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.
Djurs was billed to be the final park of the trip, with the last day being a casual trundle back down to Hamburg to drop off the car and head to the airport. I couldn’t stop thinking about the previous mishap with Heide Park though, it was eating away at me – the fact that I had missed out on 3 of their creds and hadn’t really had enough time as I would have liked with the major coasters. They’ve given us those rainy day tickets to return, I don’t really want to have to come back another time for those more minor details just mentioned. How early would we have to get up to do it now… 4am? Easy.
The trundle became a hurtle and we were soon back for revenge.
The Mack bobsled is the best of the three, featuring an unusual layout and quite a hefty pace for the hardware at certain moments. More than one lift hill takes the bobsleigh train, which runs within an open tube of track as opposed to on rails, to where it needs to be. Only it doesn’t seem to know where it wants to be, opting for meandering upwards slopes and scary trips underground in the process.
This Vekoma looper has a certain endearing quality, but it’s not very good. Two loops, two corkscrews and a corner don’t provide much in the way of entertainment, particularly under the duress of uncomfortable trains and shoulder restraints. Nice to see it interacting with the pathways though.
With the mission complete I could spend more time getting acquainted with the good(ish) stuff. Had a slightly better time with the woodie knowing where to sit now. Still doesn’t help that helix of doom though.
I have to praise Heide Park for the efficient German operations. They don’t seem to be bound by any oppressive rules of the wider chain (scrimp and save, operate everything at a minimum) and though I was worried about coming back for less rides with more waits, this sunny Saturday found every major attraction running at full capacity, with no queues being more than 15 minutes.
Fair play to the customer service team too. This email was found upon my return home and I even received a pair of tickets in the post for the following season. Frame it on the wall.
Here ends a quality trip with a quality park lineup. I’d recommend them all to a greater (Hansa) or lesser (Legoland) extent.
The following morning found us at Germany’s only theme park by the sea. Coming from a nation with a ton of coastline, much of it not very good, I hadn’t really considered how much this country was short of beaches per capita. I’d trade it all for what they have instead though:
The pair make for a pleasant start to the day. The Schwarzkopf looper is reasonably forceful and fun, enhanced by old school lap bars in an inversion – the two seldom met in the past. To add to the charm, there’s a speedometer in the station to tell you how fast the last lap was – can you beat it?
The highlight of the two attractions is the interaction though. If you’re lucky enough to get both trains passing through the loop at the same time (and they do actually try and make this happen), complete with excitable riders, you’re in for a real treat. I love moments like this. How to make a Vekoma junior special.
Schwur des Kärnan
So I already liked the place and I hadn’t even begin to consider the absurdity that was waiting for me around the corner. How is this a thing again?
Kärnan is a very special rollercoaster and I had a very special experience on my first ever lap – an empty train to myself. You can get a full taste of what I went through in a review here, but to summarise – I love this ride. It’s completely one of a kind in both theme and ride experience, it’s ridiculously intense and it hurts my legs.
The staff member at the entrance was impressed with my stamina as I limped round for countless laps during the day, except they weren’t countless – he was adding up for me each time with a cheery grin on his face. Proud of what he was representing, as he damn well should be.
Oh how I wish I could say any of the above for Kärnan’s predecessor. I really wanted to like this attraction but the hardware is just so shoddy. It does have another banging soundtrack – the highlight being 30 seconds of a Russian man singing the word Novgorod repeatedly, which is actually built into the awesome first dark ride section of the layout.
The Gerstlauer Eurofighter car, with it’s horrible restraints and clunky movements, drops awkwardly into the dark, pitching you forward in your seat before even more awkwardly snapping your head back again as you hit a rolling launch. It’s really powerful, but it’s just executed all wrong and ends up as something to endure, even more so when it ends with a sharp right hand snap of a corner.
A single moment of strong airtime follows over an impressive hill but, of course, the restraints just dig into your shoulders at this point and say “down boy, no fun for you.” The remainder of the layout is, to be frank, embarassing.
The car rattles around this extended corner sequence with absolutely no purpose before taking a slow inversion that drops your body onto each individual shoulder and leg, in turn, further increasing the discomfort and putting you out of kilter for what remains. What remains is a now uncomfortable indoor vertical lift hill with somewhat cool projections and effects, though I’ve usually lost the plot by this stage. How is the potential energy of this lift hill expended? By a single drop and corner into the final brakes. They ran out of things to do. It bothers me so much that it would have turned out better to just not try as hard – do the final dark ride sequence on a piece of flat track at the end.
That’s enough negativity for this park, there’s a laser show around the corner that played intense rave music in true German style and put me right back in good spirits. There was also a 4D theater with a POV film of an animated cat in a haunted house – it was decent and the seats dropped, better than Novgorod.
Two more creds to get. The standard wild mouse almost lets the side down a bit by being so generic, but there’s a band of animatronic hillbillies playing music to keep it entertaining.
And the other is the second Hansa & Gerstlauer masterpiece. Two laps of a cracking little family coaster with a lift hill intensely decorated by projections, smoke and plot and some great outdoor theming to dodge.
In case you couldn’t tell, I really liked this park. The visit presented me with a perfect blend of relaxed atmosphere and a strong lineup of attractions – a combination that is usually hard to come by due to inherent popularity. I get the impression that Hansa Park really care about what they’re doing and I can’t state enough how important I think that is for this industry.
Ever since I had been an owner of the Merlin Annual Pass, a certain park in Germany had been on my radar. Merlin acquired Heide Park in 2007 at the same time as the UK parks and often told passholders that if you ever managed to make it out there, you could get in for half price!
Of course several years after I stopped owning one, I went to check it out, amongst other things.
Day 1
We landed in Hamburg and spent the first day in the city. Not straight to a park? Not quite yet, decided to visit Miniatur Wunderland first.
Very glad we did too, it was great. Not sure if the pictures will do it justice but this first area was a proper wow moment to me upon entering. The sheer scale of the spectacle and then the intricate detail beneath. I thought model villages would be a bit dull and I was dead wrong.
It has something for everyone, this fully operational airport with live arrival and departures board was mind blowing. The model planes just take off and land through a hole in the wall, all on schedule – pure magic.
Make that two. Las Vegas’ famous Togo coaster is hiding back there as well. The other cool feature about the place was the rolling day and night modes, with each scene lighting up in wondrous fashion a few times each hour.
Not often I suggest visiting something that doesn’t contain rides, but here you have it – highly recommended.
Day 2 – Heide Park
Our car was collected the following morning and we hit a relatively brief stint of autobahn before arriving in a nice empty car park.
One of the reasons it was so empty was that it was a little on the chilly side – no more than 2°C. After a slight interlude and welcoming announcement from the park, the flood gates were opened for not many people to head on in.
The Intamin launch coaster and clone of Rita at Alton Towers was the first open ride we encountered. Due to the poor weather they were starting things up in a very gradual and nervous fashion.
Desert Race rode a lot smoother and more comfortably than the original but that only really served to highlight the fact that it just isn’t a very interesting layout. There was the slightest sensation of airtime in the humps that change your direction between endless banked corners, but the most interesting part for me was the very ending, after the first set of brakes, where the track deviates slightly with a nifty little manouevre to avoid a taller building than Rita has to.
My most anticipated ride in the park was the Intamin pre-fab woodie. Only 4 of these exist in the world and they are often heralded for having the best wooden airtime money can buy. I had ridden the other one in Europe (Balder) and came off very impressed. How would the first installation fare?
