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Europa Park - Around Europe in a day

DelPiero

Strata Poster
I was lucky enough to go to Freiburg for work and my boss was kind enough to let me have the Friday off to visit Europa park. Originally it was a solo mission, but once my German colleague Patrick found out I was going, he cleared his meetings and arranged to pick me up from my hotel in Rust.
The day began with driving to the park (5mins) and parking up in a very quiet parking lot. Good omen.
Patrick then queued to buy his ticket and we entered at about 8:45.

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We waited for 15 mins before rushing straight to Matterhorn Blitz.

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This isn't a normal off the shelf mouse, first off, the theming is incredible, themed to a Swiss house, with a bedroom, cats, home owners etc. Due to being walk on I didn't have time to inspect it all but it really was great. The mouse cars aren't terribly comfortable but not metal and wood sticking up your arse.
The thing that makes this so unique is the lift mechanism, a absolutely fab elevator lift. Once at the top it turns right and goes down a decent drop though a headchopper. Standard mouse turns follow, with a curved drop and minor pop of airtime.

The lift makes the ride, and the first drop is really good for a mouse.

Next up on our mission was to get the two high queuing rides done, first was Blue Fire.

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The theming here isn't as good, as Gazprom sponsor it, but the golf ball type rooms with screens all around are pretty good, the queue was a minor 15 mins, so we steamed through these projections to the outside queue, which gives excellent views of the coaster layout.
The queue flew by, it barely felt like 10 mins by the time we were batched. Fortunately having a native German with me was to come in super handy as he managed to blag the back row for us(Generally assigned).
The restraints are fab, hardly felt them, honestly felt like there was nothing holding me in the seat, and we move into the pre show area, which is much better than the rest of the "theming".

Sirens blare, someone shouts some German, the doors open, smoke fills the doorway and whoosh!
The launch is nothing like a hydraulic, not very forceful but it gains speed all the way to the first hill/turn. I've decided to call this a sidehat, as essentially that's what it is.
Very surprised by the hangtime on the left side of the train through the sidehat, mainly due to the lack of speed through it, which is obviously intentional as the other elements work well with this lack of speed.
A decent drop through a cave headchopper into the loop, which lacks forces but gives great hangtime again. A bit of force is felt as the loop is exited before turning right through an overbank into the mcbr, which provided some entrance airtime.
Another drop through another cave follows into the twisted horseshoe roll, which again produced good hangtime and was very smooth, a high speed turn into the 2nd roll followed and then climbed up a twisted airtime hill. OMG! FLOATER! Forgot the last time I had some of that.
Still giddy from the floater it makes a left turn into one of the best elements I've ever experienced, the Mack heartline. It's so fab, super fab, fabtastic. The hangtime and feeling of being forced through is just perfect in every way.

My first ride was brilliant, but I'm sure the amazing heartline roll was clouding my senses, further rides were to follow, but first, other creds.

Wodan

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I'd heard this isn't all that, so went in with low expectations but it exceeded them.
Without a doubt this is the best themed coaster outside of Florida(in my experience so far). The area outside the queue line is themed to Iceland brilliantly, the station is excellent, the outside queue is fab with little Icelandic references throughout but the inside queue line is where the magic is. I don't want to ruin anything for people who haven't been yet so will say no more but I was really impressed.
The station interior is also themed brilliantly, with maidens on both sides which watch the train come and go. Just fab.

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Again, Patrick's German blagged back row, and we got into the super comfy Millennium Flyers after a 20 min queue.

A quick, like, provides lats quick, left turn begins the journey, with a lovely clunky lift hill to Wodan's max height of 130ft, where it makes a right turn at low speeds into the first drop, which is great. It's no hyper or el toro drop but it's super. Dives through a headchopper up to a minor hill and into a turnaround, the drop of the turnaround has a airtime bump which bumps you off the seat just before the main drop, it twists then does the station fly through. Grins were registered during this as it pops some more airtime up into swift turns and drops, constantly going over tiny airtime humps in the main track. Another turnaround follows with another good drop into another airtime hill and a dive under a bridge. It then twists and bounces through to the brakes.
It's relentless, it's fast, disorientating and a little rough. But that's what a woody should be like!

