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

Following an extremely successful/amazing/productive first day at Europa Park, day 2 gave us some time to really relax and enjoy the ambiance. This day was more about exploring all corners of the park and hitting every ride we found! Despite all of my research, there is so much to this park that I never knew. As the day went on, it became clear to me that Europa Park is more vast and detailed than I could have ever dreamed!

First stop: Austria & Alpenexpress!

Alpenexpress is an early incarnation of the neat extended powered coasters scattered throughout Europe. We rode two in Scandinavia & both really challenged our ideas of what a powered coaster is capable of. Aplenexpress pre-dates all of Europa's gravity-powered coasters, making it the park's oldest credit for those who count them. :}

Apparently this picture is all about Randy. I simply pushed the button & this is what I got! 

MAT! Get out of the way! You're RUINING my empty station shot! :P

XTREME ALPENEXPRESS POV!!

About half of the ride is indoors, sharing the space with the log flume and a one-of-a-kind walk thru attraction! I have pictures from the inside later in the report. :}

WOOOO! SPECIAL F-X POV!!!

Over-the-cab shot as we fly back into the station!

Here's that log flume we rode yesterday. I think I forgot to mention that it's in Austria, so...yeah. Here it is! :}

Europa is really into models. Here we have the marvelous Wodan Timburcoaster model inside the blue fire Lounge!

DID SOMEBODY SAY BLUE FIRE??? :D

For what it's worth, Manta at SeaWorld San Diego is a little kiddo version of blue fire. It's probably awesome, so go ride it!

*joy*

Uh-oh! Betty and Cy have been locked up for trying to STEAL blue fire & smuggle it into America! 

In other news, Wodan's queue changes its route every couple of hours. Or perhaps they just keep adding new theme elements throughout the day. Maybe both? I'm not really sure.

Wodan got better and better with each ride. To its credit, we were assigned seats in the middle of the train during two of our rides & the thing still kicked so much ass. 

Okay, so I have a dilemma. I took this picture.

A few seconds later, I took this picture.

I REALLY wish that these two pictures were actually one picture with both coaster trains in it. Fortunately, thanks to the miracle of entry-level Photoshop-type image editors on the internet for free, I was able to make my wish a reality!

 Behold! Photo magic! 

In all seriousness, creating this picture was a total b*tch and it took me over an hour. Most of that was spent trying to find a decent photo editor that could do what I wanted, but still. The finished image lost some mega pixels somewhere along the way, too. I'm proud of the accomplishment & I'm glad I can say that I did it with a marginal level of success, but it was a complete pain in the ass & I'm never doing it again. lol

Having pictures with two trains in it isn't really a huge concern of mine anyways, particularly since a lot of pictures just have one coaster in them.

Like, if blue fire's train was in this shot, that would be kinda cool, but I don't think it really matters that much.

*dies*

Milka is an affiliate of Europa Park, so therefor Milka Muffins exists. They are amazeballs.

In fact, a lot of amazeballs things are for sale at Europa's marvelous bakery in Iceland!

I swear. They just keep adding scenery to this ride.

Oh, Wodan. Please come home with me to Nashville. 

We decided to hit the park's monorails today; lots of birds-eye views of the park to be had!

Floating above Europa's Adventureland area, we see their note-for-note Jungle Cruise ride.

Dschungel Fahrt!!!

*snickers*

The monorail that we're currently on is the park's small, open air monorail. The large, "Alweg"-style monorail is on the docket too!

The monorails have totally different routes. The small guy goes from just above the Iceland Bakery to the Merlin's Hat building. The big guy goes to Greece, the main entrance, and the hotels!

YEEHAW!!!

Mighty Wodan greets us again as we make our loop! We decided to do a circle-and-half, disembarking in the Merlin's Hat. 

NOOOO! Jeff! Run away!!! He'll eat you!

After safely escaping from the cannibalistic Merlin creature, we decided to explore Europa's Historama. You know what that means, right?

That's right: MODELS! :D

Here you can see the general track layout for Eurosat. The nature of the ride's spherical shape leads to some pretty sharp turns at the ride's end!

Here's the model for Scandinavia's rapids ride!

Mini models galore!

Our hotel! :D

It's showtime!

The show part of the Historama is Europa's answer to The Carousel of Progress!

At one point, this fully-operational amusement park model literally popped up out of nowhere.

