Back in 2019, the Plopsa Group announced that it would be purchasing and rebranding the struggling Comic Station Antwerp (Belgium). The revamped Plopsa Station Antwerp opened its doors on 23 October 2021. But today, after having been operated by Plopsa for just over 4 years, the park must close for good due to disappointing visitor numbers. Team DRdb went to visit it one last time to document the final days of the park and its dark rides.
This report is first and foremost a photo tour and serves as a companion piece to our report on the opening from 2021.
Approaching the park could be done in two ways since the entrance was located at the back of Antwerpen-Centraal railway station. You could simply enter through the back entrance, which was themed to the park and its characters, or enter from the front of the station and follow the signs. This was well worth doing as the front side has some of the prettiest architecture of any train station in the world.
The station has an unusual vertical layout: there is a ground floor with shops and restaurants as well as three floors with train tracks. The park, which filled a previously left empty part of the enormous complex, follows the same structure: the entrance and restaurant are on the ground floor, and a basement of three other floors contain the shops and rides.
A tour through the park
Once through the turnstiles, guests would turn left to be met by a set of escalators. Going down these would take you to Level -1. The first area was still ”outside” (with daylight coming in through the glass roof and walls). Directly to the left of the escalators the first ride could be found: Storm op Zee, a small-scale frisbee. It was themed to Studio 100 show Piet Piraat and the most thrilling ride the park had to offer.
To the right was the Volkswagen Transporter from the Samson & Marie series, which served as a small food stand. A narrow path between the escalators and Storm op Zee leads to a small section themed to Bumba, featuring a single carrousel attraction.
Going through the sliding doors opposite from the escalators brought guests to the next section. This is mostly a gift shop, themed to the Kabouter Plop TV show. It also featured two rides, although strangely enough they were not themed to Plop. Getting to these rides was awkward as guests would have to manoeuvre in between the shelves of the shop.
e first of these was The Magic Bikes, loosely based on the Mega Mindy series. The ride was built on a balcony against the main vertical building, so that you could look down into the other levels, -2 and -3. Reaching up to the ceiling were inaccessible balconies that featured statues of Studio 100 characters.
From here, you had a multitude of options. You could take the escalator down to the next basement floor but there were also elevators that could reach all floors. It could even take you up to Level 0 for a visit to the restaurant. There was also a normal staircase that brought you directly into the restaurant, so let’s quickly discuss it.
Reaching the restaurant through the elevator or escalators brought you to a small courtyard with fake grass and a statue of Rox, a talking car from the TV series of the same name. The restaurant was named Meneer Spaghetti, after a character of the Samson & Gert series, but it was closed on quieter days like on our visit.
When taking the escalator up and down the restaurant, you could see several sketches of studio 100 and comic characters. This tied back to the comic theme of its predecessor, which was still lightly present in the park.
We took the escalators back down to the gift shop and immediately took the next set of escalators, heading towards Level -2. You would first have to go through a Mega Mindy themed room with a faux brick wall. Some bricks were missing, allowing a view of some of the train tracks of Antwerp station.
A U-turn and then going under the escalators brought us to the main hall of the park, the one we already got a brief glimpse of back at the balcony in the gift shop. It was themed like a theatre with a starry night sky in the ceiling. The centre of the room was left open so you could look down into Level -3.
All round the outer wall were little facades that lead to different rooms, themed to their own IP. The rooms on this floor were, from left to right: Suske en Wiske, Lucky Luke, a movie theatre, K3, the Smurfs and FC de Kampioenen. This floor was also home to a small stage and the former home of De Kiekeboes (later retrofitted to a face painting stall).
The Lucky Luke room was special as it had a separate entrance and exit. The attraction was an Alterface interactive theatre. It was a standup version though and didn’t contain a moving floor, thus not qualifying for an entry on the database. After finishing the ride, guests would find themselves in a small saloon with some activities like arcade games.
Het Smurfenavontuur
Het Smurfenavontuur (The Smurfs Adventure) was the first of two dark rides at Plopsa Station Antwerp. It was an interactive car ride and as the name suggests was themed to the Smurfs. The ride originated from the Comic Station days, although Plopsa did upgrade it a bit when they took over.
This leads into the station, where guests could board vehicles with 4 seats themed to logs. Next to the seats were (magnetically attached) magic wands. Something of note here is that the rope that attaches them to the vehicle physically where only added when Plopsa took over the park, most likely to prevent them from being stolen.
The wands had no trigger button like traditional guns on dark rides do. Instead, they functioned similarly to the remotes on a Nintendo Wii, with a pointer (ball of magic) appearing on the screens that followed the movement of the wand.
