Photo TR: European Extravanganza: Updated 31/05/10

Last week I went on a bit of a crazy long way round mainland Europe tour. The tour would involve visiting, France, Germany, Belgium, UK, Germany, Finland using a minibus, the Channel Tunnel and good old Ryanair.

The first leg was to take our minibus via Channel Tunnel to France to visit Nigloland. But due to an incident in the Tunnel, involving a full evacuation and the fire brigade, our crossing was delayed by 3 hours. This meant there was no way we'd make to Nigloand. So thanks to RCDB and a Motorola Droid we found an alternative park. And so day 1 of the tour started at Dennlys Parc near Calais.

Dennlys is in the process of building an Intamin compact coaster, which was sadly far from ready. But the park did have one small coaster, and more importantly a large playground with lots of rides that adults could enjoy.

The park map

Entrance area

Looking very picturesque

The French kids were like slave drivers demanding we spin them faster and faster. All they lacked were the whips.

New coaster construction pic. There will be an Intamin here soon.

By the looks of it very soon, the ride is nearly ready.

We like parks with playgrounds for adults.

Hope I don't here the cracking sound of a childs leg, like the last time I saw one of these in Denmark.

The parks only functioning coaster, Furio

Next stop Walygator Parc

Too bad you didn't make it to Nigloland as we haven't seen a PTR from there in years, but at least you were about to detour to another park, that has not been showcased on TPR in the past.

This looks like a park TPR should visit with those rides. I'm sure at least a few of us would come away with injuries!

Two of us did walk away with injuries. A mate fell over on the large swinging thing, he miss timed his body weight, fell over and skidded along the platform as it carried on swinging. Not sure if his face or knee came off worse. Meanwhile on the do it yourself wave swinger I managed to smack my ankle into one of the fence posts as I'd been swung out so far.

Will upload pix from Walygator in the next couple of days.

Next stop on the tour was Walygator Parc. The reason for going to this park was for their new, 2nd hand, B&M inverter The Monster. The press release I was sent said it was opening end of April, so the trip was planned in mid May to allow for initial bugs to be ironed out. A quick check on the website 2 weeks before confirmed they were on target to open the ride at the end of April. However once we arrived at the park and reached the back end it became blindingly obvious they were months away from opening the new coaster. The track was a long way off being complete, there was zero landscaping done and the stairs from the station didn't reach the ground. I was seriously unimpressed that their website showed it was opening at the end of April when it was never going to happen. Had we known we would have gone to Nigloland instead.

Anyway here are some pix.

Entrance Plaza

Has this pic been seen before?

The reason for our visit

The reason our visit was a waste of time

Will this even open in 2010?

Another construction shot.

And another

More Gatorness

Entrance to the World's longest theme park attraction.

Little did we know the sign with the number 45 on it, wasn't warning of the queue time, but the ride time.

Bye, see you in 45 minutes. YAWN!!!!!!!

The highlight of the 45 minute boat ride.

No fruit machines here, booooooooo!!!!!!

Wave Swinger

Just one of many rides in need of maintenance. The arms of this Polyp didn't lift, it was more like a Scrambler. I didn't photograph the drop tower that was missing all it's seats. Nor the themeing that didn't work on the boat ride, nor the kids play area that appeared to have collapsed into the lake.

Entrance to Anaconda. It was no where near as bad as I expected, I kinda enjoyed it. The front and rear cars were out of bounds, filled with sand bags. All the other rows had a sand bag in the footwell. I did get concerned at one point. As we were going up the lift hill, smoke started pouring out from under one of the cars. We were expecting flames any minute. But the ride remained in tact.

So not as bad as Rattler, but not as good as Ravine Flyer II

Best coaster in the park.

At least this one didn't derail, unlike the one in Littlehampton last weekend. The RCCGB was enjoying ERT on their Big Apple when the front car partially derailed, leaving the riders stranded.

Don't you just hate splashback?

Anyone got any mint sauce?

Photo taken out of spitting range.

Now I'm getting really hungry.

Does this make the park Elissa approved?

Random themeing.

Topple Tower broke down a couple of times, but we did get on it.

Not as well themed as the Dollywood one.

Final coaster in the park.

Rather strangely, it was smooth.

Next stop French Fun Fair.

Atleast now we know the Topple Tower is still operational! It's usually always closed in people PTR's.

After a day at Walygator Parc we spent the evening at a large travelling fair which had 3 credits on offer. The fair is called Metz Foire Du Mai and is held in May in Metz.

There were a few crazy spin n spews, making it's début was a KMG Move It, the largest size they make, Xenox a home made baby Move It, and of course a Huss Breakdance being run on crazy arse setting. Normally I wouldn't go near a Breakdance as their dull, but the European Showmen know how to run these machines properly.

Coaster Wise there was a powered coaster called Tokaido Express which on full chap was pretty intense, a Big Apple and finally Super Railway a very strange beast where the cars literally straddled the track. It had some serious out of your seat AIRtime and the fact it had no restraints made it even more crazy. There had to be a minimum of 3 people to ride so as to wedge people in a bit more to stop riders from flying out. It was great fun and a must do.

It doesn't get much better than a European Breakdance. Way better than a US Tilt a Whirl or a UK Waltzer. This one was good but it was no Tilburg.

Quicker and more intense than a Fabbri Booster.

If it's on Coaster Counter it's a credit.

Slow to begin with

But it gets faster

And faster

And faster

Till you take the tunnel

Conveyor belts and European fun fairs usually spell disaster.

But alas no one got hurt making this a very unfun house.

Old school

Quite possibly the fastest machine on the green where you can slide to the end and grope a friend.

Big ass machine, but dull.

Oh lala It's Number 1

Either I've got fat or this has very tight fitting restraints. Never normally have issues on KMG machines, but the ride op nearly cracked my ribs getting the sensor to trigger.

As good as it is, it's no Northern Amusements Sueprstar.

Suspended ghost train

A Mondial Jet Force

Thanks to the rubbish £ vs Euro I didn't fancy it as it just looked dull.

This appeared to be a home made Move It. No sign of a manufacturer plate anywhere.

Another crazy spin n spew.

Super Railway. Can't work out if this is another home made ride. Never seen a coaster like it.

Some crazy arse out of your seat airtime. Bet Six Flags and Cedar Point would have panic attacks seeing a coaster like this with no restraints.

We rode this one twice, it was that good.

How hard can it be to make one of these at home?

I love a nice truck.

Europe is awesome! Enough said!

sounds good to me