The destination I had made specific plans for was Hong Kong, which we flew into soon after returning to Singapore.
The day of arrival was designated to a bit of sightseeing – temples and gardens, the former feeling like it could have been anywhere out in this region, but the latter was rather nice, other than being told off for eating a snack.
I had decided to be particularly adventurous while here and the next day we took the metro to the border with China. After some intense research including watching a man who filmed the whole crossing from start to finish in secret on his phone (naughty), I knew where to find the obscure little office that issued on the spot 72 hour visas. Some cash was exchanged and I soon had a huge sticker in my passport with the Great Wall on it. We’re in.
The city of Shenzhen lies directly on top of Hong Kong and we were soon back on another metro heading to the hotel to drop off the bags. I immediately noticed that the trains were significantly cleaner and more efficient here and the pricing is ridiculously cheap.
After negotiating some overly friendly hotel staff, it was another couple of stops down the road to my first Chinese park.
We began with some confusing messages about staggered openings of the rides here and spent a significant amount of time getting lost around a construction site.
The park was virtually empty and nothing seemed to be running yet, so this wasn’t an issue. Within the construction site was one of the creds, a mine train, that was closed for the duration. My first Chinese spite.
After navigating past that, we found ourselves in a particularly attractive area. It becomes even more attractive when you find out what lives at the other end.
This S&S air launch coaster was the driving force behind my adventurous nature on this trip. There are only 4 of this type of ride in the world, 3 of which are in China and the last of which is the fastest accelerating coaster in the world, in Japan. Though the Chinese installations don’t have a record of their own to claim, their layouts looked extremely enticing.
I joined the queue in nervous anticipation of what I was about to experience and there were only 20-30 guests in front of me. It was here I learned how things are in China. Slow. Faffy. Frustrating.
It took around 20 minutes to get on the ride through a combination of factors. Within the station, it is a park chain policy to have guests undergo an exercise routine before boarding the ride. You line up in the usual manner within air gates inside the station and the attendant on the opposite platform performs a bit of a speech prior to overseeing the routine. Stretch, 2, 3, 4. Reach, 2, 3, 4. Twist, 2, 3, 4. It’s an interesting phenomenon and I’d love to know how it came about. In the same way as you would warm up before a sporting activity, the impression seems to be that if you don’t prepare your body for the forces of a rollercoaster, you might hurt yourself.
On top of this, there is absolutely no hustle in any of the ride staff. Everything is done with an air of, ‘oh, we’ll get there eventually, no rush’. This is absoultely fine as a mentality and on some levels I appreciate it. At the same time, the enthusiast in me can’t help but find it frustrating. I’ve seen how the Germans do it, it just doesn’t need to be like this, we could all get so much more done if you simply went a bit faster.
But the guests share the same mentality. They aren’t like me, thinking ‘I’ve come a long way and I want to ride this 100 times and 100 other things in the park and you’re all stopping me from doing this.’ It’s just a day out and very inconsequential. The way they board the train, sit down, don’t think about what’s in their pockets, get told by staff, fumble around, get up again, put items in the baggage holders, sit down, find there’s something else, get up again, laugh and chat about who sits where with friends, who will or won’t sit next to the foreigner, stop and take selfies in the train, stop and take selfies by the baggage holders, write a text to someone… I could go on. There’s no consideration to the fact the attraction has a line of people behind waiting to experience it. Their time will come, but no one, no one will help that along.
Except me, I’m in the seat, lap bar down, ready to go. The anticipation is killing me.
I was scared on the launch track as I didn’t have a clue what to expect from this ride. Weird hissing noises, a long pause. BAM. A launch like I’ve never experienced before. One second we weren’t moving, the very next second we’re doing 80Mph and being viciously ejected over a top hat. My head didn’t have time to keep up and it’s as intense as anything.
As quick as you crest that first hill, you’re down in a tunnel below the water and then up into the next massively forceful element. And the next. And the next. Each one hits the spot just right, with different combinations of very strong airtime.
The ride ends with some crushing positive forces into this tight cornering and a brutal snap into the brake run (bracing required) which seemingly has trouble slowing you down so fast. We still had a lot of energy left to give.
Even with the 20 minute dispatch times, I struggled to ride this coaster back to back. It was that intense. I had to sit down on a bench and recover each time. Oh, and I absolutely loved it.
To space it out a bit, there were some other things to do of course.
It is a big thing that goes upside down though and that works for some. I had ridden this alternate layout as Kumali in the UK first, but the installation here was actually the original. It wasn’t too bad… but nothing more than a one and done for the cred to me.
Outside the entrance to this ride was a haunted walkthrough, which we tried for a laugh. It contained some weird moments like a yeti on an operating theatre table and was mostly amusing rather than scary, which suits me fine.
The other cred in the park is a Wacky Worm on top of a building, for intimidation purposes I guess. I like the way the character on the front of the train has his fist out – clearly has places to be, unlike everyone else round here.
Indoors from there is the legendary Santa shooting dark ride North Pole Adventure. They may have missed the point with either the scenery or the hardware as, amongst other things, you are actually firing at Christmas elves in their workshop, hindering them from their tasks. Fun though.
We considered trying a rapids ride, but there was a huge fuss at the station (with no one else around). The staff outright refused to let us do anything with our bag other than take it on the boat with us and perch it precariously on a lap, on top of the seatbelt. As the boats were particularly evil and had water jets installed directly into them, jets which we saw another returning to the station were doing nothing short of waterboarding guests, this would not have ended well. Not being allowed to simply put it on the floor anywhere in the remote vicinity of the ride that wasn’t on it, we decided to bail out. It ain’t worth that.
Instead, we tried a weird haunted experience around the corner where you sit around a table in the dark and wear headphones while ghosts whisper directly in your inner ear and things go bang. Not understanding a word of what was going on and therefore unable to get caught up in the story, this bordered on unpleasantness and wouldn’t be something I’d choose to repeat, but it was worth a try.
The train around the park was nice. Can’t go wrong with a train.
Other than that, it was Bullet Coaster as much as I could handle before the all the rides shut for the day. The park and a couple of select flat rides near the entrance actually stayed open for several hours after the rest and, not having anywhere to be, we ended up in a 4D cinema with a lot of waiting around, wondering what it could be. It ended up being Ice Age, something I could have watched at Alton Towers. Nothing exciting or exotic then.
