"Pass the Duchy" Trip Reports

[Ollie]

What are the porn ponies? Does anyone have a picture as Maddie failed at trying to explain it to me over the weekend and couldn't remember much about the trip or the rides.

 

[Ben]

Mike's got a look on his face that's telling me we're seeing a first caught on camera.

 

[Mike]

Was it gay of me that the only thing I noticed when I first saw the photo was that my coat shouldn't be brown?

 

[Ploddish]

I'd rather not reiterate what's been said, because all of the park-wise stuff has already been told better than I could have. So instead, I'll just run through some of the stuff that made me laugh - which I think it's fair to say would be the majority of the trip.

-Starting the trip off in THE WORLD'S TINIEST TWIN PROP PLANE.

Mostly because of me pointing it out whilst walking over to the gate. Mark going, "Nah, won't be that one. It's Düsseldorf. Germany! Important people go there!", followed swiftly by his face becoming steadily more unsure as we walked down a ramp and on to the tarmac. Apparently, not at 6am, they don't.

- Becoming navigator for the first time, thinking 'How hard could it be?'
- Getting us lost within the first 15 minutes of the trip. At least I can say we had a lovely 4 minute visit of [INSERT NAME OF TOWN HERE].
- Our gleeful faces when we got into Phantasialand. The place is like Disneyland... but for Germans!
- Mark not telling us that the bands he had given out were glow-in-the-dark. Having just had an astonishing first ride on Mamba, and ending up on the break run in total darkness, we all noticed at exactly the same time: "GOON BANDS! THEY GLOW!". Amused us for the rest of the trip, without fail.
- Becoming steadily more irritated by the German, free-for-all method of queuing throughout the day. Never have I felt either more British or more of a tourist. Aside from the bunting, naturally.
- Everyone else realising the bands glowed on Pleasant Breeze: The Ride*. "GOON BAAAANDS!". Still amusing.
- It raining twice without any visible cloud cover. See? German Disneyland! Magic, but practical!
- Touring around Sue's pad for tea. Sadly, she'd run out of biscuits by the time we'd arrived.
- I may have a slight crush on my first house, incidentally.
- In the dark again. All together now: "GLOOWWIINNG". Still amusing.
- Sue doing her best Chaplin impersonation whilst trying not to fall out of the MJ ride.

- Feeling left out on the national orange party, discovering a strangely appropriate hi-vis vest, and Artificially Oranging myself.
- Becoming the recent past president of the Having-Balance club and falling off the obstacle course.
- Discovering my house exists in a shed in the Netherlands
- Watching Vadge play Pass The Dutchy (and by Dutchy I mean alcohol) between car boots.
- Then getting pulled over by the Politie and watching Mark get forcibly breathalised.
- Spending 40 minutes wandering around a scene from 28 Drinks Later in Eindhoven. Not an experience I'm going to readily forget. Bonkers and hilarious/terrifying.
- Having water for supper.

- Setting sail and then spending 30 minutes trying to find something akin to The Flying McDutchman for breakfast outside Efteling.
- Being unsuccessful.
- Efteling being exactly how I pictured Evergreen Gardens being in real life.
- The Flying Dutchman being even cooler than we all thought, and everyone going quiet at that bit.
- Our good spirits being ruined when the actual ride itself turned out to be utter ****.
- Pleasant Breeze 2: The Breezening: Now with Music!**
- Being bathed in quasi-racism by a dark ride advertised with a giant clown face for almost a full 10 minutes.
- It getting more racist as the ride went on.
- Breaking out into massive smiles during Droomvlucht during the cred/not cred part. Lovely moment.
- Oohing when the finale of a ride featured LASERS.
- SILLY PAPER HATS.

The only item on the sad list would be:
- Having to say goodbye to everyone :c

So yeah, that's a distilled and mostly untrue version of all the boring bits that filled in between all the cool stuff everyone else has talked about :lol:

* Temple of the Night Hawk
** Fraggle Rock***
*** Vogel Rok

 

[Ian]

What are the porn ponies? Does anyone have a picture as Maddie failed at trying to explain it to me over the weekend and couldn't remember much about the trip or the rides.

Porn ponies are those ponies that move along a track bobbing up and down. Like George's Dinosaur Adventure at Peppa Pig World.

 

[peep]

OMG, I totally forgot to talk about the random rain that came from nowhere while we were in some of the queues at Phantasialand, not a cloud in the sky yet RAIN, seriously WTF!?

Troy! (TROY!), slides and rave(ing loonies)

We began our next day the same way as the day before. Wake up all tired and in need of some boost in energy levels, go to McDonalds for some awesome McGriddles and drive to our next theme park destination.

Today's park is the lovely Toverland in the Netherlands. We did manage to run a tiny bit late but still ended up arrive at the park on time, cool. The weather was also rather cool in the fact that it was really chilly and the wind was even colder, yet there were lovely blue skies. Anyway all the group were standing in the car park and doing that sociable thing called talking. We moved over to the entrance of the park where we had to wait for about 20 minutes before the park opened. Before they opened the doors the female witch character was dancing around and generally teasing all the eager guests. Once the doors opened we rushed over to the far left kiosk and began to sort out tickets as a group with the special discount the park arranged with Slayed (thanks again for that!). It took quite some time to sort all of us out but we were soon walking into the first area of the park.

The first thing the entire group spots is a massive volcano shaped climby slide thing, took a mere couple of seconds before Richard was clambering to the top of it.

Didn't take too long for more peeps to join him and we spent a good 10-15 minutes distracted by this clearly made for kids contraption.

On our way to the Vekoma family coaster, Boomerang, we got distracted by the awesome magic wand house attraction. You walk around and when you wave your wand at little lights it triggers off an effect within the house, whether it's just a sound effect with a few flashy lights or an object actually moving in some way it is all rather magical. Kept us all entertained anyway.

We then finally made our way over to the first rollercoaster, Boomerang. I always enjoy this fun little Vekoma, it's very fast for such a small ride and the way it interacts with all the other rides in the area is rather cool. However it does feel like it finishes too soon, like it deserves a second lap before you have to get off, oh well.

