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[Britfag]

Ayyyo, it's that time of year again, and the best members are meeting up again!

Me and Joe are currently at the airport, waiting for the flights to scoot us on over to The Netherlands, where we're convening with Gump and his girlfriend for the trip to Gump's house. Bring on the Kroketten!

We'll be posting daily, with a trip to Adventure land planned, Efteling, Toverland and maybe Walibi World too.

Todays 'hours of kip in the last 48' count:

Joe: 6
Rhys: 9

Peace out, suckaaaaas.

Edited by Micro'nexer, 13 July 2014 - 06:07 AM.
Needs more fags to be fancied.

[Micronex]

Well, it's my turn to the evening post, and we're going to combine that with this morning's, because there's no point making two.

We got on our plane and took the front seats (1C and 1D). Where I was sitting in front of the door I had no wall in front of me, so I could stretch my feet as much as I needed to. Even Rhys who did have some sort of wall in front of him said it was quite far back. We paid close attention to the seats next to me in the hopes that if nobody sat there Rhys could indulge in a couple feet of extra leg room. Unfortunately the last two people to board the plane took these seats. Nonetheless, Rhys and I landed at Amsterdam having both had a quick kip on the plane. Literally, all I remember of it was taking off, hearing the trolley dolly offering refreshments, then zzzonking and waking up to the news that we were about to land. Even drearier now that I'd teased myself with such a short nap, I got off the plane with Rhys, and we went to the passport control, then baggage reclaims.

We met with Jochem and his girlfriend, Charlotte, at a big red and white block building which is known as some sort of meeting point.

(rhys takes over) He surprised us with an accent-perfect "Ello!"
We sorted out our Chipkaarts (Oyster card equivalent) and Rhys got a big sausage between his buns. Yummy!
We got on the train and starting talking about the weeks big events and the like, whilst Joe kept bobbing in and out of conciousness. We arrived at S'Hergoten Bosch (pronounced Den Bosch.. I know.. What?!) and quickly switched trains, We got out of the station, and lo and behold Max in his totally super cool Honda Civic with a fag between his lips! He finished off and spat out on the floor, typical Max..
Max drove us to Kaatscheuvel, and we looked at Efteling as we passed (well, I did, Joe was asleep... agaaaaain.) we arrived and unpacked our things, briefly greeting Jochem's family, and unpacking Jochem's crumpets (yes... all 54 of them...), before zipping back out for a little trip to Albert Heijn, where Joe picked up some food and we all picked up some snacks, We headed out to the local desert, and in general chilled for the next few hours. (back to Joe) Jochem played some music from his phone, and guess what? I fell asleep again. That lack of sleep really caught up on me.

We headed back to Jochem's house, going via De Efteling and sneaking a look at "Joris en de Draak" which was pretty cool. When we got back, a late-afternoon in the garden was in full swing with more music playing (mostly Max sharing his ride videos with Rhys), although it wasn't much longer until he had dinner. Pasta with a tomato sauce with meat and lots of vegetables was in order, and a slightly picky Joe opted for a little less of the sauce, only trying to scoop out the sauce itself (there's no convincing some people... ).

We spent the evening inside, playing some board games and putting mine and Rhys' minimal knowledge of towns in the Netherlands to the absolute test. We also played a game of Rolit where Max ended up dominating the board with his blue balls, and he then won. We later played lots of rounds of Stef Stuntpiloot which was so much fun. It features a little pilot on the end of an arm which rotates around and can be bounced up by a little lever each player controls. If the pilot goes past your lever it knocks one of three little tokens down, and if you lose your third one, you're out. It was so enjoyable not even my sheer lack of sleep could divert me from playing it. Will there be a rematch tonight? Who knows.

Rhys and I both ended up falling asleep at around 11pm and both revelled in over 12 hours sleep, something I so badly needed. The blinds in our room left me completely unsure of what time it was as the room was so dark, but when I figured that some light was beaming in I had to go and check the time, and shockingly it was 11:15am.

We've all had our breakfast now and are showered and ready to go to the exhibition today, which there will be more on in the net update.

Edited by Micro'nexer, 13 July 2014 - 12:46 PM.

[Britfag]

Time to post another round!

So today we went to the museum where Adventure Land *cough*Alton Towers*cough* is displayed.

