the saga of troy - part 3 - $h1t$ and giggles in the Hague

[caffeine_demon]

Quick toverland report as I'm on my kindle

Troy is still damn good but I prefer wodan
Booster bike is ok
Werbelwind is surprisingly intense- finished me off after the overnight travel
bobkart is not as good as steinwasens
Funhouses are a awesome
The magic house is cute
The espresso there is pretty good
Kindle autocorrecty is a pain
The half hourly buses and trains from eindhoven are timed so u get just 3 minutes to change and usually miss it
And Dutch ov chipcards (like tfl oysters for all Holland) are a bit onerous

When you touch in on a train station it reserves 20 euros for the journey. So I tapped in at horst and thought "did it register"? Checked the balance and it was 13 euros, so I thought ahh - no it didn't, sure I had more than that, and topped up - only to see the machine only accepts maestro cards and coins (eindhoevens took all cards), so I get change from the shop, load up, miss a train and touch in again.

Only it says I've now got 40 euros, bloomin liar, thinks me

And then the ticket inspector says I hadn't touched in , turns out I had enough on the card, but the machine reported the balance with the 20 euros down, touching agAin had signed me out.. bummer

 

[caffeine_demon]

Re: the saga of troy and the chipcard

And notes about the bus from horst-sevenum To toverland

There are 2 buses Available (65 &68), one runs hourly and the other also hourly but 30 mins later - so roughly every 30 minutes

Only the 68 stops running at 12:34 I missed the 13:04 65 and realised I'd have an hour to wait so splashed out on a taxi(€20) - it was a good decision as I found out when waiting to come back that the 65 is a service you have to phone and book an hour in advance!

And finally, the bus stop is awkward to find - it's on the side opposite the station building, and is on what looks like a bicycle lane marked by an odd little pillar thing and no sign with a bus on!

 

[Ian]

Re: the saga of troy and the chipcard

Excellent report!

About 30 words dedicated to the park and a thousand or so about to travel.

You've won my nomination for trip reporter of the year!

 

[caffeine_demon]

Re: the saga of troy and the chipcard

Amazing how it worked out like that - I only intended to do a few comments, and then got started on the transport woes! typing on the kindle is a nightmare! autocorrect turned up some hillarious options!

didn;'t take many photos, as it's a park with quite a few reports allready

Anyway - I went straight to troy and rode it 5 or 6 times in various rows - and it was pretty good throughout - back seat gives you better airtime on the first drop, and on one of the airtime hills - front is better for the rest of the ride. Lot's of twists, turns and pops of airtime from start to finish - great ride!

http://rcdb.com/3589.htm?p=0

Booster bike is maybe a bit smoother than the one at flamingoland, but ultimately "meh"

http://rcdb.com/2747.htm?p=0

Dwervelwind was pretty vile - the lap bar dug into my ribcage a bit, and the ride itself was very intense, took about 10 minutes to recover!

http://rcdb.com/10333.htm?p=0

After those -I went indoors for the fun little bobkart,
http://toverland.nl/woudracer

funhouse
http://toverland.nl/villa-fiasco

and the magic house, you take a magic wand and aim it at various targets through to make things happen - moving furniture etc. You feel like a real goon!
http://toverland.nl/toverhuis

Didn't do the boomerang (vekoma junior) as Id done it last time I visited

 

[Ian]

Re: the saga of troy and the chipcard

I can't work out if you're being ironic or not.

The Magic House sounds fab though.

I hope you tell us about your transport experience after you left the park.

 

[caffeine_demon]

the saga of troy and the chipcard - part 2 - enter the drago

Ok -so - part 2 was the main reason for the trip - the ECC's Benelux launch at Efteling.

Started the day with ERT on all three of the vliegender hollander, Joris and for some reason, python.

Had 2 goes on hollander - the queue line is excelently themed, walking through taverns and looking out of small windows over the loading platform http://rcdb.com/3291.htm#p=18681

Once you've boarded the boats

Spoiler

there's a small dark ride section, finishing with a small lift hill and nice drop, before a massive "clonk" as you engage into the main lift hill. The coaster bit after this section is rather medicocre though - shame as it feels epic before hand

.

also had about 8 goes on Joris - which was great - nice air on the first two drops, and some good qdcs when the two tracks intertwine, during ERS the last bit faded out a bit, so I wasn't sure whether it was better than Troy.

Didn't bother with python - as I had already done it a few years ago.

