First off a quick overview of the park, it's a bit smaller than SFGAm but with a layout that more resembles a maze than any normal park layout and it's nearly impossible to see everything in the park in the 2 days I had alloted for the park. After visiting the park for just one day with the ACE trip in 2002 I knew i needed to go back as I knew I had just scratched the surface. About the park it's similar to BGW but with far superior all around themeing, and I do perfer Europa Park themeing to Disney by quite a bit, but anyone elses mileage will vary depending on your tastes (natural/real world vs. fantasy), also Europa Park uses alot of water features, there is always a fountain, river, canal, pool where ever you go. Also a quick background, Europa Park is owned by Mack Rides and they use it as a show room for their ride catalog, so all but about 3-4 rides in the park are done by Mack, and that is also the reason for the incredible themeing and operations that exist. If it's not a Mack ride it's generally not run as well as it could, i.e very heavy braking on Silver Star, the B&M Hyper, as of course they dont want their own rides outshined by another manufacturer in their own showroom. Also they are absolutely fanatical about capacity with most of their coasters running at least 4-5 trains, and at least one, Euro Sat, regularly runs 9. And one last thing that was once told to be by someone with ECO last time I was in Europe with ACE, and that was that "when you visit prepare to be amazed, the way the park works is if there is something they can do for $1000 they will do it, even if they can get identical results for $1 and half the time they will dress up the $1000 product to look like the $1 product." With that out of the way...
Went to Europa Park for 2 days, a Sunday and Monday, the Sunday coincided with the end of the parks Hot Air Balloon festival, so if you look at my pics that's why you see a bunch of hot air balloon pics. Weather Sunday was sunny and warm and due to that and the balloon festival it was a bit crowded, then Monday was absolutely dead with cloudy and wet conditions, and betweent the 2 days I rode everything I wanted, and I stayed open to close on Sunday and monday I left slightly early to make a decent drive to Stuttgart for my next hotel.
K, so, will touch on the major rides now, I dont remember any order in which I did them, was having entirely to much fun to remember all the specific details, also I will hit only on the major rides, as they have a stunning quanity of rides crammed into the park would take forever to describe every one. First off Silver Star, B&M Hyper with a layout reminicient of Nitro at SFGAdv, though with way heavy brakes. Like most queue's for their rides it is pretty amazing to see, the ride is sponsored by Mercdades Benz and the queue wraps verticall around a Mercades showroom of sorts showing off at the time the all new 2007 Silver Arrow which is an amazing looking car, also in the room there is a mock up of a new 7 speed automatic transmission that is taken apart and motorized so you can see how it functions, also there is a bar, resteraunt, some X-box's with racing games that people can play (all this applies to people not in line) and a bunch of mercades racing memorablila, oh and a pretty bad ass bathroom(fancy), but the queue winds around in the air over this room til you get to the station where there is a bunch more switchbacks hiding, but it goes relatively fast, and the station is entirely stainless steel with black accents and some racing stuff, like Xmas tree (think TTD). Ride itself is ok, brakes were lighter than in 02, but it still robs alot of life out of the ride, and it also is contained almost entirely down the center median of their parking lot (after all it is themed to cars and racing and whatnot), after you get off you do down a bunch of stainless steel and glass ramps bringing you back into the queue building so you can check out everything i mentioned before Oh and also there is a gift shop in the building selling ride stuff and some high end Mercades racing merchandise, and as an afterthought you can email your on ride photo to anyone you want for free using a kiosk(amazing free publicity idea), though a print with frame will cost you, as it should.
(going vaguely from ride to ride around the park)
Pegasus, their new for 2006 coaster, is a Mack (of course) Young Star coaster, it's similar to a Vekoma Roller Skater, but that one is on crack with a 80 degree banked turn, amazing themeing themed to an archeological dig and a really nice looking train that appears to be a pegasus. Also I noticed the quality of the ride itself like most things mack makes puts the Vekoma equivlent to shame, however with how saturated the market is with teh Vekoma Product I dont see Mack selling all that many of these, but it's still neat. Also I found something out a few days ago, I saw it ran 2 trains but didnt see a transfer track anywhere but was looking at pics and the station actually opens up and the station track rises up to the celing and another track rises up out of the basement and that is how transfering trains is accomplished, like I said, they arent afraid to spend $$ on all the pimped out toys
Also Pegasus is located sort of under their Water Coater Posiedon, which is about 75% coaster track and 25% flume, all of it amazingly themed and it runs 22 boats for maximum capacity.
http://p2.rcdb.com/picmax/europa-park/poseidon17.jpg
there is a pic of the station with ride, and I will point out that absolutely nothing on that station is fake, it is solid quarried rock, that is real fire coming out of the torches and no one dare ask anyone at mack how much that station alone cost. Also
http://p2.rcdb.com/picmax/europa-park/poseidon10.jpg
when the ride is closed, they have inserts that put in the groove in the floor where the boats go to form a solid floor and they use that space for fancy dinners and conventions. Queue rails and whatnot are also removable. I have a pic here somewhere, will post when I find it.
