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CoasterBahn
The Big One
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24th July – 1st August 2004
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Galleries
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Day 1 – Travel, Tivoli Gardens
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Day 4 – Liseberg, Tusenfryd
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Day 7 – Gröna Lund, Travel
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Day 2 – BonBon Land, Bakken
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Day 5 – Tusenfryd
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Day 8 – Särkänniemi
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Day 3 – Tivoli Gardens, Liseberg
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Day 6 – Gröna Lund
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Day 9 – Linnanmäki
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Reports
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Mark Riley
Ever since taking the job as “Trips Monkey,” I have really wanted to run a comprehensive tour of German amusement parks. CoasterBahn 2004 was this trip, with eleven parks, an alpine coaster, and a German fair in just nine days.
Without a doubt, Germany has some of the world’s greatest theme parks and coasters. Those attending the trip were able to ride such legends as Heide Park’s monster woodie Colossos, the effortless hyper-coaster SilverStar at Europa Park, and Holiday Park’s wild Expedition GeForce. But as well as the mega-parks, we also visited many family-owned or simply more family-orientated parks such as Skyline Park, Tripsdrill and Fort Fun.
At Europa Park no less than three couples became engaged! These romantic pairs were Robert Harris and Lisa Rowland, Jonathan Hymes and Janice Mettie, and Mark Riley (yes, me!) and Jenny Lamb. Surely this proves once and for all that Europa Park really does change lives.
Other highlights during the nine-days included some fantastic exclusive ride sessions on Winja’s Fear and Force, the incredible new Heisse Fahrt at Wild and Freizeitpark’s Klotten, and a two hour exclusive session on the hair-raising (especially when you’re riding with Martin Valt) Sternrodtler, the alpine coaster at Sternrodt Mountain.
The group was also able to spend a night at both Hotel Phantasia as well as the brand new Colosseo Hotel at Europa Park. These hotels are simply stunning and added a great sense of luxury for those amazing two nights.
Day by Day Reports
Day 1 – Travel, Hansa Park, Hamburg Sommer Dom
Robert & Lisa
Great park for the 1st in a full program, Nessie was fantastic, with a load of airtime. The park has a good mix of rides for young and old alike. Beer was cold and very welcome! Hamburg fair was was also packed with rides, but not with people, making each ride a walk on (but usually a stagger off). The surprise tour of Alpina Bahn from the inside while it was still running is a highlight few of us will ever forget. Loads of spin rides that some of us would rather forget and delicious sausages & beer!!
Richard Bannister
Hansa Park – a first demonstration of German efficiency. A vintage Schwarzkopf running two train operation with just one operator manning the ride. Great park, other than a somewhat pointless drop tower. As for the Hamburg fair; I wasn’t prepared for how big Alpina Bahn actually is. I can only begin to imagine how much fun it is to move something like that from place to place. Thanks to Angela Bruch for allowing us inside the ride for photography.
Stuart Milton
My first visit to a German park, is a good example. It has a classic Schwarkopf which was one of the smoothest that I have ridden. The mouse was fierce, but fun. The Fair had the excellent Alpina Bahn, which is a huge ride for a fair, the task of moving that fearful. There were also some vicious looking spinning ride, which on German programs are truly scary!
Steve Fagin
Good night at the fair…lots of spinnies, felt like being in a salad spinner. Best bit was watching Angela desperately trying to keep her eye on 20 ECC members milling around (and nearly across) the track of Alpina Bahn. Good work!
Gordon Taylor
Hansa 1st time for me. Great wee park, unique S-op Looper. fair as good as ever. Alpina’ smoother than I remember but just as much air and Gs.
Phil Ariss
Hansa was a nice park, with a good selection of rides. Nessie, was superb! Hamburg fair was amazing, with Alpina Bahn being the highlight. Being able to walk around the stucture was a great surprise, as well as the free rides, Off to Heide
James Wearing
Walking inside the structure of Alpina Bahn, insane flat rides and great German beer made for a fantastic day. Nessie as good as expected and Hansa a nice park generally! On to Heide…and the wonders of Scream and Colossos!
Andrew Bannister
Well, personally I can say that originally I thought Richard was a madman, but now I can see where and how he can get his kicks out of a roller coaster! Nessie was fantastic complete with 360 degree loop. Rasender Roland was fun but not a much fun as Nessie. I liked Crazy Mine but the corners tended to be a little crushing for me the lighter passenger! The evening was great along with the VIP tour of the inside of Alpina Bahn was great. A fanfastic day in all!
John Wilkes
Hansa was a great little park, which had a great coaster with Nessie. Had heard poor reports of the place so was pleasantly surprised. Highlight of the park however was the raft ride run like a German fair spin ride. Speaking of German fair rides, the Dom exceeded every expectation I had of the place. The Huss Jump was mental, as was the Top Scan. Alpina Bahn proved to be just as good as Magnum Force!
Malcolm Marr
Started the trip with my 200th coaster, Nessie. A nice little Schwarzkopf although not one for those who are epileptic and scared of fish. Also discovered at this park that dogs don’t like being bounced on chain bridges. Ended the day with a visit to the Hamburg Dom for an evening of spin rides run as they should be and a couple of coasters. Returned to the hotel room bruised and battered; nice to see the rides haven’t let up since my last German Fair experience.
Andy Costin
I’m riding with a hernia on this trip so I’m pacing myself carefully! But I’m determined to have FUN FUN FUN! 2nd visit to Hansa Park – short but sweet. The evening spent at Hamburg Dom – fun, but I was getting knackered by then!
Talhat Mahmood
Hansa Park – great park to start the tour with; as regarding the fair, my first time – I was totally impressed with the way the Germans set up the fair, and really looking forward to the remainder of the trip.
Martin Valt
Has anyone seen Paul Worts?
Jeff Holmes
He must be at the bar……. 2nd time at Hansa great family park.
Jonathan Hymes & Janice Mettie
Hansa Park – Great park, great rides reminiscent of Adventureland. Saw our first German waterfall. The Dom and Alpina Bahn were also amazing.
Jeff and Leslie
Hansa was great park to start off with. Wonderful landscaping, theming, rides. The Dom was crazy, Alpina Bahn was very intense in the front, the park was nice enough to allow members into the Alpina Bahn for some great photos.
Lisa Scheinin
Hansa Park was a delightful surprise! Great layout and landscaping, 3 coasters and beer on tap – what’s not to like! And the DOM was a real hoot — love those mushrooms in garlic sauce and strawberries in beer (burp)! Hi Paul – wish you were here!
Derek Shaw
My fourth ECC trip is already off to a great start. Hansa Park was a nice laid back park reminiscent of the great traditional parks found in my home state of Pennsylvania. Decent coasters in a great setting equals a quality operation. The Hamburg Dom Fair was a sight to see. It was big and loud with some outlandish rides. Good food and plenty of watering holes to wet your whistle. Both coasters were outstanding plus a three floor dark ride. (and this is a portable fair – amazing)
Jeppe Nygaard
Starting off with really good weather, Hansa Park surpriced me to be much larger an with much more rides then I expected. A really good Schwarzkopf
The Hamburger Dom just blew me away, wow. It was very big, and a wonderful atmosphere, Really great. An the inside tour of Alpina Bahn as the perfect topping of a great day. After the fair we took Keith for a real eye opening experience at Reberbahn and Herberstrasse in downtown Hamburg.
Lewis Cox
A great family park. Nessie was lovely and smooth (with unexpected airtime in the back) and the other coasters and rides were all very good. Nothing negative to say about this park, though they could do with some dark rides! The inflatable rapids were particularly enjoyable!
Gary Mcmillan
Nice little park with some unusual rides. Loved the inflatable high rise rapids!
Olov Lundell
So after my second day in Germany I’m knackered. So much to do but so little time.
Hansa got some nice rides along with some good theming. Nessie is of course an Anton’s classic with a strong loop and some good airtime and the Crazy Mouse really was crazy with minimum use of trims. And when the trims were used you could feel it, got a nice pounch in the stomach from one of the trims.
Now heading to the SommerDOM where some of the most intense and funniest rides can be found.
andycoasterboy
day one and off to Hansa via terminal 1 twice at heathrow. Great weather for this great family park with a great Anton – there’s a them here somewhere !! now off to the hotel and to the HamburgerDom for some more great rides and BEER – missing you Mr Worts….
David Cornell
Park was fun and beautiful. hmm everything I just typed dissappered — oh well. I’ll try next time.
Alan Weiland
We had the perfect amount of time today at Hansa, a small park with a great Schwarzkopf looper! I really enjoyed the attractions here, including the ’Blumenheer Bootsfahrt’ (a boat ride through scenic gardens with animated frogs and trolls) the Monte-zuma drop ride and the Metro Liner (a unique Swiss Bobs type ride that travels both forwards and backwards).
Bev Clapper
Hansa Park was a fun park to start the trip with. I especially enjoyed the unexpected airtime in the back seat of Nessie!
Brad Haller & John Fidyk
This was our first time at Hansa Park, and we really enjoyed it. We definitely want to return. Great theming and some unusual rides. Best spinning rapids ride we’ve been on. We had a good time on the big bouncy/trampoline thing, getting airborne. After sampling the Hamburger-Dom on our own last night, can’t wait to return with the group. Looking forward to more rides on Alpina Bahn and some of the very intense flat rides (Booster, Dancer). We never knew a Breakdance could go that fast or that long. We spent a lot of time upside-down on the Booster.
Ian Mansfield
So far so good! Didn’t quite know what to expect of Hansa Park but was very pleasantly surprised! Lots of interesting stuff round every corner. Very tired now, but looking forward to the Hamburg fair tonight! Gonna have a few nice beers and go on some mean looking spinning rides – uh oh! Jack, its just not the same without you!!!
Linz and Darren Hoy
A Fantastic first day for the Germany trip. Hansa is a great park – although I was dissapointed that I could find no evidence of the previous owners: Legoland. Nessie was a classic and all the better for no overhead restraints.
Bobby Nagy & Stephen Wimberly
What a cute relaxing park. Nice way to start a trip. Looking forward to getting to our first German Fair, which we are headed to next!!!
Liz and Mick Fryer-Kelsey
Hansa was a pleasant family park. I rode my first looper today, Mick had been here before.
A good start to the busy week. Hello Crystal. The Rio Dorado ride was fun, a bit like a giant flume at the swimming pool.
Trev Williams
Hansa had this really great parade with some sort of monkey holding a guy in a cage, I’m not sure why but it entertained me for a good 10 minutes. Nessie has the best brake run of any coaster. Oh well.
Damien Bennett
Whilst I was not expecting too much of Hansa, I was pleasantly surprised as the park provided a nice blend of good theming with rides that delivered. Some of the theming proved to work well with the colourful imagination of Liam ’half pint’ Kelly and Trev Williams! I think the best ride in the park had to be the slide of death, which provided a supreme wedgie.
Liam Kelly
The best thing about Hansa Park was the fact you could eat your food containers after you had finished, I was slightly disappointed about not being able to eat the cup. Really nice park with nice selection of rides.
Chris Bailey
I didn’t go to Hansa expecting too much, but was pleasantly surprised. It is much larger than I thought, and there are quite a few rather ’unique’ rides, such as the Metro Line powered coaster (if you can call it that). It throws you forward, backwards, and even stops dead on a 90 degree bend – with only lap bars this was quite an experience! Looking forward to the Summer Dom tonight.
Roger ’Dodger’ Clark
Hansa park was a great way to start off the trip, nice and relaxed but with good rides. The water rides were good fun the Crazy Mine was really fast. Looking forward to the rest of this excellent trip.
Mike & Kammy Sislofsky
Hansa Park is a really nice park. It has a nice variety of rides and attractions, and the landscape is wonderful. It is not too small and not too large. All of the coasters are good, but the Crazy Mine was our favourite. There is no way to stay in your seat on that one. The Rio Dorado spinning water ride was the best of its type that we have been on so far. This trip is off to a great start.
Al and Martha Amborn
So far so good for another great ECC trip. Martha is now up to coaster 690. Howdy to Tim Baldwin in Texas! Another great Swarzie today!
Andrew Weiss
So far great trip. The mouse was really wild. The rio dorado spinning water ride spun great. A beautiful little park.
Ken Simmons
What a great way to start off the Coasterbahn event, with a wonderful park, Hansa Park, and a classic Schwarzkopf coaster. I look forward to tonight’s visit to the Hamburg Sommerdom (another Schwarzkopf coaster) and the next eight days in Germany
David & Susan Ellis
Hansa Park was an excellent start to the trip. The park was really pretty containing three great coasters and some unusual and unique rides. Nessie is a classic looping Schwarzkopf coaster, and rode superbly smooth for a 24-year old. The Mouse and Rollerskater were great too. Weather so far has been good. A big hello to all back home. Looking forward to the rest of the trip.
Mark Riley
So far so good! We had some fun and games at Heathrow, but so far everything is going to plan! Just heading to our Hamburg hotel before the Fair. Yeah!!!
Day 2 – Heide Park
Robert & Lisa
Great park with some really beautiful theming. This was explained by hans the park MD as this park and Europa once had common management!
A good collection of rides topped off by Colossos. Amazing airtime from every seat. The back seats forced some swear words as you are literally yanked down the first drop.
The rain failed to put us off and Lisa even liked Scream (Gyro Drop)!
Stuart Milton
The day started with a very greatfully recieved ERS on Colossos, this ride is truly huge dwarfing over the other rides in the park. It has some pretty decent airtime, and some fierce positive Gs in the troughs. The Gyro drop was the first of it’s type I had rode and was excellent, you get a great panoramic view of the park then a drop that seems to just keep accelerating. In the afternoon it started to rain, it dampened our clothes, but not our spirits and we had a really good time.
Gordon Taylor
Huge, fast & funtastic airtime no matter where you sat. Great fun… My only complaint being that like Balder it’s the CGI of coasters; too perfect and lacking the human element of shake rattle n roll that gives is the “designed by computer” feel. Dont get me wrong a fab ride but lacking bite and a bit sterile. Fantastic park with everything you could ask for. All rides designed to give the customer value for money; long rides with great theming. NOT a park where they pack them in for max riders per hour and you get a short disappointing ride.. Big chains please take note.
Matt Sturgess
Super park, really well looked ater, and some of the best theming I have seen on rides for some time. Colossos was cool in the dry, but in the wet was absolutely colossol. Great airtime and intensity. Heide park treated us really well, and really made us feel at home, though the other rides weren’t quite up to the standard of Colossos, we still managed to have a fantastic time. Oh yeah, the ERS and access into “forbidden territory” was a real treat. My new no.1 park I think.
Phil Ariss
A very quiet day at Heide park, and very wet. Colossos is quite simply stunning, better than Balder for sure. Turning out to be a great trip…..
James Wearing
A fantastic second day! Colossos is an excellent ride. Smooth, forceful and totally enjoyable in every way. After the early ERS the ride really developed some speed, with the wet track later in the day adding another dimension to this brilliant coaster. Heide was excellent in general. It deserves a lot more attendance than it receives, although the short queues were a pleasant suprise, as was the fun Bobbahn! Another great day!
Andrew Bannister
What a day! It did rain but it did not dampen our spirits (pun intended). Our ERS on Colossos was fantastic. My biggest coaster ever which I proceeded to ride nine times. I liked Limit regardless of how bad all you ECC members though it was, it was not as good as Colossos (obviously). Scream, I took 11 times, and it was fantastic. Bobsled brilliant also. Unfortunatly for you all I am considering joining the club now.
Malcolm Marr
Second day of the tour and the first big coaster of the trip, Colossos. Some great air time and nice speed. I can only wonder how bad it was with the brakes on the first drop. The rest of the park was really nice with some great theming. The biggest surprise of the day was the Schwarzkopf log flume. Scream was a little disappointing, height isn’t everything.
Apocalypse is still my favourite drop ride. Noticed today that thick chain links don’t make good fencing and that thick rain isn’t intelligent.
Richard Bannister
A certain park in Cincinnati would do well to look at Colossos for an example of how a gigantic woodie should be built. Rather than leaving riders wincing with pain, Colossos gives great air time on every hill. The ride feels very much like Shivering Timbers; the only difference being the taller height. The park also holds the oddest of species, a smooth Vekoma Corkscrew. Scream was fantastic, but I think for me the best ride in the park had to be the Schwarzkopf log flume. (Does any other park have two log flumes? I’ve never seen that before). Pity about the weather, but you can’t win everything; besides, it led to shorter queues! As always, my multi page trip report can be found on my own web site
John Wilkes
Heide was a great park, the scenery was really amazing when you compare it to parks in the UK. Been really enjoying it, really tired though. colossos was a great coaster which had some amazing airtime on the first hill in particular. What a treat not to have to get out of the seats for the whole ERS, got in 8 or 9 rides in the end.
