Die Live - Germany June 2012 - Trip Reports

[davidm]

double-post... do I care?

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Day 4 : Tuesday : Europa Park II

OK so I promised more photos.

The second day was a nice weather-wise (not that the day before was awful or
anything) and the park was noticably busier. We all said that had the Monday
been as busy as the Tuesday we'd have been struggling to get enerything done in the
first day - so probably 2 days is the ideal time here.

The day was about re-rides then, picking up the stuff that we'd overlooked the
day before and just having a nice time. Think that that was all accomplished.

Anyway, photo-dump time (all these are dumped off the camera and haven't been
processed, processed ones will turn up over time!)

Some stuff outside the park;

Entrance;

I wanted to go on the observation tower, so we did;

Rather lame bobsled;

I do like their golf ball thing though

Exitting the obs tower;

Said tower;

Jolly olde England bit of the park

We hit Bluefire with the intention of everyone doing the front row

Failed to take pics in the rock in the Q line

This ones good though, behind the scenes of the RCRS!

Anyway the Q for Bluefire has lots of photo ops

2 trains, cool!

We had the same "everyone do the front row" idea on Wodan too

But that involved rather a long Q, this time through the entire line

Which goes in and out of the bottom of the ride

Did get to see more themeing though

Him again

Splash battle sits in front of the woody, ruining the view somewhat

I made everyone do the "Carousel of Park History"

Which if we could speak German might have been interesting, had lots of pretty
lights at one stage though

Random wanderings

In Silver Star's Q - I don't seem to have taken any pics of the ride itself though,
muppet.

German Stig

Jolly Engerland again

Hanging around the diving

Towards the end of the day, another Bluefire ride and Gavin said his goodbyes

Whilst most rerode Bluefire, I took some pics of it instead (theres a pathway
around the back of the ride that gets you into the ride footprint itself - nice)

Whoosh

Took some pics of the big splashy thing

and some long exposures inside the mine walkthough

Ian just LOVES these head-in-hole things

Thats it then - all over now. Gavin had headed off to Strasburg, others off to
various airports. I drove up to Metz (Walygator was closed the next day, but Metz
was halfway back to Paris for me - but thats another TR somewhere....)




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Couple of processed pics (unprocessed ones are above somewhere) just to show
the difference when I put some time into these things. I'd expect there will be
some MORE of these over time!

 

[Martyn B]

I've been enjoying reading these reports.

David, are you going to PTR's for your pre/post live trips?

 

[davidm]

^ yeah when I get some spare time!

 

[MouseAT]

I like this game – wait for everyone else to write the in-depth trip reports, then I can just add comment.

So, Europa Park. I’m not sure what else there is to say that hasn’t already been said. It’s a huge and very attractive park, although many areas are quite tightly packed, making the park a bit difficult to navigate at times. The standard of the themeing is excellent for the most part, and puts UK parks to shame. Ride quality is mixed, as many of the roller coasters are essentially prototypes.

If you’re visiting for the first time then I’d recommend spending two days at the park. We got lucky on the first day, as the park was quiet, so were able to get all major rides done in one day, but the second day was a lot busier - on a busy day, you’d struggle to get everything done. Even if the park is quiet, you’d probably benefit from a second day, just to take the pressure off. That said, if I was to go back to the park, I doubt I’d bother spending more than a day there – like I said, there’s a lot of rides and attractions at the park, but not many of them are good enough to warrant re-rides.

For the most part, I really must praise the park for the efficiency of operations (troll woman on Wodan aside). The throughput on most of the park’s coasters is absolutely immense. Part of that is probably down to German health and safety law (ride hosts don’t have to walk down the trains checking each restraint by hand), but even so they’ve given a lot of thought to how they can get the most out of pretty much every ride on the park.

Anyway, on to the rides themselves:

Alpenexpress is a typical Mack powered mine train coaster. It seemed a bit faster to me than most powered coasters, but maybe that’s just me. It’s got a pretty cool indoor section that’s shared with the log flume and a walkthrough, and has a pretty decent layout. It’s probably the best example of the ride type I’ve experienced, but being a basic powered family coaster it’s never going to be up to much.

Atlantica Supersplash is essentially a rideable prototype. It’s not all that wet, not all that great and doesn’t really do much. Lift hill, turntable, backwards dip, turntable, drop, splashdown. Nothing wrong with it, just nothing stand out either.

Blue Fire was simultaneously great fun and a bit of a let down. I’d heard people rave about how great it was, and was hoping for a bit more intensity. However, once I got past the initial disappointment of it not quite living up to expectations, I’ve got nothing but praise for the ride type.

The trains are great, the restraints are incredibly comfortable (and would probably be perfect on Skyrush). The throughput is immense (the ride can run up to 5 trains simultaneously on a busy day). It’s the perfect “extreme family coaster” – it’s got height, speed and inversions without being too extreme for the youngsters, plus it’s got a relatively low height restriction. It’s also incredibly smooth, much more so than similar Intamin coasters. There’s some lovely moments of floater airtime, especially at the top of the loop and through the first two rolls. The final inversion just flips the train over and dangles you upside down by the lap bar, yet manages to remain comfortable. It’s a good length too. I really hope we see more of these rides over the next few years. Blue Fire may not be top ten worthy, but it’s a good solid ride that can definitely hold its own with the B&M and Intamin multi-loopers of the world.

Euro Mir is rough, bland and forgettable. It’s their “spinner” that only rotates the cars in a controlled manner in a couple of very specific places on the track. Nice idea, uncomfortable implementation. I really hope the new Mack spinners are a lot better.

Eurosat has been described by me as “a rave inside a giant golf ball”. On the down side, it’s pretty rough. However that’s forgivable as it’s actually a really fun coaster. After ascending the spiral lift hill in almost complete darkness, the track twists and turns through the inside of the “golf ball”, illuminated by lasers and with a trance music sound track. It’s certainly unique, and proved to be an unexpected highlight.

