Europa Park 6/12/2024

[DoomPlague]

I forgot to make this TR as I unwound from the trip and got back to work.

The last park of my trip was the famous Europa Park. Like the other European parks, Europa has nice theming and scenery but its not as elaborate as Phantasialand. However, it does have 14 coasters and a bunch of dark rides. I left open an extra day in the trip in case I needed it to hit everything I wanted.

We made our way towards the new ride, Voltron but came across SilverStar first. It's a B&M hyper and it was a walk-on at this time. The ride is sponsored and the queue building is massive inside with a bunch of frankly wasted space. Having an indoor queue is nice though. The ride itself...well its a B&M hyper. Good air time throughout. I definitely prefer Diamondback for the most part though Silverstar doesn't run as slow in its second half.

We then made it to the new Mack multi-launch coaster, Voltron. Being a new ride, it was a bit of a wait even this early. The outdoor theming was nice but not as cool as once you get inside. Inside there's an animatronic Nikola Tesla and on the ceiling are 4 large tesla coils...that every once in a while play the ride's theme. It's pretty cool. Eventually you get to an attendant who hands anyone with a bag an RFID card which will lock and unlock some double-sided lockers. Unlike FLY, they are just simple white cards instead of a strap and there's no metal detector. So its more of a bin replacement rather enforcing a strict loose item policy. Once to the ride platform, the 4x4 trains move on a conveyor platform and the process is pretty efficient.

The ride itself has a prelaunch section with special effects that mimic you being jolted with electricity and the track jumps up and down. It's pretty neat and on our second ride, everyone on the ride was playing along. The ride also has a turntable midway and a very short backwards launch. It's a nice little surprise. Overall the ride is fantastic. It has loads of strong airtime and quick transitions. It's easily one of the two best rides I've ridden on the trip, which says quite a bit. I would love to see KI get this new model.

After Voltron, we made our way to Blue Fire, which was considered a game changer for Mack. It's a good multi-launch coaster. A bit shaky and not as good as some other LSM launch coasters out there but still probably the second best ride at the park. Like Silverstar, it has a sponsored, oversized indoor queue.

We also did Wodan Timbur Coaster, a GCI woodie. Nice theming in the queue. The ride itself is decent but nothing too special. It lacks the relentlessness of Mystic Timbers.

Euro Mir is a Mack spinner themed to the Mir space station. A replica of the station is above the queue and there are cosmonauts and related things in the ride itself. The highlight of the ride is the spiral lift hill, where you are rotated up the hill by a rocket with Russian techno blaring in the background. It was quite entertaining. The main part of the ride is a fairly typical family spinner.

Arthur is part dark ride, part coaster. The park is apparently pretty proud of the ride because there's a making-of video in the queue. The entrance is in an indoor plaza where part of the ride goes. Very nicely themed even if I didn't really know what was going on. It's probably the best dark-ride coaster combination I've been on, technology wise. It's inverted but the seats rotate to view scenery. Pretty nice scenery and animatronics, then you hit a short rollercoaster section that goes outside.

EuroSat CanCan Coaster is the ride housed in that totally-not-an-Epcot-knockoff sphere in the park. It was a pleasant surprise. It's a simple lapbar coaster that blazes by some French-themed scenery in the dark. It's not overly fast, so you can actually see the scenery and hear the music.

Schweizer Bobbahn (Swiss Bobsled) is my second Mack bobsled of the trip. Remarkably this thing was running 4 trains (I guess they have 5!?) even though its a really short ride. The one at Parc Asterix was definitely better.

Matterhorn Blitz is a Mack wild mouse themed to a Swiss farm, with animatronic farm animals in the queue. It was charming. An elevator lift takes you up in a small tower and then you have a typical wild mouse.

We skipped the Super Splash since I rode one at Plopsaland and my riding partner didn't want to get wet. But we did ride Poseidon, a water coaster. It felt like a fairly typical family-thrill level ride but with a splashdown at the end. 

Also did, for some reason, Alpenexpress Enzian, a powered family coaster. Should have done Pegasus instead.

After the coasters, I started hitting the dark rides. Many of them had 0 wait. Madame Freudenreich Curiosités was a cute ride with dinosaurs, seemingly with jobs. Good animatronics, especially Madame Freudenreich herself.
Piccolo Mondo has a general Italy theme. I barely remember it but it was okay.
Abenteuer Atlantis is an interactive dark ride where you shoot at various underwater creatures. Again, it was okay.
Their Ghost House (apparently similar to Haunted Mansion) was closed unfortunately. And I ended up missing Snorri Tauren and I apparently shouldn't have because its said to be one of their most advanced dark rides.

Pirates in Batavia was definitely a highlight for me. It might be considered a POTC knockoff but its a good one.

Lastly, Voletarium, is a flying theater attraction that has you flying around various scenes across Europe. Pretty well done even if the theme wasn't that interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing KI get a similar attraction.

Before leaving, we hit up Voltron again as that was clearly the highlight of the park.

This was definitely a great park but I think I was more impressed by Phantasialand. Europa Park definitely has more to do but it almost felt like a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, Voltron being the exception. With Voltron, this park's coaster lineup, were it in the US, would be somewhere in the mid top 10 among US parks. Before Voltron, though, it would have been similar to how many enthusiasts feel about KI in terms of coasters: consistent quality top to bottom but lacking an elite ride (not that I agree with that). Of course, this is ignoring the overall quality of the park, the dark rides, theming, etc.