With the second wave of Covid-19, theme parks in Belgium had to close last week. Before that, we had one last visit to one of the smaller parks in the country: Plopsa Coo. Although it might not have the most spectacular rides, you’d be surprised what this cozy park has to offer!
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First of, let’s talk about how disappointed the Plopsa group was with the announcement of the closure of their parks. At the moment, they need to remain closed for one month (but honestly, I doubt if the parks will be able to reopen in 2020). A major bummer as they were about to open their brand new hotel at Plopsaland De Panne, their flagship park. Next to that, the last few months, the park invested heavily in making the park as ‘coronaproof’ as possible. Plus as we’re just a few days away from Halloween, the decorations were everywhere around the park. Although they are closed, let’s still enjoy our visit to their smallest outdoor park: Plopsa Coo in the southern part of Belgium!
The park’s target group here is mainly families. Enthusiasts can enjoy two family coasters and there are some other rides that you kind of can only find here. But what makes this park so special is the setting. It’s right next to the largest waterfall in Belgium! Do take into account that we’re a small country and have limited height differences.
The whole parks lies on the bottom of a valley and that gives it a very unique vibe. On top of that, the park’s located in the greenest area of the whole country: the Ardennes! The fun thing about the park is that you have two ways to see the park from above. First up is their star flyer: Mega Mindy Flyer. On this picture, it might seem like a normal high tower.
But by using the second way to go up, the Chairlift attraction, you can see how small the tower seems at the park! Heck, you almost not even see the park.
It might be a ride of 30 minutes, but going up to the top, it’s worth it. You can choose to leave and go to the viewing tower for these awesome views of the area.
You’ll notice thus that the park doesn’t look huge. But taking in account the rides, it does take quite some space. On of the rides for example has a whole hill on its own, the Bobsled.
In the far back of the park, you have their Custom Vekoma coaster built when the park was still named Télécoo.
But I guess you consider their Gerstlauer Spinning coaster their flagship coaster as it’s unique in Belgium.
Oh and there were paragliders too!
Let’s go down again to explore the park a bit more. You guys go back up, Wicky the Viking and Maya the Bee!
Alright so first up, the Bobsled. There’s two sides to ride this Alpine Slide. Not the most spectacular but fun to do nevertheless. Also fun for the staff who want to go do down for lunch!
We’ll skip the main coaster for last and continue into the park. As you can see, they did indeed mark a two-way path as one of the Covid-19 measures. However, it was pretty calm at the park so we didn’t need to worry about that too much.
If you’ve listened to our most recent podcast: This hat makes you go “Plopperdeplopperdeplop!”
One of the unique rides is a race track! Not fast enough for regular Go Karting but it approaches the idea very much. (Also, Silver Star, is that you?)
Another special ride is their water ride: Dino Splash. I’ve ridden 3 different rides this year at 3 Plopsa parks with all the same name. This one however, can rarely be seen at a theme park! Also note that wearing a scarf and doing this ride don’t match well. (It got soaked).
Their newest ride for 2020 is this “Vlindervlucht“. This Zamperla Windstarz allows you to swing around the butterflies but I didn’t get quite the hang of it yet.
We skipped their log flume as it was pretty cold out but right next to it, is the Vekoma coaster we talked about before. Although I like how this terrain coaster is custom and unique, expect a ride experience a tad better than Temple of the Nighthawk/Crazy Bats. I did have one moment of airtime in the backseat mid course!
One thing I always forget is that they have monkeys! I really love these (although it’s funny that they have them there in the first place). Look how cute they are!
Bu as mentioned before, the main ride has to be Vicky The Ride. This Gerstlauer Spinning coaster really is a fun model. Especially now with Covid, you can spin really well if you’re a party of two.
And that’s our tour of Plopsa Coo! It’s sad that parks all over Europe close down but we need to keep ourselves safe and think about the hospitals. Keep to the rules so that next year, we can have a great season again.
And while parks may be closing in several countries, make sure your holidays this winter aren’t without some coaster spirit. Check out our newly released designs in our webshop by clicking the shop logo below: