simon8899 Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 (edited) I arrived at Europa-Park in the late afternoon to get to my room at the AlCazar 4* hotel. The resort is reachable by public transport: Head towards Offenbach or Freiburg using the highspeed ICE-trains, from there take the regional express train to Ringsheim, at the Ringsheim station an hourly bus service is synchronized with train arrivals and departures. The resort consist of 5 hotels - including the brand new Bell Rock hotel themed to a New England setting. The other hotels have a spanish or italian setting. The resort area consists of multiple pools, bars and restaurants - hotel guests also enjoy 2 Spa's and a new fitness- and sauna-center in the Bell Rock area. Hotel guests also enjoy early entry into the park with monthly changing attractions open up to 60 minutes earlier - this September early-entry highlight was the looping-coaster Blue Fire. The only negative point I have is that air-conditioning is not standard in any resort hotel which IMO is quite weak for 4* or better hotels. View from my room over the hotel resort All furniture made from solid wood, great bed - for families the washrrom door can be opened from the outside Knight's Walk to the hotel lobby Outside view of the AlCazar The hotel bar features a top Scotch Single Malt collection plus multiple beers on tap Walkway to the New England area A swan in the shallow waters, the park takes all its water from a small local river New Bell Rock hotel Nightime view from my room - going to bed early with 2 days of Europa Park ahead! Edited October 9, 2012 by simon8899 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 They do a great job with the theming of the hotels at the park. Look forward to seeing the rest of the trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon8899 Posted October 2, 2012 Author Share Posted October 2, 2012 Spain, Portugal, Iceland and Norway Spain: Leaving the hotel and entering the park using the entry for resort guests only one finds oneself right in the spain section. Spain is mostly a showy part with the horse and stunt show "Das Collier der Königin" and frequent Flamenco shows. The only rides are a Himalaya which is on very slow program and a Peter Pan with spinning boats. Portugal: Turning left one leaves Spain and enters Portugal. Portugal is next to some kiddie and game areas all about the huge Watercoaster Atlantica SuperSplash. The best watercoaster in the park with turntables, backward ride and wet splash. If you're still hot there's a very wet splash zone. Iceland: Moving on trough Portugal you land in Iceland. Iceland holds two of the major coasters: Blue Fire, world-class accelerator Mega-Loopingcoaster easily the best coaster in the park with 0-62 mph in 1,5 seconds plus ejector air in the last rollover - and the not so world-class woodie Wodan, which IMO runs better when degrees are on the cooler end. In Iceland you'll also find very good danish Hot-Dogs. Norway: Turning right at the Blue Fire entry one goes under a small tunnel to reach Norway. Norway consists of two parts. First you enter the ride section with the Intamin Rafting and the Huss Pirate. Moving on you enter a small scandinavian city complete with SHØPs, fishbuns and very sweet cakes. Atlantica SuperSplash doing its thing View from the Atlantica SuperSplash turntable over Iceland SKLOOOSH What I will know splitseconds later that I'm standing in the splash zone... New woodie Wodan Riders enjoy OTSR-less looping The last rollover provides amazing ejector-air!!! All over Blue Fire provides far more air than the Silver Star! Off it goes! Wodan entry looks bombastic. As I always used the single rider line I've no pics of the queue. Iceland also has a splash battle. On to Norway with the nicely themed Rafting. Scandinavian city One last view over Norway before heading on to Holland, Greek and Russia! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 You haven't been in the Wodan queue? You are missing out! It's one of the best themed queuelines in Europe! Also, re: Air Con - Hotels Bell Rock and Santa Isabel do feature Air Con as standard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon8899 Posted October 3, 2012 Author Share Posted October 3, 2012 It was waiting times 40-vs-5 minutes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 It was waiting times 40-vs-5 minutes... Still worth it, once. The queue really is that good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon8899 Posted October 5, 2012 Author Share Posted October 5, 2012 Holland: Holland features the MACK flats Peter Pan and spinning Teacups plus the good darkride "Pirates in Batavia" offering an inddor boatride with a small splashdowm. Greece: This area features the not-so-wet water coaster Poseidon which also gets a little bumpy in the coasterpart of the ride, the new kiddie-coaster Pegasus which offers a swift ride en par with the Gerstlauer family coasters and the Madouse Fluch der Kassandra which story is quite short but MACK has added some unique features to spice up the ride. Also here the laser-shooting darkride "Adventure in Atlantis". Next to the ride the greek area also