Not well. It’s an intimidating structure with the massive lift hill and turnaround, but the first drop doesn’t quite disappear from under itself in the severe fashion that I had expected. Cresting the first two big hills provided decent ejector, but in between these the ride was marred by a terrible crunching roughness in the dips. The turnaround didn’t help this, the speed hill did almost nothing and then the train hits a mid course brake run. The worst part of the ride follows – a meandering helix that offers no thrill and only wastes energy. If the track was well looked after it would have been just boring, but at this moment it was quite jarringly uncomfortable the way it shuffled around all over the place, eventually becoming quite amusing as I observed everyone in the train rocking rythmically back and forth either looking fed up or saying ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! The final hills were good, but not in the same league as the equivalent steel versions on Intamin and I hit the brakes a little disappointed, having been let down by a legend of the industry. They haven’t treated it kindly.
Desperately wanting to like the ride, I learnt over the course of a few laps that the two seats in the middle of each 6-seater car provided a better experience for not being positioned directly over the wheels. Unfortunately German guests are too efficient at batching themselves and getting everyone to fill empty spaces on trains, so even though I would aim specifically for these seats, more often than not I would get enthusiasically waved through the lines into the wrong row, then regret it as soon I sat down.
The weather was quite grim again so we nabbed the slightly indoors Mack powered coaster Grottenblitz for a brief respite, followed by the smallest in the park – Indy-Blitz for less sensible reasons.
The 2 B&Ms were next priority but they were struggling to open Krake in such poor conditions. As we passed it, a test train was sent and probably came the closest I’ve ever seen a ride to stalling, hitting the splashdown and barely making it through the next element without rolling back. Running it on the edge.
They had managed to open up the wing coaster though. Flug is an impressive looking specimen, very nicely integrated into its area. The entrance pathways are up high and look down over the pit of the station with the track swooping around itself. A sinister theme plays throughout the vicinity, one I had already become accustomed to before my visit. I find it’s very gratifying to hear good ride music in person when you already know it.
The ride shares the same wing-over drop that I was used to from the Swarm, but amps things up immediately after with a blur of a speed hill under a near-miss bridge into another floaty inversion. The ride gets intense again from this moment onwards and remains so for the rest of the ride, alternating between tightly banked corners that cause the other seats to bounce with force and three more disorientating inversions. A very solid package.
Continuing up the hill it was time for a ride on Scream. This Intamin gyro drop tower provides amazing views of the park and surroundings with its rotation at the top, before packing one of the strongest punches I’ve ever encounted in a drop tower. Just look how horizontal those legs are. The other feature I have to praise Scream for is the way the queue winds around the ride in true spectator fashion. Around the outer perimeter of the structure there are barriers that quake with a thunderous boom every time the ride drops and forces large volumes of air into them. It makes for a fantastic scare to anyone nervous about riding, enhancing the whole atmosphere of the attraction.
After a spot of lunch, the weather warmed up a little and the B&M dive coaster was finally open for business. Like it’s neighbour, Krake has a strong and sinister soundtrack that I was famliar with and it had me buzzing with excitement as I stumbled through the queue. As with Colossos, the station immediately greets with many Germans waving frantically at me – fill those empty seats! Straight in the back row before I’m ready.
From this position, you get less of an opportunity to appreciate the beast beneath the drop but the force with which you are lifted out of your seat is enhanced and more sustained. The splashdown is an unusual feature for a ride of this scale, common instinct for every rider is to raise their legs as if they are going to get wet at this point. The scoops on the side of the train kick up two big plumes of water that make for a great off-ride visual and occasionally soak the outer most seats if you catch a bit of bad luck. A swift immelman follows (unless it’s too cold) before a satisfying surge of airtime over the next hill. Sadly it all ends too quickly, but at least there’s something to appreciate other than just a drop and the train moves with a lot more purpose than I had come to expect from the ride type. Krake immediately became my favourite of its kind.
Oh wait, no. We were about to board this little boat ride when the skies suddenly opened and pelted the park with a torrential hailstorm. With only ourselves and the lone operator in the station, we had a bit of a laugh together and watched it all unfold. All the rides had shut down very quickly and almost immediately after, the top of Krake was legitimately struck by lightning in front of my eyes. I had never seen anything like this before.
