Gazza

I had the opportunity to visit Efteling earlier this year. https://www.parkz.com.au/parks/NL/Kaatsheuvel/Efteling/ (If the gallery is giving you grief, you can just work through sequentially from here https://www.parkz.com.au/photo/17882-Efteling/gallery/sort/newest/location/park-147-Efteling/offset/0 using the left and right arrows ) It's located about 80km south of Amsterdam, though I stayed at a B&B in Tilburg, 10km south, and got a bus there from Tilburg station (Which run quite frequently) I also elected to get a ‘Ticket Extra’, for 10 EUR extra, which gets you in 30 min earlier, plus a meal in the park, which seemed like good value, and quick way to sneak in a couple of attractions. The park is impressive, immaculately landscaped, and very spread out, with a lot of pathways to cover. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. The first ride I did was Spookslot, which is essentially an animatronic show, where you stand looking at an old castle, and various peppers ghost/ lighting / animatronic effects are triggered as the dead come to life. My favourite part was when the ground starts rumbling and moving under the tombstones. The other early opening ride worth doing is Vogel Rok, which is probably the most family friendly coaster in the park (Actually, the lack of a “kiddy coaster” at Efteling is quite suprising, but in general shies away from mini kiddy flats) The coaster was mostly in the dark, and “fun”, if not that memorable (since it spent a lot of time just doing endless helixes one way then the other, but there were a few cool laser effects and onboard music. At the start of the ride you see a giant egg, then as the ride progresses you see large mythical birds suspended around the track, culminating in passing through the mouth of one. With the walking time, that was the 30 min headstart consumed, so I just beat the masses to Baron 1898 , the parks dive machine coaster. This was great, with an amazing level of theming, and entertaining pre-shows (thankfully captioned). The whole ride has this perfect Victorian era vibe about it, and doesn’t try to go down the typical grimy/rusty mine theme. When you leave the station you stop in a sort of pre lift room, where some female ghosts sing a beautiful song telling you that you are all doomed, then it’s up the lift, pause for a second, then down the vertical drop. From there is a couple of inversions, a helix, hump and brakes. It’s not the strongest coaster out there, fun and re-rideable, but really it’s the theming that holds this experience up. No queue meant I was able to get a front and a back row ride in, via single rider. Check out the parks 360 pov, really captures the feel of the ride well I spent the next half hour getting a lap on each side of Joris en de Draak. Best coaster in the park! This one is mostly a racing coaster, with tracks running in the same direction most of the time, save for a couple of turns where they go for a “head on” near miss. GCIs racers are their strong suit, and this is no exception, it just belts along, has heaps of little moments of airtime, and really good interaction between the tracks. In particular, there is a section where the tracks intertwine (like the Kraken Racer at Funfields) so you are constantly going over and under each other, culminating in passing a big dragon animatronic. When you reach the end, there is a banner hanging from a pole that spins to point at the winning train, and then when you arrive at the station, banners drop from the roof to “congratulate” the winners. I got a front row one on one side, and a back row go on the other before moving on. Also worth mentioning is the super catchy soundtrack: Next up I headed to the nearby Vliegende Hollander , a water coaster from the same guys that brought us the Sea Viper and Arkham trains. Like Baron, this one has amazing queue and dark ride theming, but a bit of a meh coaster experience. This one works well, you go into a building, and inside slip through a rip in a painting on the wall to find a hidden passage, this leads to a dock, where you board your boat. As you leave the dock you pass through the harbour gates, into foggy darkness, with howling winds, squawking sea birds, with only a lantern on your boat lighting the way. It’s atmospheric AF, and one of the best examples of setting the scene that ive seen on a ride. Suddnely, hell breaks loose, and explosions go off around the boat, rain pours around you, and then the ghost of the flying Dutchman is coming towards you. Then There’s a small drop into the broken hull of the ship, and you start heading up the lift hill. As you reach the top, a booming voice shouts something, then the doors open and you go down the main curving drop. From there is a couple of turns and hills, and finally the splashdown. The boat slowly drifts back towards the building and you disembark. Going by the time stamps of my photos, I think the next thing I did was Bob, which still took a little while, despite using single rider. It’s an Intamin bobsled, so compared to the Mack ones, they feel a bit more out of control, but they do bash around a bit more, so I’m ambivalent towards them. This one is due to close next year, to be replaced by a racing family coaster. No need to ride Pirana, you could see the whole layout and nothing really took me… Moving across the park, I took the scenic route through the Sprookjesbros which is a huge fairly tale village full of dioramas, and the original part of the park, but with a bit of modern magic, so none of this going on. I would have liked to have had a proper look through this bit, but given time constraints, I moved through fairly quickly. Kicking myself that I missed the Indian Water Lilies display. At this point, I grabbed a fastpass thingy for a seat at Raveleijn, before joining the 30 minute, but constantly moving queue for Droomvlutch. This is a suspended dark ride, with cars that can rotates, so I guess similar to ET, sans bikes. This one was a series of fantasy themed scenes (hence the name dream flight), like ET, there was a scene where you fly over a diorama, there were lots of scenes with trolls and faries in the forest, many of which you pass over at high level. I thought the coolest one was this long spiralling helix towards the