my favourite of their ride types, though Dwervelwind and Booster Bike were still great rides too! I have absolutely no criticism what so ever of Toverland and I wish them the best of luck with the future and can’t wait to get back to see how Avalon expands, and to see what the park does next!

Blog, Reviews

Efteling – The wonderful Efteling

8th Jun 2023 Loops&Lapbars

I’m going to start this blog by being very forward and saying that Efteling is phenomenal. It has some of the best themed rides and experiences I’ve ever had and even Tracy was impressed by the care and attention to detail put into the park, restaurants and, well, everything!

We were staying in the Loonsche Land Hotel which meant we could park in the hotel car park and walk the 10 minute walk through the woods to the park. Even this has been looked after as the wooded area is very clean and tidy and very easy to walk through.

The first thing that struck me as we saw The House of 5 Senses (Eftelings entrance) is the sheer scale of it. I don’t know if I’m alone in the feeling of admiration and wonder that the entrance holds. It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before, and this is just the entrance! It looks amazing and feels incredibly special as you approach it. The only very slight criticism I have here is that you approach from the side as hotel guests instead of from the front but that can easily be remedied by walking a bit further to see it in full and I would seriously implore that you do!

Once we were in, and since we were in a bit early we headed into the shop to find that all the money we’d saved at Plopsaland and Bobbejaanland would be spent here. There was so much to choose from, from ride T Shirts and keyrings, to magnets and the standard things you’d come to expect at a theme park. However there’s also tea towels, plates, posters and Christmas decorations. Even plants and their own branded tea! The thing that struck me most of all though as their range of hand and body wash as well as room scents. At this point I hadn’t experienced any of the attractions so neither of us bought anything until later that day. It’s worth pointing out that we did Efteling over 2 days too as we thought we’d need the additional time around the massive park.

Our first stop was Joris en de Draak, or George and the Dragon, a racing partial hybrid coaster built by GCI. I say partial as only some of the track has been replaced with titan track and some remains as it was originally built.

What a way to start out visit to Efteling! This coaster is fantastic, the racing element is fun, the turns are sharp and the drops are excellent. Up until this point, this is our favourite wooden coaster so far! So Heidi was knocked off the top spot quite quickly! I particularly like how the ride celebrates the winners of the race by having a flag show who did win at the finishing post and the station changes to. Winners are cheered by the suits of armour in the station while the losers get boo’d, which is great fun!

Speaking of great fun, Python was next. I’ve recently watched Expedition Theme Parks video on Python. In it, it shows how special the ride is to Efteling and because of this they went on to completely retrack the ride in the same way that Nemesis is being retracked too. You can certainly feel the work that’s gone into this too!

I never got to ride it in its previous incarnation, but in its current guise it is smooth as glass! We ended up getting a few rides on this throughout our visit, including 2 front rows and a back row ride and the back is lovely and intense, where the front is more forceful in other ways thanks to the twin loops at the start. The corkscrews can be every so slightly juddery but you barely notice it! Python is a fantastic ride that should definitely be ridden on every visit to Efteling. The only small criticism I have of the way the ride operates is that you have to take your bag on with you which is certainly an experience! It does mean offloading is much quicker though as there isn’t a fight to get your stuff after the ride though. Just make sure your bag is well within the ride and you’ll be fine though, neither of us had any problems at all once we trusted Eftelings system!

The improvements kept coming as we moved onto a truly spectacular ride with Vliegende Hollander (Flying Dutchman). This is another water coaster and such a deeply themed and immersive experience, it rocketed this to my top ride at Efteling (until later on anyway)!

I won’t spoil what goes on in the dark section of the ride as it needs to be ridden to enjoy it thoroughly, but the outdoor section, though short, is great fun and has a splashdown that also doesn’t get you very wet at all! Lovely ride, lovely theme, simply put, fantastic from start to finish!

After we’d calmed down from the excitement on Vliegende Hollander, we bought some personalised bracelets for €10 and then headed into the train station to wait for the train to head off to the other side of the park. The train arrives and we find that it is a proper coal fired steam train. We were both surprised and not at the same time. On the one hand, Efteling appear to go that extra mile to make everything perfect, so a steam train doesn’t seem out of place, but on the other hand, it’s a proper steam train! In a theme park!

The train travels around almost the entire outer circumference of the park and we get off at Marerijk, one of the areas of the park. Here we found Droomvlucht, Villa Volta and the show arena for Raveleijn. The show was performing later so we headed onto Villa Volta to find a very well themed Vekoma Madhouse. This is the original madhouse too, beating The Haunting at Drayton Manor by a matter of minutes (or so Drayton Manor say) and is a so so mad house. I didn’t really have much to say after we’d ridden it, the preshow was good with animatronics and such but the actual madhouse bit left a bit to be desired. Maybe early madhouses are all like this?

Droomvlucht was next and the entrance archway to this is very pretty and it really doesn’t give much away of whats inside either. Droomvlucht means Dream Flight in Dutch and this gives you some idea as to what is coming as the ride is an inverted dark ride with plenty of elements where the ride vehicle passes over open expanses below you. Its not quite a flying coaster in how it makes you feel but it was still impressive to see operating!

The scenes are all incredibly pretty and you do feel transported into another world throughout the ride. I particularly like the floating castles and last scene, but I’ll leave that for you to see for yourself!

After we’d finished on Droomvlucht, we headed into Het Witte Paard (The White Horse) for something to eat. We were once again astounded by the way the park operates, this time with food offerings. All the food you can see is freshly made by people behind the counter and its not like they’re just putting things together. You can see all the raw ingredients they work with as they make the food you then buy. The White Horse served cakes, sandwiches, pastries and lighter meals. We ended up with a sausage roll and tuna sandwich, as well as Coca Cola Freestyle cups.

The food tasted just as good as it looked but the freestyle cups work slightly differently to how they do at other parks. Usually you’d par/recharge a cup and then have unlimited drinks all day, but at Efteling, you get a cup and 2 drink charges. The cups cost a fair bit less than others do to compensate, and you essentially buy a charge each time you want a drink which I think is a bit of a nicer system to be honest. I love the Coca Cola freestyle system, but when its unlimited, I feel like I have to drink as much as I can to get the most value and end up bloated and full of calories! Here, the recharging system makes it so you can still enjoy the drinks but not gorge quite so much, something that is probably only a problem I have!

Next up was a visit to the Anton Pieck Plein, an area filled with older vintage carousels, a chair swing and Velodrome ride too. We only rode the one carousel on day one but on the second day we had a go on the other as well as the Velodrome, which is essentially a man powered roundabout. Each ride vehicle is a bicycle and those who can peddle to get the ride going. On our ride, only Tracy and myself could peddle as the rest were all kids and it was hard work, but still enjoyable. These are incredibly rare rides apparently too.

Speaking of rare rides, our next visit was to see the Stoomcarrousel or Steam Carousel. It is exactly what you’d think, a very vintage, steam powered (supposedly) carousel. I say supposedly as I think the ride was running off of electricity and just made to look like it was still being run as such! I haven’t got anything negative to say about that though as I’d sooner then run it as they are than try to keep running it on steam power and it not last as long, or be a health hazard or something! Besides the trickery with the power, the ride is very well kept and the organ can be seen playing original sheet music too. Well worth a visit to see in my opinion!

After we’d finished in Stoomcarrousel and the accompanying display, we moved up towards Vogel Rok, Carnival Festival and Sirocco . I’ll talk about Sirocco first as its the easiest of the 3 here. It’s essentially a well themed teacups ride themed around Sinbad and merchant boats. Good fun, great effects and just another pleasant ride.

Vogel Rok next and this is the only indoor coaster the park has. It’s themed around birds as the name suggests (vogel is bird in Dutch), and the entrance is large bird set piece too. The ride has on board audio and very comfortable Vekoma trains too, and the coaster part is decent but the darkness mixed with the few scenes there are do feel a little dated and not quite as good quality as the other attractions we’ve tried so far. This is still worth a visit as the ride is still fun, just not quite as good as other dark coasters we’ve been on, or even other coasters in the park!

Carnival Festival was our next stop and heres another kids ride that I was riding just to say I had and nothing else, only to find a great ride! This is my first ever omnimover style ride, though we should call them endless transit systems officially (thanks Disney)!

The ride is themed to Jokie, one of the parks older mascots who seemed to fade away in the publics eye before a revival and a TV show and the ride you see today. The endless train snakes its way around a variety of different scenes following Jokie on his travels around the world. There are a lot of stereotypes and cultural imagery used in the ride and I found it to be great fun from start to finish. I enjoyed it a lot more than I ever thought I could, helped massively by the sound track. The same basic theme follows you through the ride and what I found to be most staggering is that despite it changing to suit different countries musical styles, not once did it appear to just stop and change over, it was so fluid! Well worth seeing in my opinion!

The Pagode was next up and this is my first ever Flying Island, a type of observation tower that gives great views over the park. I was quite excited for this as I’ve seen them in Planet Coaster and thought the ride system was something of a marvel so I’m glad I’ve had a go on one! Gondoletta was next and this is a 15 minute boat ride around the central lake and islands. A great site down and gives you good views of Baron 1898 (which was undergoing maintenance while we were here).

After Gondoletta, we headed into Symbolica, a ride I’d heard about but hadn’t read much into. I’m not sure why I haven’t looked into but I’m do glad I went in blind as this ride is absolutely outstanding. I’m not trying to be overly dramatic when I say it genuinely nearly made me shed a tear of joy, specifically during the wine cellar scene. It has everything you could want out of a ride, only lacking thrills but it certainly doesn’t need those!

The ride is a trackless dark ride, and we’ve had a go on Harrington Flints Island Adventure at fantasy Island but this is on the next level. The ride vehicles all follow the same basic path, but will deviate to show other scenes as part of your tour. I should explain that when you queue, you have the choice of 3 tours, the Heros Tour, Treasure Tour and Music Tour. You’ll see all the main set pieces no matter which tour you take, but each will see a few different parts here and there.

What really got me with the ride, besides the staggering amount of scenery to look at, was how the ride vehicles danced around each other, as well as the scenery and other hardware, it’s quite mesmerising!

There’s also the wonderful scent too. This is another thing that Efteling does exceptionally well, the smells! Whether you’re in a shop or on a ride, chances are you’ll snell something nice and Symbolica is no exception! It was that nice, I even bought the room spray from the gift shop so my bedroom now smells like Symbolica!

Just before we ended our first day we had the pleasure of watching Aquanura which is a water fountain show with added fire for good measure! It is probably best compared with Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s water fountains that are the length of and intensity of a Legoland firework display and included in the admission price! The show we got was fantastic but I’ve seen videos of others that were recorded at night and there are lights that we might have missed out on, but it was certainly worth waiting for!

That was as much as we could handle for the first day, and during our second day, we had rerides on a lot of the attractions but made time to do the Sprookjesbos, or Fairytale Forest. This is a very expansive part of the park and as you would imagine, has many different scenes from famous fairytales such as Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty or The Emperor’s New Clothes. A lot of the scenes have animatronics or shows associated with them and some of them are good but others are of great quality. Pinocchio and The Little Match Girl in particular!

Each scene also has a story book beside them so anyone who is unfamiliar with any of the scenes will be able to catch up on what’s going on! We had a casual walk around the area and it took us nearly 2 and a half hours to see everything so plan plenty of time in to see it all!

With that, that’s pretty much everything we did at Efteling! We didn’t manage to get on Baron 1898 as it was closed both the days we were there, but all that means is we can go again! We stayed in site in the Loonsche Land Hotel and I’ll be giving that a blog on its own so for now, that was Efteling! An incredible park that has so much attention to detail and care put into it. Do yourself a favour and head there as soon as you can, it is excellent!

