Ron Toomer Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 (edited) Made some last minute adjustment to my vacation to Europe so I could fit these 3 parks in with main goal of finally riding GeForce. All of the parks were on either their last day of operation before the winter break or day before last so I was really worried about some of the rides being closed etc but luckily I got all the credits from the 3 parks minus Xpress Platform 13. Started off by landing in Amsterdam, renting a car and driving an hour to Walibi. This ended up being an absolute disaster. I added the GPS even though I had printed out directions, however, I got COMPLETELY lost. The GPS was in Dutch and I couldn’t figure out how to change the language. It took me 45 minutes to get more than 5 miles away from the Amsterdam airport because I kept missing turns and driving in circles. I was determined and finally found the highway and was on my way and successfully made my way to Walibi Holland. Middle of nowhere Netherlands on my way to Walibi Since their “Fright Nights” was still going on their were signs that directed everyone to a huge grass field that they were using for parking. Here’s a panoramic shot of the parking area which gives you a good idea of how empty the park was. Also I thought it was very strange how none of the ticketing windows are open for Fright Nights and you HAVE to buy your tickets online or you have no way of entering the park. Luckily I knew this ahead of time. Walibi Holland! When I got to the entrance they scanned my ticket and had a security screening which was more intense than HHN at USO minus the metal detectors. A Dutch lady literally searched everything in my wallet and through all of my stuff thoroughly followed by a ridiculously thorough frisking (Guess the sexual harassment laws are different in the Netherlands then back home where has to be guy frisking guy and women women). Regardless it was awesome! Fright Nights! I made my way straight to the back of the park to ride Goliath. Rode it twice with the plan of getting the rest of the credits and coming back to Goliath for more. It was absolutely amazing and I definitely thought it was significantly better than S:ROS/Bizarro which I have ridden a ton because I used to live in MA. The “Stengel Dive” is freaking awesome, both helixes are great, bunny hills at the end great, and the super tight turn into the break run is unlike anything I have ridden before and I loved it. They were running 1 train and it was a 3 train wait the whole time I was there until right before I left when it was getting to 5 or 6 train wait I am assuming because the Fright Nights crowd was rolling in. Goliath! Awesome shot of the lift hill Goliath's station Bunny hills at the end Next I headed to Robin Hood. It was a walk on with 1 train. It was pretty rough but it was ok and I enjoyed it. Robin Hood! Next up: El Condor not looking forward to this…Vekoma's first SLC prototype and should of been it's last! Dear El Condor: please have mercy on me. It was so awful and my head and ears hurt from slamming against the restraint for the next hour haha. Really cool though these hydraulic storage bins for loose articles which go up and down for each train and close once the train leaves the station until it returns. I have never seen this before. I've seen like the old ones on Sheikra that slide back and forth for each train but never automated like this one. On my way to get the Drako credit I passed the rapids ride which somehow was both open and had people riding it despite the 40 degree weather! **Special shot out to my friend Brad from the forums who I guarantee would have been on this no matter how cold it was had he been there! Brad LOVES the rapids. Also passed one of the haunted houses Translation: “This haunted house will hurt exactly 1/1000th as much as El Condor!" Cool double down log ride…also open despite it being so cold. Drako was a walk on with no one in line and the ride op looked shocked when I made my way through the queue and hopped in the front seat to ride it by myself Next was Speed of Sound. I don’t particular care for boomerangs but of all the one’s I have ridden this was the coolest with the enclosed tunnel on the way back and the blasting music inside. Have no idea what this is supposed to be but it’s in the station and looks awesome! Made my way to Xpress: Platform 13 and found it to be “down for mechanical problems”. Figured it would re-open so made my way back to Goliath and rode it 5 more times before heading back to front of the park to ride Xpress. Unfortanetly, it was still down and I was short on time needing to drive to Toverland so I couldn’t wait. Was really pissed because I wanted the last credit and don’t think I will be back any time soon Crushed a Doner Kabob before leaving. Love these! Used to eat them all the time when I was studying abroad in Barcelona. They are soooo good. On the way out I passed “The Pee Fountain”. No idea why the water is yellow or what this is supposed to be but it was hilarious. That’s a lot of pee! Headed to parking lot and got a hand stamp just because they looked cool even though I was leaving for good. Next up Toverland! It was about 2.5 hours away plus some traffic that I hit so ended up being a little over 3 hours. Welcome to Toverland! There she is! First up Boomerang. I actually really enjoyed this! Next headed to Troy… The line was much longer than I expected and was about a 7-8 train wait. I waited for the back which happened to be a little shorter. The station fly through. Troy was freakin’ awesome. Except for El Toro and Boulder Dash it’s the best woody I’ve ridden although admittedly I haven’t ridden most of the really good ones outside the US. Next up – Booster Bike. This was my first Vekoma motor bike so didn’t know what to expect. It was ok. Also line was kind of long because all the kids apparently love this one and the crowd was basically all families with young kids. Cool shot of the “launch” Then it was on to Dwervelwind for the last credit. This was the longest line of the day and on top of that I ran into them adding another train right before I boarded which made it even longer. Took about 45 minutes in total. Fortunately I had a bunch of time to admire the awesome station. Pretty amazing for a spinning coaster… So cool. One of my favorite stations ever. Even has fog that drifts into the queue All sorts of leafs and trees on the ceiling inside the station. While I have ridden Mystery Mine I have never seen them add additional cars so got to see the floor rise and the 2nd train come up which was really neat. Here are some shots of it in action: Station floor starting to lift up and you can see second train below Close to eye level now All the way up now and ready to back the second train onto the track Dwervelwind was fun as expected and I enjoyed it. By now I was really short on time and had to get to back to the airport so couldn’t go back to Troy and had to head to the car. One last shot of Troy. Had a pretty interesting experience exiting the parking lot as I didn’t know I needed a parking coin to make the gate open. I hit the help button and the women who answered told me I needed to back up and come back to pay. However, there was about 10 cars behind me so a couple seconds later she just opened the gate and