Fred Bus July 2022

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Wow, it's been a very long time since I wrote a trip report. I recently went on a week long trip to Germany, Netherlands and Belgium with a bunch of CFers and their partners. Richard (who planned and drove the Fred Bus*), Nic, JayJay, Owain & Dave, Jordan & Claire. Most places lined up on the trip I'd been to before at least once and yet there were so many exciting new things to experience.

* Named after a typo of cred bus in the group chat


Day One - travel and Movie Park Germany

Gah, one thing I don't miss from these adventures is the stupidly early start. I had Nic and JayJay stay at mine so we could head over to Heathrow together and we had to get up at some time in the am that no one should be awake at. Our cab got us over to the airport in quite good time but we had to wait ages for Richard, Jordan and Claire to get to the terminal before check in as their bus from the car park liked sitting around for no reason. The queue for bag drop off for our airline was ridiculous and, as we kept quoting throughout the trip, was "out of control". The queue basically didn't move as they would just call people forward for the next flight on their list. It ended up being weirdly efficient if a bit anxiety-inducing when you see everyone bundled together in a long queue. Security was an absolute breeze which was nice after hearing all the horror stories recently. Everything actually went quite well and even our flight was pretty smooth. However as we landed in Germany we got messages through from Owain and Dave that their flight was delayed leaving Scotland so instead of arriving at a similar time this gave us time to faff around Dusseldorf airport, sort out the hire car and grab some snacks. Soon enough we joined by the Owain and Dave and we were on our merry way to our first park of the trip, Movie Park Germany!

We dropped off those that needed the Schloss Beck cred and went to get a spot in the very busy car park. The weather was gross, blue sky and stupidly hot, any time not in the shade was just grim. In the car park we found fellow goons:

It was then time to enter the park, this was my third time here and I was intrigued to see what the new coaster was all about, which is obviously where we headed to first.

The queue for this was quite long but at least it was inside and fairly cool. There were some neat bits of theming inside of a pretend film studio office space. I liked that there were blueprints for attractions at the park as well as a few models of their rides. The station queue was a bit of a mess and there was a bag drop thing that wasn't in use, maybe they were down a ride host? After Van Helsing being a great indoor coaster and the way the park talked about their process for this ride my hopes were a little high. Probably the reason I was quite disappointed by this ride then, there are some nice ideas in there but it all just feels a bit underwhelming. Maybe a re-ride would have helped but I don't think any of us would want to queue for it again.

model for a much better dark ride coaster

I didn't take any more pics but the more notable moments through the rest of the day were the couple of rides we had on Star Trek (running a little rough now but still great fun), a few rides on Van Helsing (still amazing, fab little coaster), the rapids with it's odd re-theme, the stupid queue acted like a sauna. We ended the day with ice cream and then the UFO boat ride. I'd never done the UFO ride before and I didn't realise how ridiculous it was inside, it's quite impressive! Also got drenched on that indoor drop.

It was then back into our massive hire car to go find our hotel which was located in the middle of a forest in the Netherlands. The roads in this area were something I've never experienced before, it was barely wide enough for a car and a half and had really intense rumble strips on each side of the road (which we had to use a few times), it was like the hire car was going to just vibrate to the point it just fell apart. We also drove into Zwolle to find food, we also had the first of our "how the hell do we drive and park this beast of a car in this little town" moments. Lots of driving around, finding dead ends and getting funny looks from locals.

A tiring and interesting day.

 

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Day Two - Walibi Holland

Our drive to the park was quite simple and we enjoyed having to stop at a bridge so it could raise and let some boats pass through. Obviously we headed straight to the main reason for returning here, Untamed! This is such a huge improvement, Robin Hood was such a bland coaster and this is great fun. The pacing throughout is great and the little hill with the head-chopper moment is awesome. Just a joyful experience from start to finish.

Next up was Lost Gravity which had quite a long queue. Shocked that the fire effects were still in use! Really fun little coaster though, I'd like to see some more of these pop up.

Some of the group then rode the log flume while Nic, Dave and I watched a man repeatedly try and fail to kill a wasp with a bag.

On our way over to Goliath we stopped by the enterprise so Jordan, Claire and JayJay could go for a quick spin. They just missed out getting on the next cycle and someone spewed their guts up at the end of the ride which led to a lot of faff and gagging from the ride op who had apparently never had to deal with vom before - we literally saw her reading the manual! She generally seemed confused on how to deal with the situation and after loading everyone on (which is a faff in itself) the ride started up and then as it was getting going it slowed back down again and she took everyone off! So much faff!

bored now


After everyone was taken off we continued our way over to Goliath which didn't have much of a queue - probably because this park has the worst layout of any park in the World. Goliath is ok, I enjoyed it more than I remembered.

We then had a fun little time on the dodgems before splitting at the rapids. Nic, Dave and I stayed off and found a spot by a water feature that was good for watching people react to.

