2004
Coaster Trips: 2004: Parc Asterix
Friday August 27th
The joys of travel
Although it is typically a good idea to leave for the airport two hours before your flight at minimum, I decided to cut this back a little today for my Air France flight from Dublin to Paris CDG. In the end, I arrived at the airport with ninety minutes to spare, which I assumed would be plenty. I need not have worried - I experienced the fastest check in I've ever seen, with a one person wait in front of me. Total time expended? Five minutes, leaving me with eighty five minutes to kill in the airport at 5:15am. D'oh!
Dublin Airport has free wireless Internet access for laptop users, so after a quick bite to eat I sat down at the gate and passed the time browsing the web. The flight was almost completely boarded ten minutes before the scheduled departure time, aside from five stray passengers. They finally showed up twenty minutes late, and our flight took off just after 7:00am. There seems to be a rule that every flight I book to start a coaster trip has to get stuck in a holding pattern over the destination airport for at least half an hour. Today was no exception, with us circling Charles de Gaulle for just under 40 minutes. When we finally landed, it was in a back corner of the airport with a shuttle bus to the terminal, a drive which took ten minutes. Here was me thinking that Air France would have priority at a French airport, but what do I know?
On landing, I switched on my mobile phone and immediately received a text message from George asking where I was. I'd arranged to meet him at 9:30am, and courtesy of Air France I didn't make it to the terminal until 10:00am, let alone clear customs. At any rate, I finally cleared and began walking from terminal 2F, where I had landed, to terminal 2C, where George was renting our car. There is a pedestrian route, with moving walkways to get you to where you are trying to go. I was walking quickly to make up for lost time, and arrived at the entrance to terminal 2C almost immediately. However, it was roped off, with a number of irate passengers hanging around with suitcases. There was no indication of an alternative route, and the security guard yapping in excited French wasn't a lot of help. I back-pedalled over to terminal 2D with the hope of crossing the road to 2C, but that was roped off too. What was going on here?
In the mean while, George had come to look for me, and was telling me he was in 2C, which I apparently could not reach. I finally gave up and got on a shuttle bus, which hopefully could reach the non roped off section of 2C. The bus pulled away from the terminal, drove about ten metres, and stopped. One of the passengers made some enquiries and was able to tell me in English what had been going on; there had been a bomb scare in the area of 2C and 2D, resulting in the area being evacuated. The bus wasn't allowed to enter. About fifteen minutes later, the bus started moving again and I finally met up with George, about ninety minutes after originally planned.
We went straight to the car rental, and a few minutes later we were trying to get out of Charles de Gaulle in our Opel Meriva (1.6 litre/manual). This was to be our first experience of French signposts, which don't seem to say the road number very often; just the destination. At any rate, we finally started heading north towards Parc Saint Paul. The plan for the day was to hit both Parc Saint Paul and Mer de Sable. However, we took a wrong turning and ended up at Parc Asterix by mistake. This was originally planned for day three, but we decided since we were there, and since it was already 12:00pm, we decided to stay there. Parc Saint Paul and Mer de Sable would have to wait.
Parc Asterix
I had prepaid for some Parc Asterix tickets on the Internet. Collecting these was very easy; it was simply a matter of showing some photo ID. I showed my eircom ID, which has quite possibly the worst photograph ever taken of me, but it was the first convenient card in my wallet and it was accepted. I wonder if they've seen one of those before, though I think it somewhat improbable.
Our first coaster of the day was the legendary Goudurix (#337). This one is legendary for all the wrong reasons; it is not unheard of for one coaster club member to say something like "Your penance shall be fifty rides on Goudurix.". This is, I'm sorry to say, not without reason. However, it is not nearly as bad as some of the Arrow-built looping coasters i have been on. It has a few violently jarring bumps, but it has extra padding (which appears to have been recently added) on the headrests. This absorbs a lot of the more violent moments, making what might otherwise have been a totally intolerable coaster into something which can at least be ridden once in a day without pain. One ride was quite enough, though! On the plus side, the coaster is situated over the side of a lake making for some excellent photographs.
Our next ride was on Vol d'Icare (#338), a nicely themed Zierer family coaster. This had a surprisingly long queue for a ride of this size, but it was not due to lack of effort by the staff who were managing dispatches as fast as reasonably possible. George and I were instructed to share one row in the pursuit of this efficiency; this was a tight fit but not completely impossible!
Tonnerre de Zeus (#339) was without doubt the coaster I had been looking forward to most in Parc Asterix. Built by CCI in 1997, it was for a while ranked as the best wooden coaster in the world.
The queue begins beside a huge statue of Zeus holding a thunder bolt. As you walk underneath the statue, you cannot help but notice the brightly coloured spotted underwear the statue is wearing. It's certainly an odd touch, and reflective of a slightly quirkly sense of humour among the designers.
I couldn't help but be slightly underwhelmed by our first circuit, taken in the front seat. The coaster wasn't bad by any means, but it was absolutely impossible for me to explain why this had once been considered a top ten coaster. I figured it'd be worth trying again later if time permitted.
Although it had the longest wait of the day, at just over three quarters of an hour, we both enjoyed Trace du Hourra (#340). Like all the other Mack Bobsleds, it was running five trains. Uniquely, though, it is painted a dark purple; all the other Mack bobsleds in existence are white. Though not the longest coaster in the park in terms of track length, the actual ride time is the longest, at two minutes thirty five seconds. Many coasters these days seem to have a ride time of around a minute, so it is nice to find longer ones from time to time.
The obligatory ride on Périférix (#341), a Zierer Medium Tivoli and the last family sized coaster in the park, brought us to 4:00pm.
After a twenty minute wait (!) for a hot dog, mostly brought upon by the fact that the single overworked staff member forgot about us, we went back to Tonnerre de Zeus for a back row circuit. By this stage of the day the coaster had well and truly warmed up, and the back seat was absolutely wild, easily deserving of a top ten coaster ranking. Like so many CCI rides, this one only seems to come alive and the end of a day, but it was most definitely well worth it and has been catapulted up into my top ten wooden coasters.
Having read so much about it, I insisted we go through the Transdemonium dark ride. This is quite an unusual example of the genre, with the vehicles constantly changing speed. Some of the effects are very good, and the ride's finale, a coaster style drop, was a nice touch.
On the way out we took a single circuit on the park's kiddie coaster, Ronde des Rondins (#342). This marks my third Zierer Small Tivoli. It's a little silly for two adults to get on board one of these coasters with no children, but small Tivolis are not in fact the smallest coasters I have been on!
We left the park at 6:45pm with George driving. I took the time to write my trip report while simultaneously following directions. The timing was absolutely perfect; I had only just finished writing as we approached our hostel. Some minor hilarity ensued as we checked in, but nonetheless we were finished and ready to go find some dinner at 8:00pm. Tomorrow will be the most hectic day of the trip with two parks and a lot of driving planned, so hopefully we'll be able to sort out a quick meal before having an early night.