Germany-France 2017: Day 7 - Erlebnispark Tripsdrill (+ Trip Summary)

[Hixee]

Day 1 – Holiday Park
I caught an early morning flight from Heathrow to Stuttgart (I’d stayed in a cheap hotel in Hounslow the night before to save me having an atrociously early start – this was likely going to be a long day and I didn’t fancy being completely shattered), met @Ben, @Lofty and Sam, picked up the hire car and got on the road.

It was an easy enough drive up to the park, with only a little traffic on the autobahn, and before we knew it we had the park entrance of a park home to one of the classic European Intamins in sight.

The influence of the Plopsa partnership/owenership, was relatively evident here

We headed straight to Expedition GeForce, as it was a new cred for all of us besides Ben. They were only running one train operations, but thankfully the queue wasn’t terribly long and after 20 minutes or so we were sitting in the back row ready to go!

Except. A very, very, VERY, spiteful ride op decided that he wanted to come back to the back of the train (after having checked the rest of the train) and staple all of us. It was some of the most forceful stapling I’ve ever felt, and frankly a bit rude.

Anyway, on to the coaster. The lift hill was pretty fast and we were very quickly thrown over the first drop. The rest of the coaster was very enjoyable, and I can see why it was so popular back in the early 2000s. I’ll say a little more at the end of this section, but I think we were reasonably impressed.

The way EGF sits above the park means there are plenty of good vantage points (some more pictures later).

Next up, was the second (and last) cred for the day – a Premiere Sky Rocket, called Sky Scream. The theming and queue for this coaster was pretty good, but at the end of the day these coasters aren’t great. The launches are pleasant enough, but the inversion and drops are fairly uncomfortable, to be honest. I see why they’re popular, they’re better Boomerangs, and seem to be popular with the GP, but they’re not really my cup of tea. The shin restraints also were pretty awful in the back row…

The queue line was rather good, although the strobe and smoke effects might have been a bit much had there actually been a queue.

It’s not great, but it does look quite nice.

From there we did a short lap of the park, riding the log flume (Wickie Splash), rapids (Donnerfluss) and ghost train (Burg Falkenstein). The water rides were pretty good, minimal wetness but still exciting enough. The ghost train was a bit strange, with some relatively old school sets and animatronics, and some rather strange themes throughout. Frankly, not worth much more than its 3 LoG points.

Only really took pictures of the flume, so that’s all you’re getting…

We did think about going the drop tower, but it spited us as we got nearby, and we decided just to ditch it. After this, we headed back to EGF for another ride before getting some photos and leaving the park to make our way to Rust.

The first drop is really good.

Some “block violation” photoshop going on here, of course.

@Ben and Sam enjoying the final bunny hills in the back row.

We’d had about four hours in the park, which was plenty of time for us to get everything we wanted done, without having to rush or anything like that.

Expedition GeForce: Back when I was first getting in to my coaster enthusiasm, EGF was one of the flagship rides of the world. It was regularly praised for its drop and forces. Riding it today, 16 years since its opening, I can see why it was so popular. It’s a solid ride, with a great first drop and some nice airtime over it’s many hills. However, I don’t think it’s really up there in the big leagues any more. It’s a very good coaster, but modern coaster design has changed a lot and I don’t think it’s particularly inspired compared to more modern competitors. It’s great that the park built, and maintain, such a unique ride and it’s a strange location for a ride as large as it is. I’d say a solid top 30-40 coaster, but probably doesn’t break into far into my top 20, if at all.

Holiday Park: The park is a small. Smaller than I expected, given they’ve got a huge Intamin coaster, but it’s pretty green and feels nicely laid out. The ride selection isn’t spectacular, to be honest, but we didn’t get the chance to ride the drop tower, star flyer or sky fly during our visit as they were all down for various reasons. I think even if they had been running, it’s not really much more of a half day park – although it is a pleasant enough one of those.

We made our way down to Rust, checked in to our hotel/guesthouse, picked up some food and booze and set about getting excited to tackle Europa Park the next day!

 

[Smithy]

I really ummed and aahed about making a trip up for EGF when we did Europa last year and Im sort of glad I decided against it; for all the talk of how amazing it is, I do feel my experience would be similar to yours and I'd feel a bit let down with it as a result.

Some brilliant pictures of it though.

 

[Lofty]

Yeah, EGF was better than the hate it seems to get as of late, but it's nowhere near as good as the praise it receives, too. It's a great coaster, but nothing majorly worth getting - it also doesn't help that the park has barely anything else in it what makes it worth visiting? You sort of just pop in, get the creds and leave?

 

[ThomVD]

A friend and I had the exact same experience with the EGF ride op as you. He made an extra effort to staple both of us a bunch of times that we rode it. He must've known that we are enthusiasts

I seem to love EGF more than you though. For me it's the perfect "airtime machine" type coaster, with strong ejector on every hill. I can't think of many other coasters that have a similar amount quality and quantity of ejector.

I agree about the shin restraints on Sky Scream. They're the worst. <//3

 

[Coaster Hipster]

Great pictures and report! The quality of your photos is quite impressive.

