Another factor in acquiring a Plopsa pass was to give us an excuse to revisit old mate GeForce (and his new +1) while in the vicinity. Finish on a high we figured, end the trip with a coaster of quality and class, not ‘just another cred run’. After a few weeks it does tend to feel like that.
Day 23 – Holiday Park
2016, Holiday Park, sitting in the cold in our first ever hire car, watching ‘the world’s greatest rollercoaster’ for signs of life that wouldn’t come. This view still brings back haunting memories.
Indoors first though, for the chain-wide favourite Zierer Force Two coaster, this named #1 Tabalugas Achterbahn, after the dragon who recently lost his boat ride to Schwaben Park. These things do generally look pretty nice.
And here we are again. It’s been so long since I was a true fan of Expedition GeForce that I was about to make a statement like ‘I was never the biggest fan of GeForce but…’, but that would be a lie. As a humble greenhorn this ride kicked my ass and I loved it, even going out of my way to visit it twice within the first year of riding it, spite not included. Over the subsequent 5 years it has slipped a fair amount in my mind, mainly under the stress of endless newcomers. I always thought that the layout was suboptimal with all the lost potential through the middle section, though the epic airtime did make up for most of that.
Well now it’s slipped a fair amount in person. Weak, disappointing, a shell of its former self. Good to have the confirmation I guess. Gave it a few chances in various positions to be extra sure but it ended up just going through the motions.
Looks like this next place is still on the cards then, after being unceremoniously dropped last year.
Klotten
Always pictured the park in a field somewhere, so the views were a pleasant surprise.
Excitement at the entrance soon turned to disappointment as the first board we came to, after buying tickets, stated that the dark ride was closed. One of the two reasons for visiting. Ugh.
Well at least #2 Heiße Fahrt is really good. Finishing in style on yet another Gerstlauer Bobsled. Every time I ride one of these I keep thinking it’s the best one yet.
And that could easily be true. It’s like a jumbo version of the standard layout with extra big twisty drops, extra high up turns and four, four! back to back airtime hills with more flair than GeForce.
Rode the dubious water coaster, Zum Rittersturz, as the drop looked rather violent and it was one other way to try and justify the entrance ticket. Turns out this one begins with a little dark ride section, a teaser perhaps of what the actual dark ride located in that same unique stack could have been like.
The drop was violent and rather unforgiving on the shoe, particularly in a mostly empty boat.
And so ends the adventure, nothing left but an uneventful trundle back to the tunnel.
I think I needed this visual for myself, just to put into perspective how stupid some of the routing ended up being, and here it is:
Summary
Total countries (principalities?) – 13 New coasters – 109 Total coasters – 128 New dark rides – 18 Total dark rides – 25 New parks – 41 Total parks – 50 New wacky worms – 14 Best coaster – Ride to Happiness Best dark ride – Symbolica Best park – Fantasiana (again) Distance travelled ~7800 Miles-ish (more than double previous record) Spites – 1/110 (0.91%)
We actually rather enjoyed our time here before, it was definitely one of those parks that got a worse rep than it deserved and so were were looking forward to experiencing all some of it again, along with their brand new attraction and a couple of other rethemes.
The new attraction being the catchily titled #1 Movie Park Studios. With so many of these Intamin things popping up, I had forgotten which ones did what, especially with that deceiving ‘multi-dimension coaster’ label that was being thrown around. Which dimension is it?
This one begins with a preshow, a Marty McFly looking bloke is projected here, welcoming us to the Studios and standing in for director Steven Thrillberg who we were supposed to meet – except he’s too busy making three films at once. But no worries, we can still have a tour. (If you want a more eloquent write-up, check this out). Things get convoluted and we’re introduced to a goofy automated ride system called SAM, I suppose giving an explanation as to why the tour is a rollercoaster (and that certain things go a bit wrong), though it didn’t feel strictly necessary to do this and pads the runtime a bit.
Sadly, almost as if to compensate for that fact, you then get a bit rushed through the next part of the queue which contains windows to some very intricately themed rooms containing all sorts of props, drawings and little details of other rides around the park, past and present. Bypassing all that in a blur takes you straight up to the station stairs, where Steven Thrillberg himself is chatting stuff on a TV and your carriage awaits.
After climbing into the cars, which are a bit Objectif Mars again, sans spinning, you despatch round the first corner and immediately take a wrong turn, ending up in the middle of a house about to get torn apart by a tornado. Effects happen and I fully expected a drop track here, but instead we got a backwards launch. I’ll take it.
You next end up on a turnable that goes the long way round, 270° past a bank of studio monitors with technology going a bit haywire before proceeding forwards again into the set of a car chase movie. With a drop right along side a rival car, the main launch hits and sends you up out into the outside world.
For the little entrance fly by section, which is a fun moment.
Heading back inside for a couple of faster turns, you come across the last of the three movies – King Kong kicking off at stuff, though it rushes past in a bit of a blur at our new found speed. The tour is complete, thanks for riding.
Well, it’s great as a ‘dark ride’. The coaster itself is a bit of a non-event if that’s what you’re going for, it’s a good dynamic piece of hardware that does the job well and a nice bonus that it happens to be a cred I guess. Looks like I was wrong about the drop track!
Could have done with a bit more proof reading at the end here.
Just next door is the rethemed rapids ride, now Excalibur. I never did the old queue as we ended up with fastrack last time and slithered in through a side door instead. This was here now, might have been before, would that make sense? Probably not. Big and impressive though.
