Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 13 & 14 - Europa Park

[Nemesis Inferno]

Re: Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 11 - Legoland on my Birth

Day 11 – Die Tage ist meine Geburtstag

To celebrate my birthday there was only one park out of all the ones we visited that made sense to visit in the area we were in, and that was of course, Legoland Germany. With German MAP in hand, we headed in, though their gate organisation is a bit burdenous, as you have to use certain gates if you have a MAP, but this is a lottery when you’ve never visited before and you can’t see the signs to direct you when the main gate is down.

The opening ceremony was cute though, with the Ollie the Dragon character coming out in a wizard costume and using magic to open the gates. Neat little touch really. We grabbed our QBots for the day and went for the first coaster of the day.

One of these rides is not like the others…

Jr Dragon isn’t actually on the QBot system, so it made sense for it to be our first ride as it had all the hallmarks of a One & Done, being a Junior Gerstlauer. It decided it didn’t want to work just as we were about to board for some reason, forcing the engineers to turn up and fix it. It was an acceptable kiddie cred, but there were bigger (for Legoland) rides on the horizon.

Fire Dragon is pretty much the staple of any Legoland park these days, and this one started interestingly in the queue, as some American woman decided to yell loudly at the person at the batch point to go through to spite us QBot people. It’s a shame the ride host didn’t come back earlier as he looked very confused as to why people had been entering the airgates area without his permission. I felt sorry for the woman at the front who clearly didn’t want to go in because Germans are sensible people, but the loud woman was very horrid. I had hoped we’d spite her later on in the day, but we never saw her again.

Onto the ride, it starts like all the others, with a dark ride section before a hidden drop under the dragon leads you to the outside portion. I think this was a Zierer, so it’s like a weird variant of a Vekoma Roller Skater. It was alright really, with again a bit of surprising force hidden within the ride, and again it’s not a kid’s ride that patronises that target audience, which gets bonus points.

Up next was Hero Factory, the Kuka arms things that Lego also seem to like (apart from Windsor). I adored the ones at Billund, so it was disappointing to discover that you couldn’t build you ride setting on this one. Coupled with the awful throughput as half of it has been spited it was a good thing we had the QBot. Setting 5 was good though, and it does have a ride photo, but I just missed the brilliant very Lego concept of making your own cycle.

New for 2014 and the spiter of the other half of Hero Factory is the X-Wing Exhibition a huge Lego recreation of the Star Wars ship. It looked amazing to be fair to it, though I do hope that when it eventually moves on they’ll replace the Hero Factory stuff back (most of the circuitry is still there).

It was then time for Flying Ninjago, a Gerstlauer Sky Fly, which I loved at Nigloland, and this would get the same reaction. Probably because I have a real knack for getting the spinning aspect of it right (dat BEng degree). I’d like to see more of these built, just wish they had a higher throughput.

Walking back to the entrance I grabbed a birthday badge cos I’m cool like that. We also had a snack and a sit-down.

The final coaster of the day was Project X Test Track, a crappy Mack Wild Mouse. We were once again glad of the QBot as the queue for this was awful, certainly worth the purchase of the MAP on this trip. We did the Teacups afterwards because they were also on the QBot.

Off to the Adventure themed area, which started with another staple of Legoland, Temple Expedition, the interactive dark ride. Again this appeared to be an omnimover, so I have no idea why they stopped building them for Sally variants. It wasn’t great though, so perhaps the change was to produce a more immersive theme around the ride, rather than big mostly lifeless rooms.

Next on the agenda was the Jungle Expedition flume ride, which was actually fab, and yet another reversing section was found within the heavily themed indoor bit. There were also Lego dinosaurs, which always gains extra favour with me.

Finally we hit up the Safari Tour, having never done the one at Windsor, it was good to actually do one. The animatronics were ok and we produced an entertaining (but not enough to purchase it) on ride photo.

We then did the Observation Tower, which really showed how tiny the park is and how far away the resort area is from the park. Time for a show, and this time it was brought to us by the Cuban Circus, who were rather entertaining it must be said, with some decent acts and some great crowd interaction which the Germans do seem to love. It also seems that Lego here gets loads of different acts over the year to come along as part of a touring section. Good idea really.