Andy Costin
After having previously ridden Colossos with the trim brake, and found it a great ride, it was even better this time – they had dispensed wih the brake. absolutely wonderful airtime! Great park hospitality – lunch, a walk behind Colossos (great photo oppo!) and a talk with the park manager. The weather put a dampener on things, and i was only wearing shorts & T-shirt.(i should have kept the track suit on!)
Talhat Mahmood
A great start to the day whith ERS on Colossos. The day would have been excellent if it didnt rain. Great trip so far. Looking forward to the 1st suprise of the trip tomarrow.
Jeff Holmes
2nd visit 2 Heide Park and Colossos was as good as ever especially later on in the day. Scream was my first giro drop but I still cud not see Paul Worts????????
Martin Valt
My training on tower rides is now complete, Scream conquered this morning. Colossos vastly improved without trim brakes. Shame about the rain. Paul Worts – you beauty!!!
Derek Shaw
It was great get back to Heide Park. Colossoswas running as good as ever. Loads of air time and smooth too. (Too bad this in one of two wooden coasters on the enire trip. Perhaps the German parks will add more wooden varities in the future in the land of Schwarzkopf). Scream (the drop tower) was one of the best I’ve ever ridden. I wish more parks around the world would install this high capacity version. I thought the park really looked nice. I still think the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the lake is bizarre but neat in its own way. It’s too bad the weather decided to not fully cooperate, however I managed to get in quite a bit before the rain. Onwards and upwards, err southward to more great parks.
Lisa Scheinin
Yeah, the Statue of Liberty’s arm is too long, which makes her look like her legs are too short and she’s also too fat. I think if Paul were here he’d think so, too. Finally got to ride the Limit — I’ve been waiting to do that for two years. Colossos was great!
Jeff and Leslie Graham
Spectacularly groomed and landscaped park. Great rides this morning on Colossos. I think Heide means “2 of everything” in german. Beautiful park – glad we got to spend the whole day there.
Lewis Cox
I enjoyed Heide Park. The park for the most part looks very pretty, with some intricate (if slightly inconsistent) theming. Very expansive park with lots of walking – Colossos is very nice indeed, the SLC was not, and the other two coasters were about average. But the park has a great log flume, and several other rides that filled up the day nicely. I wonder what Tussauds have planned for it!
Paul Orsmond
Heide Park is a great park with one superb Woodie. Colossos is absolutly superb and I hope one gets built in the UK one day. Although the park was good, I felt the park lacked one big thing and that was a big dark/indoor ride because for haf the day, it rained quite a lot and slighty ruined the day a little. Still the park had some great themeing and other rides and they would always allow you to stay on rides if there was’nt a queue which made it good too. Overall though very impressed.
Ken Simmons
Enjoyed Heide Park, even though it was one big water ride with the rain. Colossos is a great coaster.
Andrew Weiss
The german fair at Hamburg was wild. every thing i thought it would be, huge bratwurst and Alpina Bahn, a superb coaster. one of Antons best. HEIDE was fun, Colossos was really good after it started raining.
Mike & Kammy Sislofsky
The Hamburg Dom was quite an experience, featuring the excellent and much underrated Schwarzkopf masterpiece, Alpina Bahn. In addition to that, there was lots of food, lots of strange rides, and lots of strange people . . . wonderful fun!
Heide Park is really an excellent park. Even though there are only four coasters there, both Bobbahn and Colossos are two of the best of their type. The park has many rides, so there is always something to do, and it is landscaped very well. The spinning disk playground ride proved to be an especially big hit too — just ask David, Stuart, Steve, Daniel, Andy, Darren, and Linz.
Martha and Al Amborn
So gee that Colossos is still running well. It is impressively fast. The staff was nice enough to give us a walkback for photos. The steady rain after lunch left us no choice but to hang in the pub with Steve and Rich!
Richard Koppelman
Hamburg Summerdom WHAT a BLAST!!!!!! Coasters and Beer, Beer and Coasters, great food and beer, spinners and beer. Did I mention there was beer? Hiede park was OK, but the Summerdom was worth the trip alone.
Liz Fryer-Kelsey
The fair was interesting. My brother and sister in law who joined us for the evening enjoyed walking inside Alpina Bahn. Angela Bruch gave us some tickets for the ride. The ride was quite rough in places and Mick has an ear-shaped bruise on his shoulder where my head hit him! But we enjoyed the ride several times.
Heide Park was good, Colossos was excellent, the speed increased as the coaster warmed up and there was plenty of air-time. Big Loop was my first time on a corkscrew, I only rode it once, as I wanted to keep my ear-rings in place. Mick enjoyed Scream, a very different type of free-fall. Sadly, the rain from lunchtime dampened our spirits and we were pleased to get back on the bus. Crystal, I think the coaster count is eight so far on this trip. Only missed Limit, the SLC.
Liam Kelly
Well the fair was super amazing. The Huss booster was absolutely insane, if anyone gets a chance to ride one you must do. Most people who had a hardcore ride session on the boosters got bruises everywhere. Walking through Alpina Bahn was great too.
Heide park was amazing, Colossos was a really good coaster, the whole park was well themed and the staff were really good. Tomorrow Fort Fun Adventure Land which looks fun and somewhat special too. Can’t wait.
Damien Bennett
After last nights fair I am willing to fight for a law for all of the theme parks in England to have: One Huss Booster and one German operator, along side that should be the fact that every ride should last a minimum of nine minutes.
I woke up this morning with a sharp, throbbing pain in my shoulders which convinced me that the rides at the fair last night were as intense as they looked, and it was not my tiresome body thinking that it was taking a larger beating than it was. Onto Heide Park which I was worried about since Tussauds own it. The surprise ERS on Colossos was brilliant and it proved to be a fantastic ride that now sits above Tonnerre de Zeus on my woodie list. Other highlights were being forced onto Scream by Liam and Chris, and loving it – also the wacky staff in the restaurant where we ate in later, although I have to say a certain entertainer did scare me!
Chris Bailey
Despite the lack of some well known rides at the Sommer Dom, the evening was still incredible, and one that I wont forget in a hurry. Favourite rides of mine were the Huss Booster, Mondial Topscan, Alpina Bahn, Huss Jump and the Black Hole Zierer coaster. German fairs have such a buzz that we simply do not get in the UK.
Was nice to finally visit the last park in the Tussauds portfolio – Heide Park. Clean, well maintained, stunning scenery and some great rides. Still cant decide if I prefer Balder better, but Colossos in the rain was something else. The airtime is so great on the hills that the noise of the upstops is deafening!
Dan Farrell
Heide Park was alright, Colossos was OK for an old steel coaster, it went by so fast I never noticed the 10 inversions.
Trev Williams
My first German fair and an important lesson was learned. Everyone needs a Huss Booster, they are the best things ever. The second thing I learnt was that they are rather hard on the shoulders after several consecutive rides.
Today was Heide Park, one of the parks I had been looking forward to because of the Slides of Death to be found there, as well as some fantastic theming and landscaping in the older parts of the park, Colossos was mad in the rain. Brilliant day. Finally, sorry for holding the group up at the end of the day, however the promise of cheap Tussauds seasons tickets (39 Euros!!) would have been mad to miss out on. Thanks for waiting!
Roger ’Dodger’ Clark
The fair was great. Alpina Bahn was a wicked coaster. Had a fun night out and food was good, I had a pancake with chocolate spread in it!
Heide park was excellent. Colossos is a brilliant ride with loads of air time and great in the rain. Can’t wait for the surprise park tomorrow!!
Bob Clark
Heide Park – Colossos – Heavy Driving Rain – Brilliant – Let’s Go Round again – and again.
David and Susan Ellis
Heide Park was a day of two halves. The morning was dry and warm and we had excellent fun riding the coasters. Colossos was crammed full of airtime and the surprise 30 minutes ERS went down very well. We then had a photo session next to Colossos, followed by free time until lunch. After lunch it rained solidly all afternoon, which was a real shame as the park has some great rides. Hopefully the weather will improve!
Bobby Nagy / Stephen Wimberly
Heidi Park, appearing to be small, was not so at all. Having the privilege to walk behind Colossos then ride this amazing ride after a good rain in the same day will be quite memorable. Throw in a few stories about falling down four storey steel tubes ( slides) and the differences in phrases with the Olovs and it turned out to be a rare day in the end. This happening all after an amazing evening (until 1:00 a.m.) at a German fair. If it weren’t for the rain today was all but perfect
Mark Riley
This morning’s ERS wasn’t 100% confirmed until we arrived at Heide Park, and so it came as a great surprise for everyone! This was my first opportunity to ride this mega-woodie and it’s just fantastic! And after it started raining this afternoon, it kicked into balls-out overdrive.
And so tomorrow will bring Fort Fun, along with the first surprise.
Ian Mansfield
Feeling very tired today after late nights/early starts, but couldn’t fail to have a good time at Heide Park! Collosos was a joy to ride, much better than I had been led to believe. It got even faster after the rain too! Just sitting on the coach now, looking forward to seeing what further surprises this trip will bring.
David Cornell
I have been so happy to rejoin my friends in ECC for an second trip in one year. Thanks to all who planned this trip.
Hansa Park was a pleasant surprise. Very fun with lots of other rides and attractions than just coasters. I would love to spend more time on the bounce mountain another time.
Heidi Park is also a great park. I am making my second visit on this trip. I was so please that the rumours that the seat belts had been shortened since 2001 was false. They were just the same as before, also the same as Millennium Force. I just fit both.
The trip has been setting a tiring pace with long early morning walks to ERS and behind the scenes tours. I am tired, but it’s a good kind of tired. Keep it up. I want to lose at least five pounds on this trip.
Even Stangebye
This is my first trip with the ECC, and it’s really great – both the people and the parks! I have not been to any parks in Germany, so it will be all coaster-premiers for me! Hansa Park was very nice laying right by the Baltic See, the weather was great, and it had some nice coasters. I especially enjoyed the spinning on the Rio Dorado – that was wild!!
Heide Park was great, and thanks for the ERS on the Colossos in the morning! The only things that sucked in the park was the Spencer Show and the pouring rain!
Olof Sornmo
The ERS on Colossos this EARLY morning was wonderful! By far the best woodie I’ve ridden, two thumbs up! The only thing that almost as was funny, was watching Olov Lundell and Robert Nagy try the 5-storey metal slide! The rain didn’t matter that much, since we already rode all the coasters before it started, it made us try a lot of rides we probably wouldn’t have ridden.
Chris Simon
I love Heide Park – beautifully presented, pretty landscaping, and intricate theming. Colossos a great ride but feels more like a typical Intamin mega-coaster then a traditional woodie. Unfeasibly steep drop, ejector air in front and back, floating air elsewhere, and incredibly smooth. My favourite though was Scream, the Gyro Drop. How much fun can you have on one ride?
Day 3 – Fort Fun, Sternrodt Mountain
Robert & Lisa
Fort Fun was a lot better than could be expected. From the information we had before the trip it appeared that it wouldn’t be worth a full day – how wrong we were. Three coasters and a collection of spin rides (who can forget the Roll Over ride) made for a Fun (Fort) filled day. Too many frog rides though…
The day was topped off with a great surprise park with a fantastic Alpine Coaster. When the rain started late in the 2 hour ERS the brakes became almost totally ineffective – brilliant!
Jane & Norman Valentine
Fantastic, super time. Both parks had great staff and what a joy when the rain stopped!
Steve Fagin
Tradtional German efficiency was tested almost beyond endurance last night, when two busloads of coaster nuts turned up demanding hot dinners just as the chef had finished loading the dishwasher. The same efficiency went into overdrive, albeit from far jollier staff, at this afternoon’s Alpine coaster surprise. Soon after we arrived, the general public were out of the way (apart from some poor sods whose parents had bought a load of ride tokens for a kid’s birthday – they had to wait 2 hours for us to finish enjoying ourselves). Flying round by the seat of your pants trying to “cheat” the automatic brakes was plain unnerving… but put this set-up on stanchions in the air, instead of on the side of a hill, and it’d be bloody terrifying. A good surprise trip and just what this sort of holiday is about…
Simon Baynham
Had a great day today at the Fort Fun amusement park… rode 2 of their three coasters. No out and out thrillers, but fun nontheless. Surprise of the day was to visit the the Bergrodelbahn Sternrodler the Alpine Coaster. Fast and furious and extremely good fun! Off to WBMW tomorrow so looking forward to that and Wild Wild West!
Gordon Taylor
Nominations have been received for the first eviction and the crew are a very unhappy lot. Justin has threatened to walk after he was voted to perform the weekly task. This was to involve going down the alpine coaster, the surprise park of Sternodtat, at the slowest speed possible while taking photos and holding everyone up. Luckily the task was passed to BB’s satisfaction and he will remain on the bus for another week. Everyone is really enjoying themselves despite the weather at Fort Fun and the hospitality at both parks was excellent. However the shenanigans at the bar into the small hours the night before left several with a bad head. Bets are still on for who will have sex on the coach or coasters…
John Wilkes
Today can be described in one word… wet! The swimming pool to the head wet. Didn’t detract from the park though which was great, got a roll back on the kiddie coaster as well as finding the most extreme spin ride in germany… at a park! Roll Over was something special a bit like Alton’s Boneshaker but going upside down. Also one of my highlights was going up the huge cable car into the mountains and leaving the park behind as we rised up into the fog that had formed there. At the top was a observation tower which gave a great view of the valleys below.
Phil Ariss
Fort fun was a nice little park, nothing special in the rides department (bar one insane flat ride), but was superb in every other area. Nice welcome surprise also, with a lovely setting of the alpine coaster….
James Wearing
Yet another fabtastic day! Fort Fun is a nice little park with a number of great suprises, the Mondial rollover and the very high chair lift being some. The views from the top of the chair lift (and observation tower) were excellent… I’m sure there will be many pics! Alpine Coaster brilliant, very fast and smooth….and long. Great time, excellent company
Matt Sturgess
Fort Fun was one of the most beautiful parks I have ever come across, though the rides weren’t as good as Heide Park, the surrounding scenary was amazing, I have never seen anything like it. One of the rides couldn’t get above the lift hill in the wet, so we kept going back down the lift hill when it reached the top, it was quite funny. The Alpine coaster ERS was great fun, fast, and great laterals. Chou
Malcolm Marr
The high point of the trip so far occurred this morning literally as we ascended a viewing platform atop a mountain. Some amazing views through the fog of the park and surrounding area. I thought that the best spin rides would be at the fair but at the back of Fort Fun there was a ride called “rollover” which was absolutely insane. The ride operator was manually running it and it was so intense I came off with blood shot eyes. The afternoon was spent at surprise #1, Sternrodt which was a very long and fast alpine coaster down the side of the mountain. Another great day.
Keith Johnson
Great day. Fort Fun was a great park to be in, even with the rain. I will never forget the CRAZY spin ride the Roll Over and neither will any of my ECC pals. Great Alpine Coaster which was added as a surprise….can’t wait for more surprises.
Andy Costin
After yesterdays bad gamble on the weather, I decided to play it safe and put on the tracksuit. Good job as it was cold and pissistingly down. Fort Fun was a great little park, more good hospitality, and the Alpine Coaster was fun with a capital, underlined, and italicsed, “F” (mental!!!!) The hernia stood up to it well – just. More good hospitality and I am feeling totally bloated with all the food we’ve been getting. Totally knackered ZZZZZzzzzzz.
Richard Bannister
Building the Devil’s Mine queue through a mad house type building was an interesting idea to say the least, but I liked the effect a lot. I admire the strength of stomach shown by those who rode the Roll Over, and I shudder at the insanity of those who rode it more than once! Looking at the now closed power slide down the mountain made me really sorry I missed this in operation, but I look forward to the Alpine Coaster planned to replace it next year. On an entirely different note, I don’t think I’m ever likely to do eighteen consecutive rides on a River Rapids ride anywhere else, but it was in the midst of an entertaining conversation, and there was nothing else we wanted to ride, so I figured why not?
Jeff and Leslie graham
Fort Fun is fantastically fabulous. The funhouse queue line for Devil’s Mine was amazing. The surprise Sternrodt Alpine Coaster was spectacular. ECC rocks!!!
Nicola Burton and Peter Jackson
We’ve been here for three days now altogether and I have to admit that were really enjoying the fun in the parks, myself, Richard and his brother Andrew rode the river rapids in Fort Fun 18 consecutive times and we were lucky not to get too wet on it, but we’re really getting in to the swing of things here in Germany, and considering that it is our first trip with the ECC, we’re joining in and making lots of new friends and that’s always very pleasurable.
