[May/Jun 2026] Shortzkopf III - Day 4: Klompi!

[Rob Coasters]

This is my final round of playing catch-up, and with nothing else on the horizon, I'll stop flooding this subforum with my reports for the forseeable after this one's done.
For this long weekend, I was travelling with the Coaster Club to hit some mainly smaller parks around the northeastern region of Germany, but I was one of very few people who arrived a day early for some more coastering.
After over 550 credits, I have never ridden an alpine coaster, so today I was going to figure out whether or not they were worthy of being counted as credits. The ideal plan was that I was going to ride two today, as there's a pair within reasonable distance of each other. The plan was to hit the furthest one first, Scharmützelbob, before heading onwards to Kienbergpark for theirs.
Despite this being my fifth visit to Germany, this is my first "proper" solo expedition in the country, even if it was for just one full day.

After some unprecedented and entirely unnecessary faff with the eSIM which required me to restart my phone three times for it to work, my alignment with my current eSIM provider may be in jeopardy and I'm seriously considering looking for any potential competitors.
Heading into Berlin you can see an abandoned ferris wheel on the horizon from the old Spreepark. It's unfortunate that this park met an untimely end, as it would've been some bonus credits had it stayed open, but it's also wild how there's a pretty sizeable derelict amusement park right in the heart of one of Europe's largest cities.
We weren't here for admiring a wheel though, as I was headed to Fürstenwalde which was my destination for my premier alpine coaster.

Fürstenwalde is a sleepy little town on the far outskirts of Berlin with not much to see or do. My Uber driver was thoroughly confused with why a UK tourist was twiddling their fingers in the settlement, and had a strange talk with me about whether I was travelling for sightseeing or girls. After discussing my plans to head back into the capital...
"Are you going to the Artemis?"
Assuming he was going on about some NASA rocket exhibition, I playfully replied that it sounded pretty neat and that I was "definitely" going to check it out if I had any spare time.
Turns out the Artemis is one of the largest brothels in Germany where prostitution is both legal and widespread, and there I decided that I was going to take the bus back to the train station.


Rocking up to the entrance of #A1 Scharmützelbob, I may as well have been literally the only person there. Attempting to pay the 3,50 euro for one ride, my international travel card had denied multiple times due to a "faulty chip", and after far too many attempts, the lone ride operator asked if I only wanted one ride, to which I said yes. With this knowledge and my very broken card (despite the fact that I used it to pay for my train ticket an hour and a half ago), he allowed me to ride for free, which I was incredibly grateful for.


It's a tiny, but respectable alpine coaster. It may be considered one of the worst ones by people who are slightly less inexperienced than me in terms of these things, but due to my small sample size, I thought it was alright. Shoving the handle down to run at full-speed through the entire layout, I still didn't gain enough momentum to spawn even the tiniest inch of peril, so I guess that's why people think it's weak in comparison to others.
With my first alpine coaster under my belt, I felt finally able to decide on whether or not I counted them as credits, and the answer was no.

After a failed attempt to pay for my free ride with cash this time, thank you again Mr. operator, I had unintentionally perfectly timed my departure to line up with the closest bus to the park which ran once every hour. By this point I had downloaded at least four different apps to pay for buses in this region, none of which were working, so I held my breath and opened Google Maps as I prepared to show the driver where I wanted to go, which also didn't work.
After many repeated iterations of the word "train station" and showing him exactly where I needed to go, I was in bewilderment as the guy acted like he had never seen a phone in his entire life and kind of worriedly tapped around on Google Maps. You cannot recognise where the train station is? I want to go to the train station. Hauptbahnhof. Single. One way. This is LITERALLY where you stop your bus and go off somewhere else probably in the opposite direction.
At some point he'd completely given up, waved me into a seat and allowed me to travel for free due to the hourly running of the service and his complete and utter inability to understand anything. This will forever be my biggest issue with travelling by public transport in Europe, all of the extremely convoluted ways to pay for stuff and they almost never work. All of these wildly different and mostly nonfunctioning methods of usage, especially buses, is a major stresser for me even after three years of travelling through the continent and it's not fun.