end of the ride, where you face inwards and circulated around a giant tree and waterfall, picking up speed, with various creatures at different levels. There was also a cool fibre optic tunnel with lots of stars too. Next up was Villa Volta. I love these so much It’s a mad house in a somewhat unassuming building. No translation available for this one, the preshow was an animatronic of leathery old man rabbiting on. Eventually you proceed to the main ride, a room that revolves around you, with various other props on the wall (vases, mirrors etc) that tilt with the room to really make the effect convincing. Add the rousing sound track, and it’s a close tie between this and Hex at Alton for the best mad house ride. I had a bit of time to spare before Raveleijn, so I checked out the Efteling Museum and the Diorama, and enjoyed the ambience of Anton Pieck Plein. Raveleijn is a large arena show. The story is that some kids are out hiking, and discover a hidden city, when they enter, they are magically transformed into horseback heroes, and are called upon to fight an evil guy who has taken over the city. There were some pretty cool effects, such as characters appearing/disappearing underwater from a pond in the middle of the arena. There were trained ravens (?), plenty of horse stunt riding, and a final battle with this mechanised fire breathing 5 headed dragon. Fortunately, headsets are available with English dubbing, or else I would have been quite lost. Perhaps my only criticisim is that the set is set up weirdly, with a narrow bit of space at the front, and big bulky pieces right in the middle, so it felt cramped. I CBF typing all the characters names, so have a look here if you want to know more https://www.efteling.com/en/kids/profiles/raveleijn After the show, I went on Pagode, the observation tower, or rather the flying island. This is a platform on a huge arm that gets lifted up, for a view over the park. It’s open air too, so no filthy glass blocking your shots. The park is quite spread out though with a lot of trees, and it was still April, so a bit of moisture in the atmosphere, so net result is the aerial pics seem like they don’t show much. Right, time to finally get on the newest ride, Symbolica, which conveniently has a single rider queue, reducing the impetus to get here early. The only downside to this is that the ride has three story options to choose from, and as a single rider, you don’t get to pick. Not to worry, on my two rides, I got 2 different ones, which was good enough for me. The preshow is fun, with the kings assistant reading a long list of rules, and then the jester magically revealing the passage to the ride. Im not sure what to make of this one, like Droomvlutch, its an exercise in just looking at pretty stuff basically. You pass through various rooms in the palace, with whimsical things coming to life. The coolest scene IMO was the garden greenhouse, when all of a sudden a whale is swimming around outside, and the glass cracks and water pours in. The final scene of the ride puts the trackless system to good use, with three cars dancing around each other in the banquet hall. So overall, it’s superbly themed, but perhaps was anti climatic compared to your Disney dark rides. Next was the last remaining coaster, Python. This one operates with a time booking system, which I had missed earlier in the day, so I had to wait till later in the afternoon till they open it for general riders. It has a single rider line too. It was a fun coaster, it has recently had its track replaced, and has the new gen Vekoma trains, so nothing to complain about. It’s still pretty basic in terms of layout…two loops, two corkscrews and a helix. There were still a couple of dark rides to go, so I did Fata Morgana, this one is like Pirates of the Carribean, if it were Arabian, so lots of wax animatronics and basic movement, through different stereotypical scenes. The other dark ride was Carnaval (sic) Festival, which a knock off of it’s a small world, but with haunted mansion style 3 seater buggies that move continuously and can rotate. Aimed at kids! It contained hillarous stereotypes, but despite going around the world, they missed Australia. I’d wanted to go another re-ride on Joris en de Draak, but the ride had closed early compared to the rest due to a private party, which annoyed me a bit to be honest, especially since the ride only opened with one train first thing. So with my last bit of time in the park, I did a re-ride on Symbolica and Baron 1898, then intentionally took the scenic route back to the entrance through Volk von Laaf and Sprookjesbros. Everything was off, but there was ample opportunity to take photos. So that’s Efteling! I think it’s one of the best parks I have visited, combining great theming, great rides, and a really pleasant setting . The food was nice, the ambience and music were nice too, and it was great to see how they have preserved classic attractions. Originally I was going to give myself 2 days, and if you did things at a slightly slower pace, you could definitely fill out two days. As it was, I didn’t see any indoor shows at the theatre, or have a sit down meal, and I could have spent longer seeing sprookjesbros. The World of Color style fountain show was closed for maintenance too. But, as circumstances ended up, I’d done everything I wanted to, and there is no discounted two day pass, and I wasn’t sure about paying another days ticket for essentially re-rides, so I elected leave it at that, and go to the Hague the next day instead, and schedule extra time to explore there / see a couple of smaller parks down that way. ************* After Efteling, I noticed that it wasn’t going to be too far (25km0 to jump on a train and bus that evening to check out Baarle Hertog. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4413687,4.9335558,13.58z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog This is basically a holdover from medieval times, where there is a complex patchwork of Dutch and Belgian territory within the town, including a part where there is an island of Belgian territory, and then a pocket of dutch territory within that. Houses and shops have international borders running through them. Does this truly count as visiting another country?

