Thrillography: MORE of Erlebnispark Tripsdrill + Holiday Park: My Obnoxious ACE Central Europe Trip Report

Good morning. :}

After our wild, run-a-round day yesterday at Skyline and Tripsdrill, we were looking forward to some good weather time at Tripsdrill & ample time at Holiday Park! :D

The windmill that started it all!

"...and on your left, a wild herd of ACErs migrating to this morning's ERT!"

Karacho looks so enticing this morning!

But first some Mammut exclusive ride time!

The ride operator was kind enough to test the ride for us.

Mammut is themed to a sawmill or something. All along I was thinking it might be themed to wooly mammoth. *disappointment*

ACERS: ASSEMBLE!!

The last time I went rollerblading I basically died. I think I would die just watching this guy.

Here is a happy caterpillar friend with a video camera! :}

Mammut's smooth transitions and polyurethane wheels make for very comfortable ride.

It may not be the wildest woodie, but credit #79 of My Year Of 100 New Coasters is a solid ride the whole family can enjoy!

After a couple of rides, I decided to focus on taking some good pictures.

Which required more than the usual focus for photographing a woodie. This thing had one train & it was QUIET. That telltale rumble that indicates an oncoming train is eerily absent on Mammut!

Soon it was time for another ride on the most beautiful wild mouse ever, G'sengte Sau!

We weren't able to do any of the celebratory stuff yesterday amidst all of the chaos, but G'sengte Sau is Jeff's 400th coaster! Woohoo!! :D

Jeff videotaped the ride & I photographed it! Sadly, Jeff's sunglasses flew off during the ride. We didn't even catch footage of it!

The newer side of Tripsdrill may still need to grow into itself a bit, but it looks great so far!

I see you, Karacho! We're coming back for you later.

G'sengte Sau really has some of the best head-choppers!

And some great pops of air!

Hey, look! We're being documented by Joel! Perhaps this picture he's taking will appear on www.coastergallery.com?? :}

Ohh G'sengte Sau. I wish we had one of you in Napa Valley. It would just feel so right.

Hey look! It's Sam and Jeff! Hi, guys!

Finally we pulled ourselves away to take in the rest of the park.

SOUP TUREEN: THE RIDE!

The Soup Tureens were awesome. Basically a cross between teacups and a tracked dark ride (but outdoors).

And look how pretty it is!

Old-timer cars are too mainstream for Tripsdrill! They have horse-drawn carriages!

Here's Tripsdrill's famous wine bar! They offer free wine-tasting & you even get a complementary wine goblet with your admission ticket!

Speaking of wine, Michael and Steve took a spin on the Wine Bucket ride! Similar in concept to the Soup Tureen ride, but with wine buckets. :}

Again with the pretty-ness!

Tripsdrill boasts of a grain-sack kiddie log flume, but grown-up kids aren't allowed to ride. :{

It sure is cute looking, though!

Jungle-Cruise-type-thing!

Tripsdrill has a very large & friendly population of koi. :}

Remember the windmill from earlier? Here's what's inside! A giant slide!

Ok, let's stop for a sec and talk about this giant frog-hopper tree thing.

This "tree thing" is so deceptive. It's evil. We'd ridden one before, so it wasn't a surprise, but it's still an evil, evil ride. It starts out quite innocently; just a big, gentle frog-hopper-type-thing. Then the thing goes all the way to the top & suddenly LURCHES forward like the whole thing is breaking apart or something. Totally scared the living piss out of me the first time. Then it drops suddenly & the ride ends. Totally evil. I love it.

The "lurch" in action. Notice the hairtime!

Tripsdrill had a nice series of outdoor funhouse stuff, too!

The boys and I were delighted by these wavy-roller-stair-things. I was especially delighted that I didn't bust my ass on them.

It's really easy to go from balanced to "OOHHMYAHKLANLSNAL;KLKNSLNVFF".

Frozen dessert time! :}

Next we had to do the rapids ride. It wasn't as remarkable as the bathtub flume, but still fun.

The rapids boats have this sorta pie-shaped seating design that keeps the boats from filling with water. It's great at keeping your feet dry, but kind of kills some of the splash effect of the rapids.

Also interesting: A waterless loading dock!

Soon it was time to pay Karacho another visit!

I've had it with poopy-weather shots.

I think this is my favorite part of the ride. It really gives you a whip!

Something interesting about this ride is its cool whistling noise it makes during the launch. It certain helps with setting up top-hat shots!

For the record, these trains are the most comfortable things ever. You listening, Dollywood?

At first I thought the cars were little biplanes, but upon closer inspection they're essentially steam-punk Jalopies with spoilers and neon wind turbines! :}

In just 4 rides, I managed to clobber no fewer than 6 people with my arms.

Coming in for a landing!

Good: Having character animatronics for an attraction that's still under construction.

Great: Having a character animatronic vomiting at the exit of the attraction.

Awesome: Having the character animatronic have red vomit because the park is a winery.

Not that Tripsdrill needs more reasons to be awesome.

YEEEEHAWW!

One more!

LOL j/k one more for real. I am going to miss this ride.

Quick stop at the gift shop before heading out! What an awesome park Tripsdrill is! It was everything I'd hoped for & more!

