Day 2 & 3: Europa Park
It's amazing how much an opinion of a park can change from one visit to another. I'd visited Europa with a group of CFers back in 2012, and came away with a somewhat bland impression of the park. I remembered it being vast, and pleasant enough to visit, but also being full of average to good attractions, with very little that really stood out afterwards.
With that in mind, I'd not been in any real rush to return to Europa, and certainly didn't expect to be all that bothered about spending more than a day there. I'd always figured I could pop back sometime, grab any new creds, re-ride a few old favourites (Silver Star and Eurosat being the stand outs from my last visit), and that would be more than enough.
To my surprise, I came away with a very different, and far more positive experience at Europa Park this time around. I think there's probably multiple reasons for this. For one, this visit didn't start with a mad dash round the park, trying to tick off all the creds before doing anything else. I'm also wondering whether Europa Park is one of those parks in the same vein as Efteling, where it can take more than one visit to really appreciate everything that's on offer. The one thing I know for certain is that we had exactly the right group of people at this Live to really appreciate the park at its best.
Harry (ChainedBanana) knew the park better than the rest of us, so was our guide to the park's hidden gems. Sue and I has both visited the park before, and despite this being the first visit to the park for Alex (Slamming Coastercore), all four of us seems to be in a fairly similar frame of mind. We took in the park at a steady pace, working our way through a wide variety of attractions, and being sure to tick off all of the creds at a steady pace. We got plenty done over the two days, but never really felt like we were rushing, nor at any point did we feel like we needed to rush in order to get everything done.
Although most of the queues weren't particularly long, many of the longer queues presented opportunities for quiz sheets and theme park charades. I returned home a pocket full of slips of paper, with "Loads of Oops", "M25 viewing platform", "B&M Wheel Assemblies", "Sideways airtime" and "Water is a CFers best friend" written on them. I can's remember everything else that was in the charades deck, especially two weeks after the Live, but I remember "Roland Mack", "Decorative gourd season", "MouseAT's fleece" and "Silver Star's dirty trim" all being in there.
Europa has a reputation for rolling out substantial Halloween theming, and the pumpkins, sculptures and creepy displays were certainly present. Somehow, the park manages to successfully add a family friendly Halloween vibe without undermining the existing themes and atmosphere in the park. Check out the Live
photos (page 4 onwards) for examples, as it's not something that can adequately be explained in words.
There's so much to Europa Park, and so many random little things that happened over the two days we spent there that I can't really cover everything in a coherent manner, so I'm just going to cover some of the highlights:
Alpenexpress/Tiroler Log Flume
Whilst the flume is decidedly average as log flumes go, the powered coaster is pretty good, and the real draw of these rides is the awesome indoor cave section that both rides share with a walk-through attraction. Be sure to take the time and do all three attractions if you visit.
Arthur
This was a new attraction for me, and an interesting experience. It's a very unusual ride system - essentially, a rotating, suspended, powered family coaster, allowing for an attraction that's part dark ride, part roller coaster. As a proof of concept, it's amazing, as it really shows what can be done with the ride type, from video screen sequences, to amazing animatronic dioramas, to surreal street sequences (with a soundtrack of Still D.R.E - talk about surreal). That said, going in blind, it felt like a bunch of individual, disjointed scenes, rather than a coherent attraction with an overarching story. When we were discussing the ride afterwards, Sue likened it to a high tech version of Wallace and Gromit at Blackpool, which is probably a reasonable comparison. The idea behind the ride is great, though, and I'm really intrigued to see what other parks can do with the concept.
Blue Fire
A really solid, family friendly multi-looper. It seems to have got a bit better and more forceful with age, as it was better than I remembered it being from my last visit. It's a lot of fun, even if it's not on the same level as some of the other Mack Mega coasters that have been built since, and with Europa's amazing operations, it goes through queues in no time at all.
Euro Mir
Euro Mir looks really fab from off ride, but honestly is a fairly weak, bumpy, and underwhelming ride.
Add the
soundtrack and a bunch of CFers raving their way around the entire ride and you have hilarity.
Start the ride with myself and Alex in one car, Harry and Sue in the other, so that we're constantly rotating past each other going up the spiral lift hill. Now add in Harry and Sue singing the theme tune rather loudly as the ride goes around the circuit. Now add in two more random members of the general public who have decided to join in. Finally, add in two random, burly German blokes, who, due to the rotation of the train are now in the middle between us CFers, looking rather bemused by the whole thing.
Mysterious Sue said:
Da da da da. Da da da da. Da da da da!
Also, damn that theme tune for being so catchy - it keeps getting stuck in my head every time I hear it.
Eurosat - CanCan Coaster
Part of me misses the old Eurosat. My overriding memory of it was probably the roughness, but also the amusement brought on by having a massive rave coaster inside a giant golf ball.
