Europa Park: My Obnoxious ACE Central Europe Trip Report - Part VII

Waking up on day 1 of Europa Park felt like Christmas morning. I knew that my friends and I would soon be embarking on an epic adventure through the world's most renowned theme park.

An epic day must first begin with an epic breakfast. 

An epic breakfast would not be complete without...

BUTTERSTARS!!! :D :D :D 

Okay, you guys! THIS IS IT!

MOVE OUT!!!

Owned by the Mack family, Europa Park started out as an expo for rides produced by Mack Manufacturing, one of the leading providers of amusement rides. Most of the rides here are Mack rides, but they have a few exceptions. Opening in 1975, the park grew exponentially while at the same time keeping quality at the forefront. What you basically end up with is a cross between EPCOT and Universal's Islands Of Adventure, except it's independently owned and has 11 coasters. It's essentially amusement park nirvana. 

First stop: Portugal! 

Atlantica SuperSplash was open early for Resort Guest ERT, so we made this our very first Europa Park ride!

Though not a credit by my definition, Mack SuperSplashes are the best Shoot-the-Chute rides I've ever ridden. This one, in particular, was just beautiful. 

Beauty is going to be an ongoing theme at this park. As we would soon discover, the name of the game for Europa Park isn't simply theming, but beautiful theming.

Once upon a time, Mack decided to beat Intamin at their own game.

Everyone lived happily ever after.

There's going to be some really special pictures of this ride later, but for now you get my crappy in-line photos (which are still pretty damn good, ONLY because this park is so beautiful).

Like, there's really no part of me that wants to take credit for pictures. Europa Park reminded me that it's not about what I'm capable of as a photographer; it's about what beauty there is in the world to see and share. 

Okay, enough philosophical junk. blue fire Megacoaster is what we need to talk about. This ride is superb. I hadn't really heard a ton about it & I came into the situation expecting an average launched coaster. It's the 83rd credit of my Year of 100 New Coasters and it kicks ass!

No time to stop! Let's hit Wodan before we head back to the hotels for our tour!

The colossal GCI-built Wodan Timburcoaster has a reputation for being sluggish. It opened in 2012 to lukewarm reviews, but they got better as the season went on. Apparently, the ride needed time to break in its polyurethane wheels!

Wodan's queue is the first queue that I've come across that could compare to the unbelievably-detailed Dueling Dragons queue at Universal's Islands Of Adventure. Now that the Dragons are no more, Wodan may just take the title of most elaborately-themed queue!

This is my kind of woodie. It keeps a ferocious pace and sports a very quirky layout of swoops & dives around other attractions. 

Naysayers, listen up: Wodan is where it's at. Best GCI I've ridden (and frankly, they were all sorta starting to run together). And that's credit #84!

We passed through Portugal again on our way back to the hotel. blue fire and Wodan are both residents of neighboring Iceland!

Sunny Spain is home to the hotel entrance for Europa Park. We exited out of the park to meet at Hotel Bell Rock for our guided tour of Europa!

Here we are! New England!

Europa Park is very proud of their new U.S.-themed resort (the first attraction in the resort to not be themed to either a European country or fictional place).

Europa decided to take us on a behind-the-scenes tour of their park & even show us their still-under-construction new area!! (themed to Arthur & the Invisibles) The park insisted that we not take pictures of their secret construction site, but they let us take pictures of the rest of the tour!

That blonde girl is just not having it.

Wodan is GCI's tallest coaster. Just look at all of that lift hill!

The tour brought us back into the park briefly for a photo tour in blue fire's overflow queue!

...ooohhhh yes. My photography senses are tingling. 

LOOK AT BLUE FIRE!!!!!!! Look. 

Unlike in U.S. parks, the midcourse block breaks on Europa's coasters are actually effective, because here they can safely dispatch a train every 30 seconds. There was a time when American amusement parks could do the same, but that's not really the case anymore. 

