Kooky

Really nice TR. Nice to see that you liked EuropaPark and my hometown "Freiburg"... but i can tell why they have so many entrances on some rides in EuropaPark. I am going there since 25 years when i was a kid and at this time the park was just a little family park, but every year the park gets bigger the crowds get bigger. So they had to expand the lines of the rides. In between time they build mostly lines were they can controll the way were you walk but in the past the were often not variable. So the decided to build more entrees on the older rides, which they can close if the lines will get longer. So you see, its a feature, that you don`t have to walk miles to the rides itself, if no one is queuing.

I haven`t been their but this ramps are not only used as slides... this is what the homepage said: "Is is a bird? An aircraft? No, it's … a BMX cyclist!? A snowboarder! A free skier! Adrenaline junkies, who want to develop their jump skills, can try to land a creative stunt into the wet on skis, snowboard or even a bike when shooting down the water ramp. But safety comes first: bikes and boards are well-prepared to avoid injuries to the “pilots" and damage to the “flying objects". Here you can exercise cool moves and creative landings alike. Are you ready for take-off?" (source: http://www.area47.at/en/water/water-ramps/) So it seems that non proffesionals can use it as a slide (if you aren`t tony hawks)! but i think you have to rent it, for a amount of time or something like this, and that you will supervised by the personal!

In "Österreich - Ötztal" opened a new waterpark "Area 47": They have nice metalic slides (pics-source: http://www.area47.at/): But what is that in front of the slides!? yeah, there are big jumping slides: epic jumps are possible:

^^ it really is very unique und much of fun, especially in the last forceful helixes... during the lifthill, the cars were spinning controlled by a motor. when you reach the top there is a mouse like part were the cars spin again. Then they stop spinning before the first drop, so you don`t know before if you ride the first drop forward or backwards. On the first hill after the first drop the trains spinn again 180 degrees so that you change your direction. Hope that`s understandable, my english is not the best. Here an onride with lights on in the lift, (you can see how the cars spin in the upper little window): an one with lights off and spinning view, the first 2-3 minuts you`ll see about nothing, sometimes the theming of the lift. and yes the lift roundup is very long: and an old picture from http://rcdb.com/972.htm?p=1266: EDIT: I forgot, really amazing pics... what is more to say. EP is my home park since i was born and on every visit in the last 25 years i discover new details and theming i have never seen. I´ve just been in several parks in Europa but on this continent it is really the best park!

^ thx, this is one of my favourits,too;)

