Until Kondaa opened, if you'd asked me about Walibi Belgium I wouldn't have been able to offer much beyond 'it's not the one with the RMC'. In fact, on arriving at the park the only info I really had about the park was scraped from a few vlogs I'd watched the days before (thank you Scare Track and Top Thrill Tourists) and mostly consisted of 'Kondaa warms up' and 'Psyke Underground's soundtrack slaps'. So what an absolute delight it was to get to explore and discover this park. I realised when I tried to write a summary tweet at the end of the day, that throughout our day the pleasant surprises had been so numerous that I simply didn't have enough characters. I don't think a single ride let me down.
(Surprisingly Great) Dark Rides
Hold up, that may have been a lie. There was one attraction that disappointed me: Le Palais du Genie. Le Palais was the first attraction in a very long time that I've walked into with no idea whatsoever as to what it was. The attraction sign had very little detail and there was no way to tell from the outside. So in we walked, ready to experience whatever the eponymous genie had to offer. On entry, we passed a sign on the door reading 'Show Every 10 Minutes' which led me to believe it was a performance of some kind, maybe with animatronics? On entering the room, guests were standing surrounding a large lamp in the middle of the room and I began to think this might be an effects show akin to the old Armageddon attraction (RIP) at Walt Disney Studios Park. Then as the lights dimmed, a projection of a genie appeared on the ceiling and an animatronic monkey began to move. For several minutes, the show appeared to be just an animatronic monkey and a projection talking (in French) to each other. I loved it. Yes Walibi, give me your utterly ridiculous attraction where a picture of a genie shouts at an animatronic monkey in a smoky room! It turned out - to most people's delight I'm sure - to be just a pre-show for a Vekoma Madhouse. The madhouse itself was fun, although left me a little more nauseous than our UK ones tend to, and was objectively a far better attraction than a silly little show. I'm just a sucker for the weird stuff.
Another attraction we knew absolutely nothing about on arrival was 'Challenge of Tutankhamon'. The 'Challenge' in the title suggested a shooting dark ride, but we knew the park already had Popcorn Revenge - a ride we knew was interactive in some way - so we hopped curiously into the queue. Whilst the queue was largely cattle pen, there were two gorgeous scenes with animatronics at either end of the building, the first suggestion we were in for something good. It became clear pretty soon after that the ride was indeed a shooter, but one that utilised trackless vehicles - impressive! Not nearly as impressive however as the ride itself. Holy cow, what a dark ride! The entire ride consisted of elaborate physical sets, with wind and smoke effects used liberally. There was one scene in particular that featured enormous scarab beetles flying through the air in a dark room whilst very strong wind battered you that left me grinning from ear to ear. As a shooter, it wasn't great. I struggled to get much response from the targets. I mean sure, it failed the primary objective of a shooting ride, but with the gun holstered it was a dark ride far beyond the scope of a park at this level. Absolutely beautiful.
The final dark ride on offer at Walibi was Popcorn Revenge. Finally, a ride I knew something about. Even if that something was only the fun posters in the queue line. For example this spoof of a cinematic masterpiece:
The queue was gorgeously themed, with the idea being that we were in a South Asian cinema (we were in the park's 'Karma World' after all) named the Grand Maharajah. There were little details everywhere, again offering much more detail than I expected from this park. One thing that wasn't clear, however, was how exactly the ride would work. There were explanatory videos and pictures but they all seemed to involve people holding a box of popcorn and honestly left me more confused than before. In the end - as with every shooter - it just ended up being a case of shooting at things until you start getting points. But what a fun ride this was! Another trackless system, this one had you swirling around a cinema ducking into various screens which all had different genres of movies playing for you to shoot at. Originally I wondered why on earth this park had two different trackless shooters, but the two rides complement each other so well. Popcorn is a really fun screen-based attraction that really utilizes the trackless technology in swirling you around the cinema, whilst Tutankhamon is a classic physical dark ride that doesn't use the trackless quite as gracefully, instead mostly rotating you to face all the beautiful set. Just a brilliant pair of attractions!
(Two Brilliant) Water Rides
The park has three water rides, with an additional rapids ride that we did not get time to experience. However, the two rides we did try were excellent.
Flash Back is the park's traditional log flume and is a lot of fun. The ride features several different drops (in varying directions) as well as a brilliantly themed station and a lift hill reminiscent of Space Mountain. The operations were also great, with a constant stream of boats moving non-stop through the station.
Then there's Pulsar. One of four currently operating Mack Power Splash's, Pulsar was one of those rides that I absolutely had to do just because of how ridiculous it looked. However, the ride stayed down all morning with no sign of life, with my hopes of a 'the water rides open in the afternoon' situation being dashed when the ride still hadn't opened come 2 pm. By this point I'd just accepted that I wouldn't be able to ride until we were casually walking through the park and saw a flash of blue in the sky - it was alive!
Having been down all day, and running just one boat, the ride was posting a sizable wait. Thankfully, we had a few emergency Speedy passes (more on that later) and were able to hop on pretty quickly. I'm so glad we were able to ride this thing because it became one of my favourite rides in the park! The launches pack far more of a punch than you'd expect, and the angle of the drops makes them a heck of a lot of fun! A really, really fun ride.
Speaking of coasters...
