nadroJ
CF Legend
A few months ago a few of us decided that the end of April we would visit France and go ride Alpina Blitz as well as a bunch of other French creds. This feel through due to people's work places being poo, so seeing as Conor and I already had the time off we decided to make use of it by getting more creds elsewhere. We decided upon Holland and Belgium!
*disclaimer* all of our devices died before we got to the first parks so there's no photos for the first part of this TR*
We did the usual airport faff (randomly at Heathrow, cheap BA flights yay <3) and arrived at just before 10 in Rotterdam airport, which has some of the happiest and politest staff I've ever come across! Our hire car was a nifty little Fiat 500 whose engine growl would do best to convince you otherwise; I loved her!
First up was Drievliet. I was going to do this park last on our first day but Nic convinced me otherwise. I'm SO glad we did the parks this way around. You have to drive THROUGH an industrial estate to get to the Drievliet car park, which was empty apart from 5 massive school buses (a sign of things to come). We payed the extortionate entrance fee and headed straight for Formule X, my 500th cred! Upon joining the queue we soon realised that we stuck out like sore thumbs as we were the only adults riding anything. There were adults in the park, but they had all seemingly paid €30 to sit on benches and drink coffee. Madness.
Formule X
Firstly, this ride supposedly has a really catchy theme tune. All I heard was annoying Euro-trance style music, with a severe lack of the EuroVision style fables I'd been told to expect. Our first go was in the middle of the trains, the ride was a walk-on with the same group of 12 year old boys riding it all day. The rolling launch was really great but it seemed to lose all of its speed in the first element. It has some good hang time if you like that sort of thing (I don't) and a few violent pops of airtime. It is very compact and relentless, a really great little thrill ride if you like burst after burst of force. It was a bit sickly for me to re-ride more than 3 times but a great little coaster nonetheless. I could also do without the Formula 1 noises but what are you going to do.
*Imagine a photo fo me holding a '500' sign outside of the entrance to Formule X*
Mine train thing
The cool mine train was up next. Something we quickly noticed about Drievliet is that the rides are fairly well themed. Actualy effort has been put in to create some sort of style which is weird for the type of park it is (see: concrete flat with rides chucked down). We chose to ride in the back row because we're goons and had to wait bloody ages for the other stupid children to make their way up the ride queue and onto the bloody thing. It was faster than I expected, a very good mine train considering it was a powered affair.
Wild Mouse
I can't be sure but I think this was a bigger Wild Mouse than usual? Either way it was the usual crap. The ride op had a cool beard.
The park has no themed areas as such but more themed rides. The log flume, of the travelling variety. has a jungle theme which again was quite well-maintained and nice. The top of the flume offered lovely views of the local petrol station, which is always a plus. Again, standard ****.
There was a ghost train next door, which I love, so we hopped on. The theming on the outside (again, in the above average category) suggested good things were to come. It lied. The ghost train was really boring, the effects were too slow to do any scaring and the ride made no bloody sense. I was more scared by the ogress of a ride op who looked like she needed some serious grooming doing *shudder*
There were some dodgems, a pirate ship and a 4D cinema, but we couldn't really be bothered so we went to get the last cred, Twistrix.
Twistrix
It's a weird spinning coaster themed to owls in your garden or something! Surprisingly a lot more spiny and fun than it lets on. It also had a soundtrack that sounded like the summertime one from RCT <3
There was some cute farm themed stuff including a singing barn, doodle-doo-derby, slides and a fab tractor ride where the farm animals were hitching a ride of the roof of the vehicles, adorbzzzz <3 The slides were crap and slow which was disappointing.
We had a few more goes on Formule X, a quick slide down the water slides, Conor rode the tentacle themed afterburner and we sashayed away. Annoyingly, the tat shop was closed and we had paid €7 for parking only to find that the barrier had been left up. Burden.
OH! I forgot, when we went to pay we tried using our cards, all of which are Visa. The woman behind the desk told us that they don't use Visa in Holland and we would have to find an alternative way of paying. Luckily for us we had some cash but seriously, how retarded is that? It became a bit of a running joke that they don't accept Visa in Holland, hilarious to us but bewildering to those whom were taking our payments.
