Euro Parks & Big Cities

[BrownStreak]

So I am wondering if you know much about parks by train in Europe? I am hoping to make my first trip to Europe this summer (well I was born there and lived there for a year afterwards but still...)

 

CURRENT PLAN:

Day 1- Land in Paris, RER to Disneyland, stay either near Disney or in Paris

Day 2- Early train to Strasbourg, Local Train/Bus to Europa, stay near Europa

Day 3- Europa, overnight train to Hamburg

Day 4-6- Weekend in Hamburg

Day 7- Shuttle Bus to/from Heide Park, overnight train to Mannheim

Day 8- Train/Bus to/From Holiday Park

Day 9- Mannheim Sites, overnight train to Berlin

Day 10-15- Berlin

Day 16- Berlin, overnight train to Amsterdam

Day 17-22- Amsterdam, possible trip to Dutch Parks (?)

Day 23- Travel to Brussels/Antwerp area

Day 24-27- Brussels/Antwerp area, possible trip to Belgium Parks (?)

Day 28- Travel to Cologne/Koln

Day 29- Phantasialand

Day 30- Travel to Paris for departure

 

Too much? Too little? I don't have a great deal of money but I have a month off between the end of my contract job and the start of Grad School...

 

Its looking like my train trips and transit cards will run around $600 - which includes four overnight trains which will save on a hotel. My biggest concern is on luggage. If I travel straight to a park before stopping at a hotel - what can I do with my luggage? All of my parks would be Monday - Thursday and I'd be 'going out' on the weekends in the big cities.

[larrygator]

Regarding bags, two years ago I did a 5 day rail trip after the TPR Italy Tour. I had two backpacks and used the l.o.c.k.e.r.s at the train station. Most major train stations have them. You can google the hauptbahnhofs you'll be using to find maps of the stations.

 

Unfortunately, I did not not travel to any of the parks you mention outside of the ones in Amsterdam, so I can't help you much their.

[KSo]

I did a trip something like yours a year and a half ago. I had a rail pass which I used for most of the traveling, but also included a few budget airline flights to get to a few more out of the way places which would have taken more time to access by train. I went for 3 weeks flying in and out of Frankfurt from Toronto and added 3 flights within Europe so that I could also go to some parks in Spain and Italy. The day I got to Frankfurt, I caught another flight to Rimini, Italy, so that I could go to Mirabilandia and perhaps Gardaland if time allowed, but it didn't quite work out. Then I continued to Milan and took my second flight from Milan to Madrid, Spain so that I could go to Parque Warner Madrid and maybe Parque de Atracciones de Madrid if time allowed. Again, I only got to Parque Warner. Then I took an overnight train from Madrid to Barcelona and planned to go to PortAventura and Tibidabo if there was time, but I only made it to PortAventura. Then I flew from the airport in Girona, Spain to Beuavais-Tille, France, a secondary airport near Paris. From then on I traveled exclusively by train and local transit. In Paris, I went to the Disney parks and Parc Asterix. Then I headed up to Belgium and went to Walibi Belgium and Bobbejaanland. Then up to the Netherlands to Efteling and Walibi Holland. Next, I went up to some of the parks in Scandinavia. I had intended to get to one or both of Djurs Sommerland and Farup Sommerland, but I had a transportation problem with the train that messed things up. I took the ferry from Frederikshavn, Denmark to Goteborg, Sweden and went to Liseberg. After that, the train to Oslo and Tusenfryd. Next, was an overnight train from Oslo to Stockholm and Grona Lund. Then I went to Copenhagen to go to Bakken and Tivoli Gardens. From there, I went back to northern Germany based in Hamburg and went to Hansa and Heide Park. I took a break with a visit to Berlin for cultural and sightseeing activities. Then I went to Cologne and to Phantasialand. I also went to a fair that happened to be playing host to the Olympia Looping traveling coaster at that time. I then headed to Europa park. Finally, back to the Frankfurt area for my return flight. I wanted to go Holiday Park to ride expedition GeForce but it was still closed due to a mechanical issue, so that wasn't an option. There were also a few other parks that I considered including in this trip but had to exclude due to time constraints. There is a huge concentration of parks so you might also have some tough decisions to make. In short, in a month you should be able to get a lot of good parks in, if you do your homework and rest up ahead of time. Europe and Japan are both good places to do this type of rail based park travel. Luggage wise lots of the main stations have luggage storage available, but I did have to get creative at times. Security isn't anything like it is at US parks, so at times I literally brought my luggage into some parks hassle free and stashed it in the woods to avoid hauling it around for the day

[ginzo]

Brussels is kind of a dump. I suggest doing Bruges instead.

 

The main things with Euro rail trips are traveling light and finding local laundrettes to wash your clothing in. Rick Steves' guidebooks are very helpful for the rail traveler. He usually tells you where the bag checks are at a given train station and where to do laundry near various hotels. Your local library should have the full collection of these books.

 

Since you're apparently traveling alone, you might as well get a hostel card and stay in a bunch of hostels. Hostels are a great place to meet other travelers. B&Bs are also a great budget option. The families that run them are generally a LOT more helpful than employees of major chain hotels.

 

Though in major European cities, major chain hotels can offer fantastic deals on Priceline.

[Team Thriller]

I hope you have a lot of money cause a lot of those big cities are expensive.

 

I would stick to staying in one area. (For example skipping Hamburg and Berlin as that is WAY out of the way), and maybe just skipping Belgium all together as that will suck a lot of time and money.

