What's new

The Netherlands in April

SilverArrow

Certified Ride Geek
Quick one here because I have a bit of a backlog but wanted to put in my thoughts about mine and Daviddoc's holland trip back in April.

First day we did Duinrell. I wasn't sure which of the two Amsterdam parks to do but I had read (probably on here) that Duinrell was the nicer of the two. This park was part of a campsite and waterpark resort thing and had lots of family things to do. I remember them having nice food in their take-away restaurant place, including a pesto salad thing which was nice and I had a smoothie type thing to cool down because this day was the final day of that crazy heatwave we had in April. Holland was just as hot!

Time for creds! All of their more adult rides were in a themed sort of glade area all in one place. Everything here had the same theme, of wood. We joked that when they order a new ride they probably just send pictures of their others rides like "this pattern please"! Every ride has the same kind of fake wood overlay thing that worked nicely together.
See the "wooden" supports for reference here on their gerst family cred.

Speaking of this cred, oh my goodness! Could this be the best family coaster of it's kind (smallish, minimal theming) ever!? It had airtime!! This ride shocked and delighted us both and we proceeded to take multiple re-rides during our visit because it was just so fun! Do not miss it if you go!
They had a water chute ride that had both covered and open boats! If I remember correctly you queued in a different queue and they alternately loaded each boat. Never seen one of these before and actually though it was a neat idea! Something the UK could get on board with as an optional choice for our colder and wetter days maybe?

Is it a delorean...no it's a boat!
We opted for the closed boat partly because I didn't want to spend the day soaked but also because I wanted to try out my new discovery. It dripped on you a bit when the gullwing doors were in the up position but I didn't get wet otherwise and the drop felt really surreal when you didn't get splashed at all. Still enjoyed it and it amused me greatly!
Obviously we also did the gerst eurofighter, the only rollercoaster (I expect) in the world to play Enya in it's station. It's weird, but it kind of worked!

This was fine. Nothing special but nothing horrid either. It's the same layout as rage but i'd rate it better purely on the location I think, it felt a bit more permanent. Both are decent coasters though.
I had an awesome stroopwaffle ice cream. Would recommend!

We decided to do the bobsled ride, one of those ones where you go down a metal gutter on a tea tray. The queue for this was the longest of the day but the ride was sufficiently long with a pretty large "lifthill". I wouldn't count it as a cred but it was still really good fun. David hadn't done one before and managed to go so fast that he fell off! Oops! Duinrell also has one of those operate-yourself boat rides. I can't remember their name but I had been wanting to do one for ages. It cost 1 euro. I was a little nervous because it looked pretty high and pretty sketchy from the top but it turned out to be great fun!
Here I am making a (slightly blurred) splash!


Walibi Holland!
The next day we did Walibi. As soon as I walked in I got this Six Flags vibe. I know that it used to be a six flags park but I wasn't expecting it to be so obvious! *I haven't actually been to a six flags park but having seen vlogs etc it instantly reminded me of them.

I believe some of this decor is their new branding to become more "hip". It was looked a little like they were trying too hard but I still liked it.
Goliath is great! I wouldn't rate it better than EGF but it still packed loads of airtime! The park was quiet so we managed quite a few rerides! It has a great location where it swoops out over the lake and looks fab when you're pulling into the car park or driving past. Great stuff!
Robin hood was ok, I couldn't help but imagine what RMC are going to do with it all the way around. Glad to have got the cred before the conversion but it wasn't anything special. Lost gravity on the other hand was great! I was kind of expecting a gerst infinity kind of experience probably because I was fooled by the colour scheme. This ride is miles above the smiler in terms of quality! So smooth and such an interesting layout! I may or may not have screamed at the water explosion thing even though I knew it was coming and it was just a nice and refreshing new kind of experience. I toyed with putting it in my top 10 but currently it resides in my top 10-20.