It all disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving a trail of destruction behind. Announcements were now playing throughout the park – they had taken the decision to close everything down and asked everyone to go home several hours earlier than planned. This was bad news for me – I hadn’t got all the creds! I had been taking it easy all day, not expecting to encounter any issues and suddenly the opportunity had been snatched away from me.
They were handing out rainy day guarantee passes at the entrance, but I wasn’t certain that I could return within the designated time frame. I explained this through a quick chat with guest services – they were interested to know where I had travelled from and they took my details and said they would be in touch.
After no where near enough sleep we were soon up again and on our way to Movie Park Germany.
Movie Park Germany
This was a park that until they added their brand new Mack launch coaster I was completely uninterested in visiting. The line up seemed weak, the park looked run down and I’d heard many horror stories on the operations of the park. Now while the park is far from perfect and I could agree to some extent to those statements, I ended up having a really nice time in the park, so let’s go into it.
Star Trek: Operation Enterprise – The 3rd reason we came on this trip, Mack’s brand new and first ever shuttle launch coaster and of course it’s really good.
The theming in the queueline and preshow areas is amazing, I know nothing of Star Trek but was still blown away, if you were a fan I’m sure this would be incredible.
Coaster wise it was very comparable to yesterday’s Gold Rush and I’d struggle to clearly say one was better than the other.
Gold Rush is probably more intense, the launches hit harder and the airtime (though much less) is stronger.
Star Trek is longer, has more airtime moments and has a more exciting layout taking alot more risks.
While it’s the least memorable Mack launch I’ve ridden it’s still a super fun coaster and easily the best in the park.
Van Helsing’s Factory – I’ve never really been a fan of Gertslauer Bobsled coasters but Van Helsing changed that because this enclosed horror themed coaster is fantastic fun.
Extremely well themed inside and out and featuring a coaster that kicks serious ass. The dark setting makes everything feel really fast and for this coaster type things do get surprisingly intense at parts.
After a quick walk around to gauge crowds we decided to get the one go on everything except Star Trek fastpass because we weren’t feeling up to queueing that long for the park’s less worthy attractions, plus we really wanted another go on Van Helsing and that had now gotten quite busy. This ended up saving us so much time that we were able to fit in several more Star Trek laps even though we had to queue for it.
Mystery River – Movie Park’s rapids ride and it was such good fun. Violent rapids, hauled round parts of the course and the theming was so weird it was great. In short, Mystery River had a real character to it and thankfully this would become a theme today.
There was masses of food options to choose for lunch but Heartline wanted to go with Asian food and I really enjoyed it, very well priced too if I remember right.
Lost Temple – My first ever immersive tunnel and now I want more because this was great fun.
MP-Xpress – SLC and what an example of one it was too. Hidden at the back of the park, looking abandoned, covered in rust and I haven’t even told you how it rode. Well, mostly fine but then several moments it felt like something utterly awful was occuring. Me and Heartline were crying with laughter when we hit the brakes and how often does that happen on SLCs?
Bandit – Branded by many as one of the worst wooden roller coasters on Earth but in reality it’s completely fine and actually quite a fun coaster. Much like MP-Xpress, me and Heartline spent most of Bandit laughing out loud. I said as we left the lift, “the worst wooden roller coaster on Earth…”, then when it wasn’t that statement suddenly became the funniest thing ever.
Time Riders – John Cleese: The Ride. This simulator based attraction was class. The preshows just kept coming and get more and more funny and then the simulator itself is brutal as all hell, I came off bruised. I loved it.
Then I decided I needed crepes to calm my nerves and they were really nice, seriously good food showing at this park.
Burmuda Triangle – We probably couldn’t have a picked a better ride to end our day at the park than this wonderful, campy and incredible special effects filled water ride that’s set inside a freaking volcano.
If you’re visiting Movie Park Germany just for the coasters you may walk away disappointed but I’d strongly advise you to find the time to ride their dark/water rides because other than Star Trek and Van Helsing that is where the park truly shines. It was certainly the discovery of them that helped make my time in the park so enjoyable, I’m so glad we decided to get the fastpass or my opinion of the park may have been dramatically different.