Overall thoughts
Drievliet is weird. In photos it looks nice, and that is because on their own the rides are nicely themed. It's the in-between that's a bit gross. Loads of concrete, and despite making an effort with trees and grass and benches and stuff it can't help but feel rough around the edges, which makes sense for a park built at the back of an industrial estate. Also, it was really hot but the city was really smoggy which I think put an extra layer of dreariness over the place. Not nice.
However, the day was about to take a turn for the awesome as we headed for Duinrell! One of my new favourite parks because it's just so fab and gorgeous and yay!
We drove for a while past loads of lovely posh houses in the woods, and it was a glorious sunny day so the sunlight was making the trees look extra green, like a Centre Parcs brochure. Duinrell is in fact a holiday park with caravans, a water park and the amusement park itself. It's lovely, very quaint, like being in a big back garden of a stately home or something. The first area you come to is over water and had loads of little do-it-yourself attractions, such as nautic jets, a drop tower, a pull-yourself-across boat, a waterfall, rowing boats and peddle-go-karts. All of this is surrounded by castle theming and it's just joy inducing. I was excited to see the waterfall so we grabbed ourselves some tea trays and did that first. Bloody terrifying, although not as much as the one at Oakwood.
We then had a little mince around the castle bit, which had lots of little animatronic scenes, sort of like a small scale of the fairytale forest at Efteling. They even had a pooping donkey, but it was broken =[[
We realised we were a bit starving, so went in search of food. Theme park food is usually less than desirable so I was a bit annoyed at myself for not realising we were hungry between parks, but we found a fab little grab-things-and-put-them-on-a-tray style cafeteria that seem to be the done thing in a lot of European parks and had a nice little lunch that wasn't too unhealthy (banana, strawberry smoothie, sausage roll and a strawberry tart), much better than the deep fried offerings of most places. We sat on benches that overlooked a massive kids play park and munched away listening to the sounds of long forgotten 90s boy band hits (as in, not the ones everyone knows, but the weird b-side tracks that you mysteriously find yourself knowing the words to).
The coasters/other rides are all crammed in a clearing in the corner surrounded by dense forest on all sides. It looked spectacular and was a really pleasant environment to be in. First up was the Tivoli thing, whose station was in a giant greenhouse. It had minimal vibrating bottomyness.
Following this we did the Gerst mine train Dragon Fly. I think these are really dull and cross over themselves too many time, but Conor seemed to like it and the trains are really comfortable. I also love the way the park uses neutral colours and paints the supports to blend in with the natural surroundings. Yay!
Lastly we did Falcon which is a clone of Rage at Southend. Personally I prefer Falcon purely because of the setting. As a ride it rode no differently apart from maybe being slightly less jolty.
I was a tad upset to see that the frisbee and the topspin (both painted with wood effect) were both down for the day, as both are rare flat rides that I enjoy. Instead we went on the weird splash boats, that had the option of being covered or not. Despite the weather, we chose the covered variety because I've never done one before. It was so so strange, like being in a car and driving downhill into a massive puddle. The uncovered boats were weird too, and had these big waterproof sheets that you could pop your head out of whilst riding. So basically, only your head and face would get soaked? Very odd indeed.
We didn't fancy re-riding anything so instead joined the burdens queue for the bobsled, which I had been informed were fairly epic. I think we queued about 40 minutes in the end, which wasn't too bad I guess. One child came off bleeding profusely from the ear, so I was a bit nervous to say the least. The bobsled was really good, I always get too scared and up up braking because i think I'm going to fall off and die though which always annoys me.
We then got some change sorted for the nautic jets, which cheekily charged €1 per go. So worth it though, they're hilarious fun. I was really nervous to ride these as they just seem so so sketchy and unsafe. They were brilliant though, I wish I had a video =[[ Makes me extra sad that the ones at Wicksteed got spited!
After gaffing about a bit more on the do-it-yourself stuff we decided to call it a day. We were approaching 36 hours without sleep and with a 2 hour drive ahead that was more than enough.
Overall thoughts
I adored the park. I'm glad we visited on such a gorgeous day because it really did bring out the best of the place. It annoys me that we don't have more places like this in the UK because we definitely have more than enough foresty areas. It was beautiful, clean, pleasant, the staff were nice, the rides were fun and I'm so glass we ended our day there rather than at dreadful Drievliet.