i forgot to add the second part of the trip last year... so i added them now! Better late then never like i said it was crowded and the photos show just some little parts of this huge big very nice themed park, hope you`ll enjoy them: random pirate theming For the rafting enthusiasts, here comes "Fjord Rafting" African theming in EUROPA-PARK!?!.... hmmm,ok... maybe they have plans to take over the world the african boat ride a restaurant themed after northern parts of germany... a very good restaurant by the way! it was so crowded that they even extended the log flume queue line while we were waiting i shot this photo of the "Tiroler Wildwasserbahn" The "Kettenkarussel" like its called in germany... if you are a mushroom enthusiast and did we get wet on the log flume??? Yes, of course... maybe i got this evil look from the girls because i was involved some way that they get wet... and not because i was hot guy overview of the last part of the ride some spanish theming... next is this mine train, which crosses many times the log flume. "Alpenexpress Enzian" even shares his dark ride part with the log flume... really nice themed of course, like everything in the park time to take the train to make some shots a random kiddy ride shot out of the train... again with big mushrooms, like you may have recognized spanish area shot out of the train even on the back of the buildings they done everything really nice log flume out of the train rafting out of the train... yeah you will get a lot of "out of the train" photos PARTY TRAIN - out of the train shot rusian theming and yes... out of the train kiddy train out of the train - "if you can`t have enough of trains" - shot gentle boat ride 2... don`t know the name! But there are mushrooms in it out of the train of course back to spain and finally i got out of the train boat ride 3... and in the back you can see the "Oldtimer-Fahrt" - fahrt means not what you think... one random candy store... Now its time for a dark ride - the "Geisterschloss" This guy on the entrance is very evil... its so evil that it spits directly into your eye if you aren`t carefull at passing this stupid animantronic evil thingy.... i hate you... evil guy of spit this is the entry hall after the evil elevator ^ did i mention that they have good restaurants in the park dancing scene of evil.... hmm does they look very scared!? But it is a nice old ride next: fake skateboarding in front of "SilverStar" Track of the "Matterhorn-Blitz", a really nice mouse ride with an elevator and a really good first drop. yes... we are fomula one pilots! Now you know what we do for earning money Poseidon... there will come a lot of shots from this beauty crowds everywere, which means nearly 1 1/2 hours waiting time enough... ...to... ...take ...a... ...lot... (yes, SilverStar in the backround) ...of... ...shots! Poseidon and SilverStar again Under Poseidon you can see the station and track of "Pegasus" - one of the parks many family coasters i have to take this photo, because i know what you are thinking... you dirty little b*'QÜF but by the way, don`t stay under this horse with your expensive camera... while i am queuing, i got really wet under this....there is comming a huge mass of water out of this one.... but only every 15 minutes or so... so remember my words really sexy curve into the wetness oh yeah, queues... Splash time... out of the queue theming of Poseidon no splash!? of course... if you really think size doesn`t matter, look at this! on the right you can see one of the 3 people movers the park has, the monorail "Matterhorn-Blitz" shot from the Poseidon queue more theming of Poseidon what the hack is this - in german "Was zum Teufel ist dass!?" splash is comming yeah more wetness random greek theming Poseidon overview back to SilverStar... it rides better and better every year in my opinion but i forget to shot some more photos... so here is the second i shot... till it goes dark, yes i got 2 ones in the dark when i left the park some random shot heading to the back of the park to ride bluefire a last time... its allready getting darker yes thats me, in front of the rappids finally we left, so i took some nice night-shots from the entrance area of the park were now many entertainers were awaiting us. german women, i know you want to see them the park really gets more beautiful at night leaving after a funny day the entrance and the theming on front of it... as you can see it was a short time before halloween and finally two night shots of SilverStar (but not really good ones) thx for watching! hope you enjoyed the trip

^If you look on the first onride video it looks really fast and not very rough... I like especially the little airtime hill after the cobra roll. You can find the first onride video on http://www.bild.de/BILD/regional/leipzig/aktuell/2010/06/10/huracan/hier-rast-der-rote-riese-erstmals-durch-belantis.html

if you look closely in the video on the station, you can see that it is Maya or Inca style themed, so the cars really look colorful but i think it fits to the station.... what does not fit is the red color of the track, but i hope they will change it next year! If you remember that they announced this coaster at the end of march and that it takes 3 months till the coaster mades his test rides, it s really awesome how fast they realized this, so maybe they had not enough time (or money) for a new paint job.

the first video of a test ride is online:

that looks like the dragon will become a really nice big animatronic... really impressive!

the most parks in germany, just have american themed areas in western style, like said before... The only one i know is HeidePark which has a american style themed elements: source: http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/72/Heide-Park_Soltau_Colossos.JPG EDIT: Oh, i forgot.... THERE ARE some american themed areas in many parks!!! They were mostly called "McDonalds" und you will find it in many parks... ask Melissa

Belantis has choosen the name "HURACAN" and postet 2 Videos on their facebook page: The TV spot: and a TV report from the building:

no prob... but i have to mention that i havn`t filmed the footage, i just linked it! I thought you had to see this little "gem"... so hopefully this kind of coaster gets more publicity so that more parks build this nice family ride.

The homepage of the park says that it has a max speed of 85km/h (52mph), that the train takes the rest of the course with a speed between 60-75 km/h (37-46 mph), the average speed of the entire ride is 68km/h (42mph) and end speed when it hits into the first brakes was 53 km/h (32 mph). Very fast in my opinion. the original text from http://schwabenpark.com/Schwaben_Park/Neu_2010.html: But even with this speed it seems that its a ride for everyone, small kids as well as coaster fanboys Overall the reactions were very positive, just two little minor issues: - it seems to be a little bit shaky, but not in a way that it is no fun. - it seems to be to fast on hot days to get braked correctly... like i mentioned before it sometimes passes through the station on hot days, and has to be driven backwards... but as a coaster fan its not an issue, its a good omen

I think it was "Xplor", its a adventure park with attraction in caves,through the jungle and on ropeways. I just heard they call it "Explor" in the report so i thought it was written like that. So THX, i corrected it. @all outside from germany, maybe you can view it over a german proxy! like http://www.german-proxy.de/ but i can`t test it so i don`t know if it works correctly and maybe its very slow. EDIT: Seems that it doesn`t work, so if i find a solution, i will post it here.