I’m all for rapids rides with significant indoor sections and good levels of theming, there’s something a bit more magical about the water sloshing around in the dark and the peril that comes with it. It’s well paced, fun and ends with finding Excalibur of course, in a big cave. Was it better than Mystery River? Couldn’t say.
Walked straight past all the family coasters that would have been so much easier to ride this time around, if only that was how the hobby worked. Sadly Time Riders (the vicious John Cleese simulator) was out of action for ‘local covid restrictions’, although I’m led to believe this is a more permanent doing and it’s the next attraction to be overhauled. May never be the same again.
Van Helsing was ready to kick ass though, the fantastically themed Gerstlauer Bobsled. Maybe I’ve been wrong thinking all these new ones might be the best one yet, I love this thing. Fast paced, grim, violent, with surprise hairpins and/or airtime in the dark, it’s proper quality stuff.
As is the queue for Star Trek: Operation Enterprise. They’ve done away with the preshows here interestingly, I remember thinking they hurt the rerideability a bit, especially as they didn’t really link so well to the series, after being immersed so well in all the rest of it.
I feel like this Mack launch coaster is exactly as I remember it, just that my standards have gone up quite considerably, particularly given what had happened a couple of days prior. It’s fine, competent, nothing special, a good mix of forces here and there. Triple launches are starting to feel a bit faffy without anything spectacular at either end and I find myself wanting to get into the meat of the ride more quickly. Still lacks a conclusion as a themed experience as well. Did we get assimilated or what? Also the furry communicator badges on their uniforms look a bit ropey and were starting to bug me as the day went on.
Instead of redoing John Cleese, I feel like they should be paying more attention to the beachy American area with the two terrible creds (and no, repainting the SLC doesn’t count). It’s a weird transition from nicely decorated studio rides to cheap looking Diskos, generic theming and industrial wasteland. We walked straight round the lot in a loop to remind ourselves what was there worth riding, and the answer was nothing.
Time for a little distracted detour. With less than 72 hours until we would be heading home, we needed a negative covid test result from somewhere, anywhere. The park themselves were hosting a little test centre out in the car park so we figured it might be worth a shot and headed out to see them now that the morning rush was over. Better than stumbling into some obscure pharmacy in a city, as was the original plan, at least.
Though our request was unusual, ‘we want a test to go home in three days, not to get into the park we’ve already been in’, they knew exactly what we were on about, were super helpful about it all and got right to it, giving us exactly what we needed. Major relief there.
To celebrate(?) the fact we could now end the holiday soon, we rode Area 51, another more tenuously rethemed water/dark ride. Forgot how huge the drop in the dark was for such a big boat, it goes on for an age and is quite a special moment. Alien stuff happens as you drift around in the depths of the indoor section, followed by a backwards portion waiting for a drop that never comes. The final descent out of the volcano is stil hilariously tame and I’m simply not enough of an expert to have noticed the differences. Was it better than Bermuda Triangle? I couldn’t say.
It had been chucking down with rain at certain points and everything in the park was walk on, so we did struggle somewhat to last the day, even though we wanted to give the place every opportunity. They’ve got many solid attractions and definitely appear to be heading in the right direction, just nothing with that killer instinct to keep you there indefinitely. All other cred options in the area had already been exhausted, so we took an early long drive back towards the French border for the night. All coming full circle. -ish.
I can never seem to escape this park, even though I’m far from the biggest fan. Last year was brutally bad timing as we missed the long awaited opening of F.L.Y. by a mere couple of weeks. Obviously that had to be rectified and so here we go again, ready to ride yet another Vekoma multi-launch that I was once hugely excited for, though feelings had since faded into obscurity.
Headed straight to Rookburgh to see what all the fuss had been about over the years. It’s quite the spectacle, I’ll give it that, and I like the way the area feels so far removed from the rest of the park as if it’s a little pocket world of its own. Walls were worth it. Walking through the queue goes on for an age, but provides plenty of opportunity to have a good watch of everything going on around the place.
We reached the instructional batching point amongst the first guests of the day, but then proceeded to get stuck here, watching the video over and over again for what felt like a long time. The ride was already playing up and having some technical delays. I assume this robot bloke is/was meant to do something, though he appeared to also be broken. The video explains the immensely complicated boarding procedure which is, I suppose intentionally, rather like boarding a flight. You receive a magic wristband from a member of staff and then proceed to a bank of lockers, selecting any one you want. Once all your goods are stowed, absolutely all of them, the band will lock it for you by touch and then of course become registered exclusively to that number until the end of the ride. It’s now time to pass through the metal detectors and staff with scanners to check you haven’t been naughty and tried to sneak a cheeky picture of the station to sell to Golden Horse. The station queue splits off into two, with what was originally intended to be colour coded entrances based on the wristband you received, I believe for single riders and such. These are covid times however, so everyone gets blue anyway and they just filter from both alternately.
It’s a nice station, full of bubbling pipes and mood lighting. I particularly like the way the trains come in at pace, there’s an efficient, almost public transport feel to it which is again what I guess they were going for.
Having not followed anything about #1 F.L.Y. too closely, the trains themselves were rather impressive to behold. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing as they came in sideways, seats mounted upright at 90° in sets of two. They’re massively long, nice and easy to get in to, the little one way leg flaps are rather genius and it’s all actually rather comfortable I found. The trains despatch to much waving from the staff and continue in their weird sideways motion through an indoor section that contains a number of themed adverts for wacky inventions and then a large scene of a bustling airship dock(?) on screens. As you round the corner from there and head outside, the seats elegantly swivel round to the right as the track twists from behind you, to overhead, and the launch track awaits.
