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Fishflesh

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have you ever been to the best theme park in the world?

 

i don't think so!

 

the best theme park in the world is in the netherlands

 

and its name is Efteling

 

 

a mian theme from 1 of the many atractions

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~gniletfe/snd/VillaVoltaByGniletfe.mp3 (very bad qwality sound)

 

if have been to many

 

theme parks

 

but diseny or six flags is just crap

 

compared to this dutch theme park

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Originally posted by NL_Ackbar

have you ever been to the best theme park in the world?

 

i don't think so!

actually ive been there :xp: but i dont know why u post about a DUTCH theme park which most of the ppl in here havent heared about.

 

btw, young david check ur pm box ;)

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amarika is cool

 

but i am not talking about contunends

 

especialy universal studios tour

whit the terminator show

and jurrasic park

 

but the efteling is just a dream com true

compared to universal studios

 

efteling has been awarded whit aplash award

 

for the best theme park in the world

 

Review of the Efteling (I did not wrote this clefo)

 

 

I arrived at Amsterdam airport around 8am and went straight to

the train station. There we bought tickets to Tilburg in the south of the

country, the closest station to our first park. We traveled everywhere we

wanted to go in Europe by train and always rode in first class. The trains

in Europe go everywhere and there were buses from the train station to

EVERY park we visited. Every single train schedule for ALL of Europe can

be found easily on the internet. A couple of the parks were actually

within walking distance of the train station. Try doing that in America.

 

We decided to skip the slower public transportation and take a cab to the

first amusement park of the trip, Efteling (in The Netherlands). Efteling

is a park very highly regarded by the well-traveled enthusiasts who had

been there. Many people even consider it to be the most beautiful park in

the world. After visiting the park for myself, I have to agree - As high

as my expectations for the park were, it still exceeded them. Efteling has

also won awards in the industry for being the greatest theme park in the

world. It was gorgeously and lushly landscaped with tons of trees, fields

of green and narrow winding paths, with lots of little nooks and crannies

to explore. But the most impressive feature of the park was all the flowers.

The tulips were absolutely stunning in the most brilliant shades of red,

orange, blue, white, purple, etc. There were even some tulips with two

colors like dazzling orange-yellow, red-yellow or red-white combinations.

I took four rolls of film in the park and most of them were of the flowers

(and I could have taken more). As great as the landscaping was, so were many

of the rides.

 

We arrived at Efteling on a beautiful sunny Friday afternoon about noontime

and stayed until they closed at 6 pm. Admission was only +/- 17. The longest

line we encountered was about 20 minutes.

 

Let's start with the coasters: The first one we rode was called Bob. It

was an Intamin bobsled coaster, but taller, longer and different than the

standard model. Next we rode Pegasus, an Intamin junior woodie about 50

feet tall and built over a lake. The unusual thing about this coaster

was that it had a unique type of wheel that was designed to be very quiet.

The coaster was even more silent than a normal steel coaster and it is very

unusual to see a woodie in action without all the noises associated with

it. It was a good and peppy little ride. Next came a Vekoma double loop

corkscrew coaster called Python. The ride was rough and very aggressive,

even more than your normal Vekoma ride. The helix at the end (the unique

touch on the ride) was full of strong lateral forces.

 

The final coaster of the park was also the newest one. Built last year

by the Dutch firm Vekoma, it was an indoor coaster called Vogel Rok. The

storyline involved some kind of mythical bird and the entrance featured a

gigantic bird that you walked underneath to enter the ride. The queue

line was enormous and went through several rooms, but we only had to wait

about 20 minutes to ride. The wait ended up being the longest of the whole

trip. The ride vehicles had several on-board speakers with a unique

soundtrack

synchronized to the ride. The ride featured lots of curving drops and

turns, all in the dark, over a unique ride layout. Overall, the ride was

much better than I expected.

 

Now, onto the other rides: ALL of the rides and attractions at Efteling

are Disney quality or most times even better. Fata Morgana was a wonderful 10 minute dark

ride very similar to Disney's famous Pirates of the Carribean, except

that it had a Moorish theme (with Arabs instead of Pirates). To start off,

the ride was housed in a huge building with gold, blue and yellow onion

domes

on top. The building/castle looks very impressive from across the lake on

which it sits. The queue line inside is one of the best looking and

coolest I have ever seen: an elevated wooden walkway above the station,

with carved wooden motifs every few feet. The loading platform is a huge

rotating turntable and the boats hold about 15 people, but we had a whole

boat to ourselves that day as there was no line for this incredible

attraction.