Then it expanded with some larger rides! Pretty neat. :}

Just above the Historama, right next to the station for the monorail, is the model of Euro Mir!

It's one that every monorail rider sees when they depart from the Merlin's Hat station. Models displayed on transportation rides is another nod to Disney. :}

Because the hotel entrance to Europa is in the back of the park, we still had yet to see everything at the FRONT of the park! Germany, the park's entrance plaza, would be our eventual destination.

Something about this picture made me lol when I took it.

Where Germany, France, and Italy all meet is this wonderful culmination of gentle transportation rides. :}

We decided to have lunch in the park's stunning French cafe.

Who's up for a fun French Fairyland float?

First we must abide by France's strict dress code!

Don't fall asleep, guys!!

(We were tired, full of food, and the combination of the Monorail & Historama already had us pretty relaxed.

The Fairy Boat Ride intertwines beautifully with lush gardens & Germany's old-timer car ride.

Hovering above are Da Vinci's famous flying machines!

Hold still, John! A wild old-timer is right behind you!

We were all a little groggy after our cruise.

I think a high-flying adventure is in order!

Volo Da Vinci opened last year. The station is in the second story of some Italian shop buildings & the ride floats inconspicuously above the other 4 outdoor tracked rides in the area. Even though it was just integrated into this well-established area of the park, Volo Da Vinci feels like it's always been there!

Several of Da Vinci's inventions are on display in his workshop!

Look who it is! Even in a park as big as this, we manage to run into some familiar faces! :}

I'm serious, Europa is just crazy about models. I'm sure next they'll just build a scale model of Germany. 

Okay, boys! Let's fly!

While the flying machines move automatically, the speed can be adjusted via bike pedals in front of each seat. 

A little bit more of France from just above the midway,

and now back on the ground in Italy!

Now time for one of Europa's best dark rides, GEISTERSCHLOSS!

Geisterschloss is an excellent alternate-reality Haunted Mansion. It has the elevator & everything!

There's something about omnimovers that make me so happy. :}

Geisterschloss has its own gift shop, too!

Also in Italy is a gondolier-themed dark ride, which is populated with some Three-Caballeros-esque birds. :}

This is just one of those parks that you have to do the observation tower.

Switzerland, Greece, and Russia!

Schweizer Bobbahn is the apple of my eye. Can I take this one back to Nashville, too?

Europa Park takes up about 60% of the town of Rust. Here you can see some of the households of Rust & their proximity to the park. 

Something about Volo Da Vinci really delights me. It was one of the rides I saw when researching this park where I was like "OMG. We have got to ride this."

Portugal and Iceland feel so far away!

And yet Switzerland is just below our feet!

Can't forget about Silver Star!

In fact, a ride on Silver Star sounds like a great idea!

Silver Star was the last of the initial 4 B&M Mega Coasters. After its opening in 2002,  mega coasters seemed to stall out as floorless and flying coasters took the spotlight. Fortunately, 2006 saw the addition of two B&M mega "Goliaths" at Six Flags parks, and there's been a steady stream of B&M megas ever since.

Snack time! Lemon curd sorbet with whipped cream, M&Ms, and chocolate-dunked wafer. It was so good that I came back for more lemon curd sorbet less than an hour later.

Finally! We made it to Germany!

Nauseatingly-cute, teeny-tiny kiddy rides line the entrance midway.

Looking at it from the point of view of a guest just entering the park, Germany makes quite an impression!

That's right; Europa Park has two pieces of the Berlin Wall.

The only thing better than a perfect photo with friends is a perfect photo with friends with a gay couple photobomb! :}

Harold joined us for our ride on the big Monorail! 

The park's entrance area & the outlying areas are really the only places to get good pictures of Silver Star. Inside Europa, the 200ft coaster is mostly hidden somehow. 

Given a 3rd day, I would have taken some time to run out into the parking lot and get some up-close-and-personal Silver Star shots.

Our chariot hath arrived!

I imagine that an archiphile could come here & just have a field day.

Everyone wave to the small monorail!

"To your left we have Grimm's Fairytale Forest

and on your right we have a large, rotating loaf of bread."

Attached to Spain & the spanish-themed resort is this awesome play area!

Hotel Colosseo!

Europa really does have a lively cluster of resorts! I would think that they probably have more resorts than any one amusement park.

There's so much to see as we cross back into the park!

