Germany Coaster Tour 2014 (Phantasialand Posted)

[ThomVD]

Re: Germany Coaster Tour 2014 (Holiday Park & Culture Posted

Great trip report. I was actually amazed how nice Holiday Park looks.

Shame you didn't love EGF, hope that doesn't mean it's not running on top form this year.

I've been to Holiday Park on 18 July this year, and it had crazy airtime all over the ride, even the last bunny hops, so I don't think it is running bad. Besides, he doesn't love Silver Star either so airtime might not really be his thing.

 

[caffeine_demon]

Re: Germany Coaster Tour 2014 (Holiday Park & Culture Posted

I did Steinwasen and the Hasenhorn about 7 years ago - At steinwasen, the bobkart really impressed me, didn't realise they had a new alpine coaster- It's just so picturesque around there, and the first sight of the hasenhorn when you're approaching from steinwasen is stunning!

 

[TheCoasterCruiser]

Re: Germany Coaster Tour 2014 (Holiday Park & Culture Posted

Day 6

Last day of the trip was blessed with a visit to Phantasialand...

After 45€ of overpriced entrance tickets we entered the place with this handy guide at our service.

First ride of the day was a Vekoma Mine Train.

With three lift hills.

And it was solid fun.

New for this year is Chiapas: Superior log flume of Phantasialand.
Seriously, this is high quality theme park stuff! Amazing attraction!

The theming here is among the finest.

Here's my onride.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ebU8sWcM1s&list=UULe7a9-uaV6ozJR9mZq0GAg[/youtube]

Maus and some chocolate was a cool dark ride. Haven't been on a lot though.

Going further into the park we find...

Winjas!
Two awesome spinning coasters from the amazing Maurer Söhne!

Next up was this surprisingly smooth indoor Vekoma with no lights for 3 minutes.

Black Mamba, B&M Inverted.

They really went all the way with this.

Pulls some good g's and is rather disorienting at times, but other than that I didn't find it amazing.

My onride video.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLtVr_wx5ZM&list=UULe7a9-uaV6ozJR9mZq0GAg[/youtube]

Talocan!

Awesome flat ride.

One last picture of this masterpiece.

We ended the day with the dildo castle.

Awesome is the word I'm gonna use here.
Great fun.

And then it was back to Denmark after a good time in Germany!

Here's my overall thoughts on Phantasialand.
- I've heard good things about this place and I have to admit that I ended up being a little disappointed with it. - The park has some high quality ride experiences, but they certainly also have the opposite, to the point where it's embarrassing for a park like that. That being said, Winjas Fear is a splendid ride, Colorado Adventure and Black Mamba is good fun and Chiapas is just perfect.

Thank you for reading along!

 

[CookieCoasters]

Please tell me you did not miss River Quest???

Anyway another good report. It's a shame you were disappointed with the park, but I definitely can't agree with you that many of their rides aren't not quality experiences. Every ride I've ridden their was amazing for what it's meant to be. What rides did you think were poor?

 

[TilenB]

Since we rode pretty much everything on our first day at Europa Park, we decided to drive even further south to ride Europe's longest Alpine Coaster on this morning.

There is at least one longer in Andorra and 3 more in Austria (Imst, Lienz and Vandans Golm).

Great report so far, though!

 

[TheCoasterCruiser]

Please tell me you did not miss River Quest???

Anyway another good report. It's a shame you were disappointed with the park, but I definitely can't agree with you that many of their rides aren't not quality experiences. Every ride I've ridden their was amazing for what it's meant to be. What rides did you think were poor?

It was pretty rainy when we made it to River Quest, so we decided to skip it, unfortunately.
Have you ridden the ghost train? Or the 4d cinema? Or the hollywood dark ride?

Since we rode pretty much everything on our first day at Europa Park, we decided to drive even further south to ride Europe's longest Alpine Coaster on this morning.

There is at least one longer in Andorra and 3 more in Austria (Imst, Lienz and Vandans Golm).

Great report so far, though!

Thanks and I had no idea!

 

[ThomVD]

Please tell me you did not miss River Quest???

Anyway another good report. It's a shame you were disappointed with the park, but I definitely can't agree with you that many of their rides aren't not quality experiences. Every ride I've ridden their was amazing for what it's meant to be. What rides did you think were poor?

It was pretty rainy when we made it to River Quest, so we decided to skip it, unfortunately.
Have you ridden the ghost train? Or the 4d cinema? Or the hollywood dark ride?

