nadroJ
CF Legend
Europa Park 6/7 October 2012
I knew for my birthday this year that I wanted to spend a couple of days at a European park I hadn't been to before, and after finding that flights to Baden-Baden were only £15 each way per person, I promptly booked a couple of tickets for Sam and I to visit the park on the weekend after my birthday. After weeks and weeks of planning and arranging (especially with regards to finding a bloody way from the airport to the park!) everything was finally booked and at 3am on Saturday morning we got out of bed and got on our way to the airport to
begin our adventure!
I was really surprised at how quickly the plan journey went, it ended up being just under an hour, so quick! After looking everywhere I possibly could on the Internet I decided the best way to get to the park from Baden-Baden would be a private shuttle service. It was fairly expensive, €27 each way per person for the privilege, but I'm glad we chose to do it that way. Our driver met us at the gate, we got straight in the back of a cab, where we found lots of leaflets and guide books (in German of course) for the park and within an hour (about 50 minutes I made it, but I did fall asleep so can't be sure) we glimpsed the skyline of Europa Park, dominated by the awesome Silver Star!
The shuttle pulled up outside the impressive Hotel Colosseo, which we stepped inside for a second so Sam could freshen himself up. I busied myself by taking pictures of the lobby and gooning out over the awesome model in the centre.
We took the tunnel that Benin mentioned in his trip report which lead to a side entrance to the park, but because we hadn't exchanged our voucher for proper tickets yet we couldn't use this entrance, instead we had to walk for 15 minutes all the way around the outside of the park to the front, burdenous! I was, however, quite glad they made us use the main entrance because it is rather impressive. It is very clearly Disney inspired (as we would find with much of this park) but it had its own European charm to it. Exchanging our vouchers was incredibly easy (I always get quite nervous about printing vouchers off of the Internet) and we headed straight in, dumped our bags in some lockers for €2 each and ventured into the park!
The entrance and main street was all done up for Halloween, pumpkins were everywhere along with hay bales, corn wrapped around posts, themed bunting strewn about the place and scare actors dotted about (toned down until later). The atmosphere was incredibly warming and exciting and really got us in the mood for the weekend! The entrance is placed a little awkwardly I felt, it is right to the far left of the park, so you come in and turn right to access the rest of of the park. We didn't really have a place and just sort of meandered towards the direction of EuroSat which was dressed up as a giant pumpkin! As we approached it was clear the ride had no queue, woo! But in fact, it was just broken down, boo! Instead, we bypassed the coaster for now and joined the back of what a sign informed us would be a 40 minute queue for Silver Star. Considering all the hotels were fully booked and the car park looked heaving, I had resigned myself to the fact that we would probably we queueing a lot this weekend. Oh well, what are you going to do?
So my excitement was building more and more as we entered the building for Silver Star. The queue constantly pushed forwards, which was a nice surprise. The queue line is surrounded with F1 memorabilia and in-jokes and stuff that I didn't get/care about because I hate F1. I was not impressed to find they found it necessary to blare out the NNNNYYYEEEEEOOOWWWW race car noise as we made our way around the queue <//3. Within about 25-30 minutes we found ourselves sat in the back row of Silver Star, where I got told off for pushing myself forward to try and leave a gap between myself and the restraint, and the silly station music was making us laugh: 'da da da Silver Star!' XD. As we ascended the lift hill I was pleasantly surprised to feel myself getting a little anxious, something few coasters have me doing nowadays! The coaster itself was so much fun! Amazing bum-off-of-the-seat airtime all the way down the first drop, the following hills and drops providing further sustained moments of airtime, with some of the best moments found on the smaller hills after the MCBR, the slow down in speed seemed to increase the airtime as you whoosh off again over the smaller, twister bunny hops. It's not the kind of coaster where you have to catch your breath as you hit the final break run, its drawn out layout gives a sense of slower speed, but in Silver Star's case this works in its favour because it gives you a chance to really savour and enjoy each element. Exiting the ride exhilarated we heading straight on over to the next coaster, Matterhorn Blitz!
Similarly to Silver Star, Matterhorn Blitz was boasting a 40 minute queue time, and with my experience of the vile throughput on mouse coasters along with being distracted by a man with a pretzel, we decided to leave the queue and come back later and instead headed off in search of said pretzels. We headed straight ahead and saw that the bobsled coaster, whose name I forget, only had a 25 minute queue so we jumped right in. This queue seemed to last the amount of time it said it would, but it moved quickly and we amused ourselves by pulling faces at children, because we're childish like that. One thing we soon learned about Germans was that if there is any gap in front of them, Germans will fill it. And I mean they will get so close to you it is uncomfortable. But at least it keeps the queue moving! The coaster was OK, not as good as the other bobsled coasters I've been on this year, and added discomfort because Sam thought it would be hilarious to pull the already uncomfortable lap bar down really tight against my body so I couldn't breathe! One thing I really liked about this coaster was its surrounding theming. I love the fact that you can't see the coaster because of the way the buildings surrounding it wrap so tightly around it! The buildings are gorgeous too, they remind me of Christmas <3 Also, in the queue there was a random talking tree-face, I love the mental little things you find in European parks haha!
