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PTR: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles/Asterix/Paris

Re: PTR : Eurotrip: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles

I'm completely paradoxical about places like Versailles. I think they're grand and stunning and fantastic, but also hideous in their opulence, garish and a hideous testament to the harsh division between the gentry and commoner in the past (particularly in the 17th Century); no offence yer honour!

It's the kind of thing that could eventually spark a terrible revolution ;)

Seriously can't work out the series, unless it's Dumas?
 
Re: PTR : Eurotrip: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles

furie said:
Seriously can't work out the series, unless it's Dumas?

Nah, the author calls it science fiction ; even though its all set in the 17th/18th centuries.
 
Re: PTR : Eurotrip: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles

So clearly if you have sense of geography you'd realise that the other good
reason to be hanging about somewhere north of Paris is today's park trip...

Day 13: Thursday : Parc Astérix

I don't mind saying that I was looking forward to this. New park for me, some
interesting coasters, I liked the pics I'd seen of the place and a spanking new B&M
to boot. :-)

Weather was looking a bit shaky for the day, and indeed it had its "moments", but
I still had a good day there...

Park opens, and annoyingly they only open the gates at 10am (rather than letting
you in to loiter inside before they open the park proper) - so that causes a but
of a bottleneck to get in the place. Not a good start.

But get in, I have very little sense of where to go but I rush off in the general
direction of "Oz Iris" and get all the way into the station before I hit the Q.
They aren't in any rush to get the thing running, and after about 10 mins standing
around they start cycling the ride (1 train!). The French clearly don't know how
to queue properly and so I walk onto the front row of the third train out of the
day.

French/Egyptians queuing;
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Station!

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And it is good. :-)

First half is really good; great lift and drop, dive loop, loop and immelmann then
the drop into a tunnel and the second half... second half ain't anything like as
good as the first though as its losing pace a lot, the first zero-g is OK and then
after a turn around the second is starting to crawl and then the ride is over.

But still, its a really good ride IMHO.

Grab a quick second ride before the Qs build up (and they are starting to) and hit
the nearby "SOS Numérobis" rethemed to fit the Egyptian area, Tivoli ride (third of
the trip). Theres only me and 2 others on it - the masses are heading to the B&M
next door!

+1 done, I set off around the park to see what else is going on... and its staring
to rain as well which explains the lack of pictures for this bit of the day...

Next up is "Goudurix" ; which looks stunning, really photogenic coaster. Rides
like crap though - head banging hell (and I was prepared for that), so unfortunately
ends up in the "interesting, but not fun" pile.

Rain has eased so carry on around to the woody "Tonnerre de Zeus" which has built up
a bit of a queue by now. However theres a SRQ so I wander down that, only to find
its roped off at the station end - thats silly isn't it ; so I ignore that and they
don't mind fitting me straight onto the next train... REALLY good ride this then,
wasn't sure what to expect, heard good and bad things about it but I really liked
it. Really long ride and pretty unpredictable (to me) about what was going on.

Next up was "Vol D'Icare" ; odd little filler coaster ; doesn't really do much
but its not too short and is OK to ride in the rain I found.

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I wander around the park a bit and come across the kiddie credit "Ronde des Rondins".
I may have ridden this, but there were no witnesses, you can't prove a thing.

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Last coaster was the bobsled "Trace Du Hourra" ; wasn't expecting much from this
and there was a heinous queue for it (best part of an hour!).

It had a some cool themeing in the Q though;

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And the ride... GREAT STUFF ; probably the best Mack bobsled I've been on!

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All coasters done then, wander around for a bit taking some pictures in the gloomy
weather;

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(using the gloom as an excuse for these pics being rather rubbish)

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Ooooh pretty...

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Pretty bad that is..

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Fed up of hiding from the rain, I make a brave decision to reride Zeus ('cos
they are still running it) in the rain. And it is awesome. I thought riding
EGF in the rain a few days earlier was fun - this was insane. I can hardly
even see afterwards and I'm laughing myself silly. Best ride of the trip that
was. :-)


I brave the rapids in the rain, and get very wet as the rain starts to get very
heavy whilst I am out on the ride so I then hide inside for a while for lunch.

...and then I see this place...