Thanks to the ECC members especially for making us feel so welcome to the group and a special thanks to Justin for taking the time to interact with us each day, it is appreciated greatly.
Lisa Scheinin
Another great day! The multiple rollbacks on the Zierer Tivoli were a new experience. It wouldn’t have happened on a sunny day, so I was almost glad it was rainy. The entrance to the Devil’s Mine has to be the funniest queue line in the world. That coaster kicks butt! Nice to see an old-fashioned funhouse too. And the Sternrodt Alpine Coaster was an awesome surprise.
Derek Shaw
Travelling to Fort Fun reminded me of an excursion to Knoebels. The park is located in a beautiful, rural setting. What a gem it is. Devil’s Minewas great fun with catapult qualities in the back seat. I rode my third Vekoma Whirlwind, enjoying the unplanned rollbacks that were associated with trying to get the Tivoli Ladybug to run after it had rained for awhile. A nice park to keep an eye on in the future.
The Alpine Coaster was a great surprise. It’s been years since I set foot on similar Alpine Slides. Two hours of ERS plus a great meal afterwards at the place equals top shelf fun.
Paul Worts
Slide OK. Meal not bad. Great beaver.
PS Who does this hat belong to?
Jeff Holmes
Fort Fun was a great little park with a good Vekoma called Devil’s Mine Ride. The weather could have been better though. There was also a great spin ‘n’ puke Roll Over, Oh by the way Paul were you one of the cowboys dressed up??? The Alpine Coaster was a good surprise also.
Jonathan Hymes and Janice Mettie
How can you not love Funny Fux… Fort Fun is a great little park. Especially the thousands of tiny frogs crossing the midway that are nearly impossible not to step on. As for the Alpine Coaster, it’s OK. Just kidding. We need these in the states. One of the scariest rides around.
andycoasterboy
We are at Fort Fun, a great little park set deep in a German valley. Unfortunately the weather is a little hit and miss hence our first roll back on a ladybird ride!! Hospitality was great and I’m sure we will return after we were told what they have planned in the future…. Our first surprise of the trip was a visit to Alpine Berg-Rodelbahn with a two hour ride session we had loads of time to fly down the mountain side without using any brakes, great ride and they even treated us to a meal. Now I’m off to the bar… mine’s a pint Mr Worts……
Jeppe Nygaard
On to Fort Fun where I have never been before. It is a nice little park in the beautiful scenery of the mountains. The park were quite nice to us, and we started with a lot of fun on “George the Bull.” The Vekoma Coaster Wirbelwind was not very good, the small Zierer coaster I find the best. The trip to the top of the mountain was a great view, though a little cloudy. The surprise on the Alpine Coaster was fantastic, great speed, and quite smooth too. Looking forward to day 4…
Terry Jarvis
Fort Fun, a wonderful park set in a valley surrounded by alpine forests. Rode the Devil’s Mine train, great ride with an impressive queue line area. Also Wirbel Wind a surprising smooth Vekoma corkscrew. We then had our first surprise
of the trip, an alpine coaster ride at Erlebnis Berg sternrodt, outrageous fast
and great fun…
Lewis Cox
Fort Fun was a wonderful small park. Devil’s Mine ERS was very good, my first ride was in the back seat – and you simply do not expect to be nearly ejected from the back seat on a Vekoma Junior Coaster… Vekoma Split Corkscrew was about as good as I had expected. Looks like next year, this park will have a couple of excellent new rides! The Apline Coaster was fantastic fun, especially in the rain….
Chris Simon
Fort Fun – friendly park in a stunning mountain forest location, surprisingly intense junior coaster. Very long log flume with an indoor section. Fun walk-through fun house. And a great selection of food for lunch. Surprise evening visit to another mountain location for a 2-hour ERS on the spectacular Alpine Coaster (in FD61). Running flat out it’s extremely scary n the corners! The old chestnut – is it a coaster or isn’t it? It has an initial lift hill, is a tracked vehicle running via gravity, has upward hills as well as downward, and doesn’t require the rider to operate the brakes.
Gary McMillan
Fort Fun is a great little park in a nice location with a balanced selection of rides. The management and staff made us very welcome and provided entertainment in the form of a mechanical bull, as well as an excellent lunch.
Alpine Coaster was a very welcome suprise. Excellent fun, particularly in the rain. Another nice meal finished the day.
Paul Orsmond
Fort Fun is another unique park that was a joy to visit, the setting for the park is amazing as its right in the middle of nowhere but is surrounded by lovely countryside and mountains. Devil’s Mine is a great little coaster and the other Vekoma coaster was’nt too bad either. There was also a nice little funhouse as well as a few other unique attractions. The suprise visit was a visit to an alpine coaster which was superb and a great addition to the day, overall another good day.
Alan Weiland
Fort Fun today was a blast despite the bad weather! The location in the mountains was amazing, and there was a great log flume with a drop into an underground tunnel. The park also had a good dark ride and funhouse. The trip to the Alpine coaster was a nice surprise, as was the return of some sunshine.
Bev Clapper
I really enjoyed Fort Fun. It was bigger than I expected and set in a beautiful location. I always enjoy stumbling upon a new darkride (Mystery Warehouse), and the log flume had a darkride section as well. The skyride up into the foggy forest was definitely a highlight.
The meal was wonderful and the staff seemed very happy to have us. The Alpine Coaster was a fun surprise at the end of the day!
John Fidyk & Brad Haller
Fort Fun was a great park. Suprising air-time in the back seat of Devil’s Mine. Some fun roll-backs on the Ladybug. The chairlift was fun to ride in the fog. We had lot’s of fun at Sterndrodt Mountain. Sterndrodter was Brad’s 500th coaster. It got much faster after the rain. Another excellent day on the Coasterbahn tour with ECC!
David and Susan Ellis
Another great day. First we visited Fort Fun Abenteuerland, home to Devil’s Mine, a Vekoma Rollerskater with a Fun House queueline! The other two coasters were a Vekoma Whirlwind and a Zierer Tivoli Coaster. Other park attractions were a chairlift up a mountain, an evil Top Spin with side-facing seats and a log flume with an enclosed drop. After that we had another surprise…a visit to Sternrodt Mountain to ride an Alpine Coaster for two hours! What a day. The only disappointment was yet more rain for much of the day, but we still had a great time. Keep those surprises coming! It’s just a shame that Susan didn’t get her “thingy” out as promised on the coach!!!!.
Bobby Nagy & Stephen Wimberly
Fort fun was unexpectedly a nice park. It had a nice variety of different rides and the log flume turned out to be a highlight of the day. It was also nice to see a typical ghost train in a modern day theme park as well. The surprise trip to ride the alpine coaster was a blast! This was an incredible way to get a real taste of the rolling hills of Middle Germany.
Mark Riley
Great day!! Fort Fun looked after the group very well with a morning ERS on their Devil’s Mine coaster, which surprised a lot of people. We followed the ERS with a session on a Bucking Bronko!! After a question and answer session with the park bosses we enjoyed a great buffet lunch!
The surprise of the day was an evening at Sternrodt Mountain. I have to say a huge thanks to Andreas and Mechthild Namyslo for arranging our two hour ERS on the alpine coaster and another buffet meal! We’re now on the way to Oberhausen whilst watching Bo’ Selecta! (Entertainment sponsored by Malcolm Marr).
Lindsey & Darren Hoy
Fort Fun knocked our socks off today, with an ERS on Devil’s Mine Coaster, which had a queue line that was fantastic. – What X:\ should have been like. We then had a mini competition on the Bucking Bronco, (I managed to stay on a respectable 8 seconds) and we had a meal provided by the park.
The park was a real find, perched on the side of a Valley, we tried the many rides, including an insane Ripsaw style ride (with no water) that was on a mental setting that even the German Fair ride ops may have had second thoughts on using.
We went up the side of the valley on the Chair Lift to view the remains of an Alpine Slide, and to climb a viewing tower that allowed you to see into the next valley when the clouds cleared.
We then went to a small park that had a Alpine Coaster which was just awesome. Another great day on the German Tour.
Adrian Dade & Lorna Cromarty
Fort Fun was excellent, Nice little park, Great Coasters. Interesting Chairlift ride. The best part of the day was a surprise visit to the Alpine coaster a great 2hr ERS and excellent food at both parks.
Ian Mansfield
Well, the day started wet and got wetter as it went on, but that didn’t stop us having fun at Fort Fun. First up was the ERT on the Devil’s Mine ride, a nice little coaster with a wicked back seat and an excellent fun house style queue-line! Then we had a bucking bronco competition. I was quite proud of myself, I lasted all of 6 seconds!
Rest of the day was spent enjoying all the unusual and well themed attractions at this wonderful park. Next stop was the alpine slide. Words cant describe how much fun this was. You’ll just have to look at the pictures!
Even Stangebye
Sitting on the bus on our way to the hotel in Oberhausen (Ruhr) watching a weird English show on the bus-DVD. Fort Fun was quite a small park, placed in a valley not too far from the middle of nowhere. It was a few good rides, but missing any unforgettable ones. But next year they are going to build a hang-glider-ride across the valley doing 70 km/t that sounds great! The Erlebnisberg Sternrodt with its sleigh “coaster” was awesome. Great speed (who needs brakes??!??!?), great turns and drops. Cool! Wish I had one of these in my backyard hill!
Right now it’s a nice blue sky outside – let it stay like this for the rest of the trip!!!! PLEASE!!!! I don’t have any more dry clothes/shoes!
Liz and Mick Fryer-Kelsey
Fort Fun, another pleasant family park. There was a chair lift ride to the top of the mountain, with an observation tower and the remains of a bob-sleigh ride. Unfortunately, due to the rain it was misty at the top and we could not see the view.
After Fort Fun we went to the ’surprise’ park, where there was an Alpine Coaster, we had a two hour ERS. On Coach One we had a discussion about whether Alpine Coaster is a real coaster, is not a coaster and do we really care!! There were other suggestions about whether it might be a Giga-coaster due to it’s height. Mick says the Coaster was manic and that Oakwood slide will seem like a toy next weekend. Hello to all the mice at home!
Bob Clark
Alpine Coaster – a surprise extra – the bunny hops in the rain – brilliant !!
Liam Kelly
Fort Fun had a lot more than I thought. The surprise trip to the alpine coaster was amazing.
Trev Williams
It rained a lot today. Devil’s Mine had some Crazy Go Nuts air-time on it. The Mondial Roll-over was being run on a setting best described as sadistic. Great stuff!
Dan Farrell
I don’t get why they put paprika on chips.
I made a fool out of myself 15 times today.
Rico Antinoro
Ummmm, whats this thing on my lap?
Roger ’Dodger’ Clark
Fort Fun was OK but the surprise trip to the Alpine coaster was brilliant. The bunny hops were wicked espically in the rain!
Martha and Albert Amborn
Having more great fun today. Fort Fun was definitely not Fort Sun today, but the saloon was warm and cozy. Had 4 rollbacks on the ladybug before the ride operator decided it couldn’t run in the rain. The Alpine slide was a major thrill!
Andrew Weiss
Alpine coaster was a real thrill. Great food at both parks.. very rainy and cold.
Ken Simmons
Another rainy day, but a good one regardless. Devil’s Mine was quite a fun ride for a small family coaster, and it’s queue was like a walk through attraction in itself.. Fort Fun was a nice park that I’d really like to visit again someday. Alpine Coaster was a very nice surprise addition to Coasterbahn . Also, great food today.
Nina Kleppe
I really enjoyed The Fort Fun and the ERS on Devil’s Mine, even though it was raining. And I really liked Alpine Coaster. It was quite a fun ride, and I never been to this kind of ride before. So it’s been another fun day of the trip.
John Coffield
The Alpine Coaster is brilliant. Fort Fun’s Devil’s Mine queue line is a unique experience all by itself. If it would only stop raining. Looking forward to number 700 tomorrow.
Olov Lundell
Another day and another park. Fort Fun is located high up in the mountain which is a pretty cool location for a park. When you’re up in the tower you could see far far away down into the valley, if it wasn’t so damn cloudy of course! But when clouds did break up for a few seconds the view was great.
The second half of the day was spent at a ski resort but we wasn’t there to ski, there’s simply no snow there during the summer. But that’s not a problem when you got an Alpine Coaster and a good one it was. What a great surprise with a 2 hours of ERS on a giga coaster, well if you can count it as a roller coaster it might as well be a giga coaster too :-p
Day 4 – Warner Bros. Movie World, CentrO Park
Richard Bannister
Warner Brothers Germany; an interesting park, though it wouldn’t hurt to add a decent roller coaster! The Wild Bunch drop tower, with its floorless tilting seats, is absolutely unsuitable for the male anatomy; once was quite enough. They also would not allow me to wear my (fully secured) glasses; why? At lunch time a group of us went over to Schloss Beck Freizeitpark – and it was fantastic! The Wasserbobs ride is something I have heard about, but I’ve never had the opportunity to ride a water ride that launches a boat completely into the air before!
CentrO Park was a nice surprise; riding a pirate ship on 100% power was great fun, especially with the reverse cheering. The water cup challenge was absolutely mad, though probably the funniest moments were when people with water cups just decided to arbitrarily throw them at others!
Peter Jackson and Nicola Burton
On our 4th day here we went to one park and another small surprise later in the day, the Warner Brothers park was quite big but with not many decent rides and hopefully one day they’ll put one in! The surprise however was really fun, a mixture of getting wet on a coaster and an ERS on the pirate ship, as always we await our next park to be.
- Derek Shaw
Movie World was OK but the small park 500 meters away was a real hoot, featuring a medium size Tivoli coaster. The mascot for Schloss Beck Park is Becki, a ghost that looks more like a condom!
CentrO Park, the unannounced afternoon surprise park, was great fun with a Pirate Ship on steriods and a spinning mouse that became quite wet during our ERS. Another fun day!
Lisa Scheinin
Paul, you missed another great day, you fat bastard! Warner Bros. Movie World was OK. The best coaster was the wild mouse, followed by the custom Vekoma roller skater. At lunchtime we walked over to Freizeitpark Schloss Beck, a small park with a great traditional feel. Almost every ride in the park except the coaster was self-service! A very pleasant place. The lady at the gate was absolutely shocked that we wanted to visit this park — she was sure we really wanted Movie World! She gave us the group discount, too — a whopping 5.50 euro per person for everyone! CentrO Park was fun, too, especially the water fight on the wild mouse. Sorry Paul, you missed it!!
Jeff Graham
A hectic day with three parks squeezed into it. Warner Brothers Movie World was, well, five credits! Schloss Beck was a delight; nice small park, lots of shade trees, unique rides. The bonus park, CentrO Park, was very delightful; nice layout, with lots of water and winding paths; incredibly steep slides; and a cute little train. The spinning mouse spun from the very beginning and was a total riot, especially when they let us carry on water and see if we could keep it from spilling out, but of course being mischievous members, everyone spilt it on everyone else deliberately.
Martin Valt
Warner Bros – it says something about a park when its most enjoyable coaster is a Vekoma Roller Skater! Managed my first floorless tilting drop tower; once is enough. Time is short, so I’ll leave it to everyone else to talk about the other parks.
Paul Worts
Crap day at work. Bored rigid. Bastards.
Jeff Holmes
Warner Bros still have not improved their coasters, apart from the Tom & Jerry coaster. Had my first go on the tilting drop tower; never again; I’ll be singing soprano for a week! Paul – it must have been bloody warm in that Pepe Le Pew costume.
Talhat Mahmood
The day started with an ERS on the Wild Wild West coaster; at one time there were only seven riders; I wonder why! Around midday a group of twenty six of us went to a children’s park close by which was the best park of the day for me; most of the rides were self operated. The day ended with a visit to CentrO Park, located behind a mall. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
Jeppe Nygaard
Started the day at Wild Wild West with an ERS; wasn’t that good. I even tried front, back, and middle — didn’t help! First time I’ve ever seen people walk out of an ERS, so nobody was left. Lethal Weapon was fair enough. The best coaster was actually Roadrunner, though it was small. The stunt show was quite good, and the spillwater ride has a surprising dark indoor drop, turntables in the dark, and a quite good final plunge. After the surprise, was a small park which turned out to be very good fun; a pirate ship being run at extreme, and getting wet on the spinning mouse.
Andycoasterboy
Disappointed with Warner Bros today; enjoyed the family park across the road more. Nice weather compared to yesterday. WBW-Where Be Worts?
Terry Jarvis
Wasn’t very impressed with the Roller Coasters at Warner Bros, but enjoyed all the water rides; all of which were partially enclosed with great feeling. Enjoyed our second surprise at CentrO Park, where we had a water challenge on the Speedy roller coaster. I got a little wet, but it was still good fun!
Andy Costin
Hello Mister Sunshine; long time no see (about time too!). Warner Bros Movie World not too bad, with Wild Wild West running better than the last time I rode it, but still as rough as a badger’s bottom. Lethal Weapon even rougher; the best coaster was the mouse. Some good themed dark rides. Another surprise park thrown in for good measure, with plenty of fun on the Speedy coaster there and on the Pirate Ship. Some very good hospitality shown by the staff. All in all a fun way to end up the day.
Andrew Bannister
Well – an interesting day, but I’ve decided that not too many people like to see me remain dry. Wiki Wiki Wild Wild West was Wiki Wiki alright, and it spoke for itself that after two or three rides per member the coaster was empty. Do not go on the drop tower if you want to have functioning testicles afterwards.
Malcolm Marr
The saying goes you have to take the rough with the smooth, and so today we had our ERS on Wild Wild West. Do I get a prize for lasting the full time? The worst park so far; the Batman Escape movie was so bad we thought we needed 3D glasses to watch it. Ended up at Surprise No. 2, CentrO Park, a much friendlier park and ultimately much better.
Keith Johnson
I didn’t think I was going to enjoy Movie World, and I didn’t, but on the plus side we found a nice little park next door, Schloss Beck. This park was a hundred times better. I also loved CentrO which was a complete surprise, and I hope that we have more surprises like that.
George Greenway
The two surprise parks for the day were absolutely wonderful. It made a refreshing change from the big dreadful Movie World.
Phil Ariss
Warner Brothers is shocking; poor rides, poor operation, silly staff, silly rules, rather be anywhere else. I didn’t like it. CentrO Park, however, gave a friendly welcome, where fun was in abundance.
James Wearing
Wild Wild West is lovely and smooth; one of the best parks on the trip; staff very friendly, and in true Six Flags tradition always happy to please. CentrO Park a pleasure, and a crazy pirate ship ride.
Matt Sturgess
Wild Wild West; I liked the movie, but I didn’t like the coaster. I’d liked Eraser at the park. Good ideas but poor execution. The best ride was the Bermuda Triangle; freaky, and the indoor drop is a surprise as it seems to go on forever. The park seemed too corporate and too artificial, when compared to more natural things like Fort Fun.
Gordon Taylor
Warner Brothers – donuts were crap! CentrO Park – donuts were amazing! Lovely and chocolatey and nice! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
John Wilkes
Finally got to ride Batman at Movie World – no good; consistency needed. Must try harder. CentrO Park – decent little place.
David & Susan Ellis
Hoorah! The weather has improved! A sunny day was spent in WB Movie World, starting with a 1-hour ERS on Wild Wild West. The RCCA woodie rode pretty bumpy and so we tried the Wild Bunch, a Giro Drop with floorless tilting seats… absolutely scary! After riding the other coasters and water rides we hit a surprise park, Centro Park. This is home to Maurer Sohne’s 1st spinning mouse, on which we had a water challenge! We also got to ride their pirate ship at 100% power… a real treat in the end rows! Looking forward to Phantasialand tomorrow.
Bobby Nagy / Stephen Wimberly
So much to talk about today… Rode every coaster once at the WBMW and it was quite attractive to look at. Then the impromtu trip a few of us took from Warner Bros Movie World to Schloss Beck, then a surprise trip to Centro Park. Great times were had by all! Now on to the much desired Phantasia hotel.
Mark Riley
Day four and all is well, apart from my chronic wind!. Warner Brothers treated the group to an ERS on Wild Wild West to kick the day off in style. We were then able to enjoy their other great coasters and rides before heading off to CentrO.
Many thanks must go to Christian Ahuis and Michael Badelt for looking after the group so well. Manic Pirate Ship rides and a water-cup challenge on Speedy were fantastic fun! We’re now on the road to Hotel Phantasia!
Linz & Darren Hoy
WBMW gave us an ERS on Wild Wild West and then we wandered around the park enjoying the other rides. The drop tower was one of the best rides of the day, as the floorless drop gives quite a punch!!
The second, surprise park of the day – CentrO-Park had a number of good rides, including a Spinning Mouse, a manic spinning thingy and loads of slides that Darren enjoyed a lot. Yet another great day on the tour!!!
Adrian Dade & Lorna Cromarty
WBMW was not as expected the roller coasters were rough , The water ride was not working. After WBMW we had a surprise trip to Centro park, this was great especially the cups of water on the spinning mouse !!!!
Ian Mansfield
Today we seem to have done so much, I don’t know where to start! Warner Bros treated us well with an hour ERT on Wild Wild West, then after a few hours there we took a side trip to Shlossbeck park, just over the road. Wow, what a find! It was like going back in time. A really lovely little park with some very unique attractions. Then we headed off to CentrO park. Nice enough, but not really that much to say about this place. Off to Phantasialand hotel now – yay!
Even Stangebye
This was my first visit to a WBMW-park, and I think it was great fun and themed. The stunt show was great, so was the free-fall and the volcano boat-ride. We got an hour ERS on the Wild Wild West, but in the last 20 minutes of the ERS it was just a few members on the ride. Hmmmmm, wonder why???
CentrO park was nice, and the wild mouse was even wilder when we all threw water at each other!! Great fun!
PS Smile to my new camera! :o)
David Cornell
Wow 3 parks in one day. That included Schoss Beck, down the street from Warner Brothers Movie world was the 3rd. I was so glad to finally ride Lethal Weapon Pursuit (both sides). I missed this one in 2001 with NAPHA. Every day this trip gets better and we have not even reached the best parks according to the rest of the group.
Olov Lundell
Today was a busy day with three parks in one day. Started at Warner Bros with an ERS on Wild Wild West which is a nice wake up call in the morning. And for the rest of the few hours we did most of the coasters. Then a group of 20ish made a little side trip to Schloss Beck which is a nice little park with some history. The day ended with a surprise at CentrO Park where we had a special ERS on the spinning Maurer Sohne. And of course when there water around I always get drenched…
A good preview of what to come at Phantasia Land where we are currently heading.
Olof Sornmo
What can I say; three parks in one day, Wonderful!
Chris Simon
ERS on Wild Wild West which was running not at its best I thought. Best rides are the fantasy indoor dark rides. My 300th coaster was Lethal Weapon – I enjoyed it, especially as I’m partial to heartline twists, but was gutted that they were only running one side. (Apparently opened later in the day but I didn’t know).
Mick Fryer-Kelsey
Warner Brothers, I could feel the Six Flags influence, but they are hoping to change, now they have got rid of the flags. The ERS on Wild Wild West was smooth in the middle and rough back and front. Typical Warner Brothers film theming.
During the water challenge at CentrO, the water was being thrown everywhere and I got very wet, probably because I was sitting near someone who a magnet for everyone’s water.
Liz Fryer-Kelsey
Wild Wild West was fun. It looked similar to Rutschbanen, which of course it isn’t. I enjoyed it. Lethal Weapon left hand side was OK, although during the in-line twist I came off the seat and will have the bruises to show for it in the morning.
The surprise park of the day was CentrO, a shopping centre, like Lakeside in Essex with a small fun fair park behind it. The Spinning Mouse was fun, and it was hard trying to keep water in a cup during the water challenge. Hello Mice.
Liam Kelly
Warner Brothers was a lot better than I expected.
Centr0 Park was pretty awesome, it had 75 degree slides that were about 35 feet tall. They were crazy go nuts funtasticly awesome.
Trev Williams
Warner Bros wasn’t amazing. The coasters were average at best, Eraser had a fantastic queue line, which easily kept us entertained and was certainly better than the ride itself.
CentrO on the other hand was great, nice landscaping, The Bee ride was great, as were the “slides of death” which were extreme, unfortunately the one that looked as if it might kill you was closed off.
Nelly
Yo my homeboys back in da hood. Peace out
Damien Bennett
The Six Flags in WBMW shone through today. Theming theming theming….Grey Corridor. The best service we received was in the subway, but some of the dark rides were very well done and worth a ride or too. The surprise park was brilliant and I had fun getting people wet.
Martha and Albert Amborn
I finally hit coaster 700 at WBMW on Wild Wild West! Having more fun than a person has a right to have!
Roger ’Dodger’ Clark
WBMW was quite good. Wild Wild West was bumpy but fun! Bermuda Triangle (a water ride where you sit in large boats and go into a volanco) was excellent! We got soaked on the first drop, which was in the dark!!!
The surprise trip to a small park beside a shopping centre was good. We got to go on a spinning mouse with cups of water. I emptied my entire cup of water on Andrew Bannister!!!! Great fun!!!
Bob Clark
WBMW – Hot -Sunny – Very Hot – Wild Wild West – Very Wild – My idea of a Coaster. Stung by wasp – Toured medical centre – think I prefer rain !
Lewis Cox
Warner Brothers Movie World Germany is probably best described as “Alright.” The park ain’t badly themed, and with such a grand name you sort of expect some very good rides – but no rides, including the coasters, get above the “alright” category. It’s not as good as Movie World Madrid.
Centro Park was good to have a look in at, and the staff were very tolerant of the clubs mini water fight on the spinning mouse!
Paul Orsmond
Warner Brothers is a funny kind of park in that it looks like enough, but sadly most of the rides let it down. The SLC is very rough and so was the woodie and the mouse was just standard, one small saving grace was Lethal Weapon where when both sides were running, it was rather good. Sadly the park is operated very badly with six flags standard one train operation rule on three of the coasters and this was a day when it was very busy too. The park does actually have some nice theming here and there, but its missing something and its hard to put a finger on it. So overall opinion is just OK.
Centro Park as a surprise afterwards was nice with its Mouse coaster with spinning cars and a pirate ship on 100% power. So a nice little highlight to the end of the day.
Nina Kleppe
Warner Brothers is a fun park, and a very nice one too. I liked the ERS on Wild Wild West. The other coasters where OK. Shame that the 3D show where down, so we didn’t get to see that one. Then we got to Centro Park. That was a nice surprise, and I liked the watercup challange on Speedy. It’s been another fun day of the trip.
Day 5 – Phantasialand, Klotten
Robert & Lisa
Loved Phantasia the Winja’s were fantastic especially “‘Fear“. Fabulous rapids with a couple of very wet drops. Park merchandise was very poor, but they did sell trousers, very useful…
Klotten was a great extra addition to the trip and their new coaster was a fun ride.
Norman & Jane
Felt Phantasia was a bit of a concrete jungle, whereas Klotten was visually perfect. Very friendly.
Steve Fagin
Phantasialand signalled a change in direction from the cheap, low-rent tat of Six Flags’ Warner Bros, where off-the-shelf rides were – almost without exception – themed by no more than enclosure within corrguated steel buildings.
At Phantasialand we got imaginative theming, some ordinary and not-so-ordinary rides, and a nice setting. All this contrasted sharply with the dismal, lifeless, decaying and unmaintained clapboard cities of yesterday, where even a slice of cold and grease-rich pizza took two members of staff 20min to serve. Sorry for the Six Flags rant, but Phantasia marked an upturn which can only be bettered by Europa – with nothing but Expedition GeForce standing in the way!
Simon Baynham
What a great park Phantasia Land is! Jam packed with great attractions. The mine train (Colorado Adventure) was really great fun.
Winjas Fear and Force was another fab attraction with all that spinning combined with great dips and twists… The surprise of the day was to visit a second park called Klotten. They only have the one coaster -called Achterbahn – but what excellent fun that was, it certainly stole the day. It is a coaster whereby each car contains four persons sat in rows of two to negotiate mouselike twists turns and drops…
airtime was plenty… not uncomfortable ejector seat airtime but nice pleasant floating airtime… the coaster was very rerideable. On the coach to Mannheim now for Holiday Park in the morning… read you all soon…
Gordon Taylor
Phantasia phirst phisit. Phantastic. Puts every other theme park2shame.
Unbelievable theming thats is ALL in its original glory and rides that go on..and on…and on. Everything here required in a theme park… A blueprint for all other parks. Forget Disney, come here. Words can’t do this justice. To think Disney and Universal have cornered their market is crazy; this place is THE one to visit, and revisit.
John Wilkes
Two very different parks today, Phantasia was one of the most scenic parks I have been to for theming. Not to many rides but all that were there were briliant and different to any where else. My favourite was the rapids ride with the lift to start and the drops. Klotten was nice little park that reminded me of bon bon land. Really enjoyed the coaster, fantastic.
Stuart Milton
Today was Phantasialand, and a very pleasant experience it was. The highlight of the day was the ERS on Winja Fear & Force, two excellent coasters. My personal favourite was fear, and not knowing about the ’trick’ track sections before hand only heightened the experience. The rest of the park was to a high quality, with the theming showing the care and expense that has been spent, which is in sharp contrast to the cheapness of yesterdays park, Warner Bros Movie World. Maybe some of the Six flags staff should visit Phantasialand and see how it should be done. Oh but wait they’ve been made redundant to cut costs!
Daniel Spooner
Phantasia was a lot better than I first expected, the hotel was great, the theming at the park was great and the rides were great. I enjoyed this mornings ERS on Winjas Fear and Force, which is this wild spinning coaster indoors. The River Quest was a really cool River Rapids ride with a difference, it was one of the best rides at the park, we also rode Colorado Adventure which was a bit of a disappointment but still worth a ride.
Our 3rd surprise park had a brand new wild mouse type coaster (Non Spinning), the coaster was one of the best mouses that I have been on, I just wish there were more like this one with the amount of air time.
Phil Ariss
Phantasia was amazing. So unique, so cool and I so want to go back soon.
James Wearing
Phantasia is one of the most beauiful parks I have ever been to. The hotel was amazing and the park was totally immersive. Winjas is very special with the unique elements and excellent layout, but by far the best attraction had to be River Quest….a rapids ride with a vertical lift and drop…..need I say more? A superb day was finished with a trip to ride one of my new favourite coasters…Achterbahn had massive G and one the most beautiful views ever. The Mosel valley in the background. Klotten is a great place! Off to ‘GeForce!…
P.S Phantasia is absolutely stunning….Disney and Universal you can forget.
Malcolm Marr
Injury number 3 put a bit of a dampener on Phantasia for me today. One day I will learn to take a little more care descending steps in the dark and doing my best to not totally twist my ankle in doing so.
Winja’s is an excellently themed attraction and I couldn’t help but think that shopping centres back home could benefit from adding similar rides. The mine train there was one of the better ones I’ve ridden. It was helped by us shouting “Sha’mone” from it and totally confusing the German public. Phantasialand is a lovely themed park, as is the hotel.
The evening was spent at a small developing park in Klotten which I think will be interesting to see how it grows in the years to come.
Today I discovered that King Kong had metal nipples.
Matt Sturgess
Phantasia was a great park, unique and well themed, albeit the bar staff were a tad slow. Winjas’ and Mystery Castle were both unusual, though Winjas’ didn’t spin as much as expected. The coaster at Klotten was not one to be under estimated intense from the start. Great day, great fun, and great liquor. Chou.
George Greenway
Best theming of spinning coaster, awful towers should take note. park has unbeleivable selection of beautifully themed rides, although the galaxy stimulator is a real head banger. Best part of the park is the mine tain with 3 lift hils, longest i’ve been on and brutal n the back seat. The rapids ride with its vertical lift start, was fun, and you were guaranteed to be wet at the end. The surprise of the day was a brief stoppover at a small park for one coaster. its nice to see a small park survive and flourish. look forward to revisiting this park in 2010.
Andrew Bannister
Though the hotel was the most expensive I was surprised that they could not of thought ahead in preparing the paperwork etc. So that we could have entered our rooms upon arrival. Apart from that the hotel was beautifully themed. The park was full of really fun rides and themes.
Winjas’ was really great fun especially when they both riding at the same time! The mine train was good but painful. The rapids was good. As is my grammar good! Drop tower ride was creative but did not ride for long enough. Surprise three had a really fun coaster and was a very enjoyable little park. Thanks Tim
Talhat Mahmood
Phantasialand Hotel excellent; phantasialand itself brilliant. Mystery park number three good. All in all a superb day.
Terry Jarvis
What an amazing day, started with ERS on Winjas’, a heavily themed indoor ride with two spinning coasters intertwined together with lots of unique features, too many to discribe. Also home to a great water rapids ride again too much to say, so i’ll just say it’s extremely good. Third surprise of the trip, a small family park with some great rides and a brilliant steel coaster with lots of airtime.