We decided to go on Flying Ninjago again, upon which the ride op gleefully yelled out Happy Birthday (indeed, there were lots of staff being all interactive with me, guess they’re not used to adults having a badge and just automatically do it all) before I proceeded to go absolutely mental sitting in the front. It just started spinning and then got FASTER, hence I aborted and ended up having extended upside down times as a result. Ew.

Lego Frabrik followed because I needed to get my head back in one place, so a fake Factory Tour was exactly the ticket required. Had a cute little video to start it off then a ‘tour’ of a ‘working’ ‘factory’. Still informative and had the actual machines that they use giving practical demonstrations, which got the engineer in me all excited.

After our informative mini-tour we re-rode Hero Factory before heading to the Boating School, which was actually fun to ride one again since I haven’t done it for YEARS! I think Windsor’s was a lot better though, but I literally cannot remember it.

We then had some ice cream as we explored Miniland, time for a photo attack!

A quick run on the Lego Express happened, which essentially showed us most of Miniland again and some backstage sheds before we hit up the Kid’s Power Tower, which was full of manual labour and effort.

We re-rode Fire Dragon and the Boating School before heading over towards the Pirate Ship, which was a Heave Ho clone and a bit meh. We also had an epic meal at the Dino Grill, which was basically a mixed grill of various meats, it was so nom I wish we had one over in the UK.

We re-rode Jungle Expedition and Hero Factory again before doing the Spinning Knight Ride, which was surprisingly intense for a Legoland ride and went both forwards and backwards for extended periods of time. We finished the day off on the Fire Dragon once more before heading to the shop and heading back to Stuttgart.

I really did enjoy my day, although this was heavily helped by the QBot being in my possession, as the park was very busy. But like most Legoland’s is has a decent lot of theming dotted around and this one probably has some of the better ride options around it, particularly Jungle Expedition and Flying Ninjago. Though small, there’s a fair amount of stuff to do but I think it needs something like Viking River Splash (which I honestly thought they had in the first place) and another high throughput cred just to keep things fresh.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Re: Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 12 - Holiday Park

Day 12 – A Holiday on my holiday

Another park that’s changed a bit since my previous visit, what with Plopsa getting their hands on it recently, Holiday Park would serve as our penultimate park purely because it was easier to head down to Europa Park afterwards. We turned up to find it rather empty and a sign stating that the Spinning Barrels and Holly’s Autofahrt would both be spiting us. Was only when I returned I realised what had actually happened with the Barrel ride, grim.

We dossed around in the Museum for a bit looking at the old stuff before the park opened and we headed for our first destination.

Expedition GeForce is over-rated. It’s that simple really. And like most Intamin’s has a good first drop but everything else is just so meh. What doesn’t help is that the lapbars are really uncomfortable on the thighs, so of course what happens on every airtime hill? It digs into the leg. What does the ride have a lot of? Airtime hills. Sigh.

It just isn’t the best thing ever, if it ever was in the first place.

After that disappointment we headed over to the new for 2014 Sky Scream, a weird Premier contraption indeed. The exterior which is now finished looks fantastic, unfortunately inside the building the only piece of theming was a spider, which had moved in rather than actually been placed deliberately. Oh well.

The restraints have a real burden to them as well, in the shin guards of WHY? Being a flat block of foam doesn’t particularly work well for shins, what with the curvature of the human body being as it is, so it’s another set of restraints that just did into you. 2 for 2 in the bad design choices.

The ride itself is actually quite good fun I felt. Quite intense and a fair amount of hangtime throughout, but the shin-guards prevent it from being really enjoyable, and they became more noticeable the second time around. A shame really, and I hope they get around the theming the inside, cos it’s utter crap currently.

