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2020: Europa-Park General Discussion

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Hi all,

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, apologies if so!

We are booked into EP for 2 nights at Christmas and today I went on to book all the restaurants we’d like to eat at. Not all were available to book but it is worth mentioning that you do have to pre book a time for breakfast. As we are going at the end of the year I’d be surprised if this was still the case.

Just a note to anyone else thinking of planning a trip this year to book a time for breakfast in advance.

Thanks.
 
Sorry if this is the wrong thread, but I have a few random questions to do with throughputs at Europa Park, given that it is a park known for its high throughputs & operational efficiency.
  • On an average day, what sort of throughput does each coaster at Europa tend to achieve?
  • Does Silver Star ever exceed 2,000 riders per hour? RCDB lists its throughput as 1,750 riders per hour, but given that it has 36 riders per train, no seatbelts, and Europa Park’s operations, I always thought this seemed a little low, personally!
  • Expanding on that further, does any (other, if Silvia does) coaster at EP hit 2,000 riders per hour?
  • Is it true that the Mack family asked GCI to fit a faster braking system onto Wodan in order to get a higher throughput out of it?
 
Matt N said:
  • Does Silver Star ever exceed 2,000 riders per hour? RCDB lists its throughput as 1,750 riders per hour, but given that it has 36 riders per train, no seatbelts, and Europa Park’s operations, I always thought this seemed a little low, personally!
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Pretty sure it tends to average 1700 ish. I suppose if it physically can't achieve more than its theoretical throughput then it doesn't matter who's operating it, as if a train's ready to dispatch the system won't let it until the train in front has passed the next block.

Matt N said:
  • Is it true that the Mack family asked GCI to fit a faster braking system onto Wodan in order to get a higher throughput out of it?
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Don't know about that, but I believe they requested a model of train without seat belts to increase the throughput there.
 
No coaster at EP achieves 2000. Only Disney have coasters that achieve this.

On busy days, I'd estimate the coasters achieve:

Valerian 150
Ba-a-a Express 300
M. Blitz 800
Pegasus 900
Alpenexpress 900 (1100 pre VR)
Bob 1000
Eurosat 1100 (1300 old version)
Wodan 1250
ASS 1250
Euro Mir 1300
Poseidon 1400
Blue Fire 1500
Silver Star 1700

There's no fastrack so these are actually really high.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
 
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AstroDan said:
Alpenexpress 900 (1100 pre VR)
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What would you guess the throughput was on Alpenexpress when it was first fitted with VR? I'm surprised that it's only shaved 200-odd off the throughput, but then thinking about it it is run far better now than it was in the early days.
 
Probably more like 700.

The VR has sped up quite a bit since it first was added.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
 
Sam said:
It's funny how Poseidon never feels like it's got a higher throughput than Mir or Wodan?
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I dunno. As someone who very rarely rides it, and generally waits for others to ride, it feels like it has a fairly healthy throughput, as I'm never waiting long :p
 
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AstroDan said:
No coaster at EP achieves 2000. Only Disney have coasters that achieve this.

On busy days, I'd estimate the coasters achieve:

Valerian 150
Ba-a-a Express 300
M. Blitz 800
Pegasus 900
Alpenexpress 900 (1100 pre VR)
Bob 1000
Eurosat 1100 (1300 old version)
Wodan 1250
ASS 1250
Euro Mir 1300
Poseidon 1400
Blue Fire 1500
Silver Star 1700

There's no fastrack so these are actually really high.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Ah right, thanks for the clarification @AstroDan!

I must admit, I was expecting these figures to be higher given how EP’s operations are raved about; clearly proves how much their efficient operations can make the most of a lower throughput ride (although having said that, these figures are all still really high)!

With regard to the whole 2,000 riders per hour thing, I could have sworn that I read Magnum XL-200 achieves this with 36 rider trains like Silver Star has, and I think some of the more recent Universal coasters like Gringotts might too. But I certainly don’t think it’s common.
 
There is nothing 'lower throughput' about EP's rides, really. A ride like Matterhorn Bliz is inherently unable to get figures over 1,000 but is actually fairly high capacity for a wild mouse (it will get around 3 x the hourly throughput of Rattlesnake, for example).

There is a major difference between 'operations' and 'capacity'. Most parks achieve barely 75% of theoretical capacity because, well, guests. And in some cases, low expectations from park operations managers. Europa-Park is one of those parks though where in most cases, rides achieve 90% of theoretical capacity or over. Expectations are high. Cedar Point also gets good throughputs on their rides.

There are examples in the UK, though! A ride like Spinball Whizzer is actually extremely well operated. As is Nemesis. And Wicker Man. Where the problems start to creep in is any form of fastrack (free or paid) which, in some parks, can equate to 50% of the ride's expected hourly throughput (thankfully it's not 50% at Alton Towers but comes close at Thorpe Park). Therefore, the main queue on Spinball Whizzer still doesnt move *that* quickly because there is some fastrack.

With Europa-Park, the no-fastrack, quick dispatches and no-nonsense station layouts all come together to mean that queue lines shift.

There is no way Magnum XL-200 achieves 2,000/hour either. It is probably somewhere along the lines of Silver Star but, again, due to Cedar Point's FastLane system, the main queue does not move as quickly as Silver Star.
 
As I said, these figures are all still incredibly high! I wasn’t trying to imply that Europa’s ride capacities were low at all, because they’re certainly not!

Maybe I’m just expecting the pace a ride’s queue moves at to equate to a higher throughput?
 
There's no merge point and nobody coming on via the exit so 100% of the throughput is from the main queue. That's the difference between a high capacity ride at Europa-Park vs one at Alton Towers, for instance.
 
Wait, do they not have a disabled queue/RAP? Or is it just open to less people than Towers’?
 
It's a bit more than that (in terms of the 6 fastrack, that's for a group of up to 5 people).

RAP is also up the exit for the disabled and carer only. I assume it's not used that much as it's not openly advertised on the website and because the rules are far stricter from the TÜV (RAP is not really a thing at German parks).
 
Does Germany have a somewhat different attitude to inclusion of disabilities than Britain?
 
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