[Apr 2025] Benelux Tour (Days 8 & 9: Danse to Happiness)

[Rob Coasters]

Back in August of 2024 I booked a 9-day theme park tour through France & Germany with Coaster Breaks, and this year I'd be going back with them. This would cover through a lot of theme parks I'd already been to before, in fact only one is new to me, but almost all of them have added at least something new that's interesting and on my radar.
I'd already known someone beforehand who's going on the tour, so we decided to extend our tour by one day by visiting Bobbejaanland before finally meeting everyone else at the end of the day. A stupidly early flight to Brussels via BA, with me NOT having my baggage stolen by them, led us into a two-hour border control queue due to some systems that had glitched out earlier in the day. Classic Belgium, the single country I've had the most amount of travel trouble with (whether or not most of that is my own fault shan't be mentioned).
After our angry airport taxi man almost locked us in our car because we didn't want to tip (he gave us no reason to ever even think about doing so), he ended up dropping us off at the wrong hotel, but thankfully the correct one was within walking distance. The train to Herentals, Bobbejaanland's nearest station, was hellishly full of schoolchildren and after coughing up forty euros for a taxi to the park, we had all but two hours to spend riding this park's utter trash. Our decision to buy fastpass ended up saving ourselves, 35 euro for unlimited line-skip was a deal too good to pass, as had we not done that, we'd have done about 20% of what we did do.

Most rides were about how I'd remembered them. Typhoon is really stupid but hilarious, very "love it or hate it". Naga Bay continues to be the worst non-kiddie spinning coaster I've ridden. Speedy Bob and Oki Doki were roller coasters, the only coaster that didn't get a reride was Bob Express because a) we couldn't find the entrance and b) we wanted to ride Fury one more time instead. Sledge Hammer was unfortunately closed which we would have liked to have given a go.


Oh yeah. Fury.
If you hadn't already known, Fury has a system where you can vote whether to ride forwards or backwards. In the station, there is a split; the right side is forwards only and the left side you either vote to ride forwards or backwards.

There are three problems here.
1) If one queue is “forwards only,” why does a voting system exist at all? If you want to ride forwards, you’d naturally choose that queue. If you want backwards, you’re forced into the voting queue and then face roughly a 30% chance of actually getting what you want.
2) People don’t read signs. The system relies heavily on guests paying attention, and many accidentally join the voting queue, realise they want forwards, and vote that way.
3) People don't understand or acknowledge the vote system. Most riders seem completely unaware it exists and ignore it entirely.


So you can wait an hour for Fury because you want to ride backwards, and there's a more-than-50% chance that you can't ride backwards, which just sucks. In my honest opinion, the voting system should just be gotten rid of entirely, and the two queues should say in giant unavoidable text "FORWARDS" and "BACKWARDS".
Out of the three or four times we rode Fury today, we only got backwards once.
In all fairness it's not really a roller coaster that pulls much significant force, there's no violent direction changes or really anything that takes advantage of the tight maneuverability of the trains, so backwards isn't even that much better than forwards but I'd still like to ride it when and if I want to.


Next was my favourite ride in the park, Revolution. Revolution is simply too good to be in a park like this, it's truly one of a kind and something that I dearly wish there was more of.

Oh hey, a credit. #408 Dream Catcher is utter trash that needs to get in the bin immediately. A rough, jarring, uncomfortable ride with a painfully boring layout that somehow still manages to hurt. Straight into the hell tier, joining the short but growing list of coasters I never want to ride again.


One of the big unexpected highlights was Terra Magma, which is my second ride, but this was so much better than I remembered. It's a shockingly well-themed log flume based around the weather, and it is an absolute soaker as well, drenching me to my core and leaving both of us in utter hysterics. Better than Valhalla, but it's not exactly difficult to clear that bar.

There was no train from Herentals for a very long time, but what we did find was a long bus to Leuven (hey I remember this place), where we connected back to our hotel in Somewhere, Brussels. We had severe difficulty with getting food delivered, with multiple separate occasions of food delivery apps taking our money and quickly going MIA after claiming to have dropped off our food.
After McDonald's failed us, we fell back on Domino's, but then McDonald's decided to show up after we paid for the Domino's, causing us to have a hilarious surplus of food that we'd paid far, far, far too much for.
We met our group and said hello to everyone, ready for the real parks the next day.

 

[Rob Coasters]

It'll feel weird not having any travel notes as we simply drove to every location.

This is my third visit to Walibi Belgium, and as usual, I will write very briefly about my rerides then go further into depth on anything new.

