Update it is then!
Tuesday 7th April: Day Five, Phantasialand
Today was the day I was most looking forward to, Phantasialand. I had been told nothing but excellent things about it and was under strict instructions for months in advance not to watch any POVs of anything so the place would offer many more surprises. I could not wait!
We were up and out of the hotel early and on the road hoping to arrive for opening. Ploddish proceeded to scare the Germans on the motorway with Sue's dinosaur.
But before long we arrived, the first thing to catch my eye was Mystery Castle...you know, given that it is a 200ft tall brick building...
We'd booked tickets online and swiftly entered the park. I was instantly blown away by the scale of the theming.
Sue and Conor both have a fetish for Colorado Adventure which they call 'the best mine train in the world' and decided to show their love for it.
My first breath-taking moment of the day came when I saw Chiapas. It looked absolutely **** stunning.
I had to take a rather dazed selfie.
Avec annoying fence apparently. Ugh.
Mamba in the distance <3
We made our way over to the central plaza area.
Despite the park opening at 9am most of the rides were shut until 10am but Maus au Chocolat was open so we headed over to that.
I had no idea what it was but was pleasantly surprised to learn it was a shooter ride in the style of Toy Story Midway Mania. I loved the queue line with jars of sweets and all sorts, it had a beautiful sweet smell to it too.
We queued for less than ten minutes and reached the ride station.
It's great fun. I found the mechanism for shooting a little temperamental and more stressful to actually get working than I remember Midway Mania to be, you had to like shove the rope back into the gun before you could shoot more candy. The idea is shooting at mice and you get varying amounts of points for each depending on size of target and if it was hiding or moving. Really great fun, thoroughly enjoyable.
I had my picture with Bill Sykes and some woman outside.
And then we rode Tartuff which was basically next door to Maus au Chocolat.
As I'm sure you know it's a fun house, the sort you'd get at travelling fairs...only this was permanent and fantastically themed because of it.
Everyday household objects (like the toilet and bed above) were upside down and the wrong way round. There were moving floors, slides, punch bags, it was great fun!
Not quite sure why I look so unimpressed because it was amazing.
Loved it!
Once we were done we decided to grab a quick bit of breakfast before the rest of the park opened. I had a cheesy bacon slice, it was gorgeous.
We joined a gathering throng of people ready to enter the rest of the park once it finally opened at 10am. When it did loads of people made a bee-line for Wuze Town.
It's home to two Maurer Sohne coasters, Winjas Fear and Force. The inside of the building was amazing too, but I'll get onto that in a minute.
We rode Winjas Force first.
Ahh it's great fun. I love how Phantasialand literally asked Maurer AG to chuck in various different unique things into it, it weaves around with some pace giving great views of Wuze Town. I love how, at the end, the whole track like bobs down. It's such a shame that more parks don't put in custom coasters like this full of random gimmicky elements.
Next was Winjas Fear.
I preferred this side. It is slightly longer than Force and feels faster too, and I'm pretty sure it span faster. I really really liked it, first hurtling round the brightness of Wuze Town and then it all goes dark as you go down a steep hill. The track suddenly stops, the track tilts and you go backwards. So much fun. Really great coaster.
As promised, have some photos of Wuze Town.
The attention to detail was exceptional, just so many things to see. Fantastic.
We then headed over to the Hollywood Tour boat ride.
It's simply a boat ride around various different films. It starts off with a drop through a waterfall which stops just before you reach it. There are some decent animatronics throughout the ride, for example Jaws rises out of the water, there's also Frankenstein and Atlantis...amongst others. It is good but compared to most things at Phantasialand it is clearly dated.
Temple of the Night Hawk was next.
I really liked the feel of the station.
The coaster itself though was meh. It is supposed to be a coaster that hurtles round corners in the dark...that would work if there weren't several holes in the roof which apparently mean you get soaked when its raining. It was an alright coaster but it fails in being what it is trying hardest to be, a coaster in the dark. Disappointing.