For the ride itself, it's a bit hard to describe, the flume part is amazingly themed, and the coaster part is good also, though nothing really groundbreaking. It alot of fun and the final drop and hump have some nice airtime, and at night is has an amazing lighting package that is mostly underwater
(having trouble envisioning the layout of the park, so I may jump around now)
They have another similar ride called Atlantica Super Splash which is a splashwater falls type ride exept it rides entirely on track, the 20 or so passenger boat leaves the station and goes up a lifthill forwards, when it gets to the top it goes onto a turntable which turns it 270 degrees and lets it go backwards down a drop into a rise and onto another turn table which turns it around again to go down the drop, has a rather large airtime filled drop skims the waters surface making a splash but it rises into a rather nice airtime hill before a final splashdown and returning to the station (pimpin)
Then there is Eurosat, which is located inside a sphere which looks identical to the Epcot Sphere though being so close to halloween the sphere was wearing a pumpkin outfit across the front. But basically it runs 9 trains and there is an esclator taking people up into the station, it's space themed, and the crew there is obssessed with capacity, trains have about 15-20 seconds to pull into the station, unload, load and head out onto the lift, it's done with breathtaking percision. Ride itself is hard to explain, but it starts with a 4 or so mounte lifthill which is a huge upward spiral which is powered by a wheel on the side of the train which rides on an enormus rotating drum in the center of the spiral, 5 trains fit on the lift at one time, and there is a pretty bad ass techno soundtrack for the entire ride, also inside the sphere it's all screens and mirrors and there is a decent laser show happening in there, and at the end of the ride the stop in the final brakes is like slamming into a brick wall, so if anyone ever rides it, you are warned
K then the other Euro ride, Euro Mir, I will start on the outside of the ride, but the ride is done up around 5 Blue Mirrored towers, well even better
http://www.rcdb.com/ig972.htm?picture=1
looks all nice, and that satelite in the background is a real, formerly functional Radio Telescope, again they spare no expense. In fact they spare so little expense..
http://www.501st.de/gg/galerie/jahresal ... ir_jpg.jpg
They bought the actual Space Station Mir training modules from the russian government to use as a sun shade for the ride's queue, it's rather amazing, the modules are an exact replica of the real space station in 1:1 scale, and you can walk though them and see what it was like on Mir, I especially liked seeing the Space Toilet
But onto the ride, it runs 7 trains so capacity is a non issue and no matter how long the line you are on it in a hurry, but after the queue you enter the station building which is entirely black lit and has a really kick ass techno soundtrack blaring inside and you go up a few flights of stairs til you get to the station where conditions are the same, all blacklit music blaring and you are shown to the train which is 4 cars long, seating people in rows of 2, back to back, so 4 people per car 16 per train and again they are unloaded and reloaded in a matter of seconds where you are dispacthed onto a stretch of track that is not entirely level and the cars start to spin (the spinning is mechanical and powered, and it not at an especially high rate of speed), and after you lumber though that track you are accelerated presisely onto the lift that is just about the same as Euro Sat exept this time it's about a 5 min lift with some amazing show effects and plenty of spinning, wont go into details, but based on the theme and soundtrack alone the coaster breaks into my Top 10. But you exit the lift though some sliding doors where you orbit around the mirrored towers relatively slowly while spinning which is a neat effect, and eventually you stop spinning and you take a huge sweeping downward turn all the way to the ground then rise back up to a block brake where the cars are spun one half turn, so if you took that first drop forwards you are now backwards and vise versa, and reguardless on which way you face in the station, the way you face for the ride is entirely random. As I was saying lots of bling
also in the park is Matterhorn Blitz which is a custom Wild Mouse with an amazingly themed queue themed to a barn and farm house, lots of animatronics, and the ride has some suprises also starting with the lift which is a total suprise. wont go into details but due to the needed capacity (this mouse runs 12 cars on a single track), the cars are delt with in groups of 2 (loaded, unloaded and put on the lift in groups of 2), while in the outdoor part of the line right near the track you notice a car passes by literally every 15 seconds.