Tiki Waka: for the third time in a row, got one of the first trains of the day. Remains as one of the weaker examples of its type, but love its path interaction in an age where that seems to be disappearing.
Pulsar: I enjoyed it marginally more than what I usually do, but I still think this is an entirely pointless ride that you're far better off watching rather than riding.
Cobra: yes, I did reride this. However, my opinion is strengthening that I do think that this is one of the more bearable examples of its type.
Vampire: very reluctantly decided to get back on this as well. I thought it was honestly not awful, apart from a couple of jarring bounces at one or two points in the layout. That being said, it will be missed not if the park goes through with sending it to the scrap.
Fun Pilot: it was ridden.
Loup Garou: remains as one of the funniest roller coasters I have ever ridden, simply hilarity entirely throughout. It WILL be missed if the park goes through with converting it into a giant hybrid coaster, but if it ends up being better than the original, who am I to complain.
Calamity Mine: no screaming children this time.
Kondaa: solidifying my theory of "the more I ride this, the more I adjust to and like it". The 'dud sections' that most people point out simply aren't that big of a deal to me, and it retains its status as one of my favourite roller coasters. The drop is still no Expedition GeForce and a little too refined for my likings, but still a solid ride that deserves to be a standout.
Dalton Terror: fairly run-of-the-mill drop tower.
Popcorn Revenge: solid.
Challenge of Tutankhamon: solid.
Palais du Genie: solid.
We didn't ride Flash Back. It was dead and broken by the time we got into the station.


Radja River wasn't a blow-my-mind rapids (there's like two total that I even like because they all play it too safe), but had a soaker moment right at the last second.
I'm not fully won over by the retheme from Psyke Underground into Turbine, the launch sequence feels weaker and the atmospheric theme didn't really stick with me like the EDM did. I hoped that the loop wouldn't be taken in pitch black this time. Bah.

Finally. #409 Mecalodon.
Mecalodon can be best described as "family coaster perfection". The ride starts with a right hand turn out of the station into an enclosed launch (due to noise restrictions on this half of the park). There's a countdown from 20, but rather amusingly, the train launches at 12.



The ride kicks off a sequence of very well-executed airtime hills and twists and turns, at some point weaving in and out of the supports for Tiki Waka in a zig-zag pattern, before a second launch followed by a third not long after. The best word to describe this ride is "flow", every element perfectly compliments the other, and each one transitions into the next like they were made to be together. It's a satisfyingly long ride that doesn't sacrifice capacity as it operates multiple trains all being dispatched in respectable time.
Overall Mecalodon is fantastic. It's truly the perfect family coaster in an age where Juvelens aren't being built anymore. I seriously hope that Gerstlauer finds success with this ride model as they've smashed it out of the park.
Only one ride was managed due to long queues and prioritising multiple laps of Kondaa instead, but I will be back.


We set off for Germany later that day.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Phantasialand used to be my favourite park in the world upon my first visit in January 2024, so I was eager to find out whether or not it still held up. We had two days here, but I'll condense things into one post since I don't really want to write twice in a row about the same park.
The rope drop for today was Taron, and this was my first time in the standby queue as I'd always done single rider or fast pass beforehand. Thankfully the hellish cattlepen area was only in partial use today, which made the wait more manageable. This ride used to be my second favourite roller coaster in the world, now my #2 with the glorious Hyperion ahead, so let's see if it continues to hold up.
It does.
Sort of.


Unlike Kondaa, the more I ride Taron the more I start to take issue with the layout. Things that I initially thought to be unproblematic, I start to think about more and more as I continue to increase my lap count of it. For instance, there is an array or random turns in quick succession that all occur with zero elevation change. I have no idea why I'm not keen on this, but I guess we'll never know.
This combined with the waterfall effect on the second launch being turned off however does not stop the other highlights from shining brightly; Taron retains its #2 position thankfully and it remains an incredible ride.


The immediate move after was Winjas Fear followed by Crazy Bats. Winjas showed up far more than it did in 2024, with its odd headache-inducing thumping gone entirely. I'm starting to dislike VR coasters more as well, not due to the fact that I don't like VR (I do), but rather because I have to take my glasses off for it, so the screen becomes a blurry mess. I became dangerously close to riding without the headset, but I was convinced to keep it on.