We had a couple of hours spare after finishing with Movie Park, so we drew up a plan to go ride a rather unique coaster that was on route.
BillyBird Park Hemelrijk
As the sat nav told us we were going to arrive 5 minutes before the last entry time, we decided to phone the park to let them know we were coming. The lady on the phone was really friendly and told us not to worry about it.
When we got to the park we were able to put a face to that friendly voice as the same lady sold us discount late entry tickets and lead us into the park via a special staff only entrance, what a fantastic welcome.
Famileachtbaan – My first Tube Coaster, a relaxing coast to the beach while celebrating our victory of getting here in time.
There was nothing else of interest at the park so we got a slush and just relaxed for a while before our drive back to the airport, where our plane was delayed by the standard 2 hours.
This trip was formed around 3 key ideas, ride Taron at midnight at Phantasialand, ride the brand new Gold Rush at Slagharen and ride the brand new Star Trek: Operation Enterprise at Movie Park Germany. 2 out of 3 ain’t bad…
Day 1
We departed from Gatwick late due to it “being real busy in the sky lads”, this was slightly more a problem than normal because we were cramming in lots today but ultimately it wouldn’t be Gatwick Airport who would ruin our plans for today.
The car hire situation went about as well you’d expect, we ordered a Fiesta and drove away in a tiny Toyota hybrid but not before we emptied the back seat of 6 child seats while the attendant was shouting at us, it wouldn’t the last time I was shouted at today either…
Slagharen
After an hour and a half driving we were at Slagharen and despite it being the 2nd most visited park in the Netherlands queues were very managable.
I’d read mixed to negative thoughts on the park before but it’s fine, not much in the way of rides I’m interested in but the park is nice enough.
Gold Rush – We powered straight to the park’s brand new Gertslauer shuttle Infinity coaster and if looks could kill, seriously Gold Rush has one of the most beautiful colour schemes I can think of, looking extra special on Gertslauer’s fantastic track design, ok I’ll calm down now.
The coaster itself is really good. Relaxing forwards launch to get you moving, thrilling backwards launch that gives insane hangtime as you crawl up and stall on the dive loop, then a final intense forwards launch to get you onto the main layout. A layout that’s full of punchy ejector air and smooth graceful inversions.
Gold Rush uses the lap bar version of the Infinity trains which means you’re in for unnerving amounts of freedom which as mentioned makes stalling on the dive loop a real treat.
After 3 laps on Gold Rush we grabbed a bite to eat and rode the park’s other mine train themed coaster before getting back on the road.
As mentioned in my introduction one of the key reasons for this trip was to ride Taron at midnight during Phantasialand’s 50th birthday special event. This wouldn’t come to be and infact I’d end up having a very frustrating time at the park. What makes this quite funny (in hindsight) is that this was my 2nd trip to the park and the 2nd time I’d walk away disappointed in a park so many in the community rate as the best in the World.
After 2 hours of maxing our terrible car on the autobahn we arrived at the park and immediately things went South. The car parking man literally screamed at us for not parking close enough to the car infront. Then we tried to enter the park through the 2nd entrance next to River Quest and Feng Ju Palace and got shouted at again and told to walk round. So we walked round to the main entrance where the 2 women greeting people stared right through us without saying a word, what a welcoming start to the World’s best theme park!
Feng Ju Palace – The park’s Chinese themed madhouse attraction was closed on our last visit so that’s where we headed first and I really enjoyed it.
River Quest – River Quest was also closed the last time we were here and my God am I happy to have finally experienced this utterly terrifying water ride.
This thing scared me to death, causing me to seriously doubt it wasn’t going to drown me either with the stupid amounts of water it dumps on your head or via the boat flipping during the unthinkable elements it throws at you. For that reason, I loved River Quest.
