PTR Europa Park

[luff]

This past weekend I got the privilege to go to Europa Park in Rust Germany. This park is the largest theme park in Germany is on the border between France and Germany, and is run by a major ride manufacturer. The park is celebrating their 35th anniversary this year, and in my opinion is one of the best themed parks I have ever seen. It is on par or tops Disney in theming. The lands of the park are themed after countries in Europe, and one section for a generic Africa / South America. Yes, even the US gets a nod in one of the parks many themed hotels. The park employees are friendly and helpful. Although the languages of the park are German and French, dozens of other languages are spoken. I saw one oriental coffee shop employee switch seamlessly from German, to French to English as the people went through the line.

Anyways off to the pictures.

Was it a good day to go to a theme park?

Good enough I say, Jump in the car and hit the A5 Autobahn. Unfortunately there was heavy construction so it took me an extra 45 minutes to get there. The website says the park opens at 9, but it some things like the monorail open at 8:30.

The parking lot is packed and the coasters are all running. Note that the parking spots are all pavers, only the driving area is asphalt.

Euromaus greets us in the bright sunlight. Yes their park has a mouse mascot just like their competition outside of Paris.

Entry is 35 Euros and parking is 4 Euros. To translate currently the euro is worth about 1 and 1/3 dollars. That comes out to around, $46 to get in and $5 to park.

Once inside I am greeted by a princess, my daughter would be happy.

Hey the first land is themed to look exactly like we are in Germany… Er. never mind.

Since I did not take the pictures in any particular order, I will break down the rest of PTR posts as follows:

1. Coasters

2. Other Rides

3. Shows

4. Theming and the end of the day.

[luff]

1. Coasters

The fist coaster I chose to ride was Euro-mir. It is in the Russian area, and themed after the old Russian space station.

The queue goes outside under some authentic looking space modules, and then inside into some dark rooms with black light items.

The music played is all Russian techno. (Note that each land and each major ride had it’s own specific music playing) The cars are set up with 2 facing forwards and 2 facing backwards, and the load crew forced the single riders to buddy up even with the language barrier. A special note is that the loading crew forces you to bring your bags on the coaster with you. No lockers and no bins to place them in.

The lift hill is a spiral lift inside the tallest blue structure. The cars rotate while lifting allowing you to see the large rocket themed middle to the lift. It appears you are spiraling up around a rocket preparing to lift off. Once outside, the path drops you slowly around the columns of the ride like a wild mouse. During this time, the cars seem to randomly rotate. i.e. on car will be spinning while the one before it and after it are locked in a location.

Now cars lock in position (I was backwards) and you plunge into the fast part of the ride. You experience a few drops and some good laterals. Overall a good ride with some considerable forces at the end.

The next coaster I concurred was called Blue Fire. Their newest ride is located in the Iceland area and sponsored by Gazprom, the largest natural gas supplier in Europe. (hence the blue flame)

Let me translate that sign for you. 1. No smoking, No kids with rings around their hands, no ladies with large bellies, no little French dogs, no Penguins, and no taking pictures of this sign. Oops.

The queue brings you through the new Gazprom pavilion where they tell you about natural gas exploration, pipelines, north Atlantic drilling, blah blah blah. The part I liked was during the one video when they fired the sonic sensor for oil deposits, they actually shook the floor.

Ok onto the ride. They had an automatic way to keep your bags in containers closed until your ride returned. It has 2 across seating with only lap bars holding you in. LIM or LSM launch.

Into a vertical turn

And a Loop

There were two corkscrews, a heartline and a slow spiral at the end.

And yes, they sold ice-cream in the queue

My favorite ride in the park. It was fast, smooth and the feeling of all the loops without the OTS restraints kept me wanting more. Oh and the music thru ought was and ominous low orchestral piece that they play on the website too.

Next up I found myself walking through Spain into the land of Austria. There I found the family ride Alpine Coaster Enzian. This is a powered coaster, so you don’t have the accelerations and decelerations found on typical coasters. It is two laps through a densely forested area, intertwined with a log flume called Tirol Log Flume. You end up inside a mountain that is shared with the low part of the flume.

(5802)

I think its great for the family, but not for extreme thrills.

After a break, I went back to the huge coaster by the entrance, Silver Star. This is sponsored by Mercedes. See the name of the coasters don’t actually have the sponsor’s name or trademark in them, but you know they are linked.

The queue is inside the Mercedes Benz pavilion and has interactive items with your Handy’s (er cell phones)

Another addition this year to the park is the AMG driving simulators. Otherwise known as themed PS3’s.

Don’t forget the sponsor..

This is a typical 4 across B&M out and back coaster.

For some reason the lift had a sound barrier at the drop.

Good coaster but it didn’t seem to have the airtime pop that diamond back has.

I now wanted to check out the big golf ball in France. Is it a boring ride like at Epcot?

No. It’s a coaster called Euro-Sat

This is an indoor wild mouse style coaster themed after European space work. It is most similar to the dark knight coasters in style. The lift is also spiral just like the euro-mir ride. At least they give you escalators to bring you in and out of the station

Again a good ride, the darkness, theming, location defiantly add to an average coaster experience. Oh and they had some futuristic sounding music playing. They also had a Michael Jackson poster in the queue. I wonder it they think he was from space??

After a break, I hit the schweizer bobbahn coaster in Switzerland.

This is a bobsled ride with each train themed after a different country. I got the Swiss train.

It is bench front and back seating with a bar that doesn’t seem to do anything. Again we had to bring bags with us. I saw dozens of orange hats from the day around the track

Very well themed again with Olympic and bobsledding memorabilia around

Again it is quite packed into the woods and difficult to see

Very fun ride, I think the family would like it. Alp type music plays through out.

Also located in Switzerland is the Matterhorn blitz. Wild mouse style 4 in a train seating

The door opens up

And you are lifted by elevator to the top

For a wild mouse ride

There was great theming in the queue again with you winding through a Swiss house including lots of AA’s even cows.

Not my favorite coaster. Defiantly a wild mouse layout which I don’t prefer

Music, think Riccola commercials.

My final coaster for the day is a hybrid coaster/ log flume. Poseidon located in the Greece land.

Extremely well themend queue which was empty since the day was on the colder side

You thought you were going to fall off the loading platform. But no worries

Two lifts, a few drops and a couple of not so wet splashdowns

They even had a family dryer at the end (1 euro or $1.33). This was not necessary since the ride did not get you too wet, and no one was running the coin operated sprayers.

I did not ride the last coaster Pegasus the kid’s coaster mainly because I didn’t want to wait in line for the one train operation. It appeared to be larger than most kid’s coasters, so maybe next time I will go on it.

[luff]

2. Other rides

The park was packed with many other rides. They did a good job of packing the rides and attractions into limited space and theming most of the exquisitely.

Yes, Oldtimers do in Germany what they do in the US. The model T Antique cars run here where gas is easily over $7 a gallon.

The children’s land (Wikingerland) is across the river and is full of fun stuff for the little ones

Interesting, they are opening a historama this summer. That is another new attraction

Holland has Teacups. Not my cup of tea.

Scandinavia has their Fjord-Rafting ride. Too cold for me to ride

Portugal has the Atlantica Supersplash, a ride that runs you forwards and backwards in the boat before giving you a super splash.

The new ride for the year is the Wale Adventures-Splash Tours. Again too cold to ride or get to close

Many rides had the same concept, rotate very fast and give you some lateral G’s case in point, Spain’s Kolumbus Jolle (Columbus Dinghy)

You can do what you want to in the Dschungel Fahrt or Jungle rafts. Is this joke getting old yet?

England’s London Taxi company had the spinning cars going in a figure 8 path.

There was a Ride called Universe of Energy. I was too afraid that Ellen would be there so I skipped it. However they do have Dino Fahrts there. Interestingly enough, I think that is what Gazprom uses over in the Iceland area. OK, enough of the fahrt comments.

The sky ride is on top of a candy store.

Their dark ride was located in Italy. It is definitely inspired by the haunted mansion at D. Full of AA characters, a growing entry room, ballroom scene and singing statues.

One of my favorites was the Fluch der Kassandra in Greece. You basically sit in a room where they tilt you a little and move the walls in coordination with the tilting so you think you are about to flip. The ride is all indoors.

Piraten in Batavia is the Holland ride that is inspired by pirates of the Caribbean. Same style ride but you are in the far east instead of the Caribbean.

One unique part of the ride is that it passes through a restaurant and a live stage show. That is how they tied the Asian show into the European theming.

Kids learning European driving skills

I skipped most of the spinning rides because my sinuses were killing me that day. More pictures will come when I go to the bar for internet access later today.

[Coney Islander]

I had no idea how well themed Europa Park was. Can't wait for more pictures!

[luff]

3. Shows and food too

Europa Park is full of scheduled shows and little interactions.

The special festival this weekend was Holland days. So if you wanted to learn about the Dutch, you came on the right day. It appeared that extra costumed people would discuss the culture and history of Holland in their whole land.

Costumed characters who I have never seen before roamed the ground. I think the bird was from Spain or Portugal.

Spain was full of shows. I caught a few minutes of the flamenco performance.

