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Europa Park | Voltron | Mack Rides Stryker Coaster | 2024

Ethan said:
Nice to see that somebody is making use of the text formatting options, I can see you're enjoying them.

Never thought I'd defend TPW to this degree, but holding thousands of guests back at one point, only to drop a rope and leave them to their own devices does seem a little reckless though, no?

Surely allowing people to gradually filter through into a large overflow queue would have been safer. I'm no expert in crowd flows etc but I would also be very scared in a crowd like that, if you've been a part of one, you know how frightening and dangerous they can be.

I do think comparing Shawn to Robb Alvey is a little ridiculous. I'm not saying his content is always fantastic but I do wonder if many people bash on him and Charlotte simply out of jealousy. I know I'm certainly a bit jealous, imagine being able to make a living visiting theme parks all over the world... Sounds pretty ideal to me.

Anyway I must say, except for the pacing issues, lack of onboard audio and the rattle, this does look fab and I'm so excited to hear more reviews and see how things look after a few months of operating. It definitely doesn't look to the same standard as PHL or other parks but it is very impressive, from what I've seen at least. RTH has a rattle and gave me a little headache but I'd still consider it to be my favourite coaster. Is anyone who has ridden both Voltron and RTH able to say how the rattle compares? Perhaps @Nicky Borrill?
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Having ridden both on this trip I’d say ‘similar.’ Both absolutely have a noticeable rattle. Especially in certain seats / trains. But as is often the case, that is being blown out of proportion. But like with RTH, the ride is so good that if it in any way ‘ruins’ your enjoyment of the coaster, then this isn’t the hobby for you.

So yeh, similar levels of rattle, and similar in that the coasters are so damn good, it really doesn’t matter.
 
Nicky Borrill said:
Having ridden both on this trip I’d say ‘similar.’ Both absolutely have a noticeable rattle.
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Re: the rattle on RtH, do you feel there's a significant difference between the two trains? When we went, none of us thought the ride had any sort of noticable rattle, but it was also less than a year after opening and one of the trains was out of service after an accident earlier in the year.

And to stay on topic - massively looking forward to riding this beast in mid June. Time off can't come soon enough!
 
TilenB said:
Re: the rattle on RtH, do you feel there's a significant difference between the two trains? When we went, none of us thought the ride had any sort of noticable rattle, but it was also less than a year after opening and one of the trains was out of service after an accident earlier in the year.

And to stay on topic - massively looking forward to riding this beast in mid June. Time off can't come soon enough!
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They’ve only had one train on for most of my visits, I always pick quiet mid week days.

I don’t like talking about roughness and rattle too much on coasters like RTH as it really doesn’t affect the ride in my opinion… But on the other hand, you can’t deny that it’s there.

BTW, I got a rough train on Voltron tonight, train 1 last ride of the night, in the dark… And the difference is night day. It was very very rough, headache inducing almost. With a very audible squeak coming from the wheel assembly. The difference was that noticeable that I reported it to a ride host, who said “Yes, we know, train 1 we need to change some parts.”

I guess we’ve been lucky to get decent trains up until now, because the difference really is night and day. They’ll fix it in no time too, they’re aware, know what it is, and they’re Europa Park… All trains will be running well within days, I’m sure.
 
Nicky Borrill said:
They’ve only had one train on for most of my visits, I always pick quiet mid week days.

I don’t like talking about roughness and rattle too much on coasters like RTH as it really doesn’t affect the ride in my opinion… But on the other hand, you can’t deny that it’s there.

BTW, I got a rough train on Voltron tonight, train 1 last ride of the night, in the dark… And the difference is night day. It was very very rough, headache inducing almost. With a very audible squeak coming from the wheel assembly. The difference was that noticeable that I reported it to a ride host, who said “Yes, we know, train 1 we need to change some parts.”

I guess we’ve been lucky to get decent trains up until now, because the difference really is night and day. They’ll fix it in no time too, they’re aware, know what it is, and they’re Europa Park… All trains will be running well within days, I’m sure.
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Quick question, are the train numbers easily visible and where abouts are they?
 
Nicky Borrill said:
They’ve only had one train on for most of my visits, I always pick quiet mid week days.

I don’t like talking about roughness and rattle too much on coasters like RTH as it really doesn’t affect the ride in my opinion… But on the other hand, you can’t deny that it’s there.

BTW, I got a rough train on Voltron tonight, train 1 last ride of the night, in the dark… And the difference is night day. It was very very rough, headache inducing almost. With a very audible squeak coming from the wheel assembly. The difference was that noticeable that I reported it to a ride host, who said “Yes, we know, train 1 we need to change some parts.”

I guess we’ve been lucky to get decent trains up until now, because the difference really is night and day. They’ll fix it in no time too, they’re aware, know what it is, and they’re Europa Park… All trains will be running well within days, I’m sure.
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That sounds very much like what Shawn Sanbrooke reported experiencing on his first ride… so evidently, the ride’s smoothness is a bit of a lottery at the moment.
 
Nicky Borrill said:
Yes… But only from behind, and even if you could see them front the front, you can’t pick and choose…
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Oh I know you can’t choose a train or row. Just wanted to know how to find out what train you were on.

From the back. Thank you!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
It tickles me pink how they seemingly realized the Rimac sponsor box doesn't really blend into the plaza that well so they just went to Bauhaus or something and got a couple potted plants to scatter around the car showcase 😁

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Nicky Borrill said:
They’ve only had one train on for most of my visits, I always pick quiet mid week days.

I don’t like talking about roughness and rattle too much on coasters like RTH as it really doesn’t affect the ride in my opinion… But on the other hand, you can’t deny that it’s there.

BTW, I got a rough train on Voltron tonight, train 1 last ride of the night, in the dark… And the difference is night day. It was very very rough, headache inducing almost. With a very audible squeak coming from the wheel assembly. The difference was that noticeable that I reported it to a ride host, who said “Yes, we know, train 1 we need to change some parts.”

I guess we’ve been lucky to get decent trains up until now, because the difference really is night and day. They’ll fix it in no time too, they’re aware, know what it is, and they’re Europa Park… All trains will be running well within days, I’m sure.
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Hopefully those two trains don't accidentally catch fire...
 
Matt N said:
That sounds very much like what Shawn Sanbrooke reported experiencing on his first ride… so evidently, the ride’s smoothness is a bit of a lottery at the moment.
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Shawn’s in a tricky position really. He loves the park and he generally seems to like the ride, when he gets a good train / seat. However he has a lot of responsibility, and absolutely has to rate the ride how he finds it at the time.

If he tells half a million viewers that the ride is great, and smooth, whilst there’s still trains with issues being used, then, if any of his viewers come to ride and end up on a bad train, they’re going to think he’s lost his mind and lose any trust they had in him. He has to be honest, as brutal as that may be.

However, where he has to rate the ride as he finds it at the time, you and I (and most other goons) can do the opposite. I can rate the ride based on only the good trains, and my good rides, confident in the knowledge that it’s Europa Park, and every little kink will be ironed out as soon as is physically possible.
 
Sorry to hear of the rough ride @Nicky Borrill.

For what it’s worth, regarding some of the other comments in the thread, there really wasn’t any reason to doubt Shawn’s real time reaction to getting bopped around unpleasantly… considering his roughness tolerance seems high to average for an enthusiast (compared to Charlotte, who seems to have a lower tolerance).

I personally have a very low tolerance and can feel ill quite quickly, so this stuff does really affect my ability to enjoy a ride (unfortunately).
 
Nitefly said:
Sorry to hear of the rough ride @Nicky Borrill.

For what it’s worth, regarding some of the other comments in the thread, there really wasn’t any reason to doubt Shawn’s real time reaction to getting bopped around unpleasantly… considering his roughness tolerance seems high to average for an enthusiast (compared to Charlotte, who seems to have a lower tolerance).

I personally have a very low tolerance and can feel ill quite quickly, so this stuff does really affect my ability to enjoy a ride (unfortunately).
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Sorry for the late reply, but I just wanted to ask, have you seen TPW's day one vlog? We were on that train for the night ride at the end, that is the bad ride that I referenced earlier in this thread.

You can see just watching that vlog how bad the rattle is... Shawn isn't using some potato to film that, it's the same high end chest mounted Go Pro he always uses... Normally those go pros are really effective at stabilising the image, It just really was 'that' bad. In fact, for the bad train, rattle is too kinda word. Rattles don't make rides unenjoyable for me, this was outright rough.

Timestamped link to the video here...


Then compare it to this one, which is when they got a better train.


Difference is insane. Those doubting his honestly earlier in this thread simply hadn't ridden it enough times to get a bad seat...

Anyway, all fixed now. So all's well that ends well... Hopefully! I'll be updating my trip report over the coming days.
 
@Nicky Borrill yeah that’s the vid - he goes from excitement and optimism to clearly having an unpleasant time…! (Edit - ignore see post below)

Pretty ridiculous of Europa to put those trains on the track tbh. They like to present as being this wholesome ‘family’ venture but all the fires, poor safety organisation, strange choices like this vehicle issue and even the diving platform collapse from last year aren’t really painting a very good picture IMO.
 
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Nitefly said:
@Nicky Borrill yeah that’s the vid - he goes from excitement and optimism to clearly having an unpleasant time…! (Edit - ignore see post below)

Pretty ridiculous of Europa to put those trains on the track tbh. They like to present as being this wholesome ‘family’ venture but all the fires, poor safety organisation, strange choices like this vehicle issue and even the diving platform collapse from last year aren’t really painting a very good picture IMO.
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It may not be the same video... But same story, his later rides on opening day were clearly much much better, and he says so in his full opening day vlog. So after them, he was really excited for the night ride on day 2. There were a few UK goons that gathered and stuck together for that night ride. The spontaneous cheering the went up when they had a technical delay announcement play was a memorable moment, it was hilarious... You'd never normally get 25 people spontaneously celebrate a ride stoppage, but everybody was so excited for the prospect of the night ride, and we knew this had sealed it... BUT then we got that train, which absolutely spoiled it.

I was lucky, I only got a rough train that once and I managed 12 rides over the trip. On the normal trains I fell more and more in love with the ride. The slight rattle is definitely still there, but not impactful whatsoever, so long as you have any tolerance level at all. If you don't, then I'd advise sitting on an inside seat, where it's barely even noticeable on the good trains. But if you can handle a mild rattle, then go outside, where the coaster really excels in applying some extreme, and varied, forces to your body through the crazy layout.

There are some jerky moments in the layout, but these only bothered me for the first couple of rides, once I knew the layout better, and knew where I was going, they didn't catch me off guard so much... I think I have to admit these are a 'me' problem, in not knowing where to move with the ride, more than a problem with the ride.
 
Good to know, thanks @Nicky Borrill!

In addition to having a low tolerance, I do admit that I find it annoying… Intamin and RMC have been putting out some impossibly smooth rides and then B&M / Mack fart out a bunch of rattlers… 🐍

Just make then smooth, darn it!
 
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