The first thing that struck me was the sheer height of Koloss. It's, uh, kolossal. Lame puns aside, the park is really cool. All the rides have little buttons that are all wired up to operate when you press them, and they all had music that played as they operated too. Brilliant electronic work combined with awesome coasters. Joe's favourite was Koloss, but I preferred Trinity, although the sheer size of Koloss was still jawdropping. R80XL, Calypso and Tornado were also on display and they were cool to see - although the constant music from R80XL was pretty hard to bear..

We then went back to Max's to work on his drop tower. That involved us all sitting on the floor with minimal floorspace where a lot of it was taken up by coasters and bits. We ended up leaving his at around 5, even though we were supposed to be at Jochem's for then. So we got back to Jochem's and were confronted by a really special promotion; 40% off Phantasialand tickets, so we held a quick discussion in which we all agreed Phantasialand >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Walibi World.. Except Joe, who had no experience of either.

We all sat down to eat "Rice and Mud" a Satay Chicken & Rice affair, that we all agreed was pretty tasty.. except Joe, who stuck to the rice.
After we had eaten up, and talked briefly about the drop tower mechanism and the potential held, we went out to walk Jochem's dogs, Chico and Chappy, hoping to avoid the rain (that wasn't even forecast) but ended up getting caught in it anyway. Brilliant.

Tha's it for another day y'all. Y'all be good xx

[Britfag]

Oh Hi, SSC!

We left it a couple of days so you could all soak in our amazing adventures, and so we didn't overwhelm you with our epicness.

Today (the 14th) we went to Toverland.
We woke up, got dressed and the like, ate some crumpets and syrup before heading out, we briefly stopped off at Albert Heijn and picked up some meat to put between our buns and some Apple cookies & Iced Tea. The journey from then on was pretty standard, about an hour by car from Catshovel.

We arrived at Toverland, parked up and walked towards the entrance, but as we walked we spotted possibly the worst English this side of America; "Please measure you children so you can see of which rides they can use." Ha ha ha, a classic.
We walked into the park, and straight away you walk into one of the enclosed areas, which is populated by a "Swinging mill," a small roller coaster (Boomerang) and various other small attractions, we walked straight through, making a bit of a beeline for Troy, one of Joe's first wooden coasters. Me, Max and Jochem had previously ridden Troy together as part of the '09 tour, and I specifically remembered it being preeeetty smooth, boy was I let down.
I don't know what has happened, maybe this is the usual deterioration but it was pretty bumpy, lots of jolting in transitions bumping in turns and other jumpy-bumpy woodiness. None the less the drop is still epic.

After Troy, we made the obvious move to the horse-ride-thing, a sort of powered ride with cars that resemble horses that rock up and down (like the real thing!!!111!) this was actually pretty amusing.
Being pretty much right next to Booster Bike we made sure to get a ride in on that next, with me and Joe getting in the second row, nothing special.
After that we headed to the newest ride (a new credit for all of us) Cheetah Hunt Dwervelwind, a Mack spinning coaster - we made sure to seat me and Max strategically for maximum spinning.

Feeling a bit peckish (and dizzy) we sat down to put some meat in our buns, and by that I mean eat. Ham for Joe, Chicken for Rhys, Salami for Max (He likes the sausage) and Cat bacon for Jochem, cruel world.
After filling ourselves, we made our way to their river-rapids ride, passing through a small area that was populated with 'kiddy-rides' the first one being more of an attraction, a big inflated balloon that acted as a trampoline, whipping our mother-effing shoes off as fast as we could, we all got on (except for Gump, who was feeling a bit full for jumping) and began slamming around. The plus side to this balloon-like trampoline is that as you bounce everyone else gets affected - so I could jump really hard and bounce Max & Joe up and such.
We ended up hurting a small child, so we got off pretty quick.
Next was the drop tower, now, I know what you're thinking; "But Rhys! Toverland no has a drop tower!" well, to that I say shut up, It totally does. Well, it doesn't, but we can pretend it counts as one.

(Joe takes the keyboard)
(Joe forgets everything from that day)

We did eventually then get to, and go on, the rapids, which were pretty wet, to say the least.

Having done most of the outside stuff, we went for the inside part of the park. We picked up a ride on Boomerang, which I remember being quite fun.
We also went in a funhouse in a corner of one of the rooms. This had all sorts of rotating floors and travelators, funky stairs that moved up and down on their own accord, spinning rollers, and even huge rotating barrels to strafe through. I didn't strafe through though.