features the Ice-Show "SurprICE at the museum" which is centered around the IAAPA gavel which Roland Mack is holding this year as chairman of IAAPA - there nothing better than self-promotion... Russia: Russia is mostly about the spinning coaster Euro-MIR which features a dark-ride spirallift before in spins the mirrored towers and finally heads down the first drop at nice speeds. Over the queue is scale-mockup of the former russian space station MIR. View over Holland from the Monorail Extensive darkride ahead Poseidon isn't very wet and already gets a little shaky in the coaster part Looks wetter than it is EuroMaus is taking a ride through Greek Hidden behind Poseidon is MACKs new YoungSTAR coaster Pegasus Euro-MIR greets as you enter Russia Spacestation MIR over the queue of the coaster First drop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porsmond Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 You haven't been in the Wodan queue? You are missing out! It's one of the best themed queuelines in Europe! Sometimes its hard to know what to do, when I last went to IOA last year, I was told I should check out the entire queue line at least once for the new Harry Potter Ride as its quite well themed, however the queue was always at least 1hr plus on the days I went whereas compared to the SRQ, It was NEARLY WALK ON, or 5 mins at most all the time(I was more preapred to maximize the amout of rides I could manage for my visit ) so regretibly I never saw all the themeing throughout the entire queue line(This is something I will do when/if I return again though) I agree about Wodan, it is a very impressive themed queue line, and something I am glad I checked out, It was worth the walk through, but luckly I never queued long through it all anyway(longest 30 mins, SRQ was actually nearly the same) so yeah always something hard to judge, especially if you're limited for time at the park, but it is something you should do once if you can, would have been gutted to miss out seeing the Wodan queue if I used SRQ all the time, and thats why when I go back to Florida, I will make sure to check out all the queue for Harry Potter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon8899 Posted October 6, 2012 Author Share Posted October 6, 2012 France: The french part is nicely themed and home to two of Europa Parks coasters. The major attraction is of course Silver Star which station is housed in a building offering a Mercedes-Benz exhibit, currently centering around french comic Michel Valiant - a french race driver preferring Mercedes race cars. Silver Star itself is a quite tame huge coaster - the fact that the looping coaster Blue Fire has far more airtime tells it all - Silver Star offers only small pops of airtime with a mostly harmless B&M-smooth ride. The other coaster in this section is the darkcoaster Euro-SAT which is showing age - I got one bang into the kidney so it hurt for two hours, except for an old Pinfari looper this was my second-painful coaster experience. IMO they should refurbish this coaster soon. Next to that you can get a nice view over the park on the parks gyro observation tower. Switzerland: This part is also well themed including a small alpine stream running trough the village streets. Switzerland hosts the wild mouse Matterhorn Blitz with is a standard large park model with a tilting vertical lift. If you come for credits I'd recommend doing this coaster first as with all wild mice the capacity is quite low. The other coaster is a classic MACK bobsled coaster which is a short but fun ride - even alittle more forceful than the Heide-Park installation. Another unique ride here is a MACK-devised Polyp variant using small planes which sadly always look forward and are not freely spinning. Queue-line through the Mercedes-Benz exhibit. As you can see this pic was taken before Michael Schumacher decided to leave the Mercedes F1 team Going up... Tame ride on a huge coaster France with the Euro-SAT globe looming over it Crowds were solid both days with many swiss visitors Welcome to the swiss village of Zermat MACKs unique polyp Boblsled! - Disclaimer: It's allowed to bring all bags and cameras onto the ride Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrlittle Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Great Photos of what I am sure is a great park. I always get kind of sad when I look at photos of Europa because my Dad was in Germany one year and was like what should I do. I was playing around and said you should go to Europa Park. To make this story end, he said it was an amazing park. One day I will go there. Perhaps when TPR takes another tour out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delan Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 (edited) Europa is definitely in my top 3 parks EVER!!! Just absolutely breathtaking. Thanks for sharing the pics.......it allows me to reminisce. Edited October 9, 2012 by delan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrthwnd Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 After two past visits to Europa, I still cannot get over how they pack so much into the space they have, and still have a good amount