I'd like to now take the time to point out how wonderful blue fire's large horseshoe turn is. While perhaps not as visually dramatic as the top hat, its a uniquely-thrilling sensation!

Also, look at these trains. LOOK AT THEM. If Skyrush at Hersheypark had these trains, Hershey would have the most critically-acclaimed rollercoaster in America. 

WOOOOOO!

Favorite part of the ride!

blue fire's overflow goes all underneath the ride, covering most of its layout. 

Alright, one more of blue fire before we move on to one of Europa's most historically-iconic rides...

EURO-MIR!

After our overflow queue tour of blue fire, we ended up in Europa Park's business side of things, just left of the infamous Euro-Mir! 

See? To the left of Euro-Mir are the various machine shops, warehouses, and offices that make Europa Park function!

Typical-looking industrial buildings lay in the shadow of the mighty Euro-Mir & its 5 exquisite mirror towers!

And on these lovely blue rails roll these trains of cars that look like beetles. 

The 5 exquisite mirror towers are explored by a fleet of 5 exquisite beetle-trains!

And together they're all one big, beautiful engineering marvel.

It's quite common to see the business buildings of Europa Park from Euro-Mir, but doing the opposite felt quite special indeed!

Here we see Mir's large tower, which houses its ultra-efficient spiral lift hill.

Watching Euro-Mir is not unlike witnessing the liveliness of an ant farm; so much activity & lots of scurrying around by little bug-type-things!

Next to Euro-Mir is this dormant cosmonaut satellite dish that Europa Park found in Russia's trash.

Indeed, Euro-Mir is a whimsical roller coaster inspired by the Russian space station of the same name. It is also the centerpiece for Europa's Russia-themed-area!

...and suddenly everything is lush and beautiful! Europa Park has a way of doing that.

Here we are outside of the Arthur Preview Center (we'll take a closer look later when it's not so crowded).

At this point, we all piled in to the Grimm Fairytales section of Europa Park, and from there we crossed over into the construction zone for Arthur and the Invisibles (or "Minimoys" as they're called in non-English-speaking territories). The area was still in its "cement-stage" mostly, but we got a great look at their new suspended-spinning-dark-ride-coaster-thing. The place is going to be a stunner when it opens. 

Okay, fast forward a bit now! The tour is over & it's time to answer the call of Euro-Mir!

In Soviet Russia, coaster rides you!

While not as elaborate as later rides' queues, Euro Mir was really Europa's first foray into creating a subversive queue line experience, consisting of an authentic Russian space station that now serves as a walk-thru attraction!

Be careful when ordering drinks in line, however. Locals will take that as their cue to cut in front of you!

Wooo! 

Euro Mir delivers on all fronts. It's a charming, idiosyncratic ride that still offers a solid thrill! That takes care of credit #85, and there's still plenty more at Europa!

Enter: Greece and Poseidon! 

While not the proprietor of the water coaster phenomenon, Mack rides is certainly responsible for this concept's success in the industry. 

Poseidon gets 2 thumbs up!!

I love when fellow park-goers play to a camera when they see one. :}

The entrance to Poseidon is under the rear end of a full-scale Trojan Horse.

The anatomically-correct Trojan Horse has a crowd mister hidden within its manhood (or horsehood, I suppose).

This would be the first of many remarkable sights from Poseidon's queue.

I think it was around the time Europa Park opened Poseidon and their Greece section in 2000 that I started to hear buzz about the park. They still lacked a large coaster at the time, but the execution of their Greece area was a firm indication that Europa wasn't f***ing around. 

A promise of good things to come: Switzerland and Matterhorn Blitz!

We ended up waiting about an hour for Poseidon, but the line moved almost non-stop (yes, the line was that long). 

With so much to see, I never once felt that the long line was an inconvenience. 

It's the light at the end of the tunnel!

