BooMT
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Sucker for a B&M!
Here I am, back with another unnecessarily long trip report nobody asked for but... this is one I've been waiting for quite literally years to write! Having sat at the top of my 'Theme Park Bucket List' for a considerable amount of time, Hubby decided enough was enough and booked us a trip to Phantasialand to celebrate my birthday (he is the total opposite of enthusiast, so this was an act of selflessness in the highest form 
).
We arrived on Friday late afternoon (31st May) for a 2 night stay at Hotel Ling Bao; having stayed in a variety of themed accommodations, including Disney, this became an immediate favourite based on first impressions. It's a beautifully detailed building, there's so much to take in! Authentic Chinese tiles, hand-carved woodwork doors, sumptuous Eastern inspired textiles and many curiosities, just a couple of the subtleties that assist you in suspending your disbelief. Like a magpie, I was completely enamoured by the Cherry Blossom/Panda sculpture with it's sparkling crystal stars in the foyer and often pondered how I could fit it in my luggage to bring it home Once checked in, we realised we had made the fatal error of forgetting to pack ANY adapter plugs... I do not recommend this level of stupidity! 
The hotel had none available, no phone charging points and nowhere on site to purchase what we had forgotten; completely our mistake however, in the past, we have found hotels (both domestic/foreign) are usually pretty good at having at least something in case of emergencies. The only issues regarding the room was that the TV had a handful of working channels, all of which had poor signal aside from Phantasialands own & the room was uncomfortably hot. Air con wasn't helpful but having the window wide made a marginal difference...First World problems and all that Lovely room, very, very clean, fresh & well-presented.
Our stay included buffet breakfast at the Bamboo Restaurant, we also opted to book the dinner buffet for both evenings, at an additional cost €39 per person per night, minus drinks. The casual fine dining option, Lu Chi, is currently unavailable - we would have likely booked this for one of the evenings had it been open. Whilst online reviews are pretty mixed for Bamboo, we had a great experience throughout; the selection of food was extensive during both breakfast & dinner sittings, everything looked and tasted fresh & flavoursome, plus, as a gluten-free Pescetarian (I know
) I had no issues filling my plate with delicious, colourful foods. (Hubby watched in despair as I enjoyed Pho for breakfast ). The price includes the option of freshly cooked Meats/Prawns/Stir fry at the teppenyaki counter in the evening and omelettes in the morning - it's fun to watch even if you're not ordering! Before dinner on both nights we went down to the Li River Bar to enjoy some relaxed drinks next to the indoor river. As a general rule, I don't drink alcohol, however, I did have the Lychee Blossom Cocktail, which was delicious, to be social with my beer-drinking hubby, followed by Little Dragon mocktails. Despite the hotel being at capacity, the common areas were never crowded which was a very welcome surprise! Anyway... on to the attractions...
Ling Bao has its own entrance into the park via Chinatown, super convenient for getting to nearby Klugheim when the gate opens at 9am! The weather was looking awful for the weekend and it was a 'red capacity' day so we decided we'd head straight for Taron at 9am, wait the hour outside of the cattle pens and hopefully get straight on so at least I could tick off my most anticipated coaster in the event we faced closures/long queues. We were near the very beginning of the queue when the ride opened at 10am where we were led by a Staff member on a 1000mile trek through the entire extended queueline to reach the station (does this hold the record for the World's longest queue line or???) The expedition was swiftly forgotten when we were given the back row for our first ride (thank you coaster Gods!) I'm completely aware you may think I'm the most basic of basic for saying this BUT... that was the single best ride experience I have had in my entire 33 years of life & my hubby, who couldn't care less about coasters, stepped off the train afterwards as a full-blown Thoosie convert It was everything I wanted it to be and then some! The excellent pops of ejector airtime, that unforgiving second launch, the whippy twists and turns... the theming. I'm only in my early 100's as far as creds go but Taron is, without question, my new number one coaster.
We went on to purchase multiple Quick Pass Plus over the weekend (€20 for 2x quick access to a selection of rides) which helped us to total 6 rides on Taron, 4x Back Row, 2x Front Row. Hubby prefers front, especially for 2nd launch, back row just about beats it for me. Later on the Saturday, Taron went down for about 60-90 minutes... not only did they bring on a fourth train to clear the queue, they drafted management over to assist the ride staff in literally flying trains out; We were on front row of the first train back on - it was absolutely hauling around that track! For most of the weekend Taron was operating 4 trains and despite the park being busy, it was averaging about 30mins in the main queue.
Following on from our first Phantasialand ride experience, we took a walk to Berlin, stopping off to watch Talocan from the viewing area. It's even more impressive in reality, what a show-stopping way to present a Top Spin! We found ourselves addicted to watching a spectrum of rider reactions over the duration of the weekend but didn't ride ourselves; I've enjoyed them greatly in the past but unfortunately, I really don't think I could handle the psychopathic tumbling-whilst-spinning sensation of a TS anymore Both Chiapas (which was down for most of our visit) & Talocan are fantastic spectator rides, a great add to the park atmosphere!