FLY followed afterwards, where we came to an incredibly amusing scenario where at the metal detectors, a young teenager decided to show off in front of his friends by doing pull-ups on one of the pipe-shaped theming elements, where he was immediately kicked out of the queue by a no-nonsense staff member in front of his mates after forty-five minutes of waiting. Oops.
It remains a solid roller coaster that I quite enjoy. I don't get the issues with queasiness or restraint discomfort that the others do, so for me this is a perfectly respectable roller coaster, though my drive to ride it more than once per day is quite low.
Talocan has now earned a new medal for me, being my new favourite theme park attraction in the world. It took me a while to realise this, but I tried thinking of any ride that I enjoy more, but I came up empty. It's the best ride cycle I've experienced with the best theming with the best soundtrack on my favourite ride type on the planet, so of course it's going to dominate!


As for new attractions, we tried the Deep In Africa Adventure Trail which is fantastic and really fun. This obstacle course is full of dangers and trip hazards, exactly what a European theme park should have. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
While in the area, we also had our token lap on Chiapas, which quickly ran up the rankings towards being one of the wettest water rides I've ever ridden.
River Quest was new to me, being closed during Wintertraum. It was an absolutely terrifying rapids, by far the scariest one I've ever been on with massively steep and perilous drops, but I came off dry.
Then came some sweet Mystery Castle. I remember disliking this due to being underwhelmed with its lack of theming and effects, but I'm very happy to say I was fully won over this time around. The drops and launches were awesome with some suspenseful music to go with it, and I vaguely remember some effects as well. I liked it!
Colorado Adventure in the back car also retains its status as one of the scarier roller coasters I've been on, throwing hands in every which way possible with its horrifying drops and speed for a family coaster. It's incredible.


Our second day was more of the same, with re-rides on the standout attractions being the general theme with some new rides tucked in as well.
I reluctantly joined the group for an agonising wait for Raik, but was rewarded for my efforts with some truly hilarious stories about my tour guide's previous careers.
The heavens had opened by the time it was our turn for Taron, and I immediately proclaimed "who's joining me in the front". That was the best rain ride I'd ever had on a coaster, I don't quite think a word describes that experience better than "mayhem".
Rerides were also had on Colorado Adventure, Chiapas, Mystery Castle and FLY, plus the other side of Winjas, the Force side, which is considerably worse than the Fear side.
Black Mamba has the same issue as Nemesis where there is no option to queue for the front row. I don't remember where we sat, but it's still a very enjoyable inverted coaster even if I did prefer my Wintertraum rides.
Maus au Chocolat and Geister Rikscha were ridden too. I like Maus au Chocolat even if it leaves my arms in pain from the shooting movement, and Geister Rikscha is hilariously terrible for the park it's in.
Finally, another new attraction - Verruckte Hotel Tartuff is another hysterical funhouse style walkthrough attraction.


The group had separated as they desired a front row ride on FLY, so naturally, I wanted to see how many times I could ride Talocan in that time.
Seven.
It is absolutely concreted as my favourite theme park attraction ever. A ride that most people can barely handle one lap of, I can happily sit on and be always wanting to go again.
This meant that I got tantalisingly close to breaking the "100 inversions in one day" challenge. At PHANTASIALAND. Had I had the time for just one or two more rides, I would've broken the centennial. However, they had disembarked FLY at that point and we had all agreed to end the day with a final ride of Taron before setting off for the next park.


I still quite enjoy Phantasialand.

 

[Rob Coasters]

The lone new park for me was Movie Park Germany, always pushed to the side because despite its proximity to the Dutch parks it never had any easy connections whatsoever, so now would be a good time to finally cross it off. There wasn't much pulling me here anyway, it was always going to be a "because it's close by" park.
Your movie-like day begins in just a few minutes, and my immediate first impressions is that the whole place feels twenty years out of date. It kinda feels like a German version of the now-dead Six Flags America, being eternally frozen in time and seemingly only having the worst versions of every roller coaster.
#410 Van Helsing's Factory contradicted this immediately. This is a violent little bobsled coaster that barrels through corners at speed, but smoothly at the same time, complete with some neat little themed indoor sections. It's a bit short, and the sudden and abrupt end of the ride came as a bit of a shock to me, but it's easily one of my favourite rides here.

Walking through the rest of the park sent home how dreadfully presented most of it is. The Santa Monica Pier area is offensively bad. Anyway, #411 Iron Claw wins the award for being perhaps one of the worst-smelling roller coasters I've ever experienced, being in an area that absolutely reeks of... something. Sewage? I don't know. This Suspended Looping Coaster is often hailed as one of the worst roller coasters in the world due to "excessive headbanging" and p**s-poor presentation with an ugly colour scheme and nonexistent theming, but in terms of ride experience this was one of my favourite rides of its type, even if that doesn't really say much. I even threatened to ride it again, which eventually said something about the quality of the rest of the park.


