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Europa Park is the best theme park.

MackMan

Mega Poster
Europa Park is a park that I always have completely adored, this is pretty evident reading some of my posts. Before last week my last visit was 2019. This somewhat left a question in my mind that maybe this was just nostalgia? It is very easy to remember the best of a park instead of its gaping flaws, especially when you visit sparingly. I booked this trip with Voltron in mind, I had to ride their new premier coaster. Well, i jumped the gun here guys. When the opening date was announced, I was pretty annoyed. Luckily i have booked a very short trip in May to get the cred. Anyway I want to express in this report WHY Europa Park wipes the floor with Portaventura, Energylandia, Cedar Point, and Phantasialand IMO. The golden ticket awards are usually regarded as complete nonsense half the time, but I agree with the heavy amount of awards this park receives.

CROWD MANAGEMENT:
Theme parks can be painful with high crowds. 180 minutes queues, a queue of 100 ultra mega fastrack buyers while the standby queue waits 40 minutes to move. A park like Portaventura just completely demonstrates the intense pain that large crowds bring. A park like PA just love to dispatch their trains every 4 minutes during a 2 hour queue to force you into their fastpass system. In PA if it is busy it is practically impossible to enjoy yourself. The fastpass system is incredibly unbalanced and practically ruins the experience for anyone who has not purchased fastpass themselves. Phantasialand and Cedar Point are a lot less extreme, but they still have their problems with crowd management, and both use a fastrack system. Throughputs are a good example. Steel Vengeance is the most popular ride at CP, but has a pretty mediocre throughput. Europa Park is a breath of fresh air with the crowds, i went on a "busy day" and the queues maxed at 40 minutes. No fastrack BS, no low throughput BS, no dispatching trains once every decade. Despite having a huge queue of people, rides like Euro Mir have queues that feel like they are moving too fast at times. You look at your phone for 20 seconds, and the person in front is 10 feet away. The ride was maybe dispatching one train every like 20-30 seconds, I have seen this so many times, but it never ceases to amaze me. The Mack family know how annoying queueing is, how annoying it is when park tries to squeeze your wallet to skip those dreaded queues. So, they don't. They also build rides that are practical, throughput conscious. rides that eat the very huge crowds they are trying to attract and receive.

Europa Park also has a layout that makes Crowds seem smaller to me. Maybe it is the sheer scale of the park with the winding long pathways, but the park despite being very busy seemed quiet in places. I didn't worry about the crowds after entering as it seems the layout spreads the crowds finely. I walked onto a lot of the dark rides due to the sheer amount of them, or the good throughput Mack decides to give to them (except the small scale ones). I queue about 20 minutes each for Cancan, Blue Fire, Wodan, Silver Star, the biggest queue was Arthur at 30 minutes. This is Europa on the busier end, and the park is still incredibly enjoyable. The extended hours on busy days just makes this even more of a consumer friendly move.

OPERATIONS:
This ties in with the above, but the operations at Europa are just the best. I doubt i will see a park better at this. Watching Cancan, Silver Star, Swiss Bob Run, Euro-Mir, basically every ride there just makes me wonder why we cannot have this in the UK. I didn't even know Swiss Bob Run runs this many trains. I also did not see a SINGLE breakdown during my TWO full days in this park. What, the, f**k. Name a park where things dispatch at 25 second intervals, nothing breaks down, and throughputs can be 1500+ on a regular basis.

FOOD:
Europa Park managed to impress me with their food of all things. I remember liking the food last time but this time really validated that opinion further. I ate at the Pizza Restaurant nearby Picollo Mondo in Italy, and it was really good. My partner is a coeliac and it can become hard at parks. After asking, they took 5 minutes and served up a really good quality GF Pizza. Amongst the best we have seen like ever, they also had two gluten free cakes which is also pretty rare sadly to find. We came back for the second day as we were beyond happy with the food here. Food is not bad at CP or Phantasialand from my experience, but it wasn't this good. Portaventura might as well just serve prison food.

