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Old 7 Sep 19, 05:21 PM  
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HEMANCLOFTY
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Europa Park(s): Planes, Coaster-Trains & Autobahns (Aug 19) - Day 1

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

Day 1 – Wednesday 21st August (Europa Park)


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Travel Day is Here


Before I start today’s update, I didn’t make a huge amount of notes on this trip – more just a list of what rides / coasters we did, so most of what’s about to come will be pieced together from memory, photos and receipts…

I got up with the alarm at 7am and had my shower before nudging the boys to get up for theirs and we went down for breakfast at 8am.

Breakfast was included in our booking and was a continental buffet with a good selection of branded cereals, fruit, cold meats and cheeses, pastries and bread, plus 2 hotel options – hard boiled eggs and a make-your-own pancakes machine.

I went for a big slice of fresh bread with black-cherry jam, some pastries and a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, plus a cappuccino…







Tom had some cereal and a few pastries with an apple juice and Rich went for cold meats and bread with a cup of tea (sorry no pics).

It was all really tasty and fresh and a good way to fill up ready for a big day at the park, which was open 9am-8:30pm today.

They had takeaway cups, so I got a Cappuccino for the road...



A quick pop up to the room to sort out the park bag and we headed to the park - it was a bit foggy this morning...





It was a really easy drive, with just a small amount of traffic, and we were parked up in section H (for Huxwolds) by just after 9am...



The carpark entrance reminded us of Universal with its moving walk-ways…



The bag check queue moved fast (the guy asked Tom if he had a knife in his bag) and we were soon in the main entrance plaza…



There was no queue for the ticket booths, and it didn’t take long to buy our Clubcard annual passes, which were €210 each, plus €24 for an annual parking pass – we were given paper tickets for now, and the crew-member advised that we could pop to the Information Centre under the Euro Tower in France at any time to collect our actual passes.

Straight through the turnstiles and we were in the park by 9:15am – first impressions were amazing…





I remembered the tip of picking up Volterium Fastpasses on the way in, so we did that first – getting a return time of 12:05-12:35pm.

Then we wandered around to the Italy area, which was lovely…





Ghost Castle (Geisterschloss) was showing a 1-minute wait time, so we headed in…



This was a “Doom-Buggy” style ghost train, which was very much like Haunted Mansion, but a lot better IMO – there was only one other group in the “stretching room” and it was pitch black so quite unnerving as I had no idea where the boys were. The animatronics and scenes were all very well done too. A fantastic start to our day 😊.

Straight only Picolo Mondo next, which was another 1-minute wait time – another great classic dark ride, on which I spent most of the time singing “it’s not a small world”…







It was 10am as we headed out of Italy, via France...









Next was Greece – Atlantis Adventure (a shooting dark ride) was showing a 5-minute wait, so we headed in.

Next we walked around to Posidon (water coaster) – this was a 15-minute wait, so we headed on – knowing that it would be a longer wait later in the day when it warmed up. The ride was a little bit rough, but we got a good splash – not too wet through.

We spent some time mooching around the area afterwards, taking some pics…







11am and 5 rides done already – not too shabby 😊.

Euro Mir was next – we waited about 30 minutes for this, but the queue moved really fast – setting the scene for 3 days of fantastic park operations…





This is a really fun and unique spinning coaster, with a spiral lift hill, a catchy euro-trash-dance soundtrack (which is now my alarm tone) and a really intense ride – we all loved it 😊.

We all needed a drink afterwards, so got a large Coke (€3.40)...



...and stopped to enjoy some Geese being herded through the area…





We wandered briefly through England, where Tom popped into the Adidas store as we were passing…



Next, we spent some time mooching through the Grimm’s Enchanted Forest - which was indeed enchanting with lovely little fairy-tale scenes and animatronics that played in German, French or English, plus lots of little hideaway areas to sit and take it all in…











The view across the lake was beautiful...