We still hadn't found pretzels, which was upsetting, but we couldn't waste any time looking as there were creds to get! We powered on in the direction of Poseidon, where we found evidence of preparation for the evenings Horror Night events! Exciting stuff ^.^ At the beginning of the queue for Poseidon we got some of these sweet cable things from the little tuck shops they have dotted around throughout the queues and they were SO good, we kept getting them throughout the weekend <3 As we were queuing the sun decided to make an appearance, so the whole Greece area looked really beautiful and Mediterranean with the sun reflecting off of the water. Another surprise about our weekend was the weather we had on the Saturday, it was gorgeous and warm enough to not wear a coat, definitely something we weren't expecting as we had turned up armed with hats, gloves and scarves! The queue for Poseidon is really well themed, little bits here and there to keep you entertained as you wait for your ride. In one room there was a statue that randomly blew hot air for some reason, it made the room really uncomfortable, you know the kind of artificial, recirculated air heat that old, small cars blast out of their heating systems? Just like that, not nice at all. The Poseidon station was really impressive, I like massive theming and
this station had lots of it! I was glad to notice that the people getting off of the ride were not that wet. I love water rides but really hate it when they go over the top with wetness, so this was reassuring for me to see. This ride is a weird one. The small themed section at the start of the ride is done really well, and the way the theming surrounds you is really immersive and impressive.You don't realise how big the thing is until you go up the first lift hill! The coaster sections were fun, if a little bit rattly but nothing unbearable. The one thing I really like about this ride type is the way the track dips up and down a tiny bit just before each splash so the boats really hammer into the water whilst providing a tiny pop of airtime, super fun with minimal wetness, I approve! The final drop looks really awkward, you know when you go from the slanting down track to the steeper track on RCT? It looks exactly like that, but it gives a strong surge of willy lift before firing out over the beautiful little waterfall into the final splash. Again, minimal wetness but still very thrilling. There were a couple of other attractions in the Greece area but as the Horror Nights event was based around this area most of them would remain open for the evening, so we decided to skip them for now and power onwards.
Somehow, Sam got wind that there was a football themed bumper cards and a football hall of fame thing, so after Posiedon he insisted we try it out. So we headed over to England and the Adidas football arena which houses a sports bar and a bumper cars. The bumper cars are quite cool actually, they're themed to football boots and you drive around hitting a giant ball into a goal, loads of fun! As we exited we went through the sports bar and found pretzels! Hooray! So we grabbed a couple, along with a Coke Zero and headed through England towards Russia and EuroMir. EuroMir is really weird to look at, I can't quite decide if it's ugly or not? I think it is, but there is something endearing about it. Anyway, we munched on our delicious pretzels (OMG PRETZELS) in the queue wondering why everybody was staring at us. I always get stared at wherever I go, so I'm quite used to it, but German staring is something else. They literally don't look away. I decided it was because of my hideous space pants, and my suspicions were were confirmed when a group of Swiss girls came and asked me where I got them from. I was amused, though not as amused as I was when we got into the inside part of the queue and realised that my leggings matched the decor of the station. Lol. The ride is so bizarre. The lift-hill was unique and enjoyable for the first 10 seconds, then it just got tedious and burdenous. The first part of the coaster is proper boring, meandering throughout some glass panels. The second half of the ride, where it actually does something, is particularly com inducing, the cars spin weirdly and if you're unlucky enough to go backwards the forces are really gross. The plus side of the way the cars are arranged is watching people's facial expressions as they ride the coaster, it's hilarious haha. Upon exiting EuroMir I finally decided enough was enough and we trotted in the direction of some Blue Fire goodness.