THEMING:
Now, parks like Phantasialand and PA both have amazing theming equally. Europa Park though i feel really competes here, but i would say it is arguably prettier than Phantasialand. I think the Swiss/French/Italy areas really standout as exceptional. I think the park's extensive pathways help this. The Swiss area has quite a lot of pathways at the back that do not really go anywhere. You could just sit there by the little river with a drink and chill. Same for the french area with the fountains. The German area has similar seats by the river which are generally quite peaceful. Europa Park sometimes has areas that don't even feel like a bloody theme park. This is what cuts it apart from PA and Phantasia IMO. It is so big, you can literally lose yourself in the Swiss Area for a hour having a drink if you want. Sometimes slowing down for the scenery feels just as fun as lapping Blue Fire. Theming is also quite extensive- this shines best on Poseidon and Arthur potentially the best. Pirates in Batavia could be the best showcase.



DARK RIDES:
Europa Park probably has one of the highest collection of Dark Rides outside of Disney/Universal, but just tier list them:

S: Pirates, Voletarium, Arthur
A: (Dinosaur Acid trip, Snorri Touren)
B: Atlantis Adventure, Picollo Mondo, Cassandra's Curse
F: Bench

Blue Fire, Whales Tours, Josefina's, Fjord Rafting, and others all have dark ride moments too!

I personally adore rides, and i think Europa Park basically gives you a buffet of them.

RIDES/OVERALL
Europa Park lacks an elite coaster, which will change very shortly most likely. Europa Park has a modest collection of coasters, not perfect, but i would say they have a very solid top 5 coasters. The park is a family park, so it is not B&M stacked with 400 foot monsters. Europa Park however has a really great balance of attractions IMO. Even the most standard of attractions (Dodgems, Rapids) have a fun angle to them. Fjord is the best rapids, Arena of Football is the best Bumper Cars. I feel Europa Park is a park you should take your time to do these usually boring and standard attractions. Whale Tours is a great example- i usually find this model dull, so the random dark ride ending just feels so elaborate and needlessly nice.

Europa Park is truly more than a Theme park- it is somewhere you can relax, somewhere where you can enjoy the food, it breaks all the stress of the usual theme park flaws. It is true immersion IMO, and no park brings more enjoyment more than EP for me.

For people who have not visited, I would recommend staying in Rust if you cannot afford the onsite hotel (like us). Rust is a small, cutesy walkable German town. It has tons of lovely places to eat and sleep, and is a nice place to be in general. Rulantica is something i did not get time for, but will add to my next visit. I would say Europa Park itself is 2-3 day park for me, maybe 1 if you just speedrun the creds. For getting here with public transport, Basel and Baden Baden are two good options. Basel though is a little tricky, but not bad with flixbus. I visited Basel for a few days after, and i think honestly i would maybe stick to a day trip. Lovely city but roaringly expenisve, i will go the Baden-Baden route next time, i believe the trains are cheaper. The trains from Basel came up as incredibly expensive hence using Flixbus. Flixbus was comfy, but always late. I might add on a Voltron review to this thread in May, as i have planned a redemption trip to get on Voltron.
 
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Yeh but the others don't have cleaning staff who go into your cabin when you check out at 4am, smoke cigarettes, and then let the management aggressively call you, accusing you of smoking in your room whilst you're doing 100 on the autobahn!!! And when you didn't even smoke at the time too!!!

They may have called again a few hours later to apologise and explain what happened, but I'm still salty about that. They should never have called me making accusations unless they were absolutely sure that they knew the facts!

Time to get over it now, and stop being petty, I've finally decided to give the place another chance and return for Voltron opening, and honestly, I'm super excited, I really did enjoy the place until this left a sour taste in my mouth on the way home.

(P.s, sorry for the really personal and random rant on your thread, I just felt the need to explain, finally, why I have never been so complimentary of Europa Park. That's going to change in 2 weeks, I can feel it!)
 
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Yeh but the others don't have cleaning staff who go into your cabin when you check out at 4am, smoke cigarettes, and then let the management aggressively call you, accusing you of smoking in your room whilst you're doing 100 on the autobahn!!! And when you didn't even smoke at the time too!!!

They may have called again a few hours later to apologise and explain what happened, but I'm still salty about that. They should never have called me making accusations unless they were absolutely sure that they knew the facts!

Time to get over it now, and stop being petty, I've finally decided to give the place another chance and return for Voltron opening, and honestly, I'm super excited, I really did enjoy the place until this left a sour taste in my mouth on the way home.