Really nice colourful repaint of this feature

After the groups boat passed our spot (towards the end of the ride) it started to lightly rain. The rain then kept getting heavier.... and heavier.... and heavier. We had dived under a nearby tree that was doing well at keeping us (and everyones bags) dry but it soon wasn't enough to protect anything from the liquid onslaught from the sky. At one point my foot started to feel wet, I looked down and I found myself in a newly created river. I can't remember the last time I witnessed such a long, aggressive downpour. As soon as we saw one of the others we ran towards them and then found the best shelter in the park, the big undercover area by the main shop/express 13. It's where a lot of people ended up as nowhere else saved you from the rain. The floor getting to it was just a lake, everyone was just absolutely soaked through head to toe. There's not a lot you can do in this situation, everything just feels soggy and awful and you can't really go anywhere/do anything.

When the rain calmed down a little bit we made a dash for one of the restaurants. Getting food was a bit of a faff but it was quite good. We couldn't fully escape the rain though as several areas of the ceiling were leaking quite a lot! After our meal the weather was back to just being bright and too hot so we spent some time just standing in the sun to dry off a little.

We made a second attempt at the enterprise and this time they managed to get on with no issues. However the clouds were back for another round so we took cover nearby.

Not a fan of the mascot re-design as I quite liked the previous style, felt unique

After the short storm we ran over to another go on Untamed, it was running even better after the rain, just feels so out of control, throwing you all over the place. We then took a quick ride on Xpress 13 on our way out of the park - certainly a better ride when it's hiding in a shed like at the Disney parks but I still enjoy it.

It was then off to our next hotel in the center of little Amersfoort. It was a cute little place (kinda wish I'd gone exploring a bit) but the hotel is inside a no car zone so parking was once again a nightmare and we ended up about a 30 min walk away (which with our luggage was a faff). The hotel was fab though and the owners also had a bar downstairs, there seemed to be quite a nice friendly local vibe around the place. We even made friends with the local weird drunk guy.

We then had some nice food and beer to end off a weird but good day.

 

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Day Three - Efteling

I was super excited to be getting back to Efteling, it's one of my favourite theme parks and it's felt like forever since I last visited. I was a little concerned going in that the crowds were going to ruin the day a little bit but overall things turned out a lot better than I anticipated.

As was becoming the norm on this trip our first port of the call was the new duelling powered Mack coasters Max and Moritz. The queue was fairly long but it has single rider lines that no one was using so we got on both sides in no time at all. It's a cute little redesign of the area and the ride/queue area will certainly look better over time once all the trees start to grow etc. Both sides of the coaster are fine, cute little family coasters but they're no Bob. We loved Bob.

As it was nearby and we'd seen pics online of a cool new thing we headed to was the excellent dark ride, Fata Morgana. As part of the 70th anniversary celebrations they had a giant puppet outside the ride of the big troll thing. It was pretty cool and was quite an interactive experience with the puppeteer actually talking to the guests and getting them to do low-fives etc.

Big boi

The ride had quite a long queue but it shifts so quickly I have no idea how long we actually waited. The scents on the ride were really strong and that seemed to become a common theme throughout the day. Our next port of call was the iconic Spookslot which is due to close in September to make way for a modern take on the theme (so sad but excited to see what they have up their sleeve). It was cute that everyone applauded at the end.

We then made a stop near Symbolica for a themed ATM experience before getting on the ride itself.

Symbolica is cute but it still feels like it could have done a little more with the tech involved. Still a good addition to the park though. After some ice cream we then entered the Fairytale Forest of Forever. I forgot how much they've added to the forest since my last visit, so many new fairytales and also lots of improvements to older ones. The highlight is still Indian Waterlilies but I was amused most by the sheer novelty of the new ride for The Six Swans, it's literally a small boat ride that goes in a little circle via a small indoor room with a scene. It feels so elaborate for something so small.

Longnek has a party hat for the anniversary!

I think we grabbed some lunch next at the White Horse restaurant, which was decent. We then introduced the noobs to Villa Volta and its goat riders. In the courtyard outside Villa Volta/Droomvlucht was another anniversary thing of a giant structure with a fairy character talking to those in the area. It was really fab, although I don't know how the fairies survived sitting up there going around in circles in the direct sun.

It was then time for Droomvlucht which is an absolute classic dark ride and was probably the longest queue we had all day. Unfortunately the cool anniversary party chaos (in several areas of the park) happened while we were in the queue. We could hear the song as it played out across the whole park (the trad birthday song that also incorporates several of the classic ride music!) but we missed out on party hats!

We saw the big Alice in Wonderland themed party area after the ride (really cool set up, a shame it's only used once a day).

Next was Carnaval Festival and Vogel Rok and we got to see the rethemed area around what used to be Monsieur Cannibal. The new Sinbad theme is fab but time was moving on so we briskly made our way over to coaster corner.

