Europa Park: Monday 1st July - Wednesday 3rd July 2013
This was my first time at this theme park and it was an amazing trip! My brother and my dad came with me and we had about two and a half days in the park. The weather was great on the first two days - very hot and dry. On the third day there was a lot of rain but it was still warm. The park was pretty busy on the hot days but the queues weren't bad at all. I can't remember the order of everything we did so I'm just going to review the coasters and a few other bits and pieces. Unfortunately I won't be including photos because most of them feature my family which I don't want to put on here - sorry about that
Travel
Getting to Europa Park was surprisingly easy. Our journey started with a free train journey from Eastbourne to Gatwick (the benefits of having a family member who is a train driver :wink followed by a 1 hour 5 minute flight from Gatwick to Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg. Once there, we simply got a shuttle service to the park (which we had pre-booked from a link on the Europa Park website) taking about 1 hour. Everything went really smoothly and having left home at about 5:15am we had arrived at the Hotel Colosseo by about mid-day. If anyone is looking to visit Europa Park from the UK I would definitely recommend a journey similar to this one!
Hotel Colosseo
Overall I thought this was a very good hotel. The theming is fantastic and our room was surprisingly nice for a standard room with a great view over the hotel's central courtyard. We loved watching the fountain show from our window at 10pm each night. The whole hotel was spotlessly clean and very well maintained. The staff were pleasant enough and most could speak good English which was a relief given our limited German. I thought the costumes the staff have to wear were quite funny. The only downsides of the hotel were that there was no safe and no air conditioning in our room which led to a fairly uncomfortable second night due to the hot weather.
The park in general...
I think I can probably say that Europa Park is one of the best, if not the best park I have ever visited. The main thing to mention here is the excellent operations. Every single ride runs at full capacity whether the park is busy or not which means the queues move very quickly. What seemed like a really long queue to the front gate on Silver Star only took 25 mins in the end. I think the longest queue of the whole trip was around 40 mins for Poseidon (which is very good considering it was a hot day and the park was busy). Every ride that wasn't a coaster or water ride was usually a walk-on. It wasn't just the rides either - we found that queues to get food moved very quickly as well and we never had trouble finding space to sit down. I have never seen such impressive operations at any park and I think every other major theme park should really take lessons from Europa Park in this area!
Another thing to mention is that the rides never seemed to break down. I witnessed only one breakdown during the entire trip on Poseidon which was dealt with very well. It involved a load of mechanics climbing all the way to the top of each high point on the ride, fixing whatever was was wrong, climbing back down again and getting the ride going again - all within about 5 minutes! Extremely impressive.
The design of the park is beautiful. There are flowers and greenery everywhere and everything is very well kept. You can feel that the owners have put a lot of love and care into everything and have a lot of pride for their park. The theming was very good, though not as immersive as Disney or Universal. The park was also very clean despite there being very few cleaners around which was a bit strange :?
One thing that amazed me about the park was sheer amount of rides. There is loads to do for everyone - you could literally spend a whole day just doing the gentle family rides. You would definitely need at least two days in the park if you wanted to do everything - even more if you wanted to see shows. The only thing I felt was missing was a good flat ride. Most of the flats are for kids and I felt the park needed something like Talocan at Phantasialand. Other than that, the ride selection was fantastic. Some of the Disney rip-off rides were hilarious - especially the ghost castle and Pirates in Batavia.
Atlantica Supersplash
This was our first ride of the trip and was where we got our first look at the park's very fast through-puts. The queue, despite looking quite long, only took 10 mins and when we got on the boat it started moving before I'd even put the lap bar down! The staff certainly don't faff about in this park :lol: The ride itself was pretty good and I liked that you don't get completely drenched like on some other water rides.
Euro-Mir
I rode this twice. The first time, I sat in a backwards facing seat when I got on and really enjoyed the ride. It was surprisingly high once you leave the enclosed spiral lift (which has to be longest lift I've ever experienced on any coaster by the way) and I liked the spinning around the buildings. The ride was a tad rough, but nothing too uncomfortable.
The second time I rode was a different story... I sat in a forwards facing seat when I got on which means you get locked facing backwards for the twisty part of the ride at the end. Now I have never felt sick on a coaster before, but I have to say, I came really close to literally throwing up everywhere by the end of the ride. One more helix probably would have done it. It's strange because I've been fine on backwards coasters before but this one one just seemed to make me really ill. I felt rough for a couple of hours afterwards which was a bit of a downer but thankfully the park had plenty of gentle rides for me to go on in the meantime.