(P.s, sorry for the really personal and random rant on your thread, I just felt the need to explain, finally, why I have never been so complimentary of Europa Park. That's going to change in 2 weeks, I can feel it!)
Wow. I hope your next visit is a lot better than that, jesus. To be fair i have never experienced their accommodation, I feel like the surrounding town of Rust is totally lovely to stay in. Most "hotels" are little cute guesthaus's that cost like 1/5 of EP's hotels. Yeah I guess it takes one nasty experience. My last visit to Portaventura had that (i am not quite over the 1 train Shambhala OP's with a 2 hour queue.)

But yeah i hope they offered a return ticket or something for that, pretty extreme to accuse and then swiftly drop it. Maybe just save money and stay in Rust in the future, its literally 5 minute walk from most hotels and better value.
 
Europa Park I have always said isn't perfect but my god its's as close as any theme park will ever get but at the same time they have said this in the past welcoming feedback something Merlin Parks refuse to accept that they have flaws

Throughputs and operations are always on point and in my 22 visits to the park only experienced 2 very small closures caused by fire alarms so not even the ride breaking & reopened within 10 mins
Just a masterclass in how to run a park
 
Wow. I hope your next visit is a lot better than that, jesus. To be fair i have never experienced their accommodation, I feel like the surrounding town of Rust is totally lovely to stay in. Most "hotels" are little cute guesthaus's that cost like 1/5 of EP's hotels. Yeah I guess it takes one nasty experience. My last visit to Portaventura had that (i am not quite over the 1 train Shambhala OP's with a 2 hour queue.)

But yeah i hope they offered a return ticket or something for that, pretty extreme to accuse and then swiftly drop it. Maybe just save money and stay in Rust in the future, its literally 5 minute walk from most hotels and better value.
Yeh the trip as a whole was fantastic, (one of the few I did actual trip reports for!) but this was definitely a bit deflating. They discovered we weren't even on site when the smoking occured, they came to the conclusion it must have been a cleaner who found our room vacant earlier than usual, and sheltered from the rain whilst smoking.

We're staying at the Moxy Rust from Weds 24th, to Sunday 28th for Voltron's opening :) Super excited to put it all behind me and go and appreciate what is honestly one of the best theme parks out there. (I'm hoping Voltron can elevate the park's coaster lineup to be more in line with the quality of the park in general, because the actual coaster lineup was Europa's weakest point imo. Several good, solid, coasters, but nothing elite, exactly as you said.

Europa Park I have always said isn't perfect but my god its's as close as any theme park will ever get but at the same time they have said this in the past welcoming feedback something Merlin Parks refuse to accept that they have flaws

Throughputs and operations are always on point and in my 22 visits to the park only experienced 2 very small closures caused by fire alarms so not even the ride breaking & reopened within 10 mins
Just a masterclass in how to run a park
I'm saying nothing... The jokes write themselves... 🙈😂😂😂
 
So this trip was a redemption trip for me. I visited Europa Park all the way from the UK last month just to miss the opening of Voltron.

Honestly I’ve already summed up Europa Park on this thread, but god is the place heaven. We went on a pretty awful day, on the crowd calendar it said 99%. This is about as crowded as Europa can get. I took my close friend, and I tried to get as much as done with her as I could in one day on one of the busiest days of the year!

Before I give a crazy Croatia/Voltron review, here is some observations from the park yesterday.

Euro Mir: My friend didn’t hate it, but she was kinda just confused by it. Why is the lift hill 6 minutes long? Great finale, but janky and not worth it. On the upside, this thing’s 50 minute queue time was 15 in reality. Euro-Mir is a people eater, and that long looking queue never stops moving. They dispatch a train every 20 seconds without fail which is insane.

I have heard the rumours of its demise, and I think a redo would be good. Maybe that Russian area being redone into the Croatian section would be good. I’m not sure a retrack would even be adequate, but change is needed. Bench next door is just as bad.



Blue Fire/Wodan: Kinda the same as last time, both amazing rides. I had a second row ride on Wodan that was surprisingly smoother than last time.

Silver Star: Same opinion. Mediocre first half, elite second half. This would be an elite ride if the first few elements had a bit more of a bite to them. The ending elements absolutely stun as usual. Throughput also is stupid. How are they dispatching 36 people trains ever 40 seconds? 70 minute queue was 20, the queue was horrendously long but it felt more like a walk than a queue.