I seem to love EGF more than you though. For me it's the perfect "airtime machine" type coaster, with strong ejector on every hill. I can't think of many other coasters that have a similar amount quality and quantity of ejector.

Exactly my thoughts on EGF. It has a really good balance of ejector quantity and quality to me


Looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip. Always nice to see opinions about parks in my home country

 

[DelPiero]

EGF sits just outside my top 10 now in 11th, but the rides I had were epic, late night in the dark during fireworks with a nearly empty station and no stapling.
I imagine that a standard day ride wouldn't be as high up, so can understand not making a well traveled person's top 20.

Hopefully Plopsa will keep investing, EGF and Sky Scream are a good start but the park needs more to it. It's hard to compete with Europa and Trispdrill not far away I guess.

 

[Hixee]

Day 2 – Europa Park Part I

We felt pretty well rested (or at least, I did) in the morning thanks to a very comfortable apartment. We were staying in Rust, only a few minutes’ walk from the park. We went through their security checks. As a side note – they were trialling some new baggage scanners, which were a bit bizarre looking. Thankfully (or not, depending on your point of view), we didn’t have to use them, but they were interesting looking machines with six or seven bags being scanned in parallel with a series of lights indicating any problems. At least, we think that’s what they were doing – I’m not sure we really understood!

I probably should add at this point that my camera rarely left my bag the first morning, so the number of pictures I’ve got is pretty limited early on. There will be more later on – don’t worry!

We were robbed for our park tickets (N-I-N-E-T-Y!), and headed in to the park. We had a cred-run in our eyes (three of us had never visited before, so we had a lot of coasters to ride), so we shot straight into the park and headed for some of the smaller coasters that we knew would likely be getting longer lines later in the day.

We started with the wild mouse and bobsled, and had them both ticked off in under ten minutes (both were walk-ons). Both were actually reasonably impressive, with the vertical lift of the wild mouse and the theming of the bobsled making them stand out a little above the rest, but they weren’t going to get a re-ride so that probably says how they compare to the rest of the rides in the park.

Next up we headed for Silver Star – Sam couldn’t wait any more for his first ride on a B&M Hyper! We were on the ride, in the front row, far quicker than we expected. Well, wow. What happened to this coaster?! This B&M Hyper had always been pegged as one of the lesser versions, but there was loads of airtime and even some ejector! It thoroughly impressed us.

We hopped on to Eurosat next, which had a lengthy queue, but as we would come to learn, this wouldn’t be a problem for the crews at Europa Park! We were on the ride pretty quickly and began the huge lift to the top. It’s a very disorientating spiral lift, which goes on about three times as long as you think it should, before the chaos of the coaster begins. It’s pretty enjoyable, however I can see why they’re closing it down for a re-fit. It definitely felt a bit tired. I did enjoy the retro-futuristic space theme though, that was fab.

Around this time (I can’t quite remember when), we decided to get a coffee and a snack, and enjoy the sunshine a bit. It was here we noticed the lovely little clock tower with the excellent revolving statues.

This is 2017, right?

Next up was the duo of coasters that sit in the Greek area of the park – Pegasus and Poseidon. We rode Pegasus first (simply because the queue for Pegasus exits very near the entrance to Poseidon, whereas the exit to Poseidon exits the other side of the Greek area), and although they had the back few rows closed off for VR, the queue didn’t take too long. It’s a fun family/kiddie cred, but that’s about it. Poseidon on the other hand was… interesting. The layout is good, and the wetness is okay (a little damp, but not soaking), but the track shaping is very off and makes for a pretty rough ride to be honest. Lots of strong jots in the corners – especially the corners into the first splashdown – perfectly cooperating with the metal lap bars to bash your knees!

While in the area we did the dark shooter, which I only really recall thanks to the arguments at the end about the scoring. To this day I don’t think we really know who won that day – although my money is on Ben.

We headed round to Euro Mir, and again found ourselves moving steadily through the queue. We boarded the last car (Mark and I facing forwards, Ben and Sam backwards) and began another impressively long lift hill. The spiral lift is pretty effective here, especially as there’s a moment early on where you can look up and see two other trains circling above you. The coaster itself is pretty crap really. The free spinning sections up top are quite good – you’re rather high up and get good views of the park. The locked/controlled spinning sections and the faster drops are a bit rubbish. They’re a bit rough, dizzying and altogether not that fun! The brakes at the end are very powerful too!

As we continued to work our way round the park (we weren’t even half way at this point), we stopped off to do Piraten in Batavia – I suppose their Pirates of the Caribbean knock-off. The animatronics did look a little dated, but the sets were impressively large and it was rather entertaining. It included the classic “pirate-chasing-maiden-round-and-round-the-bedroom” too, which is always good for a laugh. Ooh, a picture!

Now it was time to try and get through the rest of the coasters, starting with Blue Fire (or blue fire – as their silly spelling suggests). I’d ridden Predator (IMG Worlds of Adventure) before, so there wasn’t anything new to me here really, but the pre-show was better and at least there was some theming around the coaster to interact with. These coaster types are pretty good, with the huge loop being the highlight for me.