That marked the end of the visit. 4D cinema aside, this really was my most exotic park visit to date and, frustrations aside, it was totally addictive. I found there’s an extra element to be going so far out of my way, onto the road less travelled. Exploration becomes half the fun and I immediately knew I wanted to see and do a lot more in this part of the world, aside from the fact they have vast quantities of incredible looking rides – there has been a theme park boom in China like the world has never seen before and I want to be a part of it.
This leg of the trip was a rather last minute decision. I hadn’t put any plans in place until actually in Singapore, where I decided to throw caution to the wind and book some cheap flights to Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days.
We arrived in KL early afternoon and spent a good chunk of time in the longest queue I have ever experienced for immigration. They weren’t running things smoothly to say the least.
Our hotel was situated throughout the top floors of a ridiculously huge mall, in the very same building that housed the singular draw (for me) for this visit.
Wanting to get straight to it and make it all worthwhile, we dumped some bags upstairs and headed straight to this indoor park that spans several more floors of the building.
It contains a massive Intamin looping coaster, not every day you see one of those indoors. The park operates pay per ride and wristbands, I took the latter for the opportunity of many laps on the star attraction (and pretty much the only thing of any note here). The station for the ride is in a raised position and the first section begins straight out of here with a slow inversion and meander to the lift hill.
You can see from here how unusual the surroundings are for this attraction and riding things in unique places is often great for enhancing the experience. Once up in the hot and sweaty rafters, the train takes a high turn into the main drop and loop, which has a pathway running directly through it.
There are plenty of other moments of close interaction as the layout winds its way throughout the whole park. You can see it from anywhere.
While the hardware is a little on the clunky side, being an older Intamin model, it remains a highly enjoyable coaster for the sheer spectacle alone. I’m very glad to have made the journey to try it for myself.
The folowing morning we were already having to make plans to leave again, our stay in KL was relatively short due to time constraints and the last minute nature of the decision so we just did the usual things like food and shopping. I liked the place more than I had expected to and will likely return one day for a better look.
During my annual stay in Singapore for 2016, we began to use the geographical advantage to visit some extra parks. Most of the western hemisphere has a limited operating season – they all shut shop for the winter and it’s rare to be able to get a visit in for several months during the off-season. Out in Asia, most places operate full time, which is great for keeping the consistency up.
Before that though, it was time for my third consecutive visit to Singapore’s only theme park, particularly as there had been some exciting news!
The Battlestar Galactica rides have had a troubled past. Marking a significant shift in Vekoma’s use of ride technology, these duelling launch lift coasters were plagued with issues, mostly to do with the trains. Originally opening in 2010, the attraction actually operated for less than half of its first five years, finally reopening in 2015 with a total train replacement. The new trains halved the capacity of the rides by reducing the number of people per row from 4 to 2, but this has now supposedly fixed any underlying structural issues.
I had seen them standing but not operating for 2 years first hand, teasing me, but now they were finally ready to receive.
I began with the red, Human side which has a sit down train. I had selected this to be my 100th rollercoaster, expecting it to be the better of the two with a focus on airtime or, more importantly, being less like a Vekoma SLC. The experience was a little underwhelming however.
The heavily themed queueline contains many pep talks from what I assume are the ‘good guy’ characters of the franchise, implying that the guests are going to be fighter pilots in a major battle against the Cylon. You board the new sleek looking train with comfy seats and, unfortunately, vest restraints then, after a quick check for synchronicity, a train from each layout pulls forward out of the station and they launch side by side.
It makes for an exhilarating lift, but the momentum is somewhat stunted before the crest of the hill meaning the first drop, though still surprisingly steep, doesn’t quite deliver as well as it could have. The remainder of the layout feels relatively insignificant for the size. There’s a lot of meandering about, particularly to suit the duelling aspect of the two rides and create some good head on moments with the other train, but this side definitely suffers as a result of this endeavour.
Luckily this isn’t true for the blue, Cylon side which has suspended trains. A contrasting queueline full of Cylon vibe and a strong sense of impending doom leads you to the station. The statement ‘this has all happened before, this will all happen again’ is declared as the ride despatches, which amuses me, then the launch hits.
Again there’s a sense of holding back at the top, but it’s likely justified on this side. There’s still a very unusual moment of airtime for a suspended coaster as it takes the first drop and from there it flies through a disorientating sequence of inversions and intense turns, much more akin to a B&M invert than their own SLCs and therefore a significant step up for Vekoma. I noticed the interactions less here, but that’s because there’s so much more going on with the actual ride and moments like the dive into a mist filled pit and loop make up for any potential losses in what the opposite side suffers from.
As well as the re-opening of their headline coasters, this year saw the debut of the park’s latest attraction, something I had watch them build with curiosity. That’s doubled their count since my last visit!
This heavily customised Zamperla Volare uses it’s signature spiral lift hill system but much more family friendly seated trains. The layout has been tailored towards a dark ride experience with lots of stop-start moments alongside well decorated scenes depicting a story around the goose and the golden eggs. The result is fun and quirky, if a little disjointed.
This remains to me the best example in the world of combining the two best types of attractions – thrilling coasters and dark rides. It is the ride that’s solely responsible for getting me back into this hobby and other than buying the t-shirt, several souvenirs, a rare on-ride photo of myself on it utterly alone and experiencing it no less than 9 times on this visit, I simply can’t praise it enough.
Treasure Hunters is probably the most underwhelming ‘major’ attraction on park. A short tracked outdoor jaunt through some ancient Egyptian scenery that looks a bit low budget, particularly when considering what ride sits opposite, still manages to draw disproportionate crowds.
Back to another game changer, this time in the world of water rides, Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure. The Singapore version is the only one throughout the Universal parks to use river rapids style boats and these calmly take you through some majestic scenery before getting downright dangerous with fast flowing currents, intense spinning and much soaking. The indoor portion of the layout is terrifyingly atmospheric and well executed and contains some very special features, culminating in riding an elevator lift with a T-rex and viciously tipping down a drop that should be far too big and steep for this type of vehicle. Absolutely love it
In the same area is the only operating Setpoint rollercoaster in the world. The suspended cars have back to back seating and traverse a very simple figure of eight layout, high above the Jurassic Park land, offering a more observational experience as opposed to any thrill.