So now I'm not sure whether I like this ride or not!
Swiss Bobsleigh
This ride was quite cool but nothing particularly memorable. The only other bobsleigh coaster I've done is Avalanche at Blackpool but I would say this one is a tad better. Overall it doesn't seem like this ride type lends itself to particularly exciting ride.
Matterhorn Blitz
I actually really enjoyed this coaster! I wasn't expecting much since it seemed like a typical wild mouse coaster but I have to say I loved the lift system at the start and the first drop. cool)
Silver Star
A very good ride and better than I was expecting after some negative reviews I had read. There was plenty of speed and airtime. I rode Shambhala last year and it's the only other B&M hyper-coaster I've ridden, so naturally I started comparing. Personally, I feel like Silver Star doesn't quite match up to Shambhala but I can't put my finger on why that is... maybe it was the fact that you ride over a car park, or the simpler layout, or the trains... I don't know but I just didn't get the same feeling of awe after riding this like I did with Shambhala. Still, it was a great ride and for me the third best coaster in the park!
Alpenexpress
Surprisingly fun for a powered coaster! The indoor section was awesome and everyone seems to have a good time on it.
Wodan
Just brilliant. This was definitely the best coaster in the park and now my second favourite coaster of all time. I had read so many average reviews for this ride so I wasn't expecting much but it really delivered! There was non-stop speed from beginning to end and plenty of airtime. I also loved that it always twists in the direction opposite to where you think its going. Just a fantastic ride - exactly the sort of thing that Thorpe Park or Alton Towers needs! It seemed like this was the favourite amongst most other park guests too. I heard that there are new wheels on it this year which have made it run faster, so that might be why my review differs to most previous ones I have read.
Blue Fire
This was the second best coaster in the park for me and the first inverting coaster I've been on without over-the-shoulder the restraints. I don't see why more parks don't adopt this restraint system - you feel free whilst feeling secure and really comfortable. I loved the launch and the inversions, as well as the odd sensation as you fly over the first hill. The only downside was I thought the mid-course brakes came too soon and killed a bit of the speed, but other than that, a great coaster. On the third day we rode this just as it started pouring down with rain and we got absolutely drenched. For those who have not ridden a coaster in the rain - it's almost feels like needles hitting your face and you can barely open your eyes. On return to the station, the ride ops thought it would be hilarious to keep our restraints locked and send us round again, so we got doubly drenched. Quite funny now looking back!
Poseidon
I quite liked this ride. It was a little rough on the coaster part but still really fun and not too wet. The final drop was great as it suddenly gets steeper half way down - a sensation I haven't experienced on any coaster before. cool)
Pegasus
For what's advertised as a children's coaster, this is surprisingly thrilling. The first drop is quite steep and the twists and turns that follow are pretty fast. Nothing particularly memorable overall though.
Eurosat
I was really looking forward to this coaster because I love indoor coasters. Unfortunately I found this ride to be a little too rough for me. It was mostly because I'm tall and the cars are quite small so my sides and legs got bashed on every turn. The coaster itself was quite cool though. It's obviously a Space Mountain rip-off but it gives a surprisingly long ride given the size of the Epcot ball it's located in.
One other thing worth mentioning...
The Food Loop restaurant is awesome! It was the last thing we did before heading home and was a great finish to our trip. Not only was the whole coaster thing cool but the food was really nice too. We wished that we had eaten here on the previous days! Do not go to Europa Park and not visit this restaurant
Total ride count:
African Queen x1
Alpen Express x3
Atlantica Supersplash x2
Atlantis Adventure x1
Blue Fire x3
Cassandra's Curse x1
Children's Lighthouse x1
Elf Ride x1
EP-Express x2
Euro-Mir x2
Europa-Park Historama x1
Eurosat x1
Euro-Tower x2
Fjord Rafting x1
Ghost Castle x2
Jungle Rafts x1
Magic World Of Diamonds x1
Matterhorn Blitz x2
Mir Space Station x1
Monorail x3
Panorama Train x1
Pegasus x1
Piccolo Mondo x1
Pirates In Batavia x2
Poseidon x2
Puppet Boat Ride x1
Queen's Diamonds x1
Silver Star x3
Silverstone Race Track x1
Sleigh Ride Snowflake x1
Swiss Bobsleigh x2
Tirol Log Flume x1
Universe Of Energy x2
Vintage Cars x1
Volo Da Vinci x1
Whale Adventures x1
Wodan x5
If anyone would like to hear my thoughts on anything else just let me know!