Btw, Great Britain is here too. 

I see you, Euro Mir!

Matterhorn Blitz is blitzing!

Poseidon is Poseiding!

"Hey, look. You can almost see Pegasus. You know, that coaster that Alex has no pictures of."

Back in Germany! We need to get moving if we're going to stay awake.

True to form, Europa Park's gift shop carries cuckoo clocks. I was more surprised to see these than I probably should have been.

DUCKS!

Fun fact: Europa Park is really into rubber duckies. There are many, many duckies for sale that are unique to Europa.

A popular thing in large European parks is a big garden. No rides, no shops; just a grand, manicured display of cultivated vegetation. Parks with a lot of room tend to devote fairly large spaces for these gardens, and Europa Park is no exception. The very existence of this & other amusement park gardens feels ever-so-distinctly European, not just because I've only seen them in European parks, but because I just can't picture one existing in an American park. I'm scanning my brain right now, and even the U.S.'s most beautiful parks don't have an area that is devoted (to the same degree) simply to gardens. I guess I can't imagine that an American park would find a large garden to be a useful allocation of available space, which is a pity because the parks I've visited that feature large gardens (Europa Park, Liseberg, & Tivoli) just wouldn't be the same without them. There's just something so peaceful about them, which really balances out the high-octane nature of a large park. I'd like to see Cedar Point bulldoze Mean Streak & just put in a big-ass garden. Wouldn't that be cool?? :}

It was definitely siesta time for some people at Europa Park. The exceedingly warm temperatures made the park's giant red nap-time pillows (!) very appealing.

The sounds of not one amusement park ride carries into the gardens.  In fact, the entire eastern border of Europa Park (the gardens are in the northern-most corner of that border) is largely ride-less and entirely coaster-less. As mentioned earlier, the homes of Rust begin just on the other side of that tree line!

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

When in the Europa Park gardens, take a nap.

The far reaches of the gardens are so serene that it's easy to forget that you're in an amusement park, or even in a public place.

I just love flowers. Do you like flowers? I love flowers. :}

Walking around here, Roller Coaster Tycoon's emphasis on gardens & scenery suddenly makes so much sense. It's a European game, after all. These are the kinds of parks that inspired that game. Not Six Flags.

Look! More friends!

This is the Castle Balthasar, which pre-dates Europa Park. It was purchased by the Mack family and integrated into the park as a restaurant. 

Oh, look! There's a baby duck in the fountain!

A park associate was fruitlessly trying to catch the duckling. The duckling seemed to be enjoying himself. :}

We only have a few hours left at Europa, now. Where did all the time go???

We still have several rides to hit before we can leave!

Now we're back in Greece for yet another dark ride: Cassandra's Curse! This Madhouse ride, like Silver Star and Wodan, is a rare non-Mack ride! The Vekoma Madhouse phenomenon was just too great to resist!

*Dec 2015 Edit: Two and a half years later, I find out that this is a Mack Madhouse. I didn't even know Mack made Madhouses. Thanks to Marc Lacombe for the new info!

I'm pretty sure Cassandra's Curse is actually this guy's face.

After hours upon hours of time spent at Europa Park over the course of two days, we finally made it to the Great Britain area with about 3 hours left in the park. The more time we spent at Europa, the more stunned we were at how much sh*t they crammed into one damn park. It's just staggering. 

Hey futball fans! Europa Park has a very large futball-shaped building, which is home to a Futball Hall of Fame, a bar, and a cleat-themed set of Dodgems, complete with a large ball that guests "kick" at each other.

Reminder that we are not in America: Head-on-collisions are not only allowed, but encouraged. 

The park's miniature locomotive (yes, another transportation ride) had eluded my camera for almost the entire trip, but finally I caught it filling up at its station in Russia.

Great Britain's Piccadilly-esqu portion is one of the only places to find midway games in Europa Park.

Great Britain's location in east-central Europa Park has left it without much growing room. It's the smallest of the nation-themed areas, but it does (according to the map) technically include the otherwise un-themed Merlin's Hat building that we've now seen so many times. If I had to guess, I'd say the Merlin's Hat building just ended up on Great Britain's roster due to its lack of attractions, which, if true, is kind of cute and thoughtful if you ask me. :}

Britain's pair of cuter-than-humanly-withstandable, vehicle-themed flat rides include the Double-Decker Bus magic carpet-style ride

and this London Taxi-themed Cuddle-Up variant. The boys and I all jammed into one taxi & it was a good time. :}

Passing back by the Arthur & The Minimoys preview center, we decided to go in & get a good look at the models (yes, more models).