It’s often nice to have a sit down and enjoy the Waterworld show that runs a couple of times a day. It contains a lot of action, explosions and special effects and is overall a high quality production.
The Shrek 4D Adventure is also located inside this huge castle. After a preshow with the man in the mirror, you take your seats in a large cinema and watch a new adventure written specifically for the attraction. The seats themselves perform some quite vigorous movements including that of a galloping horse and, source material aside, it’s a decent attraction.
Another example of greatly enhancing source material is Madagascar: A Crate Adventure. This boat based dark ride is an incredible example of the attention to detail that can and should go into attractions of this nature. Every single moment has a reference, a sign, something to catch your eye beyond the overarching storyline of the ride and it always impresses me. It’s also a striking visual on the skyline of the park, blending well with the location of the resort.
The special effects show Lights, Camera, Action! Begins with a foreword by Steven Spielberg inviting you to his sound stage and a brief montage of the effects in many of his major films. Once standing in the sound stage, which is based around a hurricane in New York and is hugely atmospheric, a sequence of events unfolds, getting more and more ridiculous and spectacular each time. Fire, explosions, flying boats. Couldn’t ask for more.
For such a small park in terms of space, the solid attractions keep coming. Sesame Street Spaghetti Space Chase is an endearing little dark ride with suspended vehicles that, as the name suggests, takes you on a journey with the characters through space to save the spaghetti.
The final and most significant dark ride is Transformers. The queue area is huge and split into many different sections that managed to keep you engaged in the storyline even before the ride begins with many different videos, themed safety announcements that interact with the characters and lots of physical details. With the aid of 4D glasses, the ride vehicles manoeuvre around different screens and set pieces, pointing, tilting and spinning as they go. Often the car will stop in front of a screen for a period, with a consistent use of rushing imagery giving the illusion of further movement. While the fighting, flying and crashing into things happens there are violent jolts and judders to the riders and it can be rather intense at times. The story ends with victory (of course) and the cars pass directly under a huge defeated likeness of Megatron, lying in smashed tarmac and broken cables before returning to the station. A very polished attraction and highly enjoyable.
And that completes our lap of the park. It remains one of my favourites both for the standout rides and the sheer number of other easily re-rideable and entertaining attractions on offer. Even though there isn’t much space, I’ve never found it too busy or crowded and the operations are overall very efficient. Due to the climate, sudden rainstorms will stop the rides for often no more than 30 minutes before everything returns to normal, events that would sometimes completely shut down another park for the day. The size also helps to give the place a certain magical vibe, you’re always well immersed in your surroundings among each of the different areas and on top of this it manages to feel very relaxed.
That’s it from Singapore for now, let’s head further afield.
The B&M flyer is a ride type I’ve been familiar with for most of my coasting life. It started life as a prototype at Alton Towers, following fairly hot on the heels of Vekoma’s largely unpopular attempt at a flying coaster. Unlike the competitor, you board the trains in a standard upright manner and when ready for dispatch the seats hinge upwards from behind you, lowering your face towards the floor and hanging you into the vest restraint in a prone position. This remains a great moment for witnessing the terror in unsuspecting guests as it is a particularly unusual and scary way to begin a coaster. The lift hills are equally unnerving, often with nothing but open ground below you, slowly getting further away as you climb.
Prototype aside I have since come to learn that what these rides excel most at is intensity, something I especially admire in an attraction these days. For sheer physical duress on the body they are usually the most intense coasters that B&M create (along with perhaps one or two of their inverts).
One of the main contributors to this is the pretzel loop element, or any other element that involves the train diving you head first towards the ground and then having you pinned onto your back before returning to the flying position. While these inversions can be a little too much for some to enjoy, I am a huge fan of this unique and unrelenting force that literally takes your breath away, pushing the air from your lungs and making your head spin.
I am happy to declare that I have currently ridden every layout of B&M flyer in the world, with only a couple of cloned versions still to ride, so let’s see how they size up.
#7 Air/Galactica (Alton Towers, UK) – The aforementioned prototype is the exception to the rule when it comes to intensity. The only inversions Air has are a standard roll and the ‘fly to lie’ which, though it puts you on your back for a portion of the layout, does not subject you to much in the way of strong forces. It ends up being rather uncomfortable and the feature has yet to be repeated in another layout. Air’s strong points are the unique way it gains momentum through the starting double drop and the moments that best emulate flying, low down over some grass and rocks.
#6 Crystal Wings (Happy Valley Beijing, China), SupermanUltimate Flight (Six Flags Great Adventure, USA) & Superman Ultimate Flight (Six Flags Great America) – This ranking comes with a caveat. The layout itself is objectively better than the previous entry but if it’s a Superman clone I tend to enjoy it less than Air. Crystal Wings has very strong theming which greatly enhances the ride experience and particularly after riding that version first, I resent riding undecorated copies of it at Six Flags parks. The layout begins strong with a pretzel loop but then seemingly runs out of inspiration, taking corner after corner with little excitement before ending in an underwhelming roll.
#5 Tatsu (Six Flags Magic Mountain, USA) – I was a little disappointed to find this ride performing below par for what I had experienced with others. The setting and landscape had massive potential and I absolutely love the way it saves the pretzel loop until the end of the layout, diving off the side of a mountain to achieve it – I’m a sucker for a good use of terrain. My main issue is that it’s like the Supermen in reverse, the first section of the ride is just corner, roll, corner, roll, corner, roll, none of which really get things going. By no means is this a bad ride and I’m fairly sure it gave me DVT with its intensity, but the upcoming competition is just too strong.
#4 Acrobat (Nagashima Spa Land, Japan)& Manta (Sea World Orlando, USA) – Another layout, another pretzel. This beauty starts stupidly intense and then maintains it through the following corner, well beyond sensible limits. Other than the brief respite provided by the mid course brake run (the only one to have this), the remainder of the layout manages to keep things more interesting than the above, with lower to the ground swoops and a corkscrew that snaps a lot more than the average roll on these rides.