Next up: Holiday Park! a.k.a. "that park with Expedition GeForce". The general opinion of this place was that Expedition GeForce was as remarkable as the rest of the park was unremarkable. However, since its purchase by the Plopsa family of parks, Holiday Park has seen several improvements.

o. m. g.

There. It. Is.

Holiday Park got a new entrance this year!

It already makes a much better impression than its reputation my suggest.

See, I really appreciate this sort of thing. YAY COLOR!

The ACErs pretty much moved as a single unit in the direction of Expedition GeForce.

Jeff and Sam can't wait for their front seat ride on Expedition GeForce!

Back in the station, they're speechless!

Okay, boys! It's a Coaster Enthusiast right of passage! We're about to ride the highest-ranked steel coaster in the World!

WOOOO! *excitement*

Huh? Well of COURSE it lived up to the hype! It was AWESOME!!!!! Just an excellent ride all-around. Several great moments of air, strong sensation of speed, and the best first drop on any coaster anywhere. Credit #80 of My Year of 100 New Coasters is now my new #1 steel!

There's really no comparing this to Millennium Force, though that seems to be the first coaster people think to compare it to. I was more reminded of Bizarro, but without all of that helix business.

For me, what gives this ride the edge over Skyrush (my now #2 steel) is that Expedition GeForce is far more re-ridable. Now I just need to ride Intimidator 305 and see how it stacks up!

There's other rides here, too.

Holiday Park's log flume is excellent. Definitely one of those massive, late-70s Arrow flumes. It had a feel similar to that of the Great America flumes.

And here is Super Wirbel, Holiday Park's only coaster from 1979-2001. This is the only picture of it you get.

It is just the strangest thing. Here you have this totally mediocre park (at the time) that has had one coaster (a really bad one, no less) for over two decades, and then they spontaneously build the best steel coaster in the world.

And yeah, credit #81 is ouch.

Yet another mighty Condor also calls Holiday Park home!

The park really doesn't have a huge collection of rides, despite its size.

One of the first additions made by the Plopsa company was to slam a much-needed 3rd coaster into Holiday Park.

This otherwise garden-variety wild mouse has a fairly extensive automotive theme going on. More importantly, it probably has the best name ever: HOLLY'S WILDE AUTOFAHRT!

To Germans of course, this is a totally normal name. I'm sure some locals were confused as to why none of us could say the ride's name with a straight face. Furthermore, this proved to myself and everyone around that ACErs really are just big, goofy children who like fart jokes. :}

Credit #82: Fahrt-tastic!

After a spin on Holly's Wilde Autofahrt, we took a lunch break.

Then Mat and John fahrted over to the bathrooms.

GUMMIES!!! :D

*eats all*

The park has a great omnimover dark ride, which was a nice surprise. :}

On our way to the rapids ride, we stumbled upon an animal show, in which girls in polka-dot dresses manipulate animals in various ways.

"Here. Have this snake."

At one point, a rather large skunk got involved. The Giant Flemish Hare was unimpressed.

Rapids rides around here just don't seem to get you very wet. They're more about speed.

Expedition GeForce looms over the rapids ride, which makes it more interesting.

I honestly appreciate the fact that the focal point of Holiday Park's entrance is an Intamin drop tower. I wish the same could still be said for Kentucky Kingdom and Cedar Point.

Hey, look! We know those people!

Pretty much everything in the front of the park looks like it was taken over & Plopsa-fied. I suspect it wasn't much to look at before.

The drop tower delivered. There's just nothing like a 2nd Gen Intamin!

Wedged between the park's entrance and Expedition GeForce is this odd boat ride.

As Kevin & Ray would say, "It's a good nap."

Jeff kept himself occupied by weeding.

Plopsa is full of various media tie-ins, none of which are relevant to us.

The most prevalent of the park's media tie-ins is the brand-new Mayaland! Maya is a bee, and, as you can see, the area has a distinctly 'It's a Bug's Life' feel.

Maya has lots of bug friends.

Maya's ride, the centerpiece for the area, is this Dumbo-style flower ride!

None of us hesitated when afforded the opportunity to float around in a giant flower. :}

They even have a slightly-larger-than-normal-but-still-pretty-small Rock N' Tug!

Hey, look! It's another one of Maya's friends!

And this right here is one of my friends. :}

Expedition GeForce ERT is next! But first, we wait.

A line started to really form shortly after we arrived. Sam and others had already claimed spots!

It is just such a solid, on-point ride. Every seat is great.

After about 5 rides, I went into photographer mode.

Rus Ozana complained that this shot is too common.

What are your thoughts?

Express them by going to Rus's Facebook page & sending him lots and lots of messages of your opinion.
https://www.facebook.com/rus.ozana

:}

Bill and Daniel took advantage of the Exclusive Playground Time as well. :}

WOOOOOOOOOO!

Hooray for Holiday Park!

After disembarking from Holiday Park, we made our drive to the one & only Europa Park! Driving up to the park felt like rolling up to Disneyland. Then we all went into the lobby of the Hotel Colosseo to check in & all Hell broke loose! The park had just closed & the lobby was already packed! I was so excited to check out the room!