It was also the day where we realised we'd been spoilt by the gorgeous, well-designed parks we'd visited so far.
After waving goodbye to my cousin and her family we drove out towards Bottrop to Movie Park Germany. There was a bit of traffic so by the time we arrived it was already 10am and there were large numbers of people walking from the car parks into the park. Thankfully we already had our tickets printed so could skip the admissions queues and head straight in.
The main entrance area reminded me a lot of Universal Studios or the Disney Hollywood Studios, as it was made up like an American street of shops. We headed round the back of the park away from the crowds to the first coaster we'd seen from the car - MP Express - a very standard looking Vekoma SLC (Suspended looping coaster). These are basically the budget equivalent of a B&M inverted coaster - generally pretty rough riding, and this was no exception, though I couldn't decide if it was as violent as Infusion at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. It wasn't very interesting though - stuck out on its own surrounded by concrete and gravel, with no theming to speak of. At least we didn't have to queue.
Next to it was something that looked a lot more interesting - Bandit, a wooden coaster. This didn't open til 11am so in the meantime we had a look at what else we could ride. The High Fall, an Intamin drop tower, was not the obvious choice given my usual distaste for the genre, but hey, what harm could it do?
Well. It turned out to be a) floorless, b) one of the ones that tilts outwards when you get to the top, and c) a lot higher than it looked from the ground! It had one hell of a drop on it too! I did it once - I probably wouldn't do it again!
Bandit, the wooden coaster, was next and elicited similar "never again" feelings, but for other reasons. We joined the short queue outside the doors and waited for 11am when the ride would open. As we queued through the rather shonky western-style interior and made our way up to the station with its authentic fluorescent lighting and wood-effect wallpaper., we ruminated on the other wooden coasters we'd ridden over the past week. Most of those had been long and exciting, if a little rattly. We wondered how similar this would be. Or indeed how painful.
Next to that, however, was a particularly interesting ride called Sidekick. This was like a pirate ship and an afterburner ride had mated and made something thoroughly odd-looking. You sat inside a round disc facing inwards, and lowered your overhead restraints. Then the ride began. Kicker wheels underneath swung the disc from side to side in the same way as a pirate ship ride works. However, once this had got up to speed, the disc began to spin like an afterburner ride (think Vortex at Thorpe Park). Midway through the ride the spinning stopped - then reversed direction! Just when we thought the ride was almost over, it sped up and spun at quite a fast rate - at this point it made it my favourite ride of the day so far!
Heading back into the main part of the park we had a quick go on the Top Spin ride, NYC Transformer. Watching from the cattlepen queue line, we noticed something unusual. The ride sequence was oddly long - usually it performs a pre-set list of movements and finishes, but in this case the park seemed to operate it with around 3 different sequences one after the other, most of which managed to not-quite flip the gondola. With this sort of ride you really want the gondola to flip over - Talocan at Phantasialand the day before did very well at this with around 8 flips per ride, but this example at Movie Park managed a pitiful one. We almost considered leaving the queue in disappointment but decided to stick with it. I can't honestly say it was worth the wait - ok there was some airtime in the parts where it flew us over the top, but otherwise it was sub-par in every way.
Thankfully around the corner was some light. Or indeed dark, as the next ride was horror coaster Van Helsing's Factory. In comparison to the basic theming of the previous rides, this had a well-designed building themed around a 1960s US petrol station and garage. You queued in a room with a video of the Van Helsing chap doing something to a car and explaining how he builds cars to hunt monsters (or something), and then every now and again a model machine gun at the end of the room would go off with the appropriate loud sound effects, though I'm not sure why. After this room you moved into a corridor where occasionally to an accompaniment of screaming, UV lights would illuminate warnings scrawled on the wall, such as "You are doomed!", which was a nice touch, and would have been nicer had it not gone off every 30 seconds or so.
