Epic Germany Megatrip

[coasterBro]

This coming June/July, I am planning a 2.5 week long Germany megatrip. I have PTO and spare coastering funds to burn thanks to not doing a whole lot the last couple years due to Covid, and I'm excited to go experience all that I can (coasters and otherwise) over in Germany.

When trying to figure out where I wanted to go this year, I considered a lot of different options, but there was one thing that kept jumping out as the #1 park I'd want to visit if I could go anywhere: Phantasialand. And Europa Park was up there pretty high as well given its reputation. So I started looking at options for how to do those parks. And I really wanted to swing by Holiday Park for Expedition GeForce since it was basically on the way between them.

But the more I looked at things, the harder it seemed it was going to be to get around via train/bus/taxi, and I was going to have to very nearly burn an entire day each time I went from one park to another due to transit schedules and things. Plus, I would have had to deal with all the complexities of what to do about my luggage each step of the way. So I very quickly pivoted to needing to rent a car (and yes, I'm renting an automatic).

At that point, I started expanding the parks I was considering and started thinking about beginning in Frankfurt, doing the aforementioned three parks (can't remember if I'd added Tripsdrill in at that point or not), and then continuing northward to get Movie Park Germany, Heide Park, and most notably Hansa Park for Karnan, with the plan to then try to fly home from Hamburg. But between needing to do a 1-way car rental and the mess that made of my flights, I started looking at just making a full loop of it and returning back to Frankfurt. This gives me a justifiable excuse to swing through 5 smaller parks that I'd probably never have found a reason to visit otherwise, and it lets me do some cool, non-coaster tourism things to further explore Germany and enjoy my time there.

 

 

So here's my current plan:

Arrive in Frankfurt at 9am Saturday June 18th. Clear customs, get my rental car, and drive to Holiday Park (arriving likely sometime around noonish or shortly thereafter). Then drive down to Rust.
Spend Sunday, Monday, and the first half of Tuesday at Europa Park, before driving into the Black Forest for an afternoon of zipline tours.
Do Tripsdrill Wednesday June 22, and then drive to Bruhl.

Spend Thurs/Fri at Phantasialand (staying in Hotel Charles Lindbergh).

Saturday June 25 is a chill/rest day with some light touring of Cologne, but on my way north, I'm going to detour to see the famous "Tiger & Turtle - Magic Mountain" coaster-esque stairs sculpture thing.

Then Movie Park Germany on Sunday June 26.
Heide Park on Monday June 27.

And Hansa Park on Tuesday June 28, before driving to Berlin.

Then I'll spend Wednesday June 29 as a fairly chill Berlin tourist day.

I'm getting really crazy on Thursday June 30, however, at the Harzdrenalin Outdoor Events facility (pendulum jump, zipline, wall running, and they're about to open a human catapult thing too).
Do Freizeitpark Plohn on Fri July 1.

Then a quick credit run through Belantis on Saturday July 2, so I can go check out the Devil's Bridge and the Bastion Bridge (+ Castle). [I would have liked to do Belantis on 7/1 to avoid the backtracking, but they're inexplicably closed that day, and I couldn't really shuffle anything else around without making a bigger mess.]
Sunday July 3 is going to be a more down day as I'm touring Dachau. I may have time to go into Munich, but I may just take it easy that afternoon as I'm sure I'll be pretty bushed by that point.

Skyline Park will be Monday July 4, and I'm hoping to wrap things up there early enough to make it to Legoland in time to spend an hour or so checking out Miniland before the park closes (not worrying about trying to knock out any rides).

I'll do all the rides and things at Legoland first thing Tuesday July 5, and then head out to do a quick run through the highlights at Schwaben Park on my way back up to Frankfurt.

Then fly home from Frankfurt Wednesday July 6.

 

I think I have a pretty solid plan put together, but I'm sure there are some things that could be better. I've got a couple of emergency backup options if something happens and I can't ride certain bucket list coasters, but I only have so much wiggle room with contingency plans. What I don't really have is wiggle room to try to squeeze in other random stuff off the beaten path. The short park days pretty much mean that I'll be in the parks from 9/10am until 5/6pm each day, and then I'll be driving to my next destination in the evening, after everything will have already closed. And the couple of times I'm doing multiple things in a day, I'm having to be very intentional about cutting the early park short to give myself enough time to drive to the next thing and enjoy it before that thing closes.

