Photo TR: Press opening De Vliegende Hollander Efteling.

[AlmereStars]

Rides.nl has an onride movie:

 

http://www.rides.nl/attractie/showmultimedia/870

 

You can't see the darkride really good, but by hearing the music you know that when you enter the open sea and meet the Flying Dutchman it's pretty scary

[Adam_C]

Makes me sad.

 

We were going to have our first ever Efteling trip in August, for our 5th Anniversary, but we now cant afford it

[Coaster Hunter]

It was just fantastic! Thanks Jimmy for the pictures. DVH is sweet!

I'm Dimi by the way...

 

Here are my pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you Efteling! Briliantly done!

 

Sorry for my spelling mistakes...

[Coasterboy2]

I will do this funtastic ride this season. And I'm looking forward to it. I think the Efteling has great theming, even better then Disney.

[mxman005]

isnt anything like a good water coaster with some pretty cool theming. It really looks cool. And the food looked good too.

 

Great TR

[LiamC]

This ride looks imense. Again, European parks are putting U.K and particually Tussauds rides to shame themeing and layout wise. The thing is, with parks in the U.K the empthasis on most rides seem to be with the layout itself and very little left to theming. Sure, they have stabs at it, but alot of the time, they dont pull it off sucessfully.

Sorry for the rant, ill be quite now, but this ride looks fantastic and they've done a brilliant job on it.

[dr.gumbo]

^^Its sad to say but thats so true

 

Tussauds used to make fantastic rides (nemesis for example) but what they do now is really poor (Rita, Desert race (the names say it all))

 

Onto topic (I've got to stop ranting about England), the flying dutchmen looks fantastic, If MM was themed like this (Which I reallly hope it is) and has good forces it will definatly be among the best rides there is

 

BTW I wish the music worked for me

[AJMouse]

Well I had to go today instead of tomorrow, so I was in for a very crowdy day. First official openingday of the Efteling (season 2007), and with so many papers and newsprograms spending time on the ride, it seemd like everyone in the Netherlands was checking it out. I made some pictures, they're not great, but as an enthousiast of rides, I know you also have the same feeling about never having enough pictures of some things .

 

Warning, the text in this post can contain spoilers, the pics themselves are safe (just inside waiting rooms, no onride pics)

 

I also made some pics in the park but not a lot to make a full TR from them. If anyone's interested I'll still put them on-line for yall to see.

 

This small door is the official entrance to the ride. This is where you go inside to wait some more.

 

Whilst riding the Pegasus I was able to shoot some pictures from it. I haven't seen the view from the Pegasus on any site yet, so I guess they're some unique pics. Although hard to make because of all the rattling

 

Just after the splash (and on the lift hill hehe)

 

It was very crowded, all the way in the back, before the trees, is the official cue. The line, as you can see, extends all the way to wards the water, and then to the right, all the way too. For those of you who know the layout of the park, the line was as far as the Whale ride, which is just next to the entrance of the Python rollercoaster (the one that has the same seatmaker as the Flying Dutchman I believe). Anyway, I've heard the most people had waited was around 3.5 hours. I 'only' waited 1.5 hours.

 

another shot from high in the Pegasus rollercoaster. You probably know the layout by now.

 

I love how low to the water the boat is outside (and inside). See how it goes into the building in the middle port? That's great.

 

Yay, action splash photo woooot

 

The track actually goes down right there, so the boat 'sinks' into the water a bit more. Awesome. See how the frontrow white-dot-shirt-girl is flirting with the camera. Yeah I know, I'm like that you see. Ahem.

 

From the Pagode (sort of sky-viewing-tower but cooler) another shot. Pegasus in the back.

 

Teh lion with the VHE logo (which looks like the VOC logo).

 

The outside cue-line is really very short and has big bushes between them. It doesn't feel like a crowded cue which I always like. But, I was wondering how they will cope on hot crowded summer-days.. the line today was messed up well into the area of the Python. You just cannot have that. And there weren't any extra holes in the ground for more poles and ropes.

 

Which is when I spotted...

