Waffles & Weissbier Wanderlust - Day 3: Plopsaland de Panne

[Hutch]

With Phantasialand being my top bucket list park for several years now, and Ride to Happiness being the top coaster on my bucket list, a coaster trip in this region was something I’ve been itching to do these past couple years. Originally we looked into a shorter trip that involved the Belgian parks and finishing off with Phantasialand, but adding on Europa Park was too tempting. And in turn that makes Holiday Park and Tripsdrill a no-brainer as well, so this trip extended into a two week journey, which is the longest theme park related trip I’ve ever done. We made sure to set aside some days for sightseeing in between, so thankfully the trip wasn’t all “go-go-go!” (although to be honest every day was still very busy).

Day 1 - Ghent

I flew out of Boston the day before Labor Day, giving myself a morning layover in Zurich before arriving in Brussels around midday. I actually did a family trip to Brussels 10 years ago as my first visit to Europe (throwback to this trip report here). Having done the city then and not leaving myself with a big impression (and hearing the general consensus of the city otherwise), Brussels was not considered for this trip, with priority focused on some of the smaller cities instead. I was very drawn to Ghent, with its medieval city center and Dutch-style canals, so we started out with a few days there.

I failed to get any decent sleep on the overnight plane, so I was pretty out of it when I arrived in Ghent. So naturally I hopped on the tram in the wrong direction. Fortunately it was pretty easy to correct that mistake, and before long I was in the city center.

Turn around the corner of this church and this is what you see:

I met up with my friend at the hostel (which had an amazing location), dropped my bag, and had a wander around.

Most of what there is to see in Ghent (mainly the three church towers) is pretty close together, but we did wander further out (somewhat) along a canal on the east side, before looping back in.

Eventually making it back through the Vrijdagmarkt...

…and the Gravensteen Castle (didn’t go inside).

And by then our room was ready, allowing us to settle in for a bit. The view from our hostel was the reason we stayed here (and still much cheaper than a basic hotel).

So that was all very lovely to walk around. That main corridor in particular with the three churches is just incredible. Again, we didn’t really go inside much. We’ll peek into some churches if they’re open (more to come later), but didn’t really bother with any upcharges or museums and whatnot. Those generally aren’t really my thing, plus the exteriors of the structures are much more interesting.

And while there were definitely some tourists and a couple of tour groups out and about, the city center did not feel overwhelming at all, especially compared to some of the other cities we'll see. It was pretty nice and, outside of the tour boats and some other groups, it really did feel like it was locals doing their thing.

Our walk earlier gave myself a second wind, so I was good to go out for dinner and grabbing some drinks at Dulle Griet, or what we called the “Shoe Bar.” You can get a half-yard of beer, but it requires a deposit of one of your shoes! They dump them in a bucket that’s hoisted up to the ceiling, and you don’t get it back until you finish your drink! Some hostel mates met up with us as well, so it was a great evening to kick off the trip.

 

[TheSDCoasterRaptor]

Man, the architecture is sublime. You don't see streets or buildings designed like that in America. I'm glad you can indulge your wanderlust bug!

 

[Gavin]

You've pretty much summed up my feelings on Ghent as well. It's a gorgeous place that fortunately feels ignored by a lot of tourists, meaning that the locals are really friendly as well. It's a million miles away from that s**thole of a capital city.

 

[Hutch]

Day 2 - Bruges

My friend had to work this day, leaving me on my own to do whatever I please. I left this day open in case I was too exhausted the previous day and wanted more time to explore Ghent, but it was pretty easy to see most of what there was in a couple hours. Instead, I decided to do a little day trip to Bruges, which originally wasn’t on the itinerary, but was one of those "if we had time" scenarios.

Weirdly enough the main station for Ghent is near the southern edge of town rather than being close to the center. From our hostel/city center, it’s either a 30 min walk, or about 20 min using the nearest metro station. I ended up just waking this time around as I wasn’t in any rush, hugging the canal southward.

And the train to Bruges was very easy, only 25 min, with frequent departure options. Like Ghent, the station to Bruges isn't very central. I took a stroll in, using the church towers as general destination points, while wandering off and getting distracted by other things on the way.

The old neighborhood between the station and city center seemed fairly quiet at first. There were definitely a few people out and about, clearly here for some sightseeing, but as I went further in I began to see more and more tour groups. At one point I turned a corner and wound up on a main street just filled with touristy shops and packed sidewalks. I'm pretty sure I saw more selfie sticks this day alone than the last 10 years combined.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by how touristy Bruges ended up being, but I just wasn’t expecting it at all. Especially compared to Ghent, which is a little closer to the larger Belgian cities, and whose city center is much more magnificent.

I kept wandering around some more, getting distracted by other things on the way to the main plaza.

