I'm not the sort of person who believes everything happens for a reason, but when it comes to Plopsaland de Panne things worked out just about right. Originally, I was set to visit this park for the first time way back in March of 2021 as part of a drive down to Disneyland Paris. At that point, Ride to Happiness had been announced and - to my shame - elicited not much more than a shrug from me. Of course, no one needs me to explain why it took so long to finally get to the park, but get there I did in May of 2022. By then I had a very different opinion of Ride to Happiness, after months of nothing less than RTH mania throughout the UK community.
My first impressions of this park were so strong. Although the entrance signage was a bit tacky in my opinion, the design of the buildings around, and directly beyond it was truly stunning. The first area you step in to is covered in a way that evokes Tokyo Disneyland's World Bazaar, whilst the main plaza of Plopsaland would be entirely at home in the up-market district of any major European city. I don't know what I'd expected from a theme park dedicated to Belgian children's television but it sure wasn't this.
Given that we were at a park targeted predominantly at the family market, we decided to let our heads overrule our hearts and make the sensible choice for the first ride of the day - Heidi The Ride.
Blimey, I'm glad we did. One train ops are bad enough on any coaster, but Heidi has the shortest trains I've ever seen on a wooden coaster. As we walked into the station, the train actually made me feel slightly uneasy. Where was the rest of it? With a maximum of 12 people on every train sent, even at rope-drop, we had a moderate wait for one of the strangest wooden coasters I've yet to experience. Heidi is an out-and-back coaster with a layout clearly designed for airtime and yet it delivered... none. It was also ludicrously smooth. Maybe it was only riding once at the start of the day, but this just didn't really do much for me. It was enjoyable, but nothing I'd rush back to ride given the conspicuous lack of everything that makes a coaster of this type fun. As a ride to introduce kids to wooden coasters, however, its smoothness and gentility most likely make for a great starter coaster.
Nestled next to Heidi in the small Swiss-themed area (albeit with a dragon's castle and dinosaurs visible, but I'm not here to criticise sight-lines) is also the most adorable faux-wooden kids carousel. Look at those roosters! The pig!
With both K3 rollerskater and #LikeMe coasters closed, it was time to forget the kiddie creds and head on over to the main event. I am of course talking about The Ride to Happiness by Tomorrowland (RTH). RTH is the second Mack Xtreme Spinning coaster to be built and the first in Europe, and as I mentioned, wasn't a ride that immediately caught my interest. In short, I just thought it would be horrid. Spinning whilst inverting and launching? One sick bag, please!
How wrong I was. I'm not going to say that RTH didn't leave me with any feathers ruffled, I've nothing but awe and respect for the people out here lapping this thing. I sure couldn't! But instead of my expected blur of nauseating intensity, this coaster was a disorientating, exhilarating joy. That's not to say it wasn't intense, holy cow can it be intense, particularly in the front car. This is the first coaster since my first ride on Nemesis, way back in 2013 that has left me shaking and gripping onto the handrail on my way out. But in my four rides, I never felt it was too much for me. The first few moments have to be some of my favourites on a coaster, crawling out of the station and straight into that insane heartline roll, before being absolutely yeeted upwards, ready for a frankly ridiculous first drop. And that, my friends, is as much as I can describe the layout because at no other point did I have any idea where I was or what was happening. I know I'm not alone in saying that I didn't even know I'd done a loop. What I can say, however, is that never before have I been so desperate to be stapled by a restraint. The restraints themselves are really impressive, with an automatic lowering system that at first sets the restraint quite tightly on you and then - just as you are about to roll out the station - eases up to give you some room. The room may not be much, but it's enough to make you feel so free that every inversion feels like death is but a moment away. For anyone worrying about the spinning, you'll be okay! At no point on any of my rides did I experience wild-mouse-style mad spins, it's more rotation than spin and it's bloody brilliant. What an absolutely incredible ride.
On top of the coaster itself, the small land that RTH sits in is gorgeous. Naturalistic design is fused with steampunk style to create an area that is almost deceiving in its serenity when compared to the madness of the coaster that calls it home. It's clear that Plopsaland has understood what the construction of such an intense thrill ride in their predominantly family theme park means, with a very large seating area for non-riders located adjacent to the ride and protected from the elements with a large themed canopy. I can confirm this is also a very good place to collapse after your first ride! The tent-like style also gave me big festival vibes, linking back to the ride's Tomorrowland theming.