Time for a rethemed ride next, and the first Plopsa themed ride in Wickie Splash, the Log Flume which was good fun, managing to do 3 reversing log flumes in 3 days was very weird though it must be said. We wandered past a random show on the way to the next ride Tabuluga Boat Ride, which was one of those slow boat rides with random scenes and no music in the boat. We put that down to the random unplugged component underneath the seat.

We faffed about for a bit wondering what to do next, and ended up on the Carousel before hitting up Donnerfluss the Rapids of reasonable wetness.

We had some food and decided as there weren’t many other rides we really wanted to do (due to a distinct lack of filler rides really at the park) we would watch the other shows. Starting off with the delightfully European Gooseparade, which is exactly what you imagine it to be, before the Festival der Tiere animal based stunt show. It was reasonably cute and involved a giant rabbit.

Finally we watched the Talking Dead Show, a jet ski show randomly themed to zombies due to the addition of Sky Scream. It was rather entertaining, with lots of interactive bits and stunts and general silliness abound, including a Wrecking Ball moment right above the crowd. Shame the finale explosion was a bit poor, especially for a German show.

We decided to ride the two coasters again, both being still rather meh before hitting up the House of Anubis Free Fall Tower, which clearly has the best queueline ever because you get to watch episodes of the show. It was a smaller version of Apocalypse (3 sides) and alright rather than spectactular.

It was then time to head for Europa. Holiday Park was a bit disappointing really, whilst what Plopsa have added so far looks really good (Sky Scream interior aside), it just seems to lack a lot of things to generally do. Lots of dead space around certain points in the park and a lot of crap rides to boot doesn’t really add up to much, given that the two major coasters are both disappointing (but at least for those who like GeForce, it is back on two trains).

Plopsa have a lot of work to do with the park I think.

 

After a drive, we started seeing the signs that make many enthusiasts very happy.

We parked up at the Bell Rock Hotel, ready to chill and get some dinner in the bar, but as we checked in the staff member said to us that because the park was open until 9pm, we could have some free entry for the final hour of operation. Of course the answer to this a resounding yes, so we dumped our bags in the room and headed to the Spirit of St Louis bar for a delicious Black Angus Burger before heading into the park.

Choices were of course at a minimum, what with only an hour to play around with, so we headed to Blue Fire because it’s amazing. Whilst Helix has of course overtaken it because of being bigger and better, Blue Fire is still a fantastic ride, smooth as glass with the odd bit of airtime and intensity throughout it. It still resides in that top 10 of mine as a result.

Up next was Wodan, which was its usual relentless self so late on in the day. I don’t rate it as highly as many others seem to do though, possibly because of experiences like the Beast at night being something that can very rarely be topped in the wooden coaster stakes. It’s still very good mind.

We had some proper night-time Blue Fire before we headed to the Colosseo for the Imperio Show, which was ok I guess. I dunno, it just didn’t click with me for some reason, all a bit too random and lacking much in the way of a progressive story for such a show. Why was the scantily glad lady dancing in a champagne glass? I’ll never know.

It was then time for bed, as the next day was going to be a long one.

 

[ThomVD]

Re: Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 12 - Holiday Park

What doesn’t help is that the lapbars are really uncomfortable on the thighs, so of course what happens on every airtime hill? It digs into the leg. What does the ride have a lot of? Airtime hills. Sigh.

That isn't just EGF though, Goliath has the same. That's why I prefered the only B&M hyper I've done over the intamin hypers. Silver Star might have weaker airtime, but I felt I actually had space to get out of my seat. I still love the intamin hypers though, a lot. And GeForce is definitely better than Goliath.

Shame you were disappointed by Holiday Park. I had no expectations and ended up really liking it. Enjoyed your report!

Oh, and one more thing about Mystery Castle. I was there today, and they had the short program while it was a 0 min queue.....

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Re: Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 12 - Holiday Park

Day 13 – Return of the Macks Part 1

A bright and early morning led us down to a nice breakfast before the 8:30 ERT on Blue Fire.