I thought the Scandinavia area was gorgeous! I loved the small fishing village you walk through and the way the rapids interacts with the landscape surrounding it. For some reason I was comparing it in my head to The Swarm and its surrounding area, and how much more impressive and immersive that coaster could be had they taken this approach. I was looking at the buildings and imagining if they were Co-Ops, Post Offices, etc, and imagined how amazing it would be to have the coaster screeching along above the quaint little village. *Sigh*. Whatever, Europa Park did it right and that's what matters. The random theming of a house on fire and a man being attacked by a fish on the waters of Scandinavia was hilarious and a nice little touch to keep us entertained as we continued on our way to Iceland. I imagine that before Wodan, Blue Fire would have been incredibly striking and dominating of this area, but the mighty wooden beast definitely dominates this landscape. Blue Fire is too subtle to be able to do that, is just cooly slopes through the background and its own landscape. It's an incredibly graceful coaster, almost silent as it races through the track. I enjoyed the subtlety of the rockery surrounding Blue Fire, a lovely contrast to the vile entrance to the queue. It looks like a car dealership and reminded me of those vile boring Sundays when it was pouring with rain as a child when your parents would drag you around them. Gross. Luckily there wasn't much of a queue and we quickly made our way through the ugly building into the immersive rock theming with Blue Fire surrounding us. Sam and I enjoyed some ice lollies whilst waiting for our ride and remarked at how cheap the food was at Europa Park. The lollies were just €1 each, roughly 75-80p, which when compared to the £3-4 you'd pay for the same thing at a Merlin park is an absolute steal. The way the launch zooms past alongside the queue was really great at being both entertaining and distracting for the people queueing but also at building anticipation. Whilst queueing I noticed a little mouse running in and out of the fake rockery, and was enjoying watching him until a vile German man decided it would be hilarious to spit water at the poor thing. Cruel arsehole. I glared at him and made him feel uncomfortable, haha. Once inside the station building the queue goes down fast. I'm not entirely sure what Blue Fire is meant to be themed to, I think it's some kind of experiment into natural gas exploration in Iceland? Either way, the theming in the station was clearly reflective of some kind of expedition and the music was really great! The ride seats and restraints were really comfy and the heart rate monitors were kind of cool. The little pre-launch dark-ride section was delightful and is definitely what a ride like Shock at Rainbow MagicLand needs to make the ride flow better from station to launch. The coaster itself was really really great. Not excellent, just really great. The launch was fun but not gut-wrenching like Stealth's, the over bank was thrilling but not terrifying like Goliath's, the way it whipped around the layout and through the scenery was flawless and just didn't let up, and the final zero-g was insane, my absolute favourite part of the ride. A great little coaster, excellent pacing, little punches of airtime and inversions that don't make your head hurt. Awesome.
As you can imagine, next on the agenda was Wodan, but after being met with an 85 minute expected queue time we decided to come back to this one and milled around Iceland looking at Wodan and the whale watching themed splash battle. I'd read on here that people felt that Iceland was really concretey and that the splash battle felt a bit plonked since Wodan, but I can honestly say I thought it all flowed perfectly, not overly grey or vast expanse of concrete and a perfect representation of what one would expect Iceland to look like. We didn't ride the splash battle (too wet for me) but we admired it as spectators. I loved the cute Arctic sea animal theming, very very cute! We noticed that a nearby food hut was selling grilled salmon in a bun which really impressed me with its consistency of theme. Seeing as it was right next door we headed on over to Atlantica for another credit.
Although Atlantica clearly looks awesome with its giant theming dominating the area, Portugal feels really, really sparse. I don't understand how you can have just one attraction in a whole land of a theme park, it doesn't make sense to me to call it another area, why not just make it an extension of another land and theme it to something else? Whatever, like I've said earlier, I love water rides and was quite excited to ride this rather unusual contraption. I love how water rides look when they're themed properly and Europa Park have done an amazing job with the gorgeous Atlantica. The huge boats look really majestic as they hurtle down the drop and the noise they make as the rumble along the track sent shivers down my spine. We spent a while admiring the grand ride area and then joined the back of the ten minute queue. We were sat in a row with a family with two small girls, which made me realise how accessible Europa Park strive to make all of their rides. Most of the rides we able to be ridden by people of all ages, with only a few with more restrictive height requirements. Atlantica was a bit random, I'm not sure the backwards dip drop thing was entirely necessary but it was fun nonetheless. Being held on the turntable hovering over the big drop was incredibly intimidating and the drop itself was really forceful, I was really impressed! To my surprise, the little girl next to me clung onto my arm in terror as we plunged down which was quite cute and funny =]. The splashdown itself didn't get us wet but there are sneaky water explosions as you float back towards the station which gave us a good sprinkling. It was funny, as Benin mentioned, to hear the Pirates of the Caribbean music playing in the station for this attraction. We'd heard various other Disney music throughout the park, some motifs from Beauty and the Beast were playing in the bobsled queue and This is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas was playing on repeat around the park. I wonder if they have proper licensing or if they're just pirating haha XD.
Around the corner from Portugal, naturally is Spain. Had we been able to get into the back entrance earlier from the hotels this is where we would have been spat out. I'm glad we ended up using the main entrance because the Spain area doesn't exactly spark excitement in me. Like all of the other areas it was impeccably themed, but it felt like a sleep back alley of a Spanish town, which was nice but not exactly the kind of welcome you want to a major European theme park. We found ourselves leaving Spain as quickly as we entered it, there's just not much to do there, apart from a couple of spinning fair ground style flat-rides which make me feel sick. There's a fairly sizeable show arena but we didn't go in that until our second day. Exiting Spain leads you into Austria, which I adored! It was just so gorgeous, with lovely dark coloured wooden buildings and a gorgeous log flume which interacts with a mine train. It is just magical and feels so wondrous and exciting. I adore areas like these in parks, they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! We joined the back of the queue for the Mack powered mine train and I was amusing myself with the surroundings and the gorgeous ride station. The ride was fun, but I forget about it mostly because I was immediately distracted by the secret diamond mine tunnel of amazingness! As we entered it I just started going 'oh my god! oh my god! oh my god!' I adore fairytales and this felt straight out of one. There were colourful gems, fire, a dragon, dwarves and the most amazing smell of cinnamon or something. Breathtaking and a wonderful little touch to an already gorgeous area of the park. I jumped off of the ride and immediately ran around to the walk-through entrance of the cave where I stood for ages, astounded. The cave exits into a little gift shop selling glittering rocks, very very cute.
