Europa Park(s): Planes, Coaster-Trains & Autobahns (Aug 19) - Day 4

[HEMANCLOFTY]

Day 4 – Saturday 24th August (Phantasialand & Driving to The Netherlands)

The Index is Here
Day 3 is Here

We were up early today as we had about a 30-minute drive from Bonn to Phantasialand, which is in Bruhl...

We were all showered and down for breakfast by 7:20 am. Rich came down with us, but was giving breakfast a miss today.

Service was from 7:30 am and we could hear someone in the kitchen – she came out after a few minutes and offered us tea and coffee – I asked for both. For a hotel with only 12 rooms, it was quite a decent spread…

I went for scrambled eggs with some carved ham and cheese, which was really tasty…

I had 2 cups of tea - the coffee was a bit too strong for me though…

Tom had some pastries and cereal, and then a few sausages which came out after about 10 minutes – I only managed to get a pic of his juice…

We went back up to the room to pack up the toiletries and pick up our cases, and I settled the bill whilst the boys loaded up the car.

We were on our way by 8:15 am, arriving at the “Mystery” car park by 8:45 am.

Before going in we needed to ring tomorrow night’s hotel to make the payment and organise for the drop-box code so that we could collect our room key (we’d advised that we’d be checking in late when we booked, and they had rang me the week before to let me know I’d need to do this). We had reserved the room using a credit card, but wanted to pay on the debit card – the girl on the phone wasn’t sure how to update the records, but assured us that nothing would be charged yet, and we could pop to Reception on Monday morning to sort the swap)...

Our Europa Park Clubcard passes include 1 day’s entry to Phantasialand. We asked at the Mystery ticket booths and were directed to Guest Services at the main entrance, so we walked around.

Getting the tickets was really easy, we just had to show our Clubcards – the cast member checked something on a PC then took a photocopy of our cards and issued us with our free tickets – all in less than 5 minutes…

It was still a few minutes until the gates opened at 9 am, so we popped up the steps to take a few pics…

There was a short queue for bag-check and we were in just after 9 am – it was nice to experience the Berlin “Main street” entrance, as we’d come in through the Mystery Castle entrance last year ...

Most rides weren’t open until 10 am – the queue for Taron was already huge...

...so we decided to come back later and headed for Colorado Express, which opened at 9:30 am and we were on by 9:45 am. This is my favourite mine train ride, it’s really intense for a family ride and interacts with Chiapas. This pic from later in the day…

We were back in the central Berlin area just before 10, where they were holding quite a large crowd in a rope drop for the Fantasy area (we guessed most guests would be heading for Crazy Bats, which is this year’s new ride - a VR re-theme of Temple of The Night Hawk indoor Vekoma coaster).

We looked at the queue for Maus Au Chocolate, but it was already 40 minutes. We thought it would clear once everything was open, so we left that for now too...

The rope dropped and we were right, everyone headed for Crazy Bats, so we went into the Wuze Town indoor area and rode Winjas Force, which was only a 5-minute wait...

This is one of a pair of Maurer Söhne spinning coasters and is really good. Winjas Fear was only 10-minutes when we came off, but we left it for now (which turned out to be a mistake as that was the last 10-minute coaster queue we saw all day) .

Rookberg - the new F.L.Y. is under construction behind this...

Crazy Bats was already on a 60-minute wait! We were keen to see if the upgrade was any good but having done Temple of The Night Hawk in October we definitely weren’t up for a wait that long).

Instead, we went on Hollywood Tour, which was a walk-on – it’s not bad, even if the animatronics and scenes are a bit dated – I tried to get some decent pics on my mobile…

Crazy Bats was now a crazy 90-minutes, so we had a relaxing ride on Wurmlung Express – this one is only 2 adults per car so Rich and I went together and Tom went solo – the views were lovely…

We had a walk around the lake next…

It was absolutely scorching already, so we stopped to have some water and put on some sun spray.

We wanted to do Wakobato (the splash battle) to cool off, but it wasn’t open yet, so we just carried on mooching around the lake and then had a look in the gift shop…

We still needed to cool off, so headed for Chiapas – the queue time sign wasn’t working, but we headed in anyway and I downloaded the Phantasialand app – by the time I got it up and running, the wait time was showing at 45-minutes.

I wasn’t feeling too good in the queue – my mosquito bite from Thursday night was at peak itchiness and I felt a bit light-headed. Luckily, I had some Piritese in my bum-bag and this, plus some ibuprofen and a bottle of water put me right by the time we were riding...

Chiapas a really good water-ride, with a really catchy theme tune...