Afterwards we decided to hang around and wait for Arthur to open, however when we did get to the entrance it was having issues and was playing the closed game. As a result we went back to Austria and did Alpenexpress and the Wildwasserbahn for the Cave of fantastic smells before a quick whirl on the Chairswings

Heading back and Arthur was open, so we joined the main queue which spends most of the time outside the building at the moment (although there were many unused cattle pens within). It’s quite an interesting ride to watch from the outside, especially when it stacks and a train just randomly stops on the final helix. The queue moved quickly inside to the locker area, which is a weird system, as you get batched into small groups into a coloured area, scan your park ticket and get given a locker before moving on to the station.

The seats are comfy as per the norm and quickly we’ve off into the world of the Minimoys, through a cool enough transition but not hidden from view so you see it constantly prior to riding. The scenes are quite well done (although the second major scene didn’t work at all on our first ride), and have plenty to look at, loosely following the story of the first two films. Paradise Alley is clearly the best scene in the dark ride portion, before the Winjas inspired fly around the area (made better by the Inverted nature of the ride) and one last random scene before a quick flight back outside and into the farewell scene.

From a coaster point of view, Arthur isn’t the best, but as a dark ride it’s pretty much the best one they have there. Which is of course not saying much, as Europa’s dark rides are pretty much the epitome of cheap rip-offs, especially Piraten in Batavia. But still, it’s a very enjoyable ride and the kids seemed to really love it, and that’s who it’s aimed that really, not us weird English people who didn’t like the film (because the English version is dire, the uncut European one has an actual storyline).

We then did the other two rides in the area, Mul Mul Carousel, a mini Dumbo type ride and Poppy Tower, a kids drop tower that looks like it should have two of them rather than one. Perhaps the delays affected this as well? There are also a few slides and other things for kids to do around the area. We then used Arthur’s single rider queue which is quite effective, and doesn’t mean you have to leave your bag in a locker either. The second scene also worked that time, which was at least something, usually a broken scene would be broken all day over here.

Up next we got some Crepes, and joined the Silver Star queue, which summed up Europa in a nutshell. All the extensions open, even outside, the queue is stretching up towards EuroSat, the total waiting time? 50 minutes. Considering the park did a 12 hour day that day as well, it’s an unbelievable testament to how Europa very often do things right.

As for Silver Star, it’s still a decent enough coaster, after riding Shambhala it didn’t reach those heady heights, but I still think the s-bend finale is a brilliant finish to the ride.

A quick hop on the EP Express to Spain led us to some shows. Firstly the Flamenco Show, which was actually really good, especially when the man and his balls on a string brought up a volunteer from the audience and proceeded to terrify her. Viva Ventura was next, which was relatively entertaining again, but I don’t think it was as good as the show I saw two years ago. Felt a bit more serious rather than the tongue-in-cheek shows of before.

We caught some lunch and watched the parade go by before heading off to our next ride, Crazy Taxi, purely because we were walking past it and there wasn’t a queue. I do like the Demolition Derby rides though; just find them a good laugh.

We continued onto EuroSat, which had a 30 minute queue but randomly stopped running for a short time. Not sure why, but the queue was still it’s fast paced self when running. The ride was also relentless and fast-paced, another ride I really enjoy, especially the lift hill rave times it provides. We then did Universe of Energy, because again I like it’s cheesy and crap dark ride existence, and it also didn’t have a queue.

A dark ride which DID have a queue however was Abenteur Atlantis. Yep, the park was so busy that even this, a ride that has never seen a queue in many people’s visits had a queue coming out the door. This was a complete travesty really, as why should I be expected to wait 8 minutes for this? I also like Abenteur, one of the better interactive dark rides even if a lot of it is just 2D cut-outs, it suits the childish theme it has around it.

Pegasus was next, the two train operation making the queue move really quickly, shame that idiotic families couldn’t do the same thing and have the entire group queue in one row. Idiots. EuroMir then happened for more lift hill raving times and that randomly intense helix from nowhere. We hopped on the train all around the park for an extended sit-down before popping into the rather fab Historama, so many filler rides so little time at Europa, and Historama is just fab because it’s the park saying how amazing they are, but with the evidence to back up such a claim.