Andy Costin
Too hot for the tracksuit today, so break out the shorts! Phantasialand
– what a beautiful park and hotel. Winjas’ is one of the most unique coasters with some gerat special effects and a litle curtsy at the end.
The other coasters were also very good and an absolutely stonking rapids ride. Downside where the £$%$%^$% was the ride entrance to the Colorado’ (did find it in the end). We also went to Klotten that had an absolutely superb coaster, a real airtime monster for a small park and a few other good rides besides. all in all a good fun day.
andycoasterboy
Phantasialand – Phantastic hotel, Phantastic park – and a surprise visit to Klotten and there new Wild maus ride. Great Day – ‘Ge-Force tomorrow
Jeppe Nygaard
My first day at Phantasialand ever – and what a surprise it was.
Excellent theming with almost all the rides enclosed. Starting with an ERS on Winjas’ – which is definitely the best spining coaster I have been on, with lots of fancy effects, vertical lift, tilting trick track, I like Fear the most. Very good rapid ride, again with a vertical lift hill and the whirlpool was nice. The drop to the ride really good. It was enclosed and well themed, which made the ride really good. The hotel was just amazing. What a theme, with really fine details. We had good fun at the surprise park afterwards, with a quite good Gerstlauer coaster.
Richard Bannister
Winjas’ at Phantasialand was one of the coasters on this trip I was anticipating the most. I was not disappointed; the falling track effect and the seesaw effect mid-ride on the ‘Fear side came off really well and are things I’d love to see on other coasters in the future. As for the park as a whole, the rapids ride was fantastic and very unique.
Wild-und Freizeitpark has built themselves a cool coaster and it’ll be very interesting to see what comes of this park in the future.
Sonja and Tim
We are really pleased how the day went on. Winjas’ at Phantasialand were running at full tilt and it was nice to see the park heaving with people again, after some slow months. Wild- und Freizeitpark Klotten was our surprise of the day, but we suspect many already found out we could go there when checking the maps. Klotten’s coaster was running much smoother than we know it – hats off to Gerstlauer for getting the roughness fixed.
Jeff and Leslie Graham
Today was a day of highlights. Winjas’ ERS in the morning was superb.
The coaster has to be ridden to be believed. It is hard to describe all the crazy tricks the rides has up its sleeve. The park and its theming is some of the best out there. Our fancy hotel was feng shui’d up the wazzoo. The surprise park in the evening Klotten has a wild and very fun airtime machine type of Wild Mouse with a brilliant design.
- Derek Shaw
After spending an enjoyable evening at a fantastic hotel, I enjoyed the best park of the trip, so far. Phantasialand is a class operation. The ERS on Winjas’was as the Brits would say, both “mad and brilliant.”
It’s a ride that needs to come to the states, Vegas would be a good location for example. The Colorado’ mine train is by far the best I have been on – move over Six Flags Texas and Bakken. Three lift hills, plenty of airtime, and lots of indoor activity makes it a great ride and it’s a Vekoma!?!? The only suggestion I’d offer the park is to make available more merchandise with the park logo (magnets, buttons, patches, etc). The surprise this evening was the icing on the cake. A rural park overlooking the Mosel river, and a castle was just tremendously picturesque. Gerstlauer made another great roller coaster, and needs to stick to making them and not coaster trains for other rides.
Lisa Scheinin
Hey Derek, I’ve always said Vekoma can make great rides, when they’re not making Boomerangs and SLCs. Don’t you agree, Paul? I spent all day trying to figure out which was better – Winja’s Force or Fear. Finally decided to give the edge to ‘Fear. ‘Force was my 900th coaster and was it a hoot! Loved the angled track and the little bounce at the end.
Wild & Freizeitpark Klotten was so unusual – small park with small, self service kiddie rides and one kick-butt coaster! Must have left at least 8 euros in small coins on the ground under that Luna Loop ferris wheel thingie. The park desperately needs better pizza but other than that, it’s great fun. Oh, need I mention the little side trip a few of us made to Tobiland for a spin on their kiddie coaster? Sorry you missed it, Paul! Ask Martin and Derek about it.
Peter Kay
Garlic bread???????
Martin Valt
Phantasialand is superb. Winja’s unbelievable, must be the best themed coasters in the world. Colorado Adventure better than any other mine train Ive experienced. Apologies to Vekoma for everything I’ve ever said about them. Mystery Castle and River Quest both unique and fun.
Pleased to do my 500th coaster on a great Gerstlauer at tonights surprise park. Hope I manage 900 by the time I’m Lisas age! Glad Worts wasnt there to spoil it.
Jeff Holmes
Today was the best day of the trip so far. Phantasialand was one of the best theme parks I been to. Theming outta this world. Brilliant mine train and fantastic rapids ride. Was confused where Winjas Force and Fear was I thought it was in Worts Town. The day was rounded off superbly with a great little park with great Gerstlauer coaster where Martin Valt rode is 500th coaster ride congraulations.
Jonathan Hymes and Janice Mettie
Phantasialand was Phantastic. All I have to say about Michael Jackson’s Colorado Adventure is Shamone….. Klotten’s coaster is an airtime machine.
Day 6 – Holiday Park, Europa Park
Richard Bannister
Expedition GeForce is a fantastic coaster, full of air time, and with a fantastic first drop which reminded me of The Big One but without the pain! Having said that, what on earth were the operators doing with one train operation and eight minutes between dispatches? Six Flags would have been proud. I would have loved to ridden some more but the waits were just too long. I did like the double down on the log flume, and the Free Fall Tower was superb. I bought the on ride photo – something I’ve never done for a non coaster ride before – and will scan it for my web page at the end of the trip! Roll on Europa tomorrow!
Lisa Scheinin
Expedition Ge Force — what’s not to like? Still as good as ever. Good to see longer seat belts, new this year I’m told. But it would have been nicer with two trains. Corkscrew still unpleasant. Looking forward to Euro Sat with the lights on tonight. You’re gonna miss it, Paul! (Hey Paul, you know, that fat bastard Martin made me say all those things….)
- Derek Shaw
Enjoyed a few great rides on Expedition Ge Force– move over Millennium Force. The Deutschland steelie has much more going on. Too bad the ERS didn’t feature a pair of trains for the 94 participants. The park is real nice and woodsy. I had my obligatory ride on the Vekoma corkscrew. (Keep making custom installations, Vekoma like Colorado Adventureand stay away from your cookie cutter models.)
Really enjoyed the Dark Ride (Ghost Train) and the Drop Tower.
Peter Kay
Holiday Park is the best park I’ve never been to. Do they have Garlic bread?
Peter Jackson and Sleeping Niki Burton
Another fun day today with a great ERS on Expedition Ge Force. Shame there was only one train running for us and slow loading as by the time we had done a front and back ride the ERS was over. Ah Well! Following the ERS we had fun on the Log Flume, rapids, Dark Castle and Drop Tower rides. Great time in the park.
Steve Brett
Do they sell garlic bread in this bar?
Martin Valt
‘GeForce remains one of the very best coasters in the world. Paul seemed to enjoy it, a bit quiet though.
Jeff Holmes
The first time I have ridden ‘GeForce and it is a remarkable coaster bags of air time. I’m sick of looking for ya Wortsie stop all this hiding nonsense!!!!
Viper
‘GeForce-Number one dude number one. This trip report is dedicated to Paul Worts.
Tim Herre
The ‘GeForce-Team should get an award for running a coaster in the most inefficient way I have ever experienced. Surely another world record for a marvellous coaster – but a record the park should get rid of, better sooner than later.
andycoasterboy
Day 6 and Holiday Park and the amazing ‘GeForce, still one of my favourites. On our way now to Europa for more fun and games and CoasterSlut is treating us all to drinks.
Jeppe
Today was ‘GeForce day at Holiday Park. The most anticipated coaster on the tour for me. Hand in hand it stood up to my expectations as really good steel coaster. Probably the best in Europe. The rest of the park was OK but nothing special. Now sleeping on the bus on our way to Europa Park.
Terry Jarvis
Impressive hyper coaster, with great floaty airtime. A shame about the ridicously slow loading procedure.
Robert & Lisa
‘GeForce Day! Looks like it only gets an “OK” rating from us. Good ride in the front seats but the experiecnce is ruined by terrible throughput and disinterested staff. This is a shame as the rest of the park is good, with a useful mix of rides.
Jane & Norman Valentine
‘GeForce lives up to it’s name! Good day at the park, shame about the load times on GeForce.
Jim Lawrence
GeFarce, Europe’s greatest coaster with the world’s worst coaster staff. Eight minutes to load a train during an ERS is a joke, bring on SilverStar, at least they know how to run a coaster! Colossos still the best coaster on the trip so far.
Steve Fagin
‘GeForce was fast as ever, let down by ride ops who’d probably been popping Mogadons. The freefall was loaded very efficiently by the staff, who should have been promoted to run ‘GeForce. The park laid on some pretty scorching heat.
Simon Baynham
Holiday Park welcomed us with an ERS on ‘GeForce… I was expecting something amazing from this coaster, something otherworldly but in the end I was disappointed. One member of our team stated that I am difficult to please, and I suppose that’s true to a certain extent. Yes the first drop is something special… airtime is spoiled with the restraints and the midcourse twist was nice, but as a package it just didn’t do much for me, particularly so because it is uncomfortably rough after a few goes. My only real gripe was that during the ERS only one train was in operation and it took an eternity dispatching each train as the restraints needed checking twice every cycle… rant over… we’re now on the coach to Europa Park… I’m expecting a lot from this park…
Gordon Taylor
‘GeForce; trim brakes? Who trained the ops? Stevie Wonder? Water €2.20 a cup! What’s goin on?
John Wilkes
I liked holiday park, particularly GeForce of course. What a ride! really speeded up during the day. log flume and rapids were also fantastic, the wettest ride of the tour so far. It’s all about the ‘GeForce!
Stuart Milton
‘GeForce is a damned good coaster, quite what happened with the ride ops I don’t know, seven minutes turnaround won’t impress anyone! The log flume gave a refreshing soaking, and the rapids had some nice touches. The corkscrew was as you would expect, despite the new look trains. Overall a very good day.
Phil Ariss
Park operations put a damper on what would of been a fantastic park. ‘GeForce started off slow and my initial thought suggested, like Balder, a very overrated ride. However, during the day, it got faster and faster, and the ride started to live up to hype, but still, for me, not the flawless ride it was made out to be. Something Germany lacks is queue jumpers, so it was a surprise to see queue jumping from people closer to home. Disappointing and put a damper on what was a fantastic day at a park which could potentially be stunning.
James Wearing
Expedition GeForce was…well..excellent really, BUT (theres always a But) it does not deserve all the praise that it recieves. Maybe in the good ol’ days when those nasty magnetic trims were not active the ride performed better, but now the ride has a slow second second half and a rather disappointing feeling when you hit those trims of death. However the first drop is amazing..totally amazing, and the rest of the first half is perfect. An excellent ride overall but not all it’s made up to be… Holiday Park overall is a nice place, who can argue with the breast exposure in Castle (?)!. BUT (again!) the staff are terrible… and I really mean that. EGF’s were slow, uninterested and were oblivious to the fact that slamming a lap bar down onto your stomache was a bad thing. They also seemed to want to remove everything that had a remote chance of falling off. Then on the other extreme some staff really had no idea that people go to the park to have fun. Most staff were miserable and generally showed a lack of effort. Ah well…Damn nice park and very nice rides
Off to Europa!!
Matt Sturgess
Huh, what? With the rate the ride ops work at Holiday Park I could have slept for a hundred years and still they wouldn’t have finished loading Expedition GeForce. ‘GeForce itself was absolutely phenominal after it warmed up. All seats were good bar the front which was amazing it had bags of airtime, some cool headchoppers, and an incredible first drop. The theming was pretty decent too, however (and I wasn’t the only one to spot this), were the use of several trims on the ride, without these the laterals would have been a lot better than they actually were, and there would have been more air time. It still was a great ride though, not quite enough to knock Nemesis off my number one spot, but much better than The Big One. One of the kiddie rides featured a woman having her top removed…….nice….hhmmmmm. I think I got rid of the photo so I’ll have to wait till Tripsdrill and their Log Flume. Come on Europa. Chou.
Andrew Bannister
I thought that ‘GeForce was a great coaster. I am sorry to say that second was more painful than fun.
Good rapids and log flume. InTeReStInG dark ride.
Holiday Park = fun day
George Greenway
Holiday Park is a small well laid out park with an umissable re-rideable Intamin ‘GeForce. Alas, the operators provided one train, after the ERS two trains were running, and the load times were over five minutes, any “loose” item which could be taken from us was removed, even bum bags! We were lucky any loose clothing wasnt removed! The Vekoma is a disgrace, uncomfortable rough and not suitable for anyone over 1.82m the log flume with its backwards section was a refreshing break, and the rapids provided loads of fun on the bridge to add extra water to Club memebers as the rafts passed under, unfortunately some other park members got in the way and we didn’t stay around to learn German for “annoying English twat”
Malcolm Marr
Another visit to Holiday Park and the Animal Show officially becomes legendary as it’s no longer there. I only hope the cats, dogs, doves, pigs and porcupine were able to take their stage-crossing skills elsewhere. I wonder if the dog ever learnt to catch that Frisbee. We had a nice ERS on ‘GeForce in which I got my first front seat ride. As the morning went on the cars got faster and the ride operations better. The concensus during the ERS was that the despatches were too slow. The freefall tower was better this year, we were able to walk through the pre-show, pre-pre-show and pre-pre-pre-show without watching them. This park is one that mixes fun with learning, and buried away in the science tent was a simulation of a paddling pool which would ripple and play sounds when stepped in, this was pretty clever and I suspect overlooked by the majority of the group. Today I learnt that Science can be fun.
Andy Costin
I can type only marginally faster than the operators of ‘GeForce can load the ride. But what a great coaster, the back seat rules! The rest of the park is not too bad, with some good water rides and an interesting dark ride… Weather was even hotter than yesterday, no tracksuit required, but I am getting withdrawl symptons. Now on our way to the next hotel, bring on the air conditioning.
Liz Fryer-Kelsey
Holiday Park- ‘GeForce, an excellent coaster, my number one steel now. (I haven’t ridden many, so there’s sure to be plenty more to beat it in the future, maybe even tomorrow.) The park was very clean and family orientated, not too busy during our visit and we managed to ride everything we wanted to. There was no Garlic Bread with our Burger and Chips lunch.
Mick Fryer-Kelsey
My third visit to Holiday Park. ‘GeForce is as good as the first time I rode it. The park is kept very clean, with gardeners pruning the bushes and watering the lawns. They hadn’t pruned the trees around the first drop on ‘GeForce though and a small branch hit the train whilst we were riding, it felt like a swarm of bees stinging our faces. Gordon got the worst of it and has the bruises to show for it.
Trev Williams
‘GeForce was average at best. Trains too uncomfortable for people with long legs. Slow loading and a totally ghetto station didn’t add to the experience. The log flume was great though.
Dan Farrell
I was too excited yesterday to write about how amazing Lazer Quest the ride was at Phantasia, the ride of, not just this trip but also my life.
Jameson Read
‘GeForce has so far been the highlight of the trip, and will be hard pushed to be beaten. Holiday Park is relatively small, for a park with such a high quality and major coaster. It towers above the surrounding forest like, what can only be described as a huge loaf of garlic bread. The first drop is simply amazing and the ride holds up pretty well, especially through the first half. The park itself seems to be run in a rather strange way. The second train of ‘GeForce was added and removed rather frequently and the staff didn’t seem to like anyone standing down the exit path, despite it being quite a way from the station and not causing any problems. On the whole today was a very enjoyable day.
Liam Kelly
Expedition Garlic Bread was amazing, it goes straight in at number 1.
Chris Bailey
Many were disappointed when we rode EGF first thing, but in time it warmed up to be the most incredible coaster I remembered from previous visit. One of the rides which lives up to all the hype it gets.
Damo Bennett
After months of waiting I finally got on Super Wirbel: The Son of Death coaster. It was very good and probably one of the most air-time filled rides I have ever been on. Asides from Super Wirbel: The Son of Death, there was not a lot in the park. The ride I most enjoyed was what can only be described as “The topless woman” dark ride, that was awesome and was the first pair of breasts Jameson Read had ever seen, he claimed they were “overated”. I also enjoyed the scenery in the park, the best was a giant bush that looked like a huge piece of garlic bread, this fell off Expedition GeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeSUS Force and hit poor Gordon in the head!