Which brings us to supposed crown jewel of the park, #412 Star Trek Operation Enterprise. After an elaborately themed queue you're led into some massive pre-show rooms that go on for a surprisingly long time before you're led into what is possibly one of the tiniest stations ever. Crammed like sardines in a can, it's really not pleasant at all, being my tour guide's personal least favourite roller coaster station in the world and I can see why. One-train operation on the park's star attraction really shows how this park is treated, and I seat myself in a back row.


The ride begins with a sliiiide to the right which is an easy contender for my favourite part of the ride, and then you have a weak trifecta of launches. The backwards launch leads you up a twisted vertical spike, which in the back, is shockingly good. The final launch leads you up a top hat, with a fantastically strong drop off it, and that's where everything good ends. The rest of the ride is spent absolutely crawling through each and every subsequent element, even the airtime hills which are far too drawn out & gentle to make me feel anything other than complete indifference. Hit the brakes, dissatisfied.


Later in the day we had a second lap, where I again chose the back row for the twisted vertical spike and the drop off the top hat, and this time the restraint suddenly came down sharply on me, causing an intense pain below the belt as the train rattled unceremoniously through a pathetically-themed building for one of the turns, which really hurt and solidified this ride as "a bit crap".
Let's continue with a quickfire round of rubbish. #413 Bandit is truly one of the worst roller coasters I have ever been on, an absolute car crash of roughness from beginning to end, the epitome of really hating every second. The complaints of this ride's apocalyptically bad tracking are not overstated, it really is that bad. The end of the ride ends up randomly smoothing out a lot, like they've replaced the track on a half-hourly basis, but by this point the ride had lost so much momentum that this moment was just utter dullness more than anything.
Welcome to the hell tier.


Needing a break from the absolute garbage, we rode the stand-up drop tower, High Fall. I'm a huge fan of these types of stand-up drop towers even if others hate it, and a powerfully forceful drop immediately had me hail it as my favourite ride in the park and one of my favourite drop towers.
Another quickfire round. NYC Transformer, the Top Spin, was closed. Sadness.
#414 Backyardigans Mission to Mars, #415 Ghost Chasers and #416 Jimmy Neutron's Atomic Flyer were all kiddie/junior coasters that I was completely indifferent on. Ghost Chasers, the wild mouse, was appreciable with not having too much braking throughout.
Dora's Big River Adventure proved a surprising hit, being one of the wettest log flumes I had ever ridden, and me and some group members thoroughly loved lapping it three times and becoming one with the liquid, fully taking in every soaking wet drop and drenching ourselves beyond repair.


#417 Studio Tour was yet another disappointment though. Not rough, just short. A neat concept, but really doesn't achieve that much with the tame coaster sections and felt that it ended around three scenes before it should have. It felt like "Van Helsing but slightly modernised and also slightly worse".
Excalibur was the best-themed rapids I'd been on, with extensive indoor sections, but lacking in the wetness department (perhaps for the better after our lapping of the log flume).
Area 51 was a similar story, with some quality theming elements and a really cool flooding scene, also lacking in the wetness department (but maybe it's better to treat this as more of a dark ride with boats than a water ride).
Time Riders was a pod simulator straight out of the 90's in every single aspect and I HATED it. Its giant preshow rooms that could seat 200 were impressive, but the ride is garbage. With nothing to hold onto, you can't brace yourself against the ride as it violently rocks from side to side as it crashes into every single obstacle in its path - seemingly on purpose. These movements and jolts made me feel really, really sick, and if it had gone on any longer there would've been a very real danger of me throwing up.


The day ended with me sitting out group rerides on Bandit (what?) as I recovered from my frigid self as I started to face the consequences of lapping a log flume, but ended the day with a satisfying reride on High Fall, and a cycle on the park's Frisbee, Side Kick, a ride type that I grew an appreciation for ever since riding the Maquina in Madrid.


But that being said, this park was awful, with next to nothing there that's worth even thinking about doing more than once. It'll take some convincing to get me back.

 

[Rob Coasters]

I've never vibed with Toverland that well despite its wonderful and well-executed theming, I absolutely couldn't stand the park in 2024. It was loud, full of schoolchildren, I hated most of the rides and by far my favourite thing there without a shadow of a doubt was the fountain show. Troy was rough, Fēnix was rough, Dwervelwind had no audio and nothing else mattered.
Will anything change in what will hopefully be a redemption visit?