And then walked through Spain, ending up in Portugal, where the queued for Atlantica Super Splash was 30-minutes, so we joined it…







Yesterday, this pic had been all over my Facebook wall (I follow a lot of Theme Park groups), and we’d resigned ourselves to missing out on Wodan Timburcoaster this trip…



…however, we were surprised to see that some test trains were running, which meant that they had already fixed the lift hill…





It was coming up for 12:30pm by the time we came off Atlantis, so we headed back to Germany...



...to use our Voletarium Fastpass, making it pretty much a walk-on…





This was a really great flying theatre and has the best screen quality and smell-pods of the three that we have done so far (Soarin’ (EPCOT), Flying Dreams (Ferrari Land) and this one). Rich said it was his favourite of the 3, but I think I prefer the video in Flying Dreams. We all agreed that Soarin’ is our least favourite.

We had a mooch around the gift shop, and then headed to Walter’s Wurstbude for lunch at 1pm – Rich had spotted it earlier (next to the Voletarium Fastpass machines) and we were in the mood for some Currywurst.

We got a Large Currywurst meal (extra spicy) and a Bratwurst for me and Rich to share and a regular Bratwurst meal for Tom (€23.80)…







Rich ended up eating mostly the Bratwurst and I had mostly Currywurst and we shared the chips and drink – it was all really tasty and good value 😊.

We decided to head towards the Euro Tower in France now to sort out our Clubcards, stopping for a mooch in the Coca Cola fan store on the way, where we got a bottle of Coke (€3.30)...



Getting our Clubcards took about 10 minutes and was nice and easy, even with the slight language barrier…







As we were in France, we decided to do Euro-Sat Can Can next – choosing the single-rider line as the main one was about an hour. It still took about 35 minutes, but it went quite quick….



I realised in the queue line that I’d lost my wedding ring, which I was gutted about . I’m guessing it flew off when I was shaking my hands after washing them (as this has happened before at work but I heard it land on the tiles). Rich was fine about it as the same thing had happened to him about 6 weeks ago – the downside of losing weight!

The ride (which is inside the “golf ball”) was good – a typical indoor coaster, but the Can Can soundtrack and scenery made it really fun 😊.

2:15pm and time for the first “big” ride of the day – Silver Star, the park’s B&M Hypercoaster – which was showing a 50-minute wait time. We were all looking forward to this to see how it compared with Shambhala at PortAventura. Once again, the queue-line moved really fast, and it was good to see the Mercedes theming…



It was a fab ride – not Shammy-B good (or in our top-10) but excellent none-the-less, and the bunny hills were really intense 😊.

We had a quick look in the gift shop...



It was just after 3pm and really warm by now (about 29oC), so the boys stood in the Posidon Splash Zone to cool off…



We grabbed a large Coke (€3.40) whist passing through Luxemburg. Then walked over to Iceland, via the newly reopened Scandanavia area, which looked lovely, but I didn't get any pics as my battery camera was getting low.

Blue Fire was the next “big” hitter of the day, and another 50-minute queue – this went quite slowly in the heat, but I filled the time by taking loads of photos, mostly on my phone…













Arty reflection in the Gazprom building shot..



Despite feeling like a long queue in the afternoon heat, it was moving fast and we could see that all 5 trains were running – such great operations at this park!

This is a brilliant launch coaster and we all enjoyed it – it’s so similar to Icon at Blackpool, that you can’t help but compare them. Rich and Tom both said Blue Fire is better. I agree that, technically, it is a better ride and it’s definitely more intense – but for me it’s the whole package of Icon that I love – the soundtrack, the fast-moving queue and the fact that it’s in the UK all give it the extra edge for me.

Just after 4pm - Wodan Timbercoaster was back up and running by now, but we didn't fancy another lomg (45-minute) queue, so we agreed to save it for tomorrow.

Whale Adventure (the splash battle) was a walk-on, so we did that next – it was really well themed and we got a little bit wet, but not too much...





