Photo TR: Eric's European Theme Park Journey

[themeparkman25I get wet for Manta!]

Did the headless lady in Mystery Castle jump out and chase people around the room? Scared me!

Great update, and can't wait for the last couple of updates. Its been about a month and it just hit me (again) how much fun I had on this trip.

[live2tell75Team Alcide!]

Did the headless lady in Mystery Castle jump out and chase people around the room? Scared me!

No! We walked through the room pretty fast - I thought it was just a statue! After looking through other people's photos I now know see that she was indeed a live person! I'm like you, if that had happened to me, I would freaked out!

[live2tell75Team Alcide!]

Our Europe tour closed with our last park day at Efteling in The Netherlands. Like the other European parks, Efteling was beautiful. The place was huge, lots of unique dark rides, coasters and atmosphere. We had ERT on the park's latest attraction, Joris en da Draak - dueling wooden coasters that had just opened a week before. I enjoyed both sides of the wooden coasters. Since they were new, they were very smooth, which is my kind of ride! The coasters feature a great animatronic dragon and a nicely themed station. We also had ERT on The FLying Dutchman. I actually really liked this water coaster type ride. The Flying Dutchman's station and queue were great. I enjoyed the small dark ride elements complete with fog, a storm and the large ship. I thought it was all pretty dramatic. If the inside dark ride portion could have been a little longer it would be perfect. Like the other parks on the trip I really enjoyed Efteling. It was a great way to end the trip. Onto the photos!

[moinabI wish they would make Street Fighter Donkey.]

Thoroughly enjoying this report! I'll be sad to see it come to an end.

[themeparkman25I get wet for Manta!]

The ride featured a catchy song, that was hard to get out of your head!

Understatement. That song was stuck in my head all day after riding it once!

Thank you for posting these pictures, it has been a great trip report!

[Nrthwndbitchbikerbearhousewife]

Loved Efteling again, on this second tour (first time was '08). Always want to include it on any future European park tour I do, lol.

Sad that that Floating Island (Pagoda?) wasn't operating. The views of the park from up there are wonderful.

Great photo report Eric! I too, will be sad to see it ending.
But then that means I should get off my behind and start my TR up in the not too distant future, lol.

Thanks for sharing it all!

[live2tell75Team Alcide!]

After our fun day at Efteling, we closed out the final night of the trip enjoying a fantastic group dinner and some good laughs hanging out in the hotel's bar area.

Thank you so much to Robb and Elissa for putting together another amazing trip, all of your hard work and organizing is greatly appreciated! To both of you, thank you for organizing with the parks the great ERTs and especially for everything at the Fair, that was such a highlight. I really never thought I would ever ride Olympia Looping in my life so thanks again for making this happen. All of the hotels on this trip were GORGEOUS! You picked some great ones for us to stay at. So you guys know these trips are a major high for me, so thank you! thank you! thank you!

To all the trip participants, it was great seeing old friends, and meeting all the new ones! Thanks to my Real World TPR Europe cast members - I love all of you!. Thanks so much for adopting me that first day at Gardaland. You guys made my trip! Melissa, Christine, Renee, Amy, Andrew (Drama Drew), Alfredo, Joey & Derek you guys are all awesome! I can't wait for many future "reunion specials"!

Derek - thank you so much for being our personal tour guide around Europa and Phantasialand, you were a gigantic help. Thanks to Larry for his informative not-to-miss dark rides and unique attractions guide, this helped everywhere we went! Frans, thanks for being a great roommate, it was nice getting to know you and I think Elissa did a great job matching us up! Morgan thanks for helping us with the translations at the fair, this helped ALOT! Bruno, thanks for the nice reception, and passes this was a great way to start the trip! Thanks to everyone else for the great conversations, even if we only shared a ride, a drink or a walk, it was great meeting all of you! I hope to see you all in the future! Please let me know if you are ever in the central Florida area I would love to meet up with you!

The Europe trip, like the other TPR trips I have done in the past was a tour full of great parks and sights but most importantly seeing awesome old friends and meeting fantastic new friends. The trips may seem like on the outside all about parks and coasters, but for me the trip is all about the memories made with a bunch of great people. At the last dinner Robb described a TPR trip like a summer camp for adults, I 100% agree! Thanks again to everyone!

[themeparkman25I get wet for Manta!]

As always, great last update! It was great to meet you, Eric! I look forward to another TPR trip with you in the future?

[nursemelis374Donkeys are my way of life!]

This trip was amazing! I would do the exact trip over again! I really liked the pace of the Europe trip as compared to the Deep South trip, I felt like we had a lot more time to just hang out and have fun with each other. I also loved our group AKA "Real World Europe", we had so much fun and best of all, no drama and we got along so well! You can't ask for much more.

Eric, I feel so blessed to have met you. You are a wonderful person and so much fun to be around! I am glad we "found" you on that first day!

Thank you for doing this TR!

[live2tell75Team Alcide!]

^^ Jordan it was great meeting you too! I'm on The Road To Cedar Point next year, if you're not doing that trip I'm sure we will run into each other on a different trip in the future!

^Melissa, you are too kind and just awesome, plain and simple - thanks again for making the trip rock!