Theme Park Discussion / [TR] Faas and friends in Europa Park (26-06-2017)

Monday the 26th of June, me and two friends visited Europa Park. Since the three of us visited Phantasialand in January, a trip to Europa Park had been in the planning stages for a long time, so it was now or never (never meaning that no one in their right mind would go and visit Europa Park during the summer holidays). 

Since it is a 7 hour drive to the park from our hometown of Utrecht, we decided to first visit the city of Strasbourg, about an hour from the park, at the other side of the French border (go European Union!). The city itself was beatiful, but a bit boring and dead. The average age on the street seemed to be 102, and there were no bars to be found anywhere. Anyways, here is a pretty picture of Strasbourg. 



Having spent the night in Strasbourg, we got up early to try and leave in time for the park opening. We forgot that there was a woman in our group, so getting ready to leave on time failed. We did however arrive at the park a few minutes after it opened. Not a bad sight to be greeted by:

 

It was a beautiful day, and we hoped that it wouldn't get to busy. Upon entering the park, our plan was to go to the back of the park first, to ensure that we could do Blue Fire and Wodan first, without having to wait to long. Our plan worked out, since the queue time for Blue Fire when we arrived there was 1 minute! 



The ride itself was cool. It looks beautiful, but it's a bit tame and forceless. Perfect to start the day with though, and the barrel roll at the end was awesome. Verdict: 7/10.

When we got out of Blue Fire, the park was noticably busier. We decided to go and ride Wodan, since we were there anyway. Queue time: 25 minutes. Not too bad if you ask me. The theming around the station and queue were absolutely beautiful, as was the coaster itself, so we had to get our picture taken.



The ride itself was awesome! Way more forceful than Blue Fire, but not painfull. Verdict: 8.5/10.

The next thing we had to do was Atlantica Supersplash. It has always seemed like such a unique ride to me, and it sure looks like that in real life. Also not a bad idea to ride it considering that it was already 30 degrees celsius this early in the morning. 



Great water ride, luckily we didn't have to wait very long. It does seem like a bit of a short ride to queue more than 30 minutes for. Verdict: 7/10. 

The next thing my friends wanted to do was ride the river rapids. I'm never really a fan of those rides, but why not? The queue time was about 20-25 minutes, which wasn't too bad, but never worth it for a river rapids ride in my opinion. The ride itself was cool for a river rapids ride, I guess. Verdict: 6.5/10.

On to the Dutch area! This area didn't feel Dutch at all, since there weren't bikes parked everywhere, the sun was shining, and there weren't a lot of women in their 50's with short hair complaining about things. We rode Piraten in Batavia, after an insider tip given to us by Version1 (thanks for the tips!). This was a great dark ride, very impressive and weird to see no one was interested in going on it except for us. I liked how the Dutch were potrayed as abusive rapists in almost every scene, seems about right. Verdict: 7/10.

Talking about abusive rape, what is with the invasion of VR on roller coasters? The next area where we went, the Austrian area had an option for VR on the powered mine train for 2 euros? Why would you want VR on a roller coaster that is excessively themed? Anyway, we did the log flume and the mine train, which were both fun, but nothing special. The first small drop on the log flume got me absolutely soaked, not in a fun splashy way, but like someone emptied a bucket of smelly water on my lap. Makes no sense, but it was a hot day so whatever. 


Check out those losers in the back rows. 

Verdict on the log flume and mine train: both a 6.5/10.

One of the coasters I have always wanted to ride since seeing pictures of it was Euro-Mir. I'm a sucker for space stuff and the coaster just looks so quirky and unique. Seeing it with my own eyes for the first time and being able to ride it was one of the highlights of the day. The queue was pretty long (25-30 minutes), but luckily we could looks at space stuff while waiting. 



The ride itself didn't dissapoint. I loved the quirky theming, the awesome spacy sound track and the neverending lift hill. My knees got pretty beaten, but in a good way. Great ride! 