Blog, Reviews

Bobaajaanland – First visit

5th Jun 20233rd Jun 2023 Loops&Lapbars

I knew nothing of Bobbejaanland before we visited. I knew of it and that it was a somewhat notable park, but other than few attractions, I didn’t know what the park was like. This made it quite fun to explore and find attractions that I’d actually heard about but didn’t realise they were here, I’ll go into those later though!

Entrance to the park was very smooth and we went to guest services to see about recording on rides. This is where the park really stands out and other should take note in my opinion! They asked me to sign a form that essentially meant that I could record on rides and that the park were happy with this but I wouldn’t get and preferential treatment, jump queues or anything like that. This is exactly what I want from UK parks, the option to show up and be checked and then show proof to ride operators!

Once we’d finished with guest services, 10am had just rolled around and the area gates were opened so we headed to Typhoon first. This is one of the earliest Gerstlauer Eurofighter models so we had a bit of apprehension about the comfort of the ride but having tried it, we were pleasantly surprised with how well it rides. The ride is quite compact, features a beyond vertical drop like most Eurofighters and has 4 inversions. The ride is paced well, giving you time between the elements to take it in before the next one comes along. Overall, great little ride!

Next up was Fury, the only coaster I knew much about as it is somewhat unique in how it operates. Fury is another Gerstlauer, but this time one of their Infinity models and has an LSM launch and a turntable that means you can ride forwards or backwards! In the queueline, you get the choice of forwards only, or the option to vote upon dispatch. Our first ride we opted for the vote option as I really wanted to try it backwards first, much to Tracy’s dismay!

The train is dispatched and we vote using the buttons on the lap bar and to my joy, and Tracy’s annoyance, we turned to face the ride backwards. The train launches fairly tamely up the top hat, then falls back onto the LSMs and is launched the other way up a spike and then we roll into the LSM launch a 3rd time, reach too speed and thunder up the top hat and itno the rest of the layout. I thoroughly loved this coaster! It’s punchy, comfortable and smooth as glass. It has some great intensity to it and doesn’t last too long as it could be a bit much if it went on for too long.

This is also a bit of a special coaster for me as it is not only the same model as The Smiler, what was my number 1 coaster, but it was also my 100th coaster too! Fury has topped the Smiler for me even though it isn’t as long as doesn’t quite have as much of a theme to it. The launch was excellent and the layout well.paced again. This is back to back Gerstlauers that ride excellently!

After Fury, we found that the park does Freestyle cups just as the Merlin Parks do and found a shop was just after the next coaster, Naga Bay. We had a go on this Maurer Spinner and found there wasn’t too much to talk about unfortunately. It’s very tame and comfortable but does lack a bit of thrill and doesn’t spin much at all!

We found the shop selling freestyle cups next so snapped a couple of those up for €15 each (around £13). Interestingly, European Freestyle offerings are vastly different to the UK. I gather their health and safety laws are different and they don’t have sugar tax either as there were a lot more full sugar offerings including all the old flavour Coca Colas such as lime and vanilla.

After we’d topped up our drinks, we headed onto Forbidden Caves. I’d advise you try this one out for yourself before reading into it as it’s best experienced without knowing what’s coming (as we did). I’ll talk about this , Terra Magma and Revolution at the very end in a separate section so as to not spoil anything that you may want to go into blind.

King Long was next and this is weird one, but in a good way! This is a very gentle ride where the vehicle you’re in gets lifted up and inspected by a large King Kong statue that forms the rides mechanism. I’m sure I read somewhere that this was once a prop for a film, but I can’t find it so I’ll assume it was built like that to start with until proven otherwise! The ride experience is very gentle and not a lot actually happens, but it’s still quite a pleasant attraction and a great introduction to heights, movement and sounds for younger guests.

After we’d done in the Adventure Valley section of the park, we moved into the western themed area, which I’ve recently found out was what the whole park was based on when it was originally built by its founder Modest ‘Bobbejaan’ Schoepen. He was a county and western singer who did a lot for Belgian music and Bobbejaanland was built to reflect this. I’ve only found this out since leaving the park so I would like to go back and see if any of his legacy is kept in some of the scenes in the western area (as we don’t speak Dutch/French or German, is likely we would have missed anything!)

The western area, Desperado City, is the more extensively themed of the parks areas and features a river rapids, wild mouse coaster, a horse riding tracked ride as well as a horse pedalo ride, a giant slide and a kids climbing frame. Besides the rides, there’s also a lovely walkthrough area that you’d miss if you weren’t looking for it featuring scenes from old western shops and such. These are very well looked after and have clearly had a lot of thought put into them.

El Rio is the river rapids ride and is the first one of these for our holiday and already it’s very different from the UK versions as the boats are a lot more open and are clearly 3 sections that can move slightly to allow the boat to flex a little. As we’ll find out a lot more later on in the trip, it allows a bit of water to come up through the centre and between the joints. I like the design of these boats.

As for the ride itself, it’s not really spoiling it as you can see it on the map for the attraction but it does have a whirlpool/plug hole section where the course runs tighter and tighter as though you’re in a whirlpool until you eventually plunge down a drop of about 10 feet or so back into the river! You don’t get too wet here but because of the design of the boats, water gets sloshed through it and around you which really adds to it!

Speedy Bob was next and this is a wild mouse and features the same layout as Marble Madness at Pleasurewood Hills, but in reverse (or it at least felt like it!) Apparently this is a somewhat unique version of Mack Rides’ Wild Mouse designs as its lift hill is on the left instead of the right. It used to have a mirror image coaster stood right next to it, but that has long gone leaving Speedy Bob all alone. The ride was decent, and not as uncomfortable as I was expecting. It’s certainly better than Rattlesnake at Chessington. Though I think its about the same as Marble Madness on the other hand.