Here you find more nice pics of the coaster. And i have to agree with you, its really the most intresting family coaster i have ever seen. It seems that it really has some strong forces but in a really fun way, so it seems that the name was choosen correctly. One guy in the german forum called it lovely "Intimidator72" i like that name!

The coaster is running and it seems seems to be much fun and develops very nice forces in the helixes... they just had some little problems that they installed to less brakes so that the train could not be filled completely at the moment because then the train is to fast and stops outside of the station and had to be driven back by the operator, but they will fix this the next days. There are new videos from the coaster: Onride: offride:

I know the most of you didn`t understand the language but in this 27 min. report they show really nice pics of parks from the whole world: Seoul - Lotte World, Tampa - BushGardens, Mexico - Xplor, Orlando - SeaWorld, Rust- EuropaPark, Dubai - WildWadi, Brisbane - Dreamworld. Hope you can watch it in the US. http://www.prosieben.de/tv/galileo/videos/clip/23509-mission-wissen-weltweit-die-coolsten-freizeitparks-1.1710497/

The Dragon arrived at efteling and it looks that this thing will be very big: Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/86/57386_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/87/57387_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/88/57388_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/89/57389_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/90/57390_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/91/57391_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/92/57392_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/93/57393_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/94/57394_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/95/57395_forum.jpg Source: http://foto.vijfzintuigen.nl/photos/85/57385_forum.jpg

Zierer coasters really look better and better,maybe we will see a really big coaster from them in the near future. And i think there could be a little bit floating airtime on the little hump. what maybe intresting for you, is that this park even has an old Schwarzkopf -Wildcat called "Himalyabahn": Image source:http://www.schwabenpark.com/Schwaben_Park/Attraktionen/Seiten/Himalaya_Bahn.html#0

The small German family park builded a Zierer family coaster the last months: Force One It will open in two days and the Layout looks really intresting. Maybe this park is something for your Europe-Trips. There are three family credits and other cool stuff... so here is the link to their homepage: http://schwabenpark.com/Schwaben_Park/HOME.html And there is an intresting video of the first test runs with people on it: EDIT: The onride video is in the last post on the bottom of this page! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ-rAlqcLgw

Bluefire is really good coaster, especially because EuropaPark is my home park... but its not one of the best or most thrilling... its just that the coaster is fun all the time! From the launch to the final brake. So the element i like most are the two horseshoe rolls. I like how you fly through a hole in the rocks into the first one and then dive into the little canyon just to shoot out of it some moments later and make it over the big rock, while if you were looking up in horseshoe roll, you really think that you can touch the rock... So this caoster is really amazing fun... smooth, comfortable and really fun overall

The roughest one i rode was Eurosat in EuropaPark... Extremly rough and totally under and overbanked curves, but this is what makes the ride special...in the dark you don´t know when the curves will come and you have the feeling of uncontrolled throwing around in the dark. And it even has the hardest final brake EVER! But even this is done on purpose of the park and completes the amazing ride experience... if you don`t know it here is an onride video with lights on:

So after for 4 years of waiting and building time, and the growing costs from 1,5 million to 3,8 million swiss francs, it seems that this PAX-coaster will finally open the next weeks. The Park announces that the german TÜV has made his first test runs the last weeks and they had to do some minor technical changes... but they feel confident that the TÜV will allow the opening this year (eventually the next weeks or months). Here is the original post from their official homepage: and there are some new pics on their homepage: and some from 2009:

so they really did it. They completed the coaster in just 12 days!!! REALLY NICE PICS ON http://www.belantis-board.de/board5-der-park/board13-zukunftsvisionen/567-der-euro-fighter-bau-blog/#post9733 <-- you have to see this ones, there you can see all the nice elements. I really like the mini airtime hill after the double loop (don`t know the name of that element). And all the track parts really were looking fantastic... here are some Photos from the belantis facebook-page: