[2025] Europa-Park General Discussion

[Benzin]

The Magic Moments book is still predominantly in German even after picking up the English version.

Tis a strange book.

 

[Alix]

Chimp and I have just completed our first trip to EP and Rulantica. I won't do a trip report because nothing out of the ordinary happened, but had a few observations.

I deliberately didn't do too much research as I wanted to be surprised - and trusted the app would be helpful. But I did check where vegan options should be and other essential info.

The app is terrible if you don't know the site at all (or don't know people who do and have them on speed dial). Was telling us to walk through walls or lakes in order to get to rides, virtual line would state one time then change it to another when you clicked, sometimes hours later which meant it was no longer convenient, had false information about which food outlets had vegan options, so we'd traipse over there to be disappointed, and just generally was more of a hindrance than a help. Other parks' apps are much more helpful, Efteling's for example, and I'm not sure why EP's is so shonky.

The paper map wasn't much better, locations of entrances were sometimes difficult to find, clear info on where the trains go was difficult to find, we spent a lot of time trying to find something then giving up because we'd somehow ended up on France AGAIN (couldn't escape the place sometimes it felt).

Ride photos were a bit disappointing - no photo pass or similar to collect all our photos, and no fancy videos like other places do. No virtual option either (that we could find) so the few photos we did get ended up a bit crumpled in the rucksack.

But, saying all that, we did have a good time. The coasters were on the whole very good, the innovations such as moving floors and fancy lockers on Arthur and Voltron were impressive, we didn't see any shows as we prioritised re rides which was a bit of a shame but it's such a large park (and we got lost so much) it was too much to stomach trekking across park.

We stayed in El Anduluz and I was very impressed, beautiful even though it was the cheapest option, and close to the early access gate in the mornings. We didn't rate Bodega or Silver Lake Saloon, but Don Quixote was perfectly fine, even if they served the 14 year old chimp a real mojito rather than the nojito she asked for. Fun times.

I expected to hate Rulantica and did (it's really not my thing at all), but Chimp enjoyed it and only lamented not having someone to do those horrendous contraptions (slides ) with.

Overall, probably 8/10. Much better than what we have here, but had enough annoyances to mean Efteling is still my favourite.

Ready to be exiled for such heresy...

 

[DiogoJ42]

I'm pretty sure even Roland himself gets lost in EP. Though personally, I'd say Efteling is far worse for that!

 

[Rowe]

Overall, probably 8/10. Much better than what we have here, but had enough annoyances to mean Efteling is still my favourite.

Ready to be exiled for such heresy...

Let it be known all Europa-Park and Rulantica opinions, rankings and criticisms are valid here Even us die hard fans can, will and shall grouse over questionable decisions made by management et al.

 

[Skyscraper]

Even us die hard fans can, will and shall grouse over questionable decisions made by management et al.

Cough EDventure

 

[Poisson]

I've somehow survived when preferring Phantasia to EP all these years. Preferring Efteling to EP is much more palatable to the masses.

As much as I like the super themed entrances etc, some of them (like the Monorail in Iceland and the toilets in Scandinavia) are a little *too* well themed if anything.