EuroTrip Day 7-Wild- und Freizeitpark Klotten and Phantasia.

[FParker185]

k then, wake up on time for once and I hit the road, today was a day I was dreading since my Vienna driving direction diasater, first park of the day being Wild- und Freizeitpark Klotten in Klotten, Germany, it's located about 25 miles off the highway at the top of a mountain, 60 miles total from my hotel (all for one coaster mind you), so I hit the road and get to the exit and I'm armed with a list of major towns between the exit and Klotten, and suprisingly I did not get lost, and a decent distance before the park itself there was heavy sinage, but it took forever to get there as alot of it took me driving though small towns with 30kph speed limit (like 15mph), but anyways I close in on Klotten and I track down the park and park in a simple parking lot this time, free which was nice, I get out of the car and first thing I notice besides being one of 2 cars in the lot is on top of this mountain it's about 20 degrees cooler than I was expecting, so I wander down this hiking trail and take some amazing pics as I am at decent elevation and then I go towards the gate expecting a wally world moment and have it be closed, but they were indeed open and €9 later I was inside the "park". I see no rides at all it's basically a zoo, so I walk though this zoo and I start seeing random "rides" most operated by the rider though means of a pull string or button, non of the rides looking like they'd accomodate someone of my size, exept for one but the safety of this ride looked dubious at best, looked like 3 Rock O Plane cages mounted on a wheel on the end of a boom that would do loops at the wheel would spin, I assume you could invert on this device and I wasnt about to risk it, so I head towards this massive Gerstlauer Bobsled coaster showing absolutely no sign of life though the enterance is not blocked off so I go up the enterance into a completely deserted station with open queue gates and 2 cars parked in the station, so I have a seat and nothing happens, so I start looking around for a pull string and see nothing, wander into the ride operators booth and it seems like any other booth obviously requireing a ride op, and the ride looks like it hasnt run in some time, now I start to worry, so I hang around for like 20 mins and I notice a waterslide operator was looking in my direction and he started coming down in my direction, I wasnt sure if I was in trouble for something or about to get a ride, so he finally shows up and asks if I want to ride and of course I tell him I do (actually it takes some effort as he spoke very little english, but basically he told me enough for me to understand the ride is open, he can run it, but it needs 2 people else it will get stuck, we both look around and realize I am currently the only person in the park and he says I should have come later in the day when people show up, though that wasnt an option seeing as I needed to get back to Phantasialand, so we both sit down and start the waiting game, at this point I'm about 50% sure I'm not riding this coaster, and I was just thinking of the videos showing off violent airtime and a kick ass coaster in general, so I sit and sit, ride op smokes and smokes finally someone starts heading towards the coaster and I get all excited walks into the coaster viewing area and sits down with no intention of riding, DAMMIT!, so I sit some more, onlooker sits more, and the ride op smokes more, sooner or later something has to break, then more people wander over and sit down to watch this coaster eventually operate, finally about 45 minutes pass, people on the benches are getting bored, the ride op is half asleep and occasionally trying to converse with me which meets limited success, then finally this lady and little girl walk up to the coaster and ask why it's not running and the human chimney/ride op, explains it needs 2 people to run, so kid bolts into the station and has a seat, at which point the ride op says he needs 2 adults (I about shit my pants when I heard that), so this ride op starts a agressive campaign to get this lady to ride and I'm right behind him doing my best to encourage this non verbally as this lady speaks no english at all, and finally he agrees to ride, and I'm ready to celebrate as my total of 120 mile R/T drive and hour long wait are paying off, so finally I'm seated as is lady and little girl secured in the seat and the ride op goes to start the lift and nothing. So he opens up the mechanical cabinets that are in the booth and starts fiddling, at this point I'm positive a higher power is screwing with me pretty hard and finally he goes to try that lift again and it starts up, and he appears happy with the results and dispatches us. Finally, we head up the lift and crest with no problem, and off we go though with the cold weather and it not having operated the whole morning we are barely cresting the hills on the ride, this lady is pretty small and the kid doesnt help any I'm the only real source of weight on this car, but we make it to the end and thoughout the ride there were some decent forces, nice helix, some airtime on the bunny hops, so I figure well that was my shot my time here is done, so we pull into the station and this little girl and mom get out and the little girl drags the mom into the second car that was waiting at the end of the station and the ride op seemed to encourage it, so I bolted in as well, and I wont bore everyone with ride by ride details but I ended up getting about 25-30 rides in the span of an hour and a half cause of this coaster crazed little girl who refused to stop riding, though in that hour and a half a few other people joined in and I did get a ride with all large adults and the airtime was there, in a BIG way