Once we’d done with Speedy Bob, we had some dinner at Country Cookout. Despite the name, this place sells a small selection of pasta with sauces and it was very tasty! We were thinking that it would sell barbequed foods or steak, but the pasta drew us in. It wasn’t too hot, and the serving size was decent so you weren’t too full to continue with your day.

After we’d finished dinner, we had a go on The Horse Pedalos. This is pretty much exactly as it sounds, themed vehicles that you peddle around an elevated track. It features a lift hill to get you a bit of height and after that, you can essentially freewheel you way around the layout. It’s a nice sit down and has some nice views around the back of the Desperado City area.

Next up was Dream Catcher, a Vekoma swinging inverted coaster. Similar to Vampire at Chessington but with a more compact layout and only a single lift hill, but has the same trains. I was looking forward to this one as they are quite rare coasters to find and Vampire is all we have to give us any idea what they are like.

I felt a bit underwhelmed with the ride as it doesn’t really amount to much unfortunately! The helix at the end is a bit of fun, but there is a bit of head bashing during this section and it can be quite painful! It’s worth a ride to see how you think it compares to Vampire, but for me, Vampire is the better coaster of the two!

After we’d finished on Dream Catch, we headed into Kinderland to have a look. As the name suggests, this is an area themed for younger kids and has a good variety of older carousels and wheel rides. There are some very vintage rides in here which is lovely to see so don’t miss popping in for a look.

Just outside Kinderland is Oki Doki, a Vekoma junior coaster, and the supposed longest junior coaster in the world. The trains have clowns on their front posing for peek a boo which is a nice touch. The ride is good and gives aspiring thrill seekers something to whet their appetite before they can try the larger rides.

Further along from Oki Doki was Terra Magma, the parks newest attraction. This is a retheme of Indiana River but we moved passed it and onto Bob Express and The El Paso Special. Bob Express is a bigger meaner Runaway Mine Train and is great fun, especially when is flies through the station. The El Paso Special is an interactive dark ride that is much like Sherriff Showdown at Drayton Manor, but bigger in every way. More scenes, more targets, more fun too! Funnily enough, the ride has a sign that tells you its a joint venture between the UK and Germany which I love to see.

Time was starting to press on during our visit so we headed into the Terra Magma queue to see what this new ride was like. I’ll go into a bit of detail below for those who want to know, otherwise I’ll keep it spoiler free here and just say that it’s a nicely themed indoor log flume, has 3 good drops and doesn’t soak you too much!

Once again we have a small negative and its the same as Plopsaland before, merchandise. There was a huge lack of it again and its such a shame as there are some very marketable attractions here such as Fury, Terra Magma and Revolution. They have released some pin badges but they were being released in waves, meaning only the first 2 of about 6 were available to us and we missed out on those due to a language barrier, which isn’t the parks fault. I’d have loved a Fury T-shirt or a good quality model of the sorcerer that stands in The Land of Legends or even some ride pins!

The lack of merchandise doesn’t take away too much from an overall great park, and there were options to have your own things printed but we didn’t see anyone working behind the counter when we were there. I can definitely recommend Bobbejaanland for the unique attractions it offers, as well as the experiences in its dark rides too.

SPOILERS BELOW

As I mentioned above, I’d go into detail for those who wanted to know more about Forbidden Caves, Revolution and Terra Magma. I’ll start with Forbidden Caves.

This is a dark simulator ride and has 3D effects using glasses. The ride vehicle departs the station onto a small section of track into a room surrounded by screens. The vehicles are capable of a small range of motion and this syncs up with actions on screen. The story appears to be of explorers who end up getting lost in a cave in their vehicles and avoid different creatures and statues that come to life and try to chase you. Its a nice little ride that should be experienced at least once, but I wasn’t quite as impressed with the ride as I was with the queue line, as this is very well themed and done great!

Revolution on the other hand was excellent. I’m sure it will have its critics but I thoroughly enjoyed both rides we had on this weird and wonderful coaster. Firstly there’s the trains that are 30 carriages long and can seat 2 people in each car allowing 60 people to ride at once which is already bonkers. Then there’s the layout of the coaster, which starts with a very long spiralling lift hill that takes you to the very top of the building before spiralling back down on the outside. There is a musical score (Michael Hoenigs Bones On The Beach) that plays inside the ride and as the score gets faster, so does the train as well as the intensity and pace of the light show in there too. By other rides standards its nothing special, just a massive train that gets to a top speed of about 30 miles an hour but there was just something about the whole package that I loved.

Finally theres Terra Magma which is an indoor log flume and is themed around a forbidden island and you’ll narrowly escape an erupting volcano. This is what promotional material reads anyway, but I didn’t quite get that from the ride. It felt like a trip through different weather and jungles and I didn’t really get an overarching story from it. I enjoyed what I saw and it was very pretty in places but maybe not the best at portraying what it sets out to, but that’s just me! I still enjoyed it greatly and maybe a subsequent ride or two will help.

Blog, Reviews

Plopsaland De Panne – First visit

2nd Jun 20233rd Jun 2023 Loops&Lapbars

I hadn’t heard much of Plopsaland De Panne before The Ride to Happiness came into being, but that ride definitely put it on the map for us. In my last blog, I mentioned about the parks we’re visiting on our European road trip and Plopsaland was the first to go on the list.

Turning up to the park, you’re greeted with excellent views of Heidi the Ride, a massive front door and entrance, and The Ride to Happiness peeking over the tops of the buildings in the main square.

Our first stop was going to be The Ride to Happiness but it wasn’t open until 11 so we headed for Heidi the ride, the parks wooden coaster. As we walked to the entrance, we passed so many different themes and set pieces and it just kept getting better all day!

Heidi is a great little woodie. It’s not too rough at all and though it is as noisy as a wooden coaster, it rides about as smoothly as Wicker Man does, though I think I prefer Heidi at this point!

Our next visit was to Der Draak, a powered junior roller coaster, very similar to The Dragon at Legoland and Runaway Mine Train at Alton Towers, if they we smashed together! It interacts nicely with the surrounding area and was a good fun little ride too.

By this time, 11am had rolled around and the main event was ready, at least for me! The Ride to Happiness. I’ll be writing this attraction its own separate blog as there’s a lot to take in, but for now, it’s topped The Smiler, and by some margin too. It is excellent!

After this we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a go on Le Ronde Des Canards, which literally translates to the Rounds of the Ducks or as we called it, Duck Roundabout! This was a very basic but fun little water carousel with giant duck themed boats. The ride commenced and finished with the quacking of the ducks and fun was had by all!

We had a wander around the next area, having a go on a jet ski ride, in the same vane as Hydras Challenge at Legoland Windsor. It was just as much fun as Legoland, but not quite as good to watch as there wasn’t any water effects on this version.

Following the Jet Skis, we had a nice sit down on the Plopsa Express as it took us to the next area, for a look around their Viking themed section called Wickieland. It was quite pretty and had a couple of good looking rides but we ultimately didn’t stop for long as we moved onto dinner in the Mirror Tent Restaurant (at least I think that’s how it translates!)

We both had something called a Bicky burger, which is a Dutch invention that the Belgians seem to like. It’s actually a mixed meat burger (Pork, Beef and Horse Meat) but tasted really quite nice. It has the usual ensemble of condiments on it as well as crispy fried onions and a signature sauce too. We both enjoyed these despite the somewhat unappetising sounding meat patty!

Once we’d had dinner, we moved in and found La Foret De Plop, or The Forest of Plop. This is a very charming indoor boat ride that takes you passed a lot of different forest scenes with the local inhabitants, the Elves. The animatronics are well made, the scenes are spectacular to look at and the music is quite lovely too. This is definitely worth a visit in my opinion!

Our next stop was a go on the parks teacup ride and then the #Likeme coaster. The coaster isn’t much to sing about as it’s a standard layout Zierer Tivoli, exactly the same as Treetops at Oakwood or Egg-Spress at Pleasurewood Hills. The one standout feature of this coaster though, was the walkthrough to the station, which featured a school and a party scene towards the end.

At this point, it might be worth mentioning the sheer amount of product placement used in the park. From Mercedes Benz, to Tomorrowland, K3 and LikeMe as well as a lot of Studio 100 characters. Sometimes it fits nicely, such as Piet Piraat (Peter Pirate) in the pirate themed area, but other times it just felt out of place. Like Mercedes Benz cars sat about the place, and even sponsoring a kids car ride. It isn’t something that most people will care about, but it is noticeable!

Next stop was Anubis the Ride, a Gerstlauer LSM launch Coaster. On paper this is a solid looking ride, but actually riding it is even better! The ride starts with a gentle slopped turn around to the right and as the car rolls into the lauch track, it doesn’t stop and is catapulted to 55.9 miles an hour and up into a hill. This launch is very snappy and a real wake up call, especially when compared with Icon at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. This was an excellent ride, showcasing Gerstlauer at their best I should think! The launch was good, the elements are taken with speed and there wasn’t any rattle or roughness at all.

With the weather being as nice as it was, we braved Dino Splash, the parks log flume attraction, themed to dinosaurs of course! This was a lovely ride too, the station was something seriously good to look at and the drops were forceful and the ride wasn’t too much of a soaker!

Super Splash on the other hand did give you a bit more of a sprinkling. It still didn’t soak you through like Tidal Wave would, but it was a great, fun ride that had a unique rotating lift hill before a great drop under a path, into an airtime hill before a large, impressive looking splash! As mentioned earlier, this was in the pirate themed area and had a little bit of theming to it, but not much!

The park also had an indoor area called Maya Land and is heavily themed to the parks mascot, Maya. She’s a bee, so a lot of the attractions are flower based and they look great! There are a good selection of rides aimed at a younger audience and its all themed in here. From the climbing frames, to the rides themselves, including a Zamperla Rockin’ Tug that has been made to look like a pile of logs. It looks so good, you’d not even realise its a ride at first!

At this point it was starting to get on a bit during the day so we headed to The Ride to Happiness for another ride, before heading into the shop for merchandise.

My first big criticism of the park, is the lack of any meaningful park related merchandise. There were some Ride to Happiness merchandise and Tomorrowland too, but that was about it. I managed a mug and a pin badge and that was it. Tracy did end up with a very cool Yahtzee Dice set that was part of the Ride to Happiness merchandise line which was something different at least!

Other than that, there was a lot of general kids toys and products related to Studio 100s IPs, the band’s I mentioned earlier and Peppa Pig for some reason!

The park itself is very well themed throughout and well looked after too. We didn’t see much in the way if damage or graffiti, or even heavy wear on the older rides too which added to the great day we had. Highlights for me were The Ride to Happiness, Super Splash and Anubis. Though The Forest of Plop was also a standout attraction (if the name in English is a little funny).

I look forward to seeing what Plopsaland does next, and I hope that on our next visit we can stay a bit longer, possibly in the hotel, and see what the water park, Plopsaqua, is like too!

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Euro Road Trip 2023

11th May 2023 Loops&Lapbars

This is going to be a very quick blog just to outline our first ever European Road Trip!

As I’m writing this I’m sat in Tracy’s front room eager to get on the road, but can’t as I’ll be far too early for our Euro Tunnel connection to Calais tomorrow! This will be our first step of course and something I’ve never done before but I’m looking forward to it!

After a good night sleep (hopefully) we’ll drive from Calais into Belgium for the very first park on our little trip, Plopsaland! I cannot wait to have a go on Ride to Happiness and see what my first foreign park will be like!

On Sunday we’ll be at Bobbejaanland and we’ve accidentally hit a home run here as their new attraction Terra Magna opens for its first day after an extensive retheme. There’s also Typhoon to look forward to which was the very first Euro fighter model and Fury, which is the one I’m after most from this park!