For some reason we skipped the log flume on this day and walked back through towards the centre of the park. On our way through we suddenly found ourselves in what appeared to be Africa. I don't know what part of Europe this was meant to be, but we decided to just go with it and jumped on the Jungle Cruise rip-off ride, which was absolutely hilarious with loads of random animatronics and political incorrectness. The lake which it was situated on was quite lovely too, with other boats paddling along on it, a restaurant overlooking the water and a surrounding of dense trees. As with every other area of the park there was no shortage of pumpkins either, but in this area there were pumpkins in the shape of elephants, kangaroos, giraffes and loads of other animals, really quirky and random haha! There was a little food shop and toilets next to the boat ride and we remarked about how nice all of the food had looked around the park so far, nothing had looked like cheap vile park food and yet everything was really inexpensive too. Another thing we noticed was how many toilets there were, they were everywhere which was a nice touch and really really convenient as it meant there weren't massively long queues for the ladies!
Because we'd gotten most of the coasters out of the way the enthusiast cred panic had subsided so we decided to try out a few of the dark rides. First up was Pirates in Batavia. Clearly another homage to Disney, but I thought they made it original enough. The sheer scale of the attraction really impressed me, but a lot of the animatronics were really tatty and dated, which was a bit of a shame. The ride ended with style by floating through a restaurant and past a stage which I thought was quite cool, and I also noticed how they'd taken a lot of inspiration from Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room towards the end of the ride too. Bit mental haha. We strolled on through Holland back towards Switzerland to nab the mouse cred that we'd spited earlier, and were glad to see that the queue had decreased dramatically, which made us happy. The queue for this ride ends with a load of creepy models of a family, random haha. This was the best mouse I've ever been on. Surprise wonky themed elevator lift hill completely took me by surprise, the first drop was huge and the hairpin turns were enjoyable as opposed to painful. Brilliant fun, and again, very easy on the eye and well themed. As we were over in the area we decided to see if EuroSat had stopped spiting and it had, woop! The queue for this is a bit burdens, just a giant, uninteresting cattlepen which is really disheartening when you've queued in the other interesting queues for the rest of the day. Oh well, as with every queue in the park it moved really quickly and before we knew it we were ascending the elevator into the giant EPCOT ball, where they had an amusing skeleton dressed as a spaceman XD Stupid Europe haha. Anyway, I assume there's usually different ride music playing inside the building, but because of the Halloween stuff this had been replaced by this weird metal band singing 'it's Halloween, it's Halloween, IT'S HALLOWWEEEEEEEN!' over and over again, even up the lift-hill haha. So stupid. The ride was surprisingly good! Really fast and whipping through the tight twists and turns, I would have preferred for it to be a bit darker like Space Mountain, but it was still awesome nonetheless! Right next door to EuroSat is Universe of Energy which is an amazing dinosaur dark ride. It smells really old and dusty and it's actually terrifying. There's a bit where a bit hideous dinosaur is right in your face! As with all of their dark rides we'd been on so far, the sheer size of the attraction was baffling. it was huge and really detailed, if looking a bit dated and scruffy now. I was impressed. After riding this and knowing we only had Wodan left to do, and that could wait until tomorrow, we decided to scoop up the rest of the park's dark rides, many of which we noticed were located in the Italy section of the park. First up was a little ride themed to Italy featuring the Europa Park mascots. In the queue there was one of those screens where it puts an image over your face, in this one you got an ice cream on your head or a Venetian
mask. It was obviously a hit, kids were going into the queue just to play with it! This dark ride looked really knew, it was extremely well kept and very very cute. By now the sun was setting and all the twinkly little lights on the buildings around the park were beginning to turn on. It was really gorgeous, the Italian area just lit up and with the water, bridges and little fountains it was incredibly romantic. The weird haunted house was next door to the cute kiddie ride, which I found amusing. The ride begins with what is possibly the most blatant Disney rip-off idea I've ever seen, the stretching room from Haunted Mansion, but just really craply done XD The ride itself was mental, really really disturbing stuff, in true European style. Sam was horrified haha. We had time for just one more ride before we'd have to leave to check in to our hotel, so we hopped across to join the queue for the little Da Vinci ride, which is a little suspended flying ride that goes over the cute little French gardens section of the park. The queue was filled with little interactive models of some of Da Vinci's designs, as well as an animatronic of the man himself. It was really gorgeous to fly over this area of the park in the dark with everything all twinkling and lit up, it was the perfect way to end our first day in the park.