Matterhorn Blitz is a Mack wild mouse with an elevator lift. I’m not a big fan of the wild mouse ride type, but I must admit that the Mack versions are generally the best as they tend not to be as painful. This one is surprisingly tall, has a unique (if not particularly inspired) layout, and the elevator lift at the start is just plain awesome. If you’ve not been on it before, I’m not going to spoil the surprise, but it certainly caught me a bit off guard.

Pegasus is a kids coaster, basically Mack’s equivalent of a Vekoma roller skater but a whole lot smoother. It does what it sets out to do pretty well, and I’d quite like to see more parks install these. If a park is looking at installing a roller skater, they’d be much better off with one of these instead.

Poseidon is a reasonable ride. As a proper water coaster, it’s got more to it than Atlantica Supersplash, but inevitably the coaster section is compromised by having to accommodate the splashdowns. It’s a bit rough in places, the first half is pretty good, but the second half is typical “lift hill, turn, drop into water”. It’s pretty good, but by it’s nature not the sort of thing you’d be in a rush to re-ride, especially if the park is busy.

Schweizer Bobbahn is dire. It’s a shame to see that Mack’s flagship park has one of the worst examples of the bobsled coaster. Stick with Blackpool (or even better, Heide Park) if you want to ride a good example of this ride type. Europa’s version never really gets going, and never seems to pick up enough speed to do anything worthwhile. Bland, boring and besides whose idea was it to connect that restraint to a flexible car in that way?

Silver Star was fantastic. I’ve seen the ride get a lot of negative reaction in the past. Maybe in the past it was justified. However, I loved it – it was my favorite ride in the park by a significant margin, and goes straight into my top 10. To quote my comments from another thread:

The new magnetic trims are unnoticeable. I never rode it with the old trims, so I don't know how they compared.

I've been on other B&M hypers before and wasn't that impressed, but had some amazing rides on Silver Star after learning how to ride it. The trick is to leave a bit of a gap between you and the restraint, and then hold the restraint open a bit throughout the ride. If you do that, you really do float on the hills. There's a whole load of airtime to be found on every hill as long as you know how to get the best out of the ride. If you get stapled or ride with your arms up, you'll probably come off disappointed.

I was never that impressed by Nitro or Apollo’s Chariot (although that probably had more to do with me riding with the restraint all the way down and my arms in the air). Up until this trip, if a UK park said they were installing a B&M hyper, my response would have been “damn it, why not an Intamin?”. Having experienced Silver Star at its best, that’s changed – I’d be quite excited to see one of these appear pretty much anywhere, and I’m quite looking forward to riding Shambhala when I eventually get around to visiting PA.

Finally, Wodan: Timbur Coaster. The biggest disappointment of the trip. GCI blandness at it’s most bland I’m afraid. I’m sure there are great GCIs out there, as rides like Troy seem to be consistently praised. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to ride a really good one. All of the GCIs I’ve ridden to date seem to have fallen short of their potential. They all seem to get up a load of speed, then waste it on twists, turns and gimmicks (such as banked station fly-throughs and tunnels) rather than doing something worthwhile.

Wodan is definitely a better ride in the front, but it’s still very much a case of being “slightly less bland”, and never comes close to being “good”. On top of that, seating is assigned, and if you’ve got an inflexible, unpleasant troll on batching who insists that you’re going to sit near the back of the train for the second time despite the fact that none of the front rows are occupied yet, it’s really not good. On the one hand, if the front row queue is short, it’s probably worth waiting for the front row to experience the ride at its best, on the other hand it doesn’t make enough of a difference to justify waiting more than five minutes extra to guarantee a ride at the front. Meh, got the credit, no need to re-ride any more. That said, the themeing in the queue is really good – probably better than the ride itself to be honest.

Anyway, photographs: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 2820ac1797

 

[furie]

Has to be said, Blue Fire is one of the most photogenic coasters out there, it looks fantastic (though Lord Morton taking the photos helps ).

I hadn't realised you'd enjoyed Silver Star quite so much Mouse :lol:

 

[Pierre]

furie I meant to comment this a while back as I watched it a while ago, can I just say that video was fantastic.

Don't know if it was intentional but you did a very good job of showing the 'banter' and camaraderie of the trip for people who weren't there!

Looks like a great trip, extremely jealous.

 

[furie]

furie I meant to comment this a while back as I watched it a while ago, can I just say that video was fantastic.

Don't know if it was intentional but you did a very good job of showing the 'banter' and camaraderie of the trip for people who weren't there!

Looks like a great trip, extremely jealous.

Cheers Pierre. It was intentional, which is why I leap on the videos right away when everything is fresh. You've still got the memories there and it's easy to pick out the bits that capture what was going on. It doesn't always happen, but when you have what is essentially a "new group" it's great as you bond and you want to grab that

 

[furie]

For those who missed it on FarceBook, I uploaded the unedited footage I took of us doing the "Fun House" at Tripsdrill.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP-4VNPgSf0[/youtube]

 

[Ian]

I loved that park, such a silly day out.

 

[furie]

Agreed, for what it lacked in "OMGROLLERMACOASTER" it made up for in ridiculous silliness. I've got loads of footage like the swing bridge I can post too - including the argument on it :lol:

 

[Darren B]

^Are you talking about the muscle glad German Dad? after we'd nearly shook his kids off the bridge?

 

[furie]

^Are you talking about the muscle glad German Dad? after we'd nearly shook his kids off the bridge?

Yep

Though it being in German, he was probably telling you how much fun his kid was having and what a jape it all was and how good friends you could all be. It just came across as him being angry