The Big Brother amphitheatre is in the middle of nowhere but.

It's not plain concrete, it's just a light sand coloured finish. Similar to the lazy river at Gumbuya https://www.parkz.com.au/photo/16183-Lazy_River/gallery/sort/newest/location/ride-3987-Lazy_River/offset/8

Wouldn't testing be happening in parallel to the exterior works?

But if you're in Dreamworld, you're not necessarily in Whitewater World.

You just made everyone scroll past the spoilers a 2nd time then.

Why are all the reviews so vague? "Oh it's mostly the old ride with a few new things". Yeah we knew that....

What does the separate thread do that can't be achieved with spoiler tags?

Awning at the bar at MW Legends Dining Room

Who is the manufacturer?

The water is off so it's not slippery.

Obviously he was talking about Dungeons. But i don't see them as a problem, given stuff like fright nights, Dracula's Cabaret etc are a thing.

That sounds a bit edumacational. Should be about FUN!

Yeah, as others have said Seal Harbour wouldn't work for this sort of show, since it has quite narrow walkways so not enough capacity, and a lot of the dry land in the exhibit isnt really big enough for a stage (And there's no backstage to bring one seal out and send one back etc) The one at San Antonio had them introducing each animal, showing how they use clickers and rewards to to it, showed how they don't co operate sometimes. And obviously the show arena has the prop elements they actually train the animals on. It was a bit more involved than when you go to zoos/wildlife parks and there's occasionally a keeper who gives a brief talk at the exhibit.

No, I think it's like SW in the US where it's a presentation on seal training, rather than a comedic scripted show. At SW in San Antonio they ran both shows in the same venue.

Has this been posted? No? Good. The rocky rapids type slide at the end looks excellent. Worlds steepest water slide? And this

I think that's being a bit dismissive of the place, it's got an RMC and a big ass floorless coaster, and then a few unique rides OP probably hasn't ridden like the Superman sky rocket coaster and V2. Worst comes to worst, just stay for a few hours?

I thin he meant a "Warner Bros World" (Like the one in Abu Dhabi) not a "Warner Bros. Movie World World" (Like the driving school).

Police Academy and Gremlins aren't new though.