Toverland has plenty of playgrounds and so-called "bridge credits". We spent most of our visit trying to gain as many bridge credits as possible and fooling around in the playgrounds, which I thoroughly liked. One of them was Tovertuin which had a ridiculously fast spinning bowl thing, which I was able to chill in for a surprisingly long time!

A rope-drop lap of Booster Bike didn't start things off very well. If this ride was a launch into a 180 degree turn into the brakes, it would change none of my thoughts on the ride. However, this ride is unanimously declared as one of the worst in the park anyway, so I can't have any thoughts quite yet.
A token round of Dwervelwind unfortunately continued the trend. Last time, the on-board audio was broken and that manages to completely ruin an otherwise-great layout as it's the only thing I can think about. I'm truly serious when I say that broken audio really does bring down a ride for me more than it ever should, but it's one of my favourite aspects of any coaster. Anyway, the audio was also broken, but not to the extent of last time, as 1/3 of the speakers were working - you could hear *some* audio, but at about 15% of the volume it should be, so I still came off disappointed.

And then were two quickfire circuits of Fēnix. Some may say Star Trek Operation Enterprise's station may be the worst in the world, but this is mine. I'm not a fan of this ride's soundtrack, being fairly generic "oh we're flying" music that doesn't really try anything new, teeming with screaming schoolchildren who are about to go on a big scary upside down roller coaster that's running one train, in a station building that seems perfectly engineered to echo any spoken voices directly into the center of my ears, making the wait for this thing truly insufferable.
The ride wasn't much better than I remembered. There remained the prominent bounce of the seats combined with the helix which pulls very strong and sustained G forces. People hail the helix as being "one of the best elements on any wing coaster" but it's simply too much for me. You can tell that these trains were not designed to go through moments that pull forces like this for that long. I enjoy Swarm's helix over the lake, which does similarly significant G's, but it's smoother and doesn't drag on as long and isn't at Toverland.
For the third time in a row, I came off a ride not having enjoyed it any more than I previously did.


So we tried Dragonwatch, a parachute tower type thing that was new to me. I think it had a preshow, I don't remember much else.
Next up on the agenda was Garden Tour, which I think is my favourite ride in the park.
And then Merlin's Quest, a boat ride where nothing happens for seven minutes so you use that time to try and coax ducks into coming towards you. This is, honestly, more fun than any ride here. You then enter a themed indoor section which... is shockingly fantastically well done. You can absolutely tell where every cent of this attraction's budget went, and the otherwise generic area music of Avalon suddenly takes a turn for the better. Then you leave and it's seven more minutes of playing with ducks. I think this is also my favourite ride here.


A ride that I skipped last time in favour of leaving earlier, was Maximus' Blitz Bahn, a pitifully low capacity bobkart-style attraction where you control your own speed. A queue of around forty people took around forty minutes to clear in a horribly claustrophobic room with loads of moving characters with booming music played about as loud as the speakers could go, caused me to momentarily step back from the group towards the back to just.. disassociate a little bit.
Anyway, we made it through. The whole premise of the ride is that you have to push down on a lever to make your car go fast, and pull up to make it go slow, and as you would imagine, going full force down the whole thing caused me to land in fourth place, and the person in first never even touched the lever. What?

Troy was next. I remembered absolutely hating this thing due to its roughness, but thankfully after its retrack this year it's a lot smoother than it used to be, but I still didn't really enjoy the layout but maybe that was just down to the ride being at Toverland which automatically gave it negative points at this rate. We rode it a few times, definitely not my favourite ride from this manufacturer, it barely re-entered my top 100 and re-exited it just as quickly as I got on better rides later in the year.
Scorpios followed too, a decently good Pirate Ship style ride. Then the heavens opened where we took refuge inside.



I skipped Toos-Express and Expedition Zork in favour of some food, and the day started its actual redemption arc with this massive indoor ropes course, Kletterabenteuer, that I honestly really enjoyed.
Karussell was great too, remarkably similar to Chessington's Adventure Tree where it has a spinny car, except at no point do they ever lock the spinning, so you can start whirling at speed before the ride starts and minutes after it ends. It got to the point where we had absolutely no clue that the ride had ended, and we were perfectly allowed to just keep going with nobody approaching us to raise an eyebrow, which I found utterly hilarious. Another contender for favourite ride here.
Wirbelbaum was next, a ride with a similar idea of teacups cars except it's on a ferris wheel type thing. We couldn't get it to spin as much, but we had a great chat with the operator where I declared it better than Troy.
We all attempted Sim sa la Klim, a challenging "climb up this slippery inflatable volcano" thing, a few of us attempted and were successful, I almost made it a few times but ultimately could not.
And then Djinn, a mini waveswinger type deal that genuinely felt like it could have tipped over at absolutely any moment.