Next up was Anubis. Now, I'd heard a thing or two about Anubis before riding it. There'd been a lot of comments about the power of its launch flying around on twitter. So I went into this expecting its launch to be relatively snappy, but holy hell that thing does not mess around! From the station, the train rolls out, rounds a corner and heads straight toward a short launch section. I'm still trying to figure out how such a short launch managed the power it did, but fair play Gerst. You did good! Once again, you are absolutely yeeted up that track! Though the launch is undoubtedly the highlight, the rest of the ride is a lot of fun too. I had two rides on Anubis in total and will say to try and sit in the front of the car if possible, as though I was taken aback by how smooth my first front-row ride was, there was a noticeable rattle on riding in the back. Still perfectly manageable though! Plus, the show building (below) is nothing short of spectacular.
Speaking of show buildings, how awesome is this one for the Dragon powered coaster? I didn't think too much of the coaster itself, well it did pick up on the second lap to be fair but was still fairly dull - it's a family powered coaster yano - but the building and station? *chefs kiss*
Plops also went completely bananas when it came to theming their log flume. This thing is certifiably insane. Not only does it feature enormous dinosaur statues - some of which spit water at you - but smoke pours from the volcanos and the top of the volcano even features smoking lava and a bit of a light show. Absolute top-tier stuff. The water was proper grim though.
As well as loads of kids rides spread around the park, there's also an entire kids land indoors themed to Maya the Bee and it is ridiculously charming. First, it should be obligatory for all theme parks in the United Kingdom to have a large indoor land, especially one as lovely as this. Every ride in here had beautiful ride vehicles which even as an adult just made me want to hop straight on and swirl around in a flower, or a log. The only issue I had was that they seemed to be operating the rides based on demand, with a couple of operators switching between rides. As an adult, standing there until a crowd of kids built up around me so I could go on the ride was not the one and so I didn't get to experience anything here. *insert heartbreak emoji*
The only truly negative thing I have to say about Plopsaland is the pricing of just about everything once you're inside the park. Here you can expect to pay 5€ for any soft drink (including water), which as one of my friends said is like they're buying their stock from a Disney park and then adding their mark-up. Wild stuff. One of my friends dropped an absolutely mad 4.50€ on a regular size packet of crisps.
From a vegetarian perspective, I'd heard from friends who had visited the park a week or so before us that meat-free options were hard to come by. After scouring the park, we found one location that sold a veggie burger (but was closed) and then Mr Spaghetti in the main square. Mr Spaghetti offered large meals on actual plates which made the pricing feel less egregious. Here I ordered the 'vegetarische wok' at 15.99€ along with a latte for 3.75€. I wouldn't usually have a hot drink with lunch, but it was a bit cheaper than a diet coke. To their credit, the latte was very nice, albeit served in a glass so it burned my hands? Sadly, I cannot say the same for the vegetarische wok. You know that taste that canned food always seems to have? It tasted very much like that. The carrots were of the soggy school dinner variety and the meal also featured what I very much hope was fake meat. It was very life-like which led me to ask at the counter whether it was truly vegetarian, where I was assured it was tofu. It was clearly not, but I'll just put that down to a language barrier. Next time I'm just getting a waffle.
One thing that was very reasonably priced IMO was the Dunkin' Doughnuts stand, something I was very excited to see in the park! Located near the farm area, Dunkin' had a great selection including a speciality Plopsaland doughnut for 3.50€ - and it was delicious!
The merchandise too left quite a lot to be desired. Though there was a lot of Tomorrowland merchandise available, most was festival merch with the range actually featuring The Ride to Happiness both minimal and very expensive (40€ for quite a basic printed t-shirt). The vast majority of other merchandise available was generic toy-store fare related to the characters featured at the park. I always feel a little sad to come away from a new park with nothing, but I just couldn't find anything for sale that I considered worthwhile.
Despite that, I can't recommend a visit to Plopsaland enough. It's a park packed with personality and charm, alongside some truly excellent rides including one of the greatest - and definitely most unique - coasters I've experienced. Personally, I'm gutted I never got around to riding #LikeMe from everything I've seen about the queue line so I'll definitely be back, I just might bring a packed lunch.
Speak again soon,
Claire
x p.s. beware the bumba