 

Important people who were just discussing the same thing! I don't recall the name of the guy in the brown suit, but I saw him on a documentary on the Flying Dutchman once. Btw. why is that woman sticking her tong out? On the right.

 

I really didn't know what to expect inside before I entered. I ofcourse saw the docking room before, but what was going to come first?

 

You pass through quite some rooms inside, but the waiting doesn't feel like boring or anything. It's okay.

 

Randomness.

 

The mirror in the back has some cool effects inside.

 

Very unrealistic looking books. I guess because you can touch them they didn't want to use real props here.

 

I wasn't happy with this picture but I decided to post it anyways. Inside, you walk through a rip in the painting and start walking down. I thought walking through a painting was a cool idea

 

Then you come into the hall that slopes down. You can see in earlier posts an empty hall. This is what it looks like crowded. The ceiling cracks and smoke poors through every once in a while, and yellow and red lights flash as if stuff is burning. Scary and it adds greatly to the whole experience. And remember, we're still WAITING.

 

It's actually pretty dark in here when the effects aren't doing anything. There are a lot of things to see when waiting. There were some bars with a heap of gold behind them.

 

This is where another... 3 or so rooms start. The rooms have very short cue-space, but that makes it all the more fun. Very cool theming, it smelled pretty bad as well (as it's supposed to hehe). I only made a picture of this room. In another room there are some crates dangling (moving) right above your head. In every room you can look through the windows down to the docking station. Neat.

 

First glimps of the dockingstation.

 

Antoher. Hard to take a good picture with my cam here.

 

Ah well check out the other pics for better versions hehe.

 

The boat has 4 rows. Front row has 3 seats, then 4 seats, then 3 seats, then 4 seats. The front-row is the lowest row and you can barely look over the boat (not needed). The second row is higher which allows you to look over the first. The third row seems to be the highest, and I liked it the best. You look over everyone. The fourth row seems to be just a little bit lower than the third. My advise is to try and go with the 3rd, or if you can't, 2nd row. I wouldn't sit in the front row (as I usually try to do with new coasters).

 

From the docking station you can't see the waiting rooms, which are actually located aboven where you can see the peeps in the docking station. People in the rooms above move around slowly, which from here look like shadows who move very naturally in their houses. How's that for theming, real people! hehe.

 

Okay, we're out of the ride (no pics inside) and outside. I managed to capture this boat heading into the first tunnel after the first big drop. A huge difference from the first pictures that were uploaded: where is the fog??? It was there.. just not as much. Which really downed me, cause I wanted to get that cool pic. Ah well so be it. Oh the wind wasn't too bad today, it was great weather, so that wasn't it either.

 

 

Concluding the pictures with just another random outside shot.

 

And the tower,

 

 

I tried making a very wide panorama shot of the cue, to show you what I tried to tell you earlier. Please see it here (watch out it's over 4mb in size).

http://ajmouse.radavique.com/stitch-hollander.jpg

*there are at least three chicks in this pic, so that should make you click. Hehe.

 

I loved the special effects, theye were very scary, cool, new, amazing and omg I want to go again-ish. I want to emphasize that this is one scary ride the first time. All the water and lightning and effects around you make for a real eerie experience. I just hoped the inside would be longer, but maybe that was because I didn't have the option to go right back in again (because of the hughe lines).

 

If TPRs European trip somewhere in the future has some ERT on this, I will go on that trip, hehe.

[BeemerBoy]

Five days left, and Í'll be riding this thing. It looks amazing. Candidate for best themed roller coaster worldwide. Beat this Disney!

 

I agree with Janster about this kind of theaming for a ride, the people will come and re-visit as the feeling is so magical, even more than Disney's.

 

Admittedly, the ride looks absolutely incredible!! However, I'm not quite sure how it's really any better or worse than something like EE as far as overall theming is concerned. They're both top notch in my book from what I've seen.

 

Glad you enjoyed it though, guys. It really is a jewel of a ride, in an incredible looking park. Great reports, and great pics all around. Nice work. Now if I could just get over there at some point in my lifetime.

[Janster]

This really is a jewel of a ride. But there is one technical problem with it: Capacity.

