A small little report of our recent trip in May 2019.
We flew Easyjet from Manchester to Basel Euroairport on Wednesday 29th May 2019. As we arrived late in the evening we decided to spend the first night in Basel before our onward travel to Europa-Park, so took the No.50 bus into the centre of Basel and a short walk to our hotel.
After probably the shortest nights we’d spent in a hotel we were up at 4.30am to take a tram across town from Basel SBB to Basel Badischer Bahnhof, from where we took the first train of the day up to Ringsheim.
We had already pre-arranged for Taxi700 to collect us from the train station and take us to our apartment in Rust so we could drop off our bags. Unfortunately, on arrival outside our apartment we couldn’t get hold of the owner, so after 20 minutes waiting around decided to take the short walk to the park and use the onsite lockers.
As the Thursday 30th May 2019 was Ascension Day, a public holiday in Germany, France and Switzerland, with our early start we had hoped to be at the front of the turnstiles for opening. But this didn’t go to plan. Due to us wanting to purchase our tickets using the RCCGB discount these had to be purchased from the information desk rather than the ticket kiosks. Unfortunately, the information desks opened at 8.20am the same time the turnstiles opened.
So once we had our tickets, entered the park, and dropped the bags off in the lockers we were behind everyone else.
Although the park was busy on the Thursday, following advice on what to do at the 9.00am rope drop we took the shortcut to Silver Star which gave us a head start and managed to get on most of the major rides during the day before the 8.30pm closing. We even had time during the afternoon to make a trip to the apartment and drop our bags off once we had made contact with the owner.
On the Friday as we were purchasing discounted tickets again, we arrived just before 8.20am. It was soon noticeable that it was going to be a busy day. Usually in Europe if a public holiday falls on a Thursday they have the next day off as a brückentag (bridge day)
At the 9.00am rope drop we headed straight to Arthur for a couple of rides before heading to Blue Fire. Quickly all major rides had 60 minute plus queues, so we decided to spend the day watching shows and riding the smaller attractions. The park actually reached full capacity and closed to new visitors by 11.00am.
Although it was very busy we did have a good time on park for two days, however I wouldn’t recommend anyone else visits over this period. However, as AstroDan has posted, the previous Mon, Tues, Wed were noticeably quieter.
On Saturday we took the train back to Basel for an afternoon of sightseeing before an evening flight back to Manchester.
As it was only my second visit over to Europa-Park, both using public transport on arrival, it is still a learning curve on the best way to do things. Manchester to Basel is convenient for us, but the later flight times resulted in a long following day. It could also have been an option to have a few hours in the park on the Saturday and then travel direct to Basel airport (if the park was quieter/or we’d had a season pass) as I feel we’ve seen all Basel has to offer now.