Roger ‘Dodger’ Clark
Expedition GeForce was wicked. It had lots of air time and was great fun. The ERS was good but it would have been better if they had put two trains on it. It was still an excellent ride though. Lunch was good, we had burgers and chips. It would have been better if we had got some garlic bread though. The rest of the park was ok, it had a good log flume and some other rides.
Mike & Kammy Sislofsky
We had a good time at Holiday Park. It is a small park, but has lots of trees for shade and colourful flowers. Expedition GeForce is running well, but they did push down the lap bars a little too hard. Perhaps in the future they will pad the seats with garlic bread. Their free fall tower, log ride, and Burg Falkenstein dark ride are very nice as well.
Martha and Al Amborn
Expedition GeForce is running as great as ever with excellent airtime and as smooth as a baby’s butt. Speaking of butts, I wish someone had smacked the ride operators in theirs and sped up the loading process. I imagine someone has written about the tree branch attacking several ECC members while they were riding. Poor Mick, someone is always picking on him! Great lunch of double hamburgers on garlic bread and beer.
Andrew Weiss
EXPEDITION GEFORCE was great as always, too bad they stapled so hard. And I hear a large piece of garlic bread fell from a tree and hit a few members. The surprise of trip so far was Klotten. Achterbahn was an airtime machine.
Alan Weiland
It is good to see that Expedition GeForce is still holding up as one of the best coasters out there, especially that amazing first drop. The lunch today was pretty good and the ‘mystery meat’ in the burgers may actually have been beef (?). I really enjoyed the log flume, which travels backwards in a section and has a double dip drop at the end.
Bev Clapper
I had a very nice time at Holiday Park. Expedition GeForce was lots of fun but the loading process was frustrating. I also enjoyed the Free Fall ride and the log flume with ‘Hell Barrells’. Burg Falkenstein is an excellent dark ride, although a bit morbid and strange! I am eagerly anticipating our arrival at Europa.
David & Susan Ellis
Another hot day in Germany.probably hot enough to cook garlic bread? Today was ‘GeForce day. After being thrilled by it on our last trip to Germany I was wondering if it had got at all rough. Not a bit of it. Expedition GeForce still rides amazingly smooth with powerful ejector-seat airtime. Still one of our top 5 coasters. One of the other highlights was the log flume, which included a well-themed backwards drop element. The only negative was the lack of a second train during the ERS and painfully slow loading.not the expected German efficiency! Europa Park, here we come!
Bobby Nagy / Stephen Wimberly
We found Expedition GeForce over hyped but we still liked and rode the ride multiple times just the same. Still, one of us was quite happy to reach their milestone on it. This day and tomorrow are two of the most anticipated of the trip. Albeit a mild surprise the fairly long corkscrew ride we found as a little out of the ordinary. We were expecting the shorter version (as seen in the states) in a green field. Instead, it was shrouded by shrubbery. Being flashed by an audio-animatronics figure sucessfully reminded us we are not in Kansas anymore. If Europa Park is the main course then Holiday Park was Bread with Garlic before hand.
Mark Riley / Jenny Lamb
‘GeForce continues to be stunning! What more could you ask for in a steel coaster? The morning ERS was a great way to wake up. Our burger and chips lunch was great, and served very quickly. But where was the garlic bread?
We’re now on the way to Europa. Can it get any better?
Linz & Darren Hoy
A perfect way to start a day in Germany, an ERS on Expedition GeForce. Still a top steelie but with just a couple of goes in a half an hour, the ride staff could learn a lot from the Chessie Vampire crew! The rest of the morning was spent on the water rides, what a great log flume. A nice lunch and a quick go on the freefall and its time to move on to Europa for a buffet and some more surprises, We hope garlic bread is on the menu.
Ian Mansfield
Like everyone has just said, ‘GeForce was stunning! A superb way to start the day. Holiday Park was as charming as ever, lots of nicely themed rides and gardens. After a nice lunch of burger chips and garlic bread, we set off for Europa park and hopefully more surprises!
Stuart Wright
The cutting out of garlic bread and the reduction in beer since last September resulting in just over a two stone weight loss proved very worthwhile when it came to fastening the restraints on ‘GeForce. We all were able to ride the coaster. Coaster-bloaters has proved worthwhile!!
Brad Haller
Did Six Flags buy Holiday Park? One train operation on ‘GeForce, and some of the worst dispatch times I have ever seen. I have never been stapled so hard in my life. On a positive note, ‘GeForce has dropped out of my top ten steel, making room for Winjas!! ? The meal was OK, but there wasn’t any garlic bread included. Now, on our way to Europa Park to end the day on a positive note.
David Cornell
‘GeForce was pretty good but not as great as expected from reports from my friends. I’ll have to see later where it rates in my list. I understand that the lack of negative comments about the trip has been suspicious. So, I will vent a few pet peeves.
What is the deal with the pillows? Folded over and over they are hardly thick enough to stuff my Y-fronts, let alone support my head. And I suppose the lack of wash cloths in the bathrooms is due to the fact that Europeans have not yet included washing with showering. But I will end on some good news. The breakfasts have been quite nice. The lunch at Holiday Park was also quite nice. I was expecting some German food but the hamburgers and fries were good enough. I could have used a few pieces of garlic bread with the meal. The service was great. They were ready for us. Service at the table proved much more efficient than a buffet line.
I am looking forward to what many say is the best park on the trip. Europa Park here we come.
Bob Clark
Holiday Park – Brilliant yellow errrr orange coaster.
Lewis Cox
Expedition GeForce is a fantastic ride, slightly marred by some slow operation consisting of checking of seatbelts, then checking of lap bars, then checking that no loose items such as glasses, caps, coins, keys, phones, garlic bread and ice creams have wormed their way onto the ride unseen. The ride itself though is just great. The rest of the park has the usual flumes, rapids, towers and dark rides all of which are entertaining.
Chris Simon
I’m sure many people will comment on this but the self-proclaimed Best Coaster in the World has far too slow and tedious loading cycles making riding it, or attempting to, frustrating. However, ‘GeForce certainly is a superb machine and repeat-riding does actually leave you with lap-bar shaped impressions on your legs! Holiday Park is a very leafy and pretty park and has a well-implemented dark ride and a great higher-than-average drop tower (yum). The park provided a lunch for us which didn’t contain garlic bread.
Gary McMillan
‘GeForce is indeed a good ride, but only comes in as my number three fave on this trip so far, behind Winjas and Colossos. Holiday park is contained in a cool woodland setting devoid of garlic bread, very nice on a hot day such as today. We managed to easily ride all the major attractions by the 14.00 hour deadline for leaving, including a group lunch. Europa here we come…
Paul Orsmond
Another trip back to Holiday Park for me to once again ride the excellent Expedition GeForce, however this time the ride didnt quite feel right, it felt slighty slower than usual and even a little bit rough. The ride was still very enjoyable when it got going, but it was clearly missing something from last time. We were only staying at the park till 2PM but we still managed to do everything we wanted too and we still found time for a group lunch as well.Its Europa Park next where I believe we will also get a lunch at the park, however hopefully this time, the park will give us some garlic bread with our meal which should be nice.
Even Stangebye
We were a bit late to the park due to a Brit getting some garlic bread for breakfast instead of white bread. It took him 20 minutes to brush his teeth afterwards… Well, the ERS on the ‘GeForce was great, but they have to A) do something with the procedures of getting people on and secure them, and B) ALWAYS use both trains because of A). When at last getting on, the ride was great with an awesome first drop. I loved sitting in front. On the last ride a branch hit the guy sitting up front due to wind, and the branch/leaves hit the rest of us on the coaster, even me sitting in the back row. This should not have happened – glad it didn’t get in anybodys eyes… The rest of the park was nothing except for the flume ride. Now off to Europa Park!
Olov Lundell
It’s always nice to have a new favourite coaster and Expedition GeForce is one of my new favourite of favourites. Everything that’s been said about it is true and add some more airtime and you got a great coaster.
We’re now on our way to Europa Park with its new hotel Colosseo. Will it be able to impress me even more than the Phantasia hotel? Maybe if they got some garlic bread, that would surely impress me alot…
Day 7 – Europa Park
Jeff and Leslie Graham
Want romance, surprises, speed, unparalleled theming? Well Europa Park has it all. Our two day visit to Europa Park was probably the highlight of our trip to Germany. Thanks to Miro for the warm welcome and excellent hospitality. Thursday evening saw Mark – the “trips monkey” – propose to his girlfriend Jenny, in the spectacular Italian courtyard of our hotel. The evening was capped off with a lights on ride on Eurosat. The extremely hot Friday kicked off with a great ERS on Silver Star, which was much better than I was led to believe. The rest of our day was fully taken up with all the charms this great park has to offer. Thanks again to Miro for an awesome visit.
Derek Shaw
During the last day and a half, hit pay dirt – the mother lode. Move over Busch Gardens, Kennywood and Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Europa Park is numero uno. This park is fantastic. It has quite a seletion of rides, shows and restaurants. The ERS with the lights on inside Euro Satwas great. Silver StarERS this morning was fun, with lots of rides. The only thing this “top shelf” park lacks is a wooden roller coaster (a twin racing, dueling GCI woodie definately would fit the bill!). Minor problems included some medicore food at one of the stands, soft drinks priced like Six Flags (beer was cheaper) and too much good merchandise to purchase. Our accomodations on property at the Colosseo was breathtaking and fun. I’m not done with this trip and I’m already thinking about planning my next visit to Europa a Park! A CLASS ACT!
Lisa Scheinin
The folks at Europa Park sure know how to keep the trains moving through the station. Now if the staff at the bar in the Colosseo could only learn from them! Lovely day at an amazing park!
Peter & Niki
Wow! What a superb hotel. From walking into the hotel it was obvious this was going to be a great hotel and a park to look forward to. The attention to detail was amazing. The following morning was a properly organised ERS on Silver Star with 2 x cars laid on for us. Great ride and more efficient staff than another park we could mention, only a woodie was missing. The whole trip has been most enjoyable and we have made some new friends. Looking forward to many more ECC trips.
Jonathan & Janice
Europa Park summed up into one word is amazing. If Disney is learning things from this park some major parks in the States need to do the same. Thanks to Miro for the extra warm hospitality. Eurosat with the lights on was ultra cool. There must be something in the air around EP with all of the proposals including ours.
Jeff Holmes
Europa Park is a world class park in all aspects with excellent theming and great rides. Silver Star could have been a fantastic coaster if it were not for the unnecesary brakes. Hey Paul for Gods sake stop selling Andy Huckle those jellied eels!!!!!!!
andycoasterboy
day 7 and congratulations to – mark + jenny, jonathan + janice and rob
+ lisa who all proposed today! Europa continues to out do any THEME
Park and is amazing to walk around as to ride the unique collection they have there. The new Colosseo Hotel is an amazing concept given the
2 years they had from start to finish.
Andy Costin
I shall echo the sentiments of someone who has grafitied in the queue line of the Matterhorn Blitz – this park kicks ass! Europa Park – superb, with a hotel and hospitlaity to match.
Terry
One of the most beautfiul parks I have ever visited, with great rides and attractions nothing should disappoint you here.
Malcolm
“Mark proposed to Jenny today”
“Really?”
“No, Riley”
Congratulations to those couples on the trip who are now engaged.
Europa was the perfect place to do this. Big big thanks to Miro for his utterly amazing hospitality. I won’t say too much about the park, enough will have been said already. However the 4D cinema is an amazing addition to the park. Today I learnt that people looking for a park in Europe should be coming here instead of Disneyland Paris.
Liz Fryer-Kelsey
Europa Park: Silver Star was smooth with airtime over the drops.
Eurosat was better with the lights on, as I could see where the turns were coming. Euromir opened late after the Health and Safety check, following the incident the day before, which Miro told us about in the conference suite the night before.
The hotel was well themed and the swimming pool was very welcome half way through the day when the temperature soared and we had ridden everything we wanted to. There were several small rides that we found, a dinosaur ride, a pirate boat ride and a ghost ride. Sadly a lot of parks on the trip seem to hide the entrances to rides, not sure if it’s to stop queues forming or to confuse the public. Some of the toilets were amusing, there was a toilet which said ëJane and Tarzaní, with animals painted on all the toilet doors and wall, we spotted Tim in the toilet and some mice in there taking photos.
Mick Fryer-Kelsey
My third visit to Europa Park. It was as good as I remember from previous trips. Fantastic coasters, great staff and management.
Thanks Miro.
A lot of Parks could learn from Europa.
Liam Kelly
Wonderful park, amazing rides and a great day.
Trev Williams
Silver Star is a fantastic coaster and in my opinion far superior to ‘GeForce. The parade was great we managed to see it three times by running round. Euro-Mir has some fantastic sights as you bump around.
The flying turkey was great as well.
Dan Farrell
THEY HAD A LAZER SHOW!!!!!
Damo Bennett
There is too much to say about Europa, what a fantastic park. The rides were great and the theming was even better, the staff were efficient but did not have the same social qualities that you would find at Disney. One thing that has really bugged me about all the parks is the blatant Disney rip off dark rides, this unfortunately continued with the majority of dark rides at Europa today. I would love to see what the parks could do themselves, rather than copying the popular attractions at Disney. Nevertheless Silver Star, Euro Mir, Euro Sat and Poseidon were all fantastic coasters and proved that the park can do brilliant things. Another highlight was the brilliant ìKAKî ride that really lived up to its name.
Roger “Dodger” Clark
Europa park was fantastic, a brilliant park. Silver Star was wicked it was so much fun with loads of air time. The other coaster were excellent as well, espically eurosat and Euro Mir. The theming was also very good.
Martha Amborn (Albert is asleep)
After a wild night at the fabulously themed Colosseo hotel, we were off for Europa. Two years ago on the ACE ECO trip it was rainy and cold.
Today was brilliant, albeit warm, sunlight. Silver Star seemed better, maybe because of the excellent weather and the marriage proposal that started ERS (she said yes!). The park is still beautiful, the beer was cold and the boat rides wet! Didn’t get very wet on Poseidon – I was a little surprised. The ice show was so boring I fell asleep. That was the only down part. Thanks to Timmy the Loo for really good tips.
Mike & Kammy Sislofsky
What can you say about Europa Park? It is not a coaster park; it is not a flat ride park; it is not a food park; it is not a water ride park; it is not a show park; it is not a dark ride park — it is all of the above! The staff showed us top-notch hospitality and we had a great time. Their hotel is very nice too. We canít wait to visit there again.
Andrew Weiss
What a difference in theming and the way the park is run, between Europa and Holiday Park. Silver Star was a pleasant surprise, two years ago it pretty much sucked, but today it delivered nice air in the back.
I really love Euro Mir and Euro Sat. The hotel reminded me too much of Vegas.
Nina Kleppe
Europapark was a great park. The day started of with a half an hour ERS on Silverstar with two trains running. That was a great ride, one of my new favourite coasters. The rest of the day we got to do the other coasters and rides. We also got to see the Gladiator Show. Itís been a good and sunny day at the Park.
John Coffield
Europa Park is first rate in detailing and costuming with an excellent selection of rides by Mack. The B&M Silver Star is a very quick steel out and back with a killer first drop. The dark rides are of Disney quality. This park is best described as a permanent world’s fair. The only really poorly used installation is the Carousel of Progress-style theatre, it has a truly lame laser show and is not used in the way the theatre was designed for, it needs a quality presentation to complete the package. For the most part the park is a model of for smooth and quick operation
Lewis Cox
Wow!
Paul Orsmond
Europa Park is quite simply stunning and comes close to the perfect theme park in the world. Everything about the park is amazing from the highly detailed themeing, the staff, the shows and even from the way ALL OF THE RIDES are run to full capacity which is quite simply breathtaking to see. One superb example was the Rapids, it looked incredibly long because of the warm weather, and with the old intamin 6 seater boats, you think you’re in for a long wait, but it was only 30 mins long and to say I was blown away by this was an understatment.
Silverstar was running great as usual and the ERS was good too with 2 trains out. The Colosseo Hotel was was also outstanding with very good detailed theming and it turned out to be a great ride. Overall none of us wanted to leave I think and I will certaintly want to visit the park again at the next available moment. Truly outstanding.
David & Susan Ellis
What an amazing place! The new Colosseo Hotel is just breathtaking with fountain displays to music and theming beyond belief. As I have a reputation for naked coaster-riding, I took the opportunity to try out the hotel’s naked-friendly sauna and steam room! The park visit was also host to more than one marriage prososal too! The park was as good as we remembered from our last trip. Silver Star was terrific with lovely floating airtime, and the other coasters were great too. There were simply too many highlights to mention top-notch in all departments.
