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Old 18 Aug 19, 09:49 AM  
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HEMANCLOFTY
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HEMANCLOFTY's Reviews
Hotel Reviews: 1
Europa Park(s): Planes, Coaster-Trains & Autobahns (Aug 19)

Pre-Trippie & The Road-Trip Plans

It's fair to say that our plans for this trip have evolved a lot .

After our brilliant Huxwolds European Vacation in October half-term, where we visited Phantasialand, Toverland and Movie Park Germany, we knew that more European road-trips would be on the cards over the next few years and, the more Theme Park Vlogs that we've watched (a lot), the more parks and have been added to our Bucket List.

The original plan had been to return to Florida this year - possibly in August, but more likely in October half-term - we even found a great deal for 9 nights in October (£2,200) and came very close to booking it, but the European parks kept pulling us back.

We first sketched out a rough plan back in November - at this point we weren't sure exactly when it would be, but a Walibi Belgium, Efteling, Toverland, Phantasialand loop, over 5-6 days, seemed doable.

We parked our plans for a while - knowing that we had our PortAventura / School trips in July, but by June we had pretty much decided that 2 more Europe Trips was winning over 1 Florida Trip (We're also planning on a cheeky few nights in Sweden, doing Liseberg in October)

We had a rough route mapped out - 1 week, starting at Europa Park (flying into Baden Baden) and then a loop around Phantasialand / Efteling / Walibi Holland and Toverland (flying out of Cologne) .

Once we were back from PortAventura we started planning properly - first was getting the flights booked - and they were a bargain:

Flights - Ryan Air:

Outbound (Tues 20th Aug):
Stanstead to Baden Baden (13:50-16:15) - £89.91 for the 3 of us, including seat selection and 2 x 20kg hold-bags and 1 free "small" Cabin bag each

Inbound (Tues 27th Aug):
Cologne to Stanstead (21:55-22:15) - €100.71 for the 3 of us, including seat selection and 2 x 20kg hold-bags and 1 free "small" Cabin bag each

We do have a watch out, as Ryan air have some planned strikes over the bank holiday weekend, but at least we know in advance so can be prepared for delays if they are still affecting our return flight.

The Final Itinerary:

Tuesday:
It's our first time flying from Stanstead, which is about 3 hours from home, so we are leaving early just in case of traffic and will probably get something to eat before checking in. Pick up the car at Baden Baden airport and drive about an hour to Rust

Weds / Thurs / Fri:
2 and 2/3 days at Europa Park. We've been looking forward to visiting this one for a while. We'll be buying "Clubcard" annual passes for €210 each - as they come with lots of perks (see below) and we're pretty sure we'll want to go back next year..



Friday - Late Afternoon:
This will be our longest drive of the trip. 3 hours 40 up to our hotel in Bonn. We'll probably just go out for a Burger (Rich has been researching so will find us somewhere good).

Saturday:
30 min drive up to Phantasialand in Bruhl (one day entry included on our Europa Park Clubcard). This is one of our favourite parks in the world (so far) and we're all looking forward to riding Taron again...



Afterwards, we'll drive just under 2 hours up to our hotel near Efteling in The Netherlands...

Sunday:
Efteling (one day entry included on our Europa Park Clubcard). We're really looking forward to the whimsical-style of this park, and especially the Dark Rides...



Afterwards, we'll drive up about 1 hour 20 to our hotel near Walibi Holland.

Monday:
Walibi Holland (we have to pay for this one - €27.50 each). There are 3 bucket-list rides for us here - Goliath, Lost Gravity and the brand new RMC Hybrid Untamed...



Plus it used to be a Six Flags park, so it will be our first (sort-of) Six Flags experience .

Tuesday:
We originally planned to do Toverland on the way back down to the airport, but have decided to drop it and have a lazy-ish day instead. There is a city "Beach Island" near our hotel in Harderwijk, so if it's nice weather, we'll have a few hours there...



Our flight home isn't until 9:50pm, so we've got plenty of time to make the 2.5 hour drive back to Cologne in Germany.

The total route is around 1,100km and about 11 hours of driving - so not too bad (we did 800km over 5 days in October and it was fine).

The Hotels:

As usual, Rich has poured over Trip-Advisor and other online reviews to find us the best hotels (in our budget) near each park - these are booked through either Expedia or Booking.com and are all pay on arrival.

We've ended up with 4 hotels for 7 nights - most with Breakfast and Parking included and we are averaging £100 per night, which we think is pretty reasonable. I made a little PowerPoint montage of pics for each...

Tue / Wed / Thu - Holiday Inn Express, Ringsheim:
£307.30 - Inc Breakfast & Parking
7 min drive to Europa Park...



Fri - Venusberg Hotel, Bonn:
£108.64 (+5% local tax on arrival) - Inc Breakfast / Parking tbc
30 min drive to Phantasialand...



Sat - NH Walwijk:
£110.13 (+€1.76 pp local tax on arrival) - Inc Breakfast & Parking
5 min drive to Efteling...



Sun / Mon - Hotel Marktzicht Harderwijk:
£177.43 - No Breakfast / €7 parking
17 min drive to Walibi Holland / 7 min drive to Beach Island Harderwijk...



After booking this one on Wednesday night, the hotel phoned me first thing on Thursday morning to let me know that, as we'very said we may be arriving after 10pm, our key will be in a lock-box. We just have to call on Friday or Saturday to pay over the phone and they'll give us the code 👍.

Car Hire and Other Bits:

Travel Insurance:
£10.46 for a single-trip with Admiral through the Meercats - booked last weekend.

Car Parking:
£87.48 for Stanstead Long Stay 1 through Holiday Extras - including Late Return Cover - booked last night.

Car Hire:
(ETA 19/08) Finally booked this today through Europcar (£378.58) for a VW Polo or Similar, collect from Baden Baden airport and drop off at Cologne Airport, with medium level insurance. On top of the hire fee they put a €300/£275.89 security deposit hold on the credit card.

We ended up having a bit of a mare with this last night. We'd originally decided to book with SIXT (which was about £6 cheaper). I'd intended to cover the hire fee on my debit card, and use my credit card for the holding deposit. However, after booking I spotted that everything had to be on the same card. I'd already entered my debit card details for pre-registration and it wouldn't let me change it to the credit card. Luckily we could cancel the reservation and, after the website issues, we decided to book through Europcar instead (all on the Credit Card). It was much easier and a much better website. I even saved about £10 for paying now instead of at the desk tomorrow, plus Quidco cashback has already tracked at £31 .

Other Misc Bits:

Rich is at work tomorrow, so I've got the day to iron and pack, get the house tidy and pop out to pick up some Euros.

Shopping-wise we haven't needed much as we've got plenty of sun-spray left from July and neither Rich nor I needed any new clothes. Tom has bought himself a few bits online this week, and we have to pick up a click and collect for one of the orders whilst we are out getting the Euros.

Tom got his haircut (fresh-trim) in the week and Rich popped to get his done this morning.

I've put a home-colour on this afternoon so my greys are sorted .

Oooh, and I've lost another 5lb since my pre PortAventura weigh-in - which is 25.5lb since Feb - woohoo .

Me, this afternoon...



Finally, as usual, Walt the guinea pig is of to Aunty Wynn's for the week, and we'll be taking him over tonight.

When we get back, Rich and I have got the Wednesday off to recover, but are both back in work on Thursday. I originally had the full fortnight booked off, but released two-days back into my allowance, which has given me enough days to book Feb half term (my holiday year runs March-Feb), so hopefully we can get away for another mini adventure then too

So that's it - see you on the other side - Auf Weidershen Bab

Edited at 11:20 AM.
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