I didn’t have time for Poseidon, Alantica, Swiss Bob Run, or Matterhorn sadly. But hopefully will get through to riding them. Cancan was great the first time, second time the audio wasn’t working and yeah it’s meh without it. Still a brilliant ride, maybe a fluke?

VOLTRON:

*This may have information you want to avoid.

First off, what an awful first queue experience. The overflow queue line is just terrible. It’s a massive cattle pen with Croatian flags.. Europa, we know you do better work than this Hun. I know this is probably temporary but it feels so out of place and weird, maybe it would be better if the queue wasn’t the other side of the Croatian section? The queue cuts in front of a pathway, which staff have to actively maintain like a crossing. I know space is kinda tight in this area of the park, but I know Europa maybe got this a little wrong.

The main queue itself is great, I love the spinning water features, the view of the ride. I also live the little show in the main queue building. What a cool little detail, the little sparks of electricity too. Europa were having fun with the main show buildings it seems, and it’s clear to see! The theming is really good here, and I love the slightly electric steampunk vibe they capture here. It’s different, and though I have not been to rookburgh, hopefully it’s separated itself enough.

The ride itself was unexpected. I didn’t know about the pre first launch element. I really like the little detail and thought it was a fun way to start the experience. I think the shaking also really fits the rides theme and is quite clever. A small detail yes, but cool. The first launch is quite quick and very quickly you feel that first inversion. It’s incredible, you get amazing hang time on this, and what a way to start the ride properly. I really enjoy the sensation of this, and is something that more rides can do? It’s weird but I love the wackiness of this layout.

The kind of inverted drop after is also really cool, all about giving some nice laterals and is really whippy. The ride has a very fun airtime hop after, followed by back to back Immelmanns.

These elements have been kinda been roasted by some people when the layout was announced, but I personally thought they were pretty fun. I find Immelmann’s generally quite meh, but these felt really snappy and kind of whippy. Some laterals and floater airtime actually come out of these! Maybe the B&M’s drawn out stuff has made me underestimate the element as a whole. After this you get a little boost and are thrown into a Zero G Stall, and god this is good. It’s not Zadra or Goliath, but it is a really good Zero G Stall. I really like the length of it, and the slight snap you get out of it. It helps that right after is a VERY strong ejector hill. This was not expected and threw me forward violently. A couple of turns follow and you gracefully go into a dive loop and brake.

People (me included) were a little hesitant about the turntable pause. I think it was to do with the pacing, which luckily I can say it doesn’t mess with the pacing IMO. Think of The Smiler, if it was nonstop it would be too much. If Voltron had no pause. It would be way too much! The backwards launch and spike is surprisingly whippy for my expectations, I feel like I was expecting a more drawn out backwards launch.

The ride then accelerates to a small top hat which it whips over. Another great ejector moment. The ride then throws you over another amazing ejector hill, a floater filled outward banking hill. A double up of airtime into a MCBR, the ride then twists around and works it way through two corkscrews before one last slam of ejector as you dive into the breaks. Phew.

Voltron is long, airtime packed, and has a lot going on. It is a complete ride. Some have mentioned roughness to which I honestly didn’t even feel a rattle, but maybe that was more of an opening week problem. The reliability certainly is a problem though, with the ride going down a few times a day which is rare for coasters at EP. The ride certainly is complex but I hope they are able to iron out any of the reliability problems.

I rode only twice, but I feel like I got a decent idea of the ride. The morning was brilliant, the evening ride was something else. We entered the queue just before park close, so we rode at dusk time. For me it solidified as one of my favourite roller coasters, top 3 at least, maybe my favourite. I don’t wanna overhype, but the evening ride I had was aggressive as hell. Some of the airtime moments felt stronger than most of the RMC’s, it was brutal (in a good way). Voltron is the best coaster at Europa and my favourite ride in Europe for sure. Steel Vengeance is the only ride I would say fights it, but I probably will put Voltron at #1 after some thinking/reriding. But yeah, Voltron is worth it. I queued two hours for my first ride, and don’t regret it!
 
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So this trip was a redemption trip for me. I visited Europa Park all the way from the UK last month just to miss the opening of Voltron.

Honestly I’ve already summed up Europa Park on this thread, but god is the place heaven. We went on a pretty awful day, on the crowd calendar it said 99%. This is about as crowded as Europa can get. I took my close friend, and I tried to get as much as done with her as I could in one day on one of the busiest days of the year!