Part 2 includes the Horror Nights event and day 2 =].
I knew for my birthday this year that I wanted to spend a couple of days at a European park I hadn't been to before, and after finding that flights to Baden-Baden were only £15 each way per person, I promptly booked a couple of tickets for Sam and I to visit the park on the weekend after my birthday. After weeks and weeks of planning and arranging (especially with regards to finding a bloody way from the airport to the park!) everything was finally booked and at 3am on Saturday morning we got out of bed and got on our way to the airport to
begin our adventure!
I was really surprised at how quickly the plan journey went, it ended up being just under an hour, so quick! After looking everywhere I possibly could on the Internet I decided the best way to get to the park from Baden-Baden would be a private shuttle service. It was fairly expensive, €27 each way per person for the privilege, but I'm glad we chose to do it that way. Our driver met us at the gate, we got straight in the back of a cab, where we found lots of leaflets and guide books (in German of course) for the park and within an hour (about 50 minutes I made it, but I did fall asleep so can't be sure) we glimpsed the skyline of Europa Park, dominated by the awesome Silver Star!
The shuttle pulled up outside the impressive Hotel Colosseo, which we stepped inside for a second so Sam could freshen himself up. I busied myself by taking pictures of the lobby and gooning out over the awesome model in the centre.
We took the tunnel that Benin mentioned in his trip report which lead to a side entrance to the park, but because we hadn't exchanged our voucher for proper tickets yet we couldn't use this entrance, instead we had to walk for 15 minutes all the way around the outside of the park to the front, burdenous! I was, however, quite glad they made us use the main entrance because it is rather impressive. It is very clearly Disney inspired (as we would find with much of this park) but it had its own European charm to it. Exchanging our vouchers was incredibly easy (I always get quite nervous about printing vouchers off of the Internet) and we headed straight in, dumped our bags in some lockers for €2 each and ventured into the park!
The entrance and main street was all done up for Halloween, pumpkins were everywhere along with hay bales, corn wrapped around posts, themed bunting strewn about the place and scare actors dotted about (toned down until later). The atmosphere was incredibly warming and exciting and really got us in the mood for the weekend! The entrance is placed a little awkwardly I felt, it is right to the far left of the park, so you come in and turn right to access the rest of of the park. We didn't really have a place and just sort of meandered towards the direction of EuroSat which was dressed up as a giant pumpkin! As we approached it was clear the ride had no queue, woo! But in fact, it was just broken down, boo! Instead, we bypassed the coaster for now and joined the back of what a sign informed us would be a 40 minute queue for Silver Star. Considering all the hotels were fully booked and the car park looked heaving, I had resigned myself to the fact that we would probably we queueing a lot this weekend. Oh well, what are you going to do?
So my excitement was building more and more as we entered the building for Silver Star. The queue constantly pushed forwards, which was a nice surprise. The queue line is surrounded with F1 memorabilia and in-jokes and stuff that I didn't get/care about because I hate F1. I was not impressed to find they found it necessary to blare out the NNNNYYYEEEEEOOOWWWW race car noise as we made our way around the queue <//3. Within about 25-30 minutes we found ourselves sat in the back row of Silver Star, where I got told off for pushing myself forward to try and leave a gap between myself and the restraint, and the silly station music was making us laugh: 'da da da Silver Star!' XD. As we ascended the lift hill I was pleasantly surprised to feel myself getting a little anxious, something few coasters have me doing nowadays! The coaster itself was so much fun! Amazing bum-off-of-the-seat airtime all the way down the first drop, the following hills and drops providing further sustained moments of airtime, with some of the best moments found on the smaller hills after the MCBR, the slow down in speed seemed to increase the airtime as you whoosh off again over the smaller, twister bunny hops. It's not the kind of coaster where you have to catch your breath as you hit the final break run, its drawn out layout gives a sense of slower speed, but in Silver Star's case this works in its favour because it gives you a chance to really savour and enjoy each element. Exiting the ride exhilarated we heading straight on over to the next coaster, Matterhorn Blitz!
Similarly to Silver Star, Matterhorn Blitz was boasting a 40 minute queue time, and with my experience of the vile throughput on mouse coasters along with being distracted by a man with a pretzel, we decided to leave the queue and come back later and instead headed off in search of said pretzels. We headed straight ahead and saw that the bobsled coaster, whose name I forget, only had a 25 minute queue so we jumped right in. This queue seemed to last the amount of time it said it would, but it moved quickly and we amused ourselves by pulling faces at children, because we're childish like that. One thing we soon learned about Germans was that if there is any gap in front of them, Germans will fill it. And I mean they will get so close to you it is uncomfortable. But at least it keeps the queue moving! The coaster was OK, not as good as the other bobsled coasters I've been on this year, and added discomfort because Sam thought it would be hilarious to pull the already uncomfortable lap bar down really tight against my body so I couldn't breathe! One thing I really liked about this coaster was its surrounding theming. I love the fact that you can't see the coaster because of the way the buildings surrounding it wrap so tightly around it! The buildings are gorgeous too, they remind me of Christmas <3 Also, in the queue there was a random talking tree-face, I love the mental little things you find in European parks haha!