The pause at this point is a little awkward, I feel like the ride could have benefited from a rolling first launch to keep the excitement going after the swelling of the music and the accompanying scene. Nevertheless you’re off, zooming around the area through a million different twists and turns. It’s somewhat of a sensory overload even after multiple goes, helped along by a few bonus water and smoke effects. Inherently though, the riding position doesn’t lend itself terribly well into taking all of that in, it’s hard to focus on any of the stunning visuals when you’re looking towards the floor as it blurs past. Out of interest I also tried looking forward instead, for the duration of a front row lap, and it ended up being rather uncomfortable on the neck.
But is the actual ride any good? Kinda. There are some highlights in the latter half, as soon as that second launch hits and shoots you up here, there’s a surprising tug of acceleration followed by a bit of near-exclusive ‘airtime on a flying coaster’, though these are both only really felt towards the front. The following section is punctuated by some more highly unusual but satisfying lurching floaty moments, but those were the only real takeaway for me. The rest of the ride is rather repetitive and bland, much like the uninspired swooping turns and endless inline twists of lesser rival B&Ms, only highly exaggerated and then nicely decorated. Again I’m sure that hit the directive for this attraction, it’s just not something that keeps me coming back for more. F.L.Y. is a fantastically fun themed experience with some fascinating new technology that’s simply joyous to behold, it simply doesn’t do the things I personally like flying coasters to do, namely crush your soul with ridiculous inversions.
Now that we had the measure of that, we found ourselves token lapping the rest of the park yet again. Mice were shot with chocolate on Maus au Chocolat.
Winjas were feared. Finally got the better side of these two again, after many years of trying. Interestingly the queue for the rides has temporarily been moved to outside of the building, instead entering through a theatre door and skipping the usually rather grim indoor maze section.
Crazy Bats weren’t seen. The indoor coaster still isn’t running with virtual headsets, thankfully.
Feet were ripped off on Black Mamba.
Colorado Adventure was ruined again, by unnecessary assigned seating on a half-empty train. Back row for life.
Oh and Taron. Taron was kicking ass, moreso than usual. I’m not sure what went on but it was running almost too well. The queue wasn’t unbearable and we got more laps than ever before. There were snaps I hadn’t felt for a long time, those one-and-a-half airtime moments were delivering and there were random bursts of positives I don’t remember existing. I was making a point to readjust my mask during the trims at the end, for comedic effect, but even they were providing some unprecedented floatiness and then the final turn would instantly and aggressively whip it down my face again. Every time. The creature is clearly asserting some dominance over the new kid in town. And rightfully so.
We had a great day once again, it’s always easy to fill the time with the undeniably strong and varied attraction lineup of Phantasialand. No water rides this time sadly as Chiapas likes to ruin shoes and River Quest was clearly having capacity issues – barely any boats running and a 90 minute queue all day, with F.L.Y. at 45 and nothing else over 20. Every time I visit this park now it grows on me and the negative experiences fade further into the past. But they are what gives the place character, so I think I’d better slow down.
Though it was of course entirely worth it, that later night at Energylandia didn’t end up doing us any favours. After all the previous traffic tragedies, Poland really took things to another level by leaving us stuck at the tail end of a motorway accident until 3am as we attempted to make headway to the German border, in a queue so bad that even the recovery truck couldn’t get through due to poor ‘parking’, people leaving their cars and/or falling asleep at the wheel.
Day 16 – Erlebniswelt Seilbahnen Thale
The original plan of an early start the next day was of course abandoned after that travesty and so we needed to settle on a much more relaxed itinerary to accompany the crossing of Germany. This resulted in visiting just one humble collection of Wiegand equipment, set of course against a wonderful backdrop.
The town of Thale is situated in a part of Germany that has a strong association with witches and other fun devilment.
They have some big mountains, devils on benches, senior citizens yodelling
and of course rides. All of the equipment here is self-operated in true German fashion, you can load up a card with points at a ticket desk and use it as contactless payment to trigger the despatch of any ride at the push of a button.
#1 Boderitt is one of Wiegand’s rarer Mystical Hex models, in this case with cool looking cauldron cars. For being such an open vehicle it was rather scary in the backwards facing seat as it swung rather enthusiastically from side to side and left me unable to prepare myself for anything. Backwards is good.
The place is also home to their prototype suspended design and first of their rides to be called #2 Hexenbesen or ‘witches broom’, of course in homage to the region. It’s a wacky contraption that involves solo riders laying on a crash mat inside a tube, again pushing the dispatch button yourself and ‘flying’ your way down to the bottom of the layout.
Where you unceremoniously have to slide out backwards and clear the area before the car can take itself back up the lift hill. Fascinating, and great fun.
Away from all that are the cable cars with alternate bonus glass floors that are scratched and pointless.
They take you up to the top of the mountain to find one more piece of Wiegand wares.
And more witches.
Getting back on the old dual rail style felt like a bit of a downgrade after recent experiences. #3 Harzbob is also a bit of a short and unremarkable version of the hardware, but it’s all part of the adventure. Also helped that it was open.
That’s pretty much it for yet another transit day. Germany became the latest in a long line of countries that didn’t really want us to get anywhere in any hurry and, having crossed the entire width of the country, it was time to make camp in a particularly populous region of theme parks, old and new.