Poseidon is one of many examples of Europa Park possessing a fairly common ride/concept and executing it so well that it feels leaps & bounds above its contemporaries and clones. My ride on Poseidon marked the first time I ever really felt excited about a water coaster. While other parks seem to rest comfortably on the fact that they have a roller coaster that merely rolls through water, Europa has wrapped their coaster up inside a truly remarkable environment that leaves the rider thinking "now THAT'S what one of these rides should feel like!!!" Credit #86!

Matterhorn Blitz, constructed and completed not even 18 months prior to the completion of the Greece area, rounded out Europa Park's longtime-favorite Switzerland area. 

Greece and Switzerland, like most areas in Europa Park, rub right up next to each other. While it may seem like a clash of mis-matched themes on paper, walking the borders of these and other areas of Europa Park feels distinctly Disney-like in the best way; wherever you are in the world, a world away is just around the corner!

While Poseidon is the at the heart of Greece, it's not the only coaster here!

The Mack "Young Star" coaster, Pegasus, was built several years after Greece's initial completion, utilizing the space underneath Poseidon's superstructure. 

At this point in the report, I need to ask you guys for your pardon. Pegasus had a deadly combination of few photographable vantage points and NO queue line. That mixed with the fact that we had places to go & things to see (and we never did make it back to that particular corner of Greece), left me with about negative 2 pictures of Pegasus by the time all things were said and done. Putting this report together, I kept thinking "surely I got some shots of this ride somewhere..." Nope. I have a shot of the train in the station, a poorly-executed shot of the train as a traveled overhead, and the shot posted above. That's it. I think I took about 73-and-a-half million pictures of blue fire, but Pegasus gets 3. Go me.

In other news, Pegasus is a picture perfect intermediate family coaster. I feel like every amusement park in America that's hurting for a family coaster (I'm looking at you, Six Flags Over Georgia) needs to go ahead and get themselves one of these. Sure, spinny cars, multi-launches, indoor portions, and other popular characteristics of the avant-garde family coaster are very enticing, but there is something to be said for a simple, well-executed small-scale steel coaster that relies on nothing but a good layout to please riders. 

Credit #87. Showing us how a family coaster is done!

Oooo! What's in here...?

The map says we're in France, but there is something distinctly Italian about this place...

Hmm...Formule 1 cars? Speed? What could it be??

A-ha! It's Europa Park's resident B&M hyper coaster, Silver Star!

At this point in the day, we all kind of laughed at ourselves because we all basically forgot about this coaster. There is something remarkable & kind of ridiculous about Europa Park's ability to SO fill a guest's field of vision with spectacular things of all shapes & sizes that a friggin' B&M mega coaster is somehow eclipsed. And it's a GOOD ride, too! We're not talking about some throw-away coaster that Europa Park wants to shift your attention away from; Silver Star is a top-notch example of B&M's mega coaster brand! But unlike its siblings at Canada's Wonderland, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Six Flags Great America, Carowinds, Six Flags Over Georgia, La Ronde, Kings Island, Six Flags Great Adventure, and Port Aventura, Silver Star really has no choice but to play 2nd fiddle to several of the other attractions here at Europa Park. 

Tom and John are ready for their fabulous ride on Silver Star!

Our ride was particularly interesting for two reasons:

1. It's a fabulous ride.

2. It started to sprinkle on our way up the lift hill & our ride got progressively more wet as it went on.

Credit #88 ended up being more wet than Poseidon!

By the time we rolled into the station, the weather looked like this. 

"Hello. I am a cute li'l bat friend. I made it on to the blog simply because I am so cute." :}

Quick! We must seek refuge in Italy! It's that way!

Hooray! We left rainy France and ended up in sunny Italy! Much rejoicing & delicious food was had.

After our great lunch, we decided not to go back to France until the weather cleared up a bit.

They're having great weather in Switzerland, though! :}

Matterhorn Blitz: Your garden variety Mack "Large Park" Wild Mouse (except not).

Matterhorn Blitz's queue consists of a pretty elaborate walk-thru style setting themed to a farm. 