*space for video*

Let's not forget "Backstroke", the park's log flume which takes you down one of the drops backwards. One of the turnarounds was at an angle on a lift hill which wasn't all too comfortable, but hey, I can't complain. The drops were good and I don't remember getting completely drenched which is also nice.
We did contemplate the bobsled ride, where the previously long queue had reduced to around 40-45 minutes. However, as none of us were particularly fussed about it, we opted to leave it out, in favour of running through the children's play area like true 16-24 year-olds would. There were giant rope nets which spiralled upwards, steep ladders and long slides down to the bottom.
We also found an outdoors play area which had some swings, a couple see-saws, and a big zipline-thingy-ma-jig which we all had a lot of fun on. This included pushing me into a huge wooden pole, me tripping up a running Jochem, and spinning Max to the point of disorientation.

The group stopped to eat and drink again, and I revelled in eating ham straight from the pack. It was that good.

It was slowly coming closer to closing time, and we decided that re-rides on the larger coasters were a good idea. We got two more on Troy (one I believe being in the back row!) and one on Booster Bike, where I had so much space that I enjoyed it as a sitdown coaster as opposed to leaning in 45 degrees. There was also one more ride to be had on the Mack spinning coaster where the seating arrangement featured Rhys and I back-to-back with Max and Jochem respectively. This delivered a lot more spin than the first time if I remember correctly.

At this point we decided that we were about done with the park, and headed for the exit. I "foolishly" paid three euros for a Coke (no regrets though) and we headed back to the car and went back to Gump's via a hot food place. I could only describe it as somewhat resembling a Kebab shop but rather than trays of salad there were trays of all sorts of Dutch snacks, whose names I wouldn't even try to pronounce. I had a skewer-like snack that had a little bit of everything, and enjoyed it all.

(Rhys takes back over)

Once we had snacked-out, we (Me, Max and Jochem) had a film lined up; New Kids Turbo. Imagine it like a Dutch Ali G (If you've seen Ali G that is.. if not.. totally watch it.) It was pretty funny, even though I was reading subs, Joe didn't want to watch as he had a few important things to take care of.
After that, I was somehow convinced to watch The Room, the worst film ever, really.

After these films we put stuff away and headed to bed.

[Micronex]

Elo!
It's Micro on Moggi's account again!

So then, yesterday we went to De Efteling. Having all showered and had breakfast, we left Gump's at around 9:30. We stopped off at Lidl to get more rolls and some meat for them. I had crispy bacon this time, not the cat-bacon that Jochem enjoys oh so much. We did get to the park near enough on time, maybe five minutes late. Having pre-booked, we simply strolled in with printed out tickets and went to a well-themed area which described traditional fairytales with large animatronics. It was pretty cool to see, but there were so many! Nonetheless it was a good experience.

Our first ride of the day was "Droomvlucht" which was an inverted spinning powered coaster with a quadruple helix... well, that was to accomodate for all the cool theming that it featured. It had lots of bright flowers as well as a tidy space-themed area.
This was followed by Villa Volta, the park's madhouse. I'm still fascinated by these, and the way that the room moves around you. I'm definitely a big fan of them.

Having rode those rides, we went to see The People of Laaf, which features a small village called “Lavelaer”, inhabited by the so-called “Laafs”. It included some shops and a school, and was interesting to see.
Once we left here, we made way to the steam carousel which had an unusual indoors setting. The horses provided excellent 0g airtime, and the turns were smooth.
The next ride was Vogel Rok, an indoor dark coaster with the theme of stealing an egg from a bird, or something of that effect. Rhys and I rode back seat which was actually quite thrilling.

We stopped for lunch at this point, where I then threw a whole pack of bacon bar a couple of rashers between two halves of a bun. It was godly.
This was then followed by a slower ride, which took you through different areas of the world represented in their own sections. I learnt that everyone in England wears the black beehives that the Queen's Guards are known for and they all have shitty teeth. Subliminal racism at its finest.
We then rode the giant Pagoda ride which offers impressive views over the whole of the park.We could see Python operating as we came around to it, and Joris en de Draak stood tall too. It was pretty fun being 45 metres above the park and looking down on everything.

