News about El Rio

Bobbejaanland offered a more detailed look at its first-ever winter opening in August 2025. Bobbejaanland Wintert was planned for December and January and would divide the park into six winter areas: A Winter Welcome, Land of Fire & Ice, Snow Valley, Santa City, Glacier Bay and Lake of Frost. One striking detail was that part of the published concept imagery had been created with AI, giving the announcement a distinctly modern edge.

The plans were meant to place the park in a different seasonal role. On the entrance square, mascots Bobbie and Jody would appear in winter outfits. Land of Legends, with Fury as its headline ride, became Land of Fire & Ice and would host a fire and light spectacle near the coaster. Adventure Valley turned into Snow Valley, Desperado City became Santa City with a Winter Circus, Mystery Bay continued as Glacier Bay with the Ice Slide tubing attraction, and the park’s lake would become an ice rink called Lake of Frost.

At the same time, Bobbejaanland made clear that winter opening required choices. Wondergarden stayed closed, as did El Rio, Big Bang, Naiads Waters, Terra Magma, Wild Water Slide, Glijbaan, Monorail and Oki Doki. For guests, this was therefore not a full summer day in winter decoration, but a new seasonal product built around atmosphere, shows and an adapted ride line-up.

Bobbejaanland moved to another priority-access system in September 2022. The Express Pass, introduced earlier that same season, was replaced by Speedy Pass, a digital platform supplied by the British company Accesso. That shifted the park away from physical Express entrances with fixed usage counts and towards a model built around online wait times and virtual queues.

The options worked quite differently. Speedy Pass Bronze cost 14.90 euros and allowed guests to wait virtually instead of standing in the physical queue, while the waiting time itself remained the same. Silver cost 24.90 euros and cut the virtual wait by 50 percent. Gold and Diamond promised a 95 percent reduction; Gold was limited to one use per attraction, while Diamond was broader. One Ride tickets were available for a single queue.

Eleven attractions received a dedicated Speedy Pass entrance: Fury, Typhoon, Indiana River, Naga Bay, Speedy Bob, Revolution, Oki Doki, Wildwaterbaan, Dreamcatcher, El Rio and Bob Express. For guests, waiting became more visible and more commercial: live queue times moved online, and faster boarding became an even clearer digital premium product.

Bobbejaanland adjusted the Express Pass soon after its launch. The paid priority system had been in use for only a month when the park raised prices and changed several conditions at the same time. The move showed that the launch was not a fixed endpoint, but the start of a product that could be tuned quickly around guest behaviour and commercial goals.

The three versions remained. Small rose from 12 to 14.90 euros, but could now be used five times instead of four. Medium increased from 21.90 to 27.90 euros. Large went from 29.90 to 34.90 euros and still offered unlimited use. The Large version was personal and also included a 10 percent discount on food and beverage and part of the merchandise range. Small and Medium were not personal.

The Express Pass continued to apply to Fury, Typhoon, Naga Bay, Dreamcatcher, Oki Doki, Sledge Hammer, El Rio, Indiana River, Wildwaterbaan and Revolution with Mount Mara. For guests, faster boarding became more expensive, but also more clearly packaged as a premium product. For Bobbejaanland, the change marked the rapid professionalisation of a system that had only just been introduced.

Bobbejaanland finally introduced a paid queue-jumping system in 2022. The Express Pass had originally been planned for 2020, but the coronavirus crisis pushed the launch back. Once the system arrived, guests could use separate entrances to reach a selection of ten attractions more quickly.

The product came in three versions. Small cost 12 euros and offered four uses. Medium gave eleven uses for 21.90 euros. Large cost 29.90 euros and allowed unlimited use of the Express queues. The participating attractions were Fury, Typhoon, Naga Bay, Dreamcatcher, Oki Doki, Sledge Hammer, El Rio, Indiana River, Wildwaterbaan and Revolution, including its virtual reality version Mount Mara.

For visitors, this changed the rhythm of a day at Bobbejaanland: waiting time became something that could partly be bought down. That was notable because a former park director had still argued in 2013 that Bobbejaanland did not need such a system, thanks to its broad ride line-up and relatively manageable queues. The launch brought the park closer to competitors such as Walibi Belgium, where paid priority access had already become part of the operating model.

Bobbejaanland prepared a paid priority pass for the 2020 season. For 12 euros, guests with the Express Pass could use a separate, shorter queue once at four different attractions. The pass was not personal: one visitor could use it four times, or share it once with three friends. Sales would take place at the ticket desks and information desk, with a daily cap on availability.

The attraction list showed that Bobbejaanland wanted to apply queue management widely. It was not limited to major thrill rides such as Fury, Typhoon, Dreamcatcher and Sledge Hammer; family and water attractions including Oki Doki, Naga Bay, El Rio, Indiana River and Wildwaterbaan were part of the system as well. Even Mount Mara, the virtual reality version of Revolution, was mentioned. For visitors, that meant more choice and predictability on busy days, but also a clear extra price on top of a regular visit.

The park had already experimented with a Horror Pass during Halloween, offering faster access to haunted houses and Land of Legends attractions. The Express Pass turned that temporary test into a broader seasonal product. Historically, the report fits a larger European theme park trend: waiting time was increasingly managed not only operationally, but also commercially packaged.