We still hadn't found pretzels, which was upsetting, but we couldn't waste any time looking as there were creds to get! We powered on in the direction of Poseidon, where we found evidence of preparation for the evenings Horror Night events! Exciting stuff ^.^ At the beginning of the queue for Poseidon we got some of these sweet cable things from the little tuck shops they have dotted around throughout the queues and they were SO good, we kept getting them throughout the weekend <3 As we were queuing the sun decided to make an appearance, so the whole Greece area looked really beautiful and Mediterranean with the sun reflecting off of the water. Another surprise about our weekend was the weather we had on the Saturday, it was gorgeous and warm enough to not wear a coat, definitely something we weren't expecting as we had turned up armed with hats, gloves and scarves! The queue for Poseidon is really well themed, little bits here and there to keep you entertained as you wait for your ride. In one room there was a statue that randomly blew hot air for some reason, it made the room really uncomfortable, you know the kind of artificial, recirculated air heat that old, small cars blast out of their heating systems? Just like that, not nice at all. The Poseidon station was really impressive, I like massive theming and
this station had lots of it! I was glad to notice that the people getting off of the ride were not that wet. I love water rides but really hate it when they go over the top with wetness, so this was reassuring for me to see. This ride is a weird one. The small themed section at the start of the ride is done really well, and the way the theming surrounds you is really immersive and impressive.You don't realise how big the thing is until you go up the first lift hill! The coaster sections were fun, if a little bit rattly but nothing unbearable. The one thing I really like about this ride type is the way the track dips up and down a tiny bit just before each splash so the boats really hammer into the water whilst providing a tiny pop of airtime, super fun with minimal wetness, I approve! The final drop looks really awkward, you know when you go from the slanting down track to the steeper track on RCT? It looks exactly like that, but it gives a strong surge of willy lift before firing out over the beautiful little waterfall into the final splash. Again, minimal wetness but still very thrilling. There were a couple of other attractions in the Greece area but as the Horror Nights event was based around this area most of them would remain open for the evening, so we decided to skip them for now and power onwards.
Somehow, Sam got wind that there was a football themed bumper cards and a football hall of fame thing, so after Posiedon he insisted we try it out. So we headed over to England and the Adidas football arena which houses a sports bar and a bumper cars. The bumper cars are quite cool actually, they're themed to football boots and you drive around hitting a giant ball into a goal, loads of fun! As we exited we went through the sports bar and found pretzels! Hooray! So we grabbed a couple, along with a Coke Zero and headed through England towards Russia and EuroMir. EuroMir is really weird to look at, I can't quite decide if it's ugly or not? I think it is, but there is something endearing about it. Anyway, we munched on our delicious pretzels (OMG PRETZELS) in the queue wondering why everybody was staring at us. I always get stared at wherever I go, so I'm quite used to it, but German staring is something else. They literally don't look away. I decided it was because of my hideous space pants, and my suspicions were were confirmed when a group of Swiss girls came and asked me where I got them from. I was amused, though not as amused as I was when we got into the inside part of the queue and realised that my leggings matched the decor of the station. Lol. The ride is so bizarre. The lift-hill was unique and enjoyable for the first 10 seconds, then it just got tedious and burdenous. The first part of the coaster is proper boring, meandering throughout some glass panels. The second half of the ride, where it actually does something, is particularly com inducing, the cars spin weirdly and if you're unlucky enough to go backwards the forces are really gross. The plus side of the way the cars are arranged is watching people's facial expressions as they ride the coaster, it's hilarious haha. Upon exiting EuroMir I finally decided enough was enough and we trotted in the direction of some Blue Fire goodness.