The good news is that over the last few years, I've gotten used to stringing together multiple 12-16 hour days at Disney, with miles and miles and miles of walking every day, so I'm hoping 8-9 hour park days (or less) won't kick my butt quite as hard. I'm also not planning on pushing myself as hard as I have in the past when visiting new parks, choosing instead to try to be a bit more chill and relaxed so I can really absorb the atmosphere and enjoy the nuances of the parks I'm in. And having some rest time built into the schedule will help, but I won't know if it's enough till I'm in the thick of it. (I think the first week has a good chance of kicking my butt if I push myself too hard, but I do have the option to sleep in and skip the extra half day at Europa Park, and I can also sleep in and start my Cologne touring a bit later if need be as well. I'm also not sure about all the driving I've got scheduled on my Belantis + Bridges day, but worst-case, I can just cut the bridges and drive straight to my hotel after Belantis.)



So now what?

I've thrown some questions out in the various dedicated park threads asking for tips/advice on things like which rides to rope drop vs save till later in the day, where to eat, loose article/locker rules, what hidden gems I should make a point to check out, line-skip/single-rider options, how wet the water rides get you, etc. (And thank you to everyone who has responded with advice & suggestions in those threads.) But not all the parks have dedicated park threads, so I'm including my questions for each of those additional parks below, as well as links to my other posts should you want to add any thoughts on them:

Holiday Park Questions
Europa Park Questions
Tripsdrill Questions
Phantasialand Questions
Movie Park Germany Questions
Heide Park Questions
Hansa Park Questions


Freizeitpark Plohn:

I imagine I'd want to head to Dynamite first, and then head to the back of the park for El Toro. Outside of that, is there anything else I should prioritize, or will I be alright just wandering around the park and riding whatever I pass that looks halfway interesting? I'll be there on Fri July 1. (I'm hoping for this to be a fairly chill day.)

 

Belantis (including this with my overall trip post as I don't expect the park thread to see much engagement given its post history):

I'm probably just going to treat this park as a credit run and then go spend the rest of my day sightseeing, as people don't seem to think this is a very good park, and the coasters don't seem to be anything special. I'm not sure if I want to take my chances with the funky water ride or not. Seems really unique. But also seems kind of janky. Is there anything else here that's actually worth doing?? I'm guessing I shouldn't need to spend more than like 2 hours here, even on a Saturday. And then I can go galavant about the countryside the rest of the day doing some non-park sightseeing.

 

Skyline Park:

My initial thoughts were that the coaster I should head to first would be the Spike Coaster because of capacity concerns, but looking at the park map, that thing is so far in the back of the park that I can't imagine any significant number of guests would make it all the way back there within the first hour or so. In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if the park used staggered ride openings, even though I can't find any such information on their website. So maybe I should just start with stuff closer to the front, make my way to the back of the park, and then work my way back to the front? Anything in particular I need to prioritize, or fun/weird/funky/interesting attractions I should make sure to visit while I'm there?

I figure I should easily be done with the park by mid-afternoon, even if I just wander around aimlessly, which should give me enough time to make it to Legoland in time to check out Miniland before that park closes.

 

Legoland:

Having knocked out Miniland the night before, I should be able to spend the morning focusing on rides. Obviously, much of the offerings here are extremely similar to the other Legoland parks, so it's less about exploring something cool and unique (that's the aforementioned Miniland component) and more about just riding the highlights for a few hours. Debating whether I should just take the whole park clockwise and not worry about prioritizing the Dragons, or if I should do the wild mouse and the Ninjago ride before heading to the back of the park for the Dragons, and only after that doing any of the other stuff. But it's also not something I'm really going to stress about one way or the other. I may just play it by ear based on how the crowd levels feel (which I expect to be low as it'll be a Tuesday).

I'm also expecting to only need to stay for a few hours thanks to having the Miniland part of the park already knocked out from the night before. This will give me enough time to hop up to Schwaben Park for a couple of hours.

 

Schwaben Park:

This park is challenging because they stop admission 90 mins before the park's posted closing time, but they say they can also close queues early. AND if it's slow, they say they bounce operators between rides, so there's no guarantee when any particular rides may or may not actually be operating.

I'm largely just stuffing this park in to get that silly chicken roller ball thing since it's somewhat on the way from Legoland back to Frankfurt, but I'm also interested in the Wiegand suspended coaster as I've not done one of those before. Anything else that I can fit in, time-permitting, is just gravy. This is the last park of the trip, so I'm expecting to be pretty worn-out by this point. And I'm not going to stress too much about this park because at the end of the day, it's more of a silly little coda on the end of the trip rather than one of the main places I was wanting to visit.



Please let me know your thoughts, suggestions, tips, tricks, recommendations, advice, or other general commentary as I prepare to embark on this grand adventure.

Thanks!

[coasterBro]

Thought I'd re-up this just in case anyone had some thoughts to share.

[KBrylczyk]