Arriving back in Berlin the faff with paying for anything didn't stop there. Kienbergpark, the location of the second alpine coaster, had recently taken its final entries for the day and was beginning to close, so that was missed. It's time for some tourism.

The Brandenberg Gate apparently has a lot to do with the transition between conflict and peace in Germany's history, and as a celebration of the falling of the Berlin Wall.


This seems to be the main driving force for a visit to Berlin, as shown by the insane levels of tourism and money-grabbing and protests, bad enough for me to leave quite hastily after a few photos.

Fountains continue to always be a highlight of my sightseeing travels.


A nice little courtyard on my walk further up the street led me to another beautiful fountain.


Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great


Humboldt University


Berlin State Opera House


Humboldt Forum Dome


Berlin Cathedral


Altes Museum


Berlin TV Tower behind St. Mary's Church


I had failed to mention that ever since arriving at the Brandenberg Gate, my phone's battery level reached critically low levels, and reached unseen levels of nerves and stress. I'd wanted to travel up the TV Tower, but as the number counted itself down further and further, I realised that I had to cut short my endeavours and head to the hotel immediately. I was beginning to really kick myself for actively deciding not to bring a power bank as I "wouldn't need it", but I underestimated how much I would. The journey back to the airport was only two trains but felt like so much more than that, with full knowledge that my phone was essentially out of use for the absolute forseeable. What was a thirty-minute metro ride felt like an hour of time ticking down, and my twenty minute wait for the airport shuttle had me on edge for the entire time.
Thankfully the airport shuttle had working charging ports, so I was able to get back up to a reasonable percentage, and so my onward Uber to the actual hotel was without hassle.

Tomorrow - strawberries

 

[Rob Coasters]

We'd be finding out that we'd be missing a major attraction at almost every park we visited this weekend.
At both Karls parks, we would be missing their new under-construction family boomerangs.
At Belantis, we'd be a year too early for their major new launched family coaster.
At Freizeitpark Plohn, we were three weeks too early for their new launched water coaster.
However, as we were a large group, at most parks we got special treats.

The first non-alpine park of the weekend was Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Dõbeln, where we got a guided tour from the hotel manager who was the same age as me. Receiving some super interesting insights about the history of Karls and the values of the company, this instantly struck me as the type of place that the UK desperately needs. The park was chock-full of free samples of great-tasting strawberry jam, and I easily could've stood at each of them for twenty minutes as I wanted to trial every single flavour!


At the end of the tour, the group was split off to either ride the sausage-themed butterfly coaster or to get a guided tour of the hotel. The extreme majority of the group rejected the hotel tour, but after one look at the butterfly coaster, I knew that it wasn't something that I was willing to count as a credit. To quote Richard Bannister, "they push the definition of 'roller coaster' to breaking point".
The hotel tour was lovely and really nice, we got a room tour. You can tell how happy every single Karls staff member is to be there, they get treated very well by the looks of things.
On the way to and from said hotel, you could walk past the construction site for the family boomerang coaster which had not yet been fenced off...


The sole roller coaster at this location is #556 Erdbeer Raupenbahn, a stylised Wacky Worm that had an over twenty minute wait. Something that will forever amuse me is when slightly out-of-touch songs get played due to them not being in the local language and presumably the local staff not understanding them and putting them on purely for their catchy melody and tune. In Bakken in 2024, they played Gold Digger by Kanye West - here, they played Zombie by the Cranberries.


Could easily spend a full day here. Not long after, we got a strawberry-flavoured hot dog (seriously) and continued to stuff our faces with free samples before leaving for Belantis.

A portmanteau of "beautiful Atlantis", this park was recently bought by people who actually want to make improvements to the park, and you can already see results extremely quickly as less than a year after acquiring the park, they've built and opened a brand new children's area and are currently building the park's fourth roller coaster.