I thought the Scandinavia area was gorgeous! I loved the small fishing village you walk through and the way the rapids interacts with the landscape surrounding it. For some reason I was comparing it in my head to The Swarm and its surrounding area, and how much more impressive and immersive that coaster could be had they taken this approach. I was looking at the buildings and imagining if they were Co-Ops, Post Offices, etc, and imagined how amazing it would be to have the coaster screeching along above the quaint little village. *Sigh*. Whatever, Europa Park did it right and that's what matters. The random theming of a house on fire and a man being attacked by a fish on the waters of Scandinavia was hilarious and a nice little touch to keep us entertained as we continued on our way to Iceland. I imagine that before Wodan, Blue Fire would have been incredibly striking and dominating of this area, but the mighty wooden beast definitely dominates this landscape. Blue Fire is too subtle to be able to do that, is just cooly slopes through the background and its own landscape. It's an incredibly graceful coaster, almost silent as it races through the track. I enjoyed the subtlety of the rockery surrounding Blue Fire, a lovely contrast to the vile entrance to the queue. It looks like a car dealership and reminded me of those vile boring Sundays when it was pouring with rain as a child when your parents would drag you around them. Gross. Luckily there wasn't much of a queue and we quickly made our way through the ugly building into the immersive rock theming with Blue Fire surrounding us. Sam and I enjoyed some ice lollies whilst waiting for our ride and remarked at how cheap the food was at Europa Park. The lollies were just €1 each, roughly 75-80p, which when compared to the £3-4 you'd pay for the same thing at a Merlin park is an absolute steal. The way the launch zooms past alongside the queue was really great at being both entertaining and distracting for the people queueing but also at building anticipation. Whilst queueing I noticed a little mouse running in and out of the fake rockery, and was enjoying watching him until a vile German man decided it would be hilarious to spit water at the poor thing. Cruel arsehole. I glared at him and made him feel uncomfortable, haha. Once inside the station building the queue goes down fast. I'm not entirely sure what Blue Fire is meant to be themed to, I think it's some kind of experiment into natural gas exploration in Iceland? Either way, the theming in the station was clearly reflective of some kind of expedition and the music was really great! The ride seats and restraints were really comfy and the heart rate monitors were kind of cool. The little pre-launch dark-ride section was delightful and is definitely what a ride like Shock at Rainbow MagicLand needs to make the ride flow better from station to launch. The coaster itself was really really great. Not excellent, just really great. The launch was fun but not gut-wrenching like Stealth's, the over bank was thrilling but not terrifying like Goliath's, the way it whipped around the layout and through the scenery was flawless and just didn't let up, and the final zero-g was insane, my absolute favourite part of the ride. A great little coaster, excellent pacing, little punches of airtime and inversions that don't make your head hurt. Awesome.
As you can imagine, next on the agenda was Wodan, but after being met with an 85 minute expected queue time we decided to come back to this one and milled around Iceland looking at Wodan and the whale watching themed splash battle. I'd read on here that people felt that Iceland was really concretey and that the splash battle felt a bit plonked since Wodan, but I can honestly say I thought it all flowed perfectly, not overly grey or vast expanse of concrete and a perfect representation of what one would expect Iceland to look like. We didn't ride the splash battle (too wet for me) but we admired it as spectators. I loved the cute Arctic sea animal theming, very very cute! We noticed that a nearby food hut was selling grilled salmon in a bun which really impressed me with its consistency of theme. Seeing as it was right next door we headed on over to Atlantica for another credit.
Although Atlantica clearly looks awesome with its giant theming dominating the area, Portugal feels really, really sparse. I don't understand how you can have just one attraction in a whole land of a theme park, it doesn't make sense to me to call it another area, why not just make it an extension of another land and theme it to something else? Whatever, like I've said earlier, I love water rides and was quite excited to ride this rather unusual contraption. I love how water rides look when they're themed properly and Europa Park have done an amazing job with the gorgeous Atlantica. The huge boats look really majestic as they hurtle down the drop and the noise they make as the rumble along the track sent shivers down my spine. We spent a while admiring the grand ride area and then joined the back of the ten minute queue. We were sat in a row with a family with two small girls, which made me realise how accessible Europa Park strive to make all of their rides. Most of the rides we able to be ridden by people of all ages, with only a few with more restrictive height requirements. Atlantica was a bit random, I'm not sure the backwards dip drop thing was entirely necessary but it was fun nonetheless. Being held on the turntable hovering over the big drop was incredibly intimidating and the drop itself was really forceful, I was really impressed! To my surprise, the little girl next to me clung onto my arm in terror as we plunged down which was quite cute and funny =]. The splashdown itself didn't get us wet but there are sneaky water explosions as you float back towards the station which gave us a good sprinkling. It was funny, as Benin mentioned, to hear the Pirates of the Caribbean music playing in the station for this attraction. We'd heard various other Disney music throughout the park, some motifs from Beauty and the Beast were playing in the bobsled queue and This is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas was playing on repeat around the park. I wonder if they have proper licensing or if they're just pirating haha XD.
Around the corner from Portugal, naturally is Spain. Had we been able to get into the back entrance earlier from the hotels this is where we would have been spat out. I'm glad we ended up using the main entrance because the Spain area doesn't exactly spark excitement in me. Like all of the other areas it was impeccably themed, but it felt like a sleep back alley of a Spanish town, which was nice but not exactly the kind of welcome you want to a major European theme park. We found ourselves leaving Spain as quickly as we entered it, there's just not much to do there, apart from a couple of spinning fair ground style flat-rides which make me feel sick. There's a fairly sizeable show arena but we didn't go in that until our second day. Exiting Spain leads you into Austria, which I adored! It was just so gorgeous, with lovely dark coloured wooden buildings and a gorgeous log flume which interacts with a mine train. It is just magical and feels so wondrous and exciting. I adore areas like these in parks, they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! We joined the back of the queue for the Mack powered mine train and I was amusing myself with the surroundings and the gorgeous ride station. The ride was fun, but I forget about it mostly because I was immediately distracted by the secret diamond mine tunnel of amazingness! As we entered it I just started going 'oh my god! oh my god! oh my god!' I adore fairytales and this felt straight out of one. There were colourful gems, fire, a dragon, dwarves and the most amazing smell of cinnamon or something. Breathtaking and a wonderful little touch to an already gorgeous area of the park. I jumped off of the ride and immediately ran around to the walk-through entrance of the cave where I stood for ages, astounded. The cave exits into a little gift shop selling glittering rocks, very very cute.