Before I give a crazy Croatia/Voltron review, here is some observations from the park yesterday.

Euro Mir: My friend didn’t hate it, but she was kinda just confused by it. Why is the lift hill 6 minutes long? Great finale, but janky and not worth it. On the upside, this thing’s 50 minute queue time was 15 in reality. Euro-Mir is a people eater, and that long looking queue never stops moving. They dispatch a train every 20 seconds without fail which is insane.

I have heard the rumours of its demise, and I think a redo would be good. Maybe that Russian area being redone into the Croatian section would be good. I’m not sure a retrack would even be adequate, but change is needed. Bench next door is just as bad.



Blue Fire/Wodan: Kinda the same as last time, both amazing rides. I had a second row ride on Wodan that was surprisingly smoother than last time.

Silver Star: Same opinion. Mediocre first half, elite second half. This would be an elite ride if the first few elements had a bit more of a bite to them. The ending elements absolutely stun as usual. Throughput also is stupid. How are they dispatching 36 people trains ever 40 seconds? 70 minute queue was 20, the queue was horrendously long but it felt more like a walk than a queue.

I didn’t have time for Poseidon, Alantica, Swiss Bob Run, or Matterhorn sadly. But hopefully will get through to riding them. Cancan was great the first time, second time the audio wasn’t working and yeah it’s meh without it. Still a brilliant ride, maybe a fluke?

VOLTRON:

*This may have information you want to avoid.

First off, what an awful first queue experience. The overflow queue line is just terrible. It’s a massive cattle pen with Croatian flags.. Europa, we know you do better work than this Hun. I know this is probably temporary but it feels so out of place and weird, maybe it would be better if the queue wasn’t the other side of the Croatian section? The queue cuts in front of a pathway, which staff have to actively maintain like a crossing. I know space is kinda tight in this area of the park, but I know Europa maybe got this a little wrong.

The main queue itself is great, I love the spinning water features, the view of the ride. I also live the little show in the main queue building. What a cool little detail, the little sparks of electricity too. Europa were having fun with the main show buildings it seems, and it’s clear to see! The theming is really good here, and I love the slightly electric steampunk vibe they capture here. It’s different, and though I have not been to rookburgh, hopefully it’s separated itself enough.

The ride itself was unexpected. I didn’t know about the pre first launch element. I really like the little detail and thought it was a fun way to start the experience. I think the shaking also really fits the rides theme and is quite clever. A small detail yes, but cool. The first launch is quite quick and very quickly you feel that first inversion. It’s incredible, you get amazing hang time on this, and what a way to start the ride properly. I really enjoy the sensation of this, and is something that more rides can do? It’s weird but I love the wackiness of this layout.

The kind of inverted drop after is also really cool, all about giving some nice laterals and is really whippy. The ride has a very fun airtime hop after, followed by back to back Immelmanns.

These elements have been kinda been roasted by some people when the layout was announced, but I personally thought they were pretty fun. I find Immelmann’s generally quite meh, but these felt really snappy and kind of whippy. Some laterals and floater airtime actually come out of these! Maybe the B&M’s drawn out stuff has made me underestimate the element as a whole. After this you get a little boost and are thrown into a Zero G Stall, and god this is good. It’s not Zadra or Goliath, but it is a really good Zero G Stall. I really like the length of it, and the slight snap you get out of it. It helps that right after is a VERY strong ejector hill. This was not expected and threw me forward violently. A couple of turns follow and you gracefully go into a dive loop and brake.

People (me included) were a little hesitant about the turntable pause. I think it was to do with the pacing, which luckily I can say it doesn’t mess with the pacing IMO. Think of The Smiler, if it was nonstop it would be too much. If Voltron had no pause. It would be way too much! The backwards launch and spike is surprisingly whippy for my expectations, I feel like I was expecting a more drawn out backwards launch.

The ride then accelerates to a small top hat which it whips over. Another great ejector moment. The ride then throws you over another amazing ejector hill, a floater filled outward banking hill. A double up of airtime into a MCBR, the ride then twists around and works it way through two corkscrews before one last slam of ejector as you dive into the breaks. Phew.

Voltron is long, airtime packed, and has a lot going on. It is a complete ride. Some have mentioned roughness to which I honestly didn’t even feel a rattle, but maybe that was more of an opening week problem. The reliability certainly is a problem though, with the ride going down a few times a day which is rare for coasters at EP. The ride certainly is complex but I hope they are able to iron out any of the reliability problems.

