19 September 2008: The opening from Germany's first looping slide.
When the announcement came that Germany was going to open a 2nd looping slide so close to my home, I was like: WTF, I have to do that slide! Now yesterday the wait was finally over. I got the chance to finally do a looping slide. The drive of 2 hours to Plettenberg began...
After driving 1,5 hours over the awesome German Speedway, with barely a speedlimit, I had to take an exit and move onto the slower roads. Now comes the fun part of the journey. A fun half hour drive over some awesome mountain roads. The surrounding was beautiful. Eventually when going downhill again I saw something in the distant. It was yellow, and contained a loop! No way, I'm returning now!
I arrived at 6:45pm... Still about 1.15 hours left until we could finally enter in for free. So I decided to walk around and shoot some photo's from the outside. I had also the change to take a look up closer and see the actual escape hatch, in case you ain't getting around the loop.
After returning to the entrance at 7:30pm, we just got the free entry to the pool. After turning quickly my swimshorts on it was off to the slide! It was a complete chaos when waiting for the slide. Even though it looked enormously crowded, the queue was no longer than 30min max. Average through the evening it was about 15-20min [:)] And the final half hour of operation it was down to 5-10 min. [pshades]
The waiting was over, the moment was there... I actually stood at the entrance of the tube. Staring down into a black hole waiting for my signal from the slide-opp. The signal was given and I went down, Water rushed into my face and suddenly there was a short moment of much lesser water. I slid onto a mildly wet surface which means I actually was going around the top at that moment. A few seconds later I slid again through the bigger stream of water and eventually splashed into a landing area. The experience is for the first time pretty speechless. But after going various times it finally had some words.
The experience is without a doubt better than any other speedslide. You'd get some cool freefall experience when you throw yourself into that hole [8D], some fun G-forces when going through that loop and of course the splashdown is fun. (I scared the slide-opp a few times with my wave of water at the exit xD)
Of course isn't the looping slide the only slide in this pool. They have 2 other slides. 1 Blackhole slide that was for the first hour unreachable or you'd actually had to wait. And a cool tube slide where you have 2 sizes of tubes: Adult and children sized tubes. The children sized are cool. You can get some speed out of them when using those xD.
The black hole slide was cool. I'd expected to have a simple slide with only turns and helixes. But it was more fun. It had a cool unexpected drop and 2 cool looking effects in the tunnel. The tube slide is also damn fun. It has 2 pieces of pretty dark slide connecting a mini pool in the middel. You can stay there as long as you want. It even has some cool lights in there [:)] And like I just wrote, when you slide correctly, you can have speed on that slide. Doing this slide without a tube isn't recommended. You can feel the seams of slide pieces. That was less fun.
The rest of the pool is less fun as the slides but still cool. It has a 'sport' area with 2 diving boards, one at 9ft and the other at 3ft. Then there is the 'experience' section. With a full area for kids, a mini wave pool (max depth 5ft xD), the slides of course and a few relaxing pools including jacuzzi's.
After a few laps around the pool with my camera at various moments it reached 11:15pm... Apparently they already did close the slides at that moment giving me honor of being the last one who slid down the looping slide that day xD [:o)]. After getting the camera again I asked if I could go up onces more to get some pictures of the slide without any other annoying guests [;)] Shot the pictures and i've seen that they locked the entrance of the slide completely.
Can't wait to return to this pool again. Maybe I should go on a moment when all annoying brats are in school so that I have the slide all for myself [pshades][lol]
Here is an big collection of photo's i've taken yesterday at Plettenberg. Sorry if some are too dark. On my camera photo's always look brighter than they eventually will appear.
Looks like I'm the only Dutch guy in town today [8D]
Ohh... It's the entrance of the pool!
The 'ticket' booths
Yup, that's what i'm coming for!
Look, that gate is open! O_o
I spy yellow tube!
Ohhh.. Looping!
Yes, I was there!
The sky was beautyful when the evening fell
Let's take a closer look, meanwhile everyone else is going to the party. Screw that party, I'm going to slide down that thing!
The spotlights onto the slide gave it a cool look during the evening/night.
Imo they could have tilted it a little more up but that's my opinion [;)]
The escape hatch in case you'll slide back.
It looks weird but still cool from this angle.
Going down, and going up again ^_^
Now off to the pool! This is the sport side. A few diving boards and that is really about it.
The other 2 slide exits. Don't bother all the tubes lying in that ending pool. Germans are too lazy to put it on the side.
Omgwtfbbq, Do I really have to jump down there?
Yes, This is about a 30 minutes wait.
You got a cool view over the roof of the pool when you were standing/waiting in the tower.
The entrance of the tube slide
It's the exit of the Loopingslide. I noticed not that many people make a true splashdown in here. Probably because they aren't jumping into that slide xD
WTF?!? Already closed for the day?!? Nope, just a temporary closure of the entrance just to make sure the queues arn't getting too long. (It was too easy to queuejump on this slide if you had an even longer queue.)
Hmmm... Where should I go next?
The mini wave pool
Also something that was to do. Trying to climb as high as you can get on a stack of coca cola crates. At the end I noticed this was only today because of the opening of the new slide.
I've watched it several times since it's fun to see the stack falling when they are soo high in the air
Pile of fallen crates. Cool to see that they also give the crates a controlled fall so that nobody really could get hurt.
Go ahead and build your chain of doom![lol]
It was still crowded. The only way to reach the Black Hole slide was asking everyone if you could walk through so you could slide the black hole. It's funny to see some people's faces for the 5th time, when they haven't even moved a slight bit for the looping slide.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooess..... *tries to slow down*
One of the many cool slide-opps
Looping slide sign, yay!
Oh noes, The attack of the smelly feet!
A quick look outside at the slide [:)]
It was definitely baywatch who was sitting there xD
That's a strong current....
Yay, Private peak!
Eventually everyone should be able to hold his/hers chip in front of this sensor and you'd get access to the slide. (lockers, entrance and exit works the same)
A final glare into the depths of this fun slide.
The turntable is going to be used for the slide.
And now did they totally close the entrance of the slide.
Back down the stairs
A final look on the exit pool
you need to pass through these gates to gain access to the 'experience' area from aquamagis.
Forgot your locker number, hold your chip in front of that lil' machine and it tells which locker you've got.
More lockers, Which number do you think I had?
On the road back home. Look at my tomtom's screen. Me <3 mountain roads at night!
Oh, and I bought a souvenir: