Arrived bright and early the next morning for the park with the lowest capacity rides ever. Nothing here seats a decent amount of people in one go, so what appears on the surface to be a quiet park can easily get some significant queues.
Day 2 – Skyline Park
This park has become somewhat of a testing ground for Maurer Rides, being home to more than one first-of-their-kind installations. They also have a bit of a repetetive naming system for their attractions.
Nothing opened for the first half hour or so, but a queue began to form outside #1 Sky Rider and we joined in. This unique Caripro Gryoflyer seemed like a fun idea, but wasn’t particularly interesting. The cars have four seats facing in towards a thick metal pole that suspends you from the track. You can spin the car by this pole yourselves, but it looked like too much effort and never really got going in the hands of anyone else, particularly with the limitations of the layout.
#2 Sky Wheel
I was dreading my first (and the world’s first) Sky Loop as the lift hill inverts before the ride even begins and I particularly hate long periods of being held upside-down (which might seem strange for this hobby, but it’s not actually that common to be held like it). Grabbing the first train of the day meant it was over with quickly. I was quite surprised by how much this ride didn’t offend me, it was actually reasonably fun once the start was over, which happened to be just on the limit of how much I could bear.
#3 Sky Spin
Quite surprised by how much this did offend me. Stock model Maurer spinners seem to lack a certain spark that their custom models often have.
#4 Achterbahn
Usually Schwarzkopf have something rather special to offer, seemingly ahead of their time as a manufacturer in the previous century. Sadly this Wildcat model is a rather uninspired layout that rides like a more structurally sound Zyklon Galaxi at best.
Having planned the entire trip around the most offensive ride construction project of all time, I was suitably disappointed to see it wasn’t finished.
Probably should have queued for the Bobkart earlier. It took about an hour for every child in Europe to board. I do love them though, the self controlled burst of acceleration is always surprisingly powerful in what feels like a very exposed environment and this one didn’t disappoint.
Did my first and last Butterfly and Bayern curve in this park too. They don’t count.
Although the rides at Skyline Park were interesting, none of them were particularly good and certainly nothing was worth queuing for again, so we headed out for something that wasn’t a theme park.
The village below Neuschwanstein Castle seems to be about 50% car park, but finding a space was still a painful experience with many signs out front saying full and attendants that were difficult to negotiate with. From the village, a bus takes you up to the top if you’re on a tight schedule/not an avid mountaineer.
Although not usually my thing, I have to admit it does look great when you get there.
I got addicted to Germany at some point in 2016. There’s something very satisfying about doing road trips over there (autobahn efficiency?) For this particular jaunt we hired a car in Frankfurt and had 1 night near there, 1 night near Leipzig and did everything else out of Munich, totalling about 2500 miles. For a lengthy hire in which I had gone out of my way to ensure an unlimited mileage option, they decided to provide me with a very thirsty ‘hot hatch’. This left me torn, as it was fun while on the road, but I spent as much time in petrol stations as I did making progress. Bastards.
Day 0 – Holiday Park
Decided to hit the ground running by taking advantage of a late opening day and trying some night rides on the multi award winning Intamin hyper. I imagine most parks would think there was something wrong with you for showing up and paying full price at 9pm, but from previous experience this place seems to have somewhat of a cult following even with the locals, so no eyelids were batted.
Expedition GeForce
I still found it to be a great ride when measured in moments – some of the airtime is rather ridiculous, but I find it a little too much of a one trick pony these days compared to the more recent world beaters. The trims, uneventful corners and everything in between the signature hills just take me out of it a bit.
Day 1 – Legoland Deutschland
54 Legolands in and I’ve almost decided they’re not worthwhile parks to me now. It’s a shame the creative and unique side of their respective Minilands can’t be reflected in the ride line-ups.
#1 Drachenjagd
Started off with the smallest coaster. Gerstlauer are really good at this size of ride and luckily for me there’s plenty more of that around this region.
#2 Feuerdrache
Their Dragon coaster was unusually rough compared to clones 10 years its junior, which isn’t a good sign. At least it was running thirty trains at once in true German style.
