Day 3: Walygator Grand-Est

Today's park was Walygator Grand-Est, a former Walibi theme park

There were coach loads of kids at the entrance making us think that it would be a busy day, but they all seemed to disappear and we didn't see huge crowds of them after the gates opened

First ride of the day was Anaconda, an old DH Morgan woodie which nobody was expecting much from. It turned out to be really good fun, and smooth if rather bouncy.

Family Coaster had an alligator theme ... it took me most of the day to work out why!

It was probably the slowest wacky worm I've ever ridden, by some margin

Some braver members of the group took a ride on Space Shoot

Riders were shot upwards into the air

Some people were caught off guard!

The park's Zamperla Air Race was fun

Comet, Walygator's old Vekoma Hurricane coaster, had just opened

While it wasn't the worst Vekoma, it was definitely a one-and-done coaster: weirdly the inversions were less-bang-y than the straight bits between them!

Line dancing show

Monster is the park's B&M Inverted Coaster, and is a clone of Raptor at Cedar Point

It rides well, but doesn't look great: it is unthemed, with the pink-tinged track sitting on a rough grassy field

Krinoline was an odd spinning ride, apparently more often found at German fairs such as Oktoberfest

Walyburgers for lunch ... although half of mine seemed to be missing!

Fun on the Monorail

Drifting around the lake on the Walyboat ride

Bonjour Walygator

There was a lot of clonking as Caribbean Boat changed direction, but not much in the way of airtime

We ended the day with a double ERS on Monster and Anaconda

It was nice to try Monster in different seats

However, Anaconda was definitely my favourite of the two

Final train of the ERS

It was only an hour's drive to our hotel for the night, Ibis Styles Nancy West Laxou. That gave us the ideal opportunity for dinner in the hotel restaurant. Unfortunately the waitress was one of the only unfriendly French people we met the entire fortnight, although she would have competition later on in the trip: As soon as she found we were part of "the group from the bus" she told us we could only order a pizza and couldn't stay in the (mostly empty) restaurant but would have to eat in our rooms. After protesting, her manager allowed us to eat at a table ... although we were still only allowed pizza. Which turned out to be pretty awful and burnt. Thanks Ibis. I think your staff need some customer service training. Talk about being made to feel unwelcome!