Spoilers a-plenty here, you have been warned!

 

Yesterday (01’07’15), Efteling’s newest attraction, Baron 1898 Dive Coaster had its grand opening to the public.  We’ve posted a few updates on the ride already, but finally, we get to see it in all its glory!  First of all, you may want to get yourselves acquainted with the story of the ride, by watching this video (with English subtitles! Hooray!) :

Something else we English-speaking folk have to be happy about here is that parts of the speech in the ride are in English, as well as having English written on screens alongside the story as it is being told.  Thank you Efteling!  After almost 20 years of experiencing Villa Volta and trying to fathom out what was going on in the pre-shows (whilst trying to look like you’re totally into the story), this is an absolute dream.

So aside from the ride, what Efteling is really good at getting right is theming.  Of course, this ride is no different; the theming is wonderful, and like the rest of the park, the ride looks like it could have been standing there for years already, as it fits in so well with its surroundings.

The crowning glory (in our opinion) is the audio animatronic of the Baron.  We did post a photo of him recently, but in the video below we finally get to see him in action.  His movements are so fluid, and he kind of makes Hugo van den Loonsche Duynen from Villa Volta look like a mannequin.  Can you imagine this space in the queue without him?  It would be very bland.

In that video you also get to see the pre-show.  Did we mention there’s a lot more English in this attraction? 😉 The queue is great, the projections are amazing, the animatronic is fantastic, but what about the ride?  That’s a hard one to draw a verdict on through a computer screen, but here’s Efteling’s official on-ride video of the coaster itself:

There’s a lot of long stretches of track, but once you’re over the main drop, it seems like an exhilarating ride which we can’t wait to visit!

 

Video 2 from eftel1ngfan