With the only 2 rides missing from last time ticked off it was time to spend the rest of the evening/night riding Taron until we bled.
We walked over to the beast to be confronted by 2 awful pieces of news, 1 terrible and 1 unforgivable. The queue time was currently 110 minutes, oh and the queue will be closing at 21:30.
They were closing the queue for Taron at half 9 in order to have the area cleared by half 11 for a fireworks show. You may be thinking, well yeah they obviously need to do that for health and safety but I’ll counter that with 2 thoughts. Could they not have launched the fireworks from a different area and have their star attraction running late into the night as their website implied? Also, talking about their website, I went through the event page in detail several times before ordering tickets and there was no mention of Taron closing at 21:30. For reference, Blackpool Pleasure Beach tell you on their website every single attraction that’s closing early for their fireworks well in advance.
Well Taron’s what we came for, we’d better get into that 110 minute queue right now and stop wasting time if we’re going to even get 2 rides this evening.
Taron – We were already angered but the Taron queue tried it’s best to make it worse. 110 minutes of people standing far too close, vaping, drinking, smoking and shouting, normally I’m quite good at blocking out crap like that but this was a struggle.
As for the coaster, it’s still top 20 and one of the best coasters in the World, it’s just such a shame that you have to go through so much effort to ride it. Both times we’ve visited now (first time was a weekday), the queues for Taron have been long and disgusting, it doesn’t give you the chance to properly bond with a coaster when you can’t ride it many times a day.
We knew we’d have to get straight back into the stupid queue as soon as we got off Taron in order to just get 2 rides today, however we were hungry now, so we quickly grabbed a pizza from the pizza place in Klugheim. The man serving there was an absolute asshole, where does the park get it’s staff from?
The queue for Taron was now easily over 2 hours so we decided we’d try single rider, this was a terrible decision.
About an hour into the queue I got stomach issues (probably from the previous time queueing) and needed to bail out to the toilet. While in the cubicle an older sounding German lady starts shouting and trying to smash the door down. This must be a case of mistaken indentity I tell myself, then it happened again. Maybe a drunk I think, then it happened again. 10 minutes later I emerge to see it’s a cleaner lady and she’s not happy. She starts getting right in my face shouting at me, of course in German. I don’t know what’s going on, maybe she thinks I’ve done something wrong? “I’m sorry my German isn’t very good”, I calmly tell her, “YOU MUST LEAVE!”, she screams back. “Why?”, while washing my hands I make out through her angry shouting in both German and English that they are closing the toilets at 9 for the fireworks… This has to be a set up right?
Knowing I can’t rejoin the single rider queue I decide to go for a walk, then almost immediately a man comes running over and shouting I can’t walk that way, when I ask why he mumbles something about the fireworks and points me down another path. This is getting silly now.
The next hour was spent on my own, walking around in the rain, wandering between newly closed paths and uncomfortably busy open ones, not quite the midnight Taron I came here for.
Black Mamba
I managed to reunite with Heartline and we powered to Black Mamba the park’s B&M invert in time to get a few very memorable laps, it was these rides that took my mood from livid to just very disappointed.
The staff on Mamba were incredible, they were going absolutely insane, it was an awesome sight.
Our 3 rides went as such.
1 – Pitch black and the coaster hauling way more than it did for us on our last trip.
2 – Fireworks going off, so that every time you inverted you got to watch the show and once again everything felt faster.
3 – After lap 2 we came into an empty station with the staff still going crazy and they sent us straight round for a 3rd, with the fireworks still going off, it’s a shame finding an experience like this at Phantasialand is like finding a needle in a haystack.
We were completely shattered now after a very long day and both completely done with the park, so clearly the best thing for us was taking over an hour to leave the car park while the staff just stood and watched instead of trying to organise it.
Another trip to Phantasialand, another disappointment, hopefully our 3rd trip won’t be so bad but I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks for reading, click here for part 2 of this report where we visit Movie Park Germany and BillyBird Park Hemelrijk!