For some reason we skipped the log flume on this day and walked back through towards the centre of the park. On our way through we suddenly found ourselves in what appeared to be Africa. I don't know what part of Europe this was meant to be, but we decided to just go with it and jumped on the Jungle Cruise rip-off ride, which was absolutely hilarious with loads of random animatronics and political incorrectness. The lake which it was situated on was quite lovely too, with other boats paddling along on it, a restaurant overlooking the water and a surrounding of dense trees. As with every other area of the park there was no shortage of pumpkins either, but in this area there were pumpkins in the shape of elephants, kangaroos, giraffes and loads of other animals, really quirky and random haha! There was a little food shop and toilets next to the boat ride and we remarked about how nice all of the food had looked around the park so far, nothing had looked like cheap vile park food and yet everything was really inexpensive too. Another thing we noticed was how many toilets there were, they were everywhere which was a nice touch and really really convenient as it meant there weren't massively long queues for the ladies!
Because we'd gotten most of the coasters out of the way the enthusiast cred panic had subsided so we decided to try out a few of the dark rides. First up was Pirates in Batavia. Clearly another homage to Disney, but I thought they made it original enough. The sheer scale of the attraction really impressed me, but a lot of the animatronics were really tatty and dated, which was a bit of a shame. The ride ended with style by floating through a restaurant and past a stage which I thought was quite cool, and I also noticed how they'd taken a lot of inspiration from Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room towards the end of the ride too. Bit mental haha. We strolled on through Holland back towards Switzerland to nab the mouse cred that we'd spited earlier, and were glad to see that the queue had decreased dramatically, which made us happy. The queue for this ride ends with a load of creepy models of a family, random haha. This was the best mouse I've ever been on. Surprise wonky themed elevator lift hill completely took me by surprise, the first drop was huge and the hairpin turns were enjoyable as opposed to painful. Brilliant fun, and again, very easy on the eye and well themed. As we were over in the area we decided to see if EuroSat had stopped spiting and it had, woop! The queue for this is a bit burdens, just a giant, uninteresting cattlepen which is really disheartening when you've queued in the other interesting queues for the rest of the day. Oh well, as with every queue in the park it moved really quickly and before we knew it we were ascending the elevator into the giant EPCOT ball, where they had an amusing skeleton dressed as a spaceman XD Stupid Europe haha. Anyway, I assume there's usually different ride music playing inside the building, but because of the Halloween stuff this had been replaced by this weird metal band singing 'it's Halloween, it's Halloween, IT'S HALLOWWEEEEEEEN!' over and over again, even up the lift-hill haha. So stupid. The ride was surprisingly good! Really fast and whipping through the tight twists and turns, I would have preferred for it to be a bit darker like Space Mountain, but it was still awesome nonetheless! Right next door to EuroSat is Universe of Energy which is an amazing dinosaur dark ride. It smells really old and dusty and it's actually terrifying. There's a bit where a bit hideous dinosaur is right in your face! As with all of their dark rides we'd been on so far, the sheer size of the attraction was baffling. it was huge and really detailed, if looking a bit dated and scruffy now. I was impressed. After riding this and knowing we only had Wodan left to do, and that could wait until tomorrow, we decided to scoop up the rest of the park's dark rides, many of which we noticed were located in the Italy section of the park. First up was a little ride themed to Italy featuring the Europa Park mascots. In the queue there was one of those screens where it puts an image over your face, in this one you got an ice cream on your head or a Venetian
mask. It was obviously a hit, kids were going into the queue just to play with it! This dark ride looked really knew, it was extremely well kept and very very cute. By now the sun was setting and all the twinkly little lights on the buildings around the park were beginning to turn on. It was really gorgeous, the Italian area just lit up and with the water, bridges and little fountains it was incredibly romantic. The weird haunted house was next door to the cute kiddie ride, which I found amusing. The ride begins with what is possibly the most blatant Disney rip-off idea I've ever seen, the stretching room from Haunted Mansion, but just really craply done XD The ride itself was mental, really really disturbing stuff, in true European style. Sam was horrified haha. We had time for just one more ride before we'd have to leave to check in to our hotel, so we hopped across to join the queue for the little Da Vinci ride, which is a little suspended flying ride that goes over the cute little French gardens section of the park. The queue was filled with little interactive models of some of Da Vinci's designs, as well as an animatronic of the man himself. It was really gorgeous to fly over this area of the park in the dark with everything all twinkling and lit up, it was the perfect way to end our first day in the park.
Part 2 includes the Horror Nights event and day 2 =].