Our first ride of this park was Fluch des Pharao, a water ride with a highly entertaining ride system. These rafts are inflatable, which means that a) the floor literally moves beneath your feet when you're on its velcro lift hills, and b) it feels more like proper whitewater rafting than most rapids rides.
The ride sends you immediately into a pyramid with an elevator lift inside where the sarcophagus of Tutankhamon performs a staring contest with you before you're shoved out. I was too busy being absolutely fascinated with the ride system during this process.
Almost all water rides have a run-out at the bottom of the drop that gently dips the boat into the water, because if they didn't like this ride, then the impact on the water is extremely harsh to the point where the operators beg you to brace yourself with your arms stretched out onto the grab bars in front of you - and they were NOT joking. The impact is VERY hard, to the point where a member of our group saw someone ignore those rules, smash their head on the bar, and emerge with a bloody nose - presumably they were told "well, what did I say?" by the ride ops if/when they complained!
The rest of the ride continues the whitewater rafting as you're sent into a spiral to your death, which was oddly terrifying, before the end of what I thought was a fantastic ride that despite its awesome quirks I understand why more were not sold.



Next to Fluch des Pharao is #557 Cobra des Amun Ra. Veterans of Rob Coasters trip reports may remember my visit to Duinrell where I rode Dragon Fly, and this is a clone of that ride. It's pretty cool how different the settings of both rides are, with Dragon Fly swooping in and around trees where Cobra has you flying around some gravel. Either way this is still a solid small-scale family coaster that is really fun, and while I am generally against clones, I wouldn't mind a couple more of these popping up to fill gaps in ride lineups.


We then took a break on Fahrt des Odysseus to take in some sightseeing. Taking a brief tour of the Netherlands, first we went to Duinrell, and now we're on Merlin's Quest at Toverland - a looooong stride through a lake before a singular themed indoor section.


The new owners want to turn Belantis into Parc Astérix due to the French comic also being popular in Germany, and have kickstarted this with a new themed area themed to Idéfix, the small white dog. It all looks incredibly out of place right now, but guessing this park will see consistent and major investments to make it feel more "at home". It's a lovely little children's area, but definitely could've done with a little more footfall, especially with how new it is. The mini log flume was under maintenance with active work on it, so we gave a whirl on Fahrschule Frischling which was a skid-type ride with great lateral forces for its size.


While trying to find the next roller coaster, we accidentally came across Verlies Des Grauens, a madhouse-type attraction with an impressive dragon animatronic inside the ride building. This was one of the worst madhouses I've done, with a boring preshow (if you don't understand German) and one of the worst ride cycles of its kind; the type of ride where you come off and think to yourself "that has three weeks left in it, tops".


The best ride at Belantis right now is #558 Drachenritt, a bobsled-type coaster. While one of the less-smooth examples of its type, it has the strongest layout of all of them. The first drop has a terrifying headchopping near miss into a calm wild mouse section before two helices with a couple fun bumps to them, before four downright terrifying moments of airtime and a fantastic interaction with a guest bridge. Two of these airtime moments are not to be underestimated, as they really come by surprise. A final tunnel gets you eaten by a giant snake where you're then navigated towards the brakes. Right now this is the ride that you should be excited for if you're expecting to come here anytime soon - do not miss this top-tier family coaster.


Belanitus Rache has two different queues for its ride cycles, one for an intense ride and one for a calmer ride. We obviously opted for the intense side, and the only difference between the two is that the intense side spins more; they both swing up to the same height, but the calm side almost doesn't spin at all.
The problem with the intense side is that you're never spinning for long, as the direction changes far too often. This means that you never really get a spin going, as when you build up some decent spinning speed, you slow down your rotation just as quickly to go the other way. I would rather "50% of the ride in one direction, 50% the other direction" instead of left right left right left right slide to the back hop to the right now kick and clap (yeah) hands to the sky and a shake of the knees praise to his number DLVIII.