*disclaimer* all of our devices died before we got to the first parks so there's no photos for the first part of this TR*
We did the usual airport faff (randomly at Heathrow, cheap BA flights yay <3) and arrived at just before 10 in Rotterdam airport, which has some of the happiest and politest staff I've ever come across! Our hire car was a nifty little Fiat 500 whose engine growl would do best to convince you otherwise; I loved her!
First up was Drievliet. I was going to do this park last on our first day but Nic convinced me otherwise. I'm SO glad we did the parks this way around. You have to drive THROUGH an industrial estate to get to the Drievliet car park, which was empty apart from 5 massive school buses (a sign of things to come). We payed the extortionate entrance fee and headed straight for Formule X, my 500th cred! Upon joining the queue we soon realised that we stuck out like sore thumbs as we were the only adults riding anything. There were adults in the park, but they had all seemingly paid €30 to sit on benches and drink coffee. Madness.
Formule X
Firstly, this ride supposedly has a really catchy theme tune. All I heard was annoying Euro-trance style music, with a severe lack of the EuroVision style fables I'd been told to expect. Our first go was in the middle of the trains, the ride was a walk-on with the same group of 12 year old boys riding it all day. The rolling launch was really great but it seemed to lose all of its speed in the first element. It has some good hang time if you like that sort of thing (I don't) and a few violent pops of airtime. It is very compact and relentless, a really great little thrill ride if you like burst after burst of force. It was a bit sickly for me to re-ride more than 3 times but a great little coaster nonetheless. I could also do without the Formula 1 noises but what are you going to do.
*Imagine a photo fo me holding a '500' sign outside of the entrance to Formule X*
Mine train thing
The cool mine train was up next. Something we quickly noticed about Drievliet is that the rides are fairly well themed. Actualy effort has been put in to create some sort of style which is weird for the type of park it is (see: concrete flat with rides chucked down). We chose to ride in the back row because we're goons and had to wait bloody ages for the other stupid children to make their way up the ride queue and onto the bloody thing. It was faster than I expected, a very good mine train considering it was a powered affair.
Wild Mouse
I can't be sure but I think this was a bigger Wild Mouse than usual? Either way it was the usual crap. The ride op had a cool beard.
The park has no themed areas as such but more themed rides. The log flume, of the travelling variety. has a jungle theme which again was quite well-maintained and nice. The top of the flume offered lovely views of the local petrol station, which is always a plus. Again, standard ****.
There was a ghost train next door, which I love, so we hopped on. The theming on the outside (again, in the above average category) suggested good things were to come. It lied. The ghost train was really boring, the effects were too slow to do any scaring and the ride made no bloody sense. I was more scared by the ogress of a ride op who looked like she needed some serious grooming doing *shudder*
There were some dodgems, a pirate ship and a 4D cinema, but we couldn't really be bothered so we went to get the last cred, Twistrix.
Twistrix
It's a weird spinning coaster themed to owls in your garden or something! Surprisingly a lot more spiny and fun than it lets on. It also had a soundtrack that sounded like the summertime one from RCT <3
There was some cute farm themed stuff including a singing barn, doodle-doo-derby, slides and a fab tractor ride where the farm animals were hitching a ride of the roof of the vehicles, adorbzzzz <3 The slides were crap and slow which was disappointing.
We had a few more goes on Formule X, a quick slide down the water slides, Conor rode the tentacle themed afterburner and we sashayed away. Annoyingly, the tat shop was closed and we had paid €7 for parking only to find that the barrier had been left up. Burden.
OH! I forgot, when we went to pay we tried using our cards, all of which are Visa. The woman behind the desk told us that they don't use Visa in Holland and we would have to find an alternative way of paying. Luckily for us we had some cash but seriously, how retarded is that? It became a bit of a running joke that they don't accept Visa in Holland, hilarious to us but bewildering to those whom were taking our payments.
