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2019: Rulantica

So the Trip Advisor reviews are coming in for Rulantica, and sadly - they aren’t great. Certainly by Europa Park standards anyway.

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attra...Rulantica-Rust_Baden_Wurttemberg.html?m=19905

You’ll need to translate them, but generally there is lots of talk of long queues, slippy floors, no sun beds etc. I must say it’s not the experience we had when visiting earlier this month - we really enjoyed it, but it is a very busy time of year now so that perhaps has an impact on things.

I imagine management will be taking this on board though knowing how they usually operate. Perhaps reducing the capacity would be a good short term solution.
 
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The EP that I know will 100% take this feedback on and make sure things improve. I'm confident that it'll get better as time goes on.
 
As usual with TA, there is some truth in quite a bit of these reviews, when they’re read as a whole.

The floors are slippy and the slides are both busy and slightly underwhelming. We didn’t personally experience an issue with finding a sunbed, but even on a relatively quiet day, the slide queues were substantial and did not dissipate later in the day. People will feel short changed if they’re waiting half an hour or more for a slide that doesn’t really deliver.

I noticed there are quite a few comments on the water temperature outside and I gave to agree with this as well. It might be okay in the summer, but the temperature in the winter needs to be increased. There is very little in the way of foliage or structures around the pool to break even the slightest breeze, meaning any wind whips across the water and will rapidly cool you down. Even with the temporary tent in place, this makes the pool and it’s bar a very quick visit and will only exacerbate any overcrowding inside.
 
Yeah, the slippery floors argument does seem reasonable. Just from pictures there are a lot of smooth surface that I can't imagine to give a lot of grip.
 
It is slippy in places.

But given, for us, Rulantica was full... and aside from two slides we waited no more than 15 minutes for anything - we were fine.

Two slides had waits of 30 minutes which was a bit much. But, I have waited that length at Splash before.

We had a fantastic time tbh.

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As Dan has mentioned, we visited Rulantica last week on a day where tickets were sold out. I've been following it since the day that it was announced and my expactations have varied rather a lot over time, and just before going I had a mix of exitement and worry. Was it going to be so busy that it was hell? Would we get all of the slides done? Would we get bored easily?

We entered Rulantica at about 3.30pm whilst it was still light but it soon got dark and this is when Rulantica really comes to life. The lighting is nothing less than stunning and creates such an incredible atmosphere. And in most parts the theming is very impressive. Skog Lagoon is my favourite area; this is a nice peaceful pool surrounded by trees where you can enjoy a lovely drink of your choice.

One thing that really took me by surprise was the wave pool. I didn't think it would be all that and was expecting linear waves, however waves were coming diagonally across the pool from both directions causing what can only be described as chaotic fun!

Of the slides, the bowl slide was my favourite and it has a very thrilling drop in to the bowl. The racing slides, drop slides and wall/wave slide were all great fun as well. The family rafting slide was a disappointment. Vildstrom, the outdoor wild river, was a real highlight with some crazy drops straight in to corners! The small slides on Skip Strand were probably more fun than they should have been.

Snorri's Sage, the lazy river, was nice and relaxing and well themed but lacked some sort of water effects or waves. Hopefully these can be added over time.

Food was fine, I had a really nice pasta which was freshly prepared in front of me. The pizzas looked good as well, although the burger place looked more average.

The floors were quite slippy in places so you did have to be careful when walking around. Navigation also proved to be a slight issue for us on a couple of occasions, especially when trying to find the wave pool upon our arrival!

You can clearly see where they ran out of time/money. The walls of the stairs up to the slides in Rangnakor and Vinterhal, which are out of view when in the main water park, are only partly themed and are largely just plain black. It's not too much of a problem although I am sure that this is something they will want to address.

Overally I was very impressed with Rulantica and we had an absolutely brilliant time. Despite it being at capacity it did not feel too full at all, and only two of the slides got queues of 30 minutes. My only regret is that we didn't have longer in Rulantica!

I cannot wait to return in the summer.
 
Rob said:
As Dan has mentioned, we visited Rulantica last week on a day where tickets were sold out. I've been following it since the day that it was announced and my expactations have varied rather a lot over time, and just before going I had a mix of exitement and worry. Was it going to be so busy that it was hell? Would we get all of the slides done? Would we get bored easily?

We entered Rulantica at about 3.30pm whilst it was still light but it soon got dark and this is when Rulantica really comes to life. The lighting is nothing less than stunning and creates such an incredible atmosphere. And in most parts the theming is very impressive. Skog Lagoon is my favourite area; this is a nice peaceful pool surrounded by trees where you can enjoy a lovely drink of your choice.