Man, I wish the view from my kitchen window was a roller coaster!

Matterhorn Blitz kicks ass much in the same way that Poseidon does, although it doesn't quite have "best mouse" wrapped up like Poseidon does with "best water coaster". The Gerstlauer "Bobsled" coasters (like G'sengte Sau at Tripsdrill) hold the advantage over Mack mice in terms of layout uniqueness and length, but Matterhorn Blitz easily matches (and arguably surpasses) G'sengte Sau in terms of atmosphere. Hooray for a Swiss credit #89!

For me, the biggest star in Switzerland is this remarkable airplane flat ride!

The airplane ride is called "Jungfrau Gletscherflieger", which I think roughly translates into "Maiden (Voyage) (of the) Glacier Flyer".

Just kidding. I found out that Jungfrau is the name of a mountain. Thank you Bill Harrison for the information!

Mack's unique Spider-like variation has two interesting features: Its cars are suspended & swing freely, and they rotate counter-clockwise while the "hands" of 4 cars rotate clockwise. The result is a rotating movement that keeps you facing forward the entire time. As the 6 "arms" of 4 "hands" rotate clockwise, the little 4-somes of planes rotate around each other in such a way that it's really quite reminiscent of a "scrambling" of airplanes. 

Europa Park has the most photogenic park-goers, I swear!

The border between Italy & Switzerland is this picturesque river walk!

Mack Bobsled. Oh how I love thee. 

Schweizer Bobbahn was the first installment of one of the most exquisite roller coaster collections in the world!

Bobsled coasters are just wonderful and odd. I wish there were more. Furthermore, I wish the ones that exist were all this good. But again, that's that whole "Europa-Park-is-boss" thing.

Europa Park even hired dragonflies to fly around Switzerland.

Nobody told me Switzerland was this lush!

Bobsleds are a fun way to get closer to your friends and family. :}

The only Mack Bobsled in the United States is Avalanche at Kings Dominion. For whatever reason, the concept never really caught on. These are neat rides. Kings Dominion's bobsled seems like it was more or less the park's answer to another oddball, slaloming family coaster just down the road, Big Bad Wolf. Sadly, Big Bad Wolf is no more, but Avalanche is alive and well. Go to Kings Dominion and ride it. :} 

Also, that makes 90 new coasters in 2012! We're closing in on 100 NEW COASTERS!!! 

A Swiss-chalet Heaven is wrapped up inside a blanket of bobsled!

You know you're in Germany when you buy a shot of homemade raspberry brandy from a family amusement park & it takes 6 grown-ass adults to finish it. That sh*t was the strongest liquor I have ever tasted.

Now that the shot of Brandy is taken care of, let's go for a Glacier Flight!

XTREME GLACIER FLYER POV

This really was one of the most fun flat rides! It just makes you grin.

Sadly, this is the only one & they're not going to make any more. Apparently a flat ride with a $2million price tag scared parks away.

It's one of the best flat rides I've ever ridden because, while there's a lot of movement, there isn't a lot of "oh God I'm going to vomit". It's more like a cross between a Spider & one of those "Flying Dutchman" ship rides (the chair-swing-ish things with little ships or wooden shoes instead of individual seats). The spinning is there, but it's not the least bit sickening. 

Oh, btw. Matterhorn Blitz has an elevator instead of a lift hill. Two by two, the mouse cars travel up the elevator & then *pop* out the doors of this tower cuckoo-clock style!!

Oh, hello!

This building, affectionately referred to as the "Merlin's Hat" building, is home to two spectacular attractions: The Europa Park Historama & Food Loop restaurant! More on both of those later. :}

This park just keeps getting better. This man rolls around in a single-person music vehicle & sings songs for people.

Euro Mir is in the geographic center of Europa Park, so we saw it a lot. :}

HORSIES!!

With all of the credits out of the way, it was time to move on to water rides! 