I think we then proceeded into the second hall and opted for Woudracer. Mainly because I thought it would be best to do it in the morning than the possibility of the park getting busy and having to queue for ages later on in the day, luckily Slayed agreed. It's not as good as I remember it being last year which was a shame, but I think most people came off going 'meh'.

After the group getting distracted by even more play things we rode BoosterBike. I sat at the very back with AJ. It's a fun ride but the seating position does become rather uncomfortable.

It was then time for Troy (TROY!). This was to be ridden lots as minimal queuing time meant whoring was bound to happen. Such a great ride, I really do prefer the front though, I feel it is almost too rough at the back.

Nic approves of Troy based times

We faffed around a bit before moving on to the big area of childish play things for us to amuse ourselves with. Richard was probably the most eager as he ran over to the area and starting jumping up and down on the metal things that get peeps wet. Lots of fun was had on the little ferry thing which became a game of guessing how long Will will be stuck in the middle of the water (Richard had tied up one end meaning the ferry wouldn't move, ah, what larks we have). There were just lots of random fun things to play around on. We then went through the maze and started playing on all the random spinny things and see-saws etc, it was all very amusing. We then moved on to another area of playthings which involved water. It resulted in....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z975MT2P_ks[/youtube]

We then headed back inside to go on the log flume. It's rather awesome, turn-tables are cool and the large drop is actually quite impressive once you're up there and the splash actually gets you quite wet, hooray.

I think this is when some of us climbed the spiral rope thing to do the slides and that. The slide with rollers was horrible. It felt like it was burning through my jeans and caused pain in areas I don't appreciate pain. It didn't help that on the second slide I had a Richard kicking me down

Lunch was then called for and I think we all ended up going to the main eatery next to the entrance. I had a burger and chips, how original. It was ok I suppose. I think it was then Richard who demanded ice cream (it was actually quite warm outside by now and getting hotter). Obviously ice cream is always a good idea so we went over to Troy for ice cream based faff. The pots that contained the Mr Whippy-style ice cream said licky on them which amused us. We actually spent a fair amount of time just sitting around faffing but the weather was really nice and the area outside Troy is relaxing and it wasn't like there was a rush to ride anything as the park was very quiet.

Lol at Ploddish and his high-vis jacket to get involved with the Queens day celebrations

We then grabbed a group pic in front of the trojan horse because it is amazing before riding Troy even more. We then moved on to Scorpios (the parks swinging ship). I decided to sit at the back with Gavin and Richard. This was a bad plan. Turns out there isn't much leg room and so it was a bit uncomfortable until the ride started. Air time was achieved

It was time for some more insane amusement as we headed back inside for the fun house. Fun houses are fun and when you have 13 CFers roaming round one it is usually quite chaotic in the form of Richard get stuck in the rollers and 12 CFers all standing on the final spinning disc at the same time.

After a few people gaining bruises from the fun house we opted for the dingy slides next. While peeps were still coming down AJ and Maddie decided to go inside the little kids playhouse thing and sat up there for quite a while.

Soon enough Richard and Nic decided it would also be a fantastic idea to climb up there. Apparently it was wobbling a little bit by the time both of them were up there, whoops.

All four of them spent a little while running round it which I thought was highly amusing. The group then moved on to the obstacle course in the sky thing. I'll never do one of those things purely for the fact I know I'll be the one who fails miserably at life. Most of the group opted to do it but Mike and I thought we could sneak in another ride on Troy while we waited for them to start coming out onto the course. We got on front row and it was good, definitely warming up and getting a lot faster.

By the time we were back over at the course they were just starting to come out which was excellent timing. Sorry I has no pics as I filmed it all. Everyone did pretty well and despite Ploddish falling on the first section I thought he was brave to give it a go and did an excellent job at getting himself back up on it and back to the tower.

Once all the group were off the course we all went to do Troy again before riding the porn ponies next to Scorpios. We then found more playthings so therefore some of the group just had to have a go We then had another go on Boosterbike. Got a bit more air time this go round, I think the way you position yourself and brace yourself for each turn etc really does make a huge impact on how much you enjoy the ride.

We then ended our day at Toverland by riding Troy lots more, we had about 4 or 5 goes with only having to get off once which was pretty awesome. However awesome it is though there are only so many times you can ride it without having a break inbetween.

So overall another epic day and probably one of the funnest places to go in Europe, absolutely perfect if you have kids. However our day was far from over!

We all sat in the car park for a bit faffing while Richard attempted to find a mini golf place I randomly found online. There was some faffing with people moving into different cars etc as Nic wasn't keen on doing the mini golf so went in Slayed's car to go back to his hotel for some drinks while waiting for us. Richard's car gained a Mike and Rach. Richard gave up trying to find it in the sat nav and just after getting everyone to get back into their original cars he realised it could be in a different country, so he tried searching Belgium and voilà! We had a destination. So all change again and we were off!

We ended up in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We really thought we were going to another Beaverhoff of donotexist. However after going into the wrong area of the holiday park we had arrived at Molenheide!

I have to admit this has to be the best holiday park I've ever seen. Pool, restaurant, kiddie park (slides, carousels etc), bowling, mine themed mini golf, paintballing and there was even more. After faffing about with odd toilets (apparently one had two toilets in one cubicle) and tracking down staff to let us in we split ourselves into two groups. I was with Sue, Rach and Mike. We all claimed to be the worst at mini golf and to be honest we all had our fair share of low points and high points (Mike and I managed to get a hole in one on the same hole, was an awesome moment).

The theming was quite impressive (even if at times you see outside of the 'mine'). Some of the interactive elements were inspiring. Drill that makes the floor vibrate, a hole where the ball goes into a pipe, drops into a mine cart then goes down some track to drop it into the area with the hole etc. Just amazing. It maybe went on a bit, even if it was the standard 18 holes it felt like it went on forever and it didn't help that there was a really annoying family that we caught up with towards the end. I'm really glad we went though, was unique and cool. Oh and I have no idea who won out of us four, I started off doing amazingly well then about half way through I just got worse and worse Whereas I think it was an opposite story for the other three.

