flotus

It's 2 months, still plenty of time to finish Kärnan. I wouldn't write it off just yet. Is the park worth the visit without it? I'd say yes, but if you're planning a Scandi Trip 201x you might delay it until then. Since you travel by train mostly, there is a train station near Holiday Park: "Haßloch(Pfalz)" trains from Hamburg take 5h there. Be aware, the biggest railway strike is going on in Germany right now, only 1/3 of the trains are operating. It's 2 months till your trip so you 're hopefully not affected, but keep an eye out on that. http://www.bahn.de/blitz/view/fernverkehr/uebersicht.shtml http://www.bahn.de/blitz/view/index.shtml

Since you're into well themed parks, Hansa Park is a good choice and really worth the drive. Also easy to reach with the Autobahn right next to it. Themeing for Kärnan however might still be missing when you visit. You mentioned Tripsdrill - Karacho? Novgorod and Karacho are 2 very very different coasters. I don't think they share any element other than a launch, a station and a queue. Hansapark isn't the biggest park, 3/4 of a day is probably enough (ofc. depending on queue times kärnen, etc.) so you can spend the evening of that day in Hamburg. It's a long very drive from Hamburg to Europa Park (>6h). You didn't say if you have an extra day for this. If not, 1/2 day Hansa, rest driving might be an option. Otherwise I'd suggest changing the order to go to Hansa first and then Hamburg and drive from there. If you do have an extra day for driving, use it for a quick visit to Holiday Park (Expedition GeForce). You'll drive by very close (<20km) anyway and even a 2 hour visit is very well worth it.

On which day are you visiting? I'd call or mail the hotel about the early entry. And make sure you arrive there in time, many people will check out in the morning just when when you want to check in. The early entry also opens a little early as well. For the Rides: Use early entry if possible, but make sure to be at "Matterhorn Blitz" ASAP. It has by far the worst capacity in the park and should be done in the very first minutes after park opening. After that go direct to the "Schweizer Bobbahn" which is close and should be empty so early as well. From there, especially if the weather will be hot: go counter-clockwise and do the water stuff first (Poseidon, Pegasus, *, Atlantica). Do Wodan and Blue Fire in the back of the park until the big crowd arrives there around noon. Walk back counter-clockwise via "Alpenexpress Enzian" and Arthur (skip if very long queues) and * . Make sure to be near the entrance (Eurosat and Silver Star) between 13:00 and 16:00 when there is the least people. SilverStar queue might look big, but moves very fast, the capacity is astounding. After that do whatever is missing and be at Woodan and Blue Fire again in the last hour before closing where the queues will be short. * Euro-Mir will be on your way several times, do it whenever the queue is short but skip for the moment if you want to get to another area quickly. You might save some time if you do Arthur in the early morning as well, but you might want to watch the 4D cinema film first. PS: Europapark has an app which shows the queue times for the rides. PPS: Don't forget the shows and other stuff at the park.

*bump* ?

Planning for a 2015 East Coast Trip. (Already been to NYC, Washington, SFGAdv, Kings Island and Cedar Point before) The plan is to spend 1 day (per line) at: Flight / Boston SFNE Lake Compounce (and Quassy) NYC / Cony Island SFGAdv Dorney and Knoebels Herschey WDC / SF America Kings Dominion Bush Gardens Europe Carrowinds Dollywood SFoG Flight Atlante -> Chicago SF Great America Fly back + 2-3 additional days for reserve and non park stuff. Questions: 1. Opening Days: Is it relatively save to assume the parks will open at similar times in 2015 as in 2014 (addjusted for Holidays, etc.)? 2. When is the best time to visit the parks? Many seem to be closed / open only on weekends until June / Memorial Day. I plan to use Fastpass, etc. in most parks but still like to avoid the school holidays and the hot / humid summer months. 3. When can the new Rides (Fury 325 and Wicked Cyclone) be expected to open? (I know things can always happen) 4. Is SF America worth a visit? Heard not the best about this park but well it's on the way anyway. 5. Which Order woud you suggest: Boston->Atlanta or Atlanta->Boston and why? 6. Any Parks or other types of (Thrill-)Rides on the way I'm missing? 7. Is it save to buy Fastpasses in the parks at opening (planning to be at all parks at opening hour) or can they be sold out through online sales? I'd like to stay flexible and therefore bying Fastpasses in advance online for specific days would be a problem. 8. Anything else? All suggestions welcome.

