NOTE: If you can’t see the movies below (that is – there are a bunch of open areas with red X’s) it’s probably not your fault but chances are not nil that you are using Internet Explorer. I noticed it on my company laptop and I’m still tracing the problem. For some odd reason other YouTube embedded movies show up fine but the ones in this post are apparently on a holiday…
After spending the Friday in Walibi World we decided to return to Movie Park Germany the next day to check up on the progress of the new Santa Monica Pier area. We arrived at ten o’clock and to our horror found an enormous line of people waiting for the “special” ticket booth.
Now, my brother and I have season passes so normally we would be able to walk straight past that booth and use our cards to get through the stop gates beyond. Unfortunately though MPG is having troubles with the software since the beginning of this season so we still don’t have the actual cards yet and this means that every time we visit we have to join the queue and get a set of normal day tickets with our season pass receipts
This day there was a suspiciously large quantity of people holding gutscheins (vouchers) and somehow this immediately annoyed me but I’m not sure why. A good twenty minutes later we finally had our tickets and right after we entered the park we encountered the dixie land band for the first time. These guys are great!
The band left toward Nickland and explored the main street. As we walked past the season pass station we noticed a sign of hope telling us it would open between two and four. Will we finally get our precious season passes today? Knowing MPG, probably not but that doesn’t matter.
We ventured a little further and saw Marilyn again… Oh Marilyn… This time she was even more kind to us than last time. Not even fifteen minutes in the park yet and it already turned out to be a great day.
After Marilyn left we lingered on the central square for some time and observing the flow of people entering the park I noticed quite a few groups dressed in the same outfits and although I noticed it I didn’t think much of it. We had another drink and then continued deeper into the park, towards the Bandit.
Upon entering the Old West we suddenly noticed that a normally closed area – Studio 7 – was now open. Naturally we went investigating and quickly found out that there was some kind of dance event thingy going on inside. Before we checked that out though we took the opportunity too shoot some pictures and movie of The Bandit as you normally don’t get to see it from that angle.
TODO: Insert movie 0c7
We lingered a while in Studio 7, checking out the event and giving it our stamp of approval and decided to return later to check out some of the groups in the older pools. Turned out that the all the people holding those vouchers at the entrance were somehow part of the event and upon realizing that I was immediately ashamed of my annoyance because those events are a great thing, very well executed and they breathe a lot of life into the park (especially on such a nice day) and I will definitely be checking the MPG calendar for more.
After spending some time in the Old West my brother suggested to go to the Santa Monica Pier build site to check out the progress. The pier should open sometime later in May but when we approached the area we were astounded that we could already explore the area. And not only that, some of the new rides and facilities were already open!
Surprised and excited we made our way to the pier to check it out. After giving some of the lesser rides, scenery and facilities some proper attention there was only one question left: what about the disco coaster? Quickly we walked towards this strange looking roller coaster and to our increasing excitement and joy found that there was a bunch of people busy working on it. For us this only meant two things: they plan to get it running today and we will be able to experience the very first public ride!
TODO: Insert movie 0cb
After realizing that there was a very strong possibility of the disco opening that day we ended up there waiting for it for almost two hours but it was worth it. We were really able to see it coming alive.
Just as my brother went away to get us some drinks the engineers who had been working on it all morning entered the ride and this meant that it would not be long anymore before it would actually open to the public. I scrambled to tape it and my brother shows a good representation of our excitement when he returned from disposing the empty bottles and noticed the engineers on the ride.
We made our way to the ride entrance realizing that this was a unique chance to be one of the first people on a new ride. Some more people scrambled to the entrance hoping that it would open soon and our hopes were soon confirmed by a nice MPG staff member who was kind enough to inform us that the ride would indeed open very soon. After some careful nudging we were able to be part of the first batch of people entering the ride and due to luck more than wisdom we were able to score some of the best seats in the house – directly above the track.
The ride itself is a unique experience and it is a thing of beauty when you see it in action. The combination of free fall, rotation and outwards facing seats is brilliant. Also the small bump in the middle adds the effect and it is really neat how the queue can be so close to the attraction. It almost is like you can high five with somebody on the ride.
At first I wouldn’t have guessed that the Crazy Surfer would be such a good attraction but there you have it. After we rode that thing a few more times we made our way back to the central square to get us some big Veggie Delight sandwiches at the Subway store.
“Zwei große Veggies, Italian, käse und toasted, alles darauf, bitte.”
After having a meal we turned back to the dance event and lingered there for a while. Of course we also returned to Santa Monica Pier for some more Crazy Surfer disco action. Eventually we found our way back to the central square once again and chilled there until the parade went by. This was the first time that we actually saw the big parade… Didn’t even realize it existed until then.
The end of the parade signaled the end of a terrific day at MPG and we slowly made our way back to the car. On the way back home we stopped at the AC in Sevenum for a short pause and decided that we would return to MPG the next day but more about that in the next post.