Europa Park(s): Planes, Coaster-Trains & Autobahns (Aug 19) - Day 5

[HEMANCLOFTY]

Europa Park(s): Planes, Coaster-Trains & Autobahns (Aug 19)

Day 5 – Sunday 25th August (Efteling & Driving to Hardervijk)

The Index is Here
Day 4 is Here

We were up at 7 today – showers all around and we went up to the first floor for breakfast by 8am (our room was on the ground floor)...

This was definitely the best breakfast selection of the trip – they had everything – hot / cold / granola bar / beautifully presented fruit / cakes – even cinnamon sticks and star anise to put in your tea.

We all had a hot selection first – this was mine…

I also had a few cakes (the dark berry one was yummy), some fruit, a cappuccino and a tea...

We all agreed this was our favourite breakfast of the trip, and probably the best hotel breakfast we've ever had 😊.

We packed up the room, checked out (making sure we ere only charged the rate we’d booked at) and were on the road by 9am.

We drove back up to the retail park where the KFC was and got some money out of the ATM (after yesterday's faffing we weren’t risking the chance of our cards not working at Walibi tomorrow) – we also popped to the supermarket that we’d seen last night to get some drinks and snacks (€12ish)…

Next, we went across to the Total garage for €30 of petrol - the card worked this time. Whilst we were here, we also did yet another tyre top up (50c).

It was 5-minutes to Efteling from here and we were parking up by 9:45am…

We had about a 5-minute wait at Guest Services, and just like yesterday, it was really simple to use our Europa Park Clubcards to get our free entry. We also paid €12.50 for parking…

The plan was to head to Python to get a Fastpass return (this is the only ride they do this for), but Fata Morgana was only a 5-minute wait so we did that as we were passing. This was a really well-maintained dark ride with some excellent scenes, animatronics and lighting - I did take some pics but they were rubbish, so here are a few from Google…

Tom was in charge of navigating and we headed to Ruigrijk (Adventure Realm) – which is where most of the park’s coasters are...

We got our return time for Python (11-11:30am) and doubled back to Joris en de Draak (George & the Dragon), which is a GCI duelling wooden coaster and was on a 5-minute wait time…

We went for the red (fire) track first, then went straight back around to do the blue (water) track – this time waiting 10-minutes. We “won” both times and all agreed that blue was the best 😊.

We went back to Python next – using our fast-pass, but we didn’t need it as the queue was shorter than the cattle-pen that the fast pass bypasses. We only had to wait for 2 trains and we were on – front row for me and Rich and Tom behind us - surprisingly, it was bags-on-ride. This is a classic Arrow Corkscrew, but has recently been re-tracked so it’s a smooth, but quite intense ride – we all enjoyed it…

A quick loo stop and next we joined the 15-minute queue for De Vliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman), which is a water coaster. The queue line theming was excellent and the station looked like something out of Harry Potter – my photos really don’t do it justice, so this is from Google...

I loved the ride, although we didn’t get very wet.

We spent a bit of time outside taking photos and having some drinks from our park bag…

Pepsi Max Lemon is very nice BTW...

It was just coming up to 12:30pm as we walked around to Baron 1898 (or “Baron aca-naca-naca-nan” if you watch Themepark Worldwide vlogs)...

Baron was on a 30-minute queue (or about 15-minutes longer for front row). We went for the quicker option and were given little paper tickets for Row 2. We had to check in our bags before going into the pre-ride show – this is another brilliantly themed experience and the ride itself is great – it’s a B&M Dive-Coaster, so similar to Oblivion at Alton Towers, but longer and with inversions – I took a lot of photos whilst we were queuing…

We headed for the Pagoda observation tower next...

...stopping first at Toko Pagode for some Ice Cream – Tom had a Magnum and I had an Efteling kiddie ice cream which was just enough – Rich had a drink…

The food here looked really nice – it was a build your own rice / noodle pot set up and Tom said he might like this later .

We did Pagoda – enjoying the lovely views of the park…

We headed for Symbolica next, expecting a long queue as this is the park’s newest Dark Ride – but it was only 15-minutes 😊...

We cooled off using the handy mid-queue water fountain in the outside section as it was another warm day.