This thread needs some history, so: Germany - Phantasialand is 10 miles away from Cologne, famous for its cathedral. Construction started in 1248 and was stopped halfway done in 1560: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gross_St_Martin_-_Rheinpanorama_um_1856.jpg Resumed in 1840, construction finally completed in 1880 where the cathedral was the tallest building in the world. (Taller than Kingda Ka) http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:K%C3%B6lner_Dom_nachts_2013.jpg Today it's the most visited tourist feature in Germany. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Koelner_Dom_Innenraum.jpg http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Hohenzollernbr%C3%BCcke_K%C3%B6ln.jpg Video (use HD): http://youtu.be/bwFu9dnWtCA?t=9m23s

There is a huge 4D cinema in the park (near the entrance). In the afternoon they show a short version of the film there which explains the story. Basic story: Arthur is a boy whose father (or grandpa?) is missing since 2 years. The minimoys are miniature people who live in his garden. Arthur lets himself shrink to get into the world of the minimoys on a search / rescue his father roadtrip.

This! LEDs are cheaper over the long run, but some good lighting can also be done without / before them. My favorite: Oktoberfest at night: (pics from wikipedia) From 16:37 to 17:23. Make sure to enable HD. Some more pics at 15:07 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfqRUWFlt20

Currently PA seems to want long queues so they can sell more express tickets. When I was there a few months ago, the park opened at 10am, but most rides including Shambala only at 11pm. And then only with 2 trains, switching to 3 trains at 12pm. So they had build up a long queue there which seemed intentionally and from what I've read this was not an exeptional day. Operations were not great either. Earlier opening hours, better operations and the new Ferrari world should increase the capacity substantially, but 10 million is still a lot. I'm curious however about the Ferrari Park, it seems very small on these maps ...

I can't help with a factory visit either. I can olny offer a link to a video you might already know: As for the parks, it really depends on where you're going. If you fly to/from Paris there is Parc Asterix and obviously Disneyland. If you fly to/from Frankfurt there is Holiday Park. Tripsdrill might be on your way in South West Germany. Feel free to ask any questions, also about non park stuff, here or via pm.

Option 1: Seems there are no direct flights from Toronto to Gothenburg anyway. So choose your flight so that you go from Toronto to a big european airport (arrive in the morning), visit a park nearby and continue to Gothenburg the next day. From Frankfurt you are close to Holiday Park (GeForce) which is doable even by train, or to Europa Park (2 hours by car). London (Heathrow) has Thorpe Park very close. Amsterdam has a number of parks around to choose from. Maybe Paris, Barcelona. Option 2: From Gothenburg / Liesberg the obvious candidates are: Oslo - TusenFryd Stockholm - Grona Lund Koppenhagen - Tivoli (and/or Bakken) All reachable by train within 3-4 hours (+ time from train station to the park) Option 3: From Gothenburg take the ferry to Frederikshavn (4 hours, possibly during night) and from there a car to Farup Sommerland (1h) and/or Djurs Sommerland (2h). From there it's < 1h to Tivoli Frihedden.

I absolutely agree that there is a dark side of dubai and things have not really improved according to Human Rights Watch. But what's even worse is that many countrys have a dark side, a click on "Publications" on the Human Rights Watch site brings up theese articles: And there is a lot more which could be said about the US (don't get me started) and many other countrys. If you exclude all countrys with a dark side, I'm afraid there won't be many left to go to. (I don't want to defend Dubai in any way, but we should take care of our own countrys first, before we teach other countrys.) On the topic: Will they also handle the heat with a mostly indoor installation? Im curious about the long term prospects of theese projects there. When they run out of oil and therefore mone, will they be able to attract enough tourists to finance all this stuff?

Hardly anything. Most of the time the Theresienwiese is used, is the time for buildup and teardown and the 2 weeks of the Oktoberfest. Then there is a small version of Oktoberfest in the spring, a winter festival "Tollwood" and a flee market. Currently there is some discussion about an arabian festival, but the city is very reluctant to the idea of camel races. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/geplantes-orientfestival-ob-reiter-lehnt-kamelrennen-auf-der-theresienwiese-ab-1.2071833 (Although that would have some historical background, since the Theresienwiese and Oktoberfest originated from a wedding and a horse race)

Since B&M will only build a launched coaster if they can make the technology reliable, they absolutely should build one. I think there is lots of potential for improvements and new ideas. Like a combination of systems like wheels + LSM.