One thing that really took me by surprise was the wave pool. I didn't think it would be all that and was expecting linear waves, however waves were coming diagonally across the pool from both directions causing what can only be described as chaotic fun!

Of the slides, the bowl slide was my favourite and it has a very thrilling drop in to the bowl. The racing slides, drop slides and wall/wave slide were all great fun as well. The family rafting slide was a disappointment. Vildstrom, the outdoor wild river, was a real highlight with some crazy drops straight in to corners! The small slides on Skip Strand were probably more fun than they should have been.

Snorri's Sage, the lazy river, was nice and relaxing and well themed but lacked some sort of water effects or waves. Hopefully these can be added over time.

Food was fine, I had a really nice pasta which was freshly prepared in front of me. The pizzas looked good as well, although the burger place looked more average.

The floors were quite slippy in places so you did have to be careful when walking around. Navigation also proved to be a slight issue for us on a couple of occasions, especially when trying to find the wave pool upon our arrival!

You can clearly see where they ran out of time/money. The walls of the stairs up to the slides in Rangnakor and Vinterhal, which are out of view when in the main water park, are only partly themed and are largely just plain black. It's not too much of a problem although I am sure that this is something they will want to address.

Overally I was very impressed with Rulantica and we had an absolutely brilliant time. Despite it being at capacity it did not feel too full at all, and only two of the slides got queues of 30 minutes. My only regret is that we didn't have longer in Rulantica!

I cannot wait to return in the summer.
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Did you feel like if you got there earlier - like around 11am or noon - that you would have been able to stay until dark? I ask as I am going the last Saturday in September and really want to stay until it is dark to enjoy the park all lit up but I'm not sure what time to get there in the day. We will only being doing Rulantica that day. We also plan to rent a cabana (Hydda) for the day to go back to relax in during the day as well. I'm curious what your thoughts are. :)
 
Tink242424 said:
Did you feel like if you got there earlier - like around 11am or noon - that you would have been able to stay until dark? I ask as I am going the last Saturday in September and really want to stay until it is dark to enjoy the park all lit up but I'm not sure what time to get there in the day. We will only being doing Rulantica that day. We also plan to rent a cabana (Hydda) for the day to go back to relax in during the day as well. I'm curious what your thoughts are. :)
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I would plan to arrive at around lunch time if I went again (probably between 12pm and 1pm) and would have no problems staying until 10pm. It would have been nice to have some more time to relax in some of the pools and do a couple more of the slides again.
 
The very idea of spending more than a couple of hours at most in water.... just seems wrong to me.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
The very idea of spending more than a couple of hours at most in water.... just seems wrong to me.
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To be fair we didn't spend that long actually in the pools, a lot of our time was taken up by queueing for the slides and faffing.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
The very idea of spending more than a couple of hours at most in water.... just seems wrong to me.
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I'm the opposite. Would happily spend all day at a Waterpark. My biggest frustration with most Theme Parks is spending all my time rushing between each attraction to get them done. Being able to slow down and just enjoy relaxing in a wave pool or lazy river is bliss.
 
I also meant to add that the Rula-Band is fantastic! Not only does it allow you to make purchases in Rulantica with ease, it acts as the key to your locker and allows you entry and exit of the attraction.

Interestingly the spending limit on the Rula-Band is €150, and the most expensive thing you can buy in Rultanitca is a €150 bottle of champagne!!
 
I like the idea of the rulaband but in practice I think it needs a little more refining.

It's not very clear how you use it for payment and there's not enough feedback that payment has gone through. Exiting isn't intuitive either - you have to insert the band the right way round for it to work.

On the whole though I was very impressed with Rulantica. Whilst there aren't any knockout slides the overall quality of the park is very high, there's lots to do and a good range of attractions.
 
John said:
It's not very clear how you use it for payment and there's not enough feedback that payment has gone through. Exiting isn't intuitive either - you have to insert the band the right way round for it to work.
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I totally agree. The lack of a satisfying beep or green light, along with no real way of telling where you have to place it (a simple circle will do it!) were clearly oversights.
 
Burbs said:
I totally agree. The lack of a satisfying beep or green light, along with no real way of telling where you have to place it (a simple circle will do it!) were clearly oversights.
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That’s weird, I had no problems seeing where to put the band at the various outlets... I thought it was all fairly clear/obvious!


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Lots of reviews seem to mention the fact that lockers are an extra €1 on top of admission. We had hotel tickets, so our lockers didn’t cost anything. But charging €38 a ticket (and €7 to park) and not even throwing a locker in is probably a bit much.

I wasn’t sure if it was just the done thing in Germany, but lots of German reviews seem to be picking this up and commenting lockers should be included.
 
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