With the exception of a few large electrical storms and brief showers, the glum weather of the morning pushed off and we were lucky to enjoy mostly blue skies in the very green but awkwardly laid-out park. The park seems to be roughly the same size as Walibi Belgium, however designed in a more hub-and-spoke manner with most of the paths being dead-ends.
To its credit though, the heavy greenery and the winding path layout hides many rides and pathways without becoming a labyrinth, effectively making the park seem larger and quieter.
True to its name, Walibi World is loosely split into sections themed per country, such as France, Mexico, Italy, and what we suspect is the USA and England with the Wild West and Sherwood Forest areas.
The first thing we rode was the Space Shot, a ride that could possibly be considered the inverse of the Dalton Terror (which itself is an Intamin Giant Drop). This thing shoots you 60 metres up a tower at around 85km/h, then after a second or two of fantastic airtime it bounces you down slowly. The anti-climax of the ride is further compounded as the ride plays a snippet of We are the Champions as you leave the ride.
Since we arrived at the park shortly after they opened, around 10:15am, John and I rushed to the Skydiver, an attraction that once existed at Walibi Belgium but was since sold to another park to make way for the Vertigo. This isn't the same one, but it's an identical model. In Belgium, this ride was quite often fully booked for the day by 11am, but was surprisingly deserted at Walibi World for most of the day.
For those who have never seen this, essentially you're put in a harness not too dissimilar to that used in hang-gliding, then attached to the end of a vertical steel rope hanging from an arced gantry. The steel rope is linked with a second steel rope by means of a hook with a magnetic lock, attached to a second gantry (shown closer to us in the photo above). The ride pulls you up to this second gantry, and then releases the magnetic lock so you drop and swing hundreds of metres.
For a much simpler explanation, have a look at the video Aline took of John and I on this thing.
The adrenalin rush is worth every single cent of the €17.50 for the ride, since with a single rope you have more control and freedom of movement compared to the Xtreme Skyflyer I rode at Carowinds last month. This ride is absolutely brilliant, and if you can overcome any fears or reservations, you'll love it to bits.
Still buzzing from the adrenaline, we headed down the long dead-end path to the Goliath. I was expecting something enormous and overwhelming, as many people had said you can see it from several kilometres away from the park — bollocks.
The first thing you are struck with is the length and height of the lift hill as you approach the ride. It doesn't look like much until you're standing under it, and you realise the initial drop is actually 45 metres! The ride itself is an Intamin Mega Coaster, and to their credit it's yet another amazingly smooth ride. With a top speed of just over 100km/h, the 1.6km of track is torn through in no time.
Interestingly, the seats are somewhat exposed on the train with little to hold onto except the lap-bar. I don't really care that much, since the ride is fantastic with your arms in the air anyway! The view in the front is worth the wait, and the final turn into the station passes a bunch of flowers you cannot help but smell. The airtime on this thing is incredible despite the seatbelts, and I could easily ride this thing all day!
The Goliath makes me want to try Intamin's Giga Coaster, which only exists as the Millennium Force at Cedar Point. I presume no more were built because they cost around USD$25,000,000.
After avoiding a huge thunderstorm with torrential rain in Mexico by having some lunch, we ended up trying El Condor, the original Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster. Designed as a prototype, this thing is actually slightly smaller than the standard SLC and was originally designed to have three trains. It now runs with two slightly smaller trains than normal. El Condor is painfully rough, and you're better off going to Walibi Belgium to ride the Vampire. However, being lower to the ground the ride has a little more thrill to it.
John's video makes it look much more exciting, but I doubt you'll be able to recognise anyone on it though!
On our way out of Mexico, we tried El Rio Grande, a fairly soft water ride with quite a lot of wave-makers. Still a fun ride, but considerably short and for me I didn't find it as amusing as similar rides elsewhere with more drenching and bumping!
