Coop
Roller Poster
This past weekend I finally made it to Europa Park for my first visit. Yes I know, how has it taken me this long to visit one of the best parks in Europe? Well, Voltron is the answer - up until now I just never felt there was quite enough in terms of "must-do" coasters to justify going, but it is safe to say Voltron certainly is worth the trip.
My partner and I were fortunate enough to be invited on a press trip for a couple nights stay at Hotel Colosseo, including an afternoon at Rulantica, a day and a half at Europa Park and dinner at Eatrenalin (more on this in a bit).
By the time we got settled in we only had a couple hours to spend at Rulantica, and upon entering and seeing how busy it was we knew we had to be selective with what we rode. Did most of the main slides, including the trap door ones which have always terrified me but was good fun. We spent the rest of our time exploring the pools and having a couple drinks in the swim-up bars. It is certainly a fantastic water park, but given the short amount of time and the amount of screaming kids, I don't feel we fully got to experience it all.
We spent the following day in Europa Park which was very busy. We were extremely fortunate to be greeted by a PR rep at 9am to give us a private tour for an hour or so allowing us to skip the queues, which bloody hell was a god send, in the space of an hour and a half we rode 7 coasters (all in front row), which also included two back to back rides on Voltron after it broke down on the brake run and they sent us round again.
Voltron is such a fantastic coaster, I loved it more and more after each ride, some of the airtime is almost RMC level aggressive, and that beyond vertical launch really has some kick to it.
I think what I was more impressed by was just how much of a technological marvel it is, this bloody thing does everything! And how efficiently it is run is remarkable. We utilised the single rider queue on our second day as the crowds were insane. There must have been at least 100 people ahead of us in the queue and each time took no more than 30 mins to get on.
Whilst it was super busy we did manage to do everything we wanted to do at least once or twice, including the VR Euro Sat - themed to The Phantom of The Opera (up until now I had never done VR on a coaster) and whilst the graphics weren't anything special I really enjoyed it. What was really interesting was that you put on the VR before boarding and had to walk through part of the queue line in VR and board the train (which appeared as a boat in VR) wearing the headset which was extremely weird but actually worked really well.
However, my highlight of the trip was Eatrenalin. I have never been one for fine dining (give me a chippy tea any day) but my god was it impressive. The whole experience lasted about 2 hours and was the closest thing to being in The Menu you can be and come out the other end still alive.
The "Floating Chair" concept was executed extremely well, with the first course of 8 emerging from within the chair right in front of you. You are transported through several themed rooms each with their own course and wine/champagne pairing, all whilst your chair seamlessly floats through each room. I won't spoil it for anyone that does plan on doing it but there was one room in particular which really blew me away, truly felt like we were in a dark ride for a lot of it, the effects, lighting, sounds and the way in which each course was served was unlike anything you can experience anywhere else in the world.
Whilst it has taken me this long to visit Europa, I don't think it will be much longer before I make the trip back there.
My partner and I were fortunate enough to be invited on a press trip for a couple nights stay at Hotel Colosseo, including an afternoon at Rulantica, a day and a half at Europa Park and dinner at Eatrenalin (more on this in a bit).
By the time we got settled in we only had a couple hours to spend at Rulantica, and upon entering and seeing how busy it was we knew we had to be selective with what we rode. Did most of the main slides, including the trap door ones which have always terrified me but was good fun. We spent the rest of our time exploring the pools and having a couple drinks in the swim-up bars. It is certainly a fantastic water park, but given the short amount of time and the amount of screaming kids, I don't feel we fully got to experience it all.
We spent the following day in Europa Park which was very busy. We were extremely fortunate to be greeted by a PR rep at 9am to give us a private tour for an hour or so allowing us to skip the queues, which bloody hell was a god send, in the space of an hour and a half we rode 7 coasters (all in front row), which also included two back to back rides on Voltron after it broke down on the brake run and they sent us round again.
Voltron is such a fantastic coaster, I loved it more and more after each ride, some of the airtime is almost RMC level aggressive, and that beyond vertical launch really has some kick to it.
I think what I was more impressed by was just how much of a technological marvel it is, this bloody thing does everything! And how efficiently it is run is remarkable. We utilised the single rider queue on our second day as the crowds were insane. There must have been at least 100 people ahead of us in the queue and each time took no more than 30 mins to get on.
Whilst it was super busy we did manage to do everything we wanted to do at least once or twice, including the VR Euro Sat - themed to The Phantom of The Opera (up until now I had never done VR on a coaster) and whilst the graphics weren't anything special I really enjoyed it. What was really interesting was that you put on the VR before boarding and had to walk through part of the queue line in VR and board the train (which appeared as a boat in VR) wearing the headset which was extremely weird but actually worked really well.
However, my highlight of the trip was Eatrenalin. I have never been one for fine dining (give me a chippy tea any day) but my god was it impressive. The whole experience lasted about 2 hours and was the closest thing to being in The Menu you can be and come out the other end still alive.
The "Floating Chair" concept was executed extremely well, with the first course of 8 emerging from within the chair right in front of you. You are transported through several themed rooms each with their own course and wine/champagne pairing, all whilst your chair seamlessly floats through each room. I won't spoil it for anyone that does plan on doing it but there was one room in particular which really blew me away, truly felt like we were in a dark ride for a lot of it, the effects, lighting, sounds and the way in which each course was served was unlike anything you can experience anywhere else in the world.
Whilst it has taken me this long to visit Europa, I don't think it will be much longer before I make the trip back there.
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