My camera hates taking photos in the dark and inside but you get the gist of the entrance

Oh and half way through there was some toilets but they were themed to the mine so were covered in fake dirt and handprints on the sink etc, was actually awesome. Sign was random though in the mens...

We were all exhausted and just wanted to get food and then to the hotel to sleep. However we had to pick up Nic from Slayed's hotel in the centre of Eindhoven. Completely forgetting the whole Queens day celebration thing we had no idea what to expect. We found the hotel quite easily (sort of) but once there we couldn't get hold of any of them so went in search of food. Just after getting out of the car we got talking to some awesome drunk Dutch girl who was really nice to us and was like yeah get to such and such place and there will be food, ask anyone else, everyone knows such and such place. Haha, okies, lets go and not get run over by cars in the process.

As we started to make our way to what looked like a place that had food I saw epic rave of epicness, it had big flashy lights and ridiculously loud music, I wanted. However Richard and Will were more focused on foraging for food at this point and once we had crossed a few roads we came across what can only be described as the messy aftermath of the biggest party ever and it was still in progress! I've never seen so many drunk people before all in one place before (and I live in London ffs) and they were all in bright orange clothing, it was like being on drugs lol. Oh and there were BIKES

After somehow sticking together through the mental crowds we came across what looked like a train station it had FOOD!!! It had a Burger King (eww, go away) and a random shop like a Tesco express. We came across an even more efficient lady compared to the one at Phantasialand. She bagged the 4 items and gave me change in a matter of mere seconds, it was ridiculously fast.

So, now the four of us had food we decided to randomly walk around through the carnage for a bit before ending back up at their hotel. We then found Nic outside so Nic grabbed her stuff, said goodbye to the Welsh, we left Mike with them and Will and I sat in the car of Rah so we could eat foodage while Richard braved the crowds again with Nic.

We then drove to what looked like a shabby Novotel which wasn't what I was expecting. That's it for tonight, find out (probably tomorrow) what the hotel was like inside, how awesome Efteling is and how the Panda of Doom will make your life complete*


*may not really make your life complete

 

[Nic]

Great report, Peep!

Come on people, surely we can manage one or two more PTRs before this topic dies a complete death? Please?

 

[Rach]

I've got a bit of spare time so I may as well type up what I can remember from Efteling.

Before we got there I had this preconceived idea that the park was going to be rammed. But thankfully is a lot lot better than that. I think for most of the rides apart from Joris we walked straight onto and even that only had a 10/20 minute queue depending on the batching.

When we had all arrived and Slayed had flashed his magic email at the park staff (Fantastic discount there, thanks Mark and Efteling!) we entered the park and made our way to the nearest eatery. En route we stopped in the shop and found out that the park maps were actually free - result (as the park is massive)!

Our first stop was the Octopus restaurant thing for breakfast related foodage. There was a great choice of stuff there so everyone was happy, apart from some getting a little edgy and wanting to ride something...

Once that was over, we made our way over to the first coaster of the day. Python. A nice walk on ride was a great way to start the day, however it would have been better if it wasn't a Vekoma Loopscrew. The ride itself was ok, a little painful on the old ears, but apart from that nothing to really say about it. The seats on the thing were actually fairly comfortable as well despite looking like hell.

Our next stop was to be the flying dutchmen thing before the the queue became horrific. After walking through a long queue line, we found the end of the queue and we were on in 10 minutes if that. With there being 13 of us, we took over the boat.
The indoor part of the ride was very good as it is pitch black dark in there, can't see a thing, not even an outline of anything! the outdoor part wasn't very good at all, the drop out of the building is pretty decent, but that's the only thing that is. The turn is taken really slowly (so much so it nearly rolled back on our 2nd go). The drop into the water sort of makes you anticipate getting wet, that for sure doesn't happen.

As we were in the coaster area of the park, the next thing to do was Joris en de Draak. We walked through yet another enormous queue line and decided to split the group on the merge point. On this day they were only running 1 train on each side (and no sign of a 2nd on the transfer track either) so it was pretty slow.
I was in the group that done Veer first. Whilst queueing, it became apparent that it was the better of the two sides as the majority of the circuits it won. Also the dispatch was a lot quicker on this side than Water and they kept having to wait for water in order to send the trains out.

So fire, I thought it was the better of the two, but can't pinpoint why I prefer that one over water. One thing I did love about both sides is that they start off tame and then gradually get wilder as it carries on. They could certainly duel a bit more as that element is lost with the trains going off in different directions after the first drop and turn.

Both lots of CFers managed to get on the same run, so we got out the queue and headed back round again for the other side. The queue had got smaller in the 20 odd minute gap. We managed to get on water in about 10/15 minutes. Whilst queueing, fire had won pretty much every round, but when we rode, water did win.

Both sides were good, fire was the better but I'm not 100% sure why I preferred that one over water. The station was fantastic and the little fanfare that played when the train returned was a nice touch. The banners on the roof were also a nice touch which were lowered in relation to which train won. It would be better if there were more dueling elements. To me, it was smooth and much more re-rideable than Troy.

Once everyone had rode both sides, we moved our way to the 5th coaster of the day. Another Vekoma indoor coaster, this time named Vogel Rok. It was walk on, the best way for the majority of indoor coasters to be.
Again, nothing stood out from this. Though it would appear the music on the train I was in was broken which probably hampered the ride experience a little.

Realising the time (it was about 12), and the fact we had done all but one coaster, we slowed our pace down and tried some of the other rides the park has to offer.
The first thing we done was a 10 minute long scary clown thing that I honestly had no idea what it was about. Managed to work out that it was trying to imitate different countries and being very stereotypical towards them. It was amusing, but really made me think what?!

I can't remember what we done after this. A lot of walking around happened I know that for sure. I think we done the old indoor traditional carousel and then had a look around a model village thing before heading towards the final coaster.

The coaster never happened, instead we got distracted by some show thing that was pretty crappy. We had also noticed something called PandaDroom which we had to go and see what that was all about. It turned out to be a 3D show with the pre show being nothing more than a massive advert for the WWF.
The 3D of the show was actually really good which was a change. The 3D then turned into 4D when it came with added water, seat breaking and tree dropping. Quite a surprise and a pretty decent show.