I drove through. Foreigner parking discount obviously… I drove back to the Amsterdam airport which was supposed to take about 1.5 hours but ran into more traffic and barely made it back in time to return the rental car and catch my plane to Frankfurt. Spent the night in Frankfurt and headed to Holiday Park in the morning. Got no sleep I was so excited. Finally GeForce!! I took the train from Frankurt Main to Mannheim and then onto Hassloch. ***Shot out to Jakizle for the help navigating the German railroads from his trip a few months ago. I was planning on taking the Holiday Park express bus from Hassloch but missed Hassloch my first go around and by the time I got back from the next train stop it was already gone. Had no chance of finding a taxi as the Hassloch station is literally in the middle of nowhere. So did some walking and found a German Gym. Went inside to try and call a cab and no one spoke English except for one guy named “Claude”. He called a taxi for me and literally saved the day. Thanks Claude! It was about a 10 minute cab ride and I was there. First sight of GeForce in person! Basically sprinted to GeForce and ran through the queue. Cool shot of the first drop with sun in the back. Airtime! Can’t really put it into words how good it was. Simply amazing and by far the best roller coaster I have ever been on. I thought it was so crazy how at the top of the lift hill you look around and it’s farmland and woods for as far as you can see. Middle of nowhere and such an amazing ride. And also how unassuming it is. Station so simple, not covered and the 2nd train basically in a tent behind the station. Really cool imo. Also liked how the ride ops walk back and forth stepping on the station at their leisure even when the cable lift is coming back down and how they give a simple “OK” and off you go. Geforce was a 2 train wait. Rode it twice with the plan of getting the other two credits and marathoning it with as many rides as I could before I had to leave. Next up, Sky Scream. Had pretty low expectations honestly but it was better than I thought it would be. Basically a walk on as well. And finally Holly's Wilde Autofahrt which hurt like hell. The breaks are insane and there is about 3 of them that crush you! Rode it with a 10 year old German kid and we were both stunned getting off at how bad we were hurting. Then headed back to Geforce for more… Waited for the front for my picture and then was running from getting off the ride back through the queue so I could get on every other train that was dispatched. It worked out well and except for getting unlucky a few times and missing the 1 or 2 empty seats per train. Ended up getting 14 rides in total before I had to leave. Headed to the exit to pick up my backpack from the lockers. It’s an automated machine, which has you enter your birthday to identify you. Apparently you also choose a color with your birthday so it’s unique. I missed this and frantically was entering my birthday and picking colors hoping to find a match. Green, Cyan, Blue….etc it was ridiculous and I was freaking out because my passport, money and all my stuff was in there. Finally got the right color and it opened thank god. Timing was bad for taking the express bus back to Hassloch so had them call me a cab at the information desk and headed back to the train to Frankfurt. The train ride back was much less eventful then the one there. Train station in Mannheim Made it back to the airport and it was on to the rest of my vacation. Had so much fun and hope I will be back to all of these parks sometime soon! Edited November 5, 2014 by Ron Toomer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coasternate Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Cool report! I wish I could ride GeForce. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerstlaueringvar Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Great TR, these parks look amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardyloo! Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Great trip report, how did goliath compare to geforce? Everyone knows that geforce is superior but I went to holland this summer (not sure if i'm gonna upload the photo's) and Goliath easily made my top 10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Toomer Posted November 5, 2014 Author Share Posted November 5, 2014 Great trip report, how did goliath compare to geforce? Everyone knows that geforce is superior but I went to holland this summer (not sure if i'm gonna upload the photo's) and Goliath easily made my top 10. Yeah I wasn't really thinking about it at the time but it was cool I got to ride them both so close to one another to compare them. Goliath has the “Stengel Dive” which is really cool and the tight turn into the station but GeForce's is just on another level and to me Intamin pretty much got all of their features perfect on GeForce. I know a lot of people rate Goliath high but it's way higher on my list then I thought it would be before riding it. GeForce is far and away the best but like I said in my TR I thought Goliath was much better than S:ROS/Bizarro. Goliath isn't nearly the tallest or fastest mega but although it's really small it's pretty crazy how much punch it packs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcjp Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Wow 14 times on expedition geforce! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PKI Jizzman Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Awesome report! Although it seemed very hectic at times, it's what makes the trips. Thanks for posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GwaziBSRider1 Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Thanks for sharing! This gets me excited for my trip to ride GeForce next year! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 Great TR. Thanks for the shout-out (although 40 degrees might be pushing it for a rapids ride - even for me). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrthwnd Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 I am so glad I don't have to ride El Condor at WH, when I get there next fall. Already got the credit with the accompanying pain, lol. Great report on all three parks. And I miss Toverland, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Toomer Posted November 7, 2014 Author Share Posted November 7, 2014 Haha awesome that you were able to pull this off! Still don't know how I figured out how to get from FRA to Holiday Park on my layover but glad the plan worked (mostly) for ya! Didn't do any mazes to see any kids crabwalking?haha no I skipped the mazes cause I just assumed that seeing a kid crabwalking is like seeing a unicorn and it will pretty much never happen again... And yeah thanks again for the help. I guess that this is becoming the new standard for riding GeForce if you haven't before: Step 1: Route your trip through Frankfurt Step 2: Make your layover super long Step 3: Take train from Frankfurt Main to Hassloch Step 4: Pray a taxi will randomly show up at Hassloch train station Step 5: Arrive at Holiday Park and ride GeForce Step 6: Somehow make it back to Frankfurt without missing your flight It's pretty much fail safe! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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