Europa Park is pretty consistent about fully-realizing their models. I think they have every intention of making their new land look just like this. 

Dschungle-fahrt time!

Conceptually, it's a little more unique to its Disney counterpart than some of the other Disney-type rides here. First of all, it's not a river; the ride is actually tracked through a large lake (we would see a few more like this on the trip).

Additionally, the ride's focus is less on animals and more on the aboriginal people & their village.

The lack of emphasis on animals is more than made up by the fact about half of the animals here are REAL. 

I'm not sure if they've done something to lure the birds here or not, but Dschungle Fahrt has an extremely lively population of various mallards & other water-residing fowl. 

There's also an indoor portion of the ride that reacts to flash photography in unexpected ways.

See?

This is a 100% un-altered picture. 

Speaking of remarkable indoor ride environments, our next stop is the diamond mine in Austria!

I don't know what possessed Europa Park to partially enclose multiple attractions inside a enormous fictional gemstone mine, but I'm really glad they did it.

Alpenexpress, the log flume, and a population of gem-harvesting dwarves (Snow White, anyone?) live harmoniously in this spectacular environment.

My favorite part, of course, is the walk-thru aspect of this area. Yay for photo ops! :}

On the other side of the diamond mine is the underground village where the gnomes live.

The village is complemented by this elaborate gem store, which supports dwarves financially. 

Can we just stop for a second?

This park is f***cking incredible.

That is all.

Our last rides of the day are Spain's pair of elaborately decorated spinning rides.

This ride is pretty similar to the ship ride in Holland, but this ride has ships that spin!

"Aww. I can't believe it's our last ride at Europa Park!"

The Feria Swing is an exceptionally nice-looking Flying Bobs-style ride. I told myself that I would never ride one of these again after the 20-minute marathon I had on the Flying Bobs last June at Beech Bend Bash (thank you very much, Paul), but Europa Park made me like these again. 

Time to grab a drink for the road! Bye, Europa Park! I really, really miss you now.

That evening, we trekked our way to the city of Frankfurt! It's now the end of week one, and we had to say goodbye to some of our friends! :(

Tomorrow shall begin WEEK TWO of the Germany trip; little did we know that the wildest of times still lay ahead! 

That half-way night in Frankfurt was ridiculous. Things started out so calm, and then chaos happened. 

Ken, Joel and I walked over to the nearest gas station to get some snacks.

XTREME FORESHADOWING!

Joel just loves his beer. :}

Awwwwwwwwww!

After drinks and snack time with Ken and Joel in the hotel lobby, I decided to head to bed. I got up to the 5th floor & then realized that I had no idea what room Jeff and I were in.  It occurred to me that I'd just picked the 5th floor arbitrarily & actually had no clue where I was going. Jeff got the room keys & told me the number, but that was hours ago and I can't be expected to remember things & stuff. I went down to the concierge & he sent me to the correct room with a fresh key. Nice guy. 

I went up to the room, and the key didn't work. I gave it a good shot, but it just was not happening. I went back to the concierge. He apologized & gave me another key. I went back up to the room & this time the key worked. Jeff was fast asleep as I started plugging in all of my chargers for my various electronics. I realized that I'd left one of my outlet converters at Hotel Colosseo, so I asked Jeff if I could borrow his. He groggily agreed, so I took his outlet converter and plugged it in over by the desk. Plugged into the outlet converter was Jeff's large voltage converter, which in turn was plugged into his iPhone. I'd heard some place that voltage converters were only necessary for things like irons and hair dryers, but I decided not to mess with it. I plugged the outlet converter into the wall, plugged my laptop into the voltage converter, and plugged Jeff's & my iPhones into my laptop. Then I took a shower. 

I came back from the shower & started tidying up my things before going to bed. Suddenly, the light in the desk lamp burned out. I went over to inspect the lamp & caught a whiff of that distinct "burning plastic" smell. I started fiddling around with the various plugged-in things. When I touched the voltage converter, it was hot. Not like an I've-been-operating-all-day hot, but an Imma-set-this-place-on-fire hot. I quickly unplugged it and set it aside to cool off. I plugged the laptop into the outlet converter sans-voltage converter & nothing happened. None of the outlets in the little area by the desk were working. I took a closer look at the lamp, and the lightbulb was actually intact. I went to some of the other light switches to see if they worked. Nothing. I had knocked out the power in our entire room. I told Jeff this & he groggily acknowledged it but went right back to sleep.