We split for lunch then. Not fancying chips again, we found another sandwich place! Hurrah! Seriously, our parks need places like that, that make fresh, cheap and good sandwiches/baguettes. Turns out we ended up having chips as Mike accidently got two packets of chips and shared them out. On the way to meeting up with the rest of the group, we stopped for ice cream which was NOM!

We then met back up at the flying turns style bob thing. The queue was about 5 minutes. Was actually really surprised about with it. Fast, quite forceful and just generally very good. It was also amusing to see the vast array of lost items on the track as it went around. :lol:

I should apologise for the lack of photos, I hardly took any of the best of the park.

We then headed to the rapids, which had a good 15 minute queue. No surprises there as it was very warm. I don't remember much from the rapids apart from getting a really really wet back from the waterfalls. A good filler ride, but nothing special like a whirlpool or anything like that.

I think it was at this point, we walked around and rode anything that took our fancy. The first thing we done I think was the indoor boat ride which the name of escapes me. It was nothing special and more like a 100 times better Pirates Adventure at Drayton.

We walked around the fairy tale village thing, saw the **** donkey, walked through some houses and saw colourful doves. All of this took a good hour or so. It was then we ventured onto the 'cred or not' ride Droomvulcht or something like that. Still not 100% sure on that thing, but the 'coasting' section to be was like the indoor coaster at Bobbejaan but going down instead of up! Strange thing, well themed though.

I think we done the mad house next. I really really hate the sensation given at the start of the ride until it actually gets moving. The pre show looked like it was interesting if it was in English and not Dutch, but what can you expect. The ride part of it to me span a lot more than what Hex did and I enjoyed it more than what I do Hex. Theming was also top quality and the room was really nice!

It was then time of the show. I was expecting good things, but was really let down by it. Firstly because of the really annoying woman sat behind us that kept yelling at us in Dutch about cameras and flash photography.
The show itself was visually impressive, but it was really just what is this all about? The robot thing was very cool though!

I think it died...

6pm was almost upon us and that was when the park closed. We wanted to try and get at least one more ride in before the day was out, but again got distracted by a play area and Sue got overally excited at a spinny thing that was quickly to be named Bench: The Ride. Dragging Sue away from it, we managed to get over to Flying Dutchmen again before it closed.
It was nothing special, but the indoor bit seemed a lot darker and disorientating than what it was that morning. As I said earlier, I'm sure we weren't far off a rollback on the pointless turnaround!

We tried our luck with Joris again, but the queue had closed, so our day at Efteling had come to an end. Realising we hadn't done a group photo, we made our way over to the Dragon that goes with Joris and posed...

So that was it. Efteling is a fantastically themed park and amazing for kiddies to be able to step into that fairytale world. The rides were somewhat lacking. The highlights were certainly Joris and the Bob run with a mention towards the Flying Dutchmen, but there was nothing else really worthwhile or standout there.

I shall leave you with...

I may do a small report for Bobbejaan, but then again may not. Will see how bored I get to write about it!

 

[peep]

You can now have the day of Efteling from me too...

Dragons, donkeys and pandas of doom

Firstly I'll begin where I last left off. We were in Eindhoven and had arrived at our hotel for the evening. A Novotel. The exterior looked dated and rather naff. However once inside it was really nice, clean and fresh, could tell it had recently undergone a refurb as it was all modern and cool. The rooms were large and had a double bed and a pull out sofa bed. Awesome a double bed each, nice one Mr Cold!

To be honest the beds were a little hard but I was so tired I managed to get off to sleep rather quickly. Apparently I snored though which meant Will had issues getting some sleep, sorry Will!

Getting up in the morning was horrible but we managed to get ready ok and get downstairs for our arranged meeting time with Nic and Richard. They were no where to be seen so Will found the reception computer and browsed Facebook to waste time. After a little while Richard and Nic arrived and they looked uber tired. We were running a tiny bit behind schedule so we decided to try and find somewhere for breakfast on the way. We didn't see anything on the way and so we just went straight into the car park.

We had arrived rather early, not many other cars were there yet, we hoped this would be an indication of how empty it'll be in the park as it was uber busy when we were last at the park. So we waited around outside the entrance for a while before decided that we were too hungry and needed to do something about it. Richard talked to the guest services peeps who were awesome and let Richard and Will into the park to grab something. They came back bearing coffee. We then thanked the guest services peeps and continued our wait for the rest of the group.

Gotta love the entrance

Everyone else seemed to turn up at the same time which was cool. After getting our entry tickets with the awesome discount (mega thanks to Slayed and Efteling). We then swiftly made our way into the park grabbing park maps at the shop just after entering. The thing on everyone's mind was food so we kept an eye out for food. We spotted a random and cool little band, created a nice atmosphere in the area.

Before long we came across a cool looking restaurant. We all decided to grab some food and we ended up chilling out for a little bit. It was a really cool little place where the ceiling was themed to the water level with jellyfish etc. Under-water themed restaurant was cool. It had quite a good variety of food and healthy stuff too, I think quite a lot of us grabbed some sort of fruit.

Using our best map skills we then navigated ourselves to what we nicknamed 'coaster corner'. The first rollercoaster we rode was Python, the Vekoma looper which a queue time of 0, awesome. The seats are really odd and can be quite uncomfortable due to the random shape of them. The ride itself is alright but nothing too special, I didn't find it very painful but others within the group seemed to gain a lot of discomfort from riding it.

We then decided to ride the water coaster, Vliegende Hollander. It has one of the most impressively themed queuelines I've ever seen, I also love the soundtrack. It's almost a shame that we had to walk straight past all the impressive theming. The wait to get on was very minimal despite the long amount of time it was taking for each boat to be despatched. It was during the awesome dark ride section of the ride where the CF Live bands really glowed and looked amazing. The ride itself is alright, the dark ride part is fantastic but the actual coaster section is rather disappointing due to how slow it goes round.

Part of the awesome queueline

It was now time for the duelling woodies, Joris en de Draak. We only had to queue about 10-15 minutes which wasn't too bad. The group split between fire (red) and water (blue) sides. I think I chose the red side and ended up sitting next to Sue. I really enjoyed the ride and both of us loved the flags coming down and all the cheering. Sue really got into the spirit of things by cheering and clapping, unfortunately the same can't be said about any of the other riders

Which side do I take?

