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2017: Europa-Park General Discussion

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CoasterBoy

CoasterBoy

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Blue Fire
Team Edit:

Please use this thread for general discussion regarding the upcoming 2017 season at Europa-Park!

For any discussion relating the new ride for 2017, Project V, please use this dedicated thread.

For any discussion relating to the new hotel and waterpark, due to open in 2018, please use this dedicated thread.

Thanks!

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Hi guys,

Hope you're all well.

Just back from a trip to Europa Park at the start of January. Was my second time visiting during the winter season and this year was even better than last year.

They are now advertising Blue Fire open in winter. I know it originally stated that it's only open if it's above 3 degrees but when we were there it was -1 and Blue Fire was running. It was one of the slowest rides I've had on it but still incredibly smooth. Riding at night was amazing with some incredibly lighting.

Visited ireland for the first time and it's an incredibly well themed area. The pub is also a great place to get some great food and Europa Park still have some of the best prices in a theme park in the world. 3 euros for a pint. Bliss.

The Alpen Express has updated its VR content too. Looks like they are removing it from Pegasus due to operational reasons though.

Still the best theme park in the world for me
 
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Good to see VR coming off of Pegasus. I agree it impacts throughput considerably and it's good to see this recognised.

One thing I'd like to point out (and I'd be interested what others think on this) is the generally perceived reasonable pricing at EP. To take food and drink as an example, I've found that whilst there are examples of great value there are other items where I do feel things are on the pricier side.

A few examples;

Beers: prices have risen again following summer and a 30cl beer will now cost €3.30 and a 50cl beer €4.20. Whilst the 50cl price is by no means outrageous, the 30cl beer is a bit spendy and there are locations where only this size is available. The 50cl price is comparable with prices for a pint at BPB or AT.

Food: I find the kebab from Taverna Mykonos to be a reasonable value at around €4. Items like the confectionery from England or some of the dishes in SWR3 also represent really good value. On the other hand there are other locations with some prices I think are rather high, for example some of the starters and main meals at Food Loop (the €7+ mixed starter comes to mind). At the hotels, there are some other examples, such as Captains Finest where I've had what is best described as a salty beef in black bean for around €30, which I found to be fairly expensive even given the surroundings. Indeed I find food in the hotels, with exceptions, to be fairly pricey.

Soft drinks: So, this perhaps surprised me most on my first visit. Paying €3 for a medium size coke is certainly not cheap and again compares no more favourably to UK parks.


So to sum up, I believe there are instances of good value to be found if you look, however there are also instances of regular and poor value from my experience. I'd have to suppose put the normal EP caveats of you being in beautiful surroundings etc, but I have to say I rarely feel like the prices are consistently low/good value as some others feel.
 
I've decided to move this thread to the main EuropaStreet forum rather than trip planning and reports - it creates a good foundation for a general 2017 discussion thread!

In terms of F&B prices I'm not sure Europa-Park is regarded as cheap (although some things are) but I would say on the whole it is very good value for money. In most places you are getting a very good quality product that is far superior to most theme park food. I don't mind paying a little bit more when I know the food I'm getting is top notch.

That €7 mixed starter in FoodLoop is expensive however I managed to have a three course meal (soup, spag bol, ice cream) with two soft drinks in there for just over €18 the other week. Okay the spag bol isn't the best but the soup and ice cream were both delicious and I could not complain about that price for all the food I had!

In other 2017 news, DJ Bobo is to begin his Mystorial tour tonight in the new Europa-Park Arena. Those who attended our New Years Official Meet will be well aware that the arena is far from finished however Michael Mack shared this photo on Twitter the other day of how they've managed to dress it up for the event:

C16cU29WgAAY3Yz.jpg


It is unrecognisable from what we saw!

:)
 
Thanks for moving the thread, sorry for posting in the wrong one.

Some good points being made. It's probably more of a better value remake than cheaper. I was in Foodloop and had a bootle of Erdinger and it was only 3 Euros. Can't remember what the price of the food was but for that type of restaurant anywhere else I still think you'd pay more than that for a beer. Admission prices are also decent considering what attractions you get in the park. Just over 30 euros to get in and you'd pay £32 to enter Alton Towers.

