Phantasialand 6/10/2024

[DoomPlague]

A day after my trip to Plopsaland, I hit up Phantasialand, one of the two German parks that I really wanted to check out.

This park is impressively beautiful, as many of you know. It's not just the famous Rookburgh (where F.L.Y. is) but it seems like every inch of the park is themed. It was overcast and a little rainy that day but that didn't ruin our fun at all.

We started off at Taron, with its beautiful, gray rock walls. Honestly, the theming/scenery really did add to the ride. In terms of the ride experience, this Intamin multilaunch would be considered an elite ride at any US park but I guess some it a middle-of-the-pack Intamin LSM. It has those snappy turns and good air time though. Also, it might be the first ride where I noticed they have horizontal shaped bins for each train, stacked on top of each other. They open automatically for each train and are double-sided for the exit. It's a good system.

In that area of the park we also rode Colorado Adventure, a newer Vekoma mine train. This is probably the best mine train we rode on the trip and possibly ever. Fairly smooth and it has those nice fake cross-ties made of wood to sell the theme.

Chiapas is a Mexican themed log flume that we rode despite the rain. It has great scenery, the steepest drop of any log flume, a backwards descent at one part and even an IMA score.  Probably the best log flume I've been on.

We checked out a chinese themed dark ride Geister Rikscha. Decent scenery and sufficiently creepy but the animatronics and figures are pretty outdated and often low quality. Nearby was a China themed madhouse, Feng Ju Palace. It had a cheesy preshow but it was my first Vekoma madhouse, so it was still kind of neat to experience.

Mystery Castle is an indoor Intamin Drop Tower ride. There are 4 sides facing each other inside what looks like a castle tower on the outside. What was odd was that the ride started, the lights go out and we launched into the air initially and came back down but the staff indicated that the ride wasn't done. They apparently stopped it part way to let someone off or something, so it was like we got a bonus ride. The full ride goes up and down multiple times and there is some sort of mad scientist theme or something?

We headed down to the African section where Black Mamba is. I wasn't expected much from the B&M invert but it's probably the best one I've been on (above even Montu). The scenery just adds so much to it. Rock work, waterfalls, etc. Just all so impressive. Nearby was a walkthrough attraction, essentially an obstacle course. I'll add some pictures but what I was saying about Plopsaland and how much these parks trust their guests applies here. The obstacle course is something you would never seen in the US. Tight space, climbing on narrow objects 6 feet above concrete, etc etc. There are attendants when you enter these walk through areas but that's about it. Maybe kids have to be with an adult to enter?

We navigated our way to the other side of the park. My only gripe is how hard it is to navigate, in part with how vertical the whole thing is. It's easy to go down the wrong path. Anyways, we made it to an indoor area which has a flat ride and the dual track Maurer spinning coaster, Winjas Fear & Force. Since the two sides have different names, we tried both but disappointingly they are basically the same ride except for one of the unique elements.  On one, the car stops and the track flips forward to proceed and other it stops and the track banks to proceed. There's a part where the track drops for a second and there's an elevator lift. These elements made for an interesting ride. Much of the ride goes over the earlier mentioned flat ride and make it kind of feel like being on a ride in a mall.

There's an old Vekoma with VR nearby that I opted to skip. I don't get the trend is to add VR to bad coasters.

Finally we made our way to F.L.Y. with its remarkable steampunk scenery. The map makes it look like the area connects two areas but its actually a dead end and you have to enter near the park entrance. The queue is almost completely indoors and they have a video in three languages explaining their locker system. Everyone is given a rubber RFID wrist band that will lock the double-sided lockers. Fortunately, these German parks understand that glass straps will hold on to your glasses. The sideways loading system is pretty efficient too. For the ride itself, I found the restraint puts a lot of pressure on my mid-section but that's probably because I'm heavier than I used to be. Still a lot of fun and it confirmed to me that this is how flying coasters should be designed: few inversions with a focus on keeping you in the flying position. The scenery adds a lot to the experience.

We headed out of Rookburgh and his a newer dark ride, Maus au Chocolat. An interact projections screen ride where you shoot mice with chocolate by pulling a string. It was decently fun and the scenery between screens was nice. There's one part where you enter a cake-making area and you actually smell cake.

We did a couple more rides and Taron and FLY before leaving and walked through a hotel themed funhouse. I wanted to check out some merch and was surprised that they only seem to have one merch store which covers all of the areas, instead of having every ride exit into one. Sort of refreshing. European parks also seem to keep their food places open after closing time (though the fact that they all close so early is probably part of that). Lastly, while drinks were priced as you would expect food was decently cheap. We bought some rather large bratwurst for 4.60 euros each. Those things are easily the size of two typical store bought brats in the US. 

In all, Phantasialand really impressed me. Many of their rides are at the top or near the top for their respective ride types and the scenery is amazing. Operations were good (though not Parc Asterix good),

[DoomPlague]

Apologies for my poor photography. The weather didn't help either.