Then we rode Troy one more time and walked out.
The tour guide remarked that out of the 500 people he's taken on this Benelux tour, I am the first ever person to actively dislike Toverland.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Walibi Holland's newest addition is a pair of duelling single-rail roller coasters from Rocky Mountain, of Untamed and Zadra fame. Having ridden Mahuka and really enjoying it, I was cautiously excited for these two rides, but a week before, the reviews came in: 6/10. 5/10. 5.5/10. The middling reviews of both sides combined with complaints of roughness and "credit and forget it" syndrome lowered the expectations far more.
The day before, I'd searched queue times of Walibi Holland, and after showing them to the tour guide, he'd suddenly provided everyone with fast passes for free on the day, saving us from an absolutely rock-bottom theme park experience.
The plan was to rope-drop #418 YoY Thrill, the supposedly more intense one, and I think this is already in the runnings for the most disappointing coaster of the year, even more so than Studio Tour, because that one at least had potential. YoY Thrill is basically if someone thought a thrill coaster was just "a bunch of rolls", and with this layout, it's six of the exact same inversion with no substance, intensity or reason to exist. It's a pretty pathetic ride, and feels like the hard definition of "filler".


#419 YoY Chill was better however, and for being the family side, I don't understand how or why this one is more intense and the side that I enjoyed more. The rolls are replaced with airtime hills that actually make me think, and the twists generally feel like a little bit more consideration was put into them.
Generally the duelling aspect of both sides is pulled off appreciably, with some really fun moments especially if you're near the back where it's easier to see the other train you're interacting with. My favourite moment of the entire ride is where the trains are coming at each other in opposite directions before turning away at the last second, preventing collision, which is great. But that's where my compliments end.
Unfortunately, YoY tracks like trash. There is a harsh and noticeable jolt on both sides with every single track connection, feeling a rhythmic thump-thump-thump throughout the entire ride which is enough to poorly affect the ride experience and really bring things down a lot further. The trains are also a significant downgrade from the perfect design of Mahuka, forcing yourself to sit spread-eagle in a really awkward position with unnecessary shoulder straps to compliment things negatively too.


Overall YoY has far too many shortcomings to call it a worthy addition to the park, seemingly doing everything the other coasters do just slightly worse. We returned for another lap of the Chill side later in the day mostly because it had no line (which for a new attraction is very telling), but most of us were entirely unbothered towards the idea of trying Thrill again so we didn't.


Despite being over twenty years older, Goliath remains supreme against this new duo of rides. With far better airtime moments and generally a smoother and more satisfying ride experience, especially with that sense of speed in the low helices, I enjoy this so much more.
Untamed remains excellent too, despite the ride never having gotten back to the speed it was running on my first rides in May 2023, it's still a fantastic ride, even if I'm starting to have a lot of issues with the uncomfortable barrel roll at the very end. I used to not care, but I slowly am.
However, Untamed still has my favourite inversion on any roller coaster - the double-inverting stall right at the beginning is simply sublime and incredibly satisfying to go through.
Lost Gravity however doesn't. Its awesome first half sadly doesn't make up for how hard this ride falls off in the second half. You have an epic array of powerful elements all done at the very beginning, then after the midcourse it's a real slog of nothing-burger elements that refuse to hit at all and fail to achieve anything other than just making me a bit sick.


Despite being in my "I never want to ride this again" list, I hesitantly accepted a second lap of Speed of Sound in case the audio worked. It didn't, and once again I hated every second of my ride. Then we found ourselves at Condor, which I continue to find more 'bad in a funny way' than 'bad in an terrible way'. The Rio Grande rapids were ridden, continuing the standard of most European rapids just sucking a bit, and the rest of the day consisted of rerides on Untamed and Goliath before leaving. As for the other rides, they were either closed (Blast, Crazy River) or I skipped them in favour of eating food (Merlin's Castle, Xpress).


Generally Walibi Holland is falling down my park rankings, with a slowly dwindling list of rides there that I enjoy. Perhaps their next new thing isn't a massive flop, one can only dream.
These are also the final new coaster credits of the tour, everything else at the two remaining parks will be re-rides with the exception of one major new attraction that ends up being one of my favourite new-to-me rides of the entire year....