From there we went to the Xpress, a slightly larger version of Disney Studio's Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. Disney's version has a slightly longer launch and slightly shrunk design because its five trains are heavier, owing to the trains being bulkier for more comfort and to contain the sound equipment. The advantage at Walibi is that without this, the ride launches at 90km/h in under three seconds!
This ride is great, but has a real Disney feel to it since it never really picks up speed beyond the initial LSM launch and is amazingly smooth. The ride itself is advertised in the Vekoma catalogue as “Launch Coaster”, with Walibi World being the only customer, hiding the two in Disney parks.
The only real difference between the two is that there is no separate exit station and some of the block-points don't have breaks fitted as they would on the Disney version. This is easily explained as there are only two trains rather than five. The trains on this model are no where near as comfortable as the Disney versions, instead being standard Vekoma trains you would see on Boomerang models.
Speaking of which, Walibi World's Boomerang (known as La Via Volta) is standing but not operating in “Italy” for the entire season. As usual, the ride was installed during Six Flags' ownership, since they obsessively installed these things in almost every European park they purchased during the last ten years — Walibi Belgium included.
Passing through Italy towards the Wild West we wound up in Walibi Land and saw their new attraction, Splash Battle which looks like fun, but the amount of effort required to squirt such a small amount of water would annoy anyone but little kids with too much energy!
In the Wild West area, we couldn't resist the Flying Dutchman Gold Mine. Unlike every other theme-park, this isn't a mine-train design as you'd expect, but rather a wild mouse design that seems to pop up everywhere. Often these things are considered “kiddie-coasters” but in actual fact they're a shit load of fun!
From there, we headed to Crazy River, which is the same as Walibi Belgium's Flashback, but with a different theme. Revolving around the concept of shoddy wild-west workers, the décor includes some amusing signs posted around the place. Maybe they were only amusing because I was taking the day off work…
Yet another ride that's identical to one within Walibi Belgium was Merlin's Castle in Sherwood Forest, an indoor ride we sort of exploited to avoid yet another patch of rain. The ride itself is themed as Merlin's laboratory, where you sit in a swinging gondola inside a rotating room to give you the illusion of going upside down. The visual effect is fantastic. John got very excited by the ride's music (the second half of Gustav Holst's Mars), and the weather had cleared back to sunshine as we left!
Sherwood Forest is also home to Vekoma's first wooden coaster,
Robin Hood. With a top speed of 80km/h and some fairly average airtime, the ride isn't too bad but I still prefer their second (Loup-Garou).
This ride is currently suffering the same problem as all three of the Vekoma wooden coasters seem to be lately, where by only one train is in operation at a time. This causes horrible queue times, and that combined with another electrical storm created the longest queue we had all day — around 30 minutes.
The park taught me that the Dutch like spitting like mad, often to the point of no longer being able to summon anything more than a dribble of spittle. Unfortunately queue jumping was rife when we were there too.
I discovered one thing I didn't know though; Apparently Tux Racer, an old open-source game I played many years ago, has become an arcade machine! Wow: I'm shocked, but it's not too surprising. The cabinet is probably also running Linux too, I suspect.
Possibly the most amusing part of the day was watching the twelve monkeys try to cross a small lake on the Vlot, a sort of wooden pontoon with a rope you can use to pull it from one side to the other. These muppets get on; swilling beer, despite the sign telling them there's a 10-person limit. Quickly, about half a metre from the shore, they discovered why this limit exists as water starts rising through the open wooden slats in the floor.
You'd expect the gits to return to the shore, but this isn't the case. They proceeded to start beating the crap out of the two people pulling the rope (even though they had stopped). Eventually two of these geniuses jumped off.
To top the day off, we stopped off in Amsterdam on the way home for dinner. Not surprisingly, we visited a so-called “Argentinean steak house” that seems pretty common there, and finally got to meet John's brother.
As for the drive home, I don't think I should mention it, what with its wrong turns and lengthy detours…
All-in-all, a brilliant day and I think there should be more of it!
