davidmorton

Done! edit - d'oh they came backwards, and I thought I was being clever attaching them in reverse. Should have read the instructions better. Double d'oh. Silver Star and a big football Eurosat and its bizarre lift hill EuroMir's droppy bits Fountains and stuff Atlantica SuperSplash I bet no-one has every taken this photo before! Another totally unique photo I think View from my room - not really I was over the car park Drop Loop Wingover Helix NO SMOKING or else! Oops - my panorama photo didn't quite stitch together! All 4 of Heide's coasters here (powered ones don’t count) Scream! More good wood, and it don't look like they've started building next years toy yet And the winner is... Hanover Sights Your big Silver Star with its fantastic noise shield Its a very tree filled place Lots of water around too and giant footballs (Can't see EPCOT dressing their dome up as a footy ball) Themed bedrooms in Colloseo (but no air con!!) Slightly arty shot of the hotel And again Looks nicer as it gets darker and the fountains look cool too HiSpeed shot of the fountain outside the hotel Proper arty shot (of the steps on the ruin) and from the "ruin" you get a great view of the famous German pylons This is a big fun coaster They are about to have some big fun Do they look like they are having big fun? This is not a big fun coaster The StarFlyer sits at the end of the lake, very picturesque They do like their themed bunk beds in Germany Did I mention how nice the hotel was? and this is probably the best photo I've taken in many a while Did you know they moved the real brandenburg Gate all the way from Berlin to a themepark? Spinny Winjas thingies Spinning away You can walk right through Mambas loop if you feel like it and you can see from this how its queue line winds around the ride About to suffer a terrible fate, no not being eaten by a big blue thing, but having to suffer one of their interminable dark rides No observation rides, so you have to take these sort of shots from the Condor

Went to Tibidabo last summer, some pics in here; http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18830 Worth going to just for the trip up the mountain and the not-at-all-dull view!

I did, I quite liked it (for a kiddie coaster). It was similar to the Vekoma Roller-Skater things (like the Unicorn at IoA) in size, but a better ride I thought. There was one nice big pop of air about half way around. Well themed trains too. The only "down side" with it was that it was kindof crammed in behind the Poseidon water coaster and a bit tricky to find!!! D.

Some more pixs in and around EuropaPark.... Your big Silver Star with its fantastic noise shield Its a very tree filled place Lots of water around too and giant footballs (Can't see EPCOT dressing their dome up as a footy ball) Themed bedrooms in Colloseo (but no air con!!) Slightly arty shot of the hotel And again Looks nicer as it gets darker and the fountains look cool too Looking back at the "ruin" HiSpeed shot of the fountain outside the hotel Proper arty shot (of the steps on the ruin) and from the "ruin" you get a great view of the famous German pylons +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ and HolidayPark.... This is a big fun coaster They are about to have some big fun Do they look like they are having big fun? This is not a big fun coaster The StarFlyer sits at the end of the lake, very picturesque +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ and Phantasialand.... They do like their themed bunk beds in Germany Did I mention how nice the hotel was? and this is probably the best photo I've taken in many a while Did you know they moved the real brandenburg Gate all the way from Berlin to a themepark? Spinny Winjas thingies Spinning away You can walk right through Mambas loop if you feel like it and you can see from this how its queue line winds around the ride About to suffer a terrible fate, no not being eaten by a big blue thing, but having to suffer one of their interminable dark rides No observation rides, so you have to take these sort of shots from the Condor

Seems a bit odd to fly all that way JUST to go to Holiday Park. I "did" the park in a couple of hours the other week, while it was busy, full of kids on trips and got lots of rides in on GeForce. Europa park is only an hour away - thats got loads more stuff than HP, which only really has the one thing going for it (a very good thing indeed, but still just the one).

Not true!!! http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27254 And yep Black Mamba is very very good indeed. Most fun I've had on a ride in a while! Liked Phastasialand a lot....apart from their dark rides, which were absolutley awful. All of them. Awful.