At the end of April I was fortunate enough to have a spare Sunday afternoon in Copenhagen due to the nature of my trip, not nearly enough for a city like this. But enough for an abridged 10 hour highlights package of the city centre, and time for a couple of parks, one of which was Bakken. https://www.parkz.com.au/parks/DK/Klampenborg/Bakken Bakken is easy to get to, 20 minutes on the S-Tog train from Copenhagen Central to Klampenborg, and then a pleasant walk down a residential street where you find the park hidden in some trees by a lake. The park is the oldest in the world, and has the Rutschebanen wooden coaster dominating the centre of the park, with essentially an oval loop of path around it with amusements on both sides. But i started on Tornado, which an Intamin spinning coaster. You sit in 4 seater cars that face inwards like the Gerstlauer spinners, but they have fabric OSTRs like on the Zacspins. This thing is brutal, the spinning gets unlocked as soon as you leave the station, the lift is fast, and then goes hyperspeed at the top so you get flung off the top and slam into a turn, so its impossible to brace because you dont know which way you will be facing at the top. From there it's high banked turns and helices and fast transitions (imagine riding the 2nd half of Jet Rescue with a spinning car). There is a floater hill halfway through the train just makes it over so you can see the necessity of why the lift has to speed up so much. The ride is mostly enclosed by a building, but it doesn't really do much...not dark or anything. The ride is a bit like a Zacspin in that you'll either love the intensity or hate it, but I liked it. Marihonen had no queue so I had a go on that. Continuing around the main path was Vilde Mus , a fairly typical Mack wild mouse ,but it had a nice facade. I should touch on how the park is. Basically individual operators own lots and have rides and restaurants and so forth, so there is some stuff that looks quite good, and other stuff that looks a bit carnie and old (Though very little actually looks temporary or anything like that), so the park has a certain chaotic character, like an old village or something. An amusement park in the truest sense. A side alley led down to Rutschebanen which is a scenic railway type wooden coaster, meaning no upstop wheels to prevent you from flying off the track, so in the past it had a brakeman. But recently it had a modern safety upgrade, so along the track are big flat brake plates that trim the speed a bit at various points. It was still an enjoyable experience, with decent sized dips and hills, and quite a lengthy layout. Getting back on the main path, I did Hurlumhej which is a vintage fun house, what really impressed me about this is that the whole house seemed to run off one motor, with all elements connected by belts etc, so everything moved in harmony, with entire rooms moving in an oscilating motion. The first bit of this video shows it off well. The next ride along was Racing, a flitzer coaster, which is basically a coaster that just keeps turning and dipping in one giant clockwise turn for the most part...It's sort of what i imagined Turbo Mountain or Geronimo to be like. Had a very retro feel, and the lack of harnesses in the cars was pretty cool. The back of the park was mostly just spin n spews, restaurants and game stands. There was a ghost train Spogelsestoget which was basically just run of the mill old ghost train with dodgy effects. If you've ridden the one at LPM you'd know what to expect. More flats etc on this side of the park, OMG this one was there though! which eventually led to Mine Train Ulven. Loved this one, its a mine train in name only. No boring slow turns or endless lift hills, this was a speedy, smooth family thrill coaster, with a confusing layout, drops into tunnels, leafy sections it would rush through, a bit of rockwork here and there. It had the Intamin flavour for sure. Kaengaru was right there, and an opportunity to try an new flat ride type (and an obligation to ride anything Australian themed). It's just a spinning ride with seats that bounce up and down via air bladders, giving constant pops of airtime, though it might be a bit nauseating if it went on for too long! Skyroller is a Gerstlauer sky roller. This version, where it raises up a tower and spins around is much easier to get flipping, so i got over 50 flips according to the counter! I had limited time, and nothing else really took my fancy, so I did a re ride each on Tornado, Rutschebanen and Mine Train Ulven and took photos. But just as I was about to leave I realised I had almost missed the Safari shooting dark ride. Cue the fake palm trees and fibreglass gorillas and lions. I was fully expecting something politically incorrect where you shot said animals, but instead the targets were giant wasps in the trees. My score was pretty measly; if you've ridden a few of these shooters you might have encountered some where it's a pain to get anything. I think i could count on one hand the number of targets I got. Overall, Bakken was a good way to spend a couple of hours, with a few of the coasters and the fun houseworth the easy quick trip out there, as well as that fun house. You can also get individual ride tickets, but I found the unlimited wristband to worth it for the number of rides I intended to do. Denmark is one of the few places where prices are as high as Australia....It cost 269 DKK which is around 60 AUD.

Yeah, the price sounds about right for this sort of activity, that said the Storey Bridge climb is only $130 or so.

It sounds about right, whenever I spend 4 weeks in the US it usually ends up being $6000 all in, and that's with a bit of stinginess that you might not get away with on a family holiday.

And this one is only 405m long: https://rcdb.com/6712.htm#p=53410

Sad to hear Gold Striker has decayed so badly. I rode it when it was quite new and it was excellent, so what a difference 4 years makes. I hope the raptor coasters start popping up everywhere, they just seem so fluid and because they are affordable, small parks will be able to get world beating coasters. By the sounds of it, the Bart extension to Silicon valley is still not opening till some time in 2019, but even when it does, Caltrain to Mountain View then the VTA light rail would still be the fastest way to get to CGA from SF. As for SFDK, yeah agree about Superman, they are probably my favourite compact clone type coaster. Disappointing to hear the designers have mucked up the Harley Quinn one though..I don't think we will see many in the future if they cant get the basics right.

Respectfully, I reckon the wierd ass shaping makes coasters better. See: Every RMC ever. At least they are trying something different with the first drop, seems like a 21st century version of how the first drop was on the defunct Drachen Fire at BGW. I think the only real complaint I have is the supports are ugly, but meh, its a good conventional multi looper.