Patrick absolutely loved it, I really liked it, really liked it, but something didn't sit for me. Was hard to put my finger on it, but I think it's 2 things.
The first drop is good but not OMG good, the second thing is the little airtime humps, which were great, but the layout needs them, as it has very little natural airtime. They pop you up but usually just before a turn, meaning you slam into the side of the car.
I'm nitpicking, it is really good, but not fabtastic.

With 3 coasters done including 2 of the 3 big coasters done within an hour, yes, AN HOUR! We decided to take it slow... Like mother futcha we did! Creds need to be counted and the quicker they are done the more re rides we could have!

Next up was Atlantica Supersplash.

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Walk on, awesome. Hardly had time to register any theming, but there was a massive pirate ship outside the entrance, and we flew through to the Portuguese themed station in no time. It was nicely done but in all honestly we were in the boat faster than Darren's arse explodes following a curry.

This was a first for me, the only other water coaster I've been on is Journey to Atlantis, this is totally different, a long climb ends with the boat doing a 450 degree spin and then moving backwards along a minor drop to another spinny platform thing which turns it facing forward then goes over the drop.
The drop was meh, the airtime hill was meh, the splash was just right. Not soaking tidal wave, not nothing, a good medium. A slow meander through the water trench followed back to the station.

Being in the area Patrick was dying to go on some spin and spews he regularly frequents with his kids. The first was Feria swing.

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In essence it's just a spin and spew, but with a decent facade and pics of famous people in a hall of fame, like Michael Schumacher and others.
It was ok, quite fast and not spew inducing.... Luckily.
My coaster buddy for the day loves it so much he insisted on a re-ride while trying to chat up the op to make it run backwards, unfortunately there were kids on as well so no was the answer. But we went again.

Not to be deterred he said he would be back and we went on he other spin and spew literally next to it.

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Columbus Dinghy was worse than Feria, slow and kept alternating between forwards facing and backwards facing. Meh.
We had another re ride on Feria, again sans backwards and I drew the line.

Next cred. Alpen Express.

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Once again theming here is key. The ride is a version of the RMT at Alton, so it's not particularly quick, but this one has some decent helixes, which keep it interesting. The station is themed to, a station. With luggage racks and a ticket booth etc.
2 laps are provided, which in this case is a good thing. The train goes into a indoor portion which is magnificently lit with different coloured jewels, as well as little men digging. It's great, but is over too quickly as the train completes the indoor portion and goes back outside.

At this point we had done all the coasters at the at side of the park so went to the centre of the park and the erm, interesting, looking Euro Mir.

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We were hit with a nasty looking queue, but it moved quickly and was only around 20 mins.
Sorry to bang the drum, theming, theming, theming. It delivers here as well, based on a Russian space shuttle, no idea which one. There are pieces of shuttle outside, as well as spacemen and spaceish music.

The ride itself is pretty rubbish, although the lift system is reasonably interesting, with more theming before leaving the lift.
There are a few mouse turns which aren't interesting, while spinning slightly, then a ok drop, but it's rattly and has a few nasty jolts.
We were unlucky enough to go backwards on the 2nd part of the ride. It's painful, and I have no idea if we went left, right, or fell off the track, all I could focus on was my throbbing elbow.

Next up was Poseidon.

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Theming, have I mentioned it yet? Well this has bucketloads again. The station and slow water part before the lift are the best examples with ships and tridents galore.
It's a shame that once again the drapes don't match the carpet.
Good theming, poor coaster. Very jolty, and the drops aren't that good. Really is just a +1.

Poseidon selfie

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As we exited Poseidon there was the entrance to Fluch der Kassandra, a madhouse.

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Unfortunately this is the worst of the three that I've ridden. It's themed to a house, apparently Kassandra's house and the only time you see her is the upside down "floor" in the drum room, and even that is just some tiles made to look like a face.
There is literally no story, you walk in a room with some household things in, nothing happens, then the doors open and you sit down.
The actual drum part is ok, in fact, it had bum ticklers, they felt like ass beads under the seat rolling over my bum. It was weird, but something different, not too keen on repeating it again, and it doesn't make up for the lack of a pre show.

Right next door was Pegasus.

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Family coaster that looks like a horse and carriages, and you guessed it. Themed. Queue line once again is littered with theming.
I wasn't expecting much, but it delivered a better than average family coaster drop, smooth direction changes and fun helixes. Unfortunately it's over too quickly and the throughput is shocking so no re rides for this one.