^^ just yanking your chain! The US didn't do too well at this years World Cup tho' - made a better stab at it last time out.

So I had a couple of weeks booked off work, couldn't quite find the enthusiasm to trek over to the States for the fourth July running (and looking at the temperatures over there, this was probably a good idea) so I booked a few cheap flights and stuff, and off to Germany I went... Sunday 16/7 Flew into Stuttgart (from Manchester) at some god-awful late time (I said they were cheap flights!) and crashed out at an airport hotel... Monday 17/7 Pick up the car and drive on down to Europa Park, got there about 11am, dump the car at the Colloseo and head on in... I wasn't quite sure what to make of this place, I did have high expectations of the park but then since all the rides are Macks (apart from their beemer) I wasn't convinced that the coasters would be up to much. First up was the beemer "Silver Star" - I've "done" the other big B&Ms in the past (Nitro/Apollo/Raging Bull but not the new Goliaths) and really enjoyed them - this was very good too, but probably the "least good" of the ones I've been on - still good though and for me the best ride in the park (even if it was being trimmed a bit!). Right next to Silver Star is Eurosat, which is housed in their Epcot like dome thing, but to celebrate (or cash in?) on the World Cup they had made it up like a giant football (thats soccer to you ignorant yanks) - most amusing too; Silver Star and a big football Very much enjoyed Eurosat as well, very "space mountain" but pretty good with it, encountered the first of the very odd Mack lift mechanisms - this one being a giant rotating drum around which the track spirals upwards, the trains attaching themselves to the side of the drum and are thus dragged up the track. Bizarre. There was a model of the ride in the Mack museum; Eurosat and its bizarre lift hill While I'm on the subject of bizarre lift hills, I just loved Euro Mir's hill - it has the same rotating drum business as Eurosat, but on acid. Filled with trance music and the occasional spin around this was just trippy. The best bit of the ride in my opinion. Not to say that the rest of the ride was bad at all, it was pretty good indeed, a bit wild mouse like to start up with, then a few drops and stuff, all with a bit of spinning around thrown in for good measure. I just really liked the lift bit! EuroMir's droppy bits I worked my way around the rest of the park (which is pretty huge) and did all the other coasters (apart from the big splashy one) - highlights were probably the mouse "Matterhorn Blitz" with its (again) bizarre lift instead of a hill - and the Poseidon water coaster (much better than Journey to Atlantis IMHO). Spent the night at the Colloseo, which was pretty cool too, especially with all the fountains and stuff going on. Fountains and stuff Tuesday 18/7 So I had the next day at Europa too - which I didn't think I'd manage to fill, but I did quite happily. Glad I didn't try to rush it all into 1 day, the place was roasting too - something like high 30's all week - ouch. Got on the splashy ride before the queues built up, wasn't too impressed with the ride (and indeed you didn't really get too wet either, the splash being directed away from the boat) - but it was very pleasant to watch! Atlantica SuperSplash Overall a good couple of days at a nice park. BUT what is with all the Disney rip offs? I mean the place has a MOUSE as an emblem ("EuroMouse" WTF??) an Epcot dome, Space Mountain rides, a dark ride called Pirates of the somewhere-not-Carribean!!! Honestly, its just in your face all the time! The downside of being owned by Mack is that all the rides are Mack rides (duh!) - apart from the B&M that is, and the place does have a bit of a "factory showroom" feel about it. Lots of stuff crammed into a small area too, with lots of things on top of each other. So in all not quite as "super" as I thought it'd be, but definitely worth the visit! Wednesday 19/7 Spent the night at the Colloseo again (more money than sense me) - and up bright and early to make the hop up to Hassloch (which a German friend of mine tells me sounds very much like the German for ar*ehole!) for some Intamin goodness c/o Holiday Park. Again the day is roasting and the park is seemingly full of day-trippers from local summer camps. Nothing much to do at this place really apart from the obvious big ride so thats where I spend most of the time. So what did I think of the big ride - Well I expected it to be very good indeed, and luckily it was! Only one dead bit on the whole ride I thought (the left hand turn before you start back down the home straight of airtime hills) - but I'm nitpicking here. There were some trim brakes in action as well, which is a shame, but nevermind it was good times on Expedition GeForce all round! I bet no-one