Overall thoughts
Drievliet is weird. In photos it looks nice, and that is because on their own the rides are nicely themed. It's the in-between that's a bit gross. Loads of concrete, and despite making an effort with trees and grass and benches and stuff it can't help but feel rough around the edges, which makes sense for a park built at the back of an industrial estate. Also, it was really hot but the city was really smoggy which I think put an extra layer of dreariness over the place. Not nice.
However, the day was about to take a turn for the awesome as we headed for Duinrell! One of my new favourite parks because it's just so fab and gorgeous and yay!
We drove for a while past loads of lovely posh houses in the woods, and it was a glorious sunny day so the sunlight was making the trees look extra green, like a Centre Parcs brochure. Duinrell is in fact a holiday park with caravans, a water park and the amusement park itself. It's lovely, very quaint, like being in a big back garden of a stately home or something. The first area you come to is over water and had loads of little do-it-yourself attractions, such as nautic jets, a drop tower, a pull-yourself-across boat, a waterfall, rowing boats and peddle-go-karts. All of this is surrounded by castle theming and it's just joy inducing. I was excited to see the waterfall so we grabbed ourselves some tea trays and did that first. Bloody terrifying, although not as much as the one at Oakwood.
We then had a little mince around the castle bit, which had lots of little animatronic scenes, sort of like a small scale of the fairytale forest at Efteling. They even had a pooping donkey, but it was broken =[[
We realised we were a bit starving, so went in search of food. Theme park food is usually less than desirable so I was a bit annoyed at myself for not realising we were hungry between parks, but we found a fab little grab-things-and-put-them-on-a-tray style cafeteria that seem to be the done thing in a lot of European parks and had a nice little lunch that wasn't too unhealthy (banana, strawberry smoothie, sausage roll and a strawberry tart), much better than the deep fried offerings of most places. We sat on benches that overlooked a massive kids play park and munched away listening to the sounds of long forgotten 90s boy band hits (as in, not the ones everyone knows, but the weird b-side tracks that you mysteriously find yourself knowing the words to).
The coasters/other rides are all crammed in a clearing in the corner surrounded by dense forest on all sides. It looked spectacular and was a really pleasant environment to be in. First up was the Tivoli thing, whose station was in a giant greenhouse. It had minimal vibrating bottomyness.
Following this we did the Gerst mine train Dragon Fly. I think these are really dull and cross over themselves too many time, but Conor seemed to like it and the trains are really comfortable. I also love the way the park uses neutral colours and paints the supports to blend in with the natural surroundings. Yay!
Lastly we did Falcon which is a clone of Rage at Southend. Personally I prefer Falcon purely because of the setting. As a ride it rode no differently apart from maybe being slightly less jolty.
I was a tad upset to see that the frisbee and the topspin (both painted with wood effect) were both down for the day, as both are rare flat rides that I enjoy. Instead we went on the weird splash boats, that had the option of being covered or not. Despite the weather, we chose the covered variety because I've never done one before. It was so so strange, like being in a car and driving downhill into a massive puddle. The uncovered boats were weird too, and had these big waterproof sheets that you could pop your head out of whilst riding. So basically, only your head and face would get soaked? Very odd indeed.
We didn't fancy re-riding anything so instead joined the burdens queue for the bobsled, which I had been informed were fairly epic. I think we queued about 40 minutes in the end, which wasn't too bad I guess. One child came off bleeding profusely from the ear, so I was a bit nervous to say the least. The bobsled was really good, I always get too scared and up up braking because i think I'm going to fall off and die though which always annoys me.
We then got some change sorted for the nautic jets, which cheekily charged €1 per go. So worth it though, they're hilarious fun. I was really nervous to ride these as they just seem so so sketchy and unsafe. They were brilliant though, I wish I had a video =[[ Makes me extra sad that the ones at Wicksteed got spited!
After gaffing about a bit more on the do-it-yourself stuff we decided to call it a day. We were approaching 36 hours without sleep and with a 2 hour drive ahead that was more than enough.
Overall thoughts
I adored the park. I'm glad we visited on such a gorgeous day because it really did bring out the best of the place. It annoys me that we don't have more places like this in the UK because we definitely have more than enough foresty areas. It was beautiful, clean, pleasant, the staff were nice, the rides were fun and I'm so glass we ended our day there rather than at dreadful Drievliet.