Unforunately I can’t make the same excuse for #3 Project X – Test Strecke, which behaved considerably worse than other Mack wild mouse models of the exact same age. You don’t need to know what they look like. My camera didn’t.
Also spent too long in the sun waiting for a 4D cinema show. Can’t remember which film I saw at which Legoland anymore, which shows how much of an impact they make.
Surprise hit of the park was Jungle X-pedition. It featured a dark ride section and a backwards drop. The signs of a quality attraction.
Having the same boats as Valhalla only added to it.
The train around the park offered some rare shade and little else.
The highlight of Miniland.
One of those spiteful fairs with the face of a wacky worm cred on the poster, but nothing when you get there.
They’ve outdone Space World by freezing people in a pool.
Juvelen.
Foreshadowing.
A little disappointed with this Legoland, but I don’t expect much from these parks any more due to having already done most of what they have to offer in other places. Minilands are always fun for about half an hour and the boat ride was nice to see but without any other standout innovations, I can’t see any of the Legolands suprassing Billund’s lineup. Maybe they want to keep it that way, as it is the original.
I’ve subconsciously left this park as the last place of significance in Germany, mainly due to low expectations. Since they went and got Helix trains (and a new ride to go with them), I couldn’t hold off any longer.
The day started strong with nearly getting waved into an empty field which had nothing to do with the park, then getting waved into more overflow car parks and finally a strong smell of excrement emanating from the view of an SLC and the ‘worst wooden rollercoaster in the world’.
Day 2 – Movie Park Germany
A 10 minute walk around the perimeter, stuck behind smokers, was made slightly better by the skyline being punctuated by some glamorous Mack track. Some rare perfect timing allowed us to be amongst the first in the park and some forward planning meant we knew exactly where to head to be amongst the first on the new attraction.
#1 Star Trek: Operation Enterprise
Even the first time round, I found the preshow sections to be a little tedious. The first set of screens were just being blocked by other uninterested guests as some bloke I hadn’t heard of was talking. The beam me up section didn’t really have as good of an impact as it should have. The bridge however was very impressive to someone who knew what it was supposed to look like and the use of the screen there seemed most relevant, if you weren’t all restricted to queuing in a small portion of the room and, again, couldn’t see it past other guests.
The free for all seating choice was a welcome feature in the station. The one train operation was not. Started off in the front and felt right at home in those amazing seats. I liked the ride itself a lot. Combined with the triple launch trickery at the start, you get a decent length out of it, particularly in comparison to Gold Rush the previous day and there’s a good mix of sensations going on throughout the layout. The sequence of elements is very unique but flows completely naturally and the inversions in particular just feel so… right.
#2 Van Helsing’s Factory
Swiftly and successfully moved onto the indoor Gerstlauer Bobsled to beat the rush. 15 minutes and we were on, just enough time to appreciate what was in the queue but not long enough for it to become painful. I really enjoyed this one as well. Great interactive theming throughout the layout, which itself is finally different from every other one of these installations in existence. I nearly lost it upon seeing the second lift had tyres, my mind filling with dirty thoughts about a launch happening and then completely missed everything that was going on in that section. Managed to catch up on all the details with another ride later on.
2 for 2 so far Movie Park. Why does no one like you? On to the smaller creds. This area was far from ideal, the Vekoma Junior queue looked grim, tried and failed to suck up the queue for the Wild Mouse which looked OK, then got queue jumped by about 10 people and saw all the cars starting to stack in the station.
We caved and bought a speedy pass from the nearby Nickolodeon shop instead. Yes this pass is good value as it puts you straight onto all 3 creds in the sort of manner that makes you feel a little too superior and you get dirty looks from everyone else. The power of money.
#3 Ghost Chasers, the aforementioned mouse, was made much more interesting than it should be by 2 excitable Asian girls having the time of their lives behind us.
#4 Backyardigans: Mission to Mars, the aforementioned junior was 2 laps of meh, with 500 smoking Germans staring at us from a now doubly grim queueline.
