Plopsaland de Panne 6/9/2024

[DoomPlague]

During my Europe trip I had a chance to make a short visit to this charming little family park near the Belgian coast. Of course, the park is only known for one thing to coaster/park enthusiasts: Ride to Happiness. One of the only two Mack Extreme Spinning coasters as of the moment and often considered a top tier ride.

I entered the park and noticed that it has a large entry plaza with your typical nice European building fronts. Even smaller parks in Europe go big on scenery. I made my way to Ride of Happiness which opened a bit after the park.

I made my way to Ride of Happiness which opened a bit after the park. Nice theming but not quite as elaborate as some of these other parks. Unfortunately, just like in France, they didn't care that my glasses had a strap and made me put them away. It's like glass straps aren't a thing in France and Belgium. RtH is a quality ride for sure but I think I expected too much. It didn't spin a lot on any of my rides. It's wild for sure and I still think the model would be a great fit for KI. I got 5 total rides in because it was a walk in before I left the park.

I moved on to Heidi the Ride, a family GCI woodie. It's not bad. I imagine its close to Invadr at BGW but nothing like Mystic Timbers. This whole area is themed to famous fictional girl Heidi (my family always liked the animated versions of Heidi). It's a bit odd but the park itself is odd. They often had kid-friendly Euro-pop music playing in various areas sometimes sang by strange characters. One of the areas was a farm with live farm animals and instead of a classic car ride, there was a tractor ride. Being from the American countryside, I found that humorous.

I also rode Anubis, a 2009 Gerstlauer launch coaster. It has single cars, but its not a euro fighter. The OTSR's were at least bearable and it was fun but its nothing to write home about except that the model is uncommon. Once again, I had to take off my glasses but other than that I noticed on this whole trip that these parks trust their guests wayyyy more than in the US. Stepping out of the car and exiting, there's a very narrow exit platform and where you turn to go down there stairs you are right next to the track with nothing there to stop you from falling. The park train wasn't running but where the train crosses the midway, there are no gates or anything to stop guests from walking where they want. I'll probably talk about this subject in my Phantasialand post.

I rode their dinosaur themed log flume, which was nicely themed. Also rode Super Splash which is a Mack...super splash. In Belgian and France, water rides seem to be made to avoid getting anyone wet.

Lastly, I rode a dark ride called Bos van Plop. It's a boat ride with weird gnome sized people living and working in their forest homes, some of which are made of mushrooms. To be honest, its the closest thing I've ever ridden to the Smurfs Enchanted Voyage. I suspect the fact that the Smurfs were created in Belgium has something to do with it.

Plopsaland is definitely more of a family park and RtH seems to be an attempt to bring in an older (teen and adult) crowd. It's seemingly the opposite problem that some of our seasonal parks like KI are facing. Some people think the one ride makes visiting this park worth going out of the way to see but I'm not sure. It's probably in my top 5 of the trip but only just barely. I will say, the small town of De Panne is great. These European towns always seem bigger than they are, by population, because they are more densely packed with a ton of local businesses and restaurants, beautiful town plazas, etc. De Panne also has a nice beachfront and boardwalk area.

[johnjniehaus]

I've always kinda thought RTH is what put this park on the map for enthusiasts and vacationers. Definitely seems more like a family park from anything I've ever read or watched on the park. The dark ride does sound pretty cool... your description reminded me of Ye Old Mill at Rye Playland though I'm not sure if that would be an accurate comparison.