When dispatching, the vehicles entered a hollow log to reach the first scene. It was meant for guests to practice with the interactive system. A voice-over would encourage them to try waving the wand around. The scene depicted a riverbed with cattails, which riders were encouraged to brush away. In the background, Smurfs could be seen floating down the river in a boat. While you were very close up to the screens, the quality of the projections was quite high.
After being congratulated by the voice, the vehicle moved onto the next scene. It is during these transitions that you passed by flat cutouts, the only physical sets of the ride. This transition mostly featured cattails and trees as you were heading towards a forest. The voice told riders that the Smurfs need help collecting apples from the trees. Hitting the apples would cause them to fall.
The vehicles reached the edge of the forest where the house of Gargamel was located. This is where different traps were set up by the wizard, and riders were tasked with disarming them so the Smurfs could continue their way. Gargamel would eventually jump out from behind a tree, only to get hit by one of his own contraptions.
As the Smurfs got themselves and the apples to safety, they entered a mine, the only route back to Smurf village according to the voice. Smurfs ride in a minecart as they were stopped by a rock on the track. This is when bats would swoop down to try and steal the apples, with the voice instructing riders to shoo them away.
While the riders made the bats go away, the Smurfs succeeded in removing the rocks from the track so they could move onto their village. Smurf houses started coming into view as the vehicle entered town square, with Smurfs celebrating the return. The voice told that Chef Smurf used the apples to make a big cake and we are instructed to light fireworks for the celebration.
After this scene, the vehicle would pass a screen showing onride photos that were taken sometime before. It would also show each rider’s score before returning to the station. The interesting thing here is that riders wouldn’t get any feedback on their actions, so there was no way to know what actions resulted in what points.
The last thing to discover on this floor was a bar, FC de Kampioenen Cafe. It was themed to the Belgian live-action comedy series, just like the (also removed) bar of the same name in Plopsaland Belgium.
To finish our look at Plopsa Station, we headed back to the main stage, next to which were a set of stairs to go down to Level -3.
Directly underneath the stage was a carrousel themed to comic character Jommeke. Other IPs featured on this floor were Maya de Bij (Maya the Bee), Urbanus and Wickie de Viking (Vic the Viking).
Next up was Tollembeek Tour, a very detailed funhouse themed to Belgian celebrity (and later adapted into a comic) Urbanus. An interesting choice for the park, since the Urbanus comics tend to contain adult themes.
Guests entered the Urbanus section of the park by passing into the town of Tollembeek from underneath a bridge with trash scattered around. The walkthrough went through several buildings known from the comics like Cesars Cafe.
Wickie’s Valtoren
The final attraction and second database entry was Wickie’s Valtoren (Vic’s Drop Tower). The entrance to this vertical dark ride was located at the back, next to Tollembeek Tour, and went up several stories.
The ride used to be named Op Bezoek bij de Kiekeboes in the Comic Station days. This incarnation of the ride saw riders ascend the house of the Kiekeboe family, before plummeting back down as Marcel Kiekeboe fell from a ladder.
The Vic the Viking version initially opened without media, meaning it didn’t qualify for an entry on our website. The media would be added a bit later.
The ride saw guests boarding the vehicle in front of a Viking longboat. This boat, including its mast and crow’s nest, was a physical decor. Around it was a large screen on which the ocean, sails and characters were projected. The vehicle would move up, and a storm would break out as the characters would desperately try to hold on to their spot.
The characters seemed to have been taken directly from the Vic animated show and quickly rigged to perform basic movement. It looked stiff and the characters lacked any form of facial expressions. Add to that a ride sequence not syncing up with the projected media, as it just raised to the top and dropped constantly and you got yourself a ride that feels slapped together. This was especially disappointing considering the Kiekeboe version did have a cohesive idea and ride sequence.
And with that, the tour has come to an end. Plopsa Station Antwerp was a fine enough indoor park for what it was, but it didn’t live up to the quality standards of the other Plopsa parks. Combine that with the less than stellar location, causing few people to stumble upon it and it makes sense it had to close due to disappointing visitor numbers.
Even including the Comic Station years, the park was only operational for about 7 years, making it one of the shortest-lived theme parks in Belgium and the first Plopsa park to close permanently. The faith of the space is currently unknown, but the NMBS (the Belgian railway company) is offering up the space to protentional new businesses. Will we ever see another dark ride operating in this spot? Probably not but never say never.
© 2025 Dark Ride Database
Article by: Quintus
Photos by: Jim