After ERT we had a presentation on the parks history - the second part was in dutch so I left for that bit. As I'd been to the park before, rest of the day was quite leisurely.

rode Dream flight, which is great - and the downwards helix at the end really feels like a coaster.. Also did Villa volta (not as good as hex), and vogel rok (great indoor coaster) before lunch in the pancake place people had been mentioning! MMMMMMMMMMMMM!

After lunch I did carnaval festival (cheesy dark rides FTW!), another couple of rides on Joris which was flying now, and I definitely prefer to troy. And fata morgana which was OK.

part of the coaster club deal was to watch the ravelijn show (crap) and a meal afterwards - plenty of roast chicken.. YUM!

Pleased to report no dificulties getting to or from the park, as my hotel was just around the corner!
(although those who use public transport will be pleased to know there are plenty of buses to and from tilburg station.)

 

[caffeine_demon]

Re: the saga of troy and the chipcard -part 2 -enter the dr

Ok - so It's finally time for part 3 - Drievliet and duinrell in the hague.

Getting to drievliet isn't too terrible, just a 15 minute walk from the tram stop through a lovely industrial area before you reach the entrance



It's a small park, but it's a little quirky and contains some nice little surprises!

Cred 1 was twistrix

a rather odd little maurer spinner


surprise number one being - it wasn't as terrible as it looked, even with 3 circuits!

I then went on to cred 2 - Formule x - the LSM Maurer


Surprise number 2 - It was actually rather enjoyable! Reminded me of a "little blue fire" with some lovely hangtime - Just one little caveat that I really needed to be in the big seat - I did fit the other seats, but it did squish the old ribcage a bit

Surprise number three was the singing barn (I'm guessing it's barn as it was full of animals)
http://rcdb.com/3602.htm#p=18779

If you want to know what old macdonald sounds like in dutch, you're in for a treat! Spent a few minutes giggling inside
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUWzo089tWA[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC1TtBlJSUw[/youtube]

Cred 3 - Dynamite express - mack powered jobby

Looks quite scary under the cloud cover!!

Finally - cred 4 - Copper mine

Not just any old wild mouse!

What's that I see??

Yep - A fire extinguisher!! (and a tunnel)

They also had porn ponies

Old timer cars, and a cute little ghost train, as well as a lame hall of mirrors

Lurking at the back of the park was surprise 4 - a donkey on top of a plinth with a 20 cent coin slot - the result was worth paying another 20 cents to video!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0U1r0T8Q3c[/youtube]

yep - That's a chocolate coin!!

Had lunch and moved onto duinrell (surprise number 5 was that the tat shop was CLOSED!)- The hague seems to have a lot of roadworks at the moment, part of the tram was out of action, so I missed the hourly bus I'd left plenty of time for
There are 2 buses an hour - one stops right outside the entrance, the other just round the corner - nice and easy, no ringing to book!

The park is pretty big and takes itself a bit more seriously than drievliet - they have camping on site, and a water park


Headed straight to "coaster corner" where all 3 of the parks coasters are located

1 - Kikkerachtbaan

A zierer bottom shaker with cute froggy!

and magic pixelating airgates!



2 - Dragonfly

a Gerstlauer family coaster


with a pretty blue train!

3 and finally


the eurofighter


it was ok. There was an excess of brown coaster rails here!

Was pushed for time so I only did the nautic jets

which I'm sure I'd taken a better photo of!
And Managed to spite myself out of the bobsled - I'd queued for about 20 minutes and thought "ahh - they've opened the other side, and there's no queue there yet", so I jumped out of the queue.... only to realise they hadn't opened the other side!

Not sure why they were only running one side, when the queue was about 50-60 minutes

I then experienced the weirdness that is schiphol's security right before the exit gate, so you can't buy a drink to take on the plane (unless you queue for ages in the duty free), and the longest queue of the whole weekend being at passport control in birmingham! grrrrrr!

 

[Darren B]

Re: the saga of troy - part 3 - $h1t$ and giggles in the H

Quick question in regards to the ECC, Dan.

Is it all about the coasters/rides etc. with them or do they **** about like we do on CF Lives? It all seems very serious to me. Obviously I'm not knocking the ECC, just curious, that's all.

 

[caffeine_demon]

Re: the saga of troy - part 3 - $h1t$ and giggles in the H

Quick question in regards to the ECC, Dan.

Is it all about the coasters/rides etc. with them or do they **** about like we do on CF Lives? It all seems very serious to me. Obviously I'm not knocking the ECC, just curious, that's all.

It tends to be more "do your own thing" in the parks(or in smaller groups), other than ERSes - it was only the efteling day which was with the ECC..