I just wish I could have spent more time riding this as people were showing up and the coaster was warming up, but it was after noon, I had minimum of an hour and a half drive to get back to Phantasialand which closes at 5, so I head out and following the signs I find the highway without major issue, and I get back to Phantasialand and park in a normal parking lot (€3), and I head in and go straight to Wuze Town hopefully to get my Winja's Fear Credit which was closed the day before, and suprise, it's still closed and Maurer Soehne people are crawling all over that track doing some pretty major work, so my heart drops and I ride Force instead and it give the same ride as the previous day with light spinning, so I do a round of all the coasters, some flats, Mystery Tower, and I decided to do a neat looking water ride called River Quest with these really creepy looking boats and I hear it packs some tricks up it's sleeve, without going into details, it had some tricks, some of which scared the hell out of me (a drop of that angle on a raft ride should not be possible), along with some neat examples of different sorts of lifts on the ride, easily one of my favorite water rides, though the water was green and nasty and I was soaked to the bone (reason I dont ride water rides), so anyways I get some food and mope around the park for the next few hours riding lightly and sitting in Wuze Town hoping that maybe just maybe Fear would open, so I'm sitting there with my ice cream cone and I notice a car where I had not seen a car before on the tracks (from the ground you really cant distinguish between the 2 tracks), and I notice it's heading right for some workers on one of the blocks where the majority of their work had been focused, so it comes into the block comes to a grinding screaching hault sending a rain of sparks to the walkway below, I take it as a bad sign, so after like 10 mins it starts moving again and I see another car crest the lift, so I walk right up near the block brake and the same thing happens though with less sparks, and I'm sitting there taking pics looking all amazed at what they are doing, and one of the guys yells in my general direction "new brakes" (Maurer uses brass brakes pads, brand new rough pads will spark), so now my hopes start to rise slightly, and they keep doing that over and over til there are no sparks or horrible screaching noises, and finally I watch one car crest the lift, and finally go sailing though the block brake, then another and another and the maurer guys start to leave though the cycling stopped and I asked the guy at the enterance if they planned to open Fear and I got a broken english "not sure, but probably not", so I headed out and did what I figured would be one last tour of the coasters before heading back to the hotel, but at about 4:20 with a 40 mins til they were scheduled to close I walk back into Wuze town and I notice a car sail though those block brakes with people inside, and I was estatic, so I race in line, and notice the whole queue has been reconfigured to take you though an area similar to the Choose thy fate area on dueling dragons at IOA and I chose Fear obviously, and waited though a decent 20 min line (as everyone wanted to ride now, and it kept breaking down), got in and was dispatched, went up nifty lift and got to the circuit which is a mirror image of Force for the first half, but the second half is totally different with a drop out track, a 90 degree immelman turn and some other elements that make it far and away better than Force and one of the best Maurer Spinners i have ridden and I got off just in time to get back in line before it was closed off for the night, and on my final ride, I was paired up with another rather large person like myself, and behind us on the other side of the car was 2 small children, I knew that could help the spinning situation, and off we go, and I thought it would help the spinning, and boy did it ever, we spun like a top the entire ride, was amazing, made the whole second day and everything I had gone though worth it. So when I got off the park had closedm so headed towards the exit and drive back to the hotel and did some bathtub laundry and had a vending machine beer and watched my fill of CNN.

(sorry for the lack of paragraphs, just realized that and made 2 out of 1)

Next Day 8 Moviepark and drive to Tripsdrill aka halfway point of my trip.

[w00dland]

FParker, If I were you when I saw the empty station I would play ride operator and just jump into the car when it got dispatched.

Oh, and was that butterfly coaster at the zoo park? That would've been funny.

[FParker185]

that crossed my mind, but it needed a key, and it would have taken me a wrench and about 5 minutes to bypass that

I dont think there was a butterfly coaster at this park, though one of the places I was at had one, though I skipped it, I also skipped all the Nautic Jets as I'm to heavy according to all but Klottens, but Klotten appeared to splash down into raw zoo sewage and I decided it was for the best not to ride

[rb1]

Man. Did you ever have time to go to the bathroom with all the driving and the places you have to go to? and Between Day 1 and 7 which park and country is your favorite and recomend on going to just pick one not all of them?

[FParker185]

Bathroom is something I make time for

so far my favorite park between day one and 7 is Wiener Prater, favorite country is Germany, though for petty reasons, all the countries I visited are relatively similar.