Photo TR : Efteling and Walibi World

[davidmorton]

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!

 

[Jeezus Juice]

That's great that you managed to fit some parks in with your work trip. Ugh...I hate training classes, but I'd suffer through them for a few days of park hopping!

 

Thanks for posting your pictures Dave. It gives me an idea of what to look forward too when I go in a few weeks.

 

Maybe I'll have better luck with Villegende Hollander!

 

-Don

[Shockwave]

Shame that Efteling haven't got the water coaster going yet, the theming looks really nice. I'm going there in July so hopefully it will be ready by then.

[Canobie Fan]

"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?"

 

CPs and TGEs intamin bobsleds have side by side seating.

[davidmorton]

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

 

[hyyyper]

"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?"

 

CPs and TGEs intamin bobsleds have side by side seating.

 

it used to have front and back seating, but those trains where shipped to la vibora SFOT and the new sidebysides were put on

[Cerberus]

Waaaaaaaaaaait a second.

What's up with that SLC? Those trains are dumpy!

 

Perhaps it got too rough and they decided to knock off a few rows to ease the extreme manoeuvres of the front and rear seats?

 

Cool trip report. Photos from angles I haven't seen before are always good. I guess this is the park with that Vekoma rapids ride?

[viking86]

^The first SLC's only had 8 cars per train.

[Meteornotes]

The thing that amazes me about the first SLC is after they built it and rode it, they decided to keep building them.

 

I really liked WW when we visited last year. And Goliath kicks much ass. Hope to visit the park again some day.

 

dt

[hyyyper]

^The first SLC's only had 8 cars per train.

 

nope they had 10 but was reduced to 8

[coasterke]

Shame that Efteling haven't got the water coaster going yet, the theming looks really nice. I'm going there in July so hopefully it will be ready by then.

Well, at first the opening was delayed 6 weeks, to the 25th of May, due to TÜV (the German inspection agency) not apporoving DVH. Nothing serieus tho, had something to do with a car not making the track if the chainlift would stop at the very end. Apparently, according to TÜV, a train MUST be able to reach the end of the track when it's at the top of the lift and the lift stops.

Well at least that's what I read

 

Now, it seems that DVH's opening has been delayed yet another 4 weeks, due to the company that makes the boatcars. They simply can't have them ready at that date, which I find rather odd... Think they needed to adapt the boats, in order to let TÜV approve them.

 

But oh well, with a bit of luck you'll be able to ride in July!

[WildMouse]

Shame that Efteling haven't got the water coaster going yet, the theming looks really nice. I'm going there in July so hopefully it will be ready by then.

 

Same here. Fingers crossed everything will be A-OK.

 

Fantastic photo report David. Brought back happy memories of my visit to both parks in 2004. Efteling really is a fantastic theme (understatement!) park. Looking forward to trying out the new Python trains. And also looking forward to getting back on the weird and wonderful Vogel Rok. Oh, and not forgeting the rather superb Dream Flight dark ride.

[Mystery]

Nice TR

 

But you've been in Utrecht? Cool, I live there

 

That ufo things was way cooler a couple of years ago, at night a big door opened, smoke came out it and other cool stuff