I rode only twice, but I feel like I got a decent idea of the ride. The morning was brilliant, the evening ride was something else. We entered the queue just before park close, so we rode at dusk time. For me it solidified as one of my favourite roller coasters, top 3 at least, maybe my favourite. I don’t wanna overhype, but the evening ride I had was aggressive as hell. Some of the airtime moments felt stronger than most of the RMC’s, it was brutal (in a good way). Voltron is the best coaster at Europa and my favourite ride in Europe for sure. Steel Vengeance is the only ride I would say fights it, but I probably will put Voltron at #1 after some thinking/reriding. But yeah, Voltron is worth it. I queued two hours for my first ride, and don’t regret it!
I was saving this for my trip report, but I've just had no time at all to sit down and write it at length... I will close the report out, somehow, but it won't be as detailed as I'd wanted, so I'll give it away now...

My trip was a 'redemption' trip too... I've had to edit my signature...

Screenshot 2024-05-11 130916.jpg

I have a new favourite theme park. I still don't think it's the best park in Europe for thrilling coasters, even with Voltron. Nor do I think that their theming is on a level with Phantasialand, Disney or Universal. BUT it's definitely the best park. It's just all around incredible. They may not be 'the best' at each individual subject (thrills, theming etc) but almost everything they do is definitely 'world class.'

It's guest experience that really puts others to shame though. When a 3 hour queue feels less depressing than a 1 hour queue back home, you know they're doing something right. When they keep queues open 10 minutes past even the extended close times, just to be nice, you know they value their guest's experience. When they not only allow us goony nerds to wait, just inside the queue entrance of their brand new coaster, for those last rides, but then actually count the first 16 people to start waiting, to ensure they get the last train, that's just going way above and beyond.

The park's beautiful, well kept, operated well, the staff are friendly, helpful and want to be there, the food, accomodation and of course attractions are all world class. Above all else, they have Arthur!!!! Yep, I've picked up my toys, put my dummy back in my mouth, and I'm ready to admit I was wrong. It really is the best park in the world! (From those I've visited.)
 
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I was saving this for my trip report, but I've just had no time at all to sit down and write it at length... I will close the report out, somehow, but it won't be as detailed as I'd wanted, so I'll give it away now...

My trip was a 'redemption' trip too... I've had to edit my signature...

View attachment 31447

I have a new favourite theme park. I still don't think it's the best park in Europe for thrilling coasters, even with Voltron. Nor do I think that their theming is on a level with Phantasialand, Disney or Universal. BUT it's definitely the best park. It's just all around incredible. They may not be 'the best' at each individual subject (thrills, theming etc) but almost everything they do is definitely 'world class.'

It's guest experience that really puts others to shame though. When a 3 hour queue feels less depressing than a 1 hour queue back home, you know they're doing something right. When they keep queues open 10 minutes past even the extended close times, just to be nice, you know they value their guest's experience. When they not only allow us goony nerds to wait, just inside the queue entrance of their brand new coaster, for those last rides, but then actually count the first 16 people to start waiting, to ensure they get the last train, that's just going way above and beyond.

The park's beautiful, well kept, operated well, the staff are friendly, helpful and want to be there, the food, accomodation and of course attractions are all world class. Above all else, they have Arthur!!!! Yep, I've picked up my toys, put my dummy back in my mouth, and I'm ready to admit I was wrong. It really is the best park in the world! (From those I've visited.)
I’m glad you had a better experience this time, I do think the park on the whole is usually a good time. But yeah I would have to agree on the “all rounder” comment. Though I think operations is a category they ARE the best at. God is it satisfying to see a B&M Hyper probably hitting 1700+ riders a hour with ease.

The staff also are good as you mentioned, they seem to batch groups frantically as the trains get sent so frequently. The Voltron crew were particularly jolly.

Not sure if you saw it, but they were cheering throughout the day and in the last half hour, high fiving everyone and asking if they had a good ride. When we had a slight delay they even came and started a Mexican wave to entertain us. You can’t make this up 🤣 I’m not sure how they are so enthusiastic, but it’s certainly a really good look for EP.