The final cheesy dark ride of the day was Piraten in Batavia, which had some new effects in a water curtain after the drop into the show building. It’s so crap, especially after experiencing Fata Morgana, but it also has this charm because it is so crap. Very weird indeed. We hopped onto the Island Monorail for a stop off at the Kaffee Hus because cake was required, before briefly watching the Dive Show. Then we beat the crowds onto Atlantica Supersplash, where the most interesting thing was that we saw them take the 5th boat off into storage because there was no need for 5 on the circuit anymore.

It was slowly coming towards the end of the day so another spin on Blue Fire was required, before the last ride of the day was Wodan, which again was running spectacularly. Why can’t a UK park just build one of these already?

And that was it, 12.5 hours spent at Europa Park, and what a day it was too. Well worth the tiredness at the end of it all, because the park just hits all the right notes. It was strange to see it so busy and packed out yet queues only topped over an hour on 3 of the coasters, Arthur, Blue Fire and Wodan, so it just goes to show what happens when your park considers throughputs and providing several other things to do for guests over the day.

And we still had another day at the park to go.

 



Day 14 – Return of the Macks Part 2

Day 2 at Europa was planned to be a very easy day, with lots of chilling about after the long day beforehand and also that we had to head off early to catch the flight back home from Basel. So after another breakfast and checking out we headed off for another dose of ERT.

We once again started on Blue Fire, with some added front row times to wake us up a bit, before waiting for Wodan for open and getting front row on that as well. There doesn’t seem to be that much difference between the relentlessness of it first and last thing either, which is good.

A quick spin on EuroMir followed as it had no queue before we decided to do some attractions we’d never done before, starting with Silverstone, the random car ride which wasn’t suited to those with long legs. Before the Queens Diamonds laser maze, which had a disappointingly low amount of lasers for a ‘maze’.

We wandered over to Arthur which hadn’t opened by this point, so we quickly popped into Die Quipse Show, which was some random cinema style show featuring baby versions of the Europa mascots. Was very strange since it shares the same building as the Brothers Grimm attraction. By the time we had exited Arthur eventually opened so we single ridered it twice.

It was the time for the Ice Show which had some fab pre-show antics before some random ice-skating stuff that always happens in these shows. Then a man with some parrots came out and flew them around which was quite cool. Up next we did the Castle Balthasar 4D Show, which is clearly one of the best (and most original) 4D shows around.

Silver Star was next before we sat down for another show, Euromaus in Brazil, which had lots of dancing and even had a guest appearance from Rustis (the Europa Park mascot band). A quick break for lunch and it was then time for Arthur 4D, which had an annoyingly large amount of leg tickler action and French people. URGH.

Eurosat was then ridden before a bit of Abenteur Atlantis, followed by the infamous Bench the Ride. We then headed over to the Grimm Fairy Tales Show which I do enjoy as it’s an excellent attraction for the target audience and is generally a little hidden gem I feel.

The day was running short it was time to single rider the main 3 coasters again, so Arthur, Blue Fire and a final run on Wodan finished off the day. The Blue Fire single rider queue didn’t go particularly well, as the batcher was really crap. So crap in fact that the other platformers insisted that a switcharound take place so the guy could be put on the exit where no harm could be done. Good work guys.

And then that was it. We bid farewell to Europa and Germany as a whole as we headed to Basel to fly home. What a ridiculous trip this had been as well, with lots of driving each day, a park every day and very little time in between to rest, fortunately the parks weren’t always busy and the ones that were we had QBot/Express Passes for, and that really was only 3 of the parks that were truly busy and would have been hellish if not for the queue jumping.

The stand-out park of the trip was Phantasialand, as I had forgotten how fantastic a park it actually is; filled to the brim with stuff to do and some of the best area theming in Europe, with some fantastic rides to boot. Some mentions have to go to Van Helsing’s Factory and Force 1 for being surprisingly good rides as well.

Thanks for reading!

 

[peep]

Excellent trip report Mr Benin. Having just got back from a trip which included a lot of these parks it makes for a very interesting read.