Kondaa
As the entire reason we made a trip to this park, Kondaa I'm happy to say was more than worth the drive. What a coaster. I did start to worry after our first ride as although it was fun, there was no way that it lived up to the extreme hype I'd heard surrounding the ride. For although that first ride was packed with gentle, beautiful airtime there just wasn't really anything to it in terms of force or speed. But, we'd heard that it warmed up well so held out on forming any opinions. I held out on even tweeting anything about the ride, as I knew my opinion may change and make me regret my spicy takes. Change it did. Holy hell, I've never known a ride's experience to alter so dramatically throughout the day. With each ride we took, Kondaa became more and more insane. By our final ride of the day mid-afternoon, what had been a gentle giant became a fearsome beast. Whilst almost the whole ride offers insane airtime, I have to give a shoutout for the outward banked airtime hill. Definitely in my top five elements ever!
Whilst Kondaa is without a doubt the headline attraction in the park, another coaster here really surprised me and had me falling head over heels in love. A little family coaster called Calamity Mine.
Calamity Mine is much your usual big-thunder-little-budget coaster, it's a Vekoma mine train, it's themed to be a mine train etc. etc. However, for a park of this size, the theming on it is spectacular. The ride features some fabulous rock work, a waterfall which the train speeds behind (!) and exploding geysers! My favourite feature of all though was the synchronised adjacent lift hills. The ride features two lift hills and the speed is controlled in such a way that two trains ascend both lift hills at the same time. This is the sort of thing that makes my little nerd heart soar. Beautiful
The rest of the coasters around the park were a lot of fun too! Tiki-Waka is another super-fun Gerst Bobsled that's integrated so well into its land, particularly in the way it interacts with a play area, and has a glorious station. Psyke Underground is a Schwartzkopf Shuttle Loop that may not pack as much of a punch as Montezooma's Revenge but makes up for it in experience, with lights and pounding music turning a simple coaster into a party. Finally, Loup-Garou was... not as horrifically rough as it could have been. It is however bizarrely wobbly, I just felt myself rattling from side to side throughout the entire ride. Honestly, who let Vekoma make a woodie? Very much a one-and-done for me. Also, the Loup-Garou station was the only place in the park that seemed to be blasting out pop music. Dragging your shaken, beaten body out of a werewolf-themed coaster to the tune of Panic! at the Disco's High Hopes is really... really something.
I have to give a big shout-out to Walibi for offering an amazing vegan burger, one of the tastiest veggie options I've had in a park and pretty reasonably priced! It was a fake meat variety - though I'm not sure of the brand - and was overflowing with sauce, pickles and crispy onion pieces. Perfection. We grabbed a box of chips as a lunchtime stop-gap and picked up proper dinner at about 4 pm and had no trouble whatsoever getting food, though I've heard that can be an issue here so off-peak may be the way to go.
I did also come close to breaking 6 years of vegetarianism to try whatever the fuck this sandwich is.
Finally, merch was a bit of a mixed bag throughout the park although they did have some great ride-specific stuff! The Loup-Garou merch especially was really cool, but I just didn't love the ride enough to bring it home. Sadly a lot of the shirts also featured your standard 'I survived' or 'Thill Seeker!' slogan which personally I try to avoid.
In the end, I came home with a Kondaa cereal bowl, which was large, really well made and cost 12.90€. If I had any room in my house the plush and resin Kondaa's would have been coming home with me too though!
The only real issue we encountered on the day was early ride closure. This is a park that seems to aim to close its queue lines early enough to have the final riders through by park close. However, even making sure you're at the rides before this time doesn't guarantee you'll get on. We arrived at the Kondaa queue line at 17:30 to find it closed, with a 20 minute posted wait and a 18:00 park close. A pretty bitter end to a great day, though we did manage to ride Calamity Mine again which made up for things a little bit at least. Honestly, if parks want to operate with this policy they definitely need to make it clear to the guests.
During our visit, also utilised the 'Speedy' system. It was our first visit and a Saturday so we arrived at the park armed with 3 Speedys each at a cost of 5€ per speedy pass. These passes were single-use and valid on pretty much any attraction (there's a (long) list on the tickets themselves) except for Kondaa. We ended up using them on: Tiki-Waka (55-minute standby, waited 15-20), Pulsar (40-minute standby, waited 5-10) and Loup-Garou (40-minute standby, walk-on). For the price paid, it felt like we got good value although it definitely varies by ride. Tiki-Waka's capacity is so limited that in order to keep the standby line moving they had to leave quite a long period in between loading Speedy guests, whereas we didn't see this issue with the others. When we boarded there was a significant line of Speedy guests behind us who would most likely be waiting far longer than we did. I was especially grateful to have them for Pulsar, as the ride was down until about mid-afternoon so not only did it immediately draw a wait, but I felt the pressure to try and get on the ride as soon as possible, should it go down again.
Overall I had a fantastic first visit to Walibi Belgium. The whole park was filled with rides that went above and beyond expectations, as well as beautifully themed lands and lovely landscaping. It's truly incredible how the team here have managed to recover from the horrific flooding of a year or so ago. You'd never even know it had happened.
Oh, and fuck this octopus (this ride made me so, so nauseous).
Speak again soon,
Claire
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