At the end of that corridor you went up steps to the station and were put into 4-seater cars. The ride itself is a Gerstlauer bobsled model (not to be confused with the Mack version which actually looks like a bobsled!) - the track was mostly in either complete or semi darkness, with animated props jumping out at you. It was rather nicely done and probably my favourite of the park's attractions.
An unusual attraction that wasn't at any of the other parks was The Walking Dead - a walk-through horror maze. It was an upcharge attraction at €5 but we decided to do it. After queuing through shipping containers it was the sort of thing we'd done at Thorpe Park for Fright Nights several times - lots of scenes, scare actors interacting with you - all good fun (especially if you have scared and squeamish guests with your group!)
Following this it was time for lunch - today we chose pizza, it was fine but nothing to write home about so I won't.
To digest we did our usual trick of heading for the park's rapids ride. "Mystery River" was certainly mysterious. You enter into what looks like a house set against the side of a mountain, and end up in a corridor lined with books, like a small branch of Waterstones. This leads you through into another room filled with slightly larger books (which looked like it used to be used as a batching area), then an even bigger room with a screen (which looked like it used to be used as a pre-show), then into a stuffy airless corridor with various runes painted on the walls. As far as we could tell, this passage used to be lit by UV tubes in the ceiling, but only two of them were still working, and instead the illumination came from the emergency lighting. It seemed that the corridor was not originally designed to be a queue line - merely an exit from the pre-show leading to the station, but instead we had to spend about 20 minutes in what was basically an overlit plastic box.
The station itself was an indoor version of the usual turntable affair, except indoors. The boats were the standard 9-seater rapids boats. The course itself combined indoor and outdoor scenes with witches and dragons and goodness knows what else - if there was a storyline we didn't grasp it. The whole attraction looked like it had had a lot of effort put into it some 15-20 years ago and hadn't been touched since, so it just seemed quite run-down, disappointingly.
In contrast, the Ice Age ride next door was sleek and modern with subtle lighting, almost realistic rock effects and animatronics that worked. OK, so it was more of a kids' ride, but it still beat the rapids hollow for enjoyment.
A more sedate ride was next-door at the Avatar ride, where you lay down flat on your front and a harness was closed over you. The ride then rises up like chair-o-planes, and rotates so you swing outwards as if you're flying. It was a good sensation - as RJ said, someone ought to make a rollercoaster like that!
It was getting towards the end of the day, and also beginning to rain, so we took a quick look round the shops and then headed indoors for one more go on Van Helsing's Factory. By this point it was time to go, the rides were closing (like Phantasialand, the park opening and ride opening times seemed to vary wildly) so we headed back to the car. As part of our hotel booking we actually have tickets to return tomorrow, but after being underwhelmed today we decided not to bother.
On the way to tonight's hotel we stopped off at the world's worst-staffed McDonald's (excluding the one at Watford Gap services on the M1) where it took a ridiculously long time to be served, not helped by groups of parents coming in and ordering 20 happy meals in one go. With the aid of Google Translate I tried to ask for a Big Mac with only cheese, but they didn't understand me so I had to go for English, which felt like cheating. I'm really trying to speak the right languages but it's not always easy!
Tonight's hotel is very nice - it's in a village about 10 minutes from the park, in a nice old-fashioned building, but it has (sporadic) wi-fi, plus a pool. One of the first things we did after checking in was go for a quick dip - it was very refreshing!
Tomorrow we have a decent length drive up to Soltau for Heide Park, so that'll be fun... in the meantime, should get an early night!
| The scores so far | |
| Favourite Coaster | Taron, Phantasialand |
| Least Favourite Coaster | The Bandit, Movie Park |
| Favourite Non-Coaster | Tower of Terror, Disney Studios |
| Least Favourite Non-Coaster | NYC Transformer, Movie Park |
| Best Food | Europa Park |
| Worst Food | Disney Explorers Hotel |
| Most Idiots Smoking | Parc Asterix |
| Best Theming | Disneyland Park |
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