I have made my first pilgrimage to EP this week, very long overdue
I booked a flight from Stansted to Karlsruhe (Baden-Baden) with theluxury airline Ryanair. It was something ridiculous like £13 outbound, £15 in, before seat upsells etc. With thanks to my usual level of luck, Network Rail decided to schedule some engineering works on the night of my return, which meant I'd have to drive to London. With thanks to my usual stupidity, I neglected to book parking until it was approximately £1bn per day, so I opted to park in Reading and get the train across. (Reading is approx 20 mins from London by train, highly advise doing this if you need to drive most of the way).
Once in Baden Baden, you can use the service X34 bus from immediately outside the terminal, this takes you to Buhl railway station. From there, it's a 20 minute journey to Offenburg, a quick platform change, and another 20 mins or so to Ringsheim. Outside the station at Ringsheim, there's a bus 7231 to take you to Europa Park. If you use the DB Navigator app, you can purchase a ticket for the entire journey in one go. I think I paid around €16 (one way). I'm a public transport enthusiast, but this journey was extremely simple and can be done by anyone.
Note - I suspect the bus usually goes to the park entrance. At the moment, the road immediately outside is a construction site, so the bus stops a couple of roads over. There are printed signs on the wall to direct you.
For park entry, I used my Pleasure Beach season pass. You will need the physical version of this - you can obtain one by visiting the Casino building at BPB and providing the pass number (as shown in the app) to the ticket staff. Once at Europa, I was directed to the Information desk. The lady knew what to do, and a ticket was printed in a matter of seconds. I had to sign a small piece of paper, presumably to confirm I'd used my visit for this year.
I paid €1 to use a locker to store my bag, as I travelled straight to the park from the airport. This was a simple affair, a small kiosk next to the locker room housed an attendant who provided change, the locker token, and told me how to use it with a beaming smile.
The park in general really is as excellent as I had been told. Every member of staff I spoke to was extremely polite and helpful. I notice that although some staff only have the German flag on their badges, they still speak perfectly good English!
Operations were the absolute gold standard, queues were shorter than the advertised time and dispatches were as quick as could possibly be. As a Pleasure Beach regular, it's hilarious seeing how much faster and more efficient EP are in every possible way. Again in stark contrast to BPB, EP had staff touching up minor imperfections, repainting mildly worn paintwork, making sure everything was showroom quality
I saw a minor mishap on Schweizer Bobbahn, there was a loud metal clash as a train moved into the station wait. The operator ran over, I think he believed the trains had collided. I don't think they actually had, I think the sound was from one of the brakes, but the matter was resolved in a few minutes after some beard-scratching at the console.
Single rider queue on Voltron was around 20 minutes, half the advertised time of main queue. Got lucky on one ride as a guest had some kind of problem in the main queue, so the host ushered the entire length of the single rider queue from the top of the steps straight on.
On another lap, we were estopped on the turntable (there was some kind of guest action causing an issue on another train). It only lasted a few minutes. Although an automated announcement did say the train was about to move, I took great enjoyment watching the sheer surprise/terror faces on the opposite train as it suddenly launched backwards. Contrary to some reports I've read, every seat I used on Voltron offered a very smooth ride.
I notice one of the trains seemed to have a restraint issue every so often, the platform staff had to reach inside the mechanism, press something, and leave the row empty. The co-ordination of doing this on the moving platform was seriously impressive, as it didn't disrupt the flow at all
Overall, a very refreshing experience that puts everywhere else to shame - if I ran a theme park, I'd be sat in EP all day furiously scribbling notes. The park is built as if it's sandbox mode Rollercoaster Tycoon, but with the operations to make it work. I can't think of a single fault to find with anything I seen on the day. The only thing that is a little weak is their app, it is a bit clumsy when compared to the standard of everything else EP do. The map functionality was pretty useless, but the signage around the park means it's not essential.
I booked a flight from Stansted to Karlsruhe (Baden-Baden) with the
Once in Baden Baden, you can use the service X34 bus from immediately outside the terminal, this takes you to Buhl railway station. From there, it's a 20 minute journey to Offenburg, a quick platform change, and another 20 mins or so to Ringsheim. Outside the station at Ringsheim, there's a bus 7231 to take you to Europa Park. If you use the DB Navigator app, you can purchase a ticket for the entire journey in one go. I think I paid around €16 (one way). I'm a public transport enthusiast, but this journey was extremely simple and can be done by anyone.
Note - I suspect the bus usually goes to the park entrance. At the moment, the road immediately outside is a construction site, so the bus stops a couple of roads over. There are printed signs on the wall to direct you.
For park entry, I used my Pleasure Beach season pass. You will need the physical version of this - you can obtain one by visiting the Casino building at BPB and providing the pass number (as shown in the app) to the ticket staff. Once at Europa, I was directed to the Information desk. The lady knew what to do, and a ticket was printed in a matter of seconds. I had to sign a small piece of paper, presumably to confirm I'd used my visit for this year.
I paid €1 to use a locker to store my bag, as I travelled straight to the park from the airport. This was a simple affair, a small kiosk next to the locker room housed an attendant who provided change, the locker token, and told me how to use it with a beaming smile.
The park in general really is as excellent as I had been told. Every member of staff I spoke to was extremely polite and helpful. I notice that although some staff only have the German flag on their badges, they still speak perfectly good English!
Operations were the absolute gold standard, queues were shorter than the advertised time and dispatches were as quick as could possibly be. As a Pleasure Beach regular, it's hilarious seeing how much faster and more efficient EP are in every possible way. Again in stark contrast to BPB, EP had staff touching up minor imperfections, repainting mildly worn paintwork, making sure everything was showroom quality
I saw a minor mishap on Schweizer Bobbahn, there was a loud metal clash as a train moved into the station wait. The operator ran over, I think he believed the trains had collided. I don't think they actually had, I think the sound was from one of the brakes, but the matter was resolved in a few minutes after some beard-scratching at the console.
Single rider queue on Voltron was around 20 minutes, half the advertised time of main queue. Got lucky on one ride as a guest had some kind of problem in the main queue, so the host ushered the entire length of the single rider queue from the top of the steps straight on.
On another lap, we were estopped on the turntable (there was some kind of guest action causing an issue on another train). It only lasted a few minutes. Although an automated announcement did say the train was about to move, I took great enjoyment watching the sheer surprise/terror faces on the opposite train as it suddenly launched backwards. Contrary to some reports I've read, every seat I used on Voltron offered a very smooth ride.
I notice one of the trains seemed to have a restraint issue every so often, the platform staff had to reach inside the mechanism, press something, and leave the row empty. The co-ordination of doing this on the moving platform was seriously impressive, as it didn't disrupt the flow at all
Overall, a very refreshing experience that puts everywhere else to shame - if I ran a theme park, I'd be sat in EP all day furiously scribbling notes. The park is built as if it's sandbox mode Rollercoaster Tycoon, but with the operations to make it work. I can't think of a single fault to find with anything I seen on the day. The only thing that is a little weak is their app, it is a bit clumsy when compared to the standard of everything else EP do. The map functionality was pretty useless, but the signage around the park means it's not essential.
And nice to read that you enjoyed your first visit that much...