Volt-Run

[Nicky Borrill]

Volt-Run… The Plan….

We’re heading down to Europa Park, to arrive Wednesday evening, but rather than just fly in and grab the new cred, I decided, in my wisdom, it was a good opportunity to visit some favourite parks for the first time in 2 years, as well as some I haven’t visited yet. So left some of our party flying over whilst we took on the drive.

The itinerary looks like this:

Day 0 - Sunday: Drive to Ashford Premier Inn

Day 1 - Monday: Eurotunnel / Le Shuttle over, spend the day in Plopsaland then drive to the H+ in Bruhl

Day 2 - Tuesday: Check into Charles Lindbergh and spend the day in Phantasialand

Day 3 - Wednesday: Phantasialand then the long drive down to check in to Moxy Rust

Day 4 - Thursday: Europa Park

Day 5 - Friday: Europa Park for Voltron opening day.

Day 6 - Saturday: Europa Park

Day 7 - Sunday: Holiday Park, I still don’t have EGF!!! Then drive up to a hotel in Luxembourg.

Day 8 - Monday: Walibi Belgium, to finally ride Kondaa (and pick up the other creds, as this is a park I’ve never bothered with.) Then head home.

Day 0 & Day 1

So after finishing work at 5pm on Sunday we headed down to the Premier Inn, in Ashford, finally setting off around 6pm. We arrived around 9pm. Which would be great, if we hadn’t decided then that Netflix was a good idea. We stayed up way later than we should have watching The Gentlemen, whoops.

On Day 1 we caught the 7:18 train over to France, then drove to Plopsaland. Arriving ten minutes before park opening.




We’d come for one reason, and one reason only, so naturally headed to RTH to catch up with an old friend. RTH opened 15 minutes later. Whilst waiting we got talking to another two British goons, who we ended up spending the day with, so shout out to them. 2 front car rides, 2 back car rides and 1 middle car ride we got on her throughout the day. She’s still running beautifully, and is still one of the best coasters in Europe!





We also went and rode Heide, Draak, Anubis and K3, before taking our final ride on RTH and heading out of the park at around 3pm to begin what would turn out to be a longer than usual journey to Bruhl.

Heide is a lot better than I had thought it was originally. Prior to this all of my visits had been in the dead of winter, when UK parks were closed. Heide runs a bit flat in the cold days of winter, but has some decent moments of air time as things warm up.

I swear Anubis has had a paint job since 2022, (did I miss that news?) it looks stunning and rides silky smooth, no rattle whatsoever. There’s a couple of moments in the layout that seem violent due to the profiling, but not rough in a traditional gerst sense of the word.

Anyway, the journey to Bruhl took forever, Belgiums roads particularly struggling to keep up with capacity at the moment, what should have been a 3.5 hour journey turned into a 5.5 journey with a couple of very short stops.

Finally arriving at H+ in Bruhl at around 8:30pm. So after very little sleep the night before, lots and lots of driving, we did what anybody else would do at 9pm on a Monday evening, and headed into Cologne for a meal and drinks.

After countless visits to Bruhl, I finally got to see the Cathedral up close!!! It’s genuinely stunning.



And that concludes day 1 (and day 0.) Excuse the photos, I was not intending to do a trip report, this was a last minute decision sat alone at 6:30am on day 2, so I’ll try and get better photos from now onwards.

 

[Howie]

Ooh this should be a fun read. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Voltron, but also EGF and Kondaa too.

Oh, and kudos on the title.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

Days 2 & 3 Phantasialand / Charles Lindbergh



Day 2

I was struggling to find the motivation to type up the report for PL, what can I write that hasn't already been said? I could moan about the negative elements, because they're certainly not something you commonly hear about this park. I could tell you all again, for the millionth time, how beautiful Rookburgh and Klugheim are... I really am lost for ideas to be honest... It's just Phantasialand, one of the best, if not the best, theme parks in the world. So I'll keep these 2 days short and sweet, with a little moan here and there, and maybe a fanboy nerd out or two...

After a pleasant night's rest in the H+ Hotel Bruhl, and a very delicious breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, we headed over to Phantasialand, or more specifically, Hotel Charles Lindbergh to check in. I really can't recommend the H+ Bruhl hotel enough btw, we've stayed here 3 times now, and it really is a nice little hotel, with a great restaurant, short walk to the trains into Cologne, and short walk / drive to Phantasialand.

