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Vienna weekender - May 2016

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With the news that Weiner Prater was getting Olympia Looping till the end of the summer I needed to get myself (finally) over to Vienna. With a Bank Holiday approaching fast and without any plans Benin and I finally decided to throw money at a little trip over there (due to flight costs we came back on the Sunday night - glad we did as I needed that Monday to sleep).

Saturday 30th April

Our very long day began with a 5:30 meet up at East Croydon for a train to Gatwick airport. Gatwick airport had a weird vibe going on, it was quiet (on a Bank holiday?) and their IT systems were down meaning manual check in/security. All flight gates and times were being updated via random staff with their phones out. All very weird. Even Wetherspoons was pretty empty.

We finally got on our plane and everyone was settled in. We didn't go anywhere. Due to having to do everything manually they were having to do all their pre-flight safety checks by hand which took forever. The staff were being rather light-hearted about the whole thing with even the pilot quipping "this is going to be like a Monty Python sketch" as he reveals that anyone with a checked in bag would have to get off the plane, claim their bag to put in the hold and then get back on the plane. It was like organised and amusing chaos and it was all treated in a very British way. Finally everything was ready and we were ready to go and according to the pilot "we've been given the go ahead by Easyjet management to go as fast as we can".

As you can imagine we got into Vienna airport a bit later than planned but it didn't really affect our day. We sorted out our city based travel ticket and got on the next train to Sudtiroler Platz Hauptbahnhof. We grabbed some lunch while we adjusted our plans and decided the best option would be to get a taxi to our first cred of the day.



Being about 10 minutes away by car but with only 1 train an hour, Böhmischer Prater has one kiddy cred called Shark Trip. It's a rather unusual "park". Living on the edge of a rather large hilly park this is essentially a road with various rides and things to do in plots of land you'd expect to see houses on.











We were amused that there was an old lady operating both the cred and some dodgems from her little box. The cred did about 15 burdenous circuits. Boy do these little coasters pick up some speed by the time they get to the bottom of the helix. Have some photos of the rest of the "park"...















I should mention that it was hot and we now needed to make our way to the train station. Luckily it was downhill and just as we were getting close to the station the train stops and leaves the station (sad face). No worries, for another 20 minutes walk away is a U-Bahn station. We then get a couple of trains up to Praterstern station.


A good clue as to what's here

We decided that we should check in before doing anything else. Luckily our hotel (Motel One Wein-Prater) was practically at the park. Getting rather excited at the site of the long-awaited Schwarzkopf coaster...



Oh look, our hotel is opposite!



The hotel was uber posh and modern, we loved the reception/bar area (which was actually being used by loads of people in the evening).





The room was a decent size but wow the excitement levels when we were realising that our room would be facing Olympia Looping was insane.







We were going to go do culture and then come back to the prater but just seeing it there we couldn't wait and as soon as we freshened up we were throwing money at the lady so we could get on Olympia Looping.









*voms*







After years of waiting, what did I finally think of it? I really enjoyed it, it wasn't as intense as I was expecting it to be but it was really fun. It was just annoying we couldn't keep re-riding it.

Onwards then and we were intrigued by the icy shooty ride. Not interested enough to throw like €4 at it.





I liked the themed snack stall...



There was a breakdance but it wasn't being run as insanely as I was expecting.



I have no idea what these tall things were but they were spinning and people were trying to stay on...





Next up was our third cred of the day, the Volare! This was only my second one (first was at Canada's Wonderland, which I thought was ok) and I expected bad things but apart from a bit of head bashing on a turn or two I don't think it's that bad? I really enjoy the inversions on them.













There were plenty of ghost trains, most of them looked rubbish.





I loved how epically themed their rapids ride is, due to the heat it was very popular. It looked like a fun ride but the day was already going to cost a small fortune.



All the toilets seemed to have themed signs which were all rather odd.





Our next coaster of the day was Insider. An indoor spinning Maurer. Note: There are lockers before the queue which require a €1 coin to use. The queue was quite long and incorporated a really dark and mysterious mirror maze and a corridor with lasers. Once on the ride it's a standard layout but there's some cool lasers going on which was nice.