Which extra clicks? Or have they changed it? I was there 2 months ago and it needed just 2 clicks total to get going. It was very tight though and I think the reason is the seating position is not exactly horizontal but with an angle upwards for the legs. This plus big legs makes it so tight.

There are tricks which can be used to fit in some restraints. I've seen people didn't fit in el Toro which I assumed being lighter than me. I streched my body upwards so that the T-bar hits the lower part of my stomache. "Lifting up" that "moveable" part of the belly also helps quite a bit. Finally holding the hands at the wagon in front and pushing the bar with elbows, I can create a substantial force to push the bar down as much as I need and never had a problem with such bars. On some coasters I've seen people do the walk of shame which had their pockets full of stuff and probably could have fit if they'd emptyd them. Another story is the seat spacing. On some trains my knees can hit the seat in front of me. And on woodies, especially if the surface in front is metal, that can be quite painful. Also a problem are U-bars which are very narrow so the side of the legs hits them, again especially on rattling woodies. B&M bars are tight but just ok. With the exception of Shambala (Port Aventura, Spain) which seems to have different bars or seats. The worst restraints are magnum XL2000. They are not flat like most others but round so that the force of the ejector airtime concentrates in a very small spot making that rather painful. I Wonder how expensive a change of the shape of those can be. PS: The problem of the belts on MF is not only that they are shorter than those of el Toro, but also the sideway location of the clasp. So you can't really pull the belt together like on other rides where the clasp is in the middle.

I visited the park in the meantime and despite the staff there telling me that people have to wait the 1 hour at the dome, people were siting and waiting at various places in the park unchecked. The extra Ticket for the SummerNight is 5£ if you have a ticket for the day. Parking fee is a bit weird. For SummerNight it is free and since you have to pay when leaving the park, parking day + night is completely free where parking day only is 5£. I first went to The Swarm which had a short (~20min) but quickly growing queue. I lreally like the coaster and it's my favorite coaster in the park. Only the backward seating was not convincing. The near miss elements can't be seen and there was nothing else really "special" about the backward ride. Stealth was not operating for the first 3-4 hours. When it later went on, it felt like it's moving over the top faster than Kingda Ka producing more airtime. Saw and Colossus had queues of 70-90min, Nemesis and Stealth ~ 40min. Even most flat rides >30min. However some of the queue times shown were quite wrong, especially towards the evening. In the SummerNight all coasters were reduced to single train operations and the park was rather empty. All rides were almost a walk on and later you could reride as often you like. In the ~2,5 hours of the SummerNight I managed double as many rides than in the 8 hours of the normal day.

I have a question about the Summer Nights. I plan to visit the park on Fr. July 11 and the website says the park is open from 10am-6pm, Summernight starts at 7pm. Does the park really close for 1 hour and all people have to leave and buy an extra ticket for the night? How crowded do you think the park will be on Friday day and night? (Or on Saturday 12?)

I used the sites linked on alton's website (http://www.altontowers.com/useful-info/how-to-find-us/). It seems that I found the most expensive train in morning rush hour. After your answer I checked again and the prices at other times are way cheaper, thanks for the heads up. However I've decided to rent a car now, the bus / train connections to AT are really bad and reaching a cheap hotel with trains / busses isn't any easier.

I visited both in 2013 and I think Tripsdrill is the better park. Tripsdrill is located in a very nice area and has better themeing. Skyline park is missing some themeing and at least parts of it are very new and nature needs time there to "fill it". Since the main attraction of Skyline park is "Sky Wheel" which is basically the same as "Sky Scream" in HP (but without the loop) there is not that much speaking for Skyline park. (Although they do have a free Slingshot) Both parks are not huge, so doing both on 1 day might be an option. Skyline park has a good train connection to Munich (1:10h), so if you ever get to Munich you can do that park easily from there. In the area are also Schwaben park and Legoland but I can't say much about them. Phantasialand should be on your way as well, but you're probably aware of that already. Not sure what you're interested in, but there might be other things to visit, like a few minutes from Holiday park: https://www.google.com/search?q=speyer+technikmuseum&tbm=isch&sa=X&biw=1836&bih=1105 http://speyer.technik-museum.de/