I popped into this beer garden that was tied to some very touristy shops. Didn't stay for a drink, but they had a "Tintin Chapel" upstairs and a nice view of the canal nextdoor.

I eventually made it to Grote Markt. Again, lots of horse carriages on standby and tourists working on their Instagram posts. Buildings were very nice though.

At €15, it’s a bit pricey to climb the Belfry, but it’s kind of the main thing to do in Bruges, so I went along with it anyway (and this was the only time on the trip I did something like this). Nice views at the top, with all the bells chiming/scaring people at seemingly random moments.

City Hall plaza:

And from there I slowly made my way back, popping into another church on the way while avoiding the rain.

I’m really glad I got the chance to visit Bruges, especially since I didn’t really plan for it despite hearing good things. That said, I’m happy I did it as an easy day trip instead of staying there overnight. All the tourists were somewhat of a surprise, especially for a random Tuesday in September. I also didn’t get the sense that there was a ton to do or places to go out, outside of the basic sightseeing. With that said, we were really satisfied with our stay in Ghent.

Speaking of Ghent, that night a hostel mate and I met up at a blues bar, which was an absolute blast and one of the highlights of the trip. A saxophonist and pianist put on an incredibly fun show, and the bar was filled with locals with some pretty impressive swing dancing. I honestly would’ve been fine taking it easy that night as we had an early start the next day, but I’m glad I made the spontaneous choice to stay out a bit.

I've got coasters coming up next... we'll be starting out with a bang.

 

[TheSDCoasterRaptor]

Haha, you weren't kidding when you said, "tintin chapel"
I'm glad you decided to climb the Belfry, the view was beautiful!

 

[Hutch]

Day 3 - Plopsaland de Panne

Creds, at last.

From the main train station in Ghent, Plopsaland has a direct train at around 1.5 hours. Our train arrived shortly after park opening, but with it being a Wednesday in September, crowds were not a concern.

First impressions were nice, despite some of the facades being a little too colorful and tacky.

As tempting as it was to sneak a ride on Happiness, we hit the rest of the creds first, prioritizing Heidi: The Ride.

Solid coaster to kick off the park portion of the trip. It’s VERY smooth, honestly one of the smoothest woodies I’ve ever done. It’s a quick and tight layout with quite a bit going on, but without being too aggressive. I wouldn’t say Heidi is any better nor worse than White Lightning (which I think still runs pretty fine), though the presentation is much nicer here.

My reaction on the brake run was “that could be really good later in the day,” and the airtime had definitely improved then. Luckily they had two trains, so getting a reride in the afternoon wasn’t a problem, especially after hearing stories about how slow the line can get.

Draak, the first of many Mack powered coasters on this trip, was alright. These types of rides are amusing enough, and luckily they’re always easy to get out of the way.

The next two family creds were quite funny, both in their theme, and for the lack of children among the riders. It might’ve been a coincidence, but we had full trains of just teenagers and adults. So no worries about the shameful +1s.

K3 Roller Skater had a cute “everything is giant” theme.

And #LikeMe Coaster had some sort of high school/homecoming theme, complete with a DJ dance room in the queue. Loved the landscaping though.

Take the Dare Devil Dive layout (which did not ride well back at Over Georgia a couple years ago) with Gerstlauer’s worst trains (Lynet’s OTSRs), and you get a ride that I was kind of dreading. Thankfully, Anubis: The Ride turned out okay, limiting itself to a few awkward transitions at the beginning. Great launch too, but the station building is probably the highlight.

With the main cred loop complete, it was time for pretty much the only reason we showed up here. With Plopsaland being the family park that it is, The Ride to Happiness seems to be pretty quiet compared to the rest of the park, being an “xtreme spinner” and all.

I’ve got a lot to say about Ride to Happiness. They’ve done a fantastic job integrating this ride in the park. You can see its inversions and drops from anywhere in the park’s main loop, as if everything else was designed around this ride. Nice plaza as well, with plenty of opportunities to get up close to certain moments.

It’s such a strange theme isn’t it? But it works. The calming music in the station. The steampunk sets in the queue. “Nature embraces your inner being.” The literal name of “Ride to Happiness”... that’s exactly what this coaster achieves.

And how about these trains? I haven’t done Time Traveler yet, but these things are awesome. Comfy, but it was also really cool to see a simple button press to lower the lap bars, as opposed to the ride op having to check each restraint individually. Really opens up the door for some quick dispatches.

So a great presentation, but how about the ride itself? Let’s get the weak part out of the way first. As with Copperhead Strike and Hydra, the jojo roll adds nothing to the ride. I don’t despise slow super slow hangtime, but it’s just awkward and not exactly comfortable. At least here the profiling and spinning aspect makes it a little more interesting, but if it was up to me I’d just remove it.