First up was De Vliegende Hollander which had a huge queue, which I didn't mind, gives you time to appreciate the ridiculous amount of theming, the scenery changes all the time due to the speed of the batching anyway. The ride is very short but the atmosphere during the indoor section is special, although I always thought maybe a little more happened in there. The anniversary special in this area of the park was a 'statue' character that had come alive and was interacting with guests.

We then queued a long time for Joris en de Draak so we only ended up riding one side. It was feeling a little rough which is a shame because outside of that it's ridiculously fun and really fast on a hot day like this one. We were intrigued by the Python retrack but it was closed when we were in the area. We grabbed a snack at the train station building before heading over to Baron 1898 for the last ride of the day. I think as we'd caught it at the end of the day staff were trying to wrap up operations and so things got a little messy (Nic and I entered the pre-show after it started for example). However it's a fun little coaster but certainly one that looks better off-ride due to all that awesome theming around the drop.

Also the lever the staff pull to let the ride go is god-tier theming

We ended our time at the park with a sunset performance of Aquanura. Not as great compared to a night time performance but it's still pretty cool, got to the love the music of Efteling.

We then had a long-ish drive to our hotel for the evening, Hotel Fauwater. I did not like this hotel, the walls and floor in the room was like that horrible grip material you sometimes get near swimming pools/water parks, just very uncomfortable. The plug sockets were also in really unusual locations.

It was a nice day though, it ended up being a lot more chill than I was expecting and it was just nice to be back in the park and enjoying the atmosphere. Hopefully the time between this and my next visit won't be as long.

 

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Day Four - Bobbejobbie

Most of the group had already been to Bobbejobbie and really didn't care for visiting again as it's just so mediocre. It's not bad it's just not got anything great. But Jordan needed the creds and most of us hadn't been on Fury yet so off we went. There was a couple of school trips so we were a little concerned with queues but we managed to work around the park in the opposite direction to everyone else and didn't really queue for anything!

We worked our way around the park by going left and finding ourselves at the mine train. It's quite long and the way it interwinds around the log flume is good. We were going to do the ridiculous indoor log flume but it was closed for the day - I know this is due to get rethemed so I wasn't sure if it was actually already down for the works being done to it. The clown coaster was next, it isn't anything to really write about, it exists.

I kinda forgot about the giant building at the back of the park, some sort of indoor kid playground themed to clowns. I wonder if it ever get used much. I decided to ride Dreamcatcher as I don't remember it being too bad and it's always novel to ride an old swinging suspended coaster. It was fine. We were making our way around the park pretty quickly with everything being walk-on so far. The mine train was next and that was also decent, I forgot it had the rocking motion effect on one of the lift hills. Most of the group then decided to do the rapids which has a fab whirlpool, some of the group got very wet.

I think Speedy Bob may have been closed? Either way I didn't ride it. Then it was inside the giant warehouse for Revolution. This ride is so ridiculous with its insanely long trains and lift hill. It is funny but I wouldn't call it good.

Then we rode the disappointing but re-themed spinning coaster, Naga Bay. This actually had quite a long wait and the staff operating were a bit of a mess. It was better than I remembered but it's still not great, feels like it lacks some power as it goes around.

Those that needed the cred then went off to ride Typhoon.

And then it was time for Fury. I was kinda looking forward to this as I enjoy a good Gerst. It did not disappoint, really fun throughout, quite disorientating, especially if you get the backwards version! I would have happily ridden it a lot more, I'd like one of these a bit closer to home please!

With a storm looking like it was about to hit we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed to our next hotel. It was a very quick visit to the park and I am glad I got to ride Fury but that park needs a couple of decent additions for me to return.

Our hotel was in Brussels and as we approached we learnt it had recently added a lower emissions zone for vehicles so unless we wanted to pay a silly amount we had to park outside the city and get the metro into the centre. It was actually rather simple and the first metro train we got on was quite nice, the other ones we used, not so much. Our hotel was pretty well located and we used our mid-afternoon check in to take a quick break and refresh before going on a walking tour of some things dotted around the city. It was quite hot so about half way through we were flagging a bit. If I ever return to Brussels I want to see if the music museum is as cool inside as the exterior, excuse the terrible photo but we moved at quite a pace.

A building alarm just happened to go off when I poked my head through this open door...

We popped inside one of the religious buildings, this carved podium was quite epic...

After our rather unusual route we went for a pint and I think the heat and lack of food let the alcohol go straight to our heads, we were all in quite good spirits for the rest of the evening. We certainly enjoyed this main square and finding all the horses.

We then found a touristy restaurant for some grub and more alcohol. We had free entertainment in the form of the weird man balancing items on his head and failing to gain an audience while a woman played Amelie on a piano.

When in Brussels...

It was a little bit of an odd day but we had fun, the next park was somewhere I was very excited to return to.