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Parc Asterix 2012

vaugc002

Mega Poster
Hi all,

I have arrived back home from a trip to Paris and I thought I would write a bit about my visit to Parc Asterix.

As it was my first time, I do not have much to compare it with in terms of changes but I would say that the entrance area and first part of the park looked very much like a (slightly) better themed Chessington.
We were heading to Trace du Hourra first but unfortunately it was closed so we decided to ride Oz Iris instead.

The ride looks much larger in real than in pictures and spans quite a distance from end to end. The theming was all very nice with a good Egyptian vibe throughout the area. It was very clean too - one thing that really struck me.

The queue winds under the track and is quite nicely created before it enters an Egyptian style building.

This building seems almost similar to a walk through ride but acts instead as a queue and it took nearly 30 minutes to make it onto the ride from entering the building.
We took the back row which had no queue whatsoever - the front however had a longer queue than I have seen for other coasters.

The lift hill is brisk and the first drop was really excellent - actually taking my breathe away in the same way rides like Oblivion do.
I must confess that it was rather disorientating as a first ride as I couldn't see what was coming and the elements are rather unusual.
I recall the dive into the tunnel offering airtime of a sort and the Zero-G giving a great near miss effect with a building.

The overall experience was really awesome - much better than most British coasters. The scale was greater than I imagined and it was actually pretty intense.

More briefly now; I went on to the other main roller coasters: Goudirix, Tonnerre De Zues and Trace Du Hourra. We rode all at the back.
Queue wise, Goudirix took less than 30mins, Tonnerre about 20m the first time and 15m the second and Trace about 1 hr.

Goudirix looked incredibly smooth - my family even mentioned this but I found the ride very very rough.
The drop was good as we were really whipped around the top and over the edge of the drop but the train gave a strange shake every so often (at the bottom of the first element I remember it happening) and this was really painful.

The rest was fine but rough - a bit like Colossus to be honest.

Tonnerre was really excellent and soon became my favourite ride of the park. The back seat on the first drop ejected me and my brother out for the entirety of the drop and there were so many moments of airtime that I cannot list them all here. The huge helix section really forced you against the edge of the car and the airtime hills from there were great fun, making you wish for yet another hill and yet another bit of floater airtime!
I think the end burnt out somewhat but the ride was fast and fun and not too rough which surprised me.

Lastly came Trace Du Hourra which I was looking forward to as I hadn't ridden a bob style coaster before.
The queue for this was about an hour as it had been shut most of the day and everyone wanted a last ride on it.
The ride to be honest was a disappointment. It wasn't that great at the back, having none of the previous excitement found on Tonnerre or Oz Iris.
The ride was very bumpy also - I guess this is the style of the ride coming through but it was a continual shake and the ride never picked up enough speed to be thrilling.

That said, the feeling of swinging from corner to corner was quite fun.

Overall, the park really exceeded my expectations.
Food was superb, the theming was varied and pretty good and the rides were really fun too.

The star definitely had to be Tonnerre de Zeus but Oz Iris was also excellent in a big new ride sort of way.
Definitely worth a visit!
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Good to hear a first review of Oz Iris. Sounds like a lot of fun, which is good news :)
 
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