Also near the mouse is Schweizer Bobbahn a Bobsled coaster, it runs 5 trains, though to do that it has quite a few block brakes and I'm not a huge fan of the Mack Bobsleds that feature more block brake track than regular track, but it has amazing themeing to work with, and suprisingly airtime as it does have an actual drop, rise and hill on it.
Also they have Alpen Express a powered coaster towards the back of the park that is a relatively standard layout, but it goes though a mountain with pretty amazing themeing and some suprisingly large fire effects.
that mountain is shared by a log flume which is pretty amazing in it's own right. And worth mentioning right across from the flume is a new Wave Swinger ride which I wouldnt mention exept they went ahead and put fountains in the concrete under the ride, so once you load and the ride takes off the fountains start up and the water comes scary close to making your feet wet.
They have a rather nice Observation Tower about the same as Sky Trek Tower, it is one of the non mack rides in the park, the plaque in the cabin was from a manufacturer I cant identify. Also the park has 2 monorails, one for transportation and looks quite similar to Disney's Monorail and that goes around the park in a large circle, then they have a sightseeing monorail which is smaller, closer to the ground, and totally unenclosed excellent for taking pics and it goes around a good chunk of the park.
They have a Carousel of Progress identical to Disney's exept they recently tore out the scenes and replaced it with 5 damn good laser shows, one involving a stunningly enormus quanitiy of artificial fog (a warning in english to anyone who is affected by that stuff), but it is truely amazing. They also have just about the entire lineup of flat rides by mack, including Music Express, Flying Bobs and probably a dozen others, each with a unique and amazingly through theme. They have lots of dark rides, though I dont do dark rides, one I did in 2002 was a near exact recreation of Pirates of the Carribean called Pirat's of Batavia, though they have quite the selection of dark rides if that's your thing.
Also in one of the sections there is a Mack Museum which chronicals the 250 year tradition of the Mack Company with models of most of the major rides in the park.
Also the park has 4, and as of next year 5 Hotels, all are expensive so I've never been in the rooms, but each one is breathtakingly themed, the nicest would be their last hotel Hotel Colleseo which is a mockup of the roman colleseum, and in the middle of the hotel there is interactive fountains, and light shows, it's really amazing.
I think that's about it, exept at night everything and anything is covered in strings of lights, it's breathtaking and probably worthy of it's own seperate Night Time Europa Park TR
Also one last thing of note, the parks Mascot is Euro Maus, which is similar to Mickey Mouse but Gray and Yellow and with blue suspenders with the European logo on it, but you see it everywhere, and he might just take over the world one day
And also they have several parades with some of the most amazing parade floats I've seen, they have one float for each major ride in the park and they are done up quite extensively.
And oh yeah, also new this year is Bumper Cars, but it's done up in a football arena (Euro Football, aka soccer), but there are 2 teams of cars, Red and Blue, then there are 2 goal nets on opposite ends of the bumper car arena, and as soon as the ride starts they release a rather large soccer ball onto the field, I didnt partake as it had a huge line, but I sat up in the stands for a while watching the competition in the AC
Well on that second day I left a tad bit early around 5 ish (I should mention they have a soft close which is determined by crowds, day 1 there was 7:30 and the second day seemed to be 6 I think I heard), but I very reluctantly left like around 4:30-5 as I had a 2 or so hour drive to Stuttgart and my hotel was in a suburb of Stuttgart and I wanted to get there with alittle time left so I could ride a ride or 3 this night, so the drive there was uneventful, and finding my hotel was a slight challenge but it was right near the Porche Factory in Stuttgart which made it a bit easier to find, though getting exactly to the hotel was hard as the car just barely fit down the street it was on and that was slow going as not to damage my rental car, so I found the poorly marked hotel and went and checked in with the just about non english speaking clerk who looked at my passport (first hotel to do that so far) and she checked me in and handed me the room key and pointed me over to a brochure rack for any other info I needed. So I got a updated subway/train/tram map and schedule and headed to my room which is about what I expected though a it roomier than I envisiond but I got a bed, window, TV and sink and table, no toilet or shower, those were both down the hall, but it ended up being no problem and I'll just mention that by the time I left this hotel I wouldnt have minded staying in more hotels like this one, the lack of bathroom I handled alot smoother than I could have ever imagined due to the fact I shower at night which seems to be the less popular time to do that. But anyways I will pick up on this on my next TR as this one has gone on long enough.
I guess that's it, and the next TR will be Day 13 Canstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart.