While everyone went to ride the other side I ran to the nearest loo (when ya gotta go, ya gotta go) and took some footage when I got back.

I think this is when we made our way to the other side of the park for Vogel Rok. I absolutely loved this ride last time but annoyingly the on ride music wasn't working and it felt really lame, surprising how much some music can change a ride. Oh well we did pretty much walk straight on. When we exited the ride we spotted one of the characters, me and Sue grabbed a quick photo opportunity

We had managed to ride so much within a small amount of time so we opted to ride whatever was in the building next to Vogel Rok. It was a random omnimover dark ride and was like a more racist version of It's a small World. It contained so many random scenes we couldn't help but laugh.

I think we headed to the area of the last coaster of the park but we got distracted several times on the way. First up was a highly decorative building which housed a very old carousel. Not sure how old it is but it still uses the original steam powered engine to run the carousel. The steam bit has been replaced by normal electricity though. I was shocked at how violent the movement of the horses was and it was quite fast, I was holding on for fear of falling off lol.

We thought that the big building couldn't be holding just a carousel so we went through a random door and discovered a diorama, in other words a massive small-scale model World. It was very impressive with tiny details like men on penny farthings (old bikes) and a working train. One scene also had an awesome lightning effect.

We then found a sign for Pandadroom (we called it panda of doom) but we also saw a random castle-like building so we ventured in. It was really odd, like a walk-through and then a show which didn't really make any sense, had some nice music though (including the Jonathon Creek theme).

Wrist band glowy times

We then went to investigate this Panda of doom attraction. The queueline meandered through some really nice gardens and then led us into a large room with three screens showing basically a really long ad for WWF. After what felt like a really long time we were taken into the next room which was the actual 4d theatre. The 3D effects were terrible, the projectors weren't aligned very well so I ended up still seeing two of everything, urgh. The 4D effects consisted of excessive water sprays, random seat breakage and a collapsing tree on to the audience. I thought the tree effect was quite cool. You then exit out into an area of slides and climbing frames themed to the scenes in the film which is quite cool.

It then merges into the restaurant that we had our breakfast in. Being near food made us all a bit hungry so lunch was called and the group split. We headed for the big station place at the back of the park. It's a very impressive building and has lots of little food places offering different things. What we thought would be pizza (due to the map) turned out to be kababs so we ended up having sandwiches which were really nice and freshly made.

We then headed back down to where the last coaster was. It's a bit like a modern flying turns and is rather cool. I love how fast you go round the corners, just a shame there are so many brake runs.

As it was rather hot out and we were next to them we did the rapids next which seemed to be undergoing a make-over on the exterior of the station building. It probably had the longest queue for the entire day at like 20 minutes, maybe not even that. They were quite good rapids and got us a little wet.

Then we went round to some massive palace like building hiding in the corner of the park. The building contains a boat ride called Fata Morgana which is similar to the pirates ride at Drayton Manor and It's a small World at Disney. I couldn't exactly tell you what the story was but the sets were impressive and quite large. At the end it felt like they just ran out of ideas and room but then lasers appeared which gained lots of attention from some of us. Yeah, so quite a random but impressive ride overall.

We then made our way through the fairy tale woods area. Basically a huge area with lots of random animatronics dotted around each representing a fairy tale. It definitely got better as we went round with larger props and bigger effects inside houses. We also spotted a green dove!

Half way round we found the donkey..

It shoots out coins...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rkGpo0D7Ps[/youtube]

I really liked the theming in this area.

There was also an extremely impressive animatronic tree which told tales in Dutch, was amazing. Anyway after taking forever walking round this huge area we continued to the area next to the new show arena. The first ride we did in the are was Droomvulcht, a suspended dark ride about fairies. It was actually quite impressive and we all shouted it was a cred because there is a massive room where the track just spirals down it with a forest in the centre, was really cool.

The next ride was the madhouse which had a really cool exterior. The pre-shows were probably ok but we couldn't understand what it was saying which was a shame. The actual ride was nicely decorated and the music was cool but it didn't really impress me but I think that's because I've ridden Cesar at Asterix which is clearly the best madhouse built.

How thoughtful of them, the story of the ride in English

It was then time for the new show, Raveleijn.

Just past the arch everyone is given a really cool hat...

The arena is extremely impressive, the attention to detail is just amazing and I just generally love the style of it all. Annoyingly though the show is a massive disappointment. There are a few awesome effects but the story isn't really there and it just feels like they should have done more as there are large chunks where they just walk around or just ride around in circles on the horses. It's a shame because everything surrounding it is absolutely amazing and then the show just lets it all down.

Getting out of the arena took forever due to the massive crowd of peeps exiting all down the same path. We saw a little play area so obviously peeps had to run off and start playing around on them and they actually had a little roundabout with benches on it, they actually have bench: the ride!

In a rush to get on at least one more ride we walked all the way over to coaster corner for Vliegende Hollander and possibly something else. Once again we pretty much got straight on and it was really odd as it seemed a lot darker this time and there was no mist, was really disorientating.

Cool station

The park had now closed but we still attempted to get one more ride on Joris en de Draak but they had already closed the queueline So we all went over to have a group photo by the massive dragon animatronic.

We then made our way to the shop before moving on to the exit where we all said our goodbyes as we would be going our separate ways for the evening and only Sue's car was joining us for the fourth park of the trip. We were staying in a cheap Etap in Antwerp. I have thought for years that Antwerp was meant to be a nice place and it really wasn't. It was really run down and just looked like a bad area, well, that's the area we saw anyway. We were staying next to the train station and it looked like it was part of a block of fairly new buildings as part of like a re-generation scheme along with the awesome new look of the train station.

Just as we were getting the stuff out of the car a man in his underwear came out of what must be a fire exit said something before retreating again. We then noticed that he had left a bleeding pigeon on the floor, it was the most random and wtf thing we'd seen all weekend. We then checked in and went up to our rooms. It was the traditional no-thrills offered by etap. However the room Nic and I were staying in had no working light in the toilet cupboard so Richard went and complained and got our rooms changed to ones a floor above. These rooms didn't have anything wrong with them apart from not much toilet paper.

