Trip report: WB Movie World oct 27, 2001 |
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We (Bart, Henk, Ernst and me) hadn't been to WB Movie World Germany this year and since we can get in with our Six Flags Europe season passes and it's fairly close (you can drive there, enjoy a long day in the park and drive back within a one day without staying in a motel somewhere on the way) to home for all of us we decided to go for Halloween this year (last year we went to Disneyland Paris for Halloween, see the trip report here). Like Six Flags Holland (see trip report here), WB Movie World stays open late for Halloween, so we had a long day ahead of us.
First thing we did, was head for Bermuda Dreieck (Bermuda Triangle), since it's close to the entrance and also tends to have a rather long queue later during the day. After watching the video they run near the end of the queue (on some tv screens hanging over the queue), we got to the boat. Most of the ride is inside a small mountain, where you'll find lot's of theming with some aliens, which according to this ride are responsible for the dissapearance of all the planes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle.
We then proceeded through Hollywood Boulevard into the rest of the park.
WB Movie World had a new coaster this year: Eraser. It's a clone (one of the many) of Six Flags Holland's Condor, which we had been on many many times, but is one of our favorites, so we entered the queue. After a 10 minute wait, we got in. Like Condor, this is a great experience. This one is a bit smoother at some points (some of the track elements are altered slightly, probably just for that). After Eraser we went on the Never Ending Story. It's a raft ride, which unlike most other raft rides isn't mainly about getting some water to splash over the sides of the raft, but is all about theming. It's obviously, a lot of work has gone into the Never Ending Story theming. You'll recognize a lot from the movie. A very good ride. We had never been on the studio tour before (skipped it last year), so it was the next thing we did. And afterwards, we regretted it very much. Acccording to us, this is the rotten apple and our advise is, skip the studio tour in WB Germany. It shows you just about nothing. Some of us may have had somewhat high expectations having been to Universal Studios Hollywood, where they've got a great studio tour (see trip report here). The one at WB is just a ride along 3 soundstages and some props from several WB movies set along the route. No driving though some soundstages with movie sets (which Universal does, not original sets but especially set up for the tour with some special effects) or driving in between outdoor sets (which Universal does) with fake buildings (which are actually used for lot's of movies and tv series). None of that. Hopefully the new Walt Disney Studios near Paris (right next door to Disneyland Paris) will do better (the photo's you can find on the internet indicate they'll be more like the Universal Studios one). We're planning to go to the Walt Disney Studios Paris in may, 2002.
Next ride was one of our favorites: Wild Wild West. A real nice woodie from the RollerCoaster Corporation of America (with Intamin trains). It has quite a few crossovers where you're view will be blocked, so half of the time you don't know where you're going. Quite intense. We're looking forward to the new coaster that RCCA (again with Intamin trains) are building in the new (spring 2002) WB park near Madrid (another park we'll be going to, may 2002).
WB has a very good stunt show, 'Police Academy stunt show', which
we went to next. We'd seen it before, but it's great fun. It has
some joking around as you can see in the picture on the right and
his has some very good stunts.
After the Police Academy show, we went to the Movie Magic show. It's all about special effects in movies. It consists of three parts. The first part shows you blue screen effects and the others foley (adding sound effects to movies) effects and miniature and lifesize models. Volunteers from the audience are asked for all three parts. This year we kept quietly somewhat to the back, as we were volunteered last year (no we didn't volunteer, the rest of our group volunteered us, just cause Ernst, Bart and me were wearing the same Superman the Ride (from Six Flags Holland) t-shirts and they needed 3 people for the foley part and the rest of our group kept pointing at us). If you've never seen how they do those movie effects, you should really go see this show (and if you have seen it before, it's still fun). By this time it was getting evening and we went to see some of the special Halloween shows. The first we went to, was the 'Horror trail'. It's a bit like Six Flags Holland's Dr Electron (also a Halloween attraction). This one is a lot better though. You walk through a sort of darkened maze (not really a maze since there is only one way through with no sidetracks and you can't get lost), where they've got actors walking around that scare you and all sorts of shock effects in the dark. Kinda fun, but an extremely long (1 - 2 hrs) queue, due to the very low capacity of this attraction. The next show was the 'Freak Show', also a special Halloween show. It was held in one of the big theaters of WB, which was entirely filled by the audience (we'd arrived somewhat early to make sure we got in). Some of the things we'd got to see, were somewhat gross (Halloween, you know, limbs getting cut off and such), but all were rather spectacular. Especially the acrobatics, they were very original too. We enjoyed this show very much.
While wandering around the park in wait of the hanging show just before closing time of the park, we walked past the kiddy coaster, Coyote and Roadrunner, and noticed there was only a 5 minute queue or so. We'd never been on this coaster (the only one we hadn't been on yet), so we got in. Of course it's only a kiddy coaster, so nothing spectacular, but well themed and fun (though not something you'd ride time and time again, unless you're a kid).
We then did some more nighttime sightseeing of the park. The attractions
got a lot of nice lighting, so it's quite a view at night.
It was then finally time for the hanging. The show is performed on the streets in the wild west section of the park, with the audience right around it. It's about someone who killed some people and get's hanged at the gallows in the middle of the audience. If you're ever around in october, be sure to wait till closing time for this show. A lot of people stayed till the end, so there was an enormous crowd going out of the park. As a result we got stuck at the parking lot. The first half hour, we just sat there in the car without being able to move forward (or backwards for that matter). After that it got somewhat better and we drove very slowly to the exit. We got home very late after a day of fun. |
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