Random question time! Is the below ride on fire or does it just have an epic smoke machine?



Answer: An epic smoke machine!

We found ourselves in the sort of main entrance area which has a Madame Tussauds and (recently opened) rollercoaster restaurant...







I loved the style of this area, a shame it's not a continued theme throughout the park. I also love the old wheel. Our next rollercoaster was the rather inspired Dizzy Mouse coaster. Urgh, ridden so many of these. I liked the random lion themed tunnel though.







Then it was time for the interesting-looking Super 8er Bahn...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRopB7yGAXE[/youtube]







It was ok, a little rough around the edges. I think this was my first time on a Pinfari that was just very different to the standard models though so I appreciated that.

The log flume sitting next to it looked awesome and even had an air time hill!





Not yours...



Benin decided to use the powers of a map to discover where the next coaster was hiding...



Anyone know what this used to be? Benin thinks it was used for a zipline but the build of it makes me think it was more of a ride?



Found a more substantial looking ghost train, actually looked awesome but at €5 I was a bit put-off...



Anyway, next cred! Der Zug des Manitu is a little kiddy coaster which is really nicely themed, even has a tunnel!





The Black Mamba ride looks cool but on closer inspection looked like a rather bland ride experience. It had one of the longest queues we saw all day though!





Urgh, next was another mouse coaster...






This looked more fun

Next was Maskerade which looked really cool. Frustratingly it does that annoying thing where it's an indoor coaster with lighting but decides it needs to go outside rendering all indoor lighting completely useless. There's a randomly themed corridor before the lift hill which is cool though. I thought it was a nice smooth coaster though, just annoys me that the whole indoor aspect is ruined.







Hochschaubahn was our next rollercoaster of the day and probably the only one we queued for. It was rather popular and lots of peeps were in traditional Austrian outfits which made me happy. It's quite nicely themed and it's a nice fun layout. Oh and there were two random jets of water that we had to duck under which I thought was a fun touch. Some child in the second car totally spited everyone by sticking her hand in, hehehe.















It was then time for the Race, another small SBF visa kiddy coaster. These had a different train design though which were much more forgiving for adults. There was a small water fountain going off at random intervals which was nice and refreshing in the heat.









The starflyer and the area around it were really nice. I love the colours they've gone for, it looks much nicer than most.





We then passed the path of creepy clowns to get to the Boomerang.







I was maybe a bit too excited by the fact that the Boomerang had a random tunnel. Oh and it has weird bare-metal lap bars. Nice and open but also terrifying as there's nothing to really hold on to. It was very enjoyable and surprisingly forceful.









Our last coaster of the day was MegaBlitz, a custom Vekoma with those weird bobsled-esque trains. This thing was fast and forceful and really fun. Why the hell aren't there more of these?







We then stared longingly at Olympia Looping some more and then walked to the underground to head into the city centre.









We got off at Stephansplatz where there's a giant religious building. It was cool.











We then began a sort of tour where it was like...
*point at cool looking old thing*
- walk over to it
"Oh look, another cool looking old thing"
- Walk over to it
*and repeat*

So, I present to you our random findings....


































OK so their traffic lights are adorable...





*back to tour*













We loved that most of these epic buildings had little signs with flags to say what it was and who built it...













That concludes our amazing tour of the old awesome things of Vienna.

We then proceeded to grab some dinner at Hard Rock Cafe #Cultured before heading back to Weiner Prater, looking mournfully at our wallets and proceeding to throw some more monies at some rides. So, as with most fairgrounds, the park really comes alive at night although in terms of people it had died. Like, it was super quiet. However there were mega May day celebrations going on the next day so we think people would have had a quiet night on the Saturday.







The breakdance was running a lot quicker in the evening, yet still not as insane as some I've seen.



The Tagada was amusing to watch, mainly because some older dude was just totally owning it...







I very nearly threw money at the dinosaur dark ride thingy. I ended up resisting though, maybe another time.








Such a cool building








The tunnel actually had a smoke effect!





We decided to actually ride the star flyer in the end. It got bloody cold at the top and then towards the bottom it started spinning like a maniac which is when we like froze to death. Glad we did it though as the views were nice.


We loved the lights on all the supports



We ended the night with a go on Megablitz (still epic) and Olympia Looping.

As we were waiting for Olympia Looping some dudes ran past the ride and then like 15 policemen turned up, caught one of the dudes and threw him up against the exit. We didn't leave the station for ages as everyone was too busy watching the drama. Also randomly there were some fireworks going off in the distance and we were on the last ride of the day. It was just one of those moments that felt very surreal. Oh so I filmed a POV...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN6rntwDxV0[/youtube]


We then headed back to the hotel (so glad it was close by) where we crashed out pretty quickly after such a long, exhausting day. Stay tuned for more ridiculous peep and Benin adventures soon...


Thanks for reading!
 
I'm not gonna work out how much you spent on creds :p But I think it's helpful you posted the prices of them, thanks! Seems like a mess of park, but somewhere I want to go to at least once - The boomerang actually looks awesome!
 
This Vienna fair looks like a lovely mess :) Didn't expect to find so many creds there. Love the "Sh*t happens" warning sign and the indeed adorable traffic lights !

Thank you for the amazing report :)
 
Thanks for the comments guys. The "sh*t happens" sign is my current Facebook pic, it's been getting a lot of love on there.

Pink Panther said:
I'm not gonna work out how much you spent on creds :p But I think it's helpful you posted the prices of them, thanks! Seems like a mess of park, but somewhere I want to go to at least once - The boomerang actually looks awesome!

It looks like I forgot to photograph the price of one or two but yeah I still haven't got around to working it out yet, far too much either way :p


I shall now continue with our second day adventures...


Sunday 1st May

We started our day with a walk through a very quiet Prater. Got on a train down to one of the main train stations where we proceeded to get on a train down to Eisenstadt. This place was like in the middle on nowhere. Thinking we were good with the bus route to the park we were saddened to find we didn't do our research properly and on Sunday's the buses are very rare (it was like one every 2-3 hours). So we called a minicab up (there's a list of numbers inside the small train station building). It took about 15-20 minutes to drive there from the train station.





What a lovely little entrance area. I was greeted by their cat character...



The first "cred" you'll see is the butterfly but more on that later.



The first half of the park is dense forest with a large fairytale area (a very similar but cheaper version of Efteling's fairytale forest of forever). It was a really nice calm atmosphere with various kids rides dotted about.









(more creepy forest later)

I saw a drop tower themed to a scarecrow that was swinging side to side and I was excited and intrigued so we did that first. Benin said there's one in Denmark but this was the first time I'd seen one. It's a really fun ride with plenty of airtime and the swinging motion is just amusing and weird. Side note; I loved that the fencing of the ride just had little bag/coat hooks, really simple and less faffy than having one box on the side.





There were a couple of animatronic shows dotted around the park. The first we came across was fairly bizarre.











That tree looks soooo familiar

We then came across the Mack Bobsled coaster, Rattenmuhle. It looks great darting around the area and the station theming is great. In the queue we saw a weird box but wasn't sure what it was all about, just looked like you could go inside?









The ride was really fun, it has nice pops of airtime and I love the way it flows and darts around. I filmed a POV...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-NUkw3pvOY[/youtube]


So after exiting the ride we saw a little sign pointing to a weird tunnel thing. Benin decided to skip it but I was up for a little adventure.





OMG. GUYS. It was only a ridiculous shortcut back to the entrance! It was soooooo much effort but it was awesome, I love that this exists so much.



So after a short turn after that initial tunnel you then climb up a rather complicated (for adults) series of ladders and stuff. This takes you over the station!


Great view!

What goes up, must come down!



This then leads to another tunnel which goes under the ride and has a not-made-for-adults obstacle which you have to get through. It then leads to a ladder which results in coming out of the previously mentioned box/shed...





After enjoying the ride so much we just walked back on.






















Really fun, could have sat on it all day (not sure why we didn't!). The park was full of weird little statues and that, this one was on top of a tyre swing...



We had no idea what the point of this walkway was...







It was then up to a little farm area which was cute. This park was full of random animatronics, this was a rather angry man sitting on a loo..