I'm planning a quick trip to the UK visiting Thorpe Park and Alton Towers. Somewhere in July before the 24th where the school holidays seem to start. I plan to spend 1 day in each Park, 1 day in London and perhaps another (half) day for the trip back home. It'll be most likely Thursday and Friday in the Parks and Saturday and Sunday London and Flight back so that I have the option to switch London for another day in the parks if needed. Here are my questions: 1. How crowded will the parks be on Thursday and Friday, is 1 day enough for each park (I'm willing to spend some money for fast passes)? 2. Tips for getting around? London obviously via public transport, Thorpe seems to have good bus / train connections too. The Problem is how to get from London to Alton Towers. The train ticket to Stoke-on-Trent is ridiculusly expensive with 133 pound for a one way trip and the bus connections from there to the park are not great either. Rental cars seem cheap but the trip is long and I'm only used to drive on the right side of the road. I considered to get to Stoke by train and get a rental car there for 1 day which would be faster but also most expensive. My current plan is to fly to Manchester go to Alton, Thorpe, London and fly back from there. But I'm open for any suggestions. Also looking for Tips for Hotels.

Waldameer is a very small park and I'm not sure if it's really worth it making a detour for it. But if you go there, you might consider going to Niagra Falls as well, which is closer to Waldameer than Cedar Point. Here's what I did in 2013: After Cedar Point, Day x+1: Drive from CP hotel to Waldameer: ~ 3h Waldameer: 1-2h Drive to Niagra Falls: ~ 2,5h Niagra Falls: 3h (did everything you can do there, and it's really worth it) Drive to Toronto: ~2h Sounds like a lot of driving and while it is, the stops at Waldameer and Niagra make it very doable. Day x+2: Canadas Wonderland Day x+3: Toronto (was not really worth it) and drive back to Buffalo via Niagra Parkway (Whirlpool an Falls from Canadian side). I did Darien Lake on the next day as well. If I'd do it again, I'd skip Toronto and use the time for Darien Lake instead (3-4h for Darien is enough). And you can shorten the trip on day x+1 a bit if you drive 1 or 2 hours from Cedar Point towards Waldameer the day before.

The Kombi ticket is basically a combination of this ticket http://www.bahn.com/i/view/DEU/en/prices/germany-regional/baden-wuerttemberg-ticket.shtml (click Conditions) and the park entrance. With the difference that the combi ticket is valid during morning rush hour (6:00-9:00) as well. It's valid on 1 single day, so you would need another one for the trip back to the airport. You get a voucher you can exchange for a park entrance ticket. If that must be for the same day as the Kombi ticket, I don't know. I suggest to email the park this question. http://www.europapark.de/lang-en/Info-and-services/Contact/c285.html Get the Baden-Württemberg-Ticket in case which is the cheapest option (39€ for 5 persons). You can use that ticket for a trip to Hiliday Park (Expedition GForce), which is not that far away, as well. The train connection however is not great so you might consider to rent a car for such 1 day. Carpooling (http://www.carpooling.co.uk/) might be an alternative, but 5 persons would need a very big or 2 cars which will be hard to find. http://www.carpooling.co.uk/partners/page/1918

I visited Port Aventura a week ago on Friday 30th May (afternoon) and Saturday 31th May White Night. There was no big difference in the waiting times between the two days: Furius Baco: 1:00 - 1:30 Hurracan Condor (drop Tower): 0:50-1:20 (No Express!) Dragon Khan: 0:30-0:50 Shambala: 0:30-1:20 Other Rides incl. Templo de Fuego: 0:30-1:30 I had an Express Premium Gold booked together with the hotel and it was definatly worth it. The price is the same as for normal days, so you get more value out of it on White Night. Waiting time with Express: <5 min. Waiting times were lower in the night: a lot lower for water and smaller rides, somewhat for the big rides. I'd recoomend to visit on the White Night and by an Express ticket. Note that even after midnight it is not really completely dark. There are a lot of lights in the park and from the near industry buildings. And on Shambala there are quite bright lights pointing in your face so that the onride-cameras have something they can film. I've seen several people at Shambala using cameras, including a guy with a stomach camera who didn't seem to got problems using it. Although staff didn't seem to care that much anyway. (Shambala station really needs 2 more op's.) A few people took out cameras / phones on the lifthill. All visitors should be aware that many rides don't open at 10:00. Only Furius Baco, Dragon Khan and 2 water rides open at 10:00. Shambala at 11:00. Others at 12:00. Shambala operates with 2 trains from 11:00 to 12:00 and 3 after 12:00.