Apart from those coasters this place was pretty much vekomaland, and home to some quite decent ones at that (bar the SLC which was awful!)! The boomerang had onboard sound and a funky sountrack to it which really enhanced the experience for me. I felt like I was riding something custom or more special than an ordinary boomerang. I'd still probably put Bellewaerde's as my most intense, but this one was decent. I had had a slight fear of platform 13 because long ago it was Rock n' rollercoaster that had started my "fear" of launch coasters. Check my top 10 to see how far I've come! :D I'm now much braver and enjoy lots of launches but this one had me slightly nervous just because of the memory (plus the creepy queueline where you had to wait behind doors to board). It turned out to be absolutely fine and a breeze so I am pleased to say that I have come full circle with my launch coaster saga. haha. The end! It was nice to see the ride layout in the daylight and it was pretty smooth I think. Decent coaster.

We did some random other rides and mopped up the creds and also did the VR experience thing. I wouldn't do this again as I kind of find them boring but it was interesting to see their queueline management that made it seem like you were going to some weird doctor's surgery to have your mind altered. They separated you at the entrance so only one person entered at a time and you had to sit in a "waiting room" before being taken through a passageway to your room. It definitely put me on edge a bit. We got spited on a second ride on lost gravity because it broke down, but all in all we had had another nice day! We stayed at a hotel that turned out to have an onsite sushi restaurant where you ordered all you can eat on an ipad which was cool. I'd never tried sushi properly but this turned out to be awesome!

The next day was Slagharen. Our sat nav took us on a weird detour which turned out to be quite convenient. We're just driving along through loads of country lanes, past lots of cows and then suddenly we look out and see this.

Sorry, what!?

Turns out there's a ride refurbishing factory right near Slagharen! Oh hello, knott's boomerang and what most think is probably pleasure island's boomerang too. There was also another family cred set up further back. SO RANDOM!

So, Slagharen. It has been on my hitlist for a while because of it's abundance of Schwarzkopf's but unfortunately the Looping Star had been relocated. However, the replacement cred looked like a worthy replacement. We started off our day by buying annual passes. This was because they offer loads of free entries and discounts to other european parks. Would recommend!
Look how cute this place is, I loved it!

Everything was western themed except some mexican and steampunky bits that were in certain areas, but the majority was western themed. The park was really well kept and just had a lovely atmosphere!
Gold Rush time!

They must be really pleased with this replacement as it's a really fun, family coaster. You get 3 launches, two forward, one backward and it has airtime and inversions all packed into a fairly small space. Really great coaster for it's size. The area it's in has been well themed, looks great and is an awesome centrepiece for the park. Can you tell that I like this park?
The park has a load of unusual and retro flats to try including some Schwarzkopf ones like the enterprise, monster, and moon swing rides (I am unashamedly a fan, see profile pic and top 10 haha!). There were only two of the moon swing rides made and the enterprises are pretty rare. I found the enterprise to be more forceful than the huss models. They have roofs that swing up (again, deloreans!) instead of the sliding doors you see on the Huss models. Did you know that Schwarzkopf actually created the ride first but Huss ended up with the patent!?

It was also steampunk themed (in the Jules Verne area), which is one of my favourite themes and looked very pretty!
They also have an indoor western-themed rapids ride which is in this big tent place. This was so quirky! I couldn't quite believe it when David said that there was a rapids inside this building but he wasn't wrong!

Don't miss the Apollo ride. It went higher than I expected and was a nice, pleasant experience. All in all, this was a really nice park and definitely one of those smaller parks I'd be keen to revisit! If my trip report appealed to you (you like gersts, schwarzkopf, retro flat rides or western theming, definitely don't miss it as it's such a cute, clean little park!)
So that concludes my netherlands trip report, thanks for reading!
 
Last edited:

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Short and sweet report - nice!

Since the addition of Gold Rush we've seen slightly more of Slagharen, and I think it looks great.
 
Top