Someone explain what this is all about...



Farms have animals...









New for this year was a slide and a massive wooden structure next to it. No idea what it was for to begin with, then we realised that the goats can go underneath the slide into another area and then climb all over this giant wooden structure, it was very random.


You can kinda see it in the background of this pic though







The slide casually has a crow animatronic that spits at you...



Goat enclosure, ya know, the one with real goats.... also has a goat animatronic?


Casual pissing goat in the back there

There were loads of cute little goats, this guy was obsessed with getting underneath this bit of fence.



We then came across a dark ride in the light themed to animals having a race. The cars were cute.















Onwards and we came across a water play area thingy.





There was an EPIC looking treehouse thingy...





We decided to do the water slide...



This was casually self-operated. There was a member of staff over-looking things but you pushed the buttons etc. First time I've seen that. Back in the water area Benin noticed a sign pointing to something behind the waterfall. Turns out it was a random cave walkthrough with random facts about things that live in caves and then there's a random massive animatronic dragon that sneezes water at you.







It was fab. No idea what it was saying and it was a little broken (couldn't turn his neck) but what a lovely little hidden surprise. The roof had a bit of a garden on it with some canons. You could "fire" the canons and huge water effects went off next to one of those pull yourself along boat things.





The same area also had a pirate themed bear animatronic show. They sang a little random song.



We had now tranisitioned from the wooded area of the park (mainly fairytale and animal themed) to the more Roman and pirate part of the park. There was a huge difference between the two parts of the park, seeing as the theming in this area was a lot better. They had a little abc croc-boat ride. More on that later.



First, it was time for the other main rollercoaster the park has to offer, Gotterblitz. A Mack Youngstar. I really liked the simple theming and nice landscaping around this ride. The ride was fun for a family coaster.











I filmed another POV (from the back as the horse at the front would have blocked the camera)...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CX48QDGRDM[/youtube]


We decided to take a ride on the chariot themed tower ride thing (no idea what these are called). It gave off some nice views of the area.



The area also has the other rollercoaster, one of those spiteful small child Gerstlauers. I'd never seen one before, it's so small...





I took some more pics of Gotterblitz...











We then saw the big family spin ride themed to a giant Octopus. This was the larger model like Plopsaland have in Mayaland. They've also gone for having random water effects on the ride too which just makes it a lot more fun.













I love how epic the operator booth is...



It was then time for the most amazingly themed Gerstlauer skyfly ever...



This was the toilets in the area. SO MUCH EFFORT...


IT EVEN HAS A BALCONY FOR LOLZ









A new restaurant was under construction. If the rest of this little area is anything to go by, this will be fab.





Oh and of course there's a random animatronic in the queue...



So, I really like these rides, I love that you can manually control the spinning - even if it is like a crazy workout for your arms. I decided to film it, obviously... (try not to throw up)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y81t-eS_nEk[/youtube]


I may have been a little dizzy after that. I needed a long sit down. Good thing it was time to go grab some food. We ended up in one of the larger restaurants the park has to offer. Prices were average for a theme park and I thought they had a decent selection of food. After that much needed break we decided to go on the croc flume. I'm not sure why I didn't learn my lesson from when I did the one of these at Sealife Weymouth (I got drenched). I didn't get as wet this time but we both got a lot wetter than anyone else going on the ride lol.




Awkward wet patches are awkward





We then found yet another epic walkthrough thing. It reminded me of the epic St Louis museum with it's crazy metal climbing frame sections.





Obviously we were back in the forest part of the park where there are lots of random little self-operated rides...



We decided to go through the fairytale forest with all of it's gloriously outdated and weird designs.




Anyone know what this one is all about?





Some were a bit more modern, like this one which was full of animatronics, including a talking cow!






"Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants"

The haunted house walkthrough was quite cool and spooky. There was a child that was terrified and his dad forced him in.








Too blurry but there is a BAT ON A STICK



The weirdness continues...


I have NO idea what is going on here


This guy was just as confused

There was another animatronic show, before the show button was pressed this family came along and they were already singing the tune. I don't blame them, we played it a second time and then had it in our heads for the rest of the day.