Here it was, the last day of the trip that saved 2020 from being completely awful. As I enjoyed my morning shower a concerning idea popped into my head, why don’t we ditch our planned schedule for today and instead give Phantasialand yet another chance. You see our plan for today was going to be grabbing a +1 from a park we had no real interest in visiting, then doing 2 funfairs back to back with neither of them having anything that exciting. This trip was probably going to be the only fun we’d have all year, so the thought of just killing time at places we didn’t really want to be at just seemed wrong. Phantasialand is only 20 minutes away and even if it’s awful to us like it’s been in the past at least they have decent rides and if worst comes to worst I can just moan about them on the internet again.
Phantasialand
Taron
Straight into the park with no hassle this time and straight to Taron.
Thanks to the park being by far the quietest we’ve ever seen it we were able to finally get a decent number of laps on Taron today, sadly however this didn’t help the coaster much. Taron seems to get weaker for me every time I ride it and this trend continued today. While technically an amazing coaster thatI do still rank highly, Taron slips more and more every time I visit and at this pace it won’t be long before it falls out of my top 25.
River Quest
River Quest next, I freaking love this thing.
It was amazing to witness Heartline’s wife take her first ride and be as terrified as I was when I first stepped onto this insane Hafema rapids ride.
This Intamin flume ride didn’t do all that much for me last time, other than ruin my shoes… Today however, it still ruined my shoes, but it also delivered an extremely fun ride, one that all 3 of us spent laughing the whole way through. Seriously though guys, sort out those stupid restraints.
Colorado Adventure
When me and Heartline rode Colorado Adventure last time we thought it was awful and laughed in the face of anyone who dared to call it the best mine train coaster in the World. Today though, in the last couple of rows, it was outstanding! Standing airtime throughout and uncontrollable laughter until it hurt, yeah this is the good stuff, we were wrong, sorry.
I convinced myself, as you would, during our midnight mid-fireworks display rides, that Black Mamba is one of the better smaller B&M Inverts out there. Today however, in the light of day, it’s really good but maybe not quite as special as I thought on that night.
Thanks to the current situation you weren’t allowed to choose which track you’d like to ride on Winjas, thanks to bad luck we got the weaker one twice… Never mind though because both sides of Winjas are awesome and they remain one of my favourite attractions at the park.
New to us was Crazy Bats, but since they weren’t using the VR headsets it played out much more like a re-visit to Temple of the Nighthawk, which I’m totally OK with. I found Nighthawk rather endearing and this was exactly how I remembered it, coasting around in silence in pitch black with a lifthill every 10 seconds.
Geister Rikscha
We headed to the China Town area of the park for lunch and while we were there we couldn’t help but take a ride on Geister Rikscha. It’s outdated and I don’t understand half of what’s occuring but I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for the park’s Chinese ghost train.
After lunch we headed for a few more laps on Taron and it was there that we decided we were more than happy to leave early and visit one of the funfairs after all.
So I finally had a good day at Phantasialand! Don’t get too excited though, I’m far from going to claim it’s one of the greatest parks in the World and I’m not going to pretend all of the previous negative experiences didn’t happen. Today I had a great time, but we’ll have to see if the park can continue that when we visit yet again now that F.L.Y. is open.
Öcher Bend Funfair
Winter Wonderland and a previous school trip to a German funfair had me believing we were going to be stepping into an all out party at Öcher Bend Funfair. Sadly though it was a rather tame affair but I’ll put that down to visiting when it was still light out and being the only ones there.
Alpen Coaster
A Schwarzkopf Wildcat was the first of the two coasters we rode here. It was far more violent than I was expecting and for that reason I rather enjoyed it honestly.
After that we headed back towards the Channel Tunnel. We were all expecting to be intensely questioned about where we’d been, where we were coming from, who we saw, where we stayed, but thankfully it ended up being very friendly. We chatted about the various coasters and parks we visited on the trip and even informed the heavily Irish officer that the back row is almost always better than the front in the coaster world, this was enough to let us back in.
While doing research for the trip Heartline discovered something wonderful, the elusive and legendary Höllenblitz was currently residing in a safari park in Germany. We’ve been waiting years for this beast to come to us at Winter Wonderland, I think it’s time we made the effort.
And an effort it was, but that was mostly just putting up with going on my 2nd safari experience, which was an absolute slog from beginning to end. Drive through safari experiences can be best described as stand still traffic involving animals. I’d much rather just be walking around in a zoo than in a queue of traffic not moving while I can’t see anything, I can’t really recommend them to anyone if I’m honest.
But we’re not here for the animals…
Safari-Blitz-Kids
SBF spinner first, while getting blinded and seriously sunburnt.
Höllenblitz
The park had strangely renamed this monster as Safari Blitz on all their official publications but thankfully had made no effort in changing the coaster itself to match this new name.
Höllenblitz was everything I wanted it to be and more.
First there was the thrill of finally getting to ride such a legendary coaster, one I’d been waiting years to experience. The theming inside and out was insane and the whole thing just screamed that this was something special.
Then there was the fact that Höllenblitz is more than just a statement, it’s actually a seriously kick ass coaster as well. The spinning is insane, some sections are super intense, but most of all Höllenblitz is incredible fun. If it wasn’t for time restrictions I could have kept on riding this legend all day.
We wanted to experience some of the other attractions at Serengeti Park, but thanks to stupid one way systems and long queues we simply didn’t have enough time if we wanted to get to the next park we had planned today.
The drive to Fort Fun, much like yesterday, was annoyingly full of endless hold ups, meaning that when we finally got to the park time was extremely tight. Fearing we possibly wouldn’t have enough time to ride all the coasters, our plan was to just ride anything we stumbled on.
Devil’s Mine
And first up was Devil’s Mine.