My first show and break was Kong Arthurs Schwert (King Arthurs Sword). With the exception of the poor costuming of Merlin, the show was great. This was another new show for the year.

The Spanish arena is large, well themed and outdoors. Before the show started, a Charlie chaplain type guy wandered throughout the audience making trouble. His style of physical comedy transcends the language barrier, and kept every eye on him before the show started.

He did very un PC things like pulling a kids hand out of mom’s and replacing it with his finger. Then she proceeded to walk half way up the stairs before noticing. He also used a tape measure to direct the skinnier women to one section and the larger to another.

This was a basic Medieval Times type story where a witch stole Excalibur and gave it to the black knight. He always entered the stadium through a hole in the middle preceded by a whole bunch of base to vibrate the seats.

Merlin and a jester come in and start up with the knight training for battling the black knight

There were some Spanish horse acrobats which I guess ties King Arthur into the Spanish arena?

They actually do sword fighting in the audience.

The Black knight fights the jester = comedy relief.

Using his brain and brawn, King Arthur finally beats the black knight. Note the large building in the background. This is one of their many themed hotels on site.

After the show I wandered. There was an English horse drawn carriage for rent.

The English really dressed for success in their toy shop.

Their 4D theatre has specific times for the shows. Hmm. It looks a little old to be a 4d cinema.

One of the sit down restaurants in the Germany castle had a trio of live entertainment. I missed the live rock band at the bar by the entrance.

The next show that I hit was at the Globe Theatre. It was called Love, a tribute to British music.

Three levels, no seats, just benches.

I liked the show very much. They sang and danced to a ton of 60’s and 70’s British music. About 12 people were on stage, I think 5 singers, 2 gymnasts and the rest were dancers. The gymnasts did an amazing lift that just hurt me thinking about it.

I missed out on their new Ice show

Even on the way out they had princesses and one prince interacting with the crowd

There were many choices for food. Each land had their host country’s food choices and the standard fare. In Germany that is pretzels. Just for reference a cheeseburger with fries is 5 euro. That’s $6.50. Please note those who look at nickels, tons of people were eating

At both the sit down and counter service restaurants because 50% higher prices are a lot easier to swallow than 200%

I almost went to the English sports bar, but it was packed with soccer hooligans.

I was also tempted by the crocodile bar, but wanted more of a substantial meal. Maybe fish and chips for $6

I chose to get a gyros in Greece. It was different than I expected, but good.

By the way, beer(bier) is served everywhere and just a little more than the price of Coke.

[luff]

4. Theming and leaving.

I am just going to slap up a bunch of pictures in this post after this blurb. Again, this park takes theming to the max. It is laid out pretty poorly, but each area that you are in has a map at the entrances and exits. There is plenty of quiet open space for people to sit down relax, or go for a stroll through the gardens.

Note that dogs are allowed in the park and in most restaurants. It is a European thing. They even have hooks by the bathrooms so you can tie your dog up while you use the facilities. Speaking of those, they too are themed all the way thru too.

4b. The end of the day

Now to find my way out of the area. The park closed at 7pm which is later than the 6:00 time listed on the actual schedule.

Usually I have trouble finding a rental car in a huge lot, especially a silver Ford. But this time I am driving a company car with our logo all over the place

They have an interesting way to do parking. In the mornings, you just go in and park. People are directing you to the next empty spot though. When you buy your ticked, you can buy the parking coin, or buy one at a kiosk on the way out. You then throw the coin in a tool booth style machine and the arm goes up for you to leave

Theming on the way out too.

Off to the A5

And tom is heading me home. They have goodbye banners in dozens of languages on the way out

Another cool onsite hotel is themed after the coliseum in Rome.

Edited to fix a picture

[Coney Islander]

This park looks awesome! Sort of like a mix between 1970s KI and Magic Kingdom.

Now I must ask, which do you prefer, Kings Island or Europa Park?

[luff]

That is a tough question. Europa has more to do when you don't want rides, but KI has the thrill rides and wooden coasters.

Of course the 5.5 hour drive against the 9 hour flight and 2 hour drive make it a pretty easy decision for my fam.

[DropZone99]

Great photos, I've always wanted to go to Europa Park! I'm considering after I get a job and save up for a few years, I might go on one of those Theme Park Review tours, probably a Europe one that includes the German parks. How many days where you at the park?

[luff]

Those theme park review trips look fun. I was only at the park one day, I am in Germany on business and the weather has been poor.

I think staying at one of the hotels would be great. They seemed very themed. At the US themed hotel, you can sleep in either a Tepee or a covered wagon, and it looks like they have a cowboy show at night.

[DaveStroem]

Thanks for the TPR. It looks like you had a blast.

One of these days maybe.