Day 5 – Schwaben Park
Some light context – our flight was early evening this day, which meant we had to do the car hire drop off and airport faff after the park. We’ve done this so many times in the past, but even still we’re always a little bit anxious all day – that’s why we leave the smaller places to the last day. Coupled with the unknown additional faff related to Covid at the airport, we planned on cred-running the park and getting out of there. As you’ll see, we needn’t have worried (but there
was plenty of Covid faff at Stuttgart).
So, Schwaben Park.
We drove from our hotel down increasingly more rural roads to the park. Eventually spotted the creds on the horizon, and pulled down a farmyard driveway to the park entrance. Car park was basically empty, so we parked up and headed in.
The ‘big’ coasters (relative to the size of the park) are all located adjacent to the car park.
We made our way up towards the coasters (there seemed to be a handful of staff pottering round the area, so figured this was a good start) only to be confronted by a group of staff using a tractor to pull the Force One train from a valley onto the brakes. Put it this way – this wasn’t their first time.
There was a rehearsed technique being employed here – I think this probably happens relatively often.
The bother with that seemed to have attracted all the staff from the other two coasters, so little use in milling about. Heard the distinctive noise of a cred though, so strolled down the hill towards the kiddie cred. +1, I suppose.
Goofy looking trains.
Slightly further down the hill was the Bob Kart. Hopes up – Blitz Bahn at Toverland is fantastic – and it was going well during the downhill stretch, but once you hit the uphill back straight all joy was lost. One could argue it was ‘cos I’m too heavy, but Blitz Bahn zooms around with ease. Should have asked to see if they could wind the power up, I guess…
So close yet so far.
Back up the hill now to see all three of the other creds running. Good-o. First one we got to was Force One, so on we go. Coaster wasn’t actually awful, but felt like it could have done a lot more with it’s size. It was, in places, tantalisingly close to being fun.
A few decent corners scattered around the layout.
First drop.
Socially distanced rows.
These two wanted to do lap-after-lap, so they’d opted for the middle seats so they didn’t have to get off when other people showed up for the front or back row.
Onto the slightly more unique stuff.
An odd creation.
Best ride was had by heavily unbalancing the car.
Always got to make sure I adjust my perspective accordingly, but it was hard to find a perspective where this was little more than ‘alright’. Chronically slow lift hill, to the point of hilarity, and the rest of the ride wasn’t much faster. Drops were close to being fun, but the trim grabbed and we were slowed down again. The soundtrack in the queue is also infuriating!
Hummel Brummel next door – quote my comments on this previously:
So we rode this on Tuesday.
It's actually quite fab.
Pokemaniac isn't far off with his assessment - it's clearly a family coaster (Schwaben is clearly a family park), but for what it is it's quite fun. It has good speed pick-up and once at top speed the corners are tight enough to induce some decent swinging of the seats. The ride-ops were leaving sensible gaps between cars so you wouldn't really catch up with the car in front, although we did try a test and the system automatically cuts your speed with a reasonable gap to the car in front.
EDIT - Would also add the supports are quite cool. Clever use of one support column for several different sections of track all passing in different places and at different heights.
The colours aren't great, mind. Oh, and it lacks a station of any real description yet - although it looks to me like they might install something later, it currently has a lot of temporary wooden fencing and rope to make paths, etc.
Overall - actually quite fun. Probably the best thing at the park, to be honest.
Probably the best ride in the park though…
The clock had chimed about 10:30, and we had all the creds. Not sure we’d need to worry about flight anxiety, then.
We wanted another hour or so before calling it a day, so we pottered around the park grabbing a coffee with probably the most over the top reaction to seeing a credit card I’ve ever seen. The poor lady looked like I was trying to pay with a live snake – she basically screamed and rushed backwards away from me (seriously,
@Ben can corroborate this!). The card worked fine though – no idea what that was all about!
Could smell a faint smell of burning electronics outside one of the buildings, so naturally ventured inside. Ended up seated in a little boat and headed off on an oval track around a warehouse. In the centre, a musical fire and water fountain show. Very strange, but slightly charming. No signage outside, but a big fancy logo on the park map. Curious.
Water.
Water AND fire.
Bit of a pain to photograph, but we were smiling for sure.
Okay, a couple more laps on Hummel Brummel and we’ll be ready to go I think.
Given this ride is quite new, they’ve done a good job of keeping a lot of the vegetation around. Often these things are bit rubbish until the trees have had chance to grow back.
Example of them using the same support for multiple different bits of track. Clever really, and probably only possible as the weights/forces are fairly tame.
On a sunny day this might have been a marketing material worthy image.
Food options looked average, at best, so we did a bit of digging and found somewhere nearer the airport we could eat a big lunch before flying home. Perfect. Thanks for having us Schwaben, but we don’t need much more time I’m afraid.
Overall perception of the park is okay. It’s clearly, clearly, not meant for people like us. I should imagine on a nice day this would keep a young family enterainted for long enough. My only genuine criticism (which is funny ‘cos I suppose there’s little they can do about it) was the manure smell present across the whole park. Unfortunatlely probably just an artefact of time of day/year, wind direction and location, but was very potent in places.
Shot from the car park on the way out.
One of the less eventful hills on Force One.
Finally, the covid wrap up for completeness’ sake.
Schwaben Park
Mask policy - In queues, indoors and on rides (not required for children, but not exactly sure how that is defined).
Social distancing - Reasonable enough effort in queues, shops, restaurants and general areas of the park. Vacant rows on coaster trains. Park was Dead (with a capital-D) though, so not really sure how it'd hold up on a busier day.
Sanitiser - Only a few of these around the park, but then park is small and they were in the common areas in between rides.
Overall - Given this is a tiny park in the arse-end-of-nowhere with only about two dozen people in the park on the day we were there - this was fine.
We ended up having a brilliant meal just outside the airport (very near the hotel of the first night, actually), before dropping the hire car off. Now, will have a little vent here at Eurowings – not really got any better place to do it I suppose.
We booked with Eurowings a new months back, and like many budget airlines it’s online check-in only (for free). Easy enough these days. Got notified during the check-in process online (48-hours before the flight or something like that) that whilst we’d been successfully checked-in online, we still needed to visit a desk/counter at the airport to get boarding passes because of ‘coronavirus’. I suppose this is because they’re going to a bunch of other Covid checks or something. Nope.
At Heathrow the situation was silly on the way out – you’re already checked-in online like every other flight you’d ever take, but now you have to go and use one of the touch screens to get your boarding pass. No extra questions, process or anything. We stood in a queue, used a high-contact surface and spent longer in the building that we would have under the ‘normal’ system.
At Stuttgart the situation was even more laughable, with every Eurowings customer that evening having to join one long queue to visit a desk and have our passport scanned and boarding pass handed to us. Very peculiar indeed.
Furthermore (!), on getting on the plane we (along with probably two dozen others in the end) were told out hand luggage needed to be checked as there wasn’t enough space. On a flight only two-thirds full? Not sure about that. No point arguing though, just grab the valuables and get on with it. Sure enough, plenty of free overhead bins. Eurowings were very un-German in their efficiency here.
Mercifully they came out of the baggage carousel at Heathrow nice and promptly, and after the drive back home we ended up shaving over an hour off the journey from STR to home. Good stuff.
Short summary next.