I put the TV on out of curiosity as to what channels we picked up. We got BBC 1 and 2! Good stuff, annoyingly it was a Sunday so all that was on was Country file and the snooker. We opted for snooker. We then went out in search of something edible. We ended up going to the fancy restaurant in the station. It was actually really nice if a little pricey.

We then went back to the hotel and chatted for a bit before going to bed.

The lovely view from our room

It was a great day at a beautiful park, the natural setting is just relaxing and the rides are good (if a little odd - I'm looking at you carnaval festival!). Oh and I got a Making of Joris en de Draak DVD at the shop, it's amazing. Not only does it go into detail of every stage of design and construction but it also mixes in a short film the park made which tells the story behind the ride (tale of George and the dragon basically). I love the fact it has the option to have English narration, so glad I purchased it now.

Just one more day to go now! The tale of Numberwang, the non-spinning-spinning-coaster and midgets in a closet.

 

[peep]

Last day

Numberwang, credz and the dwarf controller

We left our Antwerp Etap hotel and grabbed some food from the Lidl in the basement/car park. They didn't really have much in the way of breakfast items but we all managed to get something. We then got into the car and made our way to the last park of the trip, Bobbejaanland.

Amazingly Sue's car got to the park about the same time as us which was funny because we were both late. We sorted out tickets and headed into the park. From the amount of cars in the car park it looked like it would be rather busy but once inside the park the queues for everything were either really short or non-existent, awesome. We walked past Typhoon as we headed straight for their new spinning coaster, Dizz, or Jizz as we renamed it.

Testing

Dizz was opening a bit later so we decided to go over to one of the food places for Sue and Co to grab some breakfast. It was next to the King Kong attraction. Awesome theming with some great facial expressions.

Dizz was now open so we went over to ride it, however Sue was faffing with food so she ended up getting split up from the group. The ride is pretty lame, we didn't really get much of a spin which made it all feel a bit pointless and it goes round quite slowly which isn't helped by the brakes throughout the course. So yeah, rather poor.

The theming really sticks out too, it's like bright colourful graffiti and the rest of the park is quite fitting to it's natural surroundings. Oh well, while we waited for Sue we went and rode King Kong which as I mentioned, looks great but the actual ride experience? Bit boring, there is the occasional judder which was quite cool but the random bursts of smoke felt like too much and yeah, just a bit pointless.

Sue joined back with the rest of us and we moved onwards into [strike]R[/strike]evolution. A really random indoor coaster. Apparently it has the longest rollercoaster train and it's just made of randomness. The lift hill is just weird with sort of techno music and flashy lights all over the place and some sort of volcano entrance on the floor. The actual layout after you've exited the very long lift hill is rather boring, I think this is down to the long train, it's just all a bit, you've guessed it, random.

Time for another cred, this time a Rattlesnake clone with minimal theming. There isn't anything special about this one but it ran rather smoothly.

We then went on to ride the next cred, The dream catcher. We had a bit of a wait which went through waterlogged teepees - wtf? The coaster itself was rather rough and it didn't really do much, just kinda meanders about. Although the bit over the fountains which fall over as you're about to go over them is pretty cool. Oh and we spotted our first numberwang board, just floating in the water below, how random.

Concept art in the queue!

We then continued round the park (there's quite a nice circular route of the park round the big lake). We had a quick loo break and Sue came out of the building all excited as she claimed she saw a cool circular bumper cars inside. So we all go in hoping for something cool and it turned out to be something for tiny kids, oh wells. So we continued our journey till we came across Oki Doki a rather cool kids coaster.

There was a short queue which was nice and when we got to the air gates Sue and Nic had a really bizarre conversation with the ride host who kept asking the same question. He then called over his colleague who spoke English, he seemed like a cool guy and we were all rather amused by the situation. The ride itself was good for a family coaster, it's surprisingly high.

We had ridden most of the coasters now and were doing better time-wise than we thought we would so we opted to ride the indoor log flume as apparently Gavin thought they were good. Me, Nic and Richard squeezed into one of the tiny log boats. I have to say the theming is very good in there but woah we caused some massive splash on both drops, Nic who decided to sit at the front got drenched while just the side of my legs got wet. I was shocked at how much of a splash we caused but it was funny. Going round we spotted another Numberwang board!

We then opted for the powered coaster, Bob Express.

It was basically walk on (had to wait for the train to come back to the station). Once again the very friendly ride host got talking to us and we pointed out to us that his colleague in the control booth was from England which led to cheers from us lol. As we were going round Nic said that the op was a dwarf, I'm not sure if he was or not, however it did make for rather amusing times, oh and there was another Numberwang board in the centre of one of the helices, this caused all of us to keep screaming Numberwang out

Opposite Bob Express was a shooty dark ride so it just had to be ridden. Much to our amusement the seating for the cars were benches...BENCH: THE RIDE!!!!

I actually enjoyed it, but then again I do love interactive shooty rides. Just a shame there wasn't an electronic score. The theming was once again quite good too.

We now only had to ride one more rollercoaster, Typhoon. So we went over and rode it. It was quite painful and very forceful but it had a good layout for something so compact. Oh and it had another numberwang sign.

We then moved on over to the flat rides. I think this one was called Sledgehammer and it looks amazing. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the actual ride experience. It took forever to get started as the staff seemed obsessed about getting as many peeps on the ride as possible and with not that many people in the park it just took ages. However while we waited this uber cheesy 80s rock ballad came on and the lyrics were really bad and cheesy. I can't think of the lyrics at the moment, but hopefully someone can help me fill that in later

The ride was just, I dunno, dull. It looks like it should provide lots of thrills and it just doesn't deliver. However the floor opens up for when the ride is operating and as we flew past we noticed there was, yep, a NUMBERWANG sign!

Afterwards AJ, Sue and Will decided to brave the odd spinny thing of regret. I think AJ's expression goes to show how much they enjoyed it...