This custom Vekoma Junior had one of the longest and most intense queues I’ve ever experienced. It went on for miles and around every corner was immense danger. Heartline’s wife has bad knees and ankles so me and Heartline went out infront and had to keep shouting back to her to watch out because something insane was about to happen. Tight stairs in almost complete darkness, funhouse style bouncing floors in almost complete darkness, passages you could smash your head on in almost complete darkness, Devil’s Mine had it all and it was great fun.
How was the coaster though? I preferred the queue honestly but it’s not without it’s charm. There’s a few decent airtime moments and it’s nice to see a custom Vekoma Junior in the sea of clones.
Next up was SpeedSnake, a Vekoma Whirlwind that had been fitted with new lap bar only trains in 2017. It puzzles me why they bothered fitting this thing with semi decent trains when the coaster itself is beyond pointless as layouts go. Corners and corkscrews mate, it’s what they want…
Our plan was the ride the park’s Zierer Tivoli next but it wasn’t going to be. As we got to the coaster the operator closed the entrance gate infront of us and started to walk off. It turned out he wasn’t being mean, neither had we reached the stated ride closing time, there simply just weren’t enough people in the area to run the coaster. A sign on the op box told us that in order to run the ride we’d need 12 people minimum and despite the operator attempting to round up enough people for us it just wasn’t possible.
Feeling down but not out we were now determined to make it to the park’s last coaster before that closed too.
Trapper Slider
After running up many hills and with all 3 of us gasping for breath we just made it to Fort Fun’s alpine coaster before it closed. I’m happy to announce it was more than worth the effort and is easily my new favourite alpine coaster, which says a lot considering how many great examples I rode on this trip.
Trapper Slider was insane and took all the elements I loved about other alpines and then upped the intensity even more. This thing absolutely hauled and came seriously close to hitting many of it’s overgrown surroundings. I was laughing, screaming, shouting and violently throwing the brakes on and off on the entire descent, it was amazing.
With so much spare time on our hands thanks to France and the Netherlands being no go zones, the next 2 days were spent at what I’d best describe as might as well parks.
And the first of them was Majaland, a park only recently added to the Polish coaster scene, located not far from the border with Germany.
The park is operated by Studio 100 and originally started life as another one of their indoor only parks, recently however they have expanded outdoors and added Poland’s only true wooden coaster, this is where we come in.
Inside stuff first though.
Rollercoaster Wikingów
Zierer Force Two clone that Studio 100 have added to almost all of their parks by this point. It was really well themed in places and thanks to being new and indoors was glass smooth.
Wilkołak is Polish for Werewolf, which is a fantastic name for a coaster and the park have done an amazing job theming it as such. The station building looks amazing inside and out, the queue looks great and the train being covered in claw marks is great attention to detail.
Sadly the coaster is a mirrored clone of an almost clone, but as we didn’t get to experience enough of Heidi The Ride to form a true opinion, Wilkołak will be fighting for it’s own honour as well as Heidi’s.
And it’s good! Wilkołak offers a experience that is purely fun, it doesn’t bring anything special or particularly exciting to the table but you could keep riding it all day and have a good time.
Next up we went to get the rare points from riding but not counting the park’s brand new Disk’O and with that we were done with the park, so after many more laps of Wilkołak we called it a day and took our leave.
While the park only had 1 attraction worth the effort, it was a pleasant enough visit, which is more than can say for my previous visits to Studio 100 parks…
Day 10
Today’s plan was to hit as many +1s as possible on our return to Germany.
Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Elstal
Starting with the first of the many Karls parks today. These parks are part theme park, part working food factory and part massive store selling all the tasty treats they make there. The indoor part of these attractions smell absolutely amazing and are guaranteed to make you hungry. We’d promised ourselves we weren’t allowed to have any treats until we had completed all 4 of the Karls parks however.
K2
The main attraction at this site and currently the best attraction at any of the Karls is K2, AKA Potato Coaster.
K2 is the largest Tube Coaster ever built by abc rides and is honestly awesome. It starts with a long and extremely well themed dark ride section before it travels outside, climbs 80 feet and then takes you on a far more intense ride than you’d imagine. Minimal restraints is an understatement so when this beast starts tearing around the track it is slightly concerning.
If it wasn’t for the slightly pricey pay per ride cost and the massive queue I’d have loved to have gotten in a few more laps.
We’ve also got places to be, not that Germany wanted us getting there… Between Karls Elstal and our next location we crawled and turned a 3 hour drive into a 4 and a half hour one…
None of the other Karls parks could match the quality of K2 but they did all feature some of the nicest looking Wacky Worms I’ve ever seen. They all had insane entrances, massive animatronics, crazy theming and gift shops.
Next up we planned to visit Rügen Park but it wasn’t to be. Though we arrived with over an hour of their operating day left, the entrance was padlocked shut and there were no staff in sight. We could see guests enjoying their day out through the fence, so they certainly weren’t closed yet. We decided to phone the park and explain the situation but this led nowhere. First time they laughed at us and then hung up, the second time they outright refused to answer the phone… Fair enough, I guess you don’t want our money then, thanks for nothing, oh and wasting our time…
Far too many hold ups and the bastards at Rügen Park had us now running extremely late, if we had just 1 more hold up we’d fail our quest.
Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Rövershagen
We arrived around 15 minutes before closing, would we have time to get both of the creds?
Yeah you read that right, this Karls site had 2 coasters and this threw a bit of a spanner in the works. We’d learnt the quickest ways to get to the rides at the previous Karls but with 2 coasters up for grabs and a much bigger location things were going to be extra tricky with our already super tight time limit.