It was around this point that I started taking pictures again.

The interaction with the rockwork is nice on the corkscrews twisted horseshoe roll.

Just round the corner was Wodan. With a pretty impressive queue line underneath the ride and station, it sets up the experience pretty well. There are some great views of the massive structure and opportunity for some nice photos.

Artistic #1.

Artistic #2.

Well… wow! I don’t think any of us were expecting that! What a coaster! The first drop is really fast (the helix at the top is actually on a rather steep incline, meaning you gain a lot of speed before hitting the first drop itself), and the first half of the coaster is pretty relentless, but after the station fly-by it gets a little bit mental. The train is throwing you around all over the place, with loads of airtime, laterals and positive Gs (sometimes it feels like all three at once!), and a fantastic layout. The final few hills are ballistic, and you hit the brake run feeling pretty exhausted! A wonderfully chaotic ride and something I wish all GCIs could aspire to. Although as we discussed at the time – we suspect it’s unlikely that was exactly what GCI were going for, and would love to have seen the engineer’s reactions on the first test runs!

Plus the moving statues as the train departs are excellent!

The insanity begins…

We mooched round to Atlantica Supersplash, which was pretty fun. I did particularly like the speed with which the turntable mechanisms worked – felt very smooth and well designed.

Classic water splash shot here.

Finally we headed through the Spanish section of the park – which was really lovely and one of the nicest looking areas (in my opinion) – before heading for a ride on Arthur.

Arthur was extremely impressive. Everyone has banged on loads of times about the ride experience, but I’ll just throw my thoughts in too. I think the technology is fantastic, and the flexibility it gives parks to design truly wonderful family coasters should not be underestimated. I think it will be an exciting product to watch over the next few years – I’m curious to see what the HTTYD ride at Motiongate is like.

At this point we decided we’d grab the tiny kiddie cred (much to Sam’s dismay), get an ice cream and start heading back for some re-rides. We’d leave the powered mine train for tomorrow morning!

On the way we did Voletarium, their new flying theatre. Now, I’ve ridden a couple of these (I think just the one at Ferrari World and Flying Over Europe at BGW), and I think they’re ****. I don’t think the footage is good, I don’t think the experience is good, I find them a bit nauseating, they’re just rubbish. Voletarium changed my mind. Not only have Europa managed to get this ride working so efficiently that the queue isn’t that awful stop-start that they usually are with these things (I think Europa get round this by having two screens running in parallel), but the film is wonderful, the effects (wind, snow, rain) are very well executed and the entire feel of the hardware feels very robust. We all thoroughly enjoyed it (far more than any of us were expecting, I think).

As we headed back round the park, riding Silver Star, Blue Fire and Wodan again, we also slipped on to Ghost Castle quickly. Don’ really remember it, so it can’t have been particularly outstanding, but that may have been in part due to ride fatigue – Europa has so much to do that you often forget the little bits!

As the sun started to set the lighting in the park became rather lovely, giving the chance for a few nice dusk-y photos.

Artistic #3.

No Photoshop here, this was just a lucky synchronisation.

We called it a day, and headed over to Hotel Colosseo hotel for dinner – a reasonably good pizza with some good beer. Couldn’t complain!

We headed back to the apartment, had a couple more beers and chatted for a while before turning in. It’d been a long day (thanks to Europa’s size and opening hours), and we had an equally big day ahead of us the day after!

Next up, a second day in Europa Park!

 

[ThomVD]

Glad to see more Silver Star fans. It's a great coaster filled with airtime. Especially the surprise pop exiting the helix always takes me off guard. Such an underrated coaster <3 Europa Park is fab.

 

[Smithy]

Yeah, glad to see a bit of love for Silver Star and Wodan. Some brilliant pictures too, love the one of Wodan cresting the first drop.

 

[Hutch]

Holiday Park looks rather nice. It is interesting that a small park like that has one of Europe's major coasters (which does indeed look great).

Europa Park looks great as well. Silver Star, Blue Fire, and Wodan seem like a very solid "big three," but even beyond the dozen or so coasters there seems to be quite a lot to do and explore.

 

[Lofty]

Silver Star is ****ing brilliant. Also, Ben did not win, I did.

 

[Hixee]

Day 3 – Europa Park Part II

Another short walk, and a speedy bag check, and we were in the park bright and early. We had one new coaster to get, a lot of re-rides to do, as well as an attempt to mop up all the other random rides throughout the park!

First things first, we picked up a timed ticket for Voletarium (the park allow you to scan your park ticket near the entrance to the ride and it gives you a timed ticket for later in the day – a very good system).

We then headed towards the back of the park where the remaining cred was. On the way was stopped for a quick ride on Arthur. Queues were pretty short at this time, so we were on the ride relatively quickly. The ride was just as impressive as we’d experienced that day before, and again we were left commenting on how impressive the hardware was and how much potential there is for it.

Not a single tree in sight – this park is dreadfully devoid of vegetation.

I don’t think Mark was very impressed by the natives getting in the way of his photo.