It was nearly lunchtime. Yes, it was 12:00, 3 hours and all the above was done, crazy. As we were right next to Silver Star it would be rude to not see the current queue time.

15 mins! 15 mins for the 2nd tallest coaster in Europe? Sign me up.

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Of course I jumped at the chance, Patrick was hesitant, this is the only ride he doesn't want to go on, because he's a scaredy cat. Of course he came though.

15 mins later we were in the station about to ride back row(they let you choose your row on this one), climbed into the comfy seats and were set for the most anticipated coaster of the day.

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Slow but not cumbersome lift hill with wonderful views of the surrounding area and then a 220ft drop over the road, which was fab.
Then climbed the hill with back seat minor ejector on every hill (with 2 large ejector hills), a fast turnaround and then back again, once again providing interesting ejector.
The hyper finishes with a quick helix followed by a brilliant direction change and slams into the brakes.

At this point I loved it, but I loved it for the wrong reasons. I didn't think B&M hypers were supposed to give ejector, more floaty air, but this didn't. Oh well, everyone else must be wrong.

It was still a 15 min wait so we re rode, 2nd from back. It was a similar excellent ride with slightly less ejector.

12:30, lunch. Curried Bratwurst, chips and a coke. I didn't take any pics because it's not that interesting ATTACKHAMMER!

After lunch we did Schweizer Bobbahn.

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Walk on, whoop! The Coasterforce god has smiled upon is today. We took a car/sled each in the Italy train and started the bobsled run.

It was fun, but rough. I imagine they are all like this (first bob for me), but it was ok, we walked on again for a re ride and got the Swiss train.

Then was the final cred, Euro Sat.

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Patrick had been bigging this up all day, so I was expecting it to be rather mediocre. And was a 10 min wait.

Themed to, space and things, it's a strange coaster. I didn't get the theme, weird faces projected on suits and hanging planets that probably came from the German version of poundland. I wasn't impressed.
I was even less impressed when we started going up the circular lift and an awful smell met my nostrils. We thought it was a dead rat, but an op informed us that someone had super stink bombed the lift. Cheers ****.

Anyway, it reached the top, all systems go! And we went down the drop. 80% of the ride is black, you can barely make out the track, so imagine my surprise when the drop was actually quite good.
The drop was forceful, as was the first turn, direction change and minor hill. It was so quick the first 4 elements flew by in a matter of seconds. They were forceful but a bit rattly, I didn't mind it on this as it was so quick.

Lots of sweeping turns and dips and direction changes follow with a laser (like the new X @ Thorpe) overhead and a tunnel with light strips.
Then it hits the brakes with a bang, and a jolt, and a wail of pain.

We got a total of 3 rides in during the day and this was the only one I had to hold on to the restraints. I didn't trust it, and I knew it would kill me at the brakes. Decent ride though.

It was now 1:15 and all the creds were done. So we decided to mooch around in the Blue Fire/Wodan area. En route we re rode Euro Mir, not sure why, and watched the Europa Park Parade.

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Then we went in the rapids.

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These were fun, pretty wet and fast, we grouped with a few others and they got soaked, I laughed, then got caught plum in the face with an entire wave. They laughed, I looked the fool, good times were had by all.

We got a few more re rides on Blue Fire and Wodan, including taking advantage of the single rider queues. We spent about an hour and a half whoring both(well, I did, Patrick got blue fired out), and I formed solid opinions of both.

Blue Fire
It has everything to be a top coaster but is too slow. That's the reason it's great but not top 10 material. Launch, great but not forceful or fast enough. Sidehat, good idea, but the hangtime is only good in the back. Loop, not quick enough, there should be better forces. Twisted horseshoe, should be faster. Twisted airtime, perfect. Heartline, fabtastic.

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Everything except the final 2 elements could be improved. I hope Mack have just upped the speed slightly on helix.

Wodan
The drop could be better and the hops are good but annoying, but man this thing is relentless. It keeps great speed throughout and has enough headchoppers to make an executioner happy. The direction changes are swift and you are never bored.

On all the 5 runs on Wodan, I got off smiling, I was smiling all the way through and is easily one of the best woodies I've ridden.