We did a loop around on the Monorail (now taking photos on my phone)…



















Next, we wandered back down to Scandinavia to do the Wobbling Boat (self-pull-raft), which we'd spotted from the Monorail (pic from the EP website)



….and then had a mooch around the Rulantica sand-sculptures….





I’d taken so many photos of this stunning park today (almost 400) that my camera battery finally ran out here – it wasn’t even 6pm yet.

We had another mooch around Grimms Enchanted Forest and then went to England to look for the Area of Football...





This is Dodgems, but with a huge ball and Reds Vs Blues have to try to score goals. Rich sat this one out whilst Tom and I had a go – Tom did the driving. It was fun, but over quite quick and ended 0-0 .

Next up was Matterhorn Blitz, which a wild-mouse in the Switzerland area – I think we waited about 20 minutes for this, and it was good fun, with a vertical lift hill. The boys rode together and I had a random.

Afterwards, we used one of the vouchers we’d got with our Clubcards to get a free Cappuccino for me...



We also got a bottle of Coke for the boys (€3.30) Then headed over to The Minimoys Kingdom to see what the queue for Arthur was like...



It was about 35-minutes, which was the lowest we’d seen it all day so we joined the line – I took some pics of the outdoor section above us…









This is a brilliant family coaster / dark ride, with excellent theming and a great ride experience – something that wouldn’t be out of place in Disney or Universal. The indoor area that it’s in is really well themed too – like an updated Wuzetown at Phantasialand. It had a great free locker system too.

It was getting on for 8pm by now so we mooched back to Greece to do Pegasus (another family coaster), which was an almost walk-on.

We had 10-minutes until the rides closed, so we decided that it would be nice to do the Euro Tower in the sunset. It was was another walk on - the views were fab…











We spent ab bit of time taking pics and enjoying the atmosphere in France…















The park was beautifully lit at night - as usual, my photos are awful though - these are the best of a bad lot…







We mooched our way out of the park at around 9pm - We’d had an awesome day, and all agreed that Europa Park is a top-5 park. I even Instagram med that it’s better than EPCOT (sorry, but it is). I really do love EPCOT – that’s how good it is - It’s got so much charm and wonderful theming, plus big coasters!

Getting out of the car park was a bit of a mare, with everyone trying to nudge out of the rows into the main exit road – to be fair it took less than 20 minutes, and if I’d been in my own car I’d have been much braver about nudging out, so we count really grumble. We were still through the exit plaza by 9:30pm.

We decided that tea would be at Burger King tonight, but first we popped into the petrol station next to our hotel to put some air in the dodgy tyre, as the pressure had dropped even more since this morning.

Our BK was nice – I had a Bacon King meal, Rich had a Steakhouse Double meal and Tom had a Long Texas meal, all large with Coke (€24.87) – it was really nice…







We got back to the hotel by 10:30pm and all went straight to bed as we were exhausted after a busy but amazing day.

Today’s Stats:
18 Attractions, inc. 9 new Coaster Credits
Walking: 24,758 steps (= 10.76 miles / 17.33km)
Driving: c20km


Day 2: Back to Europa Park is Here

Edited at 02:41 PM.
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Old 8 Sep 19, 10:04 AM  
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Gunna
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Europa Park really is a brilliant park. You don’t seem to miss fast pass as their operations are excellent.

One of our favourite parks and definitely up there with Disney and Universal in my opinion. Great first day and pictures.
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Old 8 Sep 19, 11:36 AM  
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mickeymouseears
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Well done for going on the Silver Star!
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Old 8 Sep 19, 07:00 PM  
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orlandobound
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Great report! I have 2 boys 13 and 14 and Europa Park and Phantasialand are definitely on our list.
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Old 12 Sep 19, 02:36 PM  
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LOVE LOVE LOVE Europa Park! Always nice to read about others discovering and loving it too. Looking forward to reading the rest of your report
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Old 29 Sep 19, 05:39 PM  
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katiebaz
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Great day and now I really want to visit Europa park next year. Looking forward to reading more
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