Last week I went to Europa Park for a few days. I hadn't visited for since October 2010 so decided it was time to return (and show the park off to some newbies).
We arrived Wednesday evening, returning on Sunday evening.
The first two nights were spent staying off resort, in Pension D'Amiro which was just up the road from Bell Rock's entrance gates. Nice little guesthouse, decent clean rooms with a good breakfast.
The Park
We spent 3 days on park, all of which were quite busy (is the first week of October a holiday in Germany or France???). I won't go into any great detail for the most part as there are plenty of reviews of all of the rides on here!
As I had not visited since 2010, there were a few new attractions, the main one being Wodan of course. Having heard mixes reviews of this, I didn't hold a huge amount of hope but I was pleasantly surprised. The only other GCI I have been on is Apocalypse at SFMM, which I enjoyed a lot, but Wodan was better IMO. It was a damp few days so not sure if this meant it was running quicker, but it was pretty damn smooth and relentless right up to the brakes. Perhaps lacking in a bit of airtime, but exhilarating.
The queue line is unbelievable. I was expecting great things, but the indoor sections are only second to Harry Potter at IOA for me, and it's a pretty close call. Quote claustrophobic and hot, but beautiful and atmospheric.
The only other new attraction for me was Volo DaVinci. Nicely themed ride cars, and station theming on this teeny tiny ride that puts anything in the UK to shame!
Ride operations, as usual were excellent with everything running on multiple trains. Queue times on coasters averaged between 20 - 60 mins, due to the amount of people on park, so didn't get as many re-rides as I had hoped to.
Blue Fire remains stunning and the ride area improves as the plants / trees grow. Silver Star is still my favourite coaster on the park, it's just so much fun.
Horror Nights
We visited Horror Nights on the Thursday night. Very quiet with barely any queues for the mazes.
Standard of the mazes varied, with Take Away and The Crypt being my favourites. Definitely an improvement on 2010 mazes though, and general atmosphere was good. The roaming characters were very interactive, especially after hearing British accents.
We were going to give the Vampire's Club a miss due to the entry fee, but the batching host at one of the mazes told us it was free entry that night (presumably as it was quiet) so we popped in for 'one drink', to show it to my newbie friends. Three hours later we stumbled home quite drunk after a great night!!
The Resort
The first night we arrived, we wandered to the Silver Lake Saloon (which was new to me) for dinner. Fantastic food and atmosphere. I opted for a steak. It was amazing!
We stayed the final two nights at Hotel Colosseo. As usual, everything was superb, wandered the hotel bars in the evenings, great atmosphere although service in Bar Buena Vista was slow, and they would not let us get drinks from the bar! We ate at the Colosseo Buffet, Antica Roma one evening which was great.
Our final night was saved for Bell Rock. Having not been in the hotel at all the whole trip, we planned to spend the entire evening there, soaking it all in. However, it was not to be. Due to some shocking service and quality, both in the bar and Captain's "Finest" (not tonight)! restaurant, we had a bit of a disaster of an evening. Service was bad, attitudes were bad and the food was also really poor. Very disappointing. Half arsed apology from a manager when anyone eventually noticed that we existed (and thankfully a significant reduction in the bill which probably would have been in the region of 250 Euros between 4 of us) we left very disappointed.
Thankfully, Bar Circo and Bar Colosseo treated us well and reminded us that the resort as a whole is excellent. I won't be visiting Bell Rock again though, regardless of how pretty it looks.
So, for the most part, another great visit to the park. I do love it there. The trip was quite pricey when adding all the elements together, but I guess you have to pay for quality. I don't think I will be waiting another three years to return.
We arrived Wednesday evening, returning on Sunday evening.
The first two nights were spent staying off resort, in Pension D'Amiro which was just up the road from Bell Rock's entrance gates. Nice little guesthouse, decent clean rooms with a good breakfast.
The Park
We spent 3 days on park, all of which were quite busy (is the first week of October a holiday in Germany or France???). I won't go into any great detail for the most part as there are plenty of reviews of all of the rides on here!
As I had not visited since 2010, there were a few new attractions, the main one being Wodan of course. Having heard mixes reviews of this, I didn't hold a huge amount of hope but I was pleasantly surprised. The only other GCI I have been on is Apocalypse at SFMM, which I enjoyed a lot, but Wodan was better IMO. It was a damp few days so not sure if this meant it was running quicker, but it was pretty damn smooth and relentless right up to the brakes. Perhaps lacking in a bit of airtime, but exhilarating.
The queue line is unbelievable. I was expecting great things, but the indoor sections are only second to Harry Potter at IOA for me, and it's a pretty close call. Quote claustrophobic and hot, but beautiful and atmospheric.
The only other new attraction for me was Volo DaVinci. Nicely themed ride cars, and station theming on this teeny tiny ride that puts anything in the UK to shame!
Ride operations, as usual were excellent with everything running on multiple trains. Queue times on coasters averaged between 20 - 60 mins, due to the amount of people on park, so didn't get as many re-rides as I had hoped to.
Blue Fire remains stunning and the ride area improves as the plants / trees grow. Silver Star is still my favourite coaster on the park, it's just so much fun.
Horror Nights
We visited Horror Nights on the Thursday night. Very quiet with barely any queues for the mazes.
Standard of the mazes varied, with Take Away and The Crypt being my favourites. Definitely an improvement on 2010 mazes though, and general atmosphere was good. The roaming characters were very interactive, especially after hearing British accents.
We were going to give the Vampire's Club a miss due to the entry fee, but the batching host at one of the mazes told us it was free entry that night (presumably as it was quiet) so we popped in for 'one drink', to show it to my newbie friends. Three hours later we stumbled home quite drunk after a great night!!
The Resort
The first night we arrived, we wandered to the Silver Lake Saloon (which was new to me) for dinner. Fantastic food and atmosphere. I opted for a steak. It was amazing!
We stayed the final two nights at Hotel Colosseo. As usual, everything was superb, wandered the hotel bars in the evenings, great atmosphere although service in Bar Buena Vista was slow, and they would not let us get drinks from the bar! We ate at the Colosseo Buffet, Antica Roma one evening which was great.
Our final night was saved for Bell Rock. Having not been in the hotel at all the whole trip, we planned to spend the entire evening there, soaking it all in. However, it was not to be. Due to some shocking service and quality, both in the bar and Captain's "Finest" (not tonight)! restaurant, we had a bit of a disaster of an evening. Service was bad, attitudes were bad and the food was also really poor. Very disappointing. Half arsed apology from a manager when anyone eventually noticed that we existed (and thankfully a significant reduction in the bill which probably would have been in the region of 250 Euros between 4 of us) we left very disappointed.
Thankfully, Bar Circo and Bar Colosseo treated us well and reminded us that the resort as a whole is excellent. I won't be visiting Bell Rock again though, regardless of how pretty it looks.
So, for the most part, another great visit to the park. I do love it there. The trip was quite pricey when adding all the elements together, but I guess you have to pay for quality. I don't think I will be waiting another three years to return.