On Monday we’ll be at the majestic Efteling for 2 days, stopping on site in their Loonsche Land Hotel which is very exciting! We have seen that unfortunately Baron 1898 won’t be operating while we’re there which is quite a blow but we’ve still got a plethora of excellent attractions to look forward to, such as Python and Symbolica.

Wednesday is a day off and we’re looking at visiting Eindhoven for the day. We’re not sure exactly what’s planned, though Tracy really wants to do their IKEA!

Thursday will be Toverland, a park I don’t see talked about much but well received when it is! Fenix, Dwervel Wind and Troy stand out for me here but there’s probably even more that I haven’t seen yet!

Friday and Saturday will be at the mighty Phantasia Land with a stop in their Hotel Charles Lindbergh. There’s so much to look forward to here, Chapas, Taron, F.L.Y, and Talocan just to name a few!

Finally we’ll be stopping back at Walibi Belgium on the way back around. Kondaa, Pulsar and Psyke Underground are what I’ve picked out but as with the other parks, there will be so much more that I’ve overlooked!

The fun doesn’t stop there though as we’ll be getting back on the Euro Tunnel and heading to Legoland Windsor to stop on site and do a day in the park and a the final Wednesday we’ll be at Thorpe Park to try their Mardi Gras event this year. 2 days to cool down before the finale at Drayton Manor for an Attraction Source event which I can’t wait for either! If Your Experience Guides event is anything to go on, then this should be great too! Extended ride times on Shockwave and Maelstrom, Loki, Thor and Accelerator!

It’s going to be a long one, it’s going to fill hard rives with videos and photos and it’s going to hopefully make some bloody good memories!

Blog, Reviews

Drayton Manor – Coronation Street Party

10th May 20238th May 2023 Loops&Lapbars

Another visit to Drayton Manor? So soon after the last? Yep, this year we’re season pass holders and with Drayton Manor doing a good job of turning the park around, I’ve decided to try and visit as many of their events as possible to see how they’re getting on. This time its a 3 day event for the Coronation of King Charles III culminating in a fireworks finale for each day!

We visited on Saturday, the day of the actual coronation and because of this we did actually miss seeing the event on the TV, which I would have thought might have been shown somewhere at the park, maybe it was and I missed it, but besides the 4D cinema, the park doesn’t really have anywhere it could show it.

Anyway onto the event, things didn’t really kick off until quite late on in the day when there was a live DJ playing a set from 5-6pm. Then there was a tribute act on from 6-8pm, another DJ set between 8-8:55pm and finally the fireworks at 9pm. This marks the first time we’ve ever stayed in the park beyond 5pm too!

The lake was so still I had a go at a reflection shot!

The DJs were good but nothing overly special. They did mix the tracks quite well and played a good range of music so you didn’t have to listen to too much of something you didn’t like! The tribute acts were for Queen on Friday, Ed Sheeran on Saturday and Elton John on Sunday. As we visited Saturday, we got Ed Sheeran and I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of his music! This didn’t much matter though as he played a lot of different songs and did a good job keeping us entertained.

There was also a very small stage show where Rory, the parks mascot, was doing a bit of a singalong with the kids too, but this wasn’t very long, but it was followed by a photo opportunity if anyone wanted photos!

To finish the day, the park had put on a fireworks display and it was great to see fireworks again, especially in warmer weather! The show lasted about 8 minutes and it was good. It won’t challenge Alton Towers or Legoland’s displays, but they were also up charged events so I really can’t find any faults with the display at all! It was also lovely to hear voice clips of King Charles played during the show too, so it felt properly linked to his coronation too, so another good job there!

Besides a few photo opportunities around there park, there was also a stall selling afternoon tea and alcoholic drinks to those who wanted them, and the Castle Bar was renamed to The Windsor Castle Bar for the event too.

I mentioned in my Alton Towers Festival of Thrills blog that it would have been nice to see some event specific merchandise and the same can be said here. They did offer some coronation flags and a couple of other bits and pieces, but no pin badges or anything park specific, but that’s only a minor thing here.

Outside the event, we had a leisurely stroll around the zoo, rode Sherriff Showdown, Accelerator, Sleipnir, Shockwave, Winstons Whistle Stop Tours, Troublesome Trucks Runaway Rollercoaster and the new for 2023 Thomas and Percy Submarine Splash, which I’ll go into in a minute.

Sherriff Showdown was having issues with its scoring system which meant you couldn’t see how much you’d scored, but the guns and targets still worked so it was nice to go through the attraction and see more of it rather than concentrating too much on winning!

Shockwave was riding great today too, both rides were relatively smooth and very forceful too. The more I ride Shockwave, the more I love it and the more I wish we could get another stand-up coaster in the UK. I hope next year they celebrate its birthday properly!

Finally there’s Thomas and Percy’s Submarine Splash. This is an incredibly cute Soquet S.A. babyflume with submarine shaped cars. The cars are very pretty but also quite uncomfortable as the backrest doesn’t have much padding in it! The ride is a very simple layout, but it’s well presented and has 2 small drops. The subs have a weight limit to them of 18.5 stone/120kg and you can ride as a single adult, as we did! We were hoping for this as some of the rides in Thomas Land don’t allow single adults but the information board didn’t say anything so we had a go. It’s very relaxed, nice and slow and the drops don’t get you wet too which we both liked!

So that was The Coronation Street Party. A nice little event, long park hours and plenty of opportunity to ride many of the ride and see the zoo before things got going. We won’t see another event like this for a while now so this will probably be a completely unique event for many years, unless they decide to do it again next year as just a street party event which would work too!

Next up will be a breakdown of our big holiday this year, so look out for that one!

Blog, Reviews

Drayton Manor – Thomas Land 15th Anniversary

9th May 20239th May 2023 Loops&Lapbars

This year is a year of celebrations, from The Smiler (and Hero’s) 10 birthday, to the coronation of King Charles. It’s also the 15th anniversary of Thomas Land at Drayton Manor, and we went along to see how everyone’s favourite tank engine was doing.