We were even asked which seat we wanted on the Vekoma Suspended Family Coaster, #5 Jimmy Neutron’s Atomic Flyer. The response? “Don’t care, got the cred.”
Went for Mystery River while in the area and got dumped about halfway through the queue in a corridor of about 35°C. It was a fun rapids ride. Didn’t understand what was going on, but a decent amount of theming and water related peril through both indoor and outdoor sections.
Narrowly avoided a samba while leaving the area through a parade and stopped for a bite to eat, already reflecting on how this park is much better than its reputation.
Decided on the Lost Tunnel next, skipping over a gruesome looking 75 minute queue for a very lengthy ride experience. Another attraction that exceeded my expectations here. The ride portion itself wasn’t particularly good for an immersive tunnel as there was little interaction between the dinosaurs on screen and our vehicle as a presence in their world, or even between the 2 sides left and right, but the pre-shows and build up to the ride were very impressive. It’s a shame the dinosaur in the exit path is for optional viewing only. After the comment from the temple bloke about “some of them may have escaped”, I wanted an animatronic to jump out of the waterfall and the bridge to collapse from under us as we left the ride room. Too far?
With a bit of luck Star Trek was down to 15 minutes, assumingly because they had just added the second train at long last. Suffered the preshows again and grabbed our second go in the back. I enjoyed spotting a couple of extra details this time, such as the screen in the room with the transfer track reading ‘uploading evasive manoeuvres’, but one thing that really doesn’t help the whole experience is that it creates far too much build up when the ride itself is almost completely unthemed and there is seemingly no conclusion to the story. I felt they could have at least housed the brake run and had a quick video saying ‘well done lads, you saved the crew/you’re now Locutus of Borg.’ The spectacle all feels a little unnecessary to the hardware itself as it currently stands.
Time to see what’s the worst they can throw at us. #6 MP-Express the SLC is great before you even get on it. The industrial estate themed fastrack queue of unpaved stones and dirt through rusty fence towards a service road followed by old metal stairs into the side of an ageing warehouse is hilarious. The ride itself was again just comedy, no nasty roughness at all, just a weird forward and back sort of pumping action through some of the inversions which caused many surrounding screams of agony, while I can’t stop laughing at it all.
It feels like there’s nothing steel can do to me these days, but I have developed a slight fear of bad woodies after Grand National tried to take my hobby away from me. So it was with significant trepidation that we boarded #7 Bandit. The lift was over surprisingly quickly and then “Oh no, oh no……. Nope it’s fine.” We recalled the statement “worst wooden rollercoaster in the world” to each other as it took the first uneventful corner and then spent the rest of the ride in a laughing fit. Nothing wrong with it at all, actually quite enjoyed it.
Over to Time Bandits, where we got spited by a show time. (Yes, wrong name, but the dark ride names all seemed so generic to me they’d just blend into one, or something else, whenever I said them at the time).
Took our re-ride on Van Helsing to fix that. Amazed myself with how much I missed on the second lift, like the car bonnets jumping about, the big scary wolf/bear thing coming out at you from amongst the cars and then the screen of the flying demon thing carrying you up high and dropping you as you take the drop. Brutal laterals are a signature of this ride type and when it’s that dark in the back seat, you can’t even see it coming. Great stuff.
Over to Time Riders, straight in. Another impressive set of theming and preshows. The actor was really into it for the first section, and then the second section looked so good we were joking to ourselves about whether there is a ride at all? Or is this the final act. It could have been. Very glad there was a ride, as the simulator is viciously fun. Multiple moments of it just feeling like a car crash as you hit something on screen and get properly chucked about in your seat. I found myself willing it to hit more things as it went on.
Grabbed an ice cream before the last ride on our list, Bermuda Triangle. More expectations exceeded, having only seen the outside drop with an angle of about 10 degrees into nothing but station. There’s a huge surprise drop in the dark at the start that felt like it went on forever, followed by some weird old theming in the underground section and a cool projection effect. Soon after, you’re running away backwards from collapsing scenery, a little disappointed it wasn’t a drop. Finally the anticlimactic finish we all knew was coming. The boat also tried to kill us by nearly tipping over as we left.