Europa Park's Viking-themed rapids ride is the star attraction of the Scandinavia area!  The boys and I agree that it was so nice to be back in these Nordic countries again. :}

You know, you can probably see Iceland from Norway if you're high enough off the ground. At Europa Park you can see Iceland from Scandinavia with a mere glance. :}

blue fire Megacoaster is exceptionally fun to photograph. There is just so much to it, and it's so pretty!

The fact is, if you're anywhere in the back half of Europa Park, it's a fair chance that blue fire will draw your attention.

These pictures are all the result of another long-but-constantly-moving queue.

I don't have a picture of it here on the blog, but inside this building is the probably single-highest number of back-to-back switchbacks I have ever seen. And they're all SINGLE FILE. It was really odd. The line never stopped moving, so it was a constant state of walking from one side of the room to the other. Over and over. 

The snack stand has a really neat soda fountain!

After an eternity of switchbacks, we finally made it! The ride was good, but nothing Earth-shattering.

A viking-themed viking ship ride in Scandinavia. Somebody pinch me!

At this point, we decided to hit some more oddball stuff that was just in the area. We were tired from walking. Here we are in Holland riding Europa's "Regatta"-type-ride.

It felt nice to just sit with the wind passing by.

We also rode the Tea Coffee Cups!

And this magnificent (albeit note-for-note) Pirates of the Caribbean-style dark ride.

Like several of the older themed rides at Europa, there's not even an attempt at veiling the obvious cues taken from Disney. Europa's not ashamed of this, though. They're firm believers in "emulate the best & forget the rest"!

Similarities between Disney and Europa are fleeting, however. Europa was part of the log flume phenomenon long before Splash Mountain made its debut at Disneyland. It was quite a nice flume with a stunning indoor portion that I'll focus on more later. 

For dinner we were treated to a VIP event at Food Loop!

Food Loop is a 1-of-a-kind concept restaurant where your waiter is a roller coaster! :D

I can almost guarantee you that the creator of this concept played a lot of Maxis Marble Drop on the PC. The look of this place is stunningly similar.

Here's how this works: The Point of Sale (POS) is located at each table in the form of 3 touch-screen menus. Each table seats 12, and each individual is assigned a card. These cards are scanned at the beginning of the ordering process to indicate who ordered what. 

Each order is sent to the kitchen. It's also sent to two conductors up in the rafters of Food Loop. The prepared meals and drinks are all sent to the conductors, who then distribute the dishes to the corresponding orderer.

Armed with a little color-coordinated flag, the plate or drink is sent down one of the many roller coaster tracks. To grab your plate, spin the revolving table as soon as it comes in for a landing!

One of the coaster tracks does indeed feature a loop!

For the best results, order lots of things. That way you get to watch the roller coaster go more times. :}

For the record, the food is delicious.

There was something so "Jetson-eqsue" about all this. It's really something!

Thank you, Europa Park! This has to be one of the most remarkable dining experiences I've ever had! 

Remember how I said that there's no more credits left? I LIED! :}

The time has come for ERT on the last coaster of the day: EUROSAT

Eurosat was Europa Park's first signature ride. It was their answer to both Spaceship Earth and Space Mountain. Tit for tat, the argument could be made that it's a more solid ride than either. 

Hey, friends! Can you tell me why this ERT is special?

That's right! It's ERT with the lights on!!

Most of the pictures taken during my two photo-capturing rides on Eurosat are a mess, but I'll share a few of them with you anyways. :}

WOOOO! LIGHTSPEED TUNNEL!

Round 2!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Fun fact: if you have a 6ft+ arm span, the likelihood of you smacking some of the scenery as you whizz by may be higher than that of the average individual. :}

Goodnight new favorite park! See you in the morning!!

Okay, y'all! We've only just scratched the surface on Europa Park! Join us for DAY 2 at this magnificent theme park & admire the park's keen eye for detail. There's still new countries to visit, different food to eat, and more rides to ride. We're just getting started!!!!! :D