This was my first time at this theme park and it was an amazing trip! My brother and my dad came with me and we had about two and a half days in the park. The weather was great on the first two days - very hot and dry. On the third day there was a lot of rain but it was still warm. The park was pretty busy on the hot days but the queues weren't bad at all. I can't remember the order of everything we did so I'm just going to review the coasters and a few other bits and pieces. Unfortunately I won't be including photos because most of them feature my family which I don't want to put on here - sorry about that
Travel
Getting to Europa Park was surprisingly easy. Our journey started with a free train journey from Eastbourne to Gatwick (the benefits of having a family member who is a train driver :wink
followed by a 1 hour 5 minute flight from Gatwick to Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg. Once there, we simply got a shuttle service to the park (which we had pre-booked from a link on the Europa Park website) taking about 1 hour. Everything went really smoothly and having left home at about 5:15am we had arrived at the Hotel Colosseo by about mid-day. If anyone is looking to visit Europa Park from the UK I would definitely recommend a journey similar to this one!Hotel Colosseo
Overall I thought this was a very good hotel. The theming is fantastic and our room was surprisingly nice for a standard room with a great view over the hotel's central courtyard. We loved watching the fountain show from our window at 10pm each night. The whole hotel was spotlessly clean and very well maintained. The staff were pleasant enough and most could speak good English which was a relief given our limited German. I thought the costumes the staff have to wear were quite funny. The only downsides of the hotel were that there was no safe and no air conditioning in our room which led to a fairly uncomfortable second night due to the hot weather.
The park in general...
I think I can probably say that Europa Park is one of the best, if not the best park I have ever visited. The main thing to mention here is the excellent operations. Every single ride runs at full capacity whether the park is busy or not which means the queues move very quickly. What seemed like a really long queue to the front gate on Silver Star only took 25 mins in the end. I think the longest queue of the whole trip was around 40 mins for Poseidon (which is very good considering it was a hot day and the park was busy). Every ride that wasn't a coaster or water ride was usually a walk-on. It wasn't just the rides either - we found that queues to get food moved very quickly as well and we never had trouble finding space to sit down. I have never seen such impressive operations at any park and I think every other major theme park should really take lessons from Europa Park in this area!
Another thing to mention is that the rides never seemed to break down. I witnessed only one breakdown during the entire trip on Poseidon which was dealt with very well. It involved a load of mechanics climbing all the way to the top of each high point on the ride, fixing whatever was was wrong, climbing back down again and getting the ride going again - all within about 5 minutes! Extremely impressive.
The design of the park is beautiful. There are flowers and greenery everywhere and everything is very well kept. You can feel that the owners have put a lot of love and care into everything and have a lot of pride for their park. The theming was very good, though not as immersive as Disney or Universal. The park was also very clean despite there being very few cleaners around which was a bit strange :?
One thing that amazed me about the park was sheer amount of rides. There is loads to do for everyone - you could literally spend a whole day just doing the gentle family rides. You would definitely need at least two days in the park if you wanted to do everything - even more if you wanted to see shows. The only thing I felt was missing was a good flat ride. Most of the flats are for kids and I felt the park needed something like Talocan at Phantasialand. Other than that, the ride selection was fantastic. Some of the Disney rip-off rides were hilarious - especially the ghost castle and Pirates in Batavia.
Atlantica Supersplash
This was our first ride of the trip and was where we got our first look at the park's very fast through-puts. The queue, despite looking quite long, only took 10 mins and when we got on the boat it started moving before I'd even put the lap bar down! The staff certainly don't faff about in this park :lol: The ride itself was pretty good and I liked that you don't get completely drenched like on some other water rides.
Euro-Mir
I rode this twice. The first time, I sat in a backwards facing seat when I got on and really enjoyed the ride. It was surprisingly high once you leave the enclosed spiral lift (which has to be longest lift I've ever experienced on any coaster by the way) and I liked the spinning around the buildings. The ride was a tad rough, but nothing too uncomfortable.
The second time I rode was a different story... I sat in a forwards facing seat when I got on which means you get locked facing backwards for the twisty part of the ride at the end. Now I have never felt sick on a coaster before, but I have to say, I came really close to literally throwing up everywhere by the end of the ride. One more helix probably would have done it. It's strange because I've been fine on backwards coasters before but this one one just seemed to make me really ill. I felt rough for a couple of hours afterwards which was a bit of a downer but thankfully the park had plenty of gentle rides for me to go on in the meantime.