We moved on to the Austrian area to ride the mine train. Nothing much to report here, to be honest. It’s a pretty standard powered coaster, although the indoor section with the log flume is pretty cool (and smelt a bit like pot, don’t know if it always does…). While in the area, we hopped on the log flume and then round to the rapids. Both were okay, but the fact that I can’t think of much else to write about them suggests they weren’t anything outstanding.

Only got one picture of this whole area – here you go.

After the rapids we moved round to Blue Fire for a quick lap before the queues got too big (although admittedly the park was less busy than the day before and their operations meant the queues were hardly long).

Some more block violations for you.

Our timed slot on Voletarium was approaching, so we decided we’d hit a few of the dark rides on the way. First up was the Historama Museum. I mean, I was impressed by the scale of it, but it felt like a lot of faff for nothing much. I’m glad we rode, but I’m not so sure I’d do it again. We also did the Snowflake Sleigh Ride – eh. On the way, we walked past Euro Mir and the Italian area.

Anyway, back to Voletarium. The timed tickets worked well (essentially a fast pass), and we were assigned the middle of the middle row (the seats are in three levels, three bays wide on the upper two levels, and one bay wide on the bottom). We reckoned this to be the best place to ride, and it was just as impressive as the day before. A really fantastic piece of hardware. Although not the vile Eurowings theming. Awful.

We took a lap on the monorail and headed back to the Greek area for some photos and the madhouse. Mad house was a bit rubbish (no pre-show, not terribly well synchronised, etc), but the photos came out pretty well.

Lucking timing?

Universe of Energy was next. I honestly can’t muster any more motivation to write about this ride. I mean, this sentence was easier to write. It wasn’t bad, per se, just very average. It was right next to the lovely little Swiss area.

Next, a couple of laps on Silver Star. We wanted to make sure yesterday wasn’t just a fluke. It wasn’t! It was really good fun. After Silver Star, we did the observation tower, which lead to a nice overview of Silver Star (the sun wasn’t terribly well placed for photos of the rest of the park).

Not taken from the observation tower.

Taken from the observation tower.

The others wanted a coffee and some cake, and so I decided to use the opportunity to nip down the length of the car park to get some more photos of Silver Star. These are the classic angles of the coaster, and I was pleased to get some good shots.

B&M Hypers are very photogenic.

It’s only when you’re up close can you really appreciate the speed of them too.

Their operations weren’t quite this fast, but they weren’t far off!

We spent the next hour or two mooching round the park ticking off lots of the smaller rides. We did the bumper cars (with the fab football), Jungle Rafts (or the RBR – Racist Boat Ride – as we dubbed these attractions), the Italian gondola thing, as well as a re-ride on Euro Mir. This time I rode backwards – and thought it was even worse. The final section is really unpleasant in the back row. It did look nice as the light was changing though.

We took another front row ride on Wodan, which was just as excellent (I think I preferred it in the front row, but it was very good at either end of the train, to be honest).

We decided against riding Atlantica Supersplash again, and instead did the splash battle. Besides a rather spiteful child on one of the guns surrounding the ride, we didn’t get too wet. Afterwards, Mark decided he wanted a go on the gun and ended up getting spited by a boat full of guys (which isn’t an innuendo at all).

We took a ride on the smaller monorail, before doing Poseidon, Silver Star and calling it a day. We did a bit of merch’ shopping and then took the larger monorail over to the Bellrock Hotel entrance. We did catch the water show thing they do there, and didn’t feel terribly inspired by the menu, so moved on to another restaurant in Rust.

Waiting for the monorail.

Goodbye Europa Park.

So, some closing thoughts.

Silver Star: Well this was a surprise. Very little trimming (first was off, second was only grabbing a little and MCBR was off) meant that the airtime was excellent, and there was even some ejector – most notably on the exit of the MCBR and the drop after the helix. Everything from the big hills to the swoopy turns at the end were great fun, and we all had such a great time riding it. Okay, it isn’t perfect, it does have a rattle/shudder at the bottom of the bigger drops and it would be great if there were a couple more of those high speed turns, but overall it’s pretty good. Better than I remember some it’s newer cousins being.

Blue Fire: It’s a good base model coaster, but it’s not spectacular. I can see why Helix is so highly praised if it’s a better and more unquie version of this.

Wodan: It’s brilliant. Everything about it just screams “not-GCI” and it’s very intense from start to finish. The screeching of the up-stop wheels is a particularly great noise to hear. Probably one of the best woodies I’ve done (I’d say it’s top 10 wood quality).

Europa Park: One of the big European parks I’d been too basic to do until now. I can see why people like it. It’s got a very impressive ride selection, both in terms of quality and quantity, and the park feels very well put together. It does get some criticism, but frankly it’s better than most other parks in Europe. Just prepare for a big day, there’s a lot to do and a long way to walk! Their operations are second to none, and it really is extremely impressive how they are able to run their rides so efficiently. Generally makes the whole day feel really smooth – even on the first day (Sunday) when the park was HEAVING, we didn’t queue more than about 25-30 minutes for anything. Very impressive, and a very good park. I look forward to making a return visit in the future.