The ghost train and hollywood tour are very old classic dark rides. I quite enjoy them for what they are, and I wouldn't say it has a negative influence on the rest of the park in any way. Never done the cinema, and I'd say the only real bad ride in Phantasialand is Race to Atlantis (the simulator). It has tons of amazing rides like:

-Black Mamba (one of the best inverts)
-Colorado Adventure (one of the best mine trains)
-Winjas (one of the best spinners)
-Mystery Castle (one of the best shot/drop towers)
-River Quest (one of the best river rapids)
-Chiapas (one of the best log flumes)
-Talocan (one of the best top spins)
-Maus au Chocolat (one of the best shooting dark rides?)
(I would also say it has the best chairswing in any park I've seen)

That, along with the best theming I've ever seen in a park, make it my favorite park. Europa park is very very close though.

 

[TheCoasterCruiser]

^ Sorry, not a 4D cinema, I meant Race to Atlantis.

I do see your points and do think it's a good park, there were just a couple of things that didn't work for me.

 

[owentaylor121]

What roller coasters do you actually like? Aha. You seem to dislike coasters with airtime, then one of the world's best inverts, what type or style of ride would it take to actually impress you? A bit to picky for my liking but a good trip report anyways.[SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]

 

[TheCoasterCruiser]

^ I do see how it could come off that way.
Generally I tend to look for other things in coasters than the majority. - For me it's not about airtime or strong g's and although technical elements can have a say in my ratings, for me, it's mostly about the overall experience.
Which is also why I might really like a coaster that isn't, god forbid it, smooth :shock:

If you did read my report though, you will know that I liked plenty of the coasters on this trip.

 

[ThomVD]

I have a feeling that most coaster enthusiasts in general are too critical on coasters. Whenever something is not mindblowingly intense or awesome, people think it's **** or awful. I can proudly say that I enjoy every coaster I've ever ridden, even El Condor and kiddie coasters. There is always some fun to be found in even the worst coasters, as long as you have low expectations and try to enjoy the coaster for what it is. I also find the "roughness" thing mostly exaggerated. I don't understand how people can find something like Kanonen rough.

Anyway, I really enjoyed your trip report. Germany really has some awesome theme parks.

 

[owentaylor121]

^^Yeah I've enjoyed reading the whole trip, love the parks in Germany, It just seemed that coasters you should have liked you didn't . Nice report either way and I do agree that a coaster doesn't have to be super smooth to be good.

 

[CookieCoasters]

I have a feeling that most coaster enthusiasts in general are too critical on coasters. Whenever something is not mindblowingly intense or awesome, people think it's **** or awful. I can proudly say that I enjoy every coaster I've ever ridden, even El Condor and kiddie coasters. There is always some fun to be found in even the worst coasters, as long as you have low expectations and try to enjoy the coaster for what it is. I also find the "roughness" thing mostly exaggerated. I don't understand how people can find something like Kanonen rough.

Anyway, I really enjoyed your trip report. Germany really has some awesome theme parks.

I sort of get what you're saying. Enthusiasts usually tend to either air on the negative side when a coaster doesn't break their top ten or on a more positive side (if they still liked it) and not so much a mixture of both, but this is all dependent on how many coasters they've ridden and liked/disliked. I often find it difficult to get across my exact opinion on a coaster in word form, so I'd imagine this may be the case for others.

However, even if TheCoasterCruiser may come across slightly negatively when talking about major coasters like EGF and Black Mamba, it's probably because he had higher expectations for them, therefore since they didn't end up as his favourite coasters he had more negatives to talk about in comparison to what he heard about them.

It is clear from his reports that he loved coasters like g'sengte sau and the Winjas neither of which would generally be described as 'mind blowing' or 'intense' but were likely to be bigger surprises for him. Personal preferences make things more interesting as it means not everyone is going to love the same 'world class' coasters and allows coasters such as the above to get more appreciation for their uniqueness, enjoyment etc.

So in short, enthusiasts can come across as overly critical sometimes, but it doesn't mean they love riding coasters any less and it would be boring if every coaster prompted responses like 'it was awesome' and 'best coaster ever.'

Oh and btw, I don't think Kanenon is rough either, you just need to learn how to move with the ride .

 

[JamesB]

Just caught up on this report, I've been to Hasenhorn! Great alpine coaster, we were staying in the Black Forest and was recommended to us by our hosts.

Europa is amazing, we only had a day there, so much to see! Arthur looks incredible, saw the POV a few weeks ago and was really impressed.

 

[TheCoasterCruiser]

I have a feeling that most coaster enthusiasts in general are too critical on coasters. Whenever something is not mindblowingly intense or awesome, people think it's **** or awful. I can proudly say that I enjoy every coaster I've ever ridden, even El Condor and kiddie coasters. There is always some fun to be found in even the worst coasters, as long as you have low expectations and try to enjoy the coaster for what it is. I also find the "roughness" thing mostly exaggerated. I don't understand how people can find something like Kanonen rough.