It was now time for some proper rides. We journeyed to Python next which had a half-hour wait, where Rhys and I waited the extra bit for the front row... Jochem didn't feel the need to, ha ha. The prelift drop was quite big and the predrop turn was cool, slowly picking up speed. The loops were bog-standard and the transition into the first corkscrew was just nasty. Aside from that, it was a pretty average ride.
Joris en de Draak was next. We decided to go for the blue (water) side, but little did we know that you actually got wet on this side. That sucked. Otherwise I loved it, the ride was brilliant. I've slowly developed a thing for wooden coasters, I think. We also later came back for a re-ride on red. Rhys prefers red but I prefer blue without a doubt.

The Flying Dutchman followed this, aka the weird water-coaster with awful staggered seating (3-4-3-4). Threes are never a good idea. There's always so many trains leaving with empty seats it's unreal.
We rode in back row, and the splashdown didn't get us wet, to my surprise. The indoor section was cool, because Rhys (and Joe!!!!!!!1!!!1!! (his words not mine!!!1!1!1!one!!!)) spent it flicking water at the innocent rider

(Rhys takes over, because Joe is stuffing his face with cake..)
After The Flying Dutchman we had a little bite to eat, more meat between our buns.. We took a leisurely stroll over to Piranha, passing by the interactive-water-blaster things on our way. The rapids were okay, we actually got considerably more wet than I would have imagined, we even floated all the way into a waterfall.. which Max ensured us barely ever happens.

We got off the water ride, a little wetter than expected, and headed for the Bobsled ride; Joe's first Intamin bobsled.. Far superior to the lame Mack bobsled at Blackpool. We had a good time, although the girls that sat in the back averaged mine and Max's weights out, to produce a regular overall weight.. What a shame. Having flown around the bobsled track, leaning every turn, we walked over to one of the last rides remaining, Fata Morgana, another relaxing dark ride this time taking place in Arabia, where the 'no rocking' rule was totally disobeyed by Joe and Jochem.. tut tut. Overall it's a pretty immersive ride, I guess, nothing too special as it's quite relaxed.

We then took the opportunity to go to the Haunted Castle attraction (show?) - we tried to spook Joe, but he rose above it, didn't jump even once. The display is pretty cool, with all the moving things and stuff, but again it's more of a show or attraction than an intense thrill ride. It was getting late, so we decided to get some food, Max and Joe opted for noodles (Max's came frozen!) and me and Jochem decided to get more Fries and snacks. When we were well fed we were right next to The People of Laaf village thing, so having missed out on the snails earlier, we hopped on (walk on!) and took a quick ride. I was sure me and Joe would catch up to Max and Jochem, but it was not meant to be.

After the Snails, it was seriously getting close to 8pm (Ride close time) and the water show was about to start (8:15 ish) so we walked over and got ourselves a bench to sit - Max insisted on getting to the front, but me, Joe and Jochem just stood on our bench.. it worked pretty well. The water show was good, it even contained fireballs and stuff. There was a 6-7/10 princess that Joe chickened out of a selfie with.. but that's all that needs to be said about that.


So.. that was our day, then we walked home and began resting our legs, mine were mad sore.
Me and Joe began building something on NL2, although we didn't get far, and Max & Jochem worked on Apocalypse, which now runs approximately 1022 times better.

I'm going now, see your ugly faces later.

[Witting]

Nice job max and jochem showing them new kids turbo!

[Britfag]

Thursday!

Walibi!

Word for emphasis!

Today, Rhys and I made the long-ass trek to Walibi, travelling via a bus, two trains, and the shuttle bus. We did get there eventually, and for around 11:30. This left us plenty of time to enjoy the park. So, what better way to start than to check out the entrance? It was a decent enough place, with a really American theme from when the park used to be Six Flags Holland. There were two signed electric guitars and a bass guitar on display from artists we didn't recognise.

Enough of the theming as it were, let's get to the coasters, and our first stop of the day was the Vekoma Boomerang named "Speed of Sound". The 60-minute queue sign that stood tall was walked straight past as we got to a point where the queue was more like 10 minutes. It's an incredibly standard coaster, but features a tunnel on the first lift hill. I thought it was pretty enjoyable and relatively smooth, outside of the god-awful laterals at the peaks of the cobra roll.

The ride following this was Xpress. The theming in the queue for this was insanely good! It took on an urban, almost London Underground based theme, featuring a conductor letting through a train-load (no pun intended) of people at a time. As you progressed nearer to the station a more chaotic spin took over with an pre-apocalyptic station where the time display read 06:66. A lot of fun was had scaring a screaming group of girls in front by stomping on the metal floor. They were scared by anything, even each others' screams. As for the coaster itself, it was really enjoyable. I'd argue that it was actually quite smooth for its age, and Rhys thought it was by no means bad. The queue was short too; sub-15 minutes yet again.