 

The ride was very elaborate and had over 15 rooms, most of which were

separated by a fancy curtain or themed door that opened to admit each boat

and then closed behind you so your craft was alone in every scene. The

park claims the ride contained 140 animatronic figures. The cast of

characters includes camels, tigers, donkeys, magicians, belly dancers and

lots of Arabs. The ride was so good that we decided to stay in our boat

and ride again. We noticed many more details during our second and

third rides.

 

Every attraction at Efteling had its own original soundtrack, many of them

with a grand orchestral scores. The park offers a compact disc of the

music and I bought one. It is a wonderful souvenir of the park and upon

my first listening at home, I was flooded with warm memories of the park.

 

Fata Morgana was the second ride we rode in the park and the first one

that made me realize that this park was truly something special. In fact,

over and over again that day, I was blown away by this park, its landscaping

and its themed rides. I should also note here that, quite frankly, I had

become very jaded over the last few years after having visited over 175

amusement parks around the world and it was so refreshing to experience a

park of this caliber and get my spirits lifted once again like they hadn't

been lifted by a theme park in years. Efteling reminded me of my first

trip to Epcot Center at Walt Disney World in Florida (in 1994), where I

was blown away by all the theming and the scope and length of the rides. It

had been over five years since I was so impressed by a theme park.

 

Droomvlucht was another amazing 10 minute dark ride. It is a suspended

dark ride: the vehicle is suspended below an overhead track (like

Disney's Peter Pan). This type of system allowed the car to fly over

gigantic scenes as the riders looked at the elaborate theming all around and

below them. The ride's name translates as Dream Vehicle and it has some

dreamy rooms and effects with fairies and trolls. The room that took us

totally by surprise was an enormous jungle room in which the ride actually

became like a coaster and spiraled down a triple helix, propelled

completely by gravity. We got off the ride and couldn't believe it, so we

immediately rode again.

 

There was also another elaborate 10 minute dark ride called Carnival

Festival. It was a little like Disney's Small World with the different

figures from different countries spinning around (the park claimed there

were 270 characters). It was quite good. Then we walked to a haunted

castle called Spookslot that held a multimedia show set to music with many

animatronic figures coming to life in an animated graveyard. It was also

about 10 minutes long and started with a single figure playing fiddle and

gradually more and more things started moving until at least 50 things

were going on and you could not watch all of them.

 

The very unusual observation tower called Pagoda was 50 meters tall (165

feet) and came with an incredible view of the park. What makes it unique

is that the tower is attached to a pivoting arm that raised the tower.

When it reaches the top, it spins very slowly all the way around so that

every passenger could see in every direction. We also rode a relaxing

scenic boat ride called Gondoletta that slowly floated around on a big lake.

Around every corner, there another gorgeous bunch of brightly colored

tulips.

 

Another attraction that took us by surprise was a ride built by Vekoma

called Villa Volta. It was an elaborately themed -magic spinning room.

After two pre-shows, we entered a fancy room and sat down on a bench and a

lap bar was lowered. I knew what was going to happen next, but Leslie

had no idea. The lights dimmed in the room and the music started. This

attraction had the best soundtrack of an ride in the park. The benches

remained stationary and the room began to slowly rock back and forth. As

the music peaked, the room began to spin and completely rotated around the

riders in a head over heels fashion. Girls screamed and we laughed our

heads off as the optical illusion was breathtaking. Although you were

sitting still and the room was rotating, your brain was tricked into

thinking that YOU were being flipped upside down. It was a

TOTAL blast and one of the best non-coaster rides either of us had ever

experienced.

 

The park had many other rides that we did not have time to experience like

a hedge maze, pirate ship, rapids ride, antique cars, carousel, train (that

was not working), and a very cute tea cup ride themed like kettles with

flames painted on the bottom that was called Monsieur Cannibale. There

were also many dioramas, sculptures, carvings, fountains, themed exhibits

and colorful buildings scattered throughout the park. It was truly an

enchanting place and the BEST theme park I have ever visited.

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Originally posted by STTCT

sounds a lot like a copy cat of the american themeparks :p

 

this park started way before any theme parks

and the last thing it wil do is copy

 

and it stared arount 1950 as a fairy tail park

 

ask any dutch forum member

 

the guy in the review has been to 170 park

and he finds the efteling the best

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