So now I'm not sure whether I like this ride or not!
Swiss Bobsleigh
This ride was quite cool but nothing particularly memorable. The only other bobsleigh coaster I've done is Avalanche at Blackpool but I would say this one is a tad better. Overall it doesn't seem like this ride type lends itself to particularly exciting ride.
Matterhorn Blitz
I actually really enjoyed this coaster! I wasn't expecting much since it seemed like a typical wild mouse coaster but I have to say I loved the lift system at the start and the first drop. cool)
Silver Star
A very good ride and better than I was expecting after some negative reviews I had read. There was plenty of speed and airtime. I rode Shambhala last year and it's the only other B&M hyper-coaster I've ridden, so naturally I started comparing. Personally, I feel like Silver Star doesn't quite match up to Shambhala but I can't put my finger on why that is... maybe it was the fact that you ride over a car park, or the simpler layout, or the trains... I don't know but I just didn't get the same feeling of awe after riding this like I did with Shambhala. Still, it was a great ride and for me the third best coaster in the park!
Alpenexpress
Surprisingly fun for a powered coaster! The indoor section was awesome and everyone seems to have a good time on it.
Wodan
Just brilliant. This was definitely the best coaster in the park and now my second favourite coaster of all time. I had read so many average reviews for this ride so I wasn't expecting much but it really delivered! There was non-stop speed from beginning to end and plenty of airtime. I also loved that it always twists in the direction opposite to where you think its going. Just a fantastic ride - exactly the sort of thing that Thorpe Park or Alton Towers needs! It seemed like this was the favourite amongst most other park guests too. I heard that there are new wheels on it this year which have made it run faster, so that might be why my review differs to most previous ones I have read.
Blue Fire
This was the second best coaster in the park for me and the first inverting coaster I've been on without over-the-shoulder the restraints. I don't see why more parks don't adopt this restraint system - you feel free whilst feeling secure and really comfortable. I loved the launch and the inversions, as well as the odd sensation as you fly over the first hill. The only downside was I thought the mid-course brakes came too soon and killed a bit of the speed, but other than that, a great coaster. On the third day we rode this just as it started pouring down with rain and we got absolutely drenched. For those who have not ridden a coaster in the rain - it's almost feels like needles hitting your face and you can barely open your eyes. On return to the station, the ride ops thought it would be hilarious to keep our restraints locked and send us round again, so we got doubly drenched. Quite funny now looking back!
Poseidon
I quite liked this ride. It was a little rough on the coaster part but still really fun and not too wet. The final drop was great as it suddenly gets steeper half way down - a sensation I haven't experienced on any coaster before. cool)
Pegasus
For what's advertised as a children's coaster, this is surprisingly thrilling. The first drop is quite steep and the twists and turns that follow are pretty fast. Nothing particularly memorable overall though.
Eurosat
I was really looking forward to this coaster because I love indoor coasters. Unfortunately I found this ride to be a little too rough for me. It was mostly because I'm tall and the cars are quite small so my sides and legs got bashed on every turn. The coaster itself was quite cool though. It's obviously a Space Mountain rip-off but it gives a surprisingly long ride given the size of the Epcot ball it's located in.
One other thing worth mentioning...
The Food Loop restaurant is awesome! It was the last thing we did before heading home and was a great finish to our trip. Not only was the whole coaster thing cool but the food was really nice too. We wished that we had eaten here on the previous days! Do not go to Europa Park and not visit this restaurant
Total ride count:
African Queen x1
Alpen Express x3
Atlantica Supersplash x2
Atlantis Adventure x1
Blue Fire x3
Cassandra's Curse x1
Children's Lighthouse x1
Elf Ride x1
EP-Express x2
Euro-Mir x2
Europa-Park Historama x1
Eurosat x1
Euro-Tower x2
Fjord Rafting x1
Ghost Castle x2
Jungle Rafts x1
Magic World Of Diamonds x1
Matterhorn Blitz x2
Mir Space Station x1
Monorail x3
Panorama Train x1
Pegasus x1
Piccolo Mondo x1
Pirates In Batavia x2
Poseidon x2
Puppet Boat Ride x1
Queen's Diamonds x1
Silver Star x3
Silverstone Race Track x1
Sleigh Ride Snowflake x1
Swiss Bobsleigh x2
Tirol Log Flume x1
Universe Of Energy x2
Vintage Cars x1
Volo Da Vinci x1
Whale Adventures x1
Wodan x5
If anyone would like to hear my thoughts on anything else just let me know!