Birds were nesting and being looked after by their mothers in the station for #559 Huracan, as we took great interest in watching them being silly. The bar for this ride was dug into a trench and filled over with concrete, but needs must.


Board the ride, "you must remove your glasses". F**king FINE. WHATEVER. Go on your stupid little power trip and get drunk off the ability to tell people that they can do whatever.
They spot the outlines of my phone and my wallet through my zipped shorts. "You must remove that as well".
What.
What do you want me to do next, serve you a medium-rare steak and pay for your dinner before booking you a private jet back home with my own money while massaging your shoulders the whole time?

£500 glasses. Into an open cubby with no door on a ride with two-train ops.
£34 a month phone. Into an open cubby with no door on a ride with two-train ops.
Wallet with both of my cards. Into an open cubby with no door on a ride with two-train ops.

Huracan policy is that they only tell you to remove something from your pocket if they can visibly see it, which is why I was the only person in my train of six people who had to remove anything. Zipped or not, strapped or not, gone.

And here's where I reach my breaking point.
Cresting the lift hill I had a think about it all.
If those glasses are taken, the trip is over IMMEDIATELY and that'll be a massive financial and mental burden for me.
If my phone is taken, the trip is over IMMEDIATELY and that'll be a massive financial and mental burden for me.
If my wallet is taken, the trip is over IMMEDIATELY and that'll be a massive financial and mental burden for me.

The ride holds you at the top for 15 seconds to build anticipation. Count 15 seconds in your head. That's how long it keeps you there, and the only thoughts flooding my head were how f**ked I am if any bad apple in the train currently unloading decided that they needed something to sell off for a quick buck.
I decided I didn't need this. I don't need the credit this much. The absolutely unending stress that this was causing, made me realise that everyone telling me "you should've not ridden and walked through the exit in protest", were correct. Missing out on a credit, no matter how good it might be, I would 1000% take over even the SLIGHTEST risk of ANY of those three items getting taken. I can't see s**t without my glasses. My eyes really, really hurt when I'm outside without my glasses or I need to see anything beyond half an arm's length for more than five minutes. So even a secure locker doesn't help.
I can't do this.
I cannot.
It's not worth.
I sit here now begrudgingly emailing every single theme park I plan to visit for the first time, asking them about their policies and finding out in real-time what I might never be able to ride again. My sight without glasses has gotten bad enough to the point where I've literally just stopped caring about rides where the policy is "you can't bring them on with or without a strap".

I'll probably never ride Ride to Happiness again. Fine by me.
I'll probably never ride Toutatis again. Fine by me.
I'll probably never visit Hansa-Park again as a whole. I'll never ride Eejanaika, I'll never ride Flying Aces, Storm Coaster, Hyper Coaster. Gone. Done. Whatever. Fine.

Huracan made me realise that I do not want to adhere to stupid policies anymore. I've ridden hundreds of roller coasters facing forwards, backwards, sideways, up, down. Not once have they ever moved an atom with the strap. They're safe, secure, and will NEVER come off, and I don't need an operator telling me otherwise. It's a rule invented by squareheads who've never had to wear a pair of glasses in their lives. They are safer on my head than anywhere else you could ever think of.

Theme parks that accommodate for my (very common) disability will get my money.

Thread 'List of rides that don't allow glasses even with a strap'

Aug 9, 2025

I've recently started wearing a very secure glasses strap on coasters as of this year as I'd gotten pretty sick of having to take them off on every ride, and I would really rather be able to see properly when on an attraction.

So I'd like to compile a list of rides that don't allow glasses even with a strap on. Any help would be much appreciated.

Australia
All attractions

Belgium
All major attractions as of September 2025 (Bobbejaanland)
Anubis (Plopsaland Belgium)
Ride to Happiness (Plopsaland Belgium)

Denmark
Daemonen (Tivoli Gardens)
Drop tower (Tivoli Gardens)...

• Rob Coasters
• glasses strap
• Replies: 22
• Forum: General Discussions & Opinions

• 

"I'd rather die standing than live kneeling."