Overal Movie Park Germany provided a good day out. It probably needed Star Trek to finally make it particularly significant, but the combination of multiple decent dark rides and at least a couple of above average coasters gave me a lasting positive impression.
Satisfied with what we had achieved in the park, it was time to assess our cred options for the journey back to the airport. A bit of research while tearing up some German roads brought us to the conclusion that it was “BillyBird or bust.” Sat nav would have us there for 5 minutes before last admission and we needed a fuel stop somewhere. This may be the time to mention it was by far the slowest hire car I’ve had in Germany, being a hybrid Yaris, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Eco mode off, stick it in ‘B’, draining all the juice from the unsatisfyingly linear engine and embarrassing endless better cars on the autobahn, the run was put back into cred run.
BillyBird
Easily made it in time and what a nice place to stick a coaster. Just somewhere for the Dutch to chill out with very friendly staff, a lake, some chairs, an artificial beach, lots of stuff for kids to play on and most importantly, a cred.
#8 Familieachtbaan
Scaled the stairs to the top and jumped on. The ride is good fun for its size, with a fairly exposed feeling in the bathtub shaped cars and at least a noticeable amount of force involved. Job done.
Took advantage of some of the chilling out ourselves while we were there as there would no doubt be a couple of hours delay on an evening Easyjet flight out of mainland Europe.
Landed in Amsterdam early on a Saturday with Mega-Lite and happened across a big stand in the supermarket with 10 euro off vouchers for Walibi Holland. Not this time lads, we’re going slightly further afield with this hire car.
Day 1 – Slagharen
We had managed to grab a great deal for this park online, with some limited half price promo tickets. This ensured that it didn’t sting at all for a whole 2 creds and 1 hour spent there. Went straight to the new Gestlauer Infinity coaster and had a couple of rides on it, only about 15 minutes queue each time. For the time of year and ‘Netherlands 2nd most visited theme park’ it wasn’t crowded at all. I guess the figures are down to the resort as a whole and not just the amusement area.
#1 Gold Rush
Gold Rush is a great little ride for its size, using a triple launch system to get more out of a small footprint. The back row seemed best for a particularly crazy moment of hanging upside-down after the reverse launch and then being forcefully dragged into the surprisingly steep drop of the top hat.
It’s also rather attractive to look at.
Grabbed a panini from the plentiful shops along the walk to the Vekoma Junior #2 Mine Train, expecting a bit of a queue and planning to eat it there. Again the queue was really short, but had time to wolf the food down while watching some pitiful argument about the height of some child that went on far too long. +1.
And that’s the park really. Nicer atmosphere than I expected and Gold Rush makes the park completely worth a visit. It’s a shame with so few creds they had to remove something else to bring in the new addition, would be great if they could expand somehow.
Soon found myself back on the autobahn for the 6th time in 2 years, heading down to Phantasialand for their final 50th Anniversary event day with midnight close. We had hyped this up rather a lot in our heads, dreams of ‘midnight Taron’ being at the forefront of the motivation to get this trip rolling in the first place. Unfortunately the park fell a little short of expectations again, although it has many of the ingredients required to be amazing, I’ve always found it a struggle to have the best of times here.
Phantasialand
Got directed to an overflow car park opposite the Ling Bao entrance where a man was aggressively shouting instructions to cars in an attempt to maximise efficiency in space. This seemed to be an afterthought as the first half of the car park was already filled in completely the opposite manner to his mission. This didn’t seem to bode well for how busy it was going to be, but efficient German operations right?
Wasn’t allowed in entrance 2 for some reason, so took the long hike round to the main entrance. Had a quick scout of queue times which went as follows: Maus au Chocolat = 75 minutes – “nah mate.” Black Mamba = 75 minutes – “nah mate.”