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At this point we are starting to run out of time (4:45). So we head back towards Silver Star. On the way we did the dinosaur dark ride Universe de energie.

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Lots of animatronic dinosaurs have taken over this ride, a very family friendly one where you look at the dinos for 5 mins as the car traverses the track.
Very well done to create the swamps and the dinos and the smells and the air jets etc.
One little **** of a dino sprayed me with water. Bastard.

We had one more quick ride on Euro Sat before finishing the day on Silver Star.

This time we chose the 2nd row, for a better view. My world was turned upside down. Disappeared has the ejector (apart from the drop after each mcbr), but it has been replaced by wonderful floaty airtime on Every.... Single..... Hill.

This is what I'd heard about and it's fabtastic. I was so impressed that I bought the ORP.

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I just had enough time for one more ride, Patrick blouses out, he was done.
Re queued and decided to wait for the front row. Correct decision.

My best ride of the day was Silver Star front row on the 2nd to last train of the day. The view of the track, plus the full wind force, plus the drop and the wonderful wonderful floater that never wanted to end was the perfect way to finish my day trip. Brilliant coaster, absolutely fabtastic.

Europa Park is one of the best Theme Parks I've ever visited, even though there are only 3 really good coasters, the whole place is more than that.

Each area is brilliantly themed to the country, from the decorations, to the building styles, the food served, the music playing, and the staff uniforms. That doesn't even touch the attractions which are themed to the hilt and could easily be in a village in that country.
The staff are helpful and courteous and the ops are brilliant, at no point did I wait more than 30 mins for a ride (except front row Silver Star).
The food was good with plenty of choice, every big attraction is well signposted and there is so much more that I didn't experience.

Great park, up there with IOA and Hershey as best park I've visited.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I've been excited to see what you thought :)

Pretty much the same as me. Isn't Silver Star just fantastic in the front? Brilliant coaster and I just can't see why anybody could complain?

Blue Fire, I think it's the perfect family coaster. I don't think it's a superb coaster (but the hang time in those restraints is brilliant) - but it's the best family looping coaster ever. It's just so smooth and delicious for that kind of group.

Wodan I found "meh", but it wasn't awful - it just never really delivered much apart from speed. Apparently it's better now, but when we went it was almost, but not quite, bland.

And that's kind of my issue with the park. They're all great and some of the other rides are okay once too. Then there's not much else to the place. In a day, it's a great experience. Once you've exhausted the re-rides though it's just a day on the park. It's a nice place, but it seems kind of contradictory.

It's lovely and there's loads to do, but there are actually only a small handful of rides you'd want to go on more than once. I understand there's more to a park than the rides, but they do need to be a major factor. I'd love to take the family there though and we'd get considerably more from three days there than three days at DLRP. Apart from the whole "I've been to Disney thing".

Glad you enjoyed it, it's definitely a top destination for enthusiasts and Silver Star alone is worth the trip!
 

DelPiero

Strata Poster
furie said:
Pretty much the same as me. Isn't Silver Star just fantastic in the front? Brilliant coaster and I just can't see why anybody could complain?
It's basically perfect for what it is. I'm still deciding where it places in my top 10, it's there, but I prefer ejector to floaty airtime personally, but it delivers that airtime so perfectly that it's a top 10 ride for me.

furie said:
Blue Fire, I think it's the perfect family coaster. I don't think it's a superb coaster (but the hang time in those restraints is brilliant) - but it's the best family looping coaster ever. It's just so smooth and delicious for that kind of group.
Exactly, it's just what the park needs, with sub par rides dotted elsewhere, Wodan being relentless and Star being so intimidating, it fills the void. My issues with it aren't based on why it's created, it just could be better if it was created to be a world beater.

furie said:
Wodan I found "meh", but it wasn't awful - it just never really delivered much apart from speed. Apparently it's better now, but when we went it was almost, but not quite, bland.
You suck, go again, it's obviously a different ride now, might be that it was re profiled to add the humps as they really are weird. I don't know what it was like in 2012.

furie said:
It's lovely and there's loads to do, but there are actually only a small handful of rides you'd want to go on more than once. I understand there's more to a park than the rides, but they do need to be a major factor. I'd love to take the family there though and we'd get considerably more from three days there than three days at DLRP. Apart from the whole "I've been to Disney thing".
2 or 3 days with the family would be perfect, there is so much to do there and it's all enjoyable if not the best. Will make it a family trip again in the future.

furie said:
Glad you enjoyed it, it's definitely a top destination for enthusiasts and Silver Star alone is worth the trip!
Bolded and quoted for emphasis!
 

caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
I went with the ECC at the end of 2012 and:

Everyone loved wodan - We were all commenting that it must have improved over the season
Silver star was just fantastic - front, back, middle, early, late - I had no choice other than include it in my top 10!

I really wanted to try blue fire in the back, assigned seating sucks!
 

ATTACKHAMMER

Strata Poster
Great report with great pictures! Disappointed that there is no pictures of food but at least you said what you had :p
 

peep

CF Legend
Great trip report! I think a lot of people that say they don't like Silver Star rode it when they have the trims on which were turned off when I went (I loved it).
 

DelPiero

Strata Poster
caffeine_demon said:
Everyone loved wodan - We were all commenting that it must have improved over the season
Silver star was just fantastic - front, back, middle, early, late - I had no choice other than include it in my top 10!

I really wanted to try blue fire in the back, assigned seating sucks!
Wodan was brilliant, I couldn't understand why it was getting battered in reviews, glad to hear some reasoning behind it.
SS is really a front row/2nd row ride imo. The other rows are great but not brilliant.
The back row ride of BF was the best of the 4 runs I had, partly to do with the forces, but also it was my first one. Whatever seat, the final 2 elements are perfect in every way though, and honestly, that's why I kept re riding.
peep said:
Great trip report! I think a lot of people that say they don't like Silver Star rode it when they have the trims on which were turned off when I went (I loved it).
It was definitely trimmed but not in a bad way, I only felt 2 deceleration's, and still got wonderful floaty airtime. In the back part of the train it was more noticeable.
 

ThomVD

Giga Poster
I loved Silver Star too, gave me wonderful airtime. I had low expectations because of everybody saying it had no airtime whatsoever, but I even preferred the ride over Goliath in WH overall.
 

andrus

Giga Poster
Nice to see that you had a good time! I love Europa Park too, it's just such a brilliant park! :)

DelPiero said:
Then was the final cred, Euro Sat.

Patrick had been bigging this up all day, so I was expecting it to be rather mediocre. And was a 10 min wait.

Themed to, space and things, it's a strange coaster. I didn't get the theme, weird faces projected on suits and hanging planets that probably came from the German version of poundland. I wasn't impressed.
I was even less impressed when we started going up the circular lift and an awful smell met my nostrils. We thought it was a dead rat, but an op informed us that someone had super stink bombed the lift. Cheers ****.

Anyway, it reached the top, all systems go! And we went down the drop. 80% of the ride is black, you can barely make out the track, so imagine my surprise when the drop was actually quite good.
The drop was forceful, as was the first turn, direction change and minor hill. It was so quick the first 4 elements flew by in a matter of seconds. They were forceful but a bit rattly, I didn't mind it on this as it was so quick.

Lots of sweeping turns and dips and direction changes follow with a laser (like the new X @ Thorpe) overhead and a tunnel with light strips.
Then it hits the brakes with a bang, and a jolt, and a wail of pain.

We got a total of 3 rides in during the day and this was the only one I had to hold on to the restraints. I didn't trust it, and I knew it would kill me at the brakes. Decent ride though.
This was actually my favourite ride at the park! It's fast, it's relentless, it has a good soundtrack and funky effects :--D Super fun ride imo!

DelPiero said:
After lunch we did Schweizer Bobbahn.

Walk on, whoop! The Coasterforce god has smiled upon is today. We took a car/sled each in the Italy train and started the bobsled run.

It was fun, but rough. I imagine they are all like this (first bob for me), but it was ok, we walked on again for a re ride and got the Swiss train.
Yes, they're all rough. But this one is particularly bad; it's slow and has a very short layout. The one in Heide Park is much better! I would also recommend Avalanche at Kings Dominion which is crazy fast and even has a moment of airtime (or at least almost) which is sort of crazy on a ride type like this :p

DelPiero said:
furie said:
Pretty much the same as me. Isn't Silver Star just fantastic in the front? Brilliant coaster and I just can't see why anybody could complain?
It's basically perfect for what it is. I'm still deciding where it places in my top 10, it's there, but I prefer ejector to floaty airtime personally, but it delivers that airtime so perfectly that it's a top 10 ride for me.
I went in 2010 and was very dissapointed with Silver Star. It was slow and it lacked airtime. Even though I had only ridden about 50 coasters at that time it barely made my top 10. Only plus points where the height and the final s-bend, which is amazing! (should be included in every B&M hyper coaster imo!)