To call the coaster itself appalling (discriminatory policies aside) is an understatement - it is horrifically shaky entirely throughout, and not even the most defensive riding I could ever conceive could save you from how awfully this thing tracks. The shuddering and aggressive nature of the train has you thinking that the 15-second holding brake at the top is the best part of the ride, and every moment after is a violent episode of pinball as you traverse the inversion-intensive layout that cooks up absolutely nothing of interest or value, being your average generic cookie cutter elements. The final turn into the brakes has a special "we hate you" as it delivers a final punch to fully suspecting riders before the end of the ride. It's a washing machine at full power down the Matterhorn mountain during an earthquake with a portal at the bottom that sends you back up to the top to do it all again. It's offensive, hideous, terrible, undesirable, shocking, unpleasant, rough, foul, and generally not good.


It is the third worst roller coaster in the world. Never again.

...should we, uhh, y'know, continue?

Thankfully things pretty quickly took a turn for the better. Capt'n Black Bird's Piratentaufe is an incredibly funny tilting drop tower, with quite some nip to the drops, and dropping downwards at a proper angle is a feeling I never knew I'd know. It's such a unique sensation that I cannot say I've experienced anywhere else ever, it's a great ride that I immediately want to ride more of.


These are small and common rides, but rarely will I ever pass up a ride on some jet skis that go in circles. Poseidon's Flotte was no exception here.


Gletscher-Rutscher was your traditional dinghy slide tower, with two unique elements - the first being that there's a slide that is a straight drop with no bumps in the way. We obviously took this side because we'd never seen it before - it was great.
The second thing being the lack of a staff member to return the dinghies. It is ENTIRELY dependent on the guests' loyalty towards returning the dinghies to the conveyor belt.


By this time, the mini log flume, Idéfix' Flussfahrt, had opened. These rides are very cute flumes, and I take myself seriously when I say I have a new rule to ride every log flume.


Two more rides on Drachenritt were well-needed in search of a coaster that was better than #557/559. Just as awesome as I remembered, if not even better.


"This is my first Planet Coaster building."


Flug des Icarus was a peculiar zip line thing, adding to this park's already wacky lineup of strange and wonderful ride systems. It's not very interesting, and has a capacity of just 54.1 people per hour, but it's something that you don't really see every day. You fly on a chair to and from that leftmost island twice.


Our day was concluded with one final victory lap of Cobra des Amun Ra. It's easy to forget about this coaster with Drachenritt across the lake, and the new coaster will make this ride essentially completely irrelevant, but it's still deserving of respect as a fun and very good ride.


And that was Belantis. It's a park in desperate need of new owners that crucially GOT those new owners and is getting a long-overdue revitalisation. I sincerely hope that this place deserves to succeed, because it really should, it has the bones to be an excellent day out. I can't wait to see what the new coaster looks like. Compagnie des Alpes is an easy contender for the best theme park chain, they're in very trustworthy hands.

We stayed in Leipzig for the night, which involved some incredibly brief tourism.



Tomorrow - the bull

 

[Rob Coasters]

I know you.


Our day at Freizeitpark Plohn started with a round of sulking at the very closed Donnervind, the world's first launched water coaster, whose opening was delayed until three weeks after our visit. A small disappointment, but these things happen, and as of 2026 we cannot reasonably expect new additions to be open before mid-July these days.


Instead, our first ride went to Thornado. My biggest takeaway from this ride is that the music playing in the station reminded me heavily of a soundtrack for a cancelled expansion from a game that I used to play in the past. The ride itself is really fun, these elevated rapids rides are always a good hit even if they do badly suffer on the capacity side of things - but this park doesn't seem to be much for high capacity anyway, so I'd say it's a snug fit.


The first roller coaster is #560 Drachenwirbel, the entire train of which was taken up by our group of enthusiasts.


Freizeitpark Plohn is full of these little quirks that make the park stand out from the rest, a clear inspiration from Efteling. It has a piano that you can briefly play, and that mouth spits water and yes I got soaked.


