trip report: Parc Asterix jun 22, 2001 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Thursday evening we drove towards Paris to make sure we'd have an entire day in the park the next day, withouth having to drive there first. We found a motel next to the autoroute. We'd tried a couple closer to the park but they had no vacancies. The difference was only one exit on the autoroute anyway, so we didn't end up that far from the park. Before going to sleep we played a game of Catan (Bart had brought it along) and Henk was still seeing hexagons in front of his eyes in the morning. We had some breakfast at the motel and left for the park. There was no trouble finding a parking spot and no queue for the ticket booth.
Our first goal (nr 1 on our wishlist and maybe the main reason
why we wanted to go to Parc Asterix) was 'Tonnerre de Zeus'.
There was no crowd at all. It was closed for some maintenance in the morning. The same for Goudurix (steel coaster nearby).
After a bit of cursing we went to have a look at some of the other attractions. We sat down at the dolphinshow. It's a very educating show. Real nice to look at but it wouldn't have hurt if they had supplied a french-english dictionary. Not a word english (well, the french are not known to speak much english, but this is a themepark with an international public). Of course we were waiting for the 'big splash' from the dolphins. But not a drop of water came over the edge...
By now, we'd been in the park for an hour and we still hadn't got wet (on a warm sunny day even). To change this, we went to the rafts (La Descente du Styx). Garantied wetness. And is it turned out, this was very much so. It is a very well planned ride. The width of the river varies and there are obstacles in the water. As a result of this you can get stuck here and there. For example right next to a fountain. The varying width also alows for other rafts to pass you. 5 of them decided to be in a hury and passed us. We had a lot of fun and two other people in our raft were very annoyed. We did get a lot of water into the raft. The plan was to get ourselves dry in the bob (new coaster in the park), but on our way there we passed a few other water attractions, one of which, 'Le Grand Splatch' looked very promising. So we entered the queue and a little while later a boat. It starts real nice, under a rock with Asterix on it. Down a slope. After that it's a bit of a boring long part where you slowly travel between some trees and bushes. Not very interesting (real odd, considering the great theming in the rest of the park). The end is a real nice big splash though. Lot's of water, nice drop. You don't get too wet, but nice. On to the bob. Quite a long queue (new attraction this year), but we decide to go for it. The track looks real nice and solid. It's made of lots of little steel tubes bolted together (the result of driving on these small steel tubes is a bit of a bumpy ride though). The trains are 7 cars long, so they are quite stable in the tracks and as a result the edges of the tracks are not that high, so you have a nice view. It's a nice ride. The plan was to go to the menhirs next, but we took a wrong turn. We got right past some sort of waterride (sort of little rafts, which can seat 6, which slide down a halfpipe with some turns) called L'Oxygénarium. Since there was no queue at all, we tried it. It doesn't get you wet at all, unless there's water in the rafts. Being on this side of the park, we notice Goudurix is now operational,
so we go there. Arriving there, we notice they're using only one
train. Bummer. Extremely long queue, so we get ourselves something
to eat first and miss some show.
Tonnerre de Zeus was now operational too, so we go over there. Quite a long queue, but it's running and we really wanted to go on this ride. The queue meanders through (well, under) part of the tracks and it look really impressive from down there. A fair distance away from the end we notice support (pole) nr 500 (supports from woodies are usually numbered along the track and about 2.5m apart), so we deduce there are about 600 of them and the track must be near to 1.5km long. We were lookng at the part with the brakes (the queue crosses under it) and see a train come in. The entire part with the brakes gives way for about 10 inches when the train stops. None of us had ever seen the tracks of a coaster sway like that. Having had a look at the tracks from the queue, we didn't understand the layout at all. Quite complicated, lot's of helixes and crossovers, high speed, lot's of g-forces. It looks like a really nice coaster (it's been voted the best wooden for some years now). After we finally got in we had a nice look around at the top of the lifthill and even from there it looks very complicated. The first drop is very impressive. It goes straight into a tunnel at the bottom. After that it's a lot of turns, helixes and crossovers. One more suprise at the end, which shows even more how much energy is left when it hits the brakes: when it was in the brakes it took a moment before they were released and then the back of the car dropped back on the track. It was tilted forwards in the brakes!
Finally time for the menhirs. Again, quite a long queue, but not as bad as the bob and Tonnerre de Zeus. Couple of French kids in front of us were annoying each other. Oh well. It's a nice ride. Features two seriou drops. They are better than the ones at Six Flags. The last one creates a really big splash at the bottom. You don't get really wet, but there's a path near there where daredevils can have a look and get the water splashed over them. Bart and Henk handed over their stuff and tried it. Time to dry in some coaster we thought, so we check whether there's 2 trains running in Goudurix. On the way we squeeze in another ride in L'Oxygénarium (the one with the halfpipe). Doesn't get you dry though (nor any wetter). Still one train and a very long queue at Goudurix, so again, no... Maybe Tonnerre again. But a very long queue too and the day is getting on. So we did Descente du Styx again (the rafts). This time we didn't get passed by anyone and we didn't get stuck anywhere, so we hardly got wet. You can't be lucky all the time.
Near the Styx we went on a ride called Le Vol d'Icare, which at
first looks to be a kiddie coaster. 3 trains, no queue. It's a bit
bumpy, and fairly fast for such a small coaster. A nice something
between a coaster and a kiddie coaster. Since the trip home would be some 5 hours, we didn't push our stay
much longer.
We did some shopping near the exit and got ourselves some souvenirs.. It had been a very nice day. Pity we missed almost all the shows. They would probably have been pretty good, considering the amount of theming in the park and all. One drawback: it's probably all in french. |
|
|
|||
|
Website maintained by: Kees Verlaan
Page last modified: