rctneil Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 (edited) Hey all! Myself and mousch (Jason) decided to visit 3 german parks during a mid September weekend:- Holiday Park, Europa Park and Tripsdrill. After an extremely early start but a nice short flight to Frankfurt we made our way to Holiday Park in Hassloch, (mainly to give the highly praised Expedition GeForce a ride). We hired a car and headed off to Holiday Park. Holiday Park is quite a small park but contains two rather large rides: Expedition GeForce and the brand new for 2014 Sky Scream. YAY, we made it to our first destination: Holiday Park! Intamin drop tower (we'll be back later to ride this) I see you GeForce AIRTIME! I guess this is where the Expedition begins? How on earth does a small park like this install something as awesome as that? Seriously, this ride really deserves the praise I have heard about it. It delivers airtime in bucketloads and is a decent length and very awesome ride. After a few rides on GeForce we head off to look around the rest of the park. They have a really nicely themed Log Flume A relic from the parks past ride to fill the space: Super Wirbel. Yay, New Hotness: Sky Scream Nice new Premier trains to try out. The ride was really enjoyable apart from the extremely sudden transition at the top after the main launch but I did enjoy riding it. Off to ride the parks last coaster: Hollys Wilde AutoFahrt. A standard wild mouse but this one had extremely painful mid course brakes! Is this officially Cars licensed? as promised, back to the drop tower. It was only running one side as the park was so quiet Lovely roof over the parks main street at the entrance A Super Wirbel front car in the parks history museum GeForce! Mad person who also rode the Pepsi Max Big One all summer a few years back. Looks strangely familiar to another Corkscrew that disappeared in 2008 The whole park was beautifully themed and didn't look run down anywhere. This is the parks giftshop The new kids area was really nice with giant flowers and insects. Another couple of rides on Sky Scream, back to GeForce and then it's time to head off for our drive to Rust! Bye Holiday Park! Hope to be back soon! Edited September 29, 2014 by rctneil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flaffstar99 Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 Nice photos :3 I live only 2 hours from there and i was never there because i think the park is too small lol. I shpuld visit it, right? ^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rctneil Posted September 26, 2014 Author Share Posted September 26, 2014 Nice photos :3 I live only 2 hours from there and i was never there because i think the park is too small lol. I shpuld visit it, right? ^^ If you visit and the only ride you get to ride is GeForce then it was worth the visit. Go for it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mousch Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 Nice photos Neil,Expedition Geforce is straight into my top 3 coasters,^^if I lived just 2 hours away I would be there as often as possible riding the excellence that is Geforce! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcjp Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 Nice pictures! That guy with the Guinness records looks familiar. Is he the one who also rode Cyclone (Coney island) a lot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrthwnd Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 ^ Richard Rodriguez? I believe that was/is his name. If it is, he's the one who also marathoned our Coaster in it's 40th birthday year (1998). EDIT to add: Just checked. Yep, that's him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcjp Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 ^Yes.... Richard sounds right. When I was a kid and only my granddad had a PC my parents recorded a TV program called "Top Ten Ultimate Thrill Rides" which I watched over and over again and when Cyclone came (no 3) he was introduced. It was funny riding Millennium Force last year as it was the no 1 coaster on that episode and I had been looking forward to trying it since then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerstlaueringvar Posted September 27, 2014 Share Posted September 27, 2014 Thanks for the TR! Holiday Park looks like a very good park for its size. It was funny riding Millennium Force last year as it was the no 1 coaster on that episode and I had been looking forward to trying it since then. Do you think it deserves the spot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrthwnd Posted September 27, 2014 Share Posted September 27, 2014 I miss Holiday Park. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoinItForTheFame Posted September 27, 2014 Share Posted September 27, 2014 Amazing photos!! I love how the entrance to Sky Scream looks like a creepy face!! Thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcjp Posted September 27, 2014 Share Posted September 27, 2014 Thanks for the TR! Holiday Park looks like a very good park for its size. It was funny riding Millennium Force last year as it was the no 1 coaster on that episode and I had been looking forward to trying it since then. Do you think it deserves the spot? Maybe when the program was shot (before 2003 as there was no dragster) it did, for most people. (I haven't ridden any of the other coasters in that top 10) Personally, having not had the chance to ride maverick, raptor is my favourite ride at the park followed by TTD and then MF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azza29 Posted September 27, 2014 Share Posted September 27, 2014 Great photos Neil. Cool to see there's more than just one reason to visit this park! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rctneil Posted September 27, 2014 Author Share Posted September 27, 2014 So, day 2. We head over to Europa Park which is a 5 minute walk from our hotel and buy our tickets (with ClubTPR discount of course!) and enter. What a park! Europa Park has to be up there with some of the world's best theme parks. The park is massive, beautifully themed, efficiently operated, clean and has a fantastic selection of rides. Let's get going! The main street part, just after entering Welcome to Europa!!! Oooh, It's like i'm back at home. This building houses the Food Loop restaurant up top and the Europa Park Historama attraction underneath Silverstone! Euro Mir in Russia - We'll be back! Entering the small Scandinavian village Jaws! I see you Blue Fire Megacoaster Europa Park is filled with animatronic figures everywhere. It just makes the park feel alive and not one I saw was broken either! Blue Fire was our first stop of the day. Launch was great and the first turn after had a strangely long amount of hang time but it seems to work. ---- After a ride on Blue Fire, we headed to the parks only wooden coaster, a GCI called Wodan Timbur Coaster. This ride was running insane! It's got excellent pacing and has a load of the bunny hops that GCI's are famous for. Wodan's queue line is long but very very well themed, the caves are great to walk through. Wodan had some nice projection ideas going on. Especially with the face on the fountain. Our turn! Just outside Wodan was a Splash Battle themed to a fishing harbour. The boats seemed to bob about much more than other Splash Battles. It was a bit too wet on the day we were there to ride it, and so we skipped it find other coasters. We still had 10 to find! 3rd coaster was Atlantica SuperSplash. This is the second one of these i've ridden after the one in Taiwan, The Taiwanese weather better suited the ride type but it had to be done. To be honest, it really wasn't as bad as I had expected. Wheeee! Ready and... Skloosh! In the final turn of the ride, the park has a high dive show. During the show the divers would kick quite large amounts of water onto the passing boats to the riders annoyance as they thought they had escaped the full wetness of the ride. More sklooshing One of the parks extensively themed hotels. Great theme for kids dodgems! Quick look into the Food Loop Restaurant. We would have eaten here later however the queue was very long indeed. Looks pretty clever doesn't it? Photo for lift hill nerds. Off to a ride i've wanted to ride for a while. Euro Mir. I was told that this ride had one of the best ride soundtracks of anything anywhere and, errm, yes, sort of. It's one of those rides where you get off and are just like WTF just happened?! Euro Mir is in the park's Russia section. This spinner differs from the two other Mack spinners I have ridden as the cars don't spin randomly up the lift or the main coaster part. The lift hill is just epic though! Queueing, Just above the queue line is a replica of the Russian space station and you can actually go up and walk around to look inside it. Our vehicle awaits. Into the Greek area of the park was Atlantis Adventure. It seemed like one of the parks more recent additions and was basically similar ride to Buzz Lightyears Astro Blasters. Next coaster up was Poseidon. Yet again I was not looking forward to this. I really like how the station is themed to look like the Parthenon Wheeee! Flying Horse coaster is next on the agenda Just a standard Mack family coaster really. Now Silver Star I really enjoyed ride. Some great airtime over the hills and just very enjoyable. Ooooh, what could be inside the dome? It's Eurosat of course. Now, not knowing anything about this I was totally unaware of what was coming The ride starts with a very long, spiral lift hill followed by what seems a fast ride around tight turns in the dark inside the dome. It works surprisingly well Time to try out the park's wild mouse. It was actually really really good. Hardly any trimming and kept up the pace throughout. I love the elevator style lift, just like Scooby Doo in Australia The tower containing the Aforementioned lift. Time to go bobsleighing I have the say that I felt Schweizer Bobahn was the weakest of the 12 coasters that Europa is home too. I THINK it's the oldest coaster here. It was ok but not fantastic. A quick look in the Arena of Football in England. These dodgems have a giant football to knock around. Food time. Obviously being from Britain we headed to the pub for some good traditional fish and chips, which actually were not too bad. Another spin on Euro Mir! and time to see the Europa parade Beautiful theming Now we head into the Fantasy village on the way to visit Arthur The other end of the Fantasy Village also has these frogs and they randomly squirt water at people entering and exiting. The Hansel and Gretel cottag The boat is home to a towboat ride and a shooting water boat ride. A small car ride for children themed to a diamond mine Yay, new hotness for 2014 is Arthur I still need to see the films to understand it all but I have to say, this area is extremely well themed and detailed This toad was rather entertaining as it squirts (rather a lot) of water on the bridge into the Arthur area to the surprise of unsuspecting guests. Arthur is a powered, rotating, suspended coaster/dark ride *thing* Looking down into the station. The wait was around 45 minutes but it stretched to about an hour after a 15 minute breakdown but they seemed very efficient to get it back up and running. The ride was fantastic. Great scenes and animatronics. Ride contained some nice forces i=near the end and the outdoor coaster section was good fun. Just before the outdoor section the ride has it's final showdown scene where all rides have to press a button on their restraint to kill the bad guy. Works really nicely and is a fantastic addition to the park. Part 2 soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redfoot12 Posted September 27, 2014 Share Posted September 27, 2014 Great report! Two parks I have long pined to visit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rctneil Posted September 28, 2014 Author Share Posted September 28, 2014 (edited) Ok, time for more Europa Park! Arthur's station I'm guessing this is Arthur! This is also all inside the building. The ride flies over the heads of everyone in here at one point. The level of detail is crazy. Log Flume Wave Swinger Time for coaster number 12! - Alpen Express This is a standard Mack Mine Train but with a custom layout During the ride you are taken through a large diamond mine If we had not seen this area during the ride we would have totally missed it. At Europa, ensure you look at and go into everything as you never know what you could find. The mine train and the log flume both travel throguh this area Next was the tow boat ride. It was a bit strange but oh well Animatronic Hippo's are alive and well in Germany! The tow boat ride also has a nice indoor part too ooh look, it's Blue Fire Atlantica SuperSplash Wodan Airtime on Wodan Hang time on Blue Fire Loop-de-loop Launch tunnel This is a model of the inside of Eurosat Model of entry gate to Wodan A small tour around the Russian Space Station was in order Wandering around France in the evening This is the Piccolo Mondo Venetian dark ride. The park is littered with loads of small dark rides on multiple themes as hidden away. Geisterschloss is the parks haunted house. It's pretty much a Haunted Mansion knock-off (including the stretching room). The ride is quite long and is more gruesome then the Disney ones. Watch out for his spitting as you enter. and that's it for day 1. Thanks for a great day! Be back soon! and we're back! I told you it'd be soon! Early morning rides on Wodan can;t be moaned about! This model of Wodan can be found inside the building by the side of Blue Fire. I think it's the GAZPROM building it also contains the largest table football table I have ever seen! Thanks to a tip that the park has a Pirates knock off we hunted it out and couldn't believe we missed it on day one! This ride is HUGE! We mainly spent this second day wandering slowly around the park, seeing all the different things we had missed or were not coaster related. The park was also much busier as it was a Saturday so it actually worked out really well. The London Bus ride in England, what a surprise eh? A quick check at Arthur and we found the queue to be very long so we decided to pop back later. It was great to see effects like this actually working at a park. This was a very odd ride. A normal boat ride but with shooting water cannons? Did I say what a lovely park this is? Large playarea for kiddies. Love this kiddie boat ride where they give children a paddle and they have to make their own way around. There was live entertainment all around the park which gave a brilliant atmosphere Gardens at the north end of the park. Even the garden contained animatronics! Another ride on Geisterschloss. Edited September 28, 2014 by rctneil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rctneil Posted September 28, 2014 Author Share Posted September 28, 2014 and a final few to round up our two days at Europa! Love the live portraits in the queueline. Now a trip up the observation tower in France for a view of the entire park. We can finally see Silver Star! This is what Euro Mir would have looked like if they had used their first theming idea. We then tried our Europa Park Historama which shows off the history of the park and how it all came together. It's quite a clever idea as the whole room you are in rotates around the centre to show 4 different shows. This is all underneath the Food Loop restaurant. A pull-yourself-along raft ride across the lake. Back in Iceland Even some of these Puffins are animated and some even squirt water at the riders. Twisty! A quick look into Spain showed us that we had totally missed this area the previous day. Granted there was not a huge amount there but it's nice to have seen it. Walking through Spain, the path finally meets up into the Fantasy Village so we head over to Arthur for a second ride on that. These things must have a name, surely? Wheee! We try out the Brother Grimm house which has a small animatronic show followed by a short 4D movie. Europa Park are big big fans of rubber ducks even more! I think my photos got a bit muddled so excuse the ducks, back to Arthur! and finally one last ride on Wodan. - Fire and Wood! In the extended queueline there was a beam with all the names of members of the construction team on plaques each with a nail. Scary and that's it! So that ends 2 amazing days at Europa Park. I will 100% be back and I hope everybody gets to experience this awesome place sometime. Next up Tripsdrill! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flotus Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 [Arthur] I still need to see the films to understand it all but I have to say, this area is extremely well themed and detailed There is a huge 4D cinema in the park (near the entrance). In the afternoon they show a short version of the film there which explains the story. Basic story: Arthur is a boy whose father (or grandpa?) is missing since 2 years. The minimoys are miniature people who live in his garden. Arthur lets himself shrink to get into the world of the minimoys on a search / rescue his father roadtrip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcjp Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 Great pictures! With this TR (and having never been to the park ) I can already why it is ranked so high. Now I really have to convince someone to go to Germany. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
805Andrew Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 What a beautiful park! Thanks for the pictures. Europa Park is definitely on my bucket list (Holiday Park too). Looks like there is so much to do there it would be hard to squeeze it all into one day (good thing you went for two). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rctneil Posted September 28, 2014 Author Share Posted September 28, 2014 What a beautiful park! Thanks for the pictures. Europa Park is definitely on my bucket list (Holiday Park too). Looks like there is so much to do there it would be hard to squeeze it all into one day (good thing you went for two). That's precisely why we planned for two. After the 12 coasters there is still so much more to discover. There are dark rides hidden everywhere, small attractions, displays, food, shops, flat rides. 2 days or 1 1/2 minimum is highly recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flaffstar99 Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 It's the best park i've been so far. No where else in Europe you have so much good Theming and a bunch of good coasters.. And as before: i like your Pictures and report :3 BTW: The "Alpen Express" was the first coaster, after that came The "Schweizer Bobbahn" Greets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarnes84 Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 Thanks for the huge array of photos, you've managed to capture the scale and detail of the park very well.This is by far the best park in Europe and I agree that it's most certainly up there with the the best in the World, the gap in quality between Europa and all other European parks (excluding Disneyland Paris and Port Aventura) is astonishing and depressing. Would highly recommend going to Food Loop for breakfast as it's much quieter then and a cheaper way to experience it. This is a 2 day park at least, we had just 1 and although it wasn't too busy we really struggled to get most attractions in, although the fantastic operations keep the queues moving nicely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerstlaueringvar Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 Your photos are amazing, thanks for showing the beauty of Europa Park. Two days? I can easily spend a week there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 As much as I like my home park in Williamsburg, Europa is more deserving of the "Most Beautiful Park" award. I'd forgotten how "spitting" is so important there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flaffstar99 Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 The frog in the Arthur-part of the park is spitting too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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