Feng Ju Palace was down on our last visit so walked onto that first. The projection preshow was an interesting change to the many other Vekoma Madhouses around. It was amusing to start with as the robot thing kept bring out bigger and bigger weapons to fight with, but got a little repetitive when the bloke started shooting fireballs at us causing an animatronic to jiggle slightly 4 times in a row. Then the ride sequence came and not much happened except a projection on the floor near the end. Bit confused by the story on this one. Did he save the Asian girl or not?
River Quest was also down last visit so went for that next. Phantasialand complete. I donned my trusty Valhalla poncho and eagerly anticipated what my favourite Hafema boys would throw at me this time. The queue had a good build up, with a couple of spots in which boats were kicking up some nasty waves right into our path.
Loved the dual elevator lift that has to merge into a single funnel, causing you to crash viciously into a wall mid drop. There’s a bit of calm before the storm while drifting round to the whirlpool, where the boat suddenly isn’t even on water anymore and just starts spinning wildly, picking up speed, culminating in a catastrophic splash. One bloke in the boat stands up at this stage and starts grumbling about his phone being wet and trying to adjust his pocket to which both ourselves and some locals have to shout “sit down man, vertical drop any second!” Final drop wasn’t quite as mental as I had imagined, but still way beyond your average rapids ride. Great stuff.
After a bit of water maintenance, the moment of revisiting Taron had finally arrived. We entered Klugheim and paused for a second, waiting for the amazing characteristic 2nd launch sound. Moments later it hit and stupid grins were instantly brought to our faces. Queue time = 100 minutes. “Well that sucks.” Ride close time = 21:30. “Wait, what?” Dreams of ‘midnight Taron’ shattered. 105 minutes of second hand smoke and disappointment later, nabbed the front row.
Taron
The ride is exactly as good as I remembered it to be. A fun little sit down for the most part, weaving your way through rocks, track, buildings, everything, for what feels like a wonderful length of time. The second launch is probably still my favourite single moment of any ride. I love getting that feeling of ‘there’s more to come’ out of a ride, it’s a rare treat on coasters due to their inherent nature of losing momentum over time and Taron’s version of this is particularly vicious and spectacular. More marvellous mincing around follows the launch, TRIM BRAKE and you’re done. I simply don’t get the fact people consider it an intense ride. I could ride it all day like a rag doll, non-stop, with zero physical consequences. That’s not a negative at all, just, they’re wrong.
Grabbed some tasty Taron bread from the Balder shop outside and headed round again. Queue time = 115 minutes. “This isn’t going at all well.” We wouldn’t even get inside the entrance within the first 20 minutes and the 21:30 cut off time was dangerously approaching.
From a glance as we approached the station previously, there were only about 8 people in the single rider queue outside the station building. People were now powering into single rider, climbing over ropes on their way. Should we play it tactically and join them before it’s too late? I guess we’ll have to. 120 minutes of standing on a vibrating bridge followed, gradually getting Raynaud Syndrome. Sadly Mega-Lite didn’t stand the test of time and had to bail for the bathroom at this stage. There was zero chance of them letting him back in the queue and the staff even pursued him into the toilets to shout at him and try and kick him out of Klugheim. Meanwhile I was next to someone who was having an actual panic attack because of how awful the queue was and then the ride had a panic attack of its own. 1000 smoking Germans all start shouting and jeering at this announcement, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Another half hour later they got the ride up and running again. I assume a significant portion of the main queue must have bailed in disgust through the door in the cattle pen section at the announcement because it dried up 2 trains before the SRQ did. We were all brought into the station at last. I get batched into the 2nd row for the last train of the day. Looking to my left, the front row will be empty for this last train. I take the chance and attempt to head round, but one of the staff members runs over to me and screams “NO!” in my face. 2nd row it is. So I got my ‘almost midnight Taron’, in the rain too. It was fanastic. This is also now the longest I have queued for any ride ever. Wouldn’t really expect that to have happened in Germany, but there you go.
After a confused phone call through the narrow and packed walkways of the park, caught up with Mega-Lite who had been wandering aimlessly around closed rides and getting shouted at by more staff. We lucked upon walking straight on to the last train of Black Mamba, back row. Well this was certainly memorable. The staff were cheering and thrusting as we left the station. The riders were chanting and singing, getting super rowdy and excited. Dreams restored.
The ride was running like a beast at this time of night and the firework display had just begun. Every inversion was filled with ‘OH MY GOD UPSIDE DOWN FIREWORKS’ and then disappearing back into the pitch black with an intense B&M invert swoop. The train pulled back to the station. Everyone stayed seated exactly where they were. “Again?” Well, alright then. More cheering, more thrusting, more chanting, more singing. MORE UPSIDE DOWN FIREWORKS, AHHHHHHHHHH! Why did Taron have such a terrible atmosphere?
We got caught up in the masses of the Berlin area as the fireworks were coming to a close, to the (disco edition) tune of Chiapas, the park’s log flume. Unfortunately we were the only people in the park to chant “CHIAPAS!” along with it. I thought it was more popular than that.
Then we got stuck in the car park for an hour queueing to leave, music on full volume, cutting up a million people and getting cut up by a million more. Got to the hotel, parked in a hedge. Died.
Ever since I got serious about getting out there and visiting the theme parks of the World, Hansa Park had always been right near the top of my list. From the stories of just how lovely the park is, with some calling it the best park in Germany, to the creation and opening of the unthinkable Karnan, Hansa Park was just begging for a visit. And now, thanks to Heartline’s genius, it was now.
I knew as soon as I reached the park entrance that the stories of how nice the park looks were true. Hansa Park in places is breathtaking and as much as I’m all about massive intense roller coasters, these days I can really appreciate how much effort and upkeep goes into making things look nice and it’s something Hansa Park fully understands and excels in.
Fluch von Novgorod – This is such a conflicting coaster to talk about so I’ll break it down into 2 sections.
Experience: As an experience, Novgorod is awesome. The theming is incredible and the story mysterious and gripping.
Coaster: The actual ride hardware however is a little lacking. While Gertslauer Eurofighters sometimes get it right, with Novgorod they haven’t quite nailed it. The launch and airtime hill combo are great but then you sort of just rattle around a bit, before an enclosed lift hill that doesn’t really do much, then a drop that does less and it’s over. What the park could have made this if the coaster hardware was better pains me.
Nessie Superrollercoaster – I can’t say I remember much from this Schwarzkopf looping coaster but I did have a headache at the time.
Schlange von Midgard – Hansa Park have turned a Gertslauer family coaster (which are awesome as standard) into something really impressive.
Schwur des Karnan – I’ll be doing a full coaster write up on Karnan soon, so please click here to read about this insane coaster in more detail.
Where can I begin with Karnan? From the moment I saw the tower from the car park I was filled with immense fear and excitement. There really is not much like Karnan in the coaster world. Where else can you find a near 300 foot fully themed castle tower that every few minutes a coaster train comes flying out of?
The attention to detail with Karnan is outstanding. Theming levels or beats Disney and the effort put into telling the story of Karnan needs commending, with no less than six 15 minute mini documentaries playing in the queue.
You are batched into your rows by mystical forces in probably one of the best preshows I’ve ever seen.
Karnan’s trick lift hill is one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced on a coaster. Waiting there, music blaring, heart throbbing, palms sweating, brain racing, Christ, this is something special. All this made even more insane by the levels of freedom made possible by lap bars. The coaster hasn’t properly started yet and it’s already a better experience than most out there.
Then you crest the lift, where riders in the back row will be violently ejected, over 200 feet in the air, almost into the tower structure itself, in yet another terrifying moment brought to you by Karnan. What follows is an intense blur of positive Gs so strong the seat tries cut your thighs, crazy pops of airtime, relentless pacing and one of the most intense inversions out there.
Karnan is all about taking everything to the extreme, whilst some may not like that, I love this thing to pieces.
Hansa Park is a fantastic park, beautiful and an absolute pleasure to exist in, features a very strong coaster line up and it’s home to Karnan, I cannot recommend enough.
After the typically delayed flight home, one of my favourite Europe trips to date was over but it’s not one I’ll soon forget.