But yeah i think it’s such an amazing thing that a park cares so much about it’s guests. EP don’t let Amarak rip off it’s customers, neither does it make them pay 15€ a day to enjoy themselves with genie plus, neither does it run one train on its B&M Hyper to force you into their fast pass system. I visited on a 99% capacity day and still managed to have a great time via single rider, their FREE virtual system queue, and naturally queue eating monsters like EuroMir and Silver Star. Both I went in expecting a hour, and got 15-25 minutes. Absolutely full queues with huge extensions.. How?
 
I’m glad you had a better experience this time, I do think the park on the whole is usually a good time. But yeah I would have to agree on the “all rounder” comment. Though I think operations is a category they ARE the best at. God is it satisfying to see a B&M Hyper probably hitting 1700+ riders a hour with ease.

The staff also are good as you mentioned, they seem to batch groups frantically as the trains get sent so frequently. The Voltron crew were particularly jolly.

Not sure if you saw it, but they were cheering throughout the day and in the last half hour, high fiving everyone and asking if they had a good ride. When we had a slight delay they even came and started a Mexican wave to entertain us. You can’t make this up 🤣 I’m not sure how they are so enthusiastic, but it’s certainly a really good look for EP.

But yeah i think it’s such an amazing thing that a park cares so much about it’s guests. EP don’t let Amarak rip off it’s customers, neither does it make them pay 15€ a day to enjoy themselves with genie plus, neither does it run one train on its B&M Hyper to force you into their fast pass system. I visited on a 99% capacity day and still managed to have a great time via single rider, their FREE virtual system queue, and naturally queue eating monsters like EuroMir and Silver Star. Both I went in expecting a hour, and got 15-25 minutes. Absolutely full queues with huge extensions.. How?
Oh they absolutely have the best operations. I perhaps didn’t word that too well. When I said ‘they may not be the best at EACH individual subject,’ what I meant was ‘they may not be the best at ‘EVERY’ individual category.’

As well as being the best at operations, I’m almost tempted to label their food the best in terms of quality. I didn’t really like much of the food in the states, found it way too salty and sugary for my palette, even at Disney, it’s like they use sugar and salt as a substitute for real flavours like herbs and spices. I’ve always considered Phantasialand to be the best for food. But as you’d see in my trip report, the quality has gone down hill. As well as Uhwerk disappointing, we also had our favourite Jambalaya, but this time it was bland, hardly any cajun seasoning, and was very dry.

All of the food we had at Europa Park was fantastic, even the cheaper self service restaurant between Italy and France was of a decent standard, and tasted nice. The breakfast pastries in France were divine!!! Some of the best I’ve had anywhere, never mind in theme parks.

Yes, the staff on Voltron were incredible. But they were good elsewhere too, so it wasn’t just a ‘new ride’ effect. On the Thursday before Voltron opened the staff on Silver Star allowed us (and others) in to the queue 10 minutes after the advertised, extended, closing time. It was also nice to See Michael Mack in the Voltron Station for the last 30 minutes of every single evening (of our three) greeting and talking to guests as they disembarked. You got the sense that he was rightfully proud of the ride and park, and wanted to see guest’s reactions and find out what they thought.

What was really telling was that on opening day, those Voltron Staff had been told they may not be closing until 9:30pm. At closing time that day Michael, or somebody from management who turned up with him at the end of the day, bought slabs of beer onto the station platform for all of the staff!!! It doesn’t take much to make your staff feel appreciated… But when you do, you absolutely get the best out of people.

A lot of British companies could do with learning from them, before investing in more rides, infrastructure, etc. Investing in your staff, and creating an environment where they feel appreciated, enjoy working and actually want to be there, can impact guest experience way more than a new coaster can! I worked at Towers, under Tussauds, and felt this was their ethos back then. I loved going to work, wanted to be there, and wanted to make guests happy. Unfortunately I’ve seen multiple people go to work for Merlin, with this attitude at the beginning, but they end up being demoralised and lose all motivation. It was weird for me to see the first time, after all I loved working at towers, would jump at extra shifts, and was always happy at work. I looked forward to going in each morning! To see somebody nowadays go from being very enthusiastic about working at towers, to not wanting to be at work, was strange. I must admit, I thought it was a ‘them’ problem at first. But I’ve seen it now with multiple people I know who’ve worked there in the last 5 or 6 years, of all ages, so it’s definitely changed a lot since Tussauds.

Anyway, bit of a tangent there, sorry.
 
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