#3 Starry Sky Ripper (Joyland, China) – It seems the time had finally arrived to attempt some different elements on these rides and this Chinese anomaly took it to serious extremes. After an unusual straight drop and following large turn, the ride enters a 540° roll. Wait, you say, I’ve been ragging on rolls this whole time. Yes, but that extra 180° makes a world of difference. While thinking ‘oh, it’s another one of these’ it continues to rotate past expectation and then the track just falls from underneath you, head first into a drop with a complete wow moment. What better way to follow this than with a vertical loop, essentially tightening the experience of a pretzel and in the reverse direction. This sequence of elements is simply mind blowing, but then the ride loses steam a little like the others and ends on some corners and yes, you guessed it, rolls.
#2 Harpy (Xishuangbanna Sunac Land, China) – I almost didn’t go and ride this due to my strong disapproval of cloning ride layouts and some rather lazy research. On the surface, this looks like another Superman clone. In reality, it fixes everything about that ride. Once again, the start is the same but, like Acrobat, the intensity of the pretzel is held well after it ends. Suddenly the train lurches to the ground in a completely unexpected manner – I could have sworn there was some airtime on this flyer. The rest remains intense, essentially cutting the faff out of the Acrobat layout and only having the better of the two inversions. I adored this ride in the middle of nowhere and it made me beyond happy to discover that it was both unique and amazing.
#1 Flying Dinosaur (Universal Studios Japan) – The newest installation to date. Take a compilation of everything you’ve read above and then double the intensity. This is not just my favourite flyer, but my favourite overall B&M coaster and the ride should potentially be made illegal. For a manufacturer that is often declared too safe with their designs as of late, having built their success on crowd pleasers, Flying Dinosaur just exceeds every boundary. A huge drop takes you straight into the 540° element of Starry Sky Ripper, no holds barred, plunging out of that onto your head and into a half loop. Before you can recover, you’re diving head first into a pretzel loop. That’s the two most intense elements these rides have to offer, back to back. I don’t know what happens from here but all I can tell you is that it provides absolutely no time to regain any sense of composure from the previous experiences, the ride just continues to abuse you – head spinning, out of breath, until the brake run. And I bloody love it.
In doing my research for this list I have just noticed that the rankings follow the exact order of age for these rides so they’re clearly learning more each time and getting better and better. I do hope the world sees a few more layouts in future, as they’re clearly on a roll.
Our final visit of the trip took us deep into the countryside for what seemed like several hours. We still made good time and arrived at the park before opening. This may have been unnecessary.
Day 5 – Erlebnispark Tripsdrill
Upon entering the park we discovered that nothing was open yet and that all the rides were planned to open at staggered intervals.
While clearly a very attractive place to be, this made for a lot of hanging around in rather cold and slightly miserable weather, waiting for things to happen.
The first attraction that came available was this unusual drop tower set into a tree. It had a bit of a bonus surprise in the sequence that involved tilting forward but it left me more confused than thrilled. What just happened?
One by one, the rest of the coasters opened up, each with a good half an hour interval. We spent most of this time sitting on a bench and snacking on our food and drink rations to save fitting them on the plane that evening.
The smallest cred in the park is a Tivoli Large. The length of the trains on these Zierers always amuses me and their momentum makes for some strange moments in certain seats, seemingly defying physics by losing speed downhill or gaining speed uphill.
This was the first rollercoaster ever built by manufacturer Gerstlauer. Their bobsled coaster is like an upgraded wild mouse, taking certain manoeuvres like banked drops and helices that those would never attempt but also mimicking the high unbanked turns that provide strong laterals. Though beautifully blended into the environment, the ride itself was a little underwhelming. The highlight of the ride was a sharp turn through a building with a prompt sign appearing out of nowhere, reading something like ‘Du Wessen?’ I couldn’t help but shout the question upon seeing it and the resulting hilarity was the best entertainment on the ride.
The Gerstlauer Infinity coaster starts indoors and navigates around a quirky set piece before a slow inversion in the dark catches you off guard. Following this, it drops awkwardly into a fast launch to the outside world, pitching you forward and then slamming you back again rather uncomfortably.
The strangely shaped top hat wobbles unnervingly as cars traverse it and the remainder of the layout is a mix of turns, hills and inversions with varying impact. There were no particularly notable moments for me other than the speed with which it whipped into the dive loop underground. The best time we had with the ride was an unexpected lap in the hail, being blinded and pelted with ice is surprisingly beneficial.
Completing the park’s Gerstlauer trilogy we have the only wooden coaster they’ve ever built. Before taking the lift hill, the ride has a little preshow section in a shed with some effects which was a pleasant surprise – not often you see that level of detail on this type of attraction.
It’s a surprisingly smooth ride for a woodie and like the other rides in the park, lacks any real moments of significance. I liked it enough, but wanted a little more out of it to be honest.
Which is a good parallel for my thoughts on the park. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the place, it just failed to inspire any real sense of significance. Each ride that became available would satisfy us for a short while, but we’d soon end up back on a bench waiting for the next rather than continuing with many more laps. Sadly all of the water rides were shut due to poor weather as well so we were left with little to do other than kill time before returning to the airport. Most of this time was spent in a lovely little sandwich shop that we had all to ourselves. Finally a warm place to sit down, eat some hot food and watch the rain outside.
The following morning we had a great time getting more acquainted with our favourite rides from the previous day at Europa, but our minds kept wandering back to the earlier misfortune at Holiday Park. What if the ride is open again now and we’re missing out? By lunchtime we couldn’t take it any more and decided to phone the park for confirmation. The answer was positive, so by early afternoon we were back on the road for a revenge trip.
Day 4 – Holiday Park
We arrived in the car park and sat in the same position as before, remaining skeptical, watching and waiting for some further proof that Expedition GeForce was indeed active. 10 nervous minutes passed before we saw the train climbing the lift through the trees. The dashboard was punched and the car doors were flung wide open. “It’s running!”
With a mere 2 hours remaining of their operating schedule, the park may have thought us mad for turning up so late and paying full entry price, but it seems we weren’t the only ones. A minivan full of hockey players had also arrived at the same time for a quick stint, clearly the world famous ride has a bit of a cult following among the locals.
It was potentially better value for money than our first visit though. We racked up a total of 11 laps in that time and it was definitely worth coming back for. The twisted first drop is particularly brutal, taken at such a steep angle. With the momentum carrying over from the faster than usual cable lift hill, a strong moment of multi-directional ejection starts the layout as it means to go on.