But I can forgive (and forget) the jojo roll, as the rest of the ride is simply incredible. As expected, these launches are exceptions to the slow, rolling launches we’ve come to expect from Mack. More often or not you’ll start off sideways, backwards, or at any other angle besides the usual forward facing position, leading to a cool tug on your body as the launch kicks off.

And of course the spin midway through the launch cranks up the unpredictability of the ride. This initial spin rate varies, with a handful of rides counteracting the free spinning from the jojo roll to slow it down, while other rides turn you into a tornado. For one of my rides in the middle, my car did a 900 on the straight section alone.

And then you climb this thing. Our first ride was in the front, and while I knew we’d get some great airtime, I was not prepared for the level of intensity (and not just for this moment). Bit of a shock near the start of the ride, but you’ve already earned a breather up on this slow corner.

And of course, this drop, as fun as it is everywhere, is absolutely insane in the back. It’s ridiculous airtime, but it’s also the full weight of the train pulling you down like a monster dragging you off a cliff. Easily one of the best moments on any coaster ever.

I hear those stories about your upper body getting folded over on the lap bar. I expected that to occur on inversions and airtime hills, but the most intense moment were some spine-crushing positive gs at the bottom of this drop. There was one ride in particular where I was pinned from the bottom of the drop until the top of the banana roll. Insane.

These next couple inversions are among the “tamer” moments on the ride. The banana roll in particular didn’t quite hit the first few rides and felt like more of a blur, but as we rode more I realized it always leads to some more spinning or directional changes, keeping things out of control.

And what the loop lacks in intensity is more than made up for in the visual matter. Entering sideways and seeing the horizon line rotate 360 degrees never gets old.

Here’s a zero g roll. These are everywhere, yeah? Tired of them? Well f—k you, how about a backflip instead?

The turn into the second launch is a welcome one. You’ll need another breather before the rapid fire finale. The second launch is another visual highlight, receiving another tug in the restraint while seeing the flying snake dive approach out of the corner of your eye.

There’s a good change you’ll be sideways or some unusual angle entering this roll, leading to more flips. The train takes these inversions pretty slow, but the rotation continues for so long, so there’s no shortage of playful hangtime and even some whip going back down.

And again, I must emphasize the severity of airtime here, ragdolling your upper body. It almost feels unnecessary to have ejector airtime on a spinning coaster. Not that I’m complaining… it’s a fantastic finale to a fantastic coaster.

As you can probably tell, we were both wowed from our first Ride on Happiness. Each ride was filled with laughter and left me speechless on the brake run.

One of my concerns going into it was how the smoothness would fare. Knowing that Helix and Copperhead Strike had varying rattles in the train, and hearing impressions about Happiness having a rattle, I was worried that this could have been a make-or-break factor for me. That said, I'm pleased to report that I did not have an issue with the smoothness at all. It probably could’ve ran a tad smoother, but I was so overwhelmed by everything else going on that it didn’t come into play.

So after a few rides to start out, we pulled ourselves away and did a leisurely loop around the rest of the park. There’s a whole other kids area, though not a ton of stuff we were interested in. Only flat ride we did was the Nachtwacht Flyer. We would’ve done the indoor boat ride if it weren’t closed.

I also did the SuperSplash, thus completing the cred run for real this time.

I’m not kidding. This counts.

Oh! I forgot we did this awesome log flume, Dinosplash. The water looked nasty (as did the pond housing the Supersplash), but the volcano set was really cool. It also had a fun double down finale.

And then basically spent a couple hours Riding Happiness. Most of the time a queue never formed outside the station, but it did pick up a little as the day went on. Our last ride still only took 15 min though, so can’t complain really. We racked up a total of 13 rides throughout the day, and easily could’ve done more if we made the effort to. Happy goon:

So Plopsaland was a nice park to start off. Everything was quite pleasant, despite some tacky looking buildings near the front. I especially liked the charming village around Heidi, and I enjoyed Happiness’s area as well. That said Ride to Happiness really makes this park, otherwise we probably would’ve ran out of things to do in a couple hours. The cred run only took an hour, and Heidi and Anubis are probably the only other coasters worth reriding, but even then those won’t keep you busy for a bit. But I’ll without a doubt return just for Happiness. I knew then it would end up being the best coaster of the trip, and it’s going to rank VERY high for me.

We attempted to take a train departing at 4:50, but of course we cut it close, and thanks somehow getting lost in the parking lot we ended up missing it. Not to worry. We ended up getting an early dinner back inside the park before taking the next train an hour later.

My friend was pretty exhausted when we came back, so instead of going out on my own, I ended up just having a nighttime stroll around Ghent before checking out the following morning.