 

[zazobo]

Nice report. Some of the best photos I think I've seen of silver star, well done!

 

[Hixee]

Day 4 – Fraispertuis City

Today was where @Ben, @Mark, Sam and I would part ways. In planning this trip I decided I’d tag on a much larger loop in to France, whereas the others would head back up to Tripsdrill for their final day (I think they’d visited the French parks relatively recently and didn’t want the extra time off). They were going to pick up a hire car from Hotel Colosseo, so first thing in the morning I dropped them off there. We said our goodbyes, and headed out separate ways.

For me, it was a drive in to France.

The drive was pleasant enough, reminded me a bit of driving into the foothills of the Alps with lots of nice twisting roads, trees and punctuated every now and again by a viewpoint. I specifically picked to avoid a toll road, meaning instead of taking a huge tunnel under the mountains I took the old winding road that went over the top. It was all rather peaceful, to be honest.

Soon enough, I arrived at the layby that is the entrance to Fraispertuis City. I picked up my tickets and headed in.

First I headed to Timber Drop, once the steepest coaster in the world. Frankly, it was a pretty standard El Loco. I don’t hate these things, but I don’t really love them either. The ride looked much better off-ride than it rode, too. That said, it was smoother than I remember Mumbo Jumbo being…

The drop actually gives you a pretty big head rush.

I worked my way round the park from there, riding the kiddie cred, Disk-o and Log Flume (both reasonably standard), before heading to their new ride – Golden Driller.

The ride stands out well in the park, and is clearly their biggest (and newest) attraction. The area around the ride is nicely laid out, with some little history boards on gold mining, and the golden driller statue was rather amusing. The queue was nicely done, with these lovely signs directing each of the four seating options:

The queue started as one large queue, split in half for the seating and standing options, with each of these splitting in half again for the sub-types. They used the same colour scheme throughout, and it worked really well. The station is basic, but I think it works well given the theme. As for the drop types? Well I rode each side once, and would rank them in the following order (worst to best).

Seat down– The view is nice, and the drop is good, but the tilting option adds that little bit extra.
Seat down tilting– As above, but the tilting adds that little something.
Stand-up floorless tilting– The feeling of exposure is pretty great, but I don’t find this very comfortable, especially the brakes!
Stand-up tilting– I liked this as you could feel the floor the whole time. Adds something nice when the release actually happens (as you feel the resistance of the floor disappear) and braking (there’s something quite satisfying about the sensation). I did this side twice as I enjoyed it so much.

Overall, pretty good. The drop was pretty good – not too forceful (which suits me as I’m not a big fan of drop towers), but quite long exciting.

I continued working my way round the park, rode the swinging ship, the cactus drop tower (with its vile SHOVE) and the shooting cinema thing, before doing the final coaster.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the coaster to be honest, and I was left feeling the same way after riding. It was better than I expected in terms of layout and forces, and was relatively smooth throughout (with the exception of one or two pretty big jolts). The finale seems to have been butchered a little bit with the foundations and plantrooms for Golden Driller – lots of concrete voids where I suspect there was once theming – but they looked like they were making improvements so maybe they’re working on it.

I did quite like the little two car trains.

From some angles the theming is actually quite nicely done.

I’d been in the park a good few hours at this point, exploring the paths, re-riding some things and taking pictures, I rode the train and got an ice cream, all the usual stuff. It was very relaxing really (which was nice, as I had a [relatively] long drive ahead of me).

There wasn’t really anything worth a specific highlight or review, to be honest.

Fraispertuis City: This is an odd park. Themed to some sort of American wild west mining town, but located in the middle of the French hills. It’s rather lovely really. They don’t have that many rides, but with the addition of Golden Driller it’s clear that they’re keen to keep the more grown up market. They’re not really a full day park, but it’s worth stopping by if you’re in the area. It will be really interesting to see what this park does in the next few years as I really could see them expanding well. They just might need a bigger car park (that’s not just a layby on the main road) first…

I finished up at the park and made my over towards Nigloland. I’d found a little French village with a guesthouse that was cheap and near the park, but a couple of hours drive from Fraispertuis. I anticipated lots of traffic (I was passing a couple of larger towns around rush hour), but it was really smooth in the end with no real issues.

I found the place, checked in, met the old couple who owned it and had to use my best French to explain that their long paragraphs of gabbling French jokes were completely lost on me. My French is, admittedly, pretty poor (particularly my listening comprehension), but they didn’t appear to know any English (bless them, they were trying). In the end we saw eye to eye – I just wanted to go for a walk around the village, have some food, a beer and an early night. It was all rather pleasant really.

T’was a lovely evening, it was.

Next up, the aforementioned Nigloland!

 

[Edward M]

I must say, your glowing review of Europa has really bumped it up on my to do list! Still trying to coordinate a Europe trip next summer, so here's to hoping the park is a part of it! Fantastic report, loved the pictures.

 

[Hixee]

Day 5 – Nigloland

Nigloland was just a few minutes down the road, so it was a leisurely start for me. There was a little bit of cred-planning required on my part first thing. I was on 495, so with six creds available at Nigloland I was set for 500. I figured I’d at least make a minor effort to make the milestone cred something moderately notable. So, with that, I needed to get four creds first. I was slightly cred-obsessed at this time of day, so no pictures just yet.

I went for the wild mouse first, then the caterpillar, both of which don’t warrant more than this sentence.

Next up was Bobsleigh, which I had entirely to myself (so much so that the ride op seemed a little reluctant to dispatch me after checking my harness), and was relatively enjoyable. The corners on these things are pretty intense, bit they were a little rough and the brake run was brutal. Finally, 499, was Spatiale Experience – essentially a Eurosat knock-off. Good, but not great.

Okay, so finally something a bit more exciting – Alpina Blitz! There was no queue for the coaster at this point, so I went for a couple of laps. I was actually pretty impressed – the airtime was good, layout was pretty fun, and it was smooth and comfortable.

Only from my phone, so unfortunately not the best quality.

Next up was the drop tower – which frankly I’d been putting off. As I’ve said before (during the Fraispertuis City section), drop towers aren’t really my thing, but I always feel obliged to ride them. Thankfully it was a walk-on, so I didn’t have much time to think about it!

The views are nice of the surrounding area (I do love the gyro-drop style towers), and the tower is actually surprisingly tall! The drop actually wasn’t as powerful as I was expecting – I think it suffered from that ‘huge drop tower ride vehicle’ syndrome. I’ve noticed this with gyro-drops before (the one at King’s Dominion springs to mind), but I actually sort of like it. Where Le Donjon de l’Extreme excels, however, is in the length of the drop. The brakes start really far down the tower, meaning you are falling for a looooong time and pick up a lot of speed. It’s really exhilarating and I really enjoyed it! I’d be back for a few re-rides throughout the day, which is rare for me on drop towers.

The park is a horseshoe shape (of sorts), with most of the coasters on one leg which I’d cleaned up by now. I figured I’d knock off the last cred and the other rides on the other leg. The final cred was a powered mine train – relatively standard if I’m being honest. It did have an obnoxious alarm in the station to warm of the train coming back through for its second lap. Whilst in the area, I rode the log flume, disk-o and whatever else was over there.

I hopped on their paddle-steamer ride – King of Mississippi. I was reminded of the debate that has been going for a little while within the theme park world – are theme parks racist? Most of the time my answer is “it’s complicated”, but with this ride… well… you be the judge…

At this point I figured I’d move back round the park ticking off all of the other rides. They were all reasonably nice, in particular the Africa Cruise with the cheeky Hippo!

This really did bring a smile to my face – I loved it.

The rest of the park was rather pretty too – lots of flower beds, trees, grass, etc (worlds apart from the barren wasteland that is Europa).

Back towards the drop tower and Alpina Blitz for the end of the day then. Stopping off on the sky fly on the way.

Pretty run of the mill, if I’m being honest.

I went for ride on the ferris wheel, primarily because it overlooks Alpina Blitz and I thought I’d use it as an opportunity to get some photos of that and the rest of the park.

Looking good with my wide-angle lens.

The drop tower also looked pretty good from this elevated vantage point.

Then it was back down for a few more laps on Alpina Blitz before calling it a day. I was hoping I’d be treated to some blue sky at some point, but alas I wasn’t so lucky. Thankfully it’s quite a photogenic coaster, so I think the pictures came out okay!

Finally a little more photoshopping to end the day at the park.

Alpina Blitz: What a great little coaster! I really enjoyed the airtime and the layout. I thought the station was nice (in particular the one-op operations bridge and the exit over the lift hill), and overall a cracking little coaster. I’m surprised more of these haven’t been built to be honest, as it doesn’t have a huge footprint given its quality. Top notch! And a great #500.

Le Donjon de l’Extreme: Another brilliant addition to the park. The drop is great, the views are lovely and the speed is vile. More of these too, please!

Nigloland: Overall a great little park. It was green, pretty and had a good range of rides. Everything from the big thrill rides to the small kids attractions. I think you’d have a good day there regardless of the age group you were visiting with. I’d recommend it to anyone passing by. They do need another good quality coaster, and I think a woodie would fit perfectly!

A short-ish drive took me to Saint Dizier – a reasonably sized town/city somewhere in between Nigloland and Walygator. My next day was going to be a big one, with lots of hours behind the wheel, so once I’d checked in I wandered into the main square to get some dinner. A lovely French galette and crepe, with some nice beer was just what I needed. I sat overlooking the square, which had a couple of nice buildings lit up at night.

With that, on to Walygator!

 

[Hixee]

Day 6 – Walygator

Staying in Saint Dizier, I had a drive of a couple of hours to get to Walygator. I was up early, and so ended up arriving at the park before it had opened. Crowds were pretty minimal as I bought my ticket and had my bag checked – which was good news as I was only planning on a short day at Walygator.

My plan was to get all the coasters, then mop up some of the smaller rides, so I began working my way round the park counterclockwise.