I decided to take the outlet converter, power converter, and cell phone charger out into the hallway to see if I'd broken the voltage converter or not. I plugged the outlet converter into a wall outlet across from the elevators & then I plugged in the voltage converter. The moment it grazed the inside of the outlet, the voltage converter exploded internally. With a colorful & loud electrical pop, I panicked & threw the voltage converter into a wall. I poked it a few times to make sure it wasn't too hot to pick up; as I grabbed it, Daniel Tardy walked down the hallway & said hello. I explained what events had occurred thus far & he says "Yeah, you don't need that voltage converter." I plugged the stuff in sans-voltage converter again & nothing worked. I'd now blown the power in that outlet as well. I went back into the room briefly to set down all the stuff. It was now 1 in the morning. I told Jeff that I was going down to the concierge again. He sorta mumbled & went back to sleep.

The concierge and I were becoming pretty good friends. I told him about the lost outlet converters & the voltage converter fiasco & the inflicted lack of power in our room & the outlet by the elevator. He smiled & said "Oh, this happens all the time. No big deal. Let me get you some outlet converters & then we'll go get your power turned back on." He looked in a few places for outlet converters but came up dry. He told me we'd go fix the power first & then he'd deliver some converters to our room later. I went with the concierge to the fuse box on the 5th floor, where he successfully returned power to our room. I thanked him & he told me he'd be back in about 10 minutes with some outlet converters. I walk into the room & Jeff is awake. He looks at me, white as a ghost, and says something to the effect of "I don't know how this happened." He looked over at the bed & I looked to see what was concerning him.

I looked over and saw this.

Apparently, the helter-skelter wound that Jeff had sustained at Bayern Park re-opened and bled like crazy. He must have loosened up the scab when he took his shower & started bleeding some time after he went to bed. He was completely unaware of this. Because I had left all of the switches flipped when I was trying to turn on the lights, every light in the room came on when the concierge fixed the power. Jeff woke up and started turning off the lights. I'd come back to the room just as he was noticing the severe-looking blood stains on his sheets. 

The two of us started laughing hysterically. There was blood everywhere. Jeff had left a trail; There was blood on the carpet, blood on the bathroom tiles, blood on the bathroom counter, blood on the desk, blood on the office chair, and so on. I began telling him all that had happened while be both tried not to collapse from excessive laughter. I went to the desk and picked up my plastic bag of various small electronic things; there was a nice, big droplet of blood on it that had began to dry. I caught a nice whiff of it & instantly became nauseous. I was already feeling anxiously uneasy from the night's events, and I suddenly realized I was on the edge of puking. "I think I'm going to throw up." I said to Jeff. He was still laughing hysterically & thought that I was being funny. At that moment, I dropped the bag of electronics, flew to the bathroom, lunged face-first for the toilet, and projectile vomited like a teenage frat boy. Jeff was laughing so hard that I could hear him collapse under the weight of his own hysterics. I threw up multiple times. It was neon yellow because of the Red Bulls I'd had earlier. Eventually I crawled out of the bathroom on my hands & knees with Red Bull vomit-spit on my face. Jeff is choking on his laughter. At that moment, the concierge knocks on the door. I open the door a few inches, grab the outlet converters, and yell "Thank you!" before slamming the door. We cleaned ourselves & the room and went to bed. We spent a good hour cackling before we fell asleep.

The next morning, we stumble into the lobby to check out. Jeff and I look like crap & we're giggling to ourselves like invalids. I told Mat and John the story as Jeff informed the people at check-in that our room was covered in blood, but that everything was fine. John tells me that he overheard some people saying that they lost power in their room last night. That's right: my wrath on electrical outlets was not confined just to our room & the outlet by the elevator. We came to the conclusion that I'd killed power on the 5th floor of the hotel's entire east wing.

And with that, Week 2 of ACE's Central Europe Trip had begun! :}

Tune in next time for Day 1 of week 2: Freitzeitland Geisewind and Freitzeitpark Plohn!