We decided to ride Chiapas next. I posed with a dragon first though.
But soon enough we entered the queue line.
The water smelt so clean which I was really happy about after the awful stench of water at Zoo Safaripark on Sunday.
The queue went on and on and on. It lasted just over an hour but we occupied our time with various word games by taking it in turns to name car manufacturers and US States for example. Soon enough, we were on!
Oh my gosh, this thing is amazing. The theming is out of this world. The music is amazing and the fabness is off the scale. The drops are full of airtime and actually quite steep, you don't get too wet, there's a backwards drop. I loved it. My favourite part consisted of disco lights and dancing and loud fantastic music. Absolutely fantastic ride. Easily the best non-coaster experience in the park (and given the other things in the park that is quite some praise), and now that I think of it, one of the best non-coaster experiences I've ever had in the park. Amazing stuff.
Amazing stuff.
We headed back across the park towards River Quest.
The ride was walk on and we took our seats. I'd never been on a rapids where the raft is basically split into three independent sections, they helped to funnel the water up to the middle getting us even wetter.
The rapids start pretty tame, and soon we arrived at a conveyor belt...which led us into a life/elevator. That was odd. At the top the doors opened revealing quite a hefty drop, my gosh was that a surprise. We came crashing down getting mildly moist. The next element was the biggest shock. A **** great big whirlpool. Because I had a big bearded Irishman (i.e. Conor) infront of me, I couldn't actually see where the raft goes so for one horrific moment I assumed we somehow get sucked down the middle. Thankfully that wasn't the case and we simply went around the outside and down into a tunnel, where there was another ridiculously steep drop, followed by another getting us absolutely soaked and back into the station.
Clearly that hadn't whetted our appetite enough and we asked, as there was no queue, if we could stay on and go around again.
As a rapids goes, this ride is world class, outstanding stuff, the best I've been on my far. The only thing I feel it lacks is theming, there are some stone castle walls and that is pretty much it. I don't know what else I'd like to see but that's how I feel, but this ride is clearly about the rapids experience rather than stuff to look at as you go around. Exceptional stuff.
Just found this image on the internet to give you a feel for how wet you get.
As we were getting off, you got some great views of the Taron construction.
Next it was Mystery Castle time.
Einstein was present.
I'm not 100% sure of the story to the ride but the main part of the ride is inside the labs of the Mystery Castle.
We took our seats and suddenly we were shot up 200ft to the sound of thunder with the flashing of lightning. Then we whooshed back down before being shot back up to the top and being held. There were cars being shot up opposite us and to our left and right. Then we were pulled back down. It's great fun, it's not Tower of Terror standard but it is still exceptionally good fun, we re-rode later in the day but it had a much poorer cycle as it had a slight queue. I'm glad we rode it when we did.
We wanted lunch next and went to the Chinese restaurant, Mandschu.
I was happy to eat here because a. Chinese food and b. I was eager to get some more chopstick practice in before Japan in September.
Oddly, I haven't taken a photo of my food so I have no idea what I had...and I can't remember if I enjoyed it but I assume I did!
Next we rode the mad house, Feng Ju Palace. I've only ever ridden Hex at Alton Towers before so I was looking forward to riding another mad house. In the queue line something happened to Stone Cold, what exactly I have no idea, but he was on the floor crying with laughter.
Feng Ju Palace had a weird pre-show with 4 different animatronics in each corner coming to life at different points to some lightning flashes. It was odd but, despite it being in German, I really enjoyed it.
The Mad House bit itself was good too, but I think realistically once you've ridden one they're all the same it just depends on how each park themes it and which pre-show they give it, that's what makes it a better overall experience. Hex is still superior for me.
Geister Rikscha was next, a really bad ghost train thing.