Kaffeekannen-Express
After running around completely lost for a while, we finally arrived at Kaffeekannen-Express. This SBF Visa creation is currently exclusive to this location and offers an interesting experience as you ride around up high passing lots of special effects that are triggered as you approach.
Things were super desperate now and we were almost certain the other coaster had already closed, but with nothing to lose other than our dignity we sprinted in the direction of the final strawberry worm.
Erdbeer Raupenbahn
And we JUST made it! 30 seconds to a minute later and we’d have missed out, I couldn’t believe our luck, sometimes the coaster Gods shine on you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so content on a Wacky Worm and the operator gave us a bonus lap to help us celebrate.
The prophecy had been fulfilled and we were now allowed to purchase some of them sweet smelling snacks.
But don’t eat too many because tonight we’ll be dining at Hamburg’s Rollercoaster Restaurant.
Mine and Heartline’s experience of the one at Europa Park was awful. Packed arm to arm with rowdy Germans, no food we actually wanted to eat and everything cost the Earth.
But tonight in Hamburg I really enjoyed it. Being the massive child that I am, the idea of ordering food on an iPad then watching it coast to you was amazing. So were the immense risks involved in getting the insanely hot pot of food off the track without burning yourself or dropping it. The food was fantastic too, as were the friendly members of staff, what an improvement, I am honestly a fan of these places now.
Today would see us visit a park I’d been eager to get to for a while now. Partly to check out their ride lineup (which just got much more exciting) and partly because thanks to Heartline the park was somewhat of a legend. He had a real miserable time last time he visited the park and I’ve made him recount the stories so many times that I almost feel as if been to the park myself at this point. Well today was the day for me to get my own Plohn experience, could it possibly be as bad as it was for Heartline last time?
Things certainly started terrible, as we got stuck in stand still traffic for half an hour just 5 miles from the park. Thankfully we still managed to make it before opening and were soon walking through Plohn’s newly refurbished entrance building.
Dynamite
And heading straight to the park’s latest and greatest coaster, Dynamite.
Dynamite is Mack’s 2nd attempt at their BigDipper model and it would be an understatement to say that Lost Gravity is a hard act to follow. I absolutely love that coaster, with it’s vicious airtime, violent laterals and snappy inversions. Does Dynamite stand any chance of even coming close to the original?
Well I didn’t think so. After looking at the layout and watching the POV, Dynamite appeared very short, lacking of airtime and not as crazy as Lost Gravity. And then I actually rode it…
I never should have never doubted the Mack boys, because they have absolutely smashed it out of the park with Dynamite, this thing is awesome. Yes, it is very short, but a lot of great things happen in the short amount of ride time.
Much like Lost Gravity, Dynamite is a vicious blend of airtime, crazy laterals and forceful inversions. Unlike Lost Gravity however, because it’s so short and has no mid course brakes, Dynamite throws all it’s violence at you in quick succession. This leads to Dynamite being a more intense experience, if also a much shorter one. This also helps make both coasters feel unique from each other, which is fine because I’ve got more than enough room in my heart for both.
The mood was then saved by the World’s greatest Wacky Worm. The ride operator was loudly listening to the radio, which was propped up on a seat by the control panel. It wasn’t club tunes or chart toppers blaring out though, it was a severly depressed German man breaking down while singing a song that was as tragic as it was catchy. I’ve never laughed this hard on a Wacky Worm before, I probably never will again.
Miniwah
Next up was Miniwah, one of the few highlights from Heartline’s last visit. The attraction is a heavily themed, completely enclosed, modern Mack powered coaster and it’s amazing. You take the first lap slowly to take in all the theming, then you power through the final 2 at full speed. It may be the slower first lap playing tricks but this thing seriously hauled when it got going.
El Toro
Before Mack graced the park with Dynamite, their star attraction was El Toro. El Toro is a GCI woodie that I previously was really excited to try, this was until I rode countless mediocre GCI creations and put myself off the idea.
Thankfully El Toro was the reintroduction to GCI that I’ve been waiting for and is a seriously fantastic wooden coaster. The bull is relentless and determined to keep you anywhere but your seat, hitting you with non stop pops of ejector, while also throwing you from side to side. It’s fast, it’s fun, it’s the reason I fell in love with GCI 5 years ago, why can’t they all be this good?
The final coaster of the park was Plohseidon and it was here that I got to experience an event similar to what Heartline had promised me. When it was our time to board the ride the operator opened the airgates for us but then walked off to play on his phone. After a while he came back and instructed us to lower our restraints. He then dispatched the coaster without checking the bars and as soon as we left the station he went straight back to playing on his phone…
After a quick lunch in the car we returned for more re-rides on Dynamite and El Toro before calling it a day when we were satisfied. Despite the warnings I managed to have a good day at Freizeitpark Plohn. As a park, today it was fine, if a little unprofessional in places. It’s the Dynamite/El Toro combo that really make the park worth the visit though.
Now it was time to drive to Poland and with that comes a great story.
After crossing the border almost nothing changed visually, other than Zadra billboards every now and again, it remained this way for the whole time we were on the motorway. Then it came to leaving…
Heartline was sure he’d booked a hotel just off the motorway, so we were all a bit surprised when the sat nav said we still had 30 minutes of driving left to do after we left. What followed was 30 minutes of driving on bad roads through small villages that were decreasing in quality and increasing in hostility the further we went.
