Danse Macabre reviews, cycling information and photo gallery in Efteling

The ghostly band hits again…

Theme park	Efteling
Park area	Andrick
type	Dynamic Sports Theater
audience	Larger family
Open	October 31, 2024 (replace Spookslot)
Manufacturer	intamin
Model	Dynamic movement stage
Designer	Jeroen Verheij
music	Camille Saint-Saënsarr's Danse Macabre. René Merkelbach
cost	35 million euros
period	4 minutes
additional	Virtual Queue Single rider queue

In the cursed church

For any theme park, replacing a 40-year-old historic site at 40 will be daunting, but one like Efteling Seeking to replace their historicity Spookslot Haunted house, the mission is huge.

Thankfully, the park is not just a challenge, but the new Danse Macabre is both a tribute and an upgrade to the past.

Cycling is set in the abandoned monastery of Capelle in Caterchoville (Abdij Van Capelle Van Kaatsheuvel In Dutch), located in the middle of the Huyverwoud forest, the first part of the Queueline is weaved on the ground and exquisitely detailed the ruins of the corridors. At the end of the Herb Garden is a pair of wooden gates that go beyond its experience.

A pre-display of the old cemetery revealed the backstory of more attractions and an international music competition was held in the monastery on Friday, October 13, 1876, and an international music competition was held on Friday, October 13, 1876, when conductor Joseph Charlatan led his band in the Danse Macabre performance. Soon after that, the entire band disappeared, resulting in the abandonment of the monastery into the forest.

However, what really happened is even more chilling. Not only did the band disappear, but it was swallowed by a creature whose shape-changing evil was called “unwilling”. To this day, it still lurks in the monastery, attracting unsuspecting tourists, manifested as a black kitten whose cuteness slims the horrible intentions below.

Cemetery Rehearsal

Outside the cemetery, the path bypasses the woodland and climbs up the wooden bridge toward the monastery itself, where visitors point it to a series of dark narrow graves, waiting for their turn to find out what is inside.

After some time, a door opened to the dim little chapel, with the rider directing to sit in one of the six choir stalls in the middle of the room. This is where the main show takes place and when the lights go out, everything starts.

Maybe a faint meow was heard in the background, but now it must have been replaced by a sinister deep roar, which seemed to be walking around the wall.

As the choir booth turns to the organ, we see the ghost of Joseph Charlatan appear (through impressive animation). As Joseph began and hearing Danse Macabre’s opening bar, we saw a ghostly green violin playing a role in one of the windows.

Choir booth

Now the choir stalls start to spin, as if they were dancing music. As the tune continues and the speed increases, other animation members of the band reveal around the room. As the entire floor tilts, the basement of the church is brought to life with the graves and its residents.

At the climax of the music, as the stall lifts toward the roof, the riding reveals its final trick, only to fall sharply on the ground as lightning flashes and thunder cracks.

Once the lights appear again, the band disappears and the church has returned to its original abandoned state. As Lapbars improves, the only thing that betrays the moment just happened was the innocent crying of the kitten meowing, which can be heard when the cyclist is excited.

The ride is powered by a new dynamic sport riding system designed by Efteling in collaboration with Intamin. The diversity of sports is great. The single chorus board booth is able to rotate 360 degrees, as well as the main 18-meter platform, which can also be tilted up to 25 degrees and lifted 3 meters and dropped at a speed of 3 meters per second. The interaction between these moves is wonderfully used in Danse Macabre, allowing riders to constantly waving the journey around the church while ensuring they face the right direction at the right time to see detailed animations and themes and with their full glory.

If there is one criticism, it will be the lack of intensity: the park has modified the action to increase that number since opening week, but it still feels like the experience will benefit from dialing another notch. Sometimes it feels a bit hindered, as if the choir booth was completely defeated by music. It's far from the exciting cycling realm, but to be fair, it's really not the purpose of the experience.

Impressive monastery building accommodates

One of the centers of the ride is the Danse Macabre music itself. To this end, a new arrangement by René Merkelbach, an Efteling resident composer who recorded the original work of Camille Saint-Saëns, which included an orchestra of 75 musicians, the largest ever performed for the park. This is a great version, although it reduces its length to about 2¾ minutes, thus contributing to the total ride time of four minutes.

Efteling does a great job of creating an experience that requires both a romantic recap and a return to Spookslot while leveraging modern cycling hardware, themes, special effects and storytelling to create incredible appeal, which allows guests to bring guests into the middle of a musical performance rather than being an audience.

When Spookslot's closure was announced, there was an outcry, and many Efteling fans rushed to the park to experience it last time. Thankfully, the park held the company. They know exactly what they are doing, and Danse Macabre is a worthy successor to the old classic attractions that were sitting on the site before.