has every taken this photo before! Working my way around the rest of this sparse but large park, I did get to go on something I'd never been on before, one of them StarFlyer thingys which it appeared that they had only just opened. I must confess to having a great love of Wave Swingers in general (try never to miss them out, very childish I think), I thought that this was going to be a super-scary version of that. In practice it was more intimidating than scary - the ride itself was pretty gentle, fairly sure you don’t spin around that fast when you are up the top as compared to half way up. But still... Holiday park's new "Lighthouse Tower" Their corkscrew was interesting (to me anyway) as well - Alton Tower's version was the first big coaster I ever went on (back in 1980 when it opened!!!) and I kind of have a soft spot for the old girl (despite the regular pain she dishes out) - anyway Holiday Park's Super Wirbel made me smile (before I ridden it and experienced the pain that is) since it was doing it best to hide in the trees. Whereas Alton's version in is a big open space surrounded by trees, HP's has all the trees in the middle of the ride so you can't really see the whole thing at all. Cool. Another totally unique photo I think An odd place overall I thought - what on earth came over them when they decided to add that Intamin mega to this otherwise rather small park? Well whatever it was, I hope that more park owners follow their lead! --- After sating myself on GeForce, it was back on the Autobahn for the trek up to Bruhl and checking into the Phastasialand hotel for a couple of nights. Strangely I preferred this place to the Colosseo (hotel geek that I am). View from my room - not really I was over the car park Thursday 20/7 Phantasialand. Today was all about one ride, their new B&M Black Mamba (anyone else notice that BM is a B&M?). BUT - park opens at 9am, rides DONT open until 10am (apart from a couple which open at 9:30) - and Mamba doesn't open until 11AM - what’s THAT all about? So since I was in there at 9am sharp, I wander around a get an idea of the layout and have a play on their indoor Vekoma "Temple of the Nighthawk" - which is surprisingly OK for an old Vekoma, they don't make much of the potential for effects inside the structure bit it was quite a good ride. Their spinning coasters "Winjas" opened at 10, so have a go on them - I liked 'em. Been on a couple of these spinners (Alton's and the one in Madrid), but these were probably the best - a few trick track sections, odd lifts, racing around a building - cool indeedy! They also have a ride that was using the same system as Universal's BTTF rides, only this time it was all some underwater Neptune stuff going on and there are only 4 vehicles in the IMAX dome thingy. Oddly, even tough the pre-show films were all in German, the ride film was all in English - you'd have thought that they'd have sorted that out! At the stroke of 11 I was in the BM queue - which moves pretty quickly - and which winds its was through the rode in an excellent manner. A lot has been made of this ride being a "Nemesis-killer" and the comparisons are apt. A lot of BM is dug into the ground, its queue line snakes through the ride structure, its small (but perfectly formed!). The themeing and attention to detail on BM is much better than Nemesis, the ride is not as intense as Neme though and I'd have to say that I prefer the old girl at the end of the day...BUT Black Mamba was very good indeed. The layout is pretty simple, drop, loop, zero-g, junior immelman, couple of wingovers, a bit of a helix, some wobbling around then you are done. But like Nemesis all this is done right close to the walls and the queue, its excellent. If you sit on the right hand side you sweep up past a waterfall on the jr.immelmann and that is just wonderful. There’s a full African soundtrack as well, beating drums as you despatch and when you hit the brake run (in the dark) - all in all very cool indeed. Probably the ride I enjoyed most on this trip. Drop Loop Wingover Helix What of the other rides here - I worked my way around all of them I think. Was a bit disappointed that the Michael Jackson thrill ride didn't involve any "Jesus Juice", but was in fact a pretty good mine train. The rapids ride was just wacky - I'd never been on a rapids that didn't just snake off around the park, this one was all built on top of itself and involved a lift to get you to the top. Thereafter you did the standard rapids stuff, interspersed with some definitely non-standard drops! Wacky indeed! I have to comment on their dark-rides though. They were all absolutely rubbish. Without exception. From the awful Hollywood Tour to some Haunted Rickshaw thing, a silvermine trip and some gondola ride thing. Awful, rubbish, tear them all down now and build more excellent B&Ms. One last work of warning about Black Mamba though, if you smoke in the queue line, ancient and mystical African spirits will turn you into a hermaphrodite. NO SMOKING or else! Friday 21/7 Drive up the hour or so from Phantasialand to Movie Park and what a change of pace. In all honesty I didn't have much hope for this place, and I don’t think that my expectations were met. It was one of the places that you think should be doing all right, they've obviously spend lots of money at some point in a few places (their rapids ride was well done, as was the "Ice Age" dark ride), but the place was empty, their coasters were cack and the drop ride was broken. The best of the bad bunch was probably the woody "Bandit", but that was bad too. Their SLC was extra painful, the Intamin "Cop Car Chase" thingy was potentially interesting but ultimately painful and pointless. Their mouse was OK, but its just a mouse, and I couldn't even summon the enthusiasm for their kiddy coaster. I hate to see places like this. They depress me. I had more fun wandering around the local shopping mall next to my hotel that night (in Oberhausen) than at the park. (OK maybe not true, but you get the picture). I can't even find one decent picture of the place. So thats the lot from here. The highlight of the day was chastising the waiter at the Irish pub I ate dinner in for wearing a Portugal top (Gelsenkirchen was just down the road). He should have expected to be getting grief from English like me, but even the Germans were giving him stick for wearing it. Good on the Germans. Saturday 22/7 Fancied a non-park day, so wandered around the Aquarium at Oberhausen (I'm a bit of an Aquarium fan too) before the long drive across country to Heide. There was a coaster at the shopping centre in Oberhausen, a spinning mouse - but I didn't indulge. Aquarium was quite good though (if you like that sort of thing!) Sunday 23/7 I'd overnighted about 20 miles from Heide Park in some small town - nice part of the country around here, all trees and stuff. But the countryside wasn't why I was here, big wooden roller coasters were why I was here, so off to Heide Park I went. Went straight to Colossos obviously and given that there was no queue, spent the next hour riding that. Blimey its good. Smooth and just loaded with air. Probably the woody I've most enjoyed riding ever. Something to do with the fact that it doesn't bash you around. I've been on some nasty bits of wood in the past with otherwise good layouts - why can't they be as nice as Colossos? Hope that El Toro is as good (can't imagine that it can't be) - when Alton get around to installing their big woody in the woods, hope its one of these! Oops - my panorama photo didn't quite stitch together! Of the other coasters here, the bob was perhaps the best, up on the side of a hill you got a good view from it too. All 4 of Heide's coasters here (powered ones don’t count) Their old Vekoma "Big Loop", was old and painful (looked like the original trains too - ouch). Their SLC was just an SLC, painful as ever, and their powered coaster was a bit dull. They do have an excellent gyro-drop, perched on top of a hill too, that was cool; Scream! Overall a very pleasant park. Some odd ride selections (OK I can just about understand 2 log flumes, but 2 pirate ships?????), but plenty of flat rides, lots of transport rides, nice lake setting and a marvellous huge woody. Can't ask for too much more. (apart from maybe a new accelerator perhaps?) More good wood, and it don't look like they've started building next years toy yet I do think that their sandcastle competition needed more entries though. And the winner is... One more thing, there appeared to be a "popular music" festival going on next door, "Party in the Park" or something - anyway headlining that day were the popular combo "Tokio Hotel" - big in Germany apparently. Could have been worse I guess, could have been David Hasslehoff. Monday 24/7 Nothing to do today apart from wait around until my unbelievably cheap flight home from Hanover to Manchester (cheap because it coast me €0.01 + tax - worked out at £15!, which was the same price as the taxi took to get back from the airport to home). Anyway, spent the day wandering around Hanover, which was OK. Nice town hall I guess, Hanover Sights ..and some very pleasant formal gardens "Herrenhausen Gardens" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrenhausen_Gardens which were at least interesting to me as part of a novel I read earlier this year was set in them! (The novel being the third part of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle "The System of the World" - which if you have the patience (the 3 volumes are ~1000 pages each) are well worth it, in fact I'd go as far to say that the 2nd volume is the best thing I've EVER read!). Nice to finish with a bit of culture don't you think?