We came off wet, but not too wet…

It was 12:40 pm by now and Tom was feeling peckish, so we went on the hunt for some food. As we were passing Focaccia Mexico, the display of freshly made Focaccias drew us in – we were going to get one for Tom and one for me and Rich to share, but decided mid-queue that we wanted one each. Tom went for a Focaccia Bacon and Rich and I had Focaccia Margherita. We had 2 as meal deals, Coke for Tom and Tango for me (Rich didn’t want a drink) – it all came to a very reasonable €16.80 and it was really nice…

We were all struggling in the heat, so looked at the show times – Jump was on at 1:45 pm. We’d seen it last year, but enjoyed it and knew there would be a/c in the theatre.

We had a bit of time before the show so we mooched around China...

River Quest was a ridiculous 200-minute wait, but Mystery Castle was showing a 25-minute wait so we did that, getting a really good drop sequence…

Then we headed over to the Silverado theatre, which was lovely an cool (which was the opposite of what we'd done in October when we'd come in to warm up).

Jump is a good show, but I really struggled to stay awake and dozed quite a bit through most of it – they boys both admitted that they’d done the same too .

I managed to stay awake for the finale and it really is a well produced show – it’s a nice touch that the performers do a meet and greet with the kids at the end…

Back out into the scorching heat and we headed for Taron – my current #1 coaster. The queue was all the way out of Klugheim, so we headed for the single-rider line, only to find the ride was down and the queue line was closed ...

We could see and hear some testing, so decided to give it about 15-minutes to see if it came back up. By this time the queues for pretty much every ride in the park were huge…

When the testing stopped and there was no sign of Taron reopening, we all agreed to call it a day. It was still early, but none of us fancied queuing in this heat (about 30oC), and we had a long drive ahead of us. At least this way, we’d be at the hotel at a decent time and could find somewhere to go for dinner.

So we left the park at 2:45 pm, having only done 7 attractions and missing out on Taron . So different to our October visit when we’d done about 26 attractions in total (including 5 rides on Taron) – it’s definitely an off-season park for us.

Parking was a very reasonable €5. The car was like a greenhouse, so I got the a/c running and we had a few snacks in the car park before making a move at 3:15 pm. It was so hot that the waters and pop in the boot were hot and the Twix bars were melted!

The drive was nice and straightforward – much more relaxing than last night’s as there weren’t so many lorries to pass and I could just trundle along at 100 kmph in the slow lane ...

We stopped at a services about half way to put some fuel in – and had a bit of a faff when I realised 1) I didn’t know how to open the petrol cap and, 2) I want sure if it was unleaded or diesel. Rich quickly worked out that it was a screw cap (not sure what happened there ) and after reading most of the manual, I found the paperwork that said it was Unleaded. I just put €30 in for now, then had another flap when the credit card declined (I later realised that I needed our overseas location from Germany to Netherlands). Luckily I had my Debit Card handy.

It was 70c to use the loo, but it was quite swanky, with TV screens by the sinks and a rotating self-cleaning toilet seat. Plus, you get a voucher for 50c off a purchase in the shop.

We also topped up the tyre with some more air, so between the faffing we were probably stopped for at least 30 minutes.

We stopped one more time en route at a lay-by / parking area so that Rich could have a smoke and use the loo.

We arrived at our hotel at 6:30 pm, so just over 3 hours in total with stops.

We were at the NH Wahlwijk tonight, which is just off the motorway, 1 junction up from Efteling – a spot-on location for the park…

I checked us in and paid – but realised after that the invoice was more than we’d reserved the room for. I wanted to double check with Rich before I queried it though, as he’d made the booking.

The room was nice – really big, with a huge bathroom and loads of storage space…

We had a quick freshen up and decided we fancied KFC (our favourite fast food treat) for dinner so headed there – calling at Reception on the way out to query the invoice. The Receptionist advised that they hold a bit extra on the card, but assured us that only the booking price would be charged in the end.

KFC was 5-minutes away….

Time for our next faff – we’d used the touch screen ordering and this time it was my debit card’s turn to decline. We tried again and the Credit Card declined – we really weren’t having any luck today.

We’d seen a Shell garage by the hotel, so headed there hoping for an ATM, but they didn’t have one. We googled and found one about 1 minute from the KFC so headed there. We spotted a Supermarket, but it was closed, so we walked across the road to the Total garage to buy some cigarettes €7ish).

Eventually we got our KFC, and it was good - Rich had a High 5 meal plus a 2 Strips Snackbox, Tom had a 1 Piece Meal with some extra Chicken Strips and I had Fillet Burger Box Meal with a Strawberry Cream Shake (€28.35) - I only managed to get a pic of mine…

We were back at the hotel by 9 pm...

Back in the room, Rich tried to buy our Walibi tickets for Monday, but the website kept crashing, so we agreed to get some cash out and pay on the gate instead - it would cost a about €20 more, but it want worth the hassle, especially give the faff we'd had with our cards earlier).

We all chilled out watching our iPads 😊.

Today’s Stats:
7 Attractions, inc. no new Coaster Credits
Walking: 13,466 steps (= 5.84 miles / 9.41km)
Driving: c 245 km

Day 5 - Efteling & Driving to Hardevijk is Here