Forgot to mention that I've heard they are looking to revamp Eurosat and Euro Mir sometime soon. Can see why this would happen, still love Eurosat but could do with a change.
 
The new Europa-Park logistics centre was oficially opened at the end of last week and EPFans.info were at the press event. The new logistics center combines the following areas: park gastronomy, shopping & games, marketing, central purchasing and human resources.

Here are a selection of photos:

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Another impressive behind the scenes expansion for the park. Yet more efficiencies!

:)
 
There appears to be a new film to be shown in the Dome of Dreams. I'm not sure whether this replaces Beautiful Europe or will alternate like in Magic Cinema, but the new film will be called The Secrets of Gravity. The EP website describes it as follows;

Embark on a journey from the heart of beautiful Europe all the way to outer space. Follow along with a little boy and his robot friend as they trace the footsteps of Albert Einstein and discover gravity. Fly right to the moon, past the ISS and all the way to the most distant corners of our galaxy and experience the wonder of time and space. The Secrets of Gravity – From Europe to Space is an educational adventure with breath-taking images.

See the full page at http://www.europapark.de/en/park/attractions-shows/secrets-gravity
 
It will replace the Beautiful Europe film. In all honesty the new film looks awful but it will still provide the opportunity for a nice lie down. And I doubt the dome will last past the end of the 2018 season anyway.

:)
 
Triple post time! EPFans.info have been allowed to take a look at what has been going on in the park during the closed season.

The entrance to Alpenexpress is being re-worked so that both the normal and VR queues enter from the same place. The normal queue will enter on the left and VR on the right. VR will now be at the back of the train:

Alpenexpress_Eingang556.jpg


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The little water feature on the path by the Crocodile Bar has been removed to create better walking space. A pity as I like things like that:

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The Crocodile Bar is getting a new entrance and the previous entrance will be turned into a balcony/terrace area:

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The numbering system for attractions, shows and shops is also changing this year from a three-digit number to a country code followed by a two-digit number:

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EPFans will be providing another update soon. Apparently there has been some work in Ireland.

:)
 
The new arrangements on Alpenexpress look promising. Should cut loading times significantly.

Attraction renumbering is long overdue too, they're running out of numbers under the old system due to the number of areas.
 
EPFans have now posted the second part of their closed season update!

Some of the toilets in Spain are having a six-figure sum spent on refurbishment:

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The bland information point near the lake is being refurbished inside and out:

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In Ireland, the glass wall between O'Mackays Cafe and Pub has been replaced with a themed wall/entrance. Before:

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After:

OMackays_Inneneingang4000.jpg


The outdoor section of Silver Star queue has been moved out of the way of the main pathway to the right. It will contain the same length of queue and the former outdoor queue can still be used at peak times if required:

1488739492.jpg


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And because EP felt people were not able to take good photos of the Schellen-Ursli House which was built last year, they have widened the pathway that runs along side of it and added a jetty:

1488739517.jpg


How very Europa! Looks like EPFans have another update coming soon.

:)
 
The Silverstar queue has always been a bugbare of mine. It never seems to make any sense and seems to be a free for all bundle, climbing over and under the black bungee cords.

Hopefully now it will be better defined, bet people still go running to the front door and cut in where the test seat is. :(
 
Graeme said:
The Silverstar queue has always been a bugbare of mine. It never seems to make any sense and seems to be a free for all bundle, climbing over and under the black bungee cords.

Hopefully now it will be better defined, bet people still go running to the front door and cut in where the test seat is. :(
Click to expand...

There is usually a member of staff. And hopefully it'll be roped off.
 
Presumably (hopefully) the old outdoor queue will now only be set out if it needs to be used like Sat's overspill queue. I'd imagine they'll still need it on super-peak days though, as the limiting factor before was more to do with lack of space than the queue time being too long for people to be willing to wait, it was impossible for the queue time to even reach 1hr with the amount of space they had.

The new wall in O'Mackays is a huge improvement too.
 
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