Every single hill on this ride is designed to provide an almost unrivalled amount of airtime and it really is quite ridiculous to experience. The reactions from other riders is almost as entertaining, a particular standout being a man in a Silver Star shirt seemingly leaping into each of them with his whole upper body and doing windmills with his arms.
Where the ride falls short for me is the extended section of turns in the middle where nothing much happens, when the ride is delivering so well at other times it feels like some wasted potential within the layout.
The finish is as strong as the start, with a hill through the structure that threatens to cut your hands off, followed by the final series of consecutive hills that try to remove clothing, leaving our shirts half up and jackets wrapped across the back of the seat by the time it hits the brake run.
I can see why this Intamin mega is so highly regarded. If airtime is your sole jam, then there really is nothing to complain about and back when Expedition GeForce opened there was likely very little that wouldn’t pale in comparison. Personally I find it a tiny bit too one-dimensional and predictable to be considered the best of the best. I’m more a fan of variety in a layout as well as rides that provide a more out of control feeling – you can see all the airtime coming a mile away here and anticipation can be a killer. The element of surprise is often under utilised.
We simply couldn’t get enough of the ride though, running and/or staggering around through the queue each time until they eventually closed down for the evening. When the stars align, coaster marathons like this are always a fantastic way to end the day.
Due to the size of the place, a common recommendation for visiting Europa Park is that you spend a minimum of three days there. It’s the second largest park in Europe following the Disneyland Paris resort and is owned and run by the Mack family, the very same Macks that are involved in manufacturing rides that I often speak highly of. The main concept of the park is showcasing various countries throughout Europe as themed areas with their own rides and attractions. Feeling like experts at this stage in our career, we felt that we could probably manage it in two days – let’s see how that turned out.
After parking directly underneath a B&M hyper coaster – a novel place to put the car, we headed in to appreciate the scenery around the entrance area before the ride sections were opened to the public.
In terms of rollercoasters, the most significant area in the park is Iceland, home to both a Mack launch coaster and a GCI woodie. It’s a particularly beautiful area of the park with great attention to detail in theming, scenery and ride interaction.
We began with the Mack, which in a way was a showcase prototype of the new and exciting hardware that the company were introducing to the world in 2009. The same technology that later went on to create my absolute favourite, Helix.
So I was excited to say the least, to see how it all began. It didn’t disappoint.
Following a smooth launch into a high turn, it’s a very well rounded layout taken mostly with a graceful feeling rather than one of intensity. The exception to this is the final inversion, which is taken at ridiculous speed and tries to spin you out of the train, making me instinctively hold onto my head every single time.
Other highlights include the exit to the mid course brake run, the twisted airtime hill that threads the loop and the close interaction with the rockwork which simply dares you to keep your hands up at all times. The ride also has a great soundtrack, with a 90 second piece that is actually tailored to fit the on-ride experience. Sadly this only played through the onboard speakers during just 1 of our many laps, but I was overly thrilled when it happened.
Blue Fire’s wooden neighbour has a brilliant queueline that gets more and more intricate as you progress. Inside the station, there are statues high up that creepily turn their heads in sequential creaky movements to monitor the trains as they arrive and depart. For further intimidation, there’s a signature GCI station flythrough which the train simply roars through while you wait in anticipation, shaking the whole building in the process.
The start of the ride feels particularly out of control and intense, plunging it’s way through the structure. From here I found that it lacked a little definition, there were no standout moments and it rattles around some rather high up sections for longer than feels necessary.
As with the other Iceland coaster, the interaction with the scenery greatly enhances the experience and towards the end of the layout Wodan begins to improve again, hitting some unusual transitions, strange track shaping in the corners and a couple of small hills that throw you all over the place. By the end of the ride I was simply laughing through sheer joy – high praise.
Continuing on through the creds, we find the first of two Mack water coasters in the park. Located in the Portugal area, this one uses larger boat vehicles, turntables and a backwards portion of track across the top section. Again the station scenery is a particular highlight.
Over in Greece, these smaller boat/cars navigate a more significant coaster portion of twists and turns before ending in the classic splashdown.
Behind Poseidon is Pegasus, a Mack youngstar coaster which is a great family ride – very thrilling for the size and flawlessly smooth. It was running a Virtual Reality headset add-on that we tried, having not attempted any previously (it seems to be popping up everywhere). This was based on a franchise called Monster Family/Happy Family and the visuals showed some of the characters riding alongside us through various fantasy antics, the most striking moment being when one of them jumped out of their seat in close proximity. I wouldn’t particularly recommend the experience as it doesn’t really add much, especially when considered against the extra amount of time it adds to the proceedings for everyone involved.
This Mack wild mouse has a special feature, showing off an elevator lift system at the beginning of the ride in place of a traditional chain lift hill. The cars tilt rather unnervingly to the side and back again as they travel upwards before exiting the building and then traversing a mostly standard layout that never quite lives up to the initial spectacle.
Disappointly this is a rather unexciting Mack bobsled coaster. The most interesting part of the ride experience for me was appreciating the efficiency of the staff and operations here – something Europa Park are potentially the best in the world at.
Another place that VR has appeared in this park is on their Mack powered coaster. This is unfortunate as the ride spends some time in a beautiful indoor area with crystals, caverns and dragons. For some reason we chose to don the headsets again, I was underwhelmed again and I’m told that the screens weren’t even working for Mega-Lite, forcing him to sit in stunned silence throughout the ride. We made up for this by spending a lot of time exploring this magical hidden section of the park on foot instead.
As well as having this more traditional powered coaster, Europa Park saw the debut of Mack’s inverted powered coaster – a ride system that suspends guests below the track with cars that can gently rotate, it lends itself well to dark ride sections and strong theming, with good control over both the pace of the trains and the direction in which they face. I don’t quite know why, but I never took photos of Arthur. To help with the seating arrangement, the area outside the queue has a free locker system to store loose articles but it was the most complicated and frustrating encounter of the whole park. A combination of tickets, coloured lights and German men shouting are supposed to indicate which locker you have been assigned to, while other guests attempt to steal it from you or block the way and end up timing you out. Once on the ride, which is themed around the film Arthur and the Invisibles, there are several scenes on screens, a short outdoor section and a much more impressive indoor section through which the trains suddenly go swooping across a vast open area full of immersive scenery and guests walking below. Other than this particular moment, I wasn’t overly taken with the whole system. The movement was a bit clunky and I failed to follow the storytelling or be left with any other significant impression (or a picture).
