A French Minibreak - Part Trois

The final part of our trip took us back to Parc Asterix, where I hadn't been since 2012 and Conor hadn't been since 1994! So the place was a lot different for him and for me it meant experiencing the park on a much calmer day crowd-wise. And it also meant riding Oz'Iris again to see if it lived up to my previous rides! Annoyingly I didn't take loads of pictures outside of the Oz'Iris area so I apologise for the lack of photos from other areas of the park!

Conor got all excited when we walked in as loads of memories came flooding back and he is familiar with the characters and stories of the Asterix brand, whereas I'm not, so there's lots of stuff he gets that goes straight over my head.

I was so happy at how quiet the place was compared to my last visit, where queues were spilling out onto walkways and you pretty much couldn't move for crowds. I could actually stop and take in the theming and surroundings! It's such a shame that my French isn't better because one thing Parc Asterix is great at is inserting little in-jokes and puns into pretty much any corner they can, and of course for someone who only speaks very basic French I don't get most of them, which is annoying because I feel like this is a massive part of the Asterix experience that I can't engage with.

We started our day with the Vekoma Madhouse (like Hex at Alton Towers for those who have ridden, for those who haven't I won't spoil it, it's a great ride experience in my opinion). I missed this attraction during my last visit and ever since it's one I hear loads about as being one of the best of this ride type (but of course Hex is still better ;D). I won't go into detail about what exactly happens but the pre-shows are hilarious and decadent - very Asterix!

The day was very chilled out, which is the best way to experience a park in my opinion. I think we did the ghost train Transdemonium next as my friend AJ and I loved it last time we visited. It's totally insane and descends into some real Tim Burton style horror imagery with a sense of childish whimsy to balance out the terror - very creepy/cute!

We spent most of the day riding the smaller attractions that we missed last time, mostly the water rides such as Le Grand Splatch which is a Tidal Wave style boat ride, a standard rapids and spinning water boat ride and the amazing log flume Menhir Express, which has a hidden airtime hill! I was gutted we didn't get to ride last time and it lived up to all my expectations! Such a fun ride and so well themed.

Finally we got around to the Egypt area and joined the queue for Oz'Iris! The queue seemed long but was very fast moving - something for which I am always grateful. And the queueline is very well themed too (and filled with lots of in-jokes I don't understand, yay!) so there's plenty to keep you entertained. We rode Oz twice, once in the front and once in the back. Admittedly riding in the front was a mistake, the back is so where it's at. It's so so forceful with such an elaborate and long layout, it just keeps going and when you think it's done it throws another element at you. And it has my favourite Zero-G ever. And it has an amazing dive into a tunnel of mist! It's just a great coaster, ticks all the boxes and looks incredible. Definitely still Top 10 material for me.

Last up was the wooden beast at Parc Asterix, Tonnerre de Zeus. I forgot how amazing this coaster is. As I've grown older I've noticed that I get less and less of the 'butterflies' feeling going down drops on rollercoasters - in fact I think only Oblivion in the UK still does it for me, so I was really shocked to find another coaster with a drop that intense! TdZ is everything a woodie should be, sort of rough but in the right way, relentless speed and great forces. I wish we'd had time for a few more rides because I enjoyed it way more than I remembered.

We had to leave slightly earlier than closing as we had a ferry to catch so we made our way out via the numerous tat shops (seriously Asterix is worse than Disney when it comes to exiting the park through the gift shops!) and did our 2 hour drive back to Calais!

I'm so glad we booked this last minute trip away. I finally got some parks done that had been on my list for ages, spent some time with a friend I hadn't seen in aaaaages and got to revisit Parc Asterix and Disney!