#561 El Toro is one of the more interesting wooden coasters although only for a reason that a massive nerd would care about; it's a pretty large coaster that has zero crossovers, as in not one time does the ride ever go over or under itself.
The ride is a pretty airtime-filled layout and overall a pretty solid ride, although it is still on the smaller scale of what this manufacturer is capable of. It feels like an early version of Wicker Man but with more than two moments of negative Gs, and is a pretty good contender for the best ride in the park.
Three members of our group were hitting milestones on this ride all at the same time - #700, #800 and #1300, a seriously impressive feat.


At this point, lightning was detected near the area and all outdoor rides very quickly closed down one after another. As a result, we fled to the indoor powered coaster in an attempt to collect it, but one train before we were meant to board, that too closed for lightning.
Around twenty minutes later however, all was good, as #562 Miniwah had finally reopened after being given the all-clear and my heightened cred anxiety was thankfully culled. This ride sends you through a figure-eight layout highly similar to Flying Fish at Thorpe Park and the legendary Silber Mine, before a special elongated curve at the end which sends you through a show scene with a seating area to watch what happens. The whole ride is very well themed, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to call this one of the most elaborately-themed powered coasters in the world.

Roller coaster enthusiasm usually has you gawking at seemingly mundane things. This is the first ever time that I've seen a roller coaster combined into an animatronic show.


Over an hour later, the rain wasn't showing any signs of letting up, as the outdoor rides continued to be in a state of non-operation. Despite everything, I went off to the station of #563 Dynamite just so I could be there for if/when the ride eventually reopens, and upon my presence, the gates were opened and I was let onto the ride! It turns out that the ride had quietly reopened from the rain, and wasn't sending any trains because nobody wanted to go on it in this weather except me and a few other mad daredevils.
Dynamite is four elements from drop to brakes, but still manages to be a spectacular ride. Running in a "rain mode", the lift chain speeds up dramatically as you crest over the top, enabling you to experience the course much faster than usual. Every moment of the ride is a highlight from the unique drop to the fast-paced helix to the back-to-back duo of inversions before the brakes. The ride doesn't let up at all until the final turn, and while it is incredibly short, the pacing is excellent and a much better ride than Lost Gravity.


#564 Family Coaster is the park's resident Wacky Worm. Not as much of a top 10 contender as yesterday's, but still notable.


I always forget that this park only had six operating roller coasters. It feels like there should've been at least seven, with Donnervind being the eighth. Multiple times I checked through my list to make sure I hadn't missed anything.
#565 Plohseidon wins the award for the world's best roller coaster name. Although some might also say the worst.


Max & Moritz was recommended as a "must-do attraction", and it was easy to see why. This is a ride system only really seen on attractions for children, but we very much enjoyed this retelling of the story about how two misbehaving children get violently murdered by being baked into bread.


From the exit, you can walk into this VERY open gap that leads under the carousel.


We found ourselves in the area of El Toro, so it would be rude to not go for another lap. I didn't mention that this ride also has some solid lateral forces here and there, with some especially strong ones on the final corner into the brakes which is almost entirely unbanked.


It would also be incredibly rude not to say hello to Dynamite one more time. As the rain had now stopped, rain mode had been disabled and the lift hill no longer sped up at the top. This made for more hangtime as you entered the dive off the top, but I couldn't really notice the difference in speed after that.


Also in the area is Wildwasserbahn, a slightly larger log flume than Idefix's one which we rode yesterday. This one was fairly dry for the most part except for my face which got the whole beating of water, but had a pretty terrifying drop.


The exit of the log flume leads you to a path where you can head through the Geistermuhle walkthrough haunted house. We did this a few times throughout the course of the day, and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a few moments where I jumped out of my skin!


Another day, another jet ski. Dazzling Dan's Fusel Schleuder had been undergoing a quiet minute, and got the whole ride entirely to myself. The operator seemed ecstatic by this fact; she high-fived me as I left.