This will be my 4th stay in the CL hotel btw, 6th night in total, it's important to remember that later on, I know this hotel well, I was there launch weekend, and instantly fell in love with everything about it, the hotel, views, bar and more importantly the restaurant. (I think they call that foreshadowing?)

Anyway, checked in, bags dropped, 2 day tickets and free fly fast tracks in hand, we headed in, and completely ignored FLY as we passed... Heading instead to what should be the traditional starting point for anybody visiting Phantasialand, Das verrückte Hotel Tartüff! I love this little fun house, it's a great way to start the day and get everybody giggling, even if many of the effects inside don't work fully any more. I was pleased to get an opportunity to show off my skills on the long roller slide element. Had everybody in the group trying to skid / slide from one end to the other, and over the hump, without touching the hand rails... But these are very particular skills, that I've built up over a long long time, and of course, the rest of the group couldn't compete!

Next we headed to Maus Au Chocolat. I've fallen out of love with this ride, it's boring, once through the very well themed queue, the ride relies way too heavily on screens, with little else in the way of theming... But more importantly, it gives me w@nk3rs cramp. Perhaps me not getting the highest score didn't help!




Then we headed around to our first coaster of the day, having people in the group who hadn't done Crazy Bats, we decided to head to that, but unfortunately, it broke down whilst we were in the queue, and we were advised to leave, so we did. We never did get on Crazy Bats either.

So instead we headed to Winjas, and somehow ended up riding the Force side. It was ok, I've had better rides on Force, we didn't get much spin at all, but you win some, you lose some. Moving on...

Next we headed into Geister Rikscha... Yeh... That still exists! And moved on to Colorado Adventure. Move over Disney, because I came to the realisation on this trip that Colorado Adventure is in fact the best mine train coaster in the world, of the ones I've ridden, by a country and western mile. We got back row, and it was running superbly, with lots of moments of air time, plenty of positives, and laugh out loud aggressive laterals. Imagine our joy when we realised on returning to the station nobody was waiting, and we could go again, and again, in the same back row seats! What a great little coaster.

Next up was River Quest. It was a cold day, so I was hoping that we didn't actually get as wet as usual on this, and my wish was granted. Great little rapids, but thankfully we stayed bone dry for once. The smarter ones in our group, the ones that came with waterproof over clothes, they got wetter than me and my son, in jeans and hoodies, did. Even under their 'waterproof' jackets and trousers, they were wet whilst we were dry... Stupidity 1-0 Common Sense.

In case anybody was wondering, Mystery Tower is still great fun, we seemed to get a long cycle.

I don't think anybody got wet on Chiapas. I hear they have a 'winter mode' for this ride, which allows them to run it through Wintertraum without soaking people and freezing them to death. No idea if that's true, but if it is, they were probably running it in that mode. Not a lot else to say about Chiapas that hasn't already been said, but I'll do it anyway, yay for strong airtime on a water ride!

So after a ride on Raik, the world's best themed Junior Boomerang, that left us pretty much going between Taron, Fly and Black Mamba, back and forth for plenty of re rides, on what was a relatively quiet day. We threw in the odd none coaster ride / re ride for good measure, but all in all a good day.



Not a lot to be said about those 3 coasters that hasn't already been said.

Taron is still up there, still one of the best rides in the world, no matter how many incredible rides I experience, it just seems to cling onto it's spot in my top 5, it's a very special coaster. I still think I prefer Klugheim to Rookburgh, but I am not 100% sure, they're both incredible lands. It did have quite a few breakdowns though, reliability becoming an issue with it? Or just a bad couple of days?








FLY is fun, though I think I'm going to have to reassess it's ranking, I don't enjoy every ride. It's the one ride where I need a tight restraint, because when they leave it loose, I find it uncomfortable. And with me losing weight since my last visit (Yay me!) They left it too loose for me a couple of times. Rookburgh is a masterpiece though.










I don't get Black Mamba at all. I mean it's a great coaster, it starts off very very strong, but then it just seems to fade for the last 2/3s into nothing more than turn after turn after helix after turn. I find it so boring after the inversions, and that feels like most of the ride. I like the ride, but just don't understand why some people rate it so highly... Maybe it's the incredible theming, because once again, they absolutely nailed Africa, and it's looking better now than it ever did before. It's really not a patch on Nemesis, or Nemesis Reborn for that matter.