2 minutes from our destination we entered a village in ruins, with a rabble of large aggressive looking men staring us down as we drove past. Please don’t let the hotel be here…
2 minutes later we apparently arrived at our destination as we drove past a collapsed farm house. Right… I think the sat nav is probably wrong. Let’s check Google Maps. Good news? We aren’t staying near the scary men. Bad news? We’re staying miles away, just off the motorway, where we’ve just come from…
But the story didn’t end there…
We started to follow Google Maps now, which took us on a different set of awful roads to get us back to where we started. These roads were terrible but they were about to get far worse. Out of nowhere the road we were on dropped 2 feet and turned into vicious cobblestones. We didn’t have time to react before we got true ejector air in a car and things got extremely bumpy. Conditions stayed this way for many miles before we finally found our way back to civilization.
After all that the hotel turned out to possibly be the nicest of the entire trip, which is a massive relief when just 30 minutes ago we had already accepted our fate of sleeping in a barn with 20 angry Polish men.
Thanks for reading, click here for the next part of my report, 2 glorious days with Zadra and Hyperion at Energylandia.
Today was set to be a really busy one with no less than 4 parks on the cards. For that reason we got to the first one early, before any of the rides were open, we’d have to choose our first coaster carefully.
Doggy Dog
And we did. Worryingly this wasn’t my first dog themed Wacky Worm.
Into the dark forest and to the infamous Wild Wind next. I’d been both excited and apprehensive to ride this legendary coaster model ever since I first saw a photo of one on RCDB.
It seriously looks like some failed backyard coaster with it’s 35 foot drop into a 10 foot tall badly transitioned sidewinder, which is then followed by a mess of badly transitioned turns that look they were drawn by a child. It was either going to kill us or allow us walk away feeling untouchable.
Despite what you’ll probably read online, it really wasn’t that bad. It’s awful yes, but I’ve ridden far more unpleasant coasters. I didn’t appreciate having to survive 2 laps however.
The park’s Vekoma Boomerang was next and it was far from the worst example of these I’ve ridden. I forgot to take a picture but everyone knows what a Vekoma Boomerang looks like.
Piraten Spinner
Finally something fun! The World’s only Zierer Spinning Coaster, if we trust RCDB. This thing was brutal and actively tried to end me several times on the many laps it took us on. “I’m spinning, I can’t see when the violent bit is coming, oh God no, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Loved it.
Just incase you think I uploaded the wrong photo, this coaster used to be called Drehgondelbahn. A shame they changed it really, it certainly rolls off the tongue in an amazing way.
Drachen Höhle
The final coaster of Geiselwind was located in the park’s brand new Chinese themed area. It looked really good and was a nice change from the forests and fields of the rest of the park.
I remember seeing this coaster years ago when it was on the travelling circuit and made a stop at Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland. I was annoyed I didn’t ride it then but better late than never right?
The only Zierer Hell Diver ever built, which translates to single person cars doing large swooping turns through a tent full of smoke and lighting effects, I quite enjoyed it honestly.
Heartline’s wife swears there was a dragon animatronic in there but I didn’t see it, this both upsets and scares me.
Geiselwind was a strong way to start our day with it’s unique coaster line up, but now it’s time to get back on the road.
On route to the car we decided we’d give up on the least interesting of the 4 parks lined up today because it was now looking impossible that we’d be able to make all 4.
AltmühlBOB
AltmühlBOB was next, 2 alpine coasters in a field seemingly in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to park either.
After following the advice of angry German men, we possibly illegally parked in another man’s field, before making our way over to the ticket office.
This was a shambles, just several hundred people in a rabble with no way of making sense of it. Because we had places to be, we took matters into our own hands and soon at least partially understood what was happening. There was a queue to buy tickets, then a queue each for both of the coasters but today all 3 were blending into 1. This meant you needed to be assertive as to which queue you were in.
Speed Bob
First up was something rather special. Speed Bob was an alpine coaster like no other. Firstly you don’t have any controls this time around, secondly it’s just a series of massive airtime hills in a row until you hit the brakes. It was great fun but lacked the feeling of risk you get when you’re given control.
AltmühlBOB
The other alpine was the traditional affair and not to say it was bad but it was weakest of the trip yet. I was able to complete the whole circuit at full speed with no risk of being killed. This was extra important because it began to heavily rain on the lift.
Erlebnisfelsen Pottenstein
After a quick lunch we arrived at Erlebnisfelsen Pottenstein and it was here that we concluded there was no chance of doing 4 parks today because we have barely made it to the 3rd one before park close.
Thankfully the place was heaving and there was a large group of people waiting to be batched inside 45 minutes before close. I’m going to assume park hours have been extended.
Frankenbob
First up was another traditional alpine coaster. Thankfully Frankenbob more than made up for AltmühlBOB in the intensity department and instantly became my new favourite alpine. Flying down a cliff, surrounded by trees, sitting inches off the rocks and hitting drops and corners at insane speeds, it was crazy.
Next up was Hexenbesen, a suspended coaster of sorts. Much like the powered version at Schwaben Park I found it to be completely pointless honestly but I did enjoy that you get to press your own dispatch button. Taking Heartline’s bag with all our essentials in on a suspended coaster was the other highlight.
Park complete we took a scenic drive to our hotel for the night. The hotel was located in a small town in the middle of nowhere and I couldn’t believe that they left the keys for us in a lockbox and we got to let ourselves into the hotel, that’s some serious trust there.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 5, where we visit Freizeitpark Plohn.
Today saw us return to 2 parks that were rather special to me. Special because they were both on what I consider to be my first real coaster holiday. Not special because they were any good the first time around.