For an indoor coaster that satisfies on all levels, a visit to the France area is a must. Eurosat is another Mack coaster and is situated entirely within this sphere, with an amazing soundtrack and a space theme. It utilises a spiral lift hill which appears to take several minutes to get to the top, climbing and climbing forever while the music keeps you thoroughly entertained. When it finally reaches the summit, the train begins to wind its way down in total darkness, other than the sight of an occasional illuminated planet or asteroid. The movements are totally unpredictable and in many cases completely wild and it results in a rather intense but totally joyous experience from start to finish.
Sharing a lot of features with the above, Euromir is a Mack spinning coaster with a space theme, a great soundtrack and an endless indoor spiral lift hill. The coaster portion is outdoors this time, beginning with a series of teasing turns, high up between the striking structures, before dropping into a much more intense sequence of banked corners with occasional strong spinning. It isn’t as good as Eurosat, but still rather enjoyable.
I believe that only leaves one more coaster – the big boy, the B&M hyper. In a slightly unusual change from the rest of the park, this ride is sponsored by Mercedes, has nothing in the way of scenery (admittedly hard for a ride of this scale) other than some cars in the queue and an amusing song that encourages Silver Star itself to ‘ride on.’
We tried the comfy B&M trains with their minimalistic clam shell restraints in various positions and learnt that the ride offers vastly differing experiences. The front row simply wasn’t worth our time for the unobstructed view, providing an underwhelming set of forces throughout the layout.
The back row however was a completely different beast with powerful airtime through many of the hills and a really strong and unexpected kick out of the mid course brake run that violently tried to remove me from the train.
As well as an extensive coaster selection, there are many dark rides at Europa Park.
Cassandra’s Curse was one of the stand outs for me, being Mack’s own version of a Vekoma mad house, with a bonus physical surprise in the seating that was rather fun. It lacked the ambience of my inevitable comparison for these types of rides – Hex, which I feel will put most of the ones I find in future at a disadvantage, but I thoroughly enjoyed it regardless.
The other highlight was Piraten in Batavia, a boat ride with a strong resemblance to the Disney attraction Pirates of the Caribbean. It held it’s own rather well, with several impressive sets and a strong atmosphere throughout.
There are several tracked attractions including a ghost train and a shooting ride, but none of these particularly stood out to me on the day – the sheer number of attractions we got through in a single day (actually everything we wanted) was quite overwhelming at times.
Having successfully completed the park in a single hit, we were left with the whole of the second day to take a much more relaxed pace, enjoy many re-rides and then embark on a surprise side quest (stay tuned).
I was very taken with Europa Park overall, you couldn’t hope to find a more competent park in the way that attractions are presented and operated. One thing that was missing for me was a real standout ride, something that makes me desperately want to return other than just for the park itself. I couldn’t even name a favourite coaster upon leaving and that’s not to say that more than a few aren’t really, really good, I just feel that one especially killer ride would tip the scales for me and make it something truly special, perhaps almost unbeatable.
The following morning we arrived bright and early at the home of the multi award winning Expedition GeForce – billed to be the standout coaster of the trip and a source of major excitement for us. The bright part might be a lie, it was a particularly grey and miserable day.
At the back of the park, the other major coaster was up and running so we began with that. A striking looking Premier triple launch coaster, something in particular seems to stand out – no corners. It’s very tall, high in thrills but fits into a tiny space. Sadly that means it’s going to be cloned everywhere.
With an age restriction of minimum 14 out front, the queueline for this ride contains a number of horror elements like you would find in a scare maze at a halloween event. Nervously dodging our way through that with no other guests to use as shields, we reached the station amongst the very first riders of the day.
As soon as the restraint was pushed down on me by the member of staff, I wanted to leave the ride. This wasn’t through fear, just pure pain. For some reason these restraints have what’s described as a shin bar, a particularly stiff and pointy one in this instance and it was digging right into my shin bones in the most uncomfortable manner and not wanting to cause a scene there was nothing I could do about it.
On with the ride then, teeth clenched. The shuttle launch – forwards, backwards and forwards again is surprisingly powerful, taking place over such a short space of track. With enough momentum from the last to reach the highest point of the layout, the train is rather unceremoniously thrust over the crest of the hill in what could have been quite a good moment of airtime had I not been so badly pinned in place.
The inversion across the top slowly rolls you over while I’m once again starting to wish it would just end. A trim brake teases it back into the vertical spike at the other side, resulting in the non-inverting loop being taken at a reasonable pace and with a final twist you’re racing back through the station for some braking action that could not have come soon enough for me. Please let me off now. It’s a shame as I think I would have quite liked the ride, but I have never been so negatively impacted by a train design before and I really don’t see how it’s a necessary feature. (Future note: it isn’t. Clones of the ride exist perfectly fine without it, I can only assume that it’s part of the horror theme now – planned torture). Hopefully never again.
Somewhere else in the trees hides this standard Maurer wild mouse coaster. It had a particularly brutal set of brakes at the end that stopped the car almost instantaneoulsy from high speed, but I was already immune to pain at this point in the day.
We wandered back past Expedition GeForce to see if it had sprung into life. There was activity from staff around the area and noises from the winch house that runs the cable lift hill. No luck yet though, so we found a few other attractions to tide us over.
In the family area of the park is a well themed boat ride based around the adventures of Tabaluga, a green dragon who also has a TV show. A relaxing little sit down.
Burg Falkenstein was the complete opposite of relaxing. A ghost train that bordered on the edge of disturbing in some parts, we both ended up at the exit thinking ‘nah… that wasn’t quite for me.’
Expedition GeForce was still down and we had now run out of things to do. A man at the entrance to the queue gave a shrug and couldn’t tell us any useful information.
A tasty sandwich outside Sky Scream tided us over until a show that the park was putting on in this lake arena.
Jet skis, speed boats, that water jetpack device and a slapstick plot that seemed to openly mock the French – it was entertaining enough. Would rather have been riding the ‘greatest rollercoaster in the world’ though.
So we sat outside that for an age, wishing for something to change. No further hints were given other than perhaps it was a little too cold to run ~8°C for most of the day I believe.
