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Europa Park | Voltron | Mack Rides Stryker Coaster | 2024

Poseidon drew groans re: roughness from the entire boat when I went on it. Perhaps the most ‘surprisingly unpleasant rough ride’ I’ve been on.

Good news about the retrack.
 
Along with the attraction removals previously mentioned - the satellite dish which decoratively stood beside Russia is being cut up and removed too for the new coaster. And the TV show venue beside it is also being relocated to make way.

Thomas Mack has also shared some insights to the Adventure Land/Dschungel Floßfahrt retheme/replacement (since as seen in the picture almost everything has just been demolished) and off season work happening across the park like retracking at Poseidon and Wodan.

The refurbishment of Eurosat's sphere is underway too; giving it an unique temporary pac-man look.
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Patrick Marx of Mack NeXT, known perhaps best from the NeXT Park Nerds videos in 2020, explained on EPFriends.de what exactly is being done.
the GRP and aluminum triangles are being restored, which means they are removed, the foil removed, several coats of paint applied, and reassembled. The first restored parts are already there and assembled, so the ball will never be completely "naked". Unfortunately... I would have been happy about an open-air ride

There are a total of 29 different forms (of triangle), the most common appearing 185 times, but there are some that only appear 5 times.
 
Really good to see that the paint is redone on Eurosat. When they finished with the rebuild to CanCan Coaster, you could already see that its roof had a different colour from the rest, but my main complain was the light coming in. Eurosat was always supposed to take place in the dark, except for the lights placed throughout the layout ofc. But with the wear over the years, you could start to see light shining through at most spots, which always took something from the experience for me.
I am looking forward to a dark Eurosat again, and still miss the old soundtrack, even though the coaster itself is much (much!) better now.
 
Thomas Mack has also shared some insights to the Adventure Land/Dschungel Floßfahrt retheme/replacement (since as seen in the picture almost everything has just been demolished) and off season work happening across the park like retracking at Poseidon and Wodan.
Wait, did they fill in the whole Adventureland lake or is it just that shallow? It looks like it goes barely up to that construction worker's knees.
 
She's coming down. Also in the background you can see how a number of surrounding trees have been cut down, the TraumzeitDome removed and the Ikarus ballon carousel is almost totally dismantled. All this is making way for the BigDipper and new Croatia themed area.
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Sources the Twitter accounts of Michael Mack and Thomas Mack.

Michael Mack also just live streamed this evening the removal the dish which is now down on the ground.
 
Still waiting on some concept art!

Glad the ugly dish is down as I had to try so hard to pretend it didn't exist on previous visits. Quite a small area though. I know we're not expecting the themed area to be much more than a line of buildings but it's gonna be tight to fit a coaster in there too!
 
I kinda like seeing EuroSat from the outside. If it was feasible for them to build the sphere out of some sort of two way glass material (where guests can see the coaster and all the lighting/effects from outside) then I think that would look fab, especially walking down the main street in France at night.
 
Can I ask a slightly off topic, and possibly dumb question?
What was the deal with the giant satellite dish, does anyone know? I reckon @CSLKennyNI might be my guy here. I never could quite fathom out whether it was a real dish with a real use, or whether it was just a gigantic theming prop.
If it was real, what was it used for? Was it there before Europa Park was a thing, and they just built the park around it? When did they stop using it?
And if it was just a gigantic theming prop, then... why? Seems a bit... odd, not to mention an awfully good way of spending a lot of money on something that doesn't do anything.
Weirdly, I will kinda miss it though. From my first visit back in 2006, I remember it just being this weird, Europa Park curiosity that I just didn't 'get', but still quite liked.
 
Can I ask a slightly off topic, and possibly dumb question?
What was the deal with the giant satellite dish, does anyone know? I reckon @CSLKennyNI might be my guy here. I never could quite fathom out whether it was a real dish with a real use, or whether it was just a gigantic theming prop.
If it was real, what was it used for? Was it there before Europa Park was a thing, and they just built the park around it? When did they stop using it?
And if it was just a gigantic theming prop, then... why? Seems a bit... odd, not to mention an awfully good way of spending a lot of money on something that doesn't do anything.
Weirdly, I will kinda miss it though. From my first visit back in 2006, I remember it just being this weird, Europa Park curiosity that I just didn't 'get', but still quite liked.
This popped into my head a few weeks back when it was first discussed and I did a bit of Googling to no avail. I'm absolutely sure I've read something years ago about it being a 60s era radio telescope that was used a larger array across that region of Europe and that it was decommissioned in the 80s or 90s. I might be making this up completely, but I'm sure I remember thinking it was interesting that Europa had left it up for so long.

Strange I couldn't find anything online about it though - makes me think I'm making it up. Unless I read it on a plaque in the park...
 
^Thanks man, that really is quite interesting. If true, seems even more of a shame that it's gone to be honest.

Edit* Second post even more interesting @Hixee . Fascinating stuff. I mean, Roland Mack moved it?? 😮
 
From what I remember, it went up somewhere around the time that Euro Mir/Russia was built? I don’t remember it being in the park before then, but always assumed it was some sort of collaboration with some kind of communications company, much like Blue Fire and Gazprom, and the old dinosaur ride used to have some sort of energy company spiel with it too.
 
I have a copy of that Roland Mack book at home, but yeah that dish was basically an opportunistic piece of space theming.
 
Up on Atlantica you can still spot multiple modern radio antenna dishes. I assume the operation there is still going but they moved it farther away from the park. Officially I assume these belong to the Telekom.
 
I kinda like seeing EuroSat from the outside. If it was feasible for them to build the sphere out of some sort of two way glass material (where guests can see the coaster and all the lighting/effects from outside) then I think that would look fab, especially walking down the main street in France at night.
Somewhat exactly my thought. Though in my imagination I added in some flexibility like with the glass that turns from transparent to milky when a current is applied. And I don't know how far technology is but it'd be really cool to have the option to run it visible and like an outdoor coaster if you wanted to. But that's just dreaming...
 
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