The park is also home to a Wild Swing in Aqualuna. My fourth time coming across one (and my third time riding one), this one had onboard audio that was more audible than Vild Sving back at Paultons. I'm starting to get a little "used to" these things and am also starting to think that I don't really need to ride every single one of these that I come across, but they're such a perfect mass-produced family ride that I'd support them to show parks that it was a worthwhile investment; at least it wasn't a stupid NebulaZ.


The rest of the day was spent dabbling some more in the rerides category; token laps were most thoroughly enjoyed on Wildwasserbahn, Geistermuhle, El Toro and Dynamite before coming across this silly creation, Plohnis Tauchfahrt. I'll spoil every dark ride in Orlando, but I truly plead to the reader that this must be experienced with zero prior knowledge to what it does.


The park had organised a backstage tour of Dynamite and an ERT session of El Toro, and it was now time for that. The backstage tour consisted of interesting insights into how Dynamite was maintained.






Finally, the ERT allowed us to get ten rides on El Toro in almost every row.


Freizeitpark Plohn is a truly underrated park, somewhere that I went into with zero expectation. It was never really on my radar, and I was pleasantly surprised in almost every aspect. Just like Karls, the staff here clearly love their job, and as we walked back to the entrance, the backstage tour guide who also joined us for the ERT skidded through the park in a scooter, drifted it and sped off into the sunset. You couldn't pay me to find anyone happier at their workplace than him.

Heading back to the hotel, some commotion was caused as we spotted the iconic waterpark that was built inside of a giant abandoned aircraft hangar.


Tomorrow - strawberries

 

[Rob Coasters]

Our day at Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Elstal, the largest of the Karls parks, started with an almost thirty minute line for #566 K2. After the retheme of X at Thorpe Park to Walking Dead, it is the new shortest coaster name in my list, beating out rides including Sik at Flamingo Land, ERS at London's Babylon Park and FLY at Phantasialand.

But time for a history lesson.
Karls was founded in 1921 by Karl Dahl as a small fruit farm and stayed that way for almost seventy years, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. After the fall, cheap berries flooded the market, causing the Karls business (now owned by Karl-Heinz Dahl) to begin struggling. Karl-Heinz' daughter spotted a bright red kiosk at a Wimbledon match in the early 90s, and brought the idea to Germany as a result, selling strawberries from similar small red kiosks across the country. This built a loyal following and revitalised the Karls business.
The new owner Robert Dahl began expanding by building farm shops and later expanding to include rides and a proper brand with characters, and leads you to what Karls is today, as an inspiring success story of how a small strawberry farm has turned into a worthy day out.


Elstal is one of the largest Karls Erlebnis-Dorf establishments, and is very quickly expanding, with a nearby related theme park being built right next door, but that's not at all ready yet, so let's focus on the rides.
K2 is a unique ride system clearly designed when management was still trying to find their footing with what did and didn't work, and it's pretty clear that K2 didn't work, as this is the only attraction from abc rides that the chain has ever built. With a pretty dreadful capacity of under 200 people per hour, however it's a really cool ride. The inline seating adds greatly to the experience, and felt very different from everything else, even a little perilous at times. It's definitely by far the most intense roller coaster in the Karls chain, and will likely remain that way for the forseeable.


Another first-of-its-kind for me is Erdbeer Drop (Left), my first example of a Nautic Jet, however these are far more common across the board. This is a self-operated ride, which means that it is wholly unstaffed. After the gate is closed by the next person waiting to ride, you lower the lap bar before quickly tugging a rope twice to send you up a mid-sized ramp before flying down and jumping, briefly catching air as you fall into the water powered entirely by nothing but gravity.
It is one of the only examples of complete unprotected freefall on a theme park attraction anywhere. The moment of short floating is quite terrifying, and the splash it makes is pretty great too. I'd love to get on another someday.


The third and final Wacky Worm of the weekend is #567 Erdbeer Raupenbahn, similar to the previous one in Dobeln but far more vibratier and tracked pretty awfully in general.