It puked toffee coins

Back in the farm area now and there was a porn piggy ride...










Cat swinging on a rope!

One thing we noted was that all the ride safety boards were in 4 languages...



Time for a ride on their tractor ride. It was rather fab, it was a long circuit, you could sort of steer and you the pedal was controllable! The theming was really nice too and yet again, loads of animatronics, like, everywhere.













Watch out for the spiteful spitting scarecrow...









We found two animatronic cows that had a counter above them. Curious we learned on closer inspection it was a pay-for game where you milk the cows to earn points! We found this to be hilarious...



Yay, more random animatronic shows!...





This one was a twist on Old McDonalds farm and this tiny girl (must have been 2-3?) was loving it, dancing along and everything. We decided to go on the chairswing next.



We then had another couple of rides on Rattenmuhle, using the tunnel in between rides.





















We then made our way to the front of the park for the butterfly. It's self-operated but also requires a token which costs €1 from a little machine at the park gate.





Meh, next we decided to go on the cycle-operated dragon thing...









There was a random thing full of punching bags. We wanted to go through but we had to be proper careful as these kids were running around and they would have totally gone flying.



We decided to go back to the other side of the park for a re-ride on Gotterblitz. I grabbed some lovely gelato before we made our way to the exit. It was like 2:30-3.









We got another mini-cab back to the train station where we were just in time for a train heading back into the city. With more time than planned to kill we just got the underground to a random stop and had a look around. This journey wasn't as interesting but we still saw a couple of cool buildings. We even saw a very soviet looking building. I only took one picture during this "tour"...




We then made our way back to the airport where we arrived fairly early. Right, now I have a rant so prepare yourselves...

This airport is the most illogical airport I've ever visited. First you don't go through security, just a random check point to make sure you're on a flight. Then there's a few food places and shops, not many though. Then each gate has it's only security check, bag scanners the lot. This is simply faffy for no reason whatsoever. Oh and obviously people will buy liquids before this point as they have meals etc but you can't take them through security. Past this point is then a room that can barely fit a small flights-worth of passengers. There's a vending machine if you need a snack/drink. Oh but get this... After 80% had passed this point the airport then decided to finally notify everyone the flight was delayed. Luckily it was only by like 30-40 minutes but if it had been like an hour+ I would have been very annoyed (there's not enough seats for everyone so I was having to stand). I just don't understand why it's been designed sooooo poorly #urgh

Anyway we got home fine, just a bit later than planned.



It was such an exhausting weekend but I'm glad I went. Vienna is a lovely city which I'm thinking of returning to in a few years time. The Weiner Prater was nicer than I expected seeing as I loathe funfairs. I enjoyed my time there and would actually like to go back, purely to do the crappy dark rides if anything. FamilyPark was also beautiful and we really enjoyed our time in the park, I loved all the random stuff everywhere, such an excellent family park and the ride selection is really good. With the way they're theming things now I can't wait to see what they do next.


Thanks for reading!
 
I've never even heard of this park before but I'm shocked it looks so great, especially the new area! The theming on the Skyfly is incredible. Thank you!
 
I visited Vienna last year. Managed to grab the first public ride ever on the new Skyfly in Familypark on the first day of the season. I thought the park was a perfect family park: really a nice place, one of the best parks in Europe.

You could have took the bus from Eisenstadt to the stop 'Abzweigung Olsip', this one rides more often, like once every hour. From that stop, it's only a (really nice) 2 kilometer walk to the park. That's the way we did it to get there :).

Loved Wiener Prater to! Although Maskerade was still under construction when I was there. Have you not been in the restaurant near Shark Trip at Bohmischer? When we were drinking soup there, waiting for the credit to open, a random pig called 'Rosi' walked in :D.
 
Yeah I'm sure we messed up on the bus front but the timetables in the area suggested there wasn't one any time soon.

I agree it's one of the best family parks in Europe. Simply perfect atmosphere and amount of things to do.

The pub at Bohmischer looked really popular but we'd already eaten so we didn't think to go in. Doesn't surprise me it has a pet pig lol

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