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Which looks like it should be a madhouse (but I have no real clue what it is),
ends up having this real convoluted queue where they take your picture, you're
indoctrinated into Caeser's Army (the thing is called "Le Defi de César") and
taken through a number of themed rooms, moving floors, vast amounts of water
going on - everything is in French of course, so I have very little idea of the
actual details of the story.

But you end up in a suspicously madhouse-looking boat affair (for a madhouse it
(eventually) is). A bit different to others to be fair, video screens in the
structure, attacks by giant beasts of the sea (we are in a "boat" remember).
Really good then, and (to me) total surprise. Cool.

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Rain is stupid now, throwing it down. So I hide in a show that consists of a
bunch of clown/acrobats etc. Not following the plot at all I was amusing myself
by trying to work out which of the "audience volunteers" were stooges... until it
became apparent that they all were. D'oh.

The storm dumps its load on the park and then quickly vanishes. So while the park
is drying out I hit the giant splash ride, only to get a bit closer to this guy

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(see all that blue sky, that wasn't there 20 minutes ago!)

And its possibly the lamest drop on and shoot-the-chutes type thing ever.

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Flume is much better, and I get soaked on that (again)

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OzIris is still wet though;

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and shut...

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but starting to look good :-)

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The improving weather makes even the painful rides look better;

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Queue had built up for Zeus by then, so I didn't get another (dry) ride - and
nothing could have topped the rain-ride from earlier;

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OzIris is STILL closed - maybe an hour after it stopped raining. The ops are all
busy washing black-mud from the queue lines;

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But is is looking really nice now

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After a little while, they open up. And because theres noone in the queue I can
grab a couple of rides again :-)

...pausing only to take a few snaps of the themeing

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Ride running now, and looking rather splendid too;

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Loop de loop

So actually - depsite all the rain - a really great day at the park! Whole place
is well themed (although not so sure about the antique-cars in Asterix's day?)
and a really good park. I thought I'd gone on a quiet day, but the place was still
somewhat busy - must be a nightmare on a Saturday!

Amost forgot to ride the wave swinger before I left

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Bye bye Asterix; you've been cool!

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Get stuck in a bit of a traffic jam in the very short journey I have back to the
airport - I'm not catching a plane just yet though! Dump my hire car at CDG and
get the train into Paris for a couple of nights. No more coasters, just a bit
of sightseeing to come...
 
Re: PTR: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles/Asterix

Cool, I managed to visit the palace last year, knew nothing about it before (uncultured twat) and absolutely loved it. I tried to count all the fountains, there were many.

Really glad you enjoyed Asterix too, it's one of my fav parks. Glad the weather went from being awful to great. The Grand Splash ride is all about the silly effects up on the mountain, I love it because of them, the anticipation is brilliant.
 
Re: PTR: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles/Asterix

Glad to hear you loved Zeus! And you share the same views as me on the 4 main coasters.

Zeus and Oz were good, but I was epecting them to be good, yet Trace Du Hourra was so much better than I was expecting it ot be. It looked fairly dull in videos, but I actually found it quite fast and forcefull.
 
Re: PTR: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles/Asterix

Day 14: Friday : Paris

OK, just for completeness I'll finish the tale off - no more parks though, just
a bit of your standard wander around Paris being a tourist stuff.

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I'd arranged to have lunch with one of the bosses from our Paris office, which
is on the Rue between the Arc and the Eiffel, both of which I wanted to take
photos of, so off to the Tour first off.

Deliberately wanted to approach it from a distnce so go the Metro here and
wandered up to it taking a few pics (TONS to be honest, but they'll appear over
time in the photo-thread I guess)

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There are a couple of pics below I've processed (also posted in the photo thread);


Le Mur pour la Paix


Inside La Tour

So wander up to La Tour,

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To find that only one of the two lifts to the lower stages is working, and the
place is full of tourists (clearly I have spent too long taking snaps to avoid
the morning rush) queueing for the one lift.

No Q for the stairs so opt for that - blimey that hurt!

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The lift to the top was OK though; no way I was going to walk the rest of the
way up (as if you even can).

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Nice view!

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Back at ground level a little later;


Under La Tour

Cross the Seine to the Trocedero, but most of it is all roped off for some
advertising stunt, so didn't really get any good shots from there :-(

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After my lunch (and I even went into the office afterwards for a meeting) I
carry on with the plan a a trip to see here

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Also got some nice "views"

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La Défense


Arc/Spiral

Walked all the way back down the Champs-Élysées and the Place de la Concorde to
the Louvre (which I didn't bother with!)

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and then onto Notre Dame, which I almost didn't go inside;

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but glad I did as it was pretty groovy


Notre Dame


Notre Dame

--

Day 15: Saturday : Paris - The End

Flight home was later on in the day, but had a few hours left to wander about in,
so having not gone to the Louvre, I wanted to go here instead;

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Which had always intrigued me a bit, and I do like the "modern art" places
usually - and the Pompidou Centre was meant to be a good one!

But actually didn't think much of it to be honest. There was a special
exhibition with a load of Matisse stuff (which was good) and another on the
photographer Gerhard Richter (which was OK), the main halls of the
Musée National d'Art Moderne were quite big, but these I was a bit underwhelmed
by.

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So I've had better times at other arty places I think.

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Culture "done" - head back to the hotel to grab my bags and trek up to the
airport.

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So thats it - job done. Back to work etc.

--

Speaking of work, in a horrible twist of irony, I've got to go to Paris next
Tuesday for a workshop/meeting - how silly ; gonna be a very long day that :-( !

=========================

Final Score

Disneyland Paris +3
Big Thunder Mountain
Casey Jr., Le Petit Train du Cirque - did not ride
Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril
Space Mountain: Mission 2

Walt Disney Studios +3
Crush's Coaster
RC Racer
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster

Bobbejaanland +6
Bob Express
Dizz
Dream Catcher
Evolution - [strike]SBNO[/strike] #FAILed to find the entrance - muppet.
Oki Doki
Speedy Bob
Typhoon

Plopsaland De Panne +5
Anubis: The Ride
Dongo's Race
Draak
Rollerskater
Vleermuis

Walibi Belgium +4
Calamity Mine
Cobra
Coccinelle - did not ride
Loup-Garou
Vampire

Toverland +3
Boomerang
Booster Bike
Troy

Tripsdrill +3
G'sengte Sau
Mammut
Rasender Tausendfüßler

Holiday Park +1
Expedition GeForce
Holly's Wilde Autofahrt
Super Wirbel

Europa Park +2
Alpenexpress
Atlantica SuperSplash

blue fire Megacoaster
Euro Mir
Eurosat
Matterhorn Blitz
Pegasus
Poseidon
Schweizer Bobbahn
Silver Star

Wodan Timbur Coaster

Parc Asterix +7
Goudurix
OzIris
Ronde des Rondins
SOS Numérobis
Tonnerre de Zeus
Trace Du Hourra
Vol D'Icare

:-)
 
Re: PTR: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles/Asterix/Pa

^Agreed about the Pompidou Centre; it's a bit crap really, isn't it? The Louvre is AMAZING, but you need a full day; it's not the sort of place to just "pop in" for an hour or two like the Pompidou.

I've only just got around to reading this report, so I haven't commented on this before now:

Dave Morton said:
only "Revolution" is closed - no signs to tell me this, but the entrance was all fenced off and the signs covered up - boo!

Are you sure it was closed? I do know exactly what you mean about being fenced off. If you're kind of off to the right of it, there are fences and no path up to the building, making the whole thing look closed, which is exactly what I thought when I was there.

HOWEVER, the entrance to the coaster is actually through the building next to that King Kong ride. There's some sort of indoor splash battle (if memory serves me correctly), and the entrance to Evolution is just past that.
 
Re: PTR: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles/Asterix/Pa

gavin said:
sure it was closed?

No, no I am not at all!

There was a covered up sign and that area to the right all roped off, but I didn't investigate the buildings at all - I may have made a terrible schoolboy error. :-(
 
Re: PTR: Disney/Belgium/Toverland/LIVE/Versailles/Asterix/Pa

^I almost made the same mistake. It's only because I randomly went into the building next to King Kong (might have been looking for a toilet or something, I can't remember, but certainly not the entrance to the coaster) that I realised at all.

Maybe now is not the time to tell you what an AMAZING coaster it is? It's probably my all-time number one.

Or

You didn't really miss much. The lift hill is awesome, but that's about it. It's very much like Eurosat/Euromir in that it's a spiral lift that goes on for ever with funky music and lights. It's open in the middle though (no "drum") and the train is stupidly long. After the lift, it doesn't do much though, just sort of spirals its way back down again.
 
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