So we sat in the car watching it in relative comfort for an age, wishing for a train to crest the lift hill visible through the trees. It never did. This was a major spite, my first major spite (from inside a park). One of the main reasons we planned this trip and we simply couldn’t ride it. Is this what the hobby is going to be like?
2016 marked the beginning of a significant change in my theme park visiting habits. Rather than just fitting them around general travel plans with the other half, this trip with cred buddy Mega-Lite was my very first that was entirely dedicated to visiting multiple parks abroad – nothing else was on the agenda.
This particular area of Germany seemed like a good starting point for the two of us. Home to one of the most highly regarded and major theme parks in Europe as well as 9000-time winner of various greatest steel coaster in the world polls.
Today being a flight day, things began a little more low key. We started in Stuttgart and made our debut on the fabulous Autobahn.
This brightly coloured Zierer has very comfortable trains and is the most significant ride I have encounted by the manufacturer, being more used to their common Tivoli models that are nothing more than filler.
The coaster packs a surprising punch with some decent twists and turns, some particularly low to the ground and almost scraping the grass in a rather thrilling fashion. Because the park is so tiny and there was almost no one else around, we took the opportunity for plenty of laps. It’s a solid entry and justifies a visit to the park a little more than the simple transaction of €20 for a +2.
Talking of Zierer Tivolis, this appears to be one. The track is a slightly newer style but it follows the layout of a Tivoli Small. Still relatively new to the slightly more questionable side of cred hunting, this would have been an opportunity for testing our embarassment as we boarded this childrens coaster, but with still virtually no one around it was all too easy.
Took a wander to see if there was anything else worth our attention.
I really enjoyed my last Bobkart so jumped at the opportunity to try another. The rate of acceleration, all controlled by your own two hands still catches me off guard and no one has yet confirmed to me whether these tracks are intelligently built to handle full speed at all times. There’s always that slight apprehension that if you give it max from start to finish, you could just come out of the tube and die and some point. I like it that way.
Great way to kill a couple of hours before the hotel. From all that land and digging I think the park is on the up, will be interesting to see where they go from here.
How does one go about building the greatest rollercoaster in the world? Look no further than this hillside in Gothenburg for inspiration.
When talking about my hobby to anyone I am probably most frequently asked the question – ‘so what’s your favourite then?’ The reply of course is ‘Helix, it’s in Sweden’, but when it comes to explaining why that is, I find it rather difficult to do in a sentence or two. The simplest answer is that ‘it has everything’, but what does that mean to someone with no real context?
Let’s start with the ingredients.
The Layout
Having an inspirational layout is probably the most important thing I look for in a ride. It’s the core of rollercoaster design and, for me, every experience can only really be judged as a sum of its parts, rather than defined by singular moments. Simply put, the layout of Helix is a sheer masterpiece in my eyes. It does everything I love and I cannot fault it.
I already mentioned the hillside and that will be coming up a lot because it contributes to several of the factors that make this ride special. In this case, it makes the layout of the track completely unique as it is entirely built around the physical landscape found here.
The station for the ride is situated at the top of the hill, meaning that unlike most other rides, gravity is already at your disposal. There’s no need to build up that potential energy and you can start as you mean to go on – which Helix does all too well. As early as the point of dispatch, the train surges out of the station into the first drop which then immediately throws you out of your seat. Airtime already?
A wonderfully floaty inversion follows, flopping you down into the restraint and giving your first of many surreal upside down views out over the park. From here it heads round a sweeping corner, through the trees at the northern most point of the ride, above Liseberg’s quaint garden area.
That section was just a taster and now the first launch accelerates you into a larger and more spectacular inversion above the height of the starting point. We’ve got even more to play with now.
With another sweeping turn into a twisted airtime moment, the train begins to build momentum and work its way further down the hillside. The height differential of the landscape comes into play more and jutting out over the edge is a Norwegian loop.
This is a rare element, currently only found on three coasters in the world and it’s essentially a sitdown version of the Pretzel loop on flying coasters – often considered to be the most intense inversions in the world. Another way of considering it would be a standard vertical loop stood on it’s head – the heart of the element is the lowest point and therefore the fastest part.
It flips you onto your head before diving down into the base of the loop with a ton of force and then pulling out the other side with a second flip, pointing you back in the original direction of travel.
Following this element the ride just wants get as far away from the station as quickly as possible. After diving under the lift hill of neighbouring coaster Lisebergbanan, the first traditional airtime hill follows, taking you over the station of that same ride.
Contrary to the name, the snappiest and most out of control inversion on the ride is the subsequent Zero-G roll and this part really is Helix at its wildest. Another surprisingly snappy transition takes you into the closest thing the ride has to having an actual helix, a tight 360° banked corner at the lowest and fastest point of the layout. You’re almost at the ground now.
Rather than thinking about losing any speed at this point, the track quickly twists the other way and turns you into the second launch. A rolling launch is often one of my favourite elements purely from the utterly joyous sensation it provides just in knowing that the ride is far from done – instead of running out of steam, it’s giving you the opportunity to do it all again.
This launch sets you up for what I’d consider to be the two most signature moments of the ride. The largest of the inversions and the highest point in the ride, this inside top hat towers over the surrounding pathway.
The unusual shaping of this element provides a strange mix of sensations, along with the most sustained sensation of hangtime and an inverted view back out towards the ride station and city beyond.
The train plunges out of there and into what I consider to be the greatest airtime hill in the world – no mean feat.
All this new found momentum is more than enough to carry you all the way back up to the height of the station with significant speed and this is done through what I like to call ‘the slither’ – a fun series of twisted transitions in alternating directions up the hillside.
Just when you think you’re safe, a brutal final roll pitches you onto your head one last time before the brake run. Not a single moment is wasted in this layout and that can’t be emphasised enough.
The Forces
We saw a lot of different elements in the layout there and when earlier I said that Helix has everything, this also holds true for the forces it provides.
A contender for strongest airtime on the planet, the execution of the negative Gs on this ride are truly spectacular – from leaving the station out of your seat to the more subtle twisted pops there’s a huge variety.
The two major hills toe the line perfectly between brutally ejecting you out of your seat and sustaining you there for a significant period of time, often a hard balance to encounter. Normally this sort of force is over before they can catch up, but it literally drags your limbs up into the air, taking total control of your body.
