simon8899

Expedition GeForce at Holiday-Park and Blue Fire at Europa-Park - this was a good month coasterwise!

Holiday Park is a small park in the Rhine-Main area. If you stay in Mannheim - main highspeed train station here, Heidelberg, Speyer, Kaiserslautern or Neustadt At The Whinestreet it's easily reachable by local commuter-rail "S-Bahn" lines 1 and 2 to station Hassloch from where there is an hourly bus shuttle to the park. The main attraction of course is the Intamin Mega "Expedition GeForce" with its unique first drop which provides amazing ejector-air in the last rows. Next to that there's also the crazy darkride "Burg Falkenstein" which brings you to a very naughty medieval castle. New this year for small visitors is the "Biene Maja Land" which is based on a very popular children animated TV-show. Holiday Park is quite small so not that much walking like in other parks. Food options are not very diverse but the main self-service restaurant has quite good local food with a good selection of local beers. P.S.: The old flower area with "Tour de Fleurs" and "Tanzender Pavillion" were removed to make room for the new "Biene Maja Land". New entry plaza for 2012 Inside view of the entry plaza Expredition GeForce doing a 90 degree spin while going down 80 degrees at the same time Tons of air to the last bunnyhop quite big log-flume which also features a turntable with backwards splashdown Smaller HUSS BreakDancer variant Classic Condor - always like to ride those The not-so-charming 33 years old Vekoma Whirlwind Funtime HighFlyer MaurerSöhne Mouse with new kiddie drivers-license course in front View of the classic carousell from the Burg Falkenstein entry Welcome to naughty and crazy Burg Falkenstein Of course a decent german castle has a dragon in its cellar! Intamin rafts Welcome to the new Biene Maja Land Rounding up a sunny day with a last spin on Expedition GeForce

Boomerang at Vienna Prater - but the best ride here is the amazing Schwarze Mamba by Funtime Boomerang in the evening Crazy Schwarze Mamba!

Was thinking about adding it to my Vienna trip last week but since the Looping Star was gone decided against it. On getting from Vienna to Budapest I'd prefer the ÖBB Railjet trains going there multiple times each day instead of a bus.

Awwww.....sad its only available for Apple. For me Apple is like Arrow while Android is like Schwarzkopf.... Before I'll buy an Apple device the proverbial hell freezes over first.

I wonder that Europa Park is 2nd place - but on the other hands miss Efteling and Tivoli Gardens. But agree that it's mostly a "Most Popular"-poll and not a "Best Coaster"-poll.

The ride list for Bremen Freimarkt 2012 starting October 19th is out. 4 coasters: - Olympia Looping - Höllenblitz - indoor coaster - Spinning Racer - Maurer-Söhne spinner - Wild Mouse 25 other rides including: - Airwolf - Mondial Inferno - Break Dancer No.2 - HUSS Dancer large variant - Flash - KMG Inversion - Devil Rock - HUSS Flic-Flac / Mega-Dance - Rotor - original 50s Rotor by Siemens - Parkour - Schwarzkopf inverted Monster For more information in the rides visit the german www.ride-index.de More coasters and flats than in many midsize parks!

SkyFlyers are the best invention since the classic chain-flyer! You said it was a slow day. Which day did you visit?

As much as I'd love to do a TPR-Tour - most likely in europe - the planning is sadly too late for me. As I work in shifts AND projects I've to pitch in my holidays for next year now...

Sommerland Syd has filed for bancruptcy. Last year they already sold their Vekoma Inverted Boomerang - but got themselves a HUSS Enterprise and Rainbow as well as a Zyklon Galaxi. They're now searching for new investors to secure financing for the 2013 season.

I don't know for germany right now - but Sommerland Syd in denmark still has a Rainbow. But as it looks the park is in bancruptcy

Maybe one should send them a copy of the operators manual... Frisbee as it should be!

I'll chip in a ride on the Schwarzkopf Katapult - it's a rare credit today because there've been no Katapults in operation for over 15 years....

How did you like the Intamin Invert? I only rode one so far at Särkeniemi in Finland called Tornado and found it to be the best invert coaster ever - beating even the B&Ms.

I for one picked the Take Off - the best of those is operated by german showmen Rüth. It's the only Take Off I know where the program contains that the compartments spin in the same direction as the main plate - this way the Gs add up to amazing force! My other favs include: Break Dancer No. 2 - The big Dancer version with 5 instead of 4 gondola quartets operated by showmen Dreher & Vespermann, this Dancer is even more forceful than the smaller standard variant Mega Dance (also known as Flic Flac) - totally insane, we've the traveling Devil Rock on the carnival circuit Booster - see above entry about insanity, loved the Kieppi at Linanmaki Frisbee is also cool but a more family friendly ride. I'm not so fond of the Top Spins mostly because I don't like the rotating movements too much. I also like the Ranger but prefer the more seldom found Weber Traumboot as the cabin is taller which fits better my height.

Which ride by HUSS do you like most?

To put it broadly it feels alot like a Breakedance with inverted cars. On a finer view the arms go up and down during the ride, the cars can be stopped, rotate freely or rotate at operator-controlled speed. Also in my experience park-installed Magic's have more punch than the traveling variant. It's a quite fun ride with HUSS-typical Gs.

When I was there I always got in line for PP just in time for the next breakdown. How about something like Pilgrims Plunge at Holiday World...?

I'm not really looking forward to see more stand-up coasters. Especially on coaster travels my feet usually kill me after a few days - working in an office I'm not used to that much walking. And then doing a stand-up coaster just adds insult to injury...

Holiday Park / Europa-Park / Vienna Prater - 09/2012 Bremen Freimarkt (carnival) - 10/2012 Hamburg Winterdom (carnival) - 11/2012 Walt Disney World / Sea World Orlando / Universal Resort Orlando / Busch Gardens Tampa - 02/2013

Well there have been some Boomerangs that also stalled in the Cobra Roll - that's why they have the added stairway under the element...so not a chinese achievement. Always wonder how this happens as the train on the trail-run is lighter than later when it's filled with riders. So it should stall on the trail-run when it's empty rather than later on when it's filled with riders...

Can you compare the chinese-made SLCs to the ones made by Vekoma?

Looks like a great park! Also good to see that here are "original" rides that were imported. But I fear that we see a "Made in China"-Skywheel soon - a real dilemma for Euro-/US-manufacturers: Making business with the risk of rides getting copied... Edit Oct 10th 2012: And now it happened - A knock-off SkyWheel. Source: RCDB

It's kinda weird to see loops that vaguely look like based on Schwarzkopf-design with an Arrow/Vekoma tracksystem...

Having no Spezi - which MezzoMix is the CocaCola variant - is one of the major things I miss in the US. Spezi was originally created somewhere around WWII after german manufacturers didn't get Cola done - so they added some Lime- and Orange-Juice and this way its quite popular until today. It's often called "Drivers Beer" as its the drink of choice for the designated driver. On the other hand: I totally miss CherryCoke here!