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Europa Park | 50th Anniversary Attraction | 2025
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The "normal" logo is already pretty bad as it doesn't include the hyphen but only the stars instead of it. With this new version, these stars aren't even remotely in place of the hyphen in the name. It's called Europa-Park for ****s sake.
VonRolland
Giga Poster
I was (un) fortunate enough to get a ride on it, and I'd say it is a disgrace for the park.
The overall queue-time (we started a few metres before the van that marks the real entrance) was about 75 minutes. Well, it is the new attraction, heavily promoted, just opened and might have some teething issues, so this might be forgiven.
What can't be forgiven is the pittyful state it opened in. But first the positives:
The ride system itself is an interesting take on the Toy-Story Mania style cars, combining the ability to turn the car with the circular layout results in you making 2 round trips within the building without even noticing. The theming in the indoor part of the queue is also nice.
Now, lets start with the rest.
1: The story. Why do I have to shoot things? Toy Story Mania has carnival games, Maus au Choclat has you get rid of mice by shooting them with chocolate. Here, you have to shoot stuff to get... energy for a race car? The stuff you shoot on has nothing to do with energy. We are talking of windows, snowmen, random drones, balloons... The only reference to the energy theme is one scene, where you have to move energy cells upwards to score points. Not only is this the most diffult part of the experience, but it also scores the fewest points, 50 for each succesful attempt. (Targets score either 50, 100 or 500 points) By the way, you only have time for maybe 5 attempts, which makes this scene practicly worthless for the overall score.
2: The points. As mentioned, you can score either 50, 100 or 500 points. 100 is most common, the 500 are often a bit hidden. This by design isn't a bad thing. So why do I complain? On my ride, we players scored between 750,000 and 1,000,000 points. So even if every target was worth 500 points, that would mean that I hit over 2000 targets on my run. Something smells fishy there... I feel like targets are worth 10 times the displayed amount.
3: Sound design. When shooting, the only feedback you get is your coloured shot flying onto the screen. No sound whatsover. Most scenes start with one spoken sentence, and have you shooting on targets whilst playing what I can only describe es elevator music. To make myself clear: There are no other sounds! Racing cars driving by? Silence. People cheering for the race? Silence. You hitting something? Silence. Huge snowballs coming down a slope? You guessed it, total silence.
4: The guns. Contrary to other rides of this style, the string moves very softly and gives no real feedback if you pulled it out enough. There is no clicking noise, you just pull the string and hope it registers. Some people had some issues getting out a shot. But even I, who played lots of Maus au Chocolat had real difficulties to get more then 3 shots per second (I usually send out a constant stream of projectiles on those rides). Yes, I am very popular with the ladies
5: The sets. The racing theme is simple and cheap to implement, so no complaints for "cheap" set pieces. But often times, the screen is just turned of until the scene starts. The first scene takes place in a shed, but the shed only appears once you stopped. Again... magic?
6: The issues. That is the biggest complaint I have. This is clearly not ready for opening. This is an internal pre-Alpha, that needs at least a couple of months to get ready for opening day.
Lets start with the very first scene: At saying "I am not yet ready" is a fun forshadowing of what to expect from the rest of the ride. The cutscene started 3 times, without ever concluding, causing for some great things like Edda in a racecar completely vanishing out of existing to drive back into the shed 2 seconds later. Maybe this is supposed to be a magic show?
There was a race-scene where you follow the cars through london whilst shooting targets. Sounds great? Well, this scene ran with, I kid you not, maybe 2fps. I've seen slideshows quicker than this. Obviously, there was no way to hit anything, because all of your targets were only visible for one frame so you had no chance to be even close to hitting something.
The final scene should probably show you the rankings. Well, the numbers at the base of the podium just go up and reset again and again. The Edda Animatronic is moving its mouth, but there is no sound. Well, no sound except for the beloved elevator tune that accompanies you through the ride itself.
And you might also want to check the bottom edges of the screen... I don't think it is supposed to look like that, does it?
I saw not a single person that looked happy leaving it. One of the park officials ran around the outside with his phone and didn't look very amused either. The only positive thing I saw was a forum post in a fan-group praising it for being a Disney quality ride-system.
So, what is my feedback? You might be suprised, but this is bad. Really bad. Hilariously bad. Seriously, when there are no people waiting in the outside part of the queue, you should wait less than 30 minutes for it - do it once. You will laugh a lot.
Keep in mind that multiple park officials had a ride on this, tested it and all of them had to agree that this is the level of quality that is acceptable for Europa-Park. What have they been smoking to come to that conclusion? I have no idea. Maybe they got the one ride, where everything worked?
This ride feels like it needs 2 months closed and just being finalised. It has potential for a fun, smaller attraction, but they have to get it up in working order first. In this state, the ride is easily the worst in the park. Shut it down, get it into working order, and you're good. But don't reopen it, until its done.
This is a PR nightmare. They officially opened it, and lots of bloggers already went to the park and gave it a try. And they're tearing it apart. Everyone watching such a video will not be encouraged, but deterred from going to the park for this.
Special shoutout to the early-mid 2000s graphics quality. This is played on the outside and meant to get you INTO the attraction. Gosh, the CGI at Movie Park Germanys Time Riders looks better, and that was done in 2005.
Edit: Found a video that shows the experience fairly well (German): https://youtu.be/wb1ijmcR1dc?si=PcOXexh6kpi3w6SZ&t=2230
The overall queue-time (we started a few metres before the van that marks the real entrance) was about 75 minutes. Well, it is the new attraction, heavily promoted, just opened and might have some teething issues, so this might be forgiven.
What can't be forgiven is the pittyful state it opened in. But first the positives:
The ride system itself is an interesting take on the Toy-Story Mania style cars, combining the ability to turn the car with the circular layout results in you making 2 round trips within the building without even noticing. The theming in the indoor part of the queue is also nice.
Now, lets start with the rest.
1: The story. Why do I have to shoot things? Toy Story Mania has carnival games, Maus au Choclat has you get rid of mice by shooting them with chocolate. Here, you have to shoot stuff to get... energy for a race car? The stuff you shoot on has nothing to do with energy. We are talking of windows, snowmen, random drones, balloons... The only reference to the energy theme is one scene, where you have to move energy cells upwards to score points. Not only is this the most diffult part of the experience, but it also scores the fewest points, 50 for each succesful attempt. (Targets score either 50, 100 or 500 points) By the way, you only have time for maybe 5 attempts, which makes this scene practicly worthless for the overall score.
2: The points. As mentioned, you can score either 50, 100 or 500 points. 100 is most common, the 500 are often a bit hidden. This by design isn't a bad thing. So why do I complain? On my ride, we players scored between 750,000 and 1,000,000 points. So even if every target was worth 500 points, that would mean that I hit over 2000 targets on my run. Something smells fishy there... I feel like targets are worth 10 times the displayed amount.
3: Sound design. When shooting, the only feedback you get is your coloured shot flying onto the screen. No sound whatsover. Most scenes start with one spoken sentence, and have you shooting on targets whilst playing what I can only describe es elevator music. To make myself clear: There are no other sounds! Racing cars driving by? Silence. People cheering for the race? Silence. You hitting something? Silence. Huge snowballs coming down a slope? You guessed it, total silence.
4: The guns. Contrary to other rides of this style, the string moves very softly and gives no real feedback if you pulled it out enough. There is no clicking noise, you just pull the string and hope it registers. Some people had some issues getting out a shot. But even I, who played lots of Maus au Chocolat had real difficulties to get more then 3 shots per second (I usually send out a constant stream of projectiles on those rides). Yes, I am very popular with the ladies
5: The sets. The racing theme is simple and cheap to implement, so no complaints for "cheap" set pieces. But often times, the screen is just turned of until the scene starts. The first scene takes place in a shed, but the shed only appears once you stopped. Again... magic?
6: The issues. That is the biggest complaint I have. This is clearly not ready for opening. This is an internal pre-Alpha, that needs at least a couple of months to get ready for opening day.
Lets start with the very first scene: At saying "I am not yet ready" is a fun forshadowing of what to expect from the rest of the ride. The cutscene started 3 times, without ever concluding, causing for some great things like Edda in a racecar completely vanishing out of existing to drive back into the shed 2 seconds later. Maybe this is supposed to be a magic show?
There was a race-scene where you follow the cars through london whilst shooting targets. Sounds great? Well, this scene ran with, I kid you not, maybe 2fps. I've seen slideshows quicker than this. Obviously, there was no way to hit anything, because all of your targets were only visible for one frame so you had no chance to be even close to hitting something.
The final scene should probably show you the rankings. Well, the numbers at the base of the podium just go up and reset again and again. The Edda Animatronic is moving its mouth, but there is no sound. Well, no sound except for the beloved elevator tune that accompanies you through the ride itself.
And you might also want to check the bottom edges of the screen... I don't think it is supposed to look like that, does it?
I saw not a single person that looked happy leaving it. One of the park officials ran around the outside with his phone and didn't look very amused either. The only positive thing I saw was a forum post in a fan-group praising it for being a Disney quality ride-system.
So, what is my feedback? You might be suprised, but this is bad. Really bad. Hilariously bad. Seriously, when there are no people waiting in the outside part of the queue, you should wait less than 30 minutes for it - do it once. You will laugh a lot.
Keep in mind that multiple park officials had a ride on this, tested it and all of them had to agree that this is the level of quality that is acceptable for Europa-Park. What have they been smoking to come to that conclusion? I have no idea. Maybe they got the one ride, where everything worked?
This ride feels like it needs 2 months closed and just being finalised. It has potential for a fun, smaller attraction, but they have to get it up in working order first. In this state, the ride is easily the worst in the park. Shut it down, get it into working order, and you're good. But don't reopen it, until its done.
This is a PR nightmare. They officially opened it, and lots of bloggers already went to the park and gave it a try. And they're tearing it apart. Everyone watching such a video will not be encouraged, but deterred from going to the park for this.
Special shoutout to the early-mid 2000s graphics quality. This is played on the outside and meant to get you INTO the attraction. Gosh, the CGI at Movie Park Germanys Time Riders looks better, and that was done in 2005.
Edit: Found a video that shows the experience fairly well (German): https://youtu.be/wb1ijmcR1dc?si=PcOXexh6kpi3w6SZ&t=2230
Last edited:
Kingda kas ghost
Roller Poster
I don’t really see why they did this tbh, other than to be the first as its a Mack. Even so, it’s pretty bad how they’ve rushed this together when it still has 2 months before Ghostly Manor opens. I expect that ride will be miles better than this, because I think Merlin can do a better job than this!
I wouldn't go that far thats an insult to europa park.
cookie
Giga Poster
I’m actually kinda shocked it’s apparently this bad. The teaser they had at the end of Voletarium was pretty fun, and Mack seemed serious about the IP, but this just feels slapped together—and that’s when it’s working. Europa hasn’t been against opening their new rides later in the season, so why this was rushed for opening day when it clearly wasn’t ready is beyond me.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
The comparison was to this ride specifically... Personally, I hate these screen based interactive rides at the best of times, even Maus has a better queue than ride system (the only reason to ride it imo.) So by my own measure, if this is worse than Maus, even Clacton Pier could do better.
I just rode the ghost train at West Midland's Safari Park today, I'd rather ride that again than one of these twice. Hell, I'd rather ride Monster House at EL than these things. (Even before it's recent improvements!)
Screens instead of props are just lazy, the rides lack character, and once you've done one once, they're boring as hell. I'll never change my mind on that. I have a gaming PC, PS5, Steam Deck, Switch, retro original consoles, and a retro emulation console at home, I think I'm pretty sorted for decent screen based interactive fun, that's not why I go to theme parks.
HOWEVER, what this ride system does offer is a way for small parks to have a dark ride, that the average family, who don't visit theme parks more than a few times year, will enjoy a lot, especially younger members. They're not aimed at me, and that's fine. For the parks that install these, if they get the theme and story right, most of their guests are going to love it, they'll enjoy the novelty, and it will be a welcome, fun, break from all of the kinetic based rides.
I don't like them though, in case I forgot to mention that.
Now I wasn't sure which meme fit this post best, so I'll let you decide.
Or
Paultons Park isn't a Merlin park?
Ethan
Strata Poster
I think they were just making a point that even an operator like Merlin, known for low-effort dark rides, could probably pull off something better than this.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
Exactly.
But everything around here has to turn into a Merlin bashing contest, given half a chance... Doesn't it? It seems to be the favourite pastime of most UK enthusiasts.
(To be fair, they're making it easier than ever right now, but that's not the point, it's always been a favourite pastime.)
Kingda kas ghost
Roller Poster
Yeah I know just interested to see the comparison between the two rides, and see if it’s aride sustem issue or a Europa issue.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
Easy, Paultons will be better, as they have a better base theme to start with, and don't seem to do anything half arsed.
Last edited:
emoo
Hyper Poster
Jumanji at Gardaland is actually good. Not a shooter but dark ride with screens and a few little tricks. Any company could do things differently but we become familiar with the norm and notice outliers one way or another.
These arcade rides are not for me at all and I heavily depend on some actual theming and a complete package to be interested.
These arcade rides are not for me at all and I heavily depend on some actual theming and a complete package to be interested.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
A good point, even these interactive ones would work a lot better when there's a good amount of physical theming and nice sets mixed in, rather than just flat walls with screens lined up.
Ratatouille also springs to mind.