 

The ride was poorly operated yesterday. The ride suffers a MAYOR CAPACITY PROBLEM. Every 70 to 80 seconds a boat with 12 peoaple (2 empty spot on average) leaves the station. For such an impressive ride in a busy park like Eftleing 600 riders per hour just wón't do. The operators don't help the riders to fill the boats, while that's neccessary with this awkward 3-4-3-4 seating arrangement. I think they operated not at full capacity, because of the first full operation day. But then again, they had time enough to test ride it. Could you fix this Efteling, please?

 

Another dumb design error: disabled people with wheelchairs and their guides get to ride the Flying Dutchman twice. Boats leaving on the left platform, arrive at the right platform. Wheelchairs can't be transported from one platform to the other - further decreasing the capacity.

 

That 1900 riders per hour figure on RCDB and in the dutch newspapers is a.... fairytale!

 

But the ride experience is great. Absolutely no negative comments about the ride itself. Unique, impressive, spooky, creepy and fun! Nice photo´s!

[ECZenith]

Great to see this beautifully themed ride finally running! Thanks for the report.

[AJMouse]

This really is a jewel of a ride. But there is one technical problem with it: Capacity.

 

The ride was poorly operated yesterday. The ride suffers a MAYOR CAPACITY PROBLEM. Every 70 to 80 seconds a boat with 12 peoaple (2 empty spot on average) leaves the station. For such an impressive ride in a busy park like Eftleing 600 riders per hour just wón't do. The operators don't help the riders to fill the boats, while that's neccessary with this awkward 3-4-3-4 seating arrangement. I think they operated not at full capacity, because of the first full operation day. But then again, they had time enough to test ride it. Could you fix this Efteling, please?

 

Another dumb design error: disabled people with wheelchairs and their guides get to ride the Flying Dutchman twice. Boats leaving on the left platform, arrive at the right platform. Wheelchairs can't be transported from one platform to the other - further decreasing the capacity.

 

That 1900 riders per hour figure on RCDB and in the dutch newspapers is a.... fairytale!

 

But the ride experience is great. Absolutely no negative comments about the ride itself. Unique, impressive, spooky, creepy and fun! Nice photo´s!

 

 

Yeah I noticed the same thing with the wheelchair people. Next time I will bring a wheelchair, at least you get to ride first and 2 times (my friend actually needs one when visiting a park cause he can't walk or stand that long, so I'm not taking advantage or anything, ahem ).

 

Anyway, it really didnt seem like 1900 peoples per hour heh. Sometimes the boats went faster after eachother than other times, but mostly they waited quite long. The ride broke down 3 times in the 1.5 hours we waited (attention: please allow a minute for the ride to operate again, thank you) . Nothing major, but they stopped putting people in boats each time. We had to wait 3 minutes in the boat in the dockingstation. At least we could sit, hehe.

[Dark Vampire]

Thank you for the beautiful report, AJMouse.

[RCfanatic]

Nice TR, i went to the Efteling today and rode it twice, great ride! Just like said before, the dark ride part is what makes the ride so great (amazing effects!), the coaster itself is IMO not bad, not good, but average.

 

Sadly, the ride broak down twice today, with people stuck on the brakes and in the water for a while, and the ride being closed, but on both occasions the staff got the ride up and running again within the hour. But this does make me wonder wether or not KumbaK makes reliable coasters, it certainly isn't good advertising.

[Janster]

I went back to Efteling today. It was extremely not crowdy. There were no q-lines anywhere in the park.

 

DVH broke down in the afternoon. It was closed for an hour or so. They really encounter some starting problems with the ride. I did rode it twice though.

 

An employee told me that some effects in the dark ride section are still not working... So perhaps the rides becomes even more spectacular then it already is!

[AJMouse]

I went back to Efteling today. It was extremely not crowdy. There were no q-lines anywhere in the park.

 

DVH broke down in the afternoon. It was closed for an hour or so. They really encounter some starting problems with the ride. I did rode it twice though.

 

An employee told me that some effects in the dark ride section are still not working... So perhaps the rides becomes even more spectacular then it already is!

 

There are more fx? wow