I can't even remember what it was about now but it was bad, outdated and clearly needed ripping out to make way for something far superior. It's odd how 90% of the park is absolutely second-to-one in terms of theming yet this (and Temple of the Night Hawk) really let it down as they just haven't been touched for decades.
Next we headed over to Colorado Adventure.
That's quite some drop!
For it being Conor's favourite mine train, he didn't look too excited. Maybe it was just because I'd shoved my camera in his face.
I was told to get the best experience I should sit at the back on my own, so that's just what I did. (Or maybe I had bad hygiene problems, who knows).
It was great fun, really pacy and being sat alone at the back I was being thrown around like nobodies business, it was relentless! It was great fun but the best mine train? Hmmm, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad WDW still takes that title for me, even if Colorado Adventure was really great fun, it was slightly too over the top!
Next was that I was most looking forward to...Black Mamba.
There was a small queue but we waited for front row. This was an opportune moment for some stunning photos of beautiful CFers.
I'm not quite sure why I keep making this face, I really should stop.
I knew Black Mamba would be good but I didn't know it'd be
that good. It's **** insane. The way it interacts with the terrain, racing through gorges and up cliff faces creating near miss moments, up, down, round, it's just amazing. A perfect combination of force and floater make it the second best invert (after Montu) I've been on, it is just better than Nemesis, I don't care what you said. **** fantastic.
We were going to ride Talocan next but sadly it was down :/
I was gutted about this because it looked absolutely insane...so instead we went and rode Black Mamba again, this time at the back. If anything it's even better, even more forceful, I got the same feeling I did on Montu where it felt as if my shoes were being pulled off. I just don't get that feeling on Nemesis! Excellent stuff.
There wasn't a great amount of stuff to do now and the park wasn't too far from closing.
Neal, Sue and I went off to ride the simulator, Race for Atlantis.
It was in a gold EPCOT style golfball.
It was in the style of the Simpsons Ride at Universal where the car rises up into a large theatre. I can't really remember it, so that in itself suggests it was mediocre. It was tired and was another one of those rides that needs updating/replacing.
We went and rode Maus au Chocolat again too before meeting up with the others and having a quick perusal in the shop. I was disappointed to see such **** tat, but I still bought a pin badge and a keyring, oh and a t-shirt I think before making our way to the exit.
We had one last ride on Mystery Castle which, as I said earlier, was running a much shorter cycle, it was basically up and down and that was it, I was so glad we got the full experience earlier on in the day.
So, overall thoughts on Phantasialand? What an amazing theme park. I have never been to anywhere quite like it. It is a world class park with an amazing array of world class rides, that are themed quite unlike anything I have ever seen. It is ridiculously immersive and I loved every minute I spent there. What lets the park down are the very very few rides (three I think) which are old, dated and stick out like a sore thumb, but give it 5 years and I reckon these areas will have been addressed. I'm glad the park has Black Mamba as a stand out, world-class coaster, as this would be the other area the park lacks, and hopefully with Taron opening next year it'll have two. It is my second favourite park I've been to after Magic Kingdom WDW. Exceptional park.
Before leaving we said a fond farewell to Conor and Jordan as they were flying back to England that evening meaning it was just Nealbie, Ploddish, Sue, Stone Cold and myself left, ready to all cram into Sue's car and make our way to our hotel for the night.
We ordered pizza. Nealbie and Stone Cold got cozy.
And the food finally arrived.
With our food we received a complimentary lighter, clearly when you order pizza at this time of night in this part of town they expect you to be smoking weed too. Great.
Yum yum yum
The pizza was nice but greasy, and the potato dish we bough remained untouched. Bed happened ready for our last day in Germany.
I had a fantastic day, the highlight of the trip for me. Thank you very much for reading once again, day 6, the last day at Wild und Freizeitpark and Trampoline Trier up...eventually!
. I went on a very sunny day but wasn't a fan of the overall feeling and theming of the park. Aside from a couple of rides I found it all a bit meh. 