Anyway, I really enjoyed your trip report. Germany really has some awesome theme parks.

I sort of get what you're saying. Enthusiasts usually tend to either air on the negative side when a coaster doesn't break their top ten or on a more positive side (if they still liked it) and not so much a mixture of both, but this is all dependent on how many coasters they've ridden and liked/disliked. I often find it difficult to get across my exact opinion on a coaster in word form, so I'd imagine this may be the case for others.

However, even if TheCoasterCruiser may come across slightly negatively when talking about major coasters like EGF and Black Mamba, it's probably because he had higher expectations for them, therefore since they didn't end up as his favourite coasters he had more negatives to talk about in comparison to what he heard about them.

It is clear from his reports that he loved coasters like g'sengte sau and the Winjas neither of which would generally be described as 'mind blowing' or 'intense' but were likely to be bigger surprises for him. Personal preferences make things more interesting as it means not everyone is going to love the same 'world class' coasters and allows coasters such as the above to get more appreciation for their uniqueness, enjoyment etc.

So in short, enthusiasts can come across as overly critical sometimes, but it doesn't mean they love riding coasters any less and it would be boring if every coaster prompted responses like 'it was awesome' and 'best coaster ever.'

Oh and btw, I don't think Kanenon is rough either, you just need to learn how to move with the ride .

You got it! :--D

And to all who read my report and liked it, thank YOU.

 

[ThomVD]

I have a feeling that most coaster enthusiasts in general are too critical on coasters. Whenever something is not mindblowingly intense or awesome, people think it's **** or awful. I can proudly say that I enjoy every coaster I've ever ridden, even El Condor and kiddie coasters. There is always some fun to be found in even the worst coasters, as long as you have low expectations and try to enjoy the coaster for what it is. I also find the "roughness" thing mostly exaggerated. I don't understand how people can find something like Kanonen rough.

Anyway, I really enjoyed your trip report. Germany really has some awesome theme parks.

I sort of get what you're saying. Enthusiasts usually tend to either air on the negative side when a coaster doesn't break their top ten or on a more positive side (if they still liked it) and not so much a mixture of both, but this is all dependent on how many coasters they've ridden and liked/disliked. I often find it difficult to get across my exact opinion on a coaster in word form, so I'd imagine this may be the case for others.

However, even if TheCoasterCruiser may come across slightly negatively when talking about major coasters like EGF and Black Mamba, it's probably because he had higher expectations for them, therefore since they didn't end up as his favourite coasters he had more negatives to talk about in comparison to what he heard about them.

It is clear from his reports that he loved coasters like g'sengte sau and the Winjas neither of which would generally be described as 'mind blowing' or 'intense' but were likely to be bigger surprises for him. Personal preferences make things more interesting as it means not everyone is going to love the same 'world class' coasters and allows coasters such as the above to get more appreciation for their uniqueness, enjoyment etc.

So in short, enthusiasts can come across as overly critical sometimes, but it doesn't mean they love riding coasters any less and it would be boring if every coaster prompted responses like 'it was awesome' and 'best coaster ever.'

Oh and btw, I don't think Kanenon is rough either, you just need to learn how to move with the ride .

You have a good point. And I actually like that he gives smaller coasters some attention. I usually end up loving the less hyped coasters a LOT . For example Colorado Adventure, Pegasus (EP) and Dwervelwind. Even the much hated Temple of the Nighthawk was loads of fun to me, especially with 2 trains, so that you can hear a different train in the same room but can't see it because of the darkness. It was quite exciting. So I wasn't specifically talking about him, but more about coaster enthusiasts in general.

 

[_koppen]

Re: Germany Coaster Tour 2014 (Holiday Park & Culture Posted

After 45€ of overpriced entrance tickets

Seriously, this is high quality theme park stuff!

The theming here is among the finest.

They really went all the way with this.

Great trip report, but the first sentence here don't really go along with the others.

 

[ThomVD]

I do think €45 is quite a lot for a park of its size. It's an amazing park, but still. Efteling is €32 and is a lot bigger, with similar fantastic high quality theming.

 

[TheCoasterCruiser]

After 45€ of overpriced entrance tickets

Seriously, this is high quality theme park stuff!

The theming here is among the finest.

They really went all the way with this.

Great trip report, but the first sentence here don't really go along with the others.

In my opinion it is an overpriced entrance and no matter how amazing I think that theming is, it doesn't make up for what you get in terms of overall park experience.