Verdict: 8.5/10. 

Next up was the Swiss area, with the bobsled coaster, as well as the unique wild mouse. Since the Bob-coaster is one of my favourite rides in the Efteling, I was pretty excited for this one. The theming in this section is absolutely gorgeous, and they sold 0.5 liters of awesome Weizen beer for a mere 4 euros. 10/10 for the Swiss area. As for the coaster itself, the first drop was pretty unique, but the ride was too short for my likings.



Verdict: 7/10.

Matterhorn Blitz, the park's wild mouse, surprised me. It wasn't your standard wild mouse, and the lift hill was full of surprises. Fun ride, I always love wild mouses, and this one was the best I've ever been on. 

Verdict: 7.8/10.

After this it was time for lunch. I didn't feel like eating fancy stuff, since I was at a theme park, and that's were you eat fast food. After looking around a bit, we decided to eat at Euro-Mir burger in the Russian area of the park. Lunch was tasty and affordable, great job Europa Park. The staff (throughout the whole park) was pretty unfriendly though. Everyone refused to speak anything other than German (which is a German thing all together) and looked almost annoyed to talk to me. If I wanted people that are annoyed talking to me, I would have just stayed home to try and hit on girls. 

After lunch, we went to the big dome thing to ride Eurosat and Universum der Energie. The last one was just a bunch of dinosaurs. The first one was a crazy surprise. Again, the lift hill lasted forever, and after that it was like I was riding a coaster designed by Mr. Historyfreak92 himself. Absolute craziness, but fun nonetheless. Great ride! Verdict: 7.5/10. 

 

The biggest coaster in the park is of course Silver Star. Somehow we kept waiting to ride this one more than half of the day, but we finally decided to queue up. The theme is confusing. It's in the French area, but it's themed after German car manufacturer Mercedes? That's not a theme! Anyway, the ride was awesome. I heard bad stories about this one because of the trim brakes, but luckily they seemed to have turned those off. We made friends with a cool kid wearing an awesome Pokémon hat, which was nice as well. 

Verdict: 8/10. 

Poseidon had the biggest queue all day, but around four o' clock it was time to finally go and do it, since the queues weren't too bad in general. Since there was no queue for Pegasus, we decided to do that one first. Honestly a forgettable ride. Verdict: 6/10. 

Poseidon offered some great views from the queue, so queueing wasn't too bad:






And the ride wasn't too bad either! Again a very unique ride, but a bit rough and painful!

Verdict: 7/10. 

After Poseidone we had the plan too buy a pint of Guiness in the UK area of the park, and drink it on the river raft ride, which is jungle themed? (what has that to do with Europe?). Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to drink on the ride, and the ride operator also ensured us we couldn't have sex on the ride either. I don't know why he felt the urge to mention that. 

The newest addition to the park is Arthur. We didn't feel the need to queue for 25 minutes, so we took the single rider line and were on in one minute. This was a strange ride, like I had taken a lot of drugs. Especially the part when the on board audio suddenly turned to a Snoop Dogg song? Pretty interesting experience to hear the 'N' word on a family oriented rollercoaster. 

Verdict: 7/10. 

We concluded the day by going one more round on Wodan. We had to queue for 25 minutes again, like the first time, but this time the queue area was totally different. Such a great thing to get two different experiences queueing for the same ride, and the queue line was even more interesting than the first time. 

We went back happy, but we underestimated the journey back home, since we arrived at 3.45 a.m.

 

Some more pretty shots I took (all pictures are taken with my phone so don't expect too much):















 

That really is a nice view from the Poseidon queue. EuroMir is photogenic as always too.

Nice trip report ! What is your favorite park between Europa Park and Phantasialand then?

Difficult. Taron is my favourite coaster but Europa Park has more to offer in terms of quantity. I think when the new flying coaster opens I'll choose for Phantasialand, but I'll stick with Europa Park now.