 

[MannekenPis]

I'm glad you liked Goliath, after your last 2 reports, I was going to ask if you'd considered taking up a hobby you enjoyed!

 

[Rob Coasters]

I'm glad you liked Goliath, after your last 2 reports, I was going to ask if you'd considered taking up a hobby you enjoyed!

No one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans.

-------

Our day at Efteling started with our tour guide begging for us to use the toilet, as the rope drop plan involved absolutely non-stop GO GO GO action until around 2pm.
The day started with a RUN to Baron 1898, the dive coaster that gains a crowd of 40-50 all just watching. It's one of the weaker dive coasters, with a bit of a pathetic drop that doesn't have the aggressive thunk of Oblivion, but I still really enjoy it for what it is due to its fantastic theming. I'm not huge on the ending helix or the transition into the brake run, but that's the extent of my issues.
It's also the only dive coaster themed to criticising capitalism.


Followed by a RUN to Vliegende Hollander. Five minutes after we'd joined this queue, the queue behind us had literally doubled from 20 to 45 minutes, with my tour guide explaining the importance of this rope-drop rush strategy.
Anyway, the ride. I wasn't a huge fan of this ride back in 2024, but apparently that was because I used the single rider queue and not the main queue, so theoretically all my issues should be fixed by now. Also, the ride had only just opened from a refurbishment that changed one of the scenes, but more on that later.

So the lore behind this thing is that you're sailing all fine and nice, and then you get cursed, and then you're sent to sail alone forever which is what the end is supposed to represent, which I didn't quite understand the first time because I'd done no research into the storyline beforehand.
Anyway, the ride still doesn't really captivate me much if at all. The theming is absolutely wonderfully done, and the station is simply beautiful, one of the greatest to ever do it, but this coaster is the equivalent of someone heavily flirting with you and then walking out of the room once your excitement levels reach 95%. The theming is SO good, the atmosphere is intense and sky-high, but that lasts about two minutes before you're farted outside into a stupid coaster section and then you're done and the ride's over. Why?

The problem is that the indoor section has about three scenes before it stops. If it was the entire ride, Vliegende Hollander would be a masterpiece. But it really does just give up at the halfway point. It's infuriatingly close to being good, but it really just isn't.
In 2024, the climax of the ride before the drop into the outdoor section had a Medusa head magically warp into a really angry cursed monster face which was REALLY well done, an effect that made me go "woah that's really cool". For 2025, they got rid of that in favour of some static red lights that are supposed to represent a burning wreckage or the destruction of some kind of boat, and to say the least this was a huge downgrade to an already somewhat disappointing ride for me.


.

In the queue for Joris en de Draak, my tour guide realised that he had forgotten his passport in our previous hotel 40 minutes in the wrong direction, so as he rushed out of the park we continued to queue. This duelling coaster can be best described as taking the best parts of both Wicker Man and Grand National with plenty of smooth airtime moments in a chaotic layout that really does throw you about everywhere it can. This also received a major and controversial change for 2025, receiving some steel Titan Track on the first corner of the ride after the main drop.

Some people have an incredibly passionate view of Titan Track, with supporters saying it offers a glass smooth experience and completely nullifies any would-be roughness that naturally comes with non-prefabricated wooden track, and deniers saying that it utterly destroys everything that a wooden coaster should be, and that any ride with Titan Track is no longer worthy of being called a traditional wooden coaster.
Personally, I'm in the middle. The section of Titan is glass smooth, but it doesn't feel like a wooden coaster at all.
Anyway, Joris en de Draak continues to be a powerhouse and one of my all-time favourite wooden roller coasters. The Vuur side was running so much better than Water side today as well for some reason, it was a VERY noticeable difference despite both sides seemingly being the same thing.

A lap of the very not-notable Python was next (smooth though), before the Stoomtrein to the other side of the park where we continued our GO GO GO rope-drop rush and absolutely booked it to the next showing of Raveleijn. 2025 is the final year of this fantastic ninjas-and-horses show. There's a mechanical dragon, there's a bird-whispering princess who gets captured and kidnapped, two ninjas drown at the end and die and get killed.
I'll dearly miss Raveleijn, but as always with Efteling, I'm sure that the replacement will far surpass it.


The rope-drop rush finally ended with us absolutely booking it out of Raveleijn the second the show ended, to get into Droomvlucht's queue before every single other spectator decides that they want to do the exact same thing. Droomvlucht retains its status as my favourite dark ride in the world, a place to entirely disassociate from reality, and the single best ride to ever do that (a thread idea?). You forget everything, and for a few moments it feels like everything's going to be okay. Just you and the wonderful reminders of nature's beauty, a ride that never fails to make me tear up a little.