 

If you can decide where you land and take off I'd:

 

Day 1 - Land in Paris maybe morning. Spend the evening in Paris

Day 2 - Disneyland Paris

Day 3 - Disneyland Paris

Day 4 - Rail to Strasbourg and train/bus to Europa

Day 5-6 Europa Park (Two days is better than anything in Belgium)

 

If you really need to visit Holiday Park, it will take more time as you will be using the bus a lot around there to find or get to and from your hotel

Day 7 - You will really need a day to rail to Holiday Park and find your hotel (there is a bus that will take you to the park from the station)

Day 8 - Holiday Park

 

If you can find an overnight train ride to the Bruhl (Phantasialand) area, do it as that will also be time consuming during the day.

 

Day 9 or 10 - Phantasialand

 

Day 11 or 12 -Rail to Amsterdam after and sight see (The city is really nice just beware of some people) Two days in the Amsterdam area. One in the city, and one at Walibi World.

 

Here you can either rail back to Paris to sight see or fly out from Amsterdam. If you really really really want to go to Brussels, they do have an airport there that you could fly out of.

 

-----

 

This would be my plan. It is shorter and much more organized. (15 days at the most) It would be like going in an organized circle instead of all over the place and would save you time and money.

 

Are you traveling alone? If not, pack very light. (1 suitcase should be enough) And also as said above, Hostels are a GREAT idea.

 

Hope this helped.

 

--James "Or just go on a TPR Europe trip" Flint

[simon8899]

When you come to germany you might want to check if a major fair is on - maybe even timming your travel to hit the Olympia-Looping.

 

Informations sadly in german only at:

 

http://www.kirmesforum.de

http://www.olympia-looping.de/standorte.html

 

I also quite liked some european budget hotel chains on my travels like Ibis and Etap (both Accor Group) and MotelOne. They offer basic but clean rooms with shower (on Etap sometimes shared showers!), LCD-TV and WiFi.

 

For Heide-Park you can take the DB train from Hamburg to Soltau and from there the Prüser Bus to the park - check both timetables in advance. From Hamburg you've to take a so-called Local Express train as ICE/IC high-speed trains mostly dont stop at Soltau.

 

At last you often talk "overnight train" - western europe is only a little bigger than Texas. I dont know for sure but except for Paris-Germany there might be no overnight trains. For example the ICE train from Hamburg to Munich takes about 6 hours. The distances Berlin-Amsterdam and Hamburg-Mannheim are even shorter - so you may have to travel by daylight train. ICE and TGV normally travel at 200 kmh to 300 kmh (120 mph to 190 mph) - much faster than US trains were compared even some of our subways or commuter-rails run faster. As every country has their own high speed trains like ICE in germany and TGV in france you may have to change trains in Cologne or Frankfurt as the highspeed trains need special equipped tracks and control systems that are different in each country. And yes: Make sure to get a seat reservation - especially trains to/from Berlin can get crowded and without one you've to sit in a walkway for hours.

 

Another idea would be to travel by plane - Lufthansa for example offers "early-bird" inner europe fares for €99 - €129 per flight plus taxes. This is often even cheaper than a train fare and flight time is always under 2 hours. Be careful when using "cheap" lines like RyanAir - for Hamburg they land at a small airfield near Lübeck which is about 60mins to Hamburg by train!

 

Luggage: Take only 1 carry-on piece plus maybe a rucksack if you wanna travel by train - there're no luggage cars on trains anymore. In parks you can take your luggage and put it into a safety-locker - bigger pieces can mostly be put at the information desk. I wontz recommend "stashing it in the woods" at it might get removed - if your're lucky to Lost&Found - if not it may get "recycled" into a garbage container with an hydraulic press....

[BrownStreak]

The CNL Trains (City Night Line) purposefully travel at slower speeds overnight so that they can be used for overnight sleeping. For example, the CNL from Hamburg to Offenburg takes 8 1/2 hours (around midnight until before 9am)...I'd then transfer to another train to get to Ringsheim (Europa). That would only cost me $20 on top of my Rail Pass...$20 for a night isn't bad for a hotel! The reason that I am crisscrossing so much is so that I can take advantage of the CNL Trains and therefore see more cities. I am also in Urban Planning and do want to see many cities as well.

 

I have already pretty much written off Paris and Disneyland (too expensive...both of them!). Instead I am looking into Denmark and Sweden. For the Europeans on the boards, keep in mind - we have access to European Rail Passes here in the States that you can't use is you live in the EU. I will also be staying with people in a few of the cities. This trip is not 100% for Theme Parks...there are some other things I will be doing as well. My itineraries are set in a way so that I will be in major cities every weekend so I can check out the gay bar scenes as well.

 

So far Air Berlin has the cheapest flights from the US ($300 cheaper than the US carriers) into and out of Berlin. I will re-publish my planned itinerary soon. My contract job is set for six months - as soon as I know my start date, I will know my end date as well and can better plan my trip. I should also mention, without being specific, but I am being reimbursed for a portion of this trip and will be doing some research for my Master's Thesis while I there as well.

[simon8899]

I dont know much about standard transatlantic fares - with beeing 1,95 meters tall I always buy a business class ticket.

 

For scandinavia see for city parks like Tivoli, Bakken (Copenhagen), Liseberg (Gothenborg), GrönaLund (Stockholm). I'm doing a trip next summer early june including Finland with Linnanmäki (Helsinki) and Sarkeniemi (Tampere) and also go mostly by train and ferry - ecluding Hamburg to Helsinki - but only daylight connections. Honestly I could never ever sleep in a train - as well as I cant sleep on planes even in business - this is the first time I've realized something like City Night Line exists...

 

And even thinking about sleeping with strangers gives me some creeps....

[ginzo]

I have already pretty much written off Paris and Disneyland (too expensive...both of them!). Instead I am looking into Denmark and Sweden.

 

One does not go to Scandinavia to save money. Unless you have a free place to stay in Copenhagen, Stockholm, etc, these places are unlikely to be cheaper than Paris.