But enough reminiscing. The re-theme is actually fab, and really well put together. It's pretty cheesy, but in the best possible way. The re-tracking is far smoother than the ride was before, and the added on-ride scenery is cool (where it exists). There are a few spots on the ride where there really isn't much going on around you, and I do hope they find something to fill those gaps sooner or later, but there are also some awesome moments during the course of the ride, especially in the final moments.
They've done a really awesome job with the queue as well, both with references to the old Eurosat, as well as awesome touches, such as the orchestra tuning up in a room behind one of the doors.
Fjord Rafting
A solid rapids ride, capable of delivering a lot of water onto unsuspecting riders.
Ghost Castle
I don't remember details, just that this was a fairly traditional ghost train, relying more on Europa Park's highly detailed theming rather than cheap jump scares. It's good.
Kolumbusjolle
What happens if you take a Mack Seastorm ride, make the rotation controllable by the rider, put it indoors, and add theming, including shutters that close to simulate night time, and lighting effects? Answer: The ride becomes really fab.
Madame Freudenreich Curiosites
Once upon a time, I think this was just a typical dinosaur dark ride. Now, it's been updated, and it's utterly ridiculous.
Madame Freudenreich's pet dinosaurs have been busy, taking up beekeeping, helping with the washing and in the kitchen, going on dates (watching clouds turn into the shape of a dinosaur), and throwing a birthday party for the T-Rex. The ride is great, and definitely worth a few minutes of your time.
Pegasus
I'm going to give this Mack Youngstar coaster some praise, because it's really good at what it sets out to achieve. It's a fairly typical family coaster, similar in style to the Vekoma roller skaters, but it's smooth as glass and actually pretty good fun to ride. I'd actually forgotten how good Pegasus was, and I'd love to see more of these getting built by parks. It's probably one of the best examples of a coaster that's designed to be accessible for younger children, yet is still really enjoyable for jaded coaster enthusiasts.
Silver Star
Floaty B&M awesomeness. Loads of rides were had, most of them in the back row (although front row is really great as well). Silver Star was one of the stand out rides from my first visit, and was every bit as good as I remembered it. Get a bit of space in your restraint, and expect your arse to be well clear of the seat on every hill. With the exception of the MCBR at least - expect a hard landing on that one.
Voletarium
An impressive queue line leads to a flying theatre attraction that manages to do a really good job of creating the illusion of flight. I like the idea they were going for (showcasing a variety of different and incredibly scenic locations), but part of me wishes the ride smoothly and logically transitioned from one picturesque location to another (e.g. By flying over hills, or up into clouds and back down), rather than relying on slightly jarring split second transitions. It's still pretty cool, though.
Wodan
"Hold the phone - when did Wodan become good?" - MouseAT, 5th October 2019
"It's like they tore it down and built a completely new coaster!" - Mysterious Sue, not long afterwards.
I rode Wodan in opening season. It was extremely meh.
I'd heard reports of Wodan being better in subsequent years. I was hoping for an improvement, but wasn't expecting great things.
Now, bear in mind that we'd had some rain both days at Europa, so the track was wet, and this probably had some effect on the ride. Somehow, Wodan had become an entirely different beast in the years since I last rode it, and was fast, relentless, and airtime filled. I had some genuinely amazing rides over the two days that had me laughing out loud at times. Wodan was absolutely bloody amazing, and for those two days at least I felt was giving Troy a good run for its money.
Traumatica
Traumatica is Europa Park's upcharge horror attraction. It's a separately ticketed event with its own entrance from outside the park. Traumatica makes use of the area of the park around Poseidon and Pegasus (access to which is closed off from the regular park in the evening), as well as some extra space beyond the normal park boundary.
It was an interesting experience. I'm not usually a big fan of horror mazes, as I find the whole suspension of disbelief difficult, but Traumatica had a really interesting overall concept - a strange wasteland, with various unique factions, each with their own unique appearance and back story, and each vying for control of the entire area.
What let the attraction down was the long queues, both to get in, and for the headline mazes. We only managed to do two of the mazes (Ghouls, and The Fallen), along with some fairly poor scare zones, and rides on Pegasus, Atlantis, and Fluch Der Kassandra. The Fallen was bit generic, but a lot of effort and creativity had clearly gone into Ghouls, and despite the short length, I think all of us came away impressed with the quality of the costumes, environments and effects. I'd honestly have quite liked to experience the remaining three mazes, to see if any of them came close to matching Ghouls for overall quality.
All in all, I'm genuinely glad I got to experience Traumatica as a one time event, especially as all four of us had bought tickets and were going round as a group, but I can't say it was worth anywhere close the 34 Euro cost of entry. If the crowds were smaller (to the point where it was feasible to visit all of the mazes within a 3 hour period), and the cost of entry were closer to say £20, I reckon it'd be worth the upcharge.