Bobby Nagy / Stephen Wimberly
The hotel, magnificent. The park, a masterpiece. The memories, priceless!
Mark Riley / Jenny Lamb
Needless to say, our stay at Europa Park was very special. I had planned to ‘pop the question’ and had been having great fun emailing ideas for the big moment. Standing in the Hotel Colosseo with such great friends during this amazing trip provided the perfect moment for the occasion. Thanks to all for giving us their congratulations and a huge thanks to Miro for everything!
Timmy the Loo
Today should have been amazing, almost as good as Alton Towers. But it was a shambles!!!! What is wrong with these stupid f**king Americans?!! They always ask the stupidest questions! And why can’t the English speak proper f**king English?!
The highlight of today was the exceptional toilets. I tried them in each area of the park, both sitting down and standing up. The first cubical in France was very good, but the third urinal in Greece was outstanding. I am hoping for an ETS at the next park. But if one more little s**t tries to cut in front of me I will punch them!!!
Linz & Darren Hoy
What an amazing Hotel. In the short time that it took to build, it’s surprising what a palace it is.
After saying that there were no more surprises on the tour, Mark lied, as his Marriage Proposal to Jenny was a big surprise!!! Followed the next day by another proposal by Rob to Lisa. Wow.
The park was simply great. We spent the day looking for any square inch that was NOT themed, and came away disappointed!!!
Highlights: Floaty airtime on Silverstar. Last ride on Euro Mir.
Fantastic hospitality everywhere we went.
Thank you Miro for a truly memorable day!!!
PS LEGO Tomorrow!!!!!!
Adrian Dade & Lorna Cromarty
Excellent park, Well themed hotel, Adrian’s favourite ride was Silverstar. Brilliant rapids ride with Justin, Jenny, Mark & Simon Got absolutely soaked. Euromir was good when it got going, Poseidon was fab as well.
Ian Mansfield
Love is definitely in the air on this trip! Three proposals so far, and what better place to do it than at the excellent Europa Park resort!
The hotel Colloseo had everybodyís jaws dropping upon arrival. Just the most well themed spectacular hotel I’ve ever seen. Then there’s the park! As usuall they treated us well with bundles of goodies to take home, and made sure we were well fed in their castle restaurant. All in all a fantastic day. Europa park WILL change your life.
Brad Haller and John Fidyk
The Colosseo was amazing. Europa Park was excellent, just like we remembered. Between last night and today we were able to do just about everything as the park wasnít very busy. We can’t wait to get back, we never get bored at Europa! Congrats to both Mark and Jenny, and Rob and Lisa on their engagements.
Bev Clapper
WOW!! What a fabulous time at Europa Park! The hotel was amazing and the park is definitely one of the best in the world. The theming is spectacular, down to every last detail. I enjoyed every minute and I was sad to leave – I hope to return some day!
Alan Weiland
Today was an amazing day at Europa Park, starting with a fun ride session on Silverstar! The lines for all the fantastic rides and attractions were for the most part very short, allowing us to ride our favorites many times! I especially enjoyed the Euromir and Eurosat with their unique circular lifts, and all of the incredibly themed dark rides. The hotel Colloseo was beautiful and breathtaking.
Gary McMillan
Europa is a fantastic park, with a fantastic hotel. The highlight of the trip.
Chris Simon
Once again I was left speechless by Europa Park. No words to describe it – just do it! Eurosat was especially brutal in the back seat and I loved it! Silver Star provided several moments of the best sort of airtime on the best sort of seats.
Richard Bannister
With apologies to second place Busch Gardens Williamsburg, for me Europa Park is without question the most beautiful park in the world.
The attention to detail on the theming and the dark rides is simply astounding, and the landscaping isn’t bad at all either. It’s amazing what imaginative ride design can do. Sure, Silver Star would be a lot more fun without the trim brakes, but as Miro put it, one only has to watch the faces coming off Silver Star to realise that the general public love it. The only two things I’d add to this park are a giant drop ride and a wooden coaster; with both, the park would be perfect. I should finish by offering a honorable mention to the staff in the restaurant for thinking we had eighty seven vegetarians
George Greenway
The theming in this park is just exquisite. I had a brilliant ERS on Silver Star, it was my 200th coaster and I had a great photo taken on the second drop. check out the photos. The park staff were very friendly and spoke excellent English. the signs are a bit hard to find as are the entrance to some of the rides like Posiedon. definately a park worth a second visit.
Talhat Mahmood
Definately the highlight of the trip. A very beautifully themed park.
Every inch put to good use. Great staff, great rides, great food, all in all the king of all theme parks.
Phil Ariss
Best theme park in Europe? Definately. Best theme park in the world? All in all, Europa is mind blowing. The hype the park gets, is more than justified, infact, the park needs more exposure in the UK. Who needs Disney, Universal, Tussuads or Six Flags? Superb, unique attractions, all running on ridiculous capacity, capped off with stunning themes and ride experiances. Special thanks goes to Miro, who could not do more to make our stay welcome. I’ll be back, very soon I hope. Spread the word, Europa Park is THE theme park to go.
James Wearing
The best theme park in Europe with the best rides, staff, themeing and atmosphere. Silver Star is the best, seriously even with the trims.
Thanks to Miro for his hospitality and making the club feel welcome! I leave the park with a Europa DVD and a Silver Star key ring..woohoo!
Totally tiring and amazing day, a day I will never forget. Europa is the best.
Off to the hotel now with Andrew B talking about Disco Biscuits and Crazy Paving…a usual coach journey! Proper Bo’.
Gordon Taylor
Nobody does it better. Makes me feel sad for the rest. Nobody does it half as good as you. Baby, you’re the best.
John Wilkes
Europa Park really did change lives. Best park in the world.
Stuart Milton
Europa park is a pretty near perfect park. Silver star has some really sweet airtime on the drops, and the quality is clear to see.
Steve Fagin
Like Moses reaching the promised land, Coasterbahn 2004 finally made it to Europa. Gone were the arid, sterile plains of Warner Bros, replaced by lush, verdant worlds selling not milk or honey but the most expensive Coca Cola on the planet. Europa is a fairly unique park…quality and quantity in one massive package.
Day 8 – Skyline Park, Legoland Germany
Richard Bannister
What a day. Finally plucked up the courage to ride a reverse bungee (though not having to pay for it helps too). Excellent ride; I’ll be doing more of those. The booster ride wasn’t bad either, though it could do with better harnesses. Legoland Deutchland a bit of a disappointment after Billund a few months ago; not a bad park really, but not that little extra I’d expect Lego to be. Power Builder is still fantastic though; anywhere in Ireland fancy putting in a Kuka RoboCoaster?
Andrew Bannister
The first park had some interesting rides, including one of my favourites, the nautic jets. Legoland lacked charisma, though it was quite creative in certain aspects, such as having Lego-based Roller Coaster cars and lego-shaped chips (which were delicious!). In particular today I liked the log flume at Legoland with its interesting scenery.
George Greenway
After yesterdays climax, todays two parks were bound to struggle to appear in my favourite list on the trip. The Schwarzkopf proved to be a great ride, noisey and it had a car stick on the second hill, it was great to see the operators push it over the hill.
Legoland lacked something, it couldn’t decide if it was aimed at kids or parents. It needs to appeal to both. None of the rides fitted into the Legoland theming. Need to try a little harder to create a complete themed park.
Talhat Mahmood
Skyline Park was an okish park. The rides were either tame or too intense. Needs more family or water rides. As for Legoland, it just didnt seem like a LEGO park, it had far too much concrete for my liking. Needs more greenery, flowers, trees. The actual layout of the park was wrong, it needs a alot of work to make it up to the standard of other Legoland parks.
Malcolm Marr
Two contrasting parks today. Skyline is a small developing park with some amazing rides. I’ve never before seen a teapot ride that you’ve had to start yourself and then jump in to ride. The park is due to get a record breaking ride later this year which will give us a reason to return.
The afternoon was spent in Legoland which was the second most corporate park on the tour, after Warner Bros. This park was OK but it’s clearly targeted at children not adults, unlike some of the other Legoland parks which cater for a broader market. Today I learnt that self powered rides can become quite extreme when you get carried away.
Phil Ariss
Skyline have the right idea, fun rides! Legoland seem to have tried, but failed on a few areas, on the basic principle of making it a fun place for all.
James Wearing
Skyline is interesting. The self operation of the rides was a bit of fun, as you can imagine. A big suprise was the food and entertainment on park. There was a local school band playing outside the very good value restaurant, something that other parks could consider. It did actually make the visit more enjoyable. Nice Fabbri Booster and an excellent powered bob slide. The future looks good!
Legoland Germany is the ’no frills’ park of the Lego chain. The actual amount of Lego around the park was minimal and the whole park had a young focus. It’s the kind of place where the parents would take the kids but not enjoy it themselves. A strange yet quite enjoyable park. Maybe time will improve the place.
Another late night!!
Matt Sturgess
Skyline has done an excellent job since opening about five years ago, it is one of the fastest developing parks I have ever heard of and can’t wait to see their new coaster. Though I did notice the staff on the Wildcat were wearing sandals instead of proper shoes. I hope that they continue to develop after their new coaster, like adding a good water ride or a couple of flat rides, and continue to improve the theming, which to be honest was reasonable. Very good park though.
Legoland was good, but not amazing, I have not though visited the other Legolands so I can’t compare them. They lacked good scenary and could include more models. The park though was corporate, but respect must still go out to the model makers.
David & Susan Ellis
Another hot day! Two parks today, and two very different ones! Skyline Park has many unusual rides, a Schwarzkopf Wildcat, a Caripro Suspended coaster, plenty of self-operated rides and a bonus of a Fabbri Booster and a Reverse Bungee included in the price.
Legoland was probably the smallest of the Lego chain, with a Gerstlauer / Stengel kiddie coaster, a Dragon coaster that featured a surprise drop at the end of the scenic indoor section and a Mouse. The staff were a bit miserable though, although the superb pizza made up for it.
Stephen Wimberly / Bobby Nagy
It’s our last day of the tour and we are sadly skipping Tripsdrill. We somehow expected more out of Legoland overall, but was surprised by some of the individual rides themselves (aside from the coasters). Examples were the log flume with a backwards section and a Dragon made of Legos squiring water at the guests. The other ride was Bionicle. It was quite surprising and after experiencing many other mild rides at the park this one somehow seemed to be intense. Olof and myself (Bobby) did indeed have a setting of “five” for two rides while Ian and Stephen took on a mere setting of four. Finally, although Skyline Park itself was not a life changing event; we decided to take on the booster to make it so. It was quite a thrill. I will miss the tour but much longer would have been too much. We will have many memories from this intense tour and were happy to make new friends. Until we meet up with the club again. Enjoy your rides!!
Mark Riley / Jenny Lamb
Skyline kicked off today’s double-park day. This small family owned park was fantastic fun with many self-operated and playground style attractions. The pedal powered roundabout and the rope swings were definite highlights!
Legoland was a nice park, but not up to the very high standards of their other parks. They have great rides and models but the fairly bland landscaping let’s the park down. Thankfully this is very easy for the park to fix.
One thing struck me during our day. Whilst trying to board the Flume ride at Legoland, the attendants were ensuring no loose items were taken on to the ride, including bags. But here’s the problem: the park will not accept responsibility for your left items, and yet they won’t let you look after them if it means taking them onto the ride!!! Surely this is an impossible situation? Okay, I’ll put my soap box away now.
Timmy The Loo
The loos at Legoland Germany were very disappointing compared to the other Legolands. Although there was an abundance of toilet paper and soap, there was a distinct lack of little seats in the cubicles for me to sit on to ponder whether to do a “one” or a “two.” The cubicles were also much smaller than the UK and Denmark sister parks, so I was not able to pee with my friends. On a good note though, the Toilet Brushes were of an extraordinarily high standard, being China and built into the walls as part of the tiling and there was an excellent full length mirror surrounded by Lego, so I could admire myself in beautiful surroundings. Erm: Why was there 4 urinals and 6 sinks in the loo’s though????
Lindsey & Darren Hoy
Skyline park was a great young park. Only recently opened as a theme park, it appears to be more an “established” family park, with more self operated swings, slides and roundabouts than actual attractions. But still good fun, and will be worth the repeat visit when the new ride goes in.
Legoland was a different story though. It breaks my heart to say anything bad about my favourite parks, but needs must. The models of the park were fantastic, and Mini Land was the best yet. The Lego models all looked new and fresh. The rides themselves were very good, with better layouts and theming than Windsor and Denmark, but the loading was even worse than Expedition GeForce. (Yes – I never thought that would be possible, but Lego Land WERE slower on every ride that we went on) It became apparent today that the staff really do make the park. At Windsor and Denmark the staff are all really friendly and “live the Lego Dream” for the guests. At Germany, they were mainly sullen and slow. Sorry Germany, you may have the “Technique” for the rides and models, but you have a hell of a long way to go to beat the others!!!!
Ian Mansfield
Our first stop today was Skyline park. Quite a nice family park with lots of those unusual DIY type rides that we’ve seen so many of on this trip. They also had some big rides too, like a Fabri Booster and a reverse bungee. My personal favourite was the powered bobsled ride. Just a few hours at this park was enough though. Next stop was Lego land. I was looking forward to this place very much, especially after liking Windsor so much, but came away disappointed. It had all the same stuff as all the other Lego parks but just seemed to lack any sort of charm. Too much concrete and not enough character. Best ride was the Bionicle Power builder. Basically two seats on the end of a robot arm that fling you round in any mad way you choose! Looked quite violent, but was actually great fun.
Stuart Wright
One more night and one more park to go. Well, they said it would be NO HOLDAY, but what an EXPERIENCE!!! Who ever dreamed-up this tour, then made it work has done a wonderful job. Congratulations to all involved for such a wonderful time.
David Cornell
Wow what a trip. I was surprised how tightly packed the schedule was. Coasters and surprise parks all through. It was wonderful. Sometimes a rest now and then is good, but when there are coasters so nearby, I would rather stop by and ride them.
I hope the trip organizers can keep their sanity with all the work they are doing. I hope you guys like what you are doing. I can tell you everyone I spoke with really appreciated your effort.
Europa was so fantastic. It was an all around great park. The small ones had a unique charm that is disappearing in the USA. I was so glad I could ride the Butterfly coasters. I have seen others with weight limits of 100kg. I am still a bit over that.
Best wishes to all. See you again next year in Vienna and Japan. Do look me up any time you are in Cincinnati. (Beast 25th party on Sat. Oct 2, 2004).
Even Stangebye
Once again a great day with some great rides! I liked the Booster in Skyline Park, and it was also the first time I have taken a reverse bungee! Great fun, but it would have been greater looking down when being launched. Nina and I “loved” the rattle-coaster, but they forgot to hand out earplugs at the entrance. Did it beat the Silver Star yesterday? Well, it had shorter queue. Did it beat the ‘GeForce? Well, except for forgetting the earplugs it had an excellent getting loading procedure. But the rest was horrible! The noise, the non airtime experience, the lousy hills, and the killer brakes! And therefore I rate it my worst coaster ride ever!!
Legoland was OK, but not as nice/cozy as the one in Denmark. Thanks to Mark / Justin / everyone for a GREAT TRIP!!!!!
Liz Fryer-Kelsey
Skyline Park was another pleasant small park, with some interesting self operated rides, a bit like Bon Bon Land. The Wild Cat was very noisy, but the ride was quite smooth, surprisingly. The Alpine Bob, my first bob ride was fun.
Legoland: I think this is a park best suited to 5 year olds, and probably all children of that age group were in the park today! Not a park that I would hurry back to visit.
Overall the trip has been great, I have ridden about 35 new coasters, (my definition of a coaster will be different to others- so I don’t want to start a big discussion again.) The trip invite promised `an intense week’ and it certainly has been. The downside for me has been the heat and lack of sleep. Just Tripsdrill to go and then home to a nice cup of tea.
Mick Fryer-Kelsey
Skyline park, some fascinating rides. A drop tower that was very different, rather like a huge fruit shoot. (BPB) with a track that made the whole car tip forward. The powered bob-sleigh similar to the one at Steinwassen, but outside on a longer track.
Legoland, typical kids park, no ERS, unlike our visit to Legoland California, where they really treated us special. There were some fun rides at both today’s park. Tripsdrill tomorrow which should be good if we are treated the same as on our last trip. This would made a lovely end to the tour.
Trev Williams
Skyline had some crazy go nuts self operated rides, would have been nice to have spent more time there as we didn’t get to do everything.