of room for themeing, nice places to eat (raclette, YUM!) and relax, etc. Must - go - back - eventually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon8899 Posted October 9, 2012 Author Share Posted October 9, 2012 Germany: Next to the entrance area and EP-Express (Monorail) station the german part consists of the newly added Balthasar Castle and of course a german beer garden. The back part around the castle is a lushly landscaped garden complete with the "german fountain" sporting the crests of all german federal states. Austria: This is one of the oldest parts of the park and therefor it's overflowing with greenery. Here you find the original MACK Powered Coaster "Alpenblitz" as well as a Zierer Waveswinger and MACK/Arrow logflume. Finally I can say that I had 2 great days in Europa Park with Blue Fire beeing by far the best coaster and Euro-SAT the worst. View over Balthasar gardens with the memorial of park founder Franz Mack in the front and Balthasar Castle in the back German Fountain with sparsly clad nymphs Like a good german I've located the place were the beer is... EP-Express Station Alexanderplatz at the main entry. No pics of the main entry as construction was going on Waveswinger in Austria themed as a mushroom The original MACK Powered Coaster delivering after all the years still a god ride Best part is the darkride section through the Diamond Grotto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran1962 Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 Europa is also one of my personal all time favorites. Thanks for the nice pix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 Of all the parks I have been to, this is one of the ones I most want to visit again. Just waiting for a TPR trip through this area again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarnes84 Posted October 10, 2012 Share Posted October 10, 2012 Thanks for posting all these fantastic pics and descriptions of the park, having just returned from a trip there I'm instantly having withdrawal symptoms and regret not doing more I personally found Silver Star to far exceed expectations which were set very low, maybe the rain and sitting in the back row helped but I was really impressed by the airtime, and this is from someone who recently rode Apollos Chariot and Nitro (which are always inevitably rated much higher in the various polls). The park is very impressive and I still felt surprised by it despite watching so many videos and looking at countless trip reports over the years, a truly magical park without the commercialism or squeaky clean/fake appearance of Disney properties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon8899 Posted October 10, 2012 Author Share Posted October 10, 2012 In some areas they've buildings that were destined for demolition were moved to the appropriate "lands". Also Castle Balthasar was rotting for years before the Mack family purchased it for one Euro from the village of Rust and turned it into a restaurant. The park itself were originally the gardens of the Castle - that puts all the lush greenery in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteornotes Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 Second best park in the world (only Tokyo Disney Resort beats it). It's absolutely beautiful and full of great attractions. Thanks for posting all the great pictures! dt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
super7 Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Most of these so-called American "theme" parks could take lessons from Mack and Europa Park. Especially Cedar Fair & Six Flags. Europa is the perfect combination of thrills and super-detailed theming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
better_by_design Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 Second best park in the world (only Tokyo Disney Resort beats it). It's absolutely beautiful and full of great attractions. Thanks for posting all the great pictures! dt Exactly! I was very happy to make my first visit to Europa Park this summer, and it's the real deal of theme parks - beautiful & fun! I also stayed at the Castillo and had exactly the same view as you! The hotel complex is incredibly impressive - as are the bars! OK, so how do I get back there next summer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caffeine_demon Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 I personally found Silver Star to far exceed expectations which were set very low, maybe the rain and sitting in the back row helped but I was really impressed by the airtime, and this is from someone who recently rode Apollos Chariot and Nitro (which are always inevitably rated much higher in the various polls). I rode it about 6 or 7 years ago, and thought it was "ok", and had heard rumours that it was running really well this year. The rumours were confirmed a few weeks ago - rode it about 8 times in various sears and had lovely airtime everywhere! Certainly on a similar level to Nitro, and way above Apollos Chariot! All in all - the park is wonderfully run! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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