Another fab pre-ride show featuring Pardot – the park’s mascot (I won’t give the spoiler away)...

We chose the blue HeldenTour (Hero tour) option – there are 3…

This is a brilliant trackless dark-ride, and it perfectly fits the whimsical fairy-tale theme of the park – I think it would work brilliantly in the Beast’s Castle at Magic Kingdom and would be a much better use of space than Be Our Guest.

I didn’t take any on-ride pics, so here are a few from Google…

It was about 2:20pm by the time we came off and this was the point that my camera battery died (it hadn’t charged properly last night)...

...so the rest of the day’s pics are from my mobile.

We had a look in the Diorama…

Vogel Rok was next and was only a 5-minute wait…

This is a pretty standard indoor Vekoma coaster – good, but nothing to shout about.

We did Carnival Festival next (It’s “Not” a Small World &#128522 – this was nice and bright as it has been refurbished this year – we did have a couple of stops in the China area, but not for too long…

We had a mooch around the gift shop and then the Efteling Museum next, which was cool - this is a piece of the original Python track...

It was reall hot now, so Rich changed his jeans for some shorts, then at just before 3:30pm we joined the 30-minute queue for Droomvlucht (Dreamflight), munching a few snacks whilst we were waiting.

This is another really great dark ride, on a suspended track flying through various fairy scenes – again, pics are from Google as I didn’t take any…

Tom and I were really hungry by now. I queued in the very hut sun for an Eigenheimer, which is a deep fried potato swirl on a stick (€2.95) – we sat down in the shade and shared this - it was nice…

Then we walked back to Toko Pagode, where Tom chose Babi Pangang (sweet & sour pork) with white rice and Rich and I shared a chicken Bapoa Bun (€13ish with 2 Cokes to share)…

It was all really tasty (Rich and I ended up sharing the last bit of Tom’s rice).

It was just after 4:30pm by now and we had one more Coaster to do – Bobbaan, which is an Intamin Swiss Bobsled that was due to close forever at the end of the month.

On the way we did Spookslot (Haunted Castle) which was a bit disappointing as we were expecting a ride, and there were a lot of noisy guests which meant that you couldn’t hear some bits of the show .

We decided to do single-rider for Babbaan, and waited about 5 minutes (instead of the 25 minute queue)...

We were glad we didn’t wait in the main queue as it was really jolty and painful, and we could see why it was closing.

By now it was 5:30pm and we were all starting to flag – none of us fancied waiting 30-minutes for Pirhana (Rubber Dinghy Rapids) and agreed to make a move ready for the drive up to Hardevijk.

We stopped in the Gift Shop to get a Magnet (€2.95) and a mini Anton Pleik Toadstool figurine (€4)…

<<<pics>>>

We headed back to the exit via Sprookjesbos (Fairy-tale Forest), and ended up spending 45-minutes just wandering around looking at the weird and wonderfully whimsical scenes and displays…

Our favourite was the pooping donkey - you put 50c in and it shoots a plastic gold coin out of it's bum ...

Talking of weird and wonderful - these bins around the park are fab - we we randomly saying "Papier Hier" for days afterwards...

One final mooch around the exit gift shop and It was 6:45pm by the time we actually left the park...

We had some drinks and snacks at the car (the drinks were very hot) and were on the road by 7:10pm...

It was another straightforward drive – we stopped a few times for Rich to have a smoke and to stretch our legs and we arrived in Hardevijk at 8:30pm

We knew there was no parking at the hotel, so we drove around a bit (through the narrowest streets I’ve ever driven on) before finding a small multi storey, which ended up being only a 5-minute walk to the hotel.

We entered our code in the drop box to get our 2 keys (one for the room and one of the main entrance). The room was nice – it had a little balcony / patio, but we couldn’t open the door…

Rich had googled and found a Pizza shop nearby – it wasn’t much to look at but our pizzas were really nice (€23 with some drinks) – we found a bench to have our pizza pic nic…

We had a little wander around the town…

…and were back at the hotel by 10pm...

Today’s Stats:
15 Attractions, inc. 7 new Coaster Credits
Walking: 25,122 steps (= 10.92 miles / 17.59 km)
Driving: c135 km

Day 6: Walibi Holland is Here