Legoland wasn’t as good as the Windsor Park, it’s tiny, the theming’s seemingly done on the cheap and the rides are generally inferior to the Windsor versions.
Liam Kelly
I really liked skyline a nice park coming along well. Also had some lovely food.
Legoland was not as good as Windsor though I liked the robo coaster.
Damien Bennett
Legoland was nicely presented. The weather was really hot today and Jimbo Read presented a new sleek haircut. Skyline park was great because the operators were so funny, a car stalled so they fixed it by climbing a support and pushing the car along th track. Tommorrow is Tripsdill and the second of the topless women dark rides!
Roger `Dodger’ Clark
Skyline park was ok. Had a go on a reverse bungee which was good. They had a few other rides which were ok.
Legoland was good but not as good as the one in Denmark.
The trip has been fantastic and its a shame its ending tomorrow but it will be nice to be back in England and to have some sleep!!
Mike & Kammy Sislofsky
Skyline Park is like a carnival and a playground on steroids. It is probably the most unique park we have ever been to. Even though it is not the typical park, it is still quite fun. We were met by the park owner, and she treated us very nicely. The coasters are not outstanding, but where else is a skyscraper ride and a slingshot ride included in the park admission? The skyscraper ride (Sky Circle) is extremely wild! And they have lots of unique playground equipment that enables us big kids to act 30 years younger.
Legoland is a nice park too, but it is quite smaller than the other Legolands we have visited. The Dragon roller coaster may be the best of the ones we have ridden, and their Miniland is different than the others (as it ought to be). But there are fewer things to do there, and it was a hot and crowded day. Still, we had a lot of fun, and it is nice to see that they are doing well.
Martha and Al Amborn
Skyline park is like BonBon Land with the more bizarre aspects. Self-operating rides are such fun-never to be seen in the USA unfortunately. Great debate on the coaches as to whether “butterflies” can be classified as a coaster credit.
Legoland was alright. I enjoyed Denmark much more. This park was smaller and very crowded. Little ankle-biters running about and several collisions with strollers didn’t help. Oh well.
Richard Koppelman
Skyline Park was fun. Cute place.
Legoland was a hot crowded kiddie park, vonderbar! The Dragon coaster with dark ride preview was fun and the lego models were cool, but I have little to no desire to go to another Legoland. All in all, this was the weakest day of the trip by far. Since I haven’t been doing this much the whole trip (even including today) was an absolute blast, Thanks ECC!!!!
Andrew Weiss
This was my first ECC trip. and it certainly won’t be my last. I want to say thank you to Mark and Justin on the brilliant job they did organizing and running the trip. Today was the weakest day, Skyline bored me, and Legoland UGH! The highlight of trip was Hamburg Fair and Alpina Bahn, and the Achterbahn coaster at Klotten.
Nina Kleppe
This I my first EEC trip as well, and I’ve really had a great time. So I’m definitely coming on a trip again later. Today it was Skyline Park and Legoland. I liked the Sky Shot and the Sky Circle at Skyline, and the Powerbuilder at Legoland. So thank you to ECC for organising such a great trip. And I must also say that Mark and Justin are doing a great job.
John Coffield
Skyline Park has more people powered rides then any park I have been to. I really liked the airplane ride powered by two people peddling nearby. The Bob track was one of my favourite rides even though it was powered.
Legoland was the smallest Lego Park I have seen. It is still a delight to the Lego fans. Sadly we have only one more day left on a most incredible trip.
Paul Orsmond
Skyline Park is a very unique park in that ALL attractions are included in the ticket price which includes a Booster, Reverse Bungee and even Go Karts. The park also has a powered bobsled which was great fun, and there are a lot of self operated rides/attractions too which is great to see, so overall it’s a very good park. LegoLand was next and sadly I was quite disappointed with the park, It was quite a small park with not many attractions to keep you going throughout the day and I had done everything I wanted to do within 2-3 hrs which meant the last 2hrs was just walking round struggling to find things to do, Its still a nice looking park and I know the park is fairly new but currently there is no way you spend a full day there so overall slighty disappointing.
Gary McMillan
Skyline Park has a nice selection of small rides. I particularly liked the powered bob sleigh, great fun. By comparison Legoland Germany was bland and corporate. It reminded me of a badly themed MacDonalds, can’t have everything I suppose, at least they sold beer!
Lewis Cox
Skyline Park is a little family run park that looks like it is full of potential for the future. The Gyroswing was unique, and provided an entertaining if rather brutal ride in places. This was to be my very first Legoland park ever, and many people are very positive about them – but to be honest, I was disappointed, and it seemed to be a very big outlet to sell lego with not much thought on creating an amusement park at all. I hope the other parks are better then this! So I think I can sum both parks up in the phrase. “Not as good as Europa.”
Olov Lundell
Last late night on the bus and I’m actually awake. But I am really tired / knackered / paralysed/ zombie. Today was another hot, hot day but you try to use every available shadow and keep out from the long uncovered queues. Two rides stood out from the rest today, the Booster at Sky Line Park and the Bionicle robo-coaster. Second time I’ve encountered these robo-coasters but this time I got to choose what elements I wanted to have in my ride. But there were so many to choose from so it became completely random anyway.
Now we’re almost back at the hotel and probably another late night at the bar. Last day of the trip has to be celebrated you know.
Day 9 – Tripsdrill, Travel
Lisa Scheinin
Another great ECC trip comes to an end! Paul, stay away from that fat bastard Martin, he’s nothing but trouble. Outside of him, the trip was an unqualified success: great parks, great coasters, great hotels (well…most of them), great people and of course not one, not two, but THREE surprise parks. Awesome! Justin and Mark, thanks so much for all your hard work. I’m already looking forward to Italy next year. Hey, Andy isn’t coming, is he?
Robert & Lisa
Once again, Tripsdrill was the perfect end to a perfect trip. The log flume was wetter than I remember, but G’Sengte Sau was just as great. Strange to say it might even make it into my top 10 coaster list.
Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this trip so much fun, and thanks to the parks that went out of their way to accomodate us.
Andy costin
We end this great but knackering trip with a visit to Tripsdrill-a very pleasant family park,with some nice rides. G’sengte sau was great fun.Good hospitality shown, too little time spent there-have to fly back to Blighty![d’oh]
Peter Kay
Maybe Tripsdrill needs a fine entertainer like me. Do they have garlic bread? I will be back on an ECC trip if they will have me.
- Derek Shaw
Tripsdrill was the perfect ending to a near perfect trip. (See Helliday Wenker mention yesterday) I really enjoyed the high quality of the park. The major attractions were really quite well done. Both the log flume and rapid rides were superb.The Gerstlauer mouse was great. (Note to Gerstlauer: stick to manufacturing your own steel roller coasters – stay away from manufacturing wooden roller coaster trains – they are NOT your cup tea.) I’m expecting even more great things from this gem of a park in he future. Three cheers to Tripsdrill!
General note: It was a great trip, put on by a well run organization. The ECC knows how to run a fun trip. It was so refreshing to not hear mundane announcements every 7 seconds. Just get in, sit down, hold on and ride. That’s the way it should be everywhere. See you on another ECC trip soon. Wish I was camping at Oakwood next weekend.
Jeff Holmes
Drei Bier Bitte!!!!! Danke Shon Paul.
Paul Orsmond
Tripsdrill was once again the perfect end to a great trip. G’sengte Sau was as great as I remember it and lots of fun. The Log ride was wet as i remember it too and the drop tower was hilarious. Overall its been a fantastic trip even though its been absolutly exhausting. Thanks to everyone who arranged the trip and hopefully we can do it all over again some day.
Richard Bannister
Though dying with a cold, it was still a fun experience to get a chance to operate a Roller Coaster. I’m sure it’d get very tedious very quickly though! Loved the Bathtubs on the flume ride, and the highly unique Drop ride. Why, though, did it take 45 minutes for my lunch to arrive? I had to gobble everything quickly in order not to hold up the coach! At any rate, I’ve had a great time; thanks to Mark, Justin, and all others involved in organising such a wonderful holiday, and thanks to everyone for being so patient with my younger brother! Hope to see some of you in Belgium, and with a bit of luck Japan next year
Malcolm Marr
The final day of the trip took us to Tripsdrill, one of the parks that blew me away on the last Germany trip. Gsengte Sau was as good as ever and the new tree themed drop ride is an amazing addition to the park. The log flume opened late and clashed with our early lunch; we were lucky to squeeze in a ride before dashing back to the coach. Thanks to all those who organised the trip, both those who joined us on it and those who didn’t get to see the fruits of their labours who I always feel bad for. Another congratulations to those couples who became engaged whilst here too.
George Greenway
Lovely small park which opened early on sunday! for us to ride their mouse and we got to walk around and under the track. the park is small compact but alovely family experience. river rapid ride was best ride of the trip.
Talhat Mahmood
It was a great park to finish a great trip on. a very beautiful themed park with unique rides. loved the tree top tower drop ride. thanks to george for doing the typing. like to thank the trip organisers, and everyone who made me welcome on the trip.
Phil Ariss
The perfect park to end the trip. Stunning scenery, capped off with original theming. Shame Alton Towers tried very poorly to recreate the Bath Tub ride and failing miserably, Tripsdrill have really created such a wonderful area. Thanks to Mark, Kevin, Justin and anyone else who helped in any shape or form to put together such a great trip. Will come back soon for more of Fantasia and Europa. See everyone at Oakwood or Belgium. Many Thanks again.
James Wearing
Woo! Tripsdrill is amazing, great raft ride and a brilliant bob coaster. What a great way to end the trip. With a G’Sengte Sau upstop wheel and many photos in hand I cant wait to get back home and reflect one my first and definitly not my last Europe trip! Thanks to all the team and everyone who worked hard on the trip…especially the coach drivers.
See you soon!
Matt Sturgess
Like Skyline park, Tripsdrill is an up and coming park, but with less rides and better theming. Very well done bob coaster, though not as intense as the bob coaster at Klotten. Thanks to the guys at Tripsdrill for letting us control the ride……yes you hear me right. The log flume ride was excellent, unlike Alton’s drunken attempt to copy it. The service for lunch however was poor, but that’s the only criticism I have of an otherwise excellent park. Bottom line, apart from BPB, German parks from my experience are easily better than British parks. Thanks to Justin, Tim, Mark, the parks who looked after us well, and anyone else who helped create an amazing trip. One more thing, I’ll be back, you can count on that.
John Wilkes
Tripsdrill was great, really loved all the rides, lots of rides that have great theming. The trip overall been great thanks to all the parks for their generosity. Thanks to those who organised this all as well. see you all at Oakwood!
Gordon Taylor
As above and above and above… Just approaching airport. Thanks to all.
Andrew Bannister
Thanks for a great time I had great fun, and now understand how Richard’s Hobby. You ECC members are brilliant!!!
Steve Fagin
Another good trip comes to an end…I’m being distracted by Bo Selecta and our arrival at the airport, so see ya.
Martin Valt
Currenly enjoying fantastic gin & tonic ERS at Stuttgart Airport. Wite wine not bad either. Think we’ve got a group beer session organised.Think we might have visited a park too………Don’t say fuck or bugger.
Liz and Mick FK
Another great park to finish off another great trip. Best part of the trip was GeForce, Collossos and Silver Star for Liz. Best part for Mick was meeting the people and sharing the experiences with other members from around the world.
Stuart Milton
Tripsdrill is a good smaller park, the drop ride is certainly different! The rapids had some nice touches, and the mouse is quite thrilling when it drops through the themed building. A good finish to a knackering but fantastic trip.
Trev Williams
Tripsdrill rocks so hard. The Bathtub Flume is really cool, and the toilets are amazing.
Had a really great time, met some great people. Some fantastic rides, and fantastic parks. Thanks Mark and everyone else!
Liam Kelly
Really enjoyed the whole trip, G-force was amazing and so were all the parks. Great trip thanks!!
Chris Bailey
Ditto as the others, thanks to all the team for a superb trip, need to sleep for a week now! Tripsdrill was great, prefer Klotten’s Gerstlauer though.
Damien Bennett
First of all a big thank you to everyone who helped organise this trip, it was my first trip with the ECC and it was a very good first impression. Tripsdrill was a beautiful park with some great attractions, I particularly liked their new drop tower and the grannies in the bath flume. To finish, I have this to say, Rico didn’t shower for the whole trip, something I feel he should be proud of..smelly dumbass.
Roger `Dodger’ Clark
Tripsdrill was a good park with a nice coaster and a good rapid ride.
This trip has been FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!! I have enjoyed every minute of it and all the coasters. My favourite coaster was Silver Star. Thank you Mark and the rest of the team you made this trip so enjoyable.
Olov Lundell
The last park is done and we’re on the way to the airport. The trip has been very intense but it has been a lot of fun with all the people, parks and roller coasters making it all worth the pain and tiredness. A very big thank you to all you people who made this trip possible.
Tripsdrill is probably the best small park I’ve visited with the same standard of Europa Park theming and gardens. The crowds were pretty light and we got a few re-ride on the rapids which is probably the best rapids on this trip after River Quest (River Quest being the best rapids I’ve done)
Now I can’t wait till I get home and having a good long sleep. And then I’ll be ready for another tour next year.
Lewis Cox
Great Park
Steve Thompson
This is my first trip report, not because of lack of interest but lack of sleep.
It has been a fantastic trip with great parks and great people.
The absolute best part, for me, was the Sommerdom in Hamburg, just over a week ago – it’s difficult to beat a German fair.
If you are reading this and did not participate in the trip – shame on you.
If you’re reading this and you did participate – thanks for your company.
I’ve loved most every minute – bar time in particular.
Mike & Kammy Sislofsky
We had a nice day at Tripsdrill, even though we could only spend a half day there. The park is very pretty (lots of trees and flowers, nice walkways and architecture), and G’sente Sau is a very nice ride, mixing all of the elements of a twister, a wild mouse, and a speed hill section.
Overall, this was a great trip! Sorry we missed some of you that we have met on prior trips. Hope to see you again soon. For all of you who were on the trip, it was great to spend time with you — we had a great time. We hope to see you all again soon. If you are ever in the U.S. (especially southern California), look us up (sislofm@sce.com).
Gary McMillan
Tripsdrill is another nice small park. Highlight was crossing the track and walking under the brake run of a live coaster. Also despatching a few trains was fun. Totally stunning. A fitting end to a brilliant trip. Many thanks to all concerned in the organisation of such a fantasic experience.
David & Susan Ellis
A lovely way to finish a trip. Tripsdrill is a lovely traditional park with some very unusual rides and theming, especially in the log flume and the ladies toilets! G’sengte Sau is a great mouse ride too! It is a shame the trip is all over, but at least we can have a lay-in after 6am tomorrow! Now to edit the 6 hours video footage! Many thanks to all who were involved in organising the trip, and especially to Mark for sorting the arrangements for our coach, and congratulations on your engagement.
Linz & Darren Hoy
Tripsdrill was a great way to finish the trip! Had about 20 goes on the G’sengte Sau in a row. Fantastic!!! Shame the trip is over, but glad to get away from the Wasps!!!!
A HUGE thank you to Mark, Kevin, Liz H and FK and the others who helped booked: Hotels, Flights, Coaches, Paid for it!! Collected Money, Organised Meals etc etc etc. Without you, the trip would not be what it was!!!!
Lorna Cromarty & Adrian Dade
Tripsdrill was great, the coaster was smooth & the bath tubs were fantastic. A big thanks to all the organisers & the driver
P.S. the ERS in the lady’s loo was different!!!!
Ian Mansfield
I was feeling very tired and ratty this morning, but Tripsdrill soon put the smile back on my face. The park had some very well themed rides and bags of character. They also treated us very well with back stage tours and a lovely meal. All in all a fantastic end to the tour. Big thank yous to Mark and the team for organising it all, and although its been tiring and intense I’ve had the time of my life and wouldn’t hesitate to do it all again!
Simon Baynham
Well that’s it! What a great trip it has been (except for WBMW that is! What a sad excuse for an amusement park) My favourite park was Europa: GREAT attention to detail and rides operated to capacity really got those lines moving. Tripsdrill was our final park and I found it clean and friendly. the attractions are nice but it isn’t a `stay all day’ park. The best coaster of the trip is difficult to decide upon, but high up that list is Colossos (Heide Park) SilverStar (Europa) and Alpina Bahn (German fair). The biggest disappointment was Wild Wild West at Movie World: a rough and bumpy experience; a ride only once coaster. The best non-coaster attraction was the Rodelbahn (Toboggan). And my only regret of the entire trip was chickening out on riding a Huss Booster at the fair (what a wimp!) Read you all soon.
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