We then called for some lunch. The food on offer in the park wasn't great and was fairly expensive. I ended up having a hot dog with some fries.

Ended up on the monorail next. Nothing too thrilling but we spotted another numberwang board half-way round and at the other station where we got off there were models of all the coasters in the park.

It used to have a twin

When we got off the monorail (monorail...monorail) we noticed the rapids were open. I'd heard this was one of the good ones despite the ferris wheel and drop not operating any more. Well lets just say I came off drenched. Though I think I was the only one to get proper spited so I was just in an unlucky seat

It was then time to say our goodbyes to Sue's crew as they were flying back whereas we still had a good hour or two left. We didn't really want to re-ride anything so we just wandered around to find something else to ride. We came across a pedal-powered thing. It had a lift hill which was random, but if you go up that must mean you have to come back down We would claim it was a cred but when we stopped to try and prove our little theory we just sat there and some kids managed to catch us up so we tried to pedal as fast as poss to get away from them

So we were now exhausted and couldn't be bothered to ride anything else so we decided to track down some ice cream and just chillax in the sun. We found a little kiosk selling some really cool flavours of ice cream, I think I got pistachio and mint in the end, it was nom. So yeah we then sat down for ages just relaxing.

We decided to then move towards the exit and stopped off in the shop for ages. It had some interesting stuff and lots of cool adventure stuff but not sure why as there is nothing like it in the park. Oh well, it had hats...

And that was it, we left the park, got in the car and drove back to Calais to catch the ferry back to the UK. The ferry was delayed due to high winds and wow, when we were actually on the ferry it was really moving about, never felt a ferry rock from side to side so much before, made me feel a little bit ill.

Well it was another lovely day and we managed to have a good laugh in a rather unsatisfactory park. It's a shame the rides aren't very good because it is a really nice park to walk around. Oh wells.

So that was it, 4 and a bit days of lots of great rides (and some not so great), fantastic group of peeps with some awesome banter. Thanks to everyone who went to make it another awesome trip, thanks to Richard for driving and organising hotels etc and for Slayed who organised the Lives and park discounts. Lastly, thanks to YOU for reading, remember kids, comments make me feel like the hours typing up these reports are worth my time

Once again here is my CF Live video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0stlXukfe9s[/youtube]

Full Facebook albums can be viewed using the below links:
Album 1
Album 2

 

[Ploddish]

^ Two tidbits for you. The show we saw in Efteling used the Jonathan Creek theme (Or Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns) for a reason.

According to legend, "Death" appears at midnight every year on Halloween. Death calls forth the dead from their graves to dance their dance of death for him while he plays his fiddle represented by a solo violin with its E-string tuned to an E-flat in an example of scordatura tuning. His skeletons dance for him until the rooster crows at dawn, when they must return to their graves until the next year.

Also, the reason there was no fog the second time around in the Flying Dutchman was because the light on our boat wasn't bloody working :c The fog was there, we just couldn't see it. Shame, it's one of the best mood-setting devices I've seen on a ride for a while.

 

[peep]

Ah, that makes that little show make a bit more sense now. I also didn't realise the light wasn't on

Oh and just in case anyone missed it, I posted the trip report of Bobbiejobbie at the bottom of page 5

 

[Nic]

However while we waited this uber cheesy 80s rock ballad came on and the lyrics were really bad and cheesy. I can't think of the lyrics at the moment, but hopefully someone can help me fill that in later

"Her lips were warm and resourceful"

I love how we all went quiet for a second, thinking "Is that really what he just said?!", then simultaneously all burst out laughing

 

[Gavin]

Danse Macabre <3

I actually really liked that show. I just thought it was cool that a piece of music was the inspiration for an entire attraction. Ok, so if you didn't know the piece of music, the show doesn't make a great deal of sense, but luckily I'm not a complete cultural ignoramus.

It was made 100 times more amazing after I found this on Youtube though:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YQlUKLcYcI[/youtube]

AMAZING!

 

[Nic]

lol! Ya big gay!

 

[Mysterious Sue]

No way!!! My God, you can totally make it out - Gavin that has made my evening <3 <3 <3

 

[Rach]

I'm bored again and fancy typing something that isn't about Pontins and inane things like that for college, so lets have Bobbejaanland.

So by now, it was Monday and the final day of the trip. It really had come around so quickly. Our hotel for the previous evening was the same one in the Netherlands we stayed in on the Saturday night. I still say it was horrid and not a place I wish to return to.
Snoring Sue was loud again that night, but I somehow managed to sleep through the majority of it. That morning soon came and we were all up, assembled, car packed and slightly later than planned on our way to Belgium.

Our journey to the park was not a smooth one at all. I had told Sue to follow the signs for Antwerp and the directions also pointed in that general direction. But instead we fancied a return visit to Efteling and headed back that way. Realising we had gone the wrong way (we were going further north rather than going south) we turned off and tried to find the slip road to get back on the bloody motorway. Once that was located after trying to get down a cycle path, we were following the signs to Antwerp.

Into Belgium we went and with expert navigation from Jordan and some detours through some villages we finally started to see some signs for the park. During this time, I phoned the Car of Rah and was greeted with 'We're going to be late too, we'll see you there...'
The car park told us we were going to be rushed to get 7 coasters done in the time we had. We had a flight to catch and the Car of Rah; a ferry.
Once we eventually got to the park, we parked and right at the same time as the Car of Rah. Very lucky.

Nic had had no joy with the park on a discount. So we all coughed up €31 to get in. The queues for tickets were horrible. Finding one that moved, 4 of the guys got their own tickets, whilst I got 5. 1 for myself and 4 for the others that had chose the non moving queue. €155!

Once that was sorted, through the park gates and onto the park we went. Knowing to leave Typhoon until later, we headed for Jizz to hopefully guarantee a ride. It opened at 11, 15 minutes from the time at present.
With the group a little peckish and requiring a toilet break, headed a bit further up to a small place to eat.

A bit of pointing and really expensive food (more expensive than Toverland) later, we had all assembled, that is apart from Sue who done what only she can do best and faff an epic amount.
By now Jizz had opened, so we all jumped in the queue minus a Sue who was still waiting for food.