#568 Poggy's Wolkenexpress is the last "normal" coaster in the park. It felt a lot like a mid-air monorail but with coaster elements attached to it.


Wetter-Umschwung is also the second and final Wild Swing of the weekend, and my second in two days. Maybe my mind is playing tricks with me, but somehow this felt marginally more intense than the others that I've ridden.


And now for a very controversial pair of roller coasters, a few of us braved the two human-powered roller coasters, #569 Knollis Mini-K2 (Right) and #570 Knollis Mini-K2 (Left). We were aware that we were above the weight limit, so in addition to one person cycling us up, we had a second person valiantly push the car as well. The cycling was surprisingly difficult, as there is zero weight in the pedals, making them quite the workout because you have to circle around what felt like hundreds of times.
Staff watched us but decided against intervening, spectating with a look of bewilderment on his face as grown adults rode. However, as I was ascending the lift of the second credit, another staff member kindly reminded us of the weight limit, to which we apologised before swiftly leaving the area.
It seemed like not even the Karls locals cared about the weight limit, as a grown mother boarded **WITH** her son, both in the car. We did not hang around long enough to see what would happen there.



The final ride here was Erdbeer-Doner, a Sky Fly type ride where you flapped your wings to spin around in either direction. This was unfortunately extremely difficult to flip, as I hadn't managed to get a single rotation in before the ride cycle came to a slow. I did get some pretty sweet upside-down hangtime at the apex of the ride though, but some proper action would've been nice - one can suspect the park has severely impacted how easy it is to flip the cars.


I had initially seen the Karls parks as "not that big of a deal", but after finally visiting two, I can safely say that I am excited for my next one and would be more than happy to return to both Dobeln and Elstal once they open their new attractions.

A short drive later led us to Holland-Park, another fairly new addition to the family theme park scene. We were able to get a personalised tour by one of the managers who had an infectious love for his park and rightfully so. Holland-Park operates off a similar mindset to Karls Erlebnis-Dorfs, being a free-to-enter shopping centre with a pay-per-ride system, wristbands included. Saying that the park gets insanely busy on weekends, I'd heard that the queue for #571 Klompi can get full on the average Saturday.


This is a wonderfully whimsical little ride. That little shoe has been everywhere! Generally German stereotypes say that they have no sense of humour, but it's clearly come out here. This is an awesome kiddie coaster, and I'm so glad that they went for this tiny double-launch model over yet another transportable clone, as much as I love the old Wacky Worm.
Where exactly has he been and what am I talking about with the humour? Well, this park is deserving of your money, so come on down and find out yourself.


The manager invited us down below the Klompi station for another behind-the-scenes tour of a maintenance room, where we were able to see the underside of the train and the movement of the airgates, including some spectacular wire management which I think was my favourite part.



After a sweet Q&A session, it became obvious that we'd be returning to Holland-Park in the next few years as they have big ideas for expansion. I fully understood why these coaster club trips include smaller parks just as much as larger parks, because you'd be missing out on some real hidden gems otherwise.

Slide was terrifying. You know me and my fear of falling, being at the top of that building had me more scared than I'd ever been on the Kissimmee skycoaster, purely because not falling and dying was my decision and that I wasn't under the strictly regulated control of a ride system.
We did the big straight drop and the downwards spiral (behind the tower), both were equally enjoyable.


Holland-Park is also home to a genuine windmill from the Netherlands, a small exhibit for tropical animals, and a windmill museum before it was time to return home.




Full of weird and wacky parks, this weekend really showed that Germany has the family park scene down to a T - they have really nailed the family day out. We may have done this tour a year too early, but it only gives us every reason to return to these parks.

As of writing this, I have zero future park plans, as in nothing is booked yet, meaning that my backlog of trip reports is finally finished and I am officially up to date.

Where am I headed next? Well, let's just say - wherever my glasses strap will take me.

Thank you for reading.