Tripsdrill
Last time we visited Tripsdrill we walked away rather disappointed. The park’s attractions weren’t anything too special compared with the other parks on our trip and thanks to freezing weather and staggered openings the atmosphere did nothing for me either. Why are we returning then? The park had just opened the World’s first Vekoma Suspended Thrill Coaster and it looked awesome.
Hals-über-Kopf
And after seeing how busy the car park looked we powered straight to it. Thankfully this was just a tease because the coaster remained walk on all day.
It looks beautiful doesn’t it? Well the coaster itself does but in typical German fashion the station building is completely bare and still looks like a construction site. I’m sure it’ll look great when it’s finished though.
Do me a favour and pretend you can’t see the Junior Boomerang in this shot OK? Look at all those bare concrete walls and the lack of roof, crazy.
On second thoughts I do need to mention the interactions between Hals-über-Kopf and Volldampf (the Junior Boomerang). While they don’t really add anything to either ride experience they do look very cool and it’s one of the things that got me so excited to ride the coasters.
Enough about how it looks though, let’s talk about how it rides. It’s very good, certainly much more impressive than I was expecting going in. It’s fast, it’s got a great mixture of forces, the inversions are snappy and it’s got a real sense of purpose about it, I wasn’t expecting that. Despite what I stupidily proclaimed at the time, it is not quite worthy of entering the bottom of my top 25 (even more so after this trip) but the very fact I considered it shows how much I enjoyed Hals-über-Kopf. We need more of these things please Vekoma.
I’ve never been much of a fan of Vekoma Junior Boomerangs but I’d probably rank this as my favourite of the bunch thanks to it’s interactions with Hals, the goat on the back and the comedy this coaster caused on the day and for the rest of the trip.
We will come back later for more laps of Hals-über-Kopf but now let’s go re-live the park’s other attractions.
G’sengte Sau
Starting with Beer Coaster. Tripsdrill’s Gerstlauer Bobsled was riding slightly better than I remembered but it’s still just a slightly extended clone layout that does nothing for me.
I think I owe Mammut, the park’s Gerstlauer woodie, an apology. I really wasn’t all that interested in it 4 years ago and probably ranked it unfairly. Today however it was delivering a really fun ride, full of character, that had me and Heartline laughing the whole way round. Mammut I’m sorry and I’ve just moved you up in my woodie rankings, can you forgive me?
What I’m certainly not sorry about though is disliking Karacho last time because it still sucks. After recently riding and loving many Infinity coasters I was sure I was wrong about Karacho, but no it’s just not very good and is easily the weakest of all the Infinity models I’ve ridden.
Next up we rode the park’s rapids which was closed on our last visit. These things are always fun with friends but there wasn’t anything too special about it overall.
Also closed on our last visit was the park’s legendary log flume and wow, this thing was awesome and far exceeded my expectations. It’s huge and suprised me with a massive dark ride section and a backwards drop.
I was really starting to become a fan of the park at this point. Hals was far better I thought it would be, Mammut had become a bit of a beast, I really enjoyed the log flume and the atmosphere of the park was beginning to get to me. Sadly the park would throw it all away in the next hour…
We went back for more re-rides on Hals-über-Kopf and there the staff began to become aggressive towards Heartline for attempting to wear his glasses on the coaster. He wore them during all our rides in the morning but now it was a major issue. So while the coaster was still kicking ass, it wasn’t worth putting up with the aggression and inconsistency of the staff working on it.
We had originally planned to stay all day at Tripsdrill but after riding everything we wanted, including re-rides, the only thing left to do was re-ride Hals until close, a prospect ruined by rude staff.
So instead we called it a day and went to get a bite to eat before leaving. We visited a restaurant that on our previous trip was a real highlight but that wasn’t to be today. The food selection and quality had massively descended and the woman working in there made the aggressive idiots at Hals-über-Kopf look like employees of the month.
Let’s get out of here.
Schwaben Park
I quite enjoyed my last visit to Schwaben Park. It was fun exploring this lesser known German park and I enjoyed my rides on Force One. The reason for revisiting today, other than Tripsdrill annoying us, was the park had since added 2 new coasters. Neither of them looked any good but they were both very unique.
Wilde Hilde
First up was Wilde Hilde, one of only 3 operating RES Roller Ball coasters in the World. Off-ride this contraption looked like my worst nightmare and brought back horrible memories of Insane at Gröna Lund with the way it appeared to violently lurch it’s riders back and forth. Thankfully (I think) on-ride almost nothing at all happens and you just very slowly and completely pointlessly make your descent. It really wasn’t very good and I’m suprised RES managed to sell more of these.
Talking of not very good, neither was the park’s brand new attraction Hummel Brummel. This Wiegand creation can best be described as a suspended Bobkart but without the fun. I’ve no idea what made the park decide to add this costly mess to their lineup. It looks awful, the ride experience is completely pointless and despite the park being quiet it appeared to be an operational nightmare.
Thankfully the park is still home to Force One. This Zierer coaster, despite now rattling more than ever, still provides a fun ride that’s made even better with it’s fantastic train design. Schwaben I’m begging you, look after this thing, it’s still your star attraction.
Next we rode my other highlight of the park from last time, Bobkart. It didn’t quite hold up after riding Spacerunner yesterday but I still enjoyed re-living my first Bobkart experience.
Azura
On a lap of the park to make sure we hadn’t missed anything else that had been added since our last visit we stumbled on Azura. Which from the outside looks like a whimsical dark ride, from the interior queue looks like a ghost train, but it’s actually a water based special effects show that you travel around in a small boat. It was pretty awesome actually and a great accidental find.
And with that we were done.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 4, where we visit Geiselwind and ride more alpine coasters.