So Jizz, it didn't look very promising and it really wasn't. The first 'half' gave us a pretty decent spin and then it just went meh, block, meh, block, meh, brakes. Nothing special at all hence why it has suitably been renamed Jizz.

Sue had joined the queue for Jizz and so we moved onto King Kong so we weren't standing around getting cold. It was quite chilly that morning.
King Kong does look very impressive to watch with all the smoke, movement etc, but again, once on the ride it was nothing special. There were a few jolts as it tilted and that was about it.

Now with a Sue, we moved onto the next coaster. Evolution minus the R (half the signs had been changed, others hadn't). This was the final indoor coaster of the trip and the one unique thing about it is that it must have at least 30 individual cars making up one very long train. Only when the ride was in motion did you realise how long the bloody thing was.
Up we went and down we came again in a shorter piece of track than the lift. Nothing special again, though the epic trains were quite something.

Carrying on, the next coaster was Speedy Bob. A bog standard wild mouse and presented us with a queue of 10 minutes. Same as all the other rides so far, nothing special.
We had noticed the rapids that were at that point, closed.

On we went again, next up was Dream Catcher the invert over the lake. This had the longest queue of the day at about 20 minutes. Not worth even a walk on queue. The ride hurt, it was jolty, uncomfortable and just a lot of helixes put together to make a ride. Another +1

4 down, 3 to go and we were making excellent progress. The park is based around the lake which makes it nice and easy to track down rides as you can just carry on going round.
Next up was Oki Doki, the family coaster that packed a good little punch. The ride ops were really enthusiastic which is always nice and as already said by John, were highly interested in us being English!
Probably the best coaster there and that's saying something for the fact it's a family coaster.

Realising now that we had plenty of time and only 2 coasters left to ride, we took a bit of time to do some of the other rides. First up was the Log Flume in a shed. Gavin had recommended we try it out and I can see why. Great theming and decent drops that got you partly wet or if you were sat at the front; very wet.

Next we done the Powered mine train thing that interacted well with another log flume. Why does a park need two, one is quite sufficient? :?
The powered thing was happily walk on, me and Will had the front row and again it was just a +1 and nothing special. The ride op tried to get us to stay on for another lap, we'll pass thanks, 1 lap would've been enough, 2 was just excessive.

Whilst in the area, we done Bench: The Ride.

It's a shooty ride where there isn't any form of scoring system. The seats hurt your arse and really just a filler attraction. Like everything else, nothing to write home about.

Deciding that food sometime soon would be a good idea, we decided to get the last coaster done and dusted. Typhoon; the first Eurofighter.

It tried its **** hardest to kill the 9 of us. It did make some of the group black out. It did try to break me in half. Firstly, I was forced to whack my ear off the restraint making my earring fall out. I managed to hold onto it just as it was trying to fly out my ear.
And then the next thing was my watch. I'd got my work watch on and the clasp on it is not the best, but it had withstand everything that weekend, but Typhoon. Next thing I know, that was in my lap after having it forced off my wrist.
So Typhoon: OW, it's really intense too but that wouldn't have been a problem if it didn't hurt as much. Thankfully, the newer ones are so much better than that contraption.

Lunch was wanted, but we decided to do the spinny rides first. Making for the first two rides I'd sat out of all weekend. The frisbee was first. Looked promising but was apparently not.

The next thing was the awful contraption that is a Fly Away. Those who had done Alakazan at PI sensibly didn't ride. Leaving just a few to ride. I hated the thing at PI and this was going to be no better. Glad I say both this and the frisbee out!

Lunch was called. We tried one place and decided on going to another. More over expensive **** food was consumed before we got fed up and headed for the nearest ride.

This nearest ride happened to be the monorail which gives a fantastic tour of the car park! But does give some nice shots of some of the park.

As it progressed steadily around the car park, we noticed the Rapids had opened! Hurrah! We dived of the train at the stop nearest the rapids and headed over to them.
9 CFers + 1 boat can only mean one thing!
So into a 10 minute queue we went! For Sue's car it was to be our last ride. Anyway the 9 of us piled into the boat and away we went. Water instantly flooded the side bits. It's a shame that the wheel doesn't work as that would have been awesome. But there is still the whirlpool!

What happened, I honestly have no idea. I remember going down the whirlpool and then it becomes a blur of water! Those that had ridden before said that it is usually one person that gets spited by the water and in this case it was...

They were very good rapids though, tis a shame about the wheel, but they are still awesome.

So that was it for me as it was time to head to Eindhoven to catch our delightful carriage of Ryanair home! We had a quick look around the shop whilst Sue went to get a parking token.

Once that was done, it was time to go. Bobbejaan had been a let down. Everything was average or worse and they clearly need a signature attraction or something big and rides well to even attempt to entice me back there. Certainly not somewhere I'd go in a hurry again. Shame really, the rides looked like they could be promising.

The journey to the airport was smooth. We discussed coaster trips, AJ fell asleep and we finally got to here the last of the CDs!

We had a good 2 hr 30 wait for the flight home. Packed everything into one bag and we went straight through security. Nice and speedy for a change. The airport is pretty tiny and no running to gates was required this time.
Flight landed on time and soon enough we were boarding even after Sue's "We'll be waiting here another hour".
Plane left on time and we were on our way home. It had been a long but extremely fun weekend with some fantastic parks, amazing rides and people!
The flight was a bit turbulent due to the wind in both Europe and the UK. In less than an hour, we were down at Stansted and we went our separate ways.

Managed to jump on the 19:45 train from Stansted to Tottenham Hale. That surprised me as the flight landed at 19:30!
Quick tube journey and a 40 minute wait at Euston and I was finally on my last leg of the journey. Annoyingly, the train was late in New Street so I missed the early bus.
10 to Midnight, I clamber on the bus and finally walk through my front door at half midnight after one of the best weekends I'd had in a while!

Amazing!

And I'll leave you with a picture of our Skoda of not so joy...

 

[WelcomeToOblivion]

Gavin, that is THE BEST THING EVER

 

[AJ]

Skip to 0:29

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYxp6OIEZlk[/youtube]

 

[Nic]

^Well done for finding that, Will <3