I guess it rides more like Nitro now then? Because the description you're making (DelPiero) with front seat rides with powerful sustained floater on every hill is exactly what I got on Nitro :--D Such an amazing ride!!
 

DelPiero

Strata Poster
andrus said:
This was actually my favourite ride at the park! It's fast, it's relentless, it has a good soundtrack and funky effects :--D Super fun ride imo!
It was fun, from drop to brakes was great, but I had better rides that day.

andrus said:
Yes, they're all rough. But this one is particularly bad; it's slow and has a very short layout. The one in Heide Park is much better! I would also recommend Avalanche at Kings Dominion which is crazy fast and even has a moment of airtime (or at least almost) which is sort of crazy on a ride type like this :p
Good to hear that about Heide, will be there in just over a week so can compare them :)

andrus said:
I went in 2010 and was very dissapointed with Silver Star. It was slow and it lacked airtime. Even though I had only ridden about 50 coasters at that time it barely made my top 10. Only plus points where the height and the final s-bend, which is amazing! (should be included in every B&M hyper coaster imo!)

I guess it rides more like Nitro now then? Because the description you're making (DelPiero) with front seat rides with powerful sustained floater on every hill is exactly what I got on Nitro :--D Such an amazing ride!!

I would highly suggest going back, we did it at both Lunch and just as the park was closing, the latter rides were at the front of the train and they were much better. It didn't feel exceptionally fast, but was a decent speed but there wasn't one hill/drop which didn't provide airtime. And yes, that S Bend is fab, I love direction changes like those at speed :)

I haven't had the pleasure of riding Nitro, but from the POV it looks like it would provide the same kind of ride, but with a tasty looking helix added in.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
andrus said:
Yes, they're all rough. But this one is particularly bad; it's slow and has a very short layout. The one in Heide Park is much better! I would also recommend Avalanche at Kings Dominion which is crazy fast and even has a moment of airtime (or at least almost) which is sort of crazy on a ride type like this :p

Wow. I thought Avalanche at KD was one of the most dull and pointless rides I've been on ever. It made me appreciate what everyone says about Avalanche at Blackpool.

It was just really boring. I've only been on three or that type and was expecting a lot having really enjoyed PBB's. KD's was a poor effort, but the one at Europa Park showed just how boring these rides could be - it was awful.

I'm desperate to go on a decent one...
 

gavin

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
^ Trace du Hourra at Asterix is the best one in my opinion. Then:

BPP
Heide
Kings Dominion
Europa
 

andrus

Giga Poster
furie said:
andrus said:
Yes, they're all rough. But this one is particularly bad; it's slow and has a very short layout. The one in Heide Park is much better! I would also recommend Avalanche at Kings Dominion which is crazy fast and even has a moment of airtime (or at least almost) which is sort of crazy on a ride type like this :p

Wow. I thought Avalanche at KD was one of the most dull and pointless rides I've been on ever. It made me appreciate what everyone says about Avalanche at Blackpool.

It was just really boring. I've only been on three or that type and was expecting a lot having really enjoyed PBB's. KD's was a poor effort, but the one at Europa Park showed just how boring these rides could be - it was awful.

I'm desperate to go on a decent one...
I've only been on three as well: Heide, Europa and KD. The one at Heide Park was my first and I really loved it! Great solid family ride with good length and nice theming as well. I was very disappointed with the one at Europa Park though; short and dull. While the on at KD is rather short too it keeps up the speed and has this weird moment of airtime that I described above! Don't know if anyone else have felt it? But I was riding it in the same seat as my partner, and we both looked at each other and was like WTF was that?! :p

It could just be that I'm a bobsleigh fanboy though, I really enjoy this ride type. It gives a unique ride experience not found on many other coasters (I can imagine this is why so many are raving about Flying Turns)!
 
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