Thomas land was subtly decorated with bunting around most of the railings, a large birthday cake by the entrance and Thomas had a little hat on and birthday livery. It was very in keeping with the area and didn’t look out of place at all!

There were shows on throughout the day, but I couldn’t tell you what shows are new for the event or the usual ones as I don’t spend enough time in Thomas land to notice them I’m afraid! Though we did see one of the shows where Rusty, Dusty and The Fat Controller were playing musical statues with the kids. It was very entertaining and didn’t feel overly silly or awkward either!

That’s about it for the 15th Anniversary event and I’m not sure what more they could have done, so I might as well use the time to talk about Thomas Land itself!

The area is set out in two halves, with the Train Tours attraction bisecting both halves. It would be nice to have a cut through over the rails from one side to the other, but this is a very minor thing! At the time we visited for the event, there were around 20 attractions, ranging from simple carousels and demolition derby rides, to guided rail car rides and a junior roller coaster!

It would be nice if they could somehow link up these two parts

Standout attractions for me are Thomas, Percy and Rosie’s Engine Tours, Troublesome Trucks Runaway Roller Coaster, Winston’s Whistle Stop Tours and The Thomas Exhibition (though this is undergoing renovation and relocation).

Engine Tours takes you from the main section of Thomas Land, to the back of the zoo where 2 more attractions are based and though it can take a while to load, check and set off, it goes past a few scenes from Sodors railways before returning the other way. Sometimes the attraction will run two trains that have to synchronise and set off at the same time, but this time only Thomas was at work.

Troublesome Trucks Runaway Rollercoaster is a great little Gerstlauer junior coaster that only has a simple helix and small hill but offers just enough to make it fun for us, as well as being a great introduction to roller coasters for you younger thrill seekers!

Winston’s Whistle Stop Tours is a Zamperla monorail with single cars that take you on a tour of one side of Thomas Land. It gives great elevated views of most of the area and interacts nicely with some of the rides it goes past with the on board audio. Very gentle and charming to boot, and recently they’ve added a photo green screen to the queue, so you even get a photo before you board the ride!

The Thomas Exhibition is a fantastic look back through the life of Thomas the Tank engine, from the early days of the Railway series of books by Rev. W. Awdry, to the Thomas and Friends TV series and all the way up to All Engines Go! As I said earlier, this is undergoing a relocation as it was set at the end of the zoo tucked away in a corner, but it’ll now be in the same building as the shop, you’ll not miss it if you ride Whistle Stop Tours as the exit path takes you through where the exhibition will be.

We’ve only seen it once and it was great to look back at how far the series has come and how much it has changed over the years. It was also a bit eye opener as to how many new characters have been added to the series over time. I grew up with the original Thomas and Friends series, and so much has changed and been added from what I knew! The model railway inside the exhibition even uses models from the original series which was great to see!

There are plenty of other rides too, Captains Sea Adventure will get you wet, and Cranky’s Drop Tower is a great entry level tower ride, but there are some rides that we can’t have a go on, such as Sodor Classic Cars. They require and adult and child in order to ride this one which has meant we’ve been unable to ride it even once! It is a shame but the area isn’t designed with us enthusiasts first and foremost so I’m definitely not going to grumble!

There’s also a great café in Sodor Airport, very comfortable and welcoming. They sell a range of teas and coffees as you’d expect as well as kids meals and sandwiches. it wasn’t too expensive when we’ve been in their too, which is nice!

So that’s Thomas Land really, it’s a wonderful area full of good attractions all well themed and in kepeing with the spirit of Thomas and Friends. New for this year there will be a junior log flume ride called Thomas and Percy’s Submarine Splash which we’ll be hopefully riding during the Coronation Street Party, which will be our next blog!

Blog, Reviews

Alton Towers – Festival of Thrills – The Smiler Takeover 2023

8th May 20239th May 2023 Loops&Lapbars

This is Alton Tower’s first event this year and the second time we’ve had the Festival of Thrills. In this blog, I’ll compare it to last years event, see what worked and what didn’t and give my verdict.

As it’s The Smilers 10th anniversary this year, Alton Towers have branded this years Festival of Thrills as The Smiler Takeover. This means the Ministry of Joy, a fictional group who are behind the construction and running of The Smiler, are out and about and have invaded certain parts of the park. The interactions we had with the staff were great and they really did keep in character, coming across as reassuring and blatantly fake, in line with The Smilers story. They were very well acted!

As for the park itself, there were several displays dotted about each of the big roller coasters were the ministry were conducting tests to find new and interesting ways to being back peoples smile, such as terrifying them on Th13teen, or measuring excitement levels on Rita. You couldn’t interact with the scenes as they were static, and it would have been nice to see some lights or sounds on at least one of the displays! There was also a stamp collecting element, where each ride had a stamper that is used to emboss a card you pickup at any of the stations or at the park entrance. Once you’ve got all 6 (from the 6 big coasters) you can post yourself on social media with it for a chance to win an overnight stay in the resort hotel.

Over in X-Sector is where the bulk of the event was taking place. There were 3 shows to watch, Meet the Ministry, The Ministry fear Test and a karaoke show. We didn’t see the Meet the Ministry show as we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we did see the Fear Test and Karaoke shows. The Fear Test was pretty decent as it put a chosen subject through a series of daft tests designed to raise their fear levels and earn them a one way trip to The Smiler. The actors were entertaining and kept in character very well. I really liked the fact that once the tests were done, the test subject received The Smiler fast track tickets which was great to see!

As for the karaoke show, it was very cheesy and maybe a little bit lacking on quality. It wasn’t so bad it’s good, or so bad it’s terrible, just somewhere in between in my opinion! some of the songs being sung were linked in subtle ways to the event though so that was something.