I know we did more than this, as it was an incredibly quiet 2 days, but I'm officially over 40 now, and my memory is rubbish. So I've probably missed things off, but that gives you a feel of how an incredibly good couple of days at Phantasialand goes, albeit with a few niggles, so not perfect.

That brings me onto the Hotel Charles Lindbergh, Uhrwerk, and Bar 1919

For dinner that night in Uhrwerk I decided to play it safe. I ordered the pasta parcel thingies. Had these loads of times, and they were always nice. The whole group had enjoyed them in the past so we all ordered them. They came out within 2 minutes, I am not even kidding, they were so quick. That is never a good sign, if I'm paying good money for food, I want to be waiting for it, so that I know it was just cooked, and not stuck in a microwave, or left in hot hold and served straight from there. They were terrible, bland, and tasted like my fears were just, like they'd been banged in a microwave on high for 2 minutes. The sauces had clearly been potted up at the beginning of the night, which is fine, but they'd been left uncovered, as they had a skin on top!

As a main I again played it safe, and had the loaded fries, with the sliders / burgers. I always enjoyed these due to the dip / sauce selection they come with. First of all, they were out of truffle, so I couldn't have the variety I wanted, that's fair enough, it happens, (more often than not at our place. ) Things running out is better than food being wasted. When the food came out I noticed the 2 sliders were in full sized buns, 'weird' I thought, 'I swear they used to come in smaller slider buns.' Upon opening them, it was clear these weren't the buns meant for the dish, the tiniest slither of meat inside each of them, that didn't even cover a quarter of the bun. Nevermind, I chopped the buns in half, and made do. The loaded fries were delicious. But the part I was looking forward to, the reason I ordered this dish, was again, inedible. The sauce pots had been left out exposed again, they had the thickest skin on the top, and I just couldn't bring myself to eat them.

Overall, on this showing, Uhrwerk has gone down hill in terms of food quality / standards rapidly. Not impressed at all, I would actually consider forgoing the free meal, and eating elsewhere, if I stayed at CL again.



We had a few drinks in Bar 1919, and played some pool. I was told on this trip that the pool table is there because it is the access to load trains on to fly, apparently it slides open and reveals the part where trains are added / removed from the track, with the glass roof above opening to lower them in. No idea if that's true, but it's super cool if it is.

As for the drinks... Tennants is NOT a Scottish 'Craft Beer!'

Day 3

The next morning, breakfast wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.

Here's the really bad part, I woke up that morning itching all over, with little red marks. Hopefully it was just a reaction to something they used on the bedding, they didn't look like bites as such, but I don't really know what bed bug bites look like, and I've never experienced any allergic reactions before. Itchy as hell. Put it this way, one of my friends is a pest controller, so to jump almost a week into the future, on his advice, when we got home, we stripped at the door, all clothes went into black bags for boil washing and we jumped straight into showers, while he bombs the car. No itching since, no red marks, but to be fair, I didn't get any new ones after that morning anyway.

Day 3 we pretty much just re rode the coasters, and some of the flats. We did do the obstacle course thingy in Africa. Then after some re rides the others went to watch some shows in the afternoon, whilst I returned to reception, got the laptop and phone out, and did some work for the pub. No coffee anywhere in CL before the bar opens at 3pm... What the actual F Phantasialand... Sort it out!

We set off early hoping to get to Rust before it got dark. But once again the road gods were not on our side. coming over the hills / mountains just North of Rust, we hit a freak snowstorm. Accident after accident, in the space of 2 miles we passed 4 written off cars on our side of the road, with the other side at a stand still and emergency services all over the place doing their best to keep up I guess. Needless to say, the first smashed up car was enough to make me realise the road was slick and I should slow down... Unfortunately the same can't be said for the crazy locals on their regular commute.

Anyway, we arrived, eventually, and checked into our home for the next 4 nights, Moxy Rust. Crap check in process, they want everything, photo I.d and a credit card to secure against for room charging, despite having already paid in advance and not being interested in charging to the room... Then a payment for tax and other bits too... Not unusual, but by this point I was shattered, grumpy, and just wanted to go to sleep.

When I did finally get to my room, I did enjoy the fact we had the slightest of park views, including Silver Star... Which got me super excited for the days to come.



Anyway, I didn't take many photos, and most of the ones I did take are rubbish, but I've included some, most of them mine, but a few are Paul's. Apologies, I just always forget to take photos, too busy having fun.