My memory of whatever we did next is a little fuzzy, so let's just make a quick loop of the park.
I love Vogel Rok now so much more than I used to, now that I actually know what happens. Last time I was negatively taken aback by how dark it was, and how abruptly it all ended, but with that in mind I was able to expect what happened and it's a great and surprisingly intense little ride with some banger audio that plays.
Carnaval Festival is held in a bad light by many due to its slightly racist depictions of different cultures, but if you're with someone who's just as into the music as you are, it becomes a right laugh.
Stoomcarrousel is a very unique ride, a steam carousel from 1896 or something along the lines of that. It's a beautifully presented nostalgic memory.
Diorama is a wonderful little model that keeps getting eaten by rats and mice.
Just like Vliegende Hollander, Symbolica however is so concerningly close to being one of the greatest dark rides ever, but it, just, isn't. I don't even know what I could improve on the ride, but my issues with it lie mostly with the fact that it kind of feels like a massive tech demo? Going into dark rides actually knowing their backstories and lore nowadays, it's easier for me to understand what a ride tries to achieve and get across, but with Symbolica the theme is just "you're given a tour of the king's palace and don't be late to the party!" and it doesn't go much deeper than that. Disappointing.
The audio was broken on one side of Max & Moritz, then it was time for Danse Macabre.



Danse Macabre followed, the new for 2024 dark ride which has gotten every enthusiast saying it's the new greatest dark ride in the world.
There's two guys, a conductor who dies, one of those two guys is cursed to become a cat, ride commences.
The ride itself is the world premiere of the Dynamic Motion Stage, a 360 degree revolving theatre with three axes of rotation. The park well and truly put their "no screens" methodology to the test, with not a single LED pixel in sight as the *entire ride* is made of physical sets and animatronics. There's something to look at everywhere while the ride does a mesmerising dance to an orchestral rendition of the classical music piece of the same name. Everything slowly builds up intensity to a grand finale where the dance ends its four-minute choreography to a round of applause.
Is it great? Yes. Is it world-class? Not quite. I give it around a 7/10, a classic example of enthusiasts over-hyping everything.


Fata Morgana roughly translates to "a mirage" and the basic idea of the story is that the ride is supposed to act as a lesson on how the rich should give to the poor so no one has to suffer, or something like that.
Fun fact, one of the only rides in the world with a canonically bad ending. While it's not explicitly told or communicated to you, you die at the end.
I've grown more of an appreciation for this after learning what it's about.

We then rode the Halve Maen, the world's largest pirate ship, and it was surprisingly not that intense, and we also had a wander around Sprookjesboom. In 2024 this was a bunch of animatronics that told, uhh, a story, but with my tour guide he had fluent knowledge of all of the important ones, with a few of them having some genuinely shocking backstories, most of which have been obviously significantly toned down to fit modern audiences. There's blood, violence, torture and assault in these original renditions if you look far enough into what the brains behind most of these fairytales had in mind.
Then we saw the girl with the matchsticks. And I almost cried. Again.
The musem was explored, too, gaining insight on the behind-the-scenes action of this spectacular park.


After this the tour guide said "we have an hour before the fountain show". Some people wanted to do Fabula, others wanted to do Joris, others wanted to do Pirana rapids, others wanted to do Fabula 4D cinema.

...
...

Hm.

I'm not happy.

That can't be it. Surely.

All that hype for something that's just "good".

...

Despite the calling to finally ride Pagode, making the decision to gain three more laps of Danse Macabre was the best possible decision that I could've made. That first ride didn't have me coming off all "good but not great" because it didn't live up to the hype, I came off feeling that way because I didn't notice everything. My second ride, hey there's a scary ghost family and a cool lighting effect. My third ride, there's some hidden ghosts in cloaks. My fourth ride, hey there's a statue that stares directly at you. You keep noticing more, and more, and more, and more, and suddenly the appreciation that I had for Danse Macabre started increasing at an alarmingly exponential rate, and sooner than I knew it, that and Droomvlucht were fighting mercilessly for the top spot of my favourite dark ride ever, being so close that they may as well share the top spot.

I emptied most of my wallet in the shop before the ride closed and we headed off to watch the brilliant Aquanura water show, Danse Macabre bag in hand, ending an awesome day at what is absolutely my favourite theme park in the world.

 

[Rob Coasters]

And then the next day we rode to happiness 15 times.
Hell yeah.


The end.