WBMW in Madrid (that counts right, was 6flags once) - best themed B:TR and a load of other bat-stuff going on.

^ fair enough, must have only been on Macks recently!

So the nice folks at work decided to send me on a really exciting course (Clarity Configuration - not that that means anything too anyone) over at our Dutch office in Utrecht. The course was strangely scheduled for the Thursday/Friday and Monday/Tuesday....."right then" thought I, "instead of flying home to the UK for the weekend, off to some Dutch parks we go", so..... Sat 29th April ========= Get up nice and early, get a train from Utrecht to ´s-Hertogenbosch (about 40 mins), get on a bus (another 40 mins) and bingo, here I am at Efteling; Cool entrance They don't appear to give out free maps (€1.50 - I buy one one the way out!) so I do end up wandering around a little confused for most of the day, but the place isn't that busy at all (lots of kiddies though). Nice enough place, kinda like Disneyland meets Alton Towers in feel (lots of distinct "lands" (ala Disney) and lots of park-bits/trees (ala Alton). Mainly aimed at the kiddie market (lots of fairy tale stuff going on), but a few cool rides. Coaster-wise, we have; Python - an old Vekoma looper/corkscrewy thing; But with rather cool (new) trains that are MUCH nicer than your standard Vekoma looping business; (they look ugly, but are much better than the Veloma pain-trains) Pegasus - an Intamin woody, not very big, not very exciting. Kind of a junior woody, too big to be a kiddie, but not that big. Quite fun, but it still managed to kick me in a kidney which made that night's sleep a bit painful. Vogel Rok - an indoor Vekoma, my favourite of the Efteling rides. Pretty usual indoor fair with bunch of "giant bird" special effects going on. I swear at one point you are eaten up by this giant bird and then sh*t out the other end. Bizarre. Bobaan - an Intamin bob. I like bobs, this one was 2 seats aside, which I dont think I'd seen before - usually you sit behind each other right? The big dissapointment was that the new water coaster thingy was still not open, looked pretty good, but lets not dwell on that. The non-coaster rides were pretty good actually, not very thrilling, but very well done and themed, stuff you can take the kiddies on. Especially worthy of note was the Dreamflight thing, which I though was very good. They also have a 3D movie (something to do with polar bears), some spooky house thing (lame), a haunted swing (themed like some bandit-robbers house), a flying islnd thing (cool) etc. Altogether a good place, kinda restrained, but well done. Get a family together, ideally with a couple of young brats (who can speak Dutch), and it'd be a great day out! I enjoyed it anyway. Sun 30th April ========= Get up nice and early, get a train from Utrecht to Hardewijk (about 40 mins), get on a bus (another 30 mins) and bingo, here I am at Walibi World; (much nicer bus trip than yesterday which was a local bus stopping everywhere, this one was an express, just to WW and you go out all through a load of Dutch dykes (oo-er), which in itself was quite interesting). In truth, the whole "lets do some Dutch parks" business was geared around really fancying a go on Goliath, so first up it was a brisk walk over there to the rather splendid Intamin. Which was not very busy at all; The other coasters here were all OK, but nothing as exceptional as Goliath. The first Vekoma SLC (boo! - but not the most painful I've been on); a boomerang (boo!); RocknRoller coaster NOT featuring Aerosmith (or a roof) and still painted in Superman colours (aka Xpress) - which after a cool launch and first half, just wanders around really boringly (shows how a bit of Aerosmith a a few special effects can spruce up a dull ride like on Disney's version), a nice enough pretty standard wild mouse and a Vekoma woody (words to put fear in your heart), which was surprisingly good - pretty large, not rough, comfy seats (!!!). Other rides were your standard enough fare, another haunted swing (Merlin's castle this time, still none of these are as good as Hex), a rapids ride (with rather odd boats), a big wheel (me like big wheels!), log fumes, cars, trains, swings etc. The place was again empty, allowing me to just sit on Goliath for a while in the afternoon, everything else was walk-on (apart from the woody, which I had to wait half a dozen trains for). I liked the place, still had a few sets of six flagpoles adorning the grounds, but it was clean, good selction of rides, friendly staff etc. Another good day! The only downside was I then had to spend another 2 days on my exciting coourse. But I did see a UFO crashed into the side of a building in downtown utrecht. Those crazy Dutch-guys!