Outside of the event, we got our first ride on Twistatron, the parks newest Retro Squad ride. This is a self built trabant/wipeout style ride but the seats face out from the centre. The ride took ages to load and unload and when we got on, it was actually quite good fun until it got properly going as the seats and restrains mean that the ride simple feels like its trying to throw you out. Usually this is a good fun element to rides but here, it just felt uncomfortable. Thankfully Alton Towers don’t run these rides at full speed for long so it was still enjoyable. On the fair circuit however? I wouldn’t want to ride knowing it would run faster and for longer.

Spinball Whizzer was finally up and running (which was actually it’s first day this season). It’s had a bit of an overhaul so I’ve read, and if so, then it is noticeable! The first thing we noticed were the restraints are now very tightly locked in place. This wasn’t so much an issue for me, but it was for Tracy. She ended up having to take her coat off and ride the ride cross legged in order for the restraint to close far enough. I think this is a bit overkill as we’ve never had anything like that issue before on Spinball or Dragons Fury at Chessington. I hope they relax this just a tad as Tracy said it’ll be a ride she won’t rush to go on in future because of this.

It’s not all doom and gloom though as a positive change seems to be that the break runs now longer jolt the car as they pass through. When we rode it, we sailed through all the break runs and it made for a much better experience! The final break run is still quite abrupt, but you can prepare yourself for that one much easier.

Other than those two rides, there wasn’t that much to talk about. The Smiler was running great and queues were quick, Th13teen was the same and The Curse at Alton Manor ran nice and smoothly today too.

Overall it was a good day, but the event was definitely lacking somewhat. I’ve seen a lot of criticisms about the event online and some are daft, while others I agree with! I feel that they didn’t quite take the takeover far enough and it felt a bit like the scenery around other rides was an after thought, though the park wide audio was great. Another criticism is the lack of event specific merchandise, or at the very least, something to commemorate The Smilers birthday! I’d have loved a pin badge or t-shirt to take home but unfortunately, there wasn’t anything for us!

How does it compare to last year? Well I certainly thing last years was better myself. The music used for The Smilers stage last year fit much better, and the Festival of Thrills was overall a bit better quality than this years offering. It’s a shame as I was quite looking forward to it, what with it being The Smiler themed and The Smiler being my top coaster (currently). I hope we see something come out through the season to commemorate this great attraction.

Overall, we still had a great time but it just could have been a little better here and there!

Blog, Reviews

Flamingo Land April 2023 – First visit of the season

18th Apr 20233rd May 2023 Loops&Lapbars

Our first visit to Flamingo Land was an impromptu one. We had a gig on Friday and met up with friends for it and had an airport run on Saturday which left Sunday completely free, which for us is unusual. So we decided on visiting Flamingo Land much earlier than expected as we had planned in to visit later in the summer.

We paid the full gate price of £52.50. We did pre-book online but it was less than 48 hours before our visit as advertised so I have no issue there. I’ll get it out of the way now and say that £52.50 is a bit of a price hike and it does feel like Flamingo Land are going a bit too high with this but I also understand that they have a zoo to run, rides to maintain and we’re all in a cost of living crisis too. All other parks prices have gone up so it’s natural to expect Flamingo Lands to have done so too.

What I do think is a bit of a kicker is the way the park was being run on the day we visited. There were a lot of closed shutters around the park, meaning that a lot of grab n’ go food units were unavailable. It’s not like there wasn’t anywhere to eat or anything of the sort, but any time we thought we’d stop to refill drinks or get something to eat, we found ourselves going to the same 2 units throughout the day, one in The Hub and the other in The Zanzibar restaurant area.

Moving on from the food side of things we head into photography and merchandise. Our first ride was Sik, then Hero and both of these offer on ride photography and their shops were open all day so you could, if you wanted to, buy on ride photos from this two rides. Mumbo Jumbo and Kumali also have cameras but most of the times that I’ve been, they haven’t been functional but they were today. We had a ride on Kumali but didn’t like the photo it took but we noted that Mumbo Jumbos photo unit was open. We had a wander around the back of the park to see if we could see the tigers as that’s another thing we’d like to see (and have missed them every time we’ve been). Still no sign of the tigers today, so we headed back around to Mumbo Jumbo to find that the photo kiosk was closed, and it wouldn’t reopen all day.

This was such a shame as I was planning on buying a photo from there as I’ve only got one other Mumbo photo and that was from 2017! I believe we were at Mumbo Jumbo for around 1pm so the photo kiosk was closed for more than half the day, which was a shame but it didn’t ruin the day or anything of the sort!

As for the rides, Sik was riding vert well once it got going as there was a bit of a breakdown as we boarded but we did eventually get a ride and it was just as good as I remembered from last year! Kumali rode well too, giving one of its signature smoother rides for it’s ride type and Mumbo Jumbo and Hero were still great fun. Velocity was closed so we couldn’t have a go on the motorbike coaster, but we had our first go on Voodoo, a pirate ship ride that I often overlook, as Tracy had her first go on Cliffhanger too.

Once we’d done with the bigger stuff, we moved onto Muddy Duck Farm to slow down a bit and had our first rides on The Tractor Ride and Wacky Racers. Both of these could do with a little attention to make them a bit more fun, but they were decent nonetheless. To finish the day we had a go on Mischief Manor, the parks only dark ride and it was running ok. Most of the scenes were running as intended but it does look a little worse for wears and could possibly do with a refresh in the coming years!

Not only was this our first visit to the park this year, but it was also the park I’ve chosen to star having a go a vlogging. You can find a link to the video here. I’m fairly pleased with how it turned out, especially for our first time doing one of these. There are a few rough spots but I’ve learnt a lot from this one video alone! Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

We had a great day at the park, despite sounding mostly negative earlier. We rode some of our favourite rides and had a great time figuring out the whole Vlogging thing too. I hope to get back to Flamingo Land later ion the year if we can, but for now, this was our first visit and a great day was had by all!

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