First up was Anaconda – their Cobb woodie. I was third in line for this coaster, and ended up having to wait for 15-20 minutes for some other people to show up before they’d let us on to the platform. Before doing this, however, the ride op (singular) was loading a bunch of sandbags in to the front two cars. After this, he let us on to the platform, filled the empty rows with more sandbags and then opened the air gates. Bit of bag faff from the locals, and we were on our way.

I had been told this coaster wasn’t very good, and I was expecting a rough, bone-shaking ride. It was actually very smooth! It was just boring as hell. There were very few forces (vertical or horizontal), little sense of speed, or any sort of excitement to speak of. Yeah, not terribly exciting.

You can see the empty rows at the front here.

The kiddie cred was on the way to the next major (and arguably most notable) coaster – Monster! This slightly pink, relocated B&M invert doesn’t look terribly healthy in it’s current state at Walygator. It’s got no station roof, the track needs a good clean and the trains have seen better days. That said, the ride quality was pretty good, and the fact that the MCBR had been removed (one can only assume to salvage more parts). Again they were only running the coaster when they had a half-full train, but thankfully due to the popularity of the coaster (it’s by far the biggest ride in the park) the wait wasn’t ever much more than about ten minutes. Unfortunately, that made getting photos a little tedious!

Roofless station cannot help the lifetime of the systems on this ride.

Supports and track looking rather tatty.

One more cred to get, the Vekoma Hurricane – Comet. Not much to say here, but it was smooth (barring one major jolt in the track in the turnaround before the corkscrews).

So, for the rest of the park then. Comet is next to their larger flat rides G-Lock (Zamperla Air Race) and Space Shoot (shot tower – S&S?). Both are pretty much as you’d expect, to be honest. I personally quite like the shot towers though – I think the launches are great and the airtime and bouncing at the end is good fun. This one ticked all the boxes, for sure.

From there I took a lap of the park, riding the rapids (rather good, I thought, also a bit less fun when you’re the only one in the boat!), boat ride, log flume, swinging ship, cinema-shooter thing (with the same graphics package as from Fraispertuis City previously), before finishing the lap of the park back at Anaconda and Monster.

You can see it was very busy.

I rode Anaconda again, checking that it hadn’t miraculously warmed up or something, but nope, still bleak.

Then back to Monster for a few more laps and photos. Done.

Monster: I remember enjoying Raptor, and this was a good solid B&M invert. I think the layout is good, and the forces are nicely handled throughout. It’s not too rattly in its current state, but it really is looking very tired. I did enjoy the fast second half though, thanks to the missing MCBR. You really get a sense of how fast these coasters can end up running.

Walygator: I didn’t love it. I’ll be honest. I mean, it’s not bad, as such, and I did visit on a very quiet day, but it just feels a bit like it’s lost any sort of drive. Everything is a bit run down, faded, blurred, etc. They could have a really killer park, as they’re near at least one large city (not going to extend my geography any further for fear of being corrected), and if they had a solid line up I could see it really thriving. Unfortunately it’s just not got much of a spark. And that is factoring in the overcast day!

I left the park around 2pm and started making my way to Cleebronn. This was the longest drive of the trip (~3 hours), but it went reasonably well. Thankfully got into Germany relatively quickly, so I didn’t have to pay too many tolls and deal with too many French drivers (seriously, what is it with them merging back in so soon after an overtake – it’s very risky)! The hotel was at the top of a hill overlooking the park, so I didn’t have far to go the next morning! I grabbed some dinner at a little German pub at the bottom of the hill, and called it a night.

Only one day left now, you’ll be pleased to know.

 

[Coaster Hipster]

I mostly share your thoughts on Anaconda. Not the awful boneshaker I was warned about, but it is really uneventful and horribly paced. GCI did reworked the coaster during both 2013 and 2014 though.

Walygator had a rocky history from what I know. It had very ambitious goals at its 1989 opening, only to be met with disappointing attendance - like many of the parks that popped up at that time in France. Various changes of ownership (did you know Six Flags used to own this place as well?) and several rounds of investments did not buck the trend of below target attendances. Renovating Anaconda has also drained the park's finances in recent years.

Metz, the city nearby, has around 100,000 inhabitants. My feeling is that many people aren't that much into amusement parks (and the dated coasters bar Monster did not help either), and for the rest, well, Europa-Park isn't that far...

It was great reading your impressions on some of the French parks. Always nice to see familar places from a different perspective

 

[Hixee]

Metz, the city nearby, has around 100,000 inhabitants. My feeling is that many people aren't that much into amusement parks (and the dated coasters bar Monster did not help either), and for the rest, well, Europa-Park isn't that far...

Huh, I'd have taken a guess it was 5-6 times that size - it certainly felt like it driving though! Although it was mostly industrial estates, now I think about it! Probably doesn't help the attendance figures.

I didn't know about it's rocky history, but I can't say I'm surprised!

 

[Hixee]

Part 7 – Erlebnispark Tripsdrill

Okay, last day! Let’s get this finished.