I find the the best way to experience positive forces is not so much the common crushing head sensation but the tingling and numbing in your feet, something the B&M invert perfected first with the dangling legs of the seating position. Although Mack mega trains do have a floor, the seats are raised above it so your legs are still hanging in a similar fashion. Helix is the only sitdown coaster in the world that puts pins and needles in my feet and it’s mostly found here in the Norwegian loop due to the speed and sustained force at bottom of the dip.
Somewhere between the extremes of negative and positive force, each of the other inversions on Helix provides an interesting sensation of floating or snapping, all being taken at different angles, height and speeds. There was a time in ride design when going upside down was purely for the scare, the spectacle or a more basal thrill. The earliest inversions like vertical loops and corkscrews are generally quite boring these days. Helix is part of a new generation of rides where the inversion has been revolutionised, all seven in this layout are enjoyable in their own way and contribute to the ride experience. None of them feel like they are just there for the sake of it – they all have purpose.
I can’t even describe what this one does, but it feels like at least 5 different things are going on at once with the sharp upwards entry, sudden twist and more drawn out exit. It’s very unique.
The Interaction
Among my most favourite experiences on attractions are those moments when there is an interaction with another nearby, especially when there’s another train or car involved, full of other riders. It’s a bit of a weird human trait, like waving to people on a gentle train ride at a level crossing – a moment of shared joy. In better cases of this you aren’t an innocent bystander, you’re all sharing high thrill experiences together – duelling and racing coasters are particularly good at this. In the best version, they’re different thrill rides altogether.
You can see the majority of the Helix layout in the image above. The coaster it shares a lot of moments with is Lisebergbanan in white. A log flume crosses twice at the bottom right of the layout, near the second launch. AtmosFear the drop tower sits within the upper left corner at the top of the hill. There’s also Uppswinget towards the centre of the picture, an S&S Screamin’ Swing which sits both above the spiralling turns of Lisebergbanan and below the highest inversion of Helix, perilously swinging back and forth between the two. I commonly refer to this location as my favourite place on earth. I could stand there all day watching it all go by and with the operational efficiency of a park like Liseberg, it’s particularly satisfying how frequently something special happens.
The highlights of this ride interaction include chasing or being chased by a Lisebergbanan train across the hillside.
And in the moment between what I described as the two most significant parts of Helix, an Uppswinget swing is likely to come hurtling towards you from the right. These both always cause me to simply shout in amazement.
The Location
Besides being situated amongst these other attractions, even just the scenery is particularly attractive for this city park. The view from the station while sitting in the train, looking out across the valley past the first inversion is always a magical moment.
There’s always something different to look at with a unique perspective during each of the slower inversions, enhanced by such a high vantage point.
The defining moment of the final airtime hill that coins the phrase ‘being ejected into Gothenburg’ is truly spectacular. It feels like you can just leave the train and fly over the Gothia Towers into the heart of the city and a ride at night with everything lit up never fails to take my breath away.
Other than pure physical location, the ride happens to be in my favourite park in the world – Liseberg, and I can admit that the two actually influence each other in the definition of this. Though there may be other technically better parks out there, I can’t deny the appeal of one containing both the best ride ever and my happy place. In 3 visits over 6 days I have never found a single fault with the place from the atmosphere, attraction lineup, operational efficiency (5 trains on Lisebergbanan), food (now MAX), staff, opening hours (regular 11pm nights). You simply cannot fail to have a good time here and, like Helix, it has it all.
The Hardware
Though this ride has likely played a part in defining this as well, The Mack mega trains are my favourite rolling stock on a coaster. I often declare that I want one of the bucket seats as my office chair and they really are that comfy.
Comfort is one part of the story, but freedom of movement is also extremely important to me on a rollercoaster as it ensures there are no restrictions on the forces the ride has to offer you. With minimum points of contact, nothing gets in the way of your body moving where physics wants it to and there’s no threat of being punched in the head by a lumpy restraint. The way the bucket seats have such wide (and airy) backs, the lap bar coming in from above rather than between your legs and the raised position from the train floor that I mentioned earlier all play a significant part in making sure you get the best of Helix. There were concerns amongst enthusiasts (myself included) when seatbelts were added to the ride after a few years but from personal experience and with careful use these have made no impact whatsoever.
The trains also have headlights and strip lights down the side that looks great at night, particularly if you take a late ride on the ferris wheel – you can see them zipping about all over the hillside in a wondrous fashion.
Mack themselves are an extremely competent ride manufacturer. Everything about their recent creations exudes professionalism but there’s also that slightly twisted darker side to them – the willingness to push boundaries and do things out of the ordinary. It’s a perfect combination of what the industry has to offer right now and I think it sets them apart nicely. The track is smooth, the launches are intelligent, the ride is extremely forceful and none of it feels clinical. I will likely touch on the subject in other reviews but it has what I would call character.
The Verdict
When I first rode Helix in 2015 I had been on less than 100 rollercoasters. Both the amount that it did and the way in which it did it completely redefined what I thought I knew about rides. I sat on the brakerun with my mind spinning. I loved rollercoasters but I had never considered the possibility that they could be THAT good.
I returned the following year with double the count to my name and it quickly reaffirmed everything I thought the first time around. Nothing comes close to touching this brilliance.
Over what felt like a long 2 years I was constantly looking for an excuse to return. It’s truthfully the only ride and park in the world that I am constantly, constantly thinking I would like to pop back to for no other reason than sheer enjoyment. When what I get the most out of this hobby relies so heavily on finding new experiences and travellings to new places, given the choice I will always go somewhere I haven’t been yet. Or here. That’s it. The moment finally came towards the end of the 2018 season. I was well over 600 creds now, having seen and done a hell of a lot more and a little nagging doubt had crept in as it often does when you look back on ride experiences – will it stil hold up? We arrived at the park in the evening and it was already dark. We headed straight to the ride and it me took as far as the zero-G (head over heels, can’t see, mind racing) on our first lap for the single loudest thought to pop into my head. ‘Yes, this is still by far the best thing I’ve ever done.’ I stand by that to this day.
They knew it before I did and the poster says it all. Helix is the next level of rollercoasters. I can’t wait for one to join it.