We had a Google Earth conversation ages ago; http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=42980 In there you can find links to stuff like a Googel Earth file that has "all the parks" in it (like everywhere).

WBMW rocks! One of the best days I'd ever had at a park was there. Excellent park, clean, good rides, loads of money thrown at it, easy(ish) to get to. No punters though - they dont know what they are missing

Flashback : My trips to these parks (and Barca's) last summer if anyone is interested; http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18830 PS - did you get to ride the exciting Madrid cable car system. It taks you out to quite near the entrance of the Parque de A. (but back into the city-park away from the metro stop). Its a very scenic cable car ride out over the city-park from up one of the hills to the North of the city centre. ... Chief amongst its delights is the view it affords you as you travel up and over the city prosititutes plying their trade in the red-light district that is the back roads and car parks in the park. Delightful! A scenic trip through the park Just earning a living (and dont look down when you go over the car park either!!!)

^ you would imagine that WBMW is today's trip?

"other";

Hi - I actually have something to do with this....(well in the UK anyway). I helped design/build/install the software that the people use to schedule the ads onto the various screens around the country, from which the reels are built then shipped out to the cinemas to show the next week. Interesting stuff. Anyway, in the ads defence I'd point out....(in the UK at least...) + the cinemas often make more money on the ads than they do from admissions. + therefore no ads => higher admission prices. In the US (I did a lot of research a while back for this) - you don't have as many ads as in the UK (but it seems the situation is changing), but other forms of in-cinema advertising is prevalent - for example many cinemas get free soda from Coke etc, in turn for advertising in the cinema / on the popcorn cartons etc. I have to thank cinema advertising for keeping me gainfully employed for at least 3 out of the last 6 years! Dave.

I would humbly direct you to my PTR from last summer; http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18830

I went to the last World Cup. As far as I could tell, the busiest time for vast amounts of non-locals was the first 2 weeks for the group games (when your team is guaranteed at least the 3 matches). After that the crowds really thinned out (in terms of non-locals). Around the matches was still busy though, with lots of England fans just flying out for a single game. I was gutted after we lost to Brazil, so I only hung around until the semi-final (as I had a ticket for that) and flew off to LA the day after that. I had planned to fly out a week later, after the victorious England team had lifted the Cup.....but that wasn't to be..... ...but this year....oh yesyesyes!

Sulphuric acid. (and crickey thats gotta be a 20 year old memory that came from!)

That Futuroscope place isn't too far from where you are - no coasters though. I was on holiday in that region a few years ago - La Rochelle (just up the road from Saintes) is really nice - you can go out on a boat to see Fort Boyard (if you know what that is!).

Some observations in here... http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18830 Tibidabo is open next week too; http://www.tibidabo.es/eng/horari.asp - worth a trip up the hill out of Barca for. Have fun!

Tuesday night: bus to Stoke - you do realise Drayton isn't really near Stoke. Tamworth is where you want to be going for Drayton.

Blackpool is where you want to spend your spare day - no contest! And you can do Alton in a day (midweek, when the schools are not out) easy. Dave.

Hey, I've just bought a new house too - I get the keys on Monday! (and if anyone wants to buy a nice 2 bed flat in Sale, let me know)