July 13th - Europa park
July 13, 2014
Wow! I have been busy on my weekends, that's for sure. This weekend I went to Europa Park. It's the second most popular theme park behind Disneyland Paris. However, this theme park is owned by Mack. They design and build rides and almost all the rides in this park are built by them. It's also a roller coaster enthusiast's place to come and try a wide variety of coasters.
The first ride I went on is a hyper-coaster called Silver Star. It was a very fast, smooth ride and a lot of fun. It was go balls out from the start to finish.
The first ride I went on is a hyper-coaster called Silver Star. It was a very fast, smooth ride and a lot of fun. It was go balls out from the start to finish.
The second ride I went on was a little different. It was built inside a geodesic dome, looked like Spaceship Earth at Epcot but Spaceship earth is a geodesic sphere. The ride itself is called Eurosat and was supposed to be similar to Space Mountain though it didn't come close to it. It had an interesting lift hill consisting of a spiral climb. Had a few neat effects towards the end but it didn't come close to Space Mountain.
Never been on a bobsled before but they had a coaster called Swiss Bob Run and it was a bob sled type coaster. Very interesting in the fact it doesn't have track on the entire circuit, mainly the lift hill and the end. The rest seems to be a no control run that slides around the track and will pick it's own course. It was pretty neat and fun. Sorry no picture but I do have a video of the ride I may post.
Got to the back of the park and found Wodan Timbur Coaster. This was an impressive wooden coaster and also fairly smooth, by wood standards. Had a very detail oriented queue with vikings and gems. The ride from the front seat was awesome and it had some serious air-time hills and more than 90 degree banking.
Got to the back of the park and found Wodan Timbur Coaster. This was an impressive wooden coaster and also fairly smooth, by wood standards. Had a very detail oriented queue with vikings and gems. The ride from the front seat was awesome and it had some serious air-time hills and more than 90 degree banking.
Went on Blue Fire next and was blown away by this ride. It has a launched start and then you climb about 125 feet into the air and do a hammer turn back down into a loop. What a rush this ride is and it never lets up. Got an on-board video with it. Gonna try and upload it.
Went on Euro Mill and it was kind of neat. Besides the techno music and the spiral lift hill, it was interesting. Had spinning cars and they would rotate at various times. i started out in the back looking behind the train and ended up next to the back looking at the people on the back of the car in front of me. It had some neat parts to it and made for a nice mixture.
Went on the Alpen Express and while it had some decent speed, it really wasn't much more than a small drop and a few helix.
There were a couple of observations I made about this park. It is a Disney wannabe. I read that the man who built it went to the U.S in 1972 and decided to build a theme park in Europe. Well obviously, he took some of Disney's parks and tried to incorporate them into his. Look at the geodesic dome. Looks very similar to Spaceship Earth at Epcot but SSE is a sphere, not a dome. Anyone can build a dome. Also, there's a ride about pirates and guess what it resembles? Yup, Pirates of the Caribbean. It has a drop into a big battle with a ship and fort. It also has a burning town and gold and treasure and all the stuff in Pirates. However, the animatronics are horrible. The characters all look like they're tortured Asian people. Most of the animatronics look like paper mache at best and the movements are very basic. It also seems like this park figured out how to make an animatronic climb a rope and so they do it in almost every attraction they can and just scenes throughout the park. Needless to say, this pirate ride wasn't very good.
The next ride was another rip off called Geisterschloss and it totally steals stuff from my favorite ride, The Haunted Mansion. It has you enter a gallery where the ceiling goes up and the floor vibrates. Then a body drops out of the ceiling after being hung. You then climb some stairs and get in your vehicle. I won't call them "Doombuggies" because they don't deserve that name. The ride doesn't really seem to have a story either, just a bunch of poorly designed animatronics thrown all over the place and try to scare you. It even has the ballroom scene in it and a graveyard scene with the singing busts. Needless to say, I was not impressed. If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, what is very poorly done imitation?
Overall, this was a fun day and I enjoyed the coasters and just seeing the sights. It was a nice escape and who knows, maybe I'll visit again before I leave.
Until we flatter ourselves again,
Bill out...
Went on the Alpen Express and while it had some decent speed, it really wasn't much more than a small drop and a few helix.
There were a couple of observations I made about this park. It is a Disney wannabe. I read that the man who built it went to the U.S in 1972 and decided to build a theme park in Europe. Well obviously, he took some of Disney's parks and tried to incorporate them into his. Look at the geodesic dome. Looks very similar to Spaceship Earth at Epcot but SSE is a sphere, not a dome. Anyone can build a dome. Also, there's a ride about pirates and guess what it resembles? Yup, Pirates of the Caribbean. It has a drop into a big battle with a ship and fort. It also has a burning town and gold and treasure and all the stuff in Pirates. However, the animatronics are horrible. The characters all look like they're tortured Asian people. Most of the animatronics look like paper mache at best and the movements are very basic. It also seems like this park figured out how to make an animatronic climb a rope and so they do it in almost every attraction they can and just scenes throughout the park. Needless to say, this pirate ride wasn't very good.
The next ride was another rip off called Geisterschloss and it totally steals stuff from my favorite ride, The Haunted Mansion. It has you enter a gallery where the ceiling goes up and the floor vibrates. Then a body drops out of the ceiling after being hung. You then climb some stairs and get in your vehicle. I won't call them "Doombuggies" because they don't deserve that name. The ride doesn't really seem to have a story either, just a bunch of poorly designed animatronics thrown all over the place and try to scare you. It even has the ballroom scene in it and a graveyard scene with the singing busts. Needless to say, I was not impressed. If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, what is very poorly done imitation?
Overall, this was a fun day and I enjoyed the coasters and just seeing the sights. It was a nice escape and who knows, maybe I'll visit again before I leave.
Until we flatter ourselves again,
Bill out...
Posted by Bill Bickford.