The location of the hotel was amazing, literally right above the park. Here’s the view from the car park:

Vineyard in the foreground, Tripsdrill in the middleground, and a nuclear power plant in the background.

So the park’s website was a little misleading (or I was easily misled). It stated that it opened at 9am. In fact, the car park opened at 9am, ticket booths at about 9.30am, the gates at 10am and the major creds at 11am! I was at the park bright an early at 9am, only to have to figure this out as I went along!

Seeing as they only opened half of the park at 10am, I figured I go round ticking most of that off. I started with the shoot/tilt/drop tower. Good fun, and I have a bit of a love-hate thing with the SHOVING at the top. They really do put a smile on my face! Next I rode the carpet-slide-windmill-thing, which @Lofty got spited on a few days previously. I think he must have been doing it wrong.

Okay, on to the first cred, so I could get that done before the bigger creds opened. It’s a custom Tivoli with the usual wonderfully long trains. As far as these things go, this was actually a pretty nice one. I liked the low level corners and skimming over the lake.

It was about 10:45am now, so time to go round to the main creds – Karacho first, then Mammut and G'sengte Sau. Karacho looked pretty nice reflecting in the lake.

The queue was very short, and although they were only running one train (!), I only had to wait for a couple of trains. The ride op literally jumped on the restraint (he was airborne at one point) giving me some of the worst stapling I’ve ever felt. I gave him a disapproving look and a tut, which he seemed to almost laugh at, the prick. Anyway, on to the coaster. The indoor section was nice, and I do enjoy the rolling launches on these Gerstlauers. The layout is good, but unfortunately it’s got all of the weird shaping and pumping (for those that are familiar with NL terminology) that Gerstlauer have never seemed to master. Not a bad coaster by any means, but nothing close to a top 20 (or even 40).

While the queue was that short (I anticipated they would be running one train all day), I thought I’d do a couple of laps. Then I took some photos and then headed on to the next coaster.

I did really like some of the views of the coaster – especially this rather photogenic angle.

And I loved the top hat popping in to view.

Next up was Mammut, a Gerstlauer woodie. Maybe I’m harsh on Gerstaluer, but I was expecting a rough and uninspiring coaster. It was actually pretty exciting, and it was anything but rough! I think it must run some sort of softer rubber on the wheels, and the track has been looked after really well, because it really is impressively smooth. It’s not the most intense, but I quite liked the twists and turns and the tunnel is good fun.

Finally, for the last cred of the day, the first Gerstlauer coaster ever – G’Sengte Sau. I thought this was really fab. Some of the concrete sections of the towers could do with some aesthetic work, but for the most part the ride’s setting is lovely and the layout is good fun. I can see why it served Gerstlauer well as a starting place.

I do think it’s rather pretty, too.

From there I rode the log flume (boobies!), which wraps around the same castle theming. I wasn’t expecting it to be as extensive as it was, with a nice backwards drop and a good final drop. I’d hoped to be on the boat on my own (aiming for maximum aquaplaning and minimum wetness), but at the last moment a spiteful German family arrived and filled the boat! Didn’t get too wet though, so I wasn’t feeling too betrayed.

I did the rapids, the skyfly, a couple of the other random flat rides, and then came back to the coasters for a couple more laps before calling it a day.

Back in the station for Karacho and the spiteful bastard ride-op was still stapling people quite aggressively. As he went to leap on to my restraint, I sort of pushed him off and asked him not to press so hard. As I did, the woman next to me repeated some expression in German which I took to mean “I told you you were pressing it too hard”. At this point he somewhat sheepishly continued checking the restraints but without being quite so stupid about it. Yay for speaking out! I enjoyed my latter rides much more. They had also added a second train, so the queues were still not more than about 5-10 minutes each time.

I think at this point I’ll just dump the rest of the photos, not much else to say here.

I also really liked the test seat.

Something fishy going on here…

Peek-a-boo!

I grabbed a snack (a pretzel, I seem to recall) and made my way out of the park.

Karacho: Good layout, poorly executed, but with nice theming. I think this coaster could be really good if it wasn’t for the awkwardness that seems to come with all Gerstlauers. The shaping of their elements really does fall a class behind the Intamins, B&Ms, Macks of the world.

Mammut: It’s just so smooth. It’s weird, to be honest! A pretty average coaster – no real airtime to speak of, and no major laterals, but it was a good, fun, wooden coaster. Certainly miles better than I was expecting!

Erlebnispark Tripsdrill: Some people seem to rave about this park. Others not so much. I think I fall in the middle. I liked the setting, it was green, cosy, well kept, had a decent ride line up, and was pretty quirky in places (thinking in particular of the diorama/animatronic musical show things). It didn’t really win me over completely though. I think it suffered from not really having any coaster of any particular note. Sure, the bigger three are actually pretty well known, but I think in the case of the Bobsled and the Woodie that that’s not because of their ride experience. A good park, for sure, but they’d have to add something pretty major for me to go back.

That was the end of the trip. I headed back to Stuttgart Airport, dropped the car off, and waited for my flight home.

All in all I felt very content with the trip! Quality.