So far my hopes were really up for Walibi Holland. The park was a nice, clean place and the coasters had all delivered. Both queues had been short which was a great perk. Our next trip was to the Vekoma SLC of the park, and boy did things turn downhill. I'm going to be entirely reasonable, it was a really smooth and enjoyable coaster until we reached the bottom of the first drop. After that, every turn and pull in was just bumpy at best and borderline painful at worst. Even the tidy little hill into the brakerun was riddled with bumpiness. In the ride's defence, we only queued for five minutes. Could have been worse, but could have been much better too.

By this point we decided we were ready for Goliath. I didn't know the layout perfectly beforehand so I opted to not look at the coaster throughout the entire queue - although "entire queue" was again around 10 minutes. I don't even know what to say. The airtime was absolutely insane: I could feel myself leaving my seat and it was so fast - that's just the first drop. The camelback to follow was awesome and the Stengel Dive is such a fun element. Leaning into the high-speed turn was fun and the buckles were brutal, especially the latter one. The triple airhills in the late-layout are equally as fun and the brakerun was smooth. Overall, the coaster definitely places in my all time favourites, second only to Nemesis back-right. We went for a re-ride in the back row which Rhys enjoyed a lot more, but I think I preferred the front.

Following such an insane coaster, we headed to the river rapids. The cars were really low into the water which made for a lot more splashing. The rapids featured a lot of really small dips which splash water up and into the raft, so as you can guess everyone got wet. There were no survivors.

Our next stop was the wooden coaster, Robin Hood. My hopes were back up after Goliath and I was in no doubt that Robin Hood would be a bit of a bumpy but indubitably enjoyable ride. Sadly, the ride was so rough I could hardly enjoy the layout. The crests were okay at best but after passing each the ride returned to being really rough.

The next stop was Crazy River, which is the park's log flume. It features a total of three drops, one of which is taken backwards, but the biggest - a double dip - being taken forwards. The ride-ops were in no way strict whatsoever, to the point where I sat in facing backwards and they didn't care. The ride was enjoyable with the back of my head getting quite wet after the first drop and saturated by the end. Even Rhys didn't leave the ride unscathed.

After we took a moment to sit and relax with lunch, we decided to take it easy and moved over to the kiddy coaster Drako, nothing special, standard kiddy coaster, really.. Joe suggested the idea of B&M designing kiddy coasters, so they could finally be smooth.

After Drako, Joe went on a flat ride. This was Tomahawk, a really weird spinning ride which span on three axes. It was quite enjoyable and had some really strong lateral forces. Nothing to boast too much about.
Rhys then decided to tag along with the next ride, a water-coaster of some sort (not technically a rollercoaster), where a car went around a simple flat track and each rider had a water cannon with which they could pump water at other riders. It was definitely fun but one woman had an insanely strong cannon and she covered Rhys and I in water, to the point of walking off dripping. It was fun nonetheless.

Having walked around the park, we stopped off at a restaurant and souvenir shop. I bought chicken nuggets and chips, not because I was hungry but because I had so much change from always using a note because I have no idea what the names for the Dutch numbers are. Rhys got a "fizzy" (read: half-water) drink.

By this point it was mid-afternoon, and our full-up bellies decided to head back for Goliath re-rides. Having rode in the front-left and back-left, I now rode in the front-right and back-right, giving Rhys an opportunity to experience the top of the Stengel dive. We also got a re-ride in Row 9 to experience the middle of the train. My favourite seat was definitely front-left, but Rhys is telling me his favourite was back-left.

At this point it was around 5pm and we weren't at all fussed about riding on anything else, as opposed to the opportunity to get home at a sane hour and have a journey without a huge influx of people leaving the park. On the way Joe decided to ride the park's Enterprise, but all enterprises are the same and this did nothing special.

We made the long journey back to Gump's and chilled in the garden where I wrote half of this, then got 9 hours kip and woke up and finished it off now.

Peace.

[Jogumpie]

Rhys and Joe have just taken a train back to Schiphol airport. It's time for them to escape the heat wave currently engulfing the Netherlands. Either one of them will probably still write another trip report for yesterday, when we visited two fun fairs. We had lots of fun and decided to do a Scandinavia tour next time. I'm guessing it will be cooler then.

[Britfag]

Bump. We never went to Scandinavia