).We arrived on Friday late afternoon (31st May) for a 2 night stay at Hotel Ling Bao; having stayed in a variety of themed accommodations, including Disney, this became an immediate favourite based on first impressions. It's a beautifully detailed building, there's so much to take in! Authentic Chinese tiles, hand-carved woodwork doors, sumptuous Eastern inspired textiles and many curiosities, just a couple of the subtleties that assist you in suspending your disbelief. Like a magpie, I was completely enamoured by the Cherry Blossom/Panda sculpture with it's sparkling crystal stars in the foyer and often pondered how I could fit it in my luggage to bring it home
Once checked in, we realised we had made the fatal error of forgetting to pack ANY adapter plugs... I do not recommend this level of stupidity! The hotel had none available, no phone charging points and nowhere on site to purchase what we had forgotten; completely our mistake however, in the past, we have found hotels (both domestic/foreign) are usually pretty good at having at least something in case of emergencies. The only issues regarding the room was that the TV had a handful of working channels, all of which had poor signal aside from Phantasialands own & the room was uncomfortably hot. Air con wasn't helpful but having the window wide made a marginal difference...First World problems and all that Lovely room, very, very clean, fresh & well-presented. Our stay included buffet breakfast at the Bamboo Restaurant, we also opted to book the dinner buffet for both evenings, at an additional cost €39 per person per night, minus drinks. The casual fine dining option, Lu Chi, is currently unavailable - we would have likely booked this for one of the evenings had it been open. Whilst online reviews are pretty mixed for Bamboo, we had a great experience throughout; the selection of food was extensive during both breakfast & dinner sittings, everything looked and tasted fresh & flavoursome, plus, as a gluten-free Pescetarian (I know
) I had no issues filling my plate with delicious, colourful foods. (Hubby watched in despair as I enjoyed Pho for breakfast ). The price includes the option of freshly cooked Meats/Prawns/Stir fry at the teppenyaki counter in the evening and omelettes in the morning - it's fun to watch even if you're not ordering! Before dinner on both nights we went down to the Li River Bar to enjoy some relaxed drinks next to the indoor river. As a general rule, I don't drink alcohol, however, I did have the Lychee Blossom Cocktail, which was delicious, to be social with my beer-drinking hubby, followed by Little Dragon mocktails. Despite the hotel being at capacity, the common areas were never crowded which was a very welcome surprise! Anyway... on to the attractions... Ling Bao has its own entrance into the park via Chinatown, super convenient for getting to nearby Klugheim when the gate opens at 9am! The weather was looking awful for the weekend and it was a 'red capacity' day so we decided we'd head straight for Taron at 9am, wait the hour outside of the cattle pens and hopefully get straight on so at least I could tick off my most anticipated coaster in the event we faced closures/long queues. We were near the very beginning of the queue when the ride opened at 10am where we were led by a Staff member on a 1000mile trek through the entire extended queueline to reach the station (does this hold the record for the World's longest queue line or???) The expedition was swiftly forgotten when we were given the back row for our first ride (thank you coaster Gods!) I'm completely aware you may think I'm the most basic of basic for saying this BUT... that was the single best ride experience I have had in my entire 33 years of life & my hubby, who couldn't care less about coasters, stepped off the train afterwards as a full-blown Thoosie convert
It was everything I wanted it to be and then some! The excellent pops of ejector airtime, that unforgiving second launch, the whippy twists and turns... the theming. I'm only in my early 100's as far as creds go but Taron is, without question, my new number one coaster. We went on to purchase multiple Quick Pass Plus over the weekend (€20 for 2x quick access to a selection of rides) which helped us to total 6 rides on Taron, 4x Back Row, 2x Front Row. Hubby prefers front, especially for 2nd launch, back row just about beats it for me. Later on the Saturday, Taron went down for about 60-90 minutes... not only did they bring on a fourth train to clear the queue, they drafted management over to assist the ride staff in literally flying trains out; We were on front row of the first train back on - it was absolutely hauling around that track! For most of the weekend Taron was operating 4 trains and despite the park being busy, it was averaging about 30mins in the main queue.
Following on from our first Phantasialand ride experience, we took a walk to Berlin, stopping off to watch Talocan from the viewing area. It's even more impressive in reality, what a show-stopping way to present a Top Spin! We found ourselves addicted to watching a spectrum of rider reactions over the duration of the weekend but didn't ride ourselves; I've enjoyed them greatly in the past but unfortunately, I really don't think I could handle the psychopathic tumbling-whilst-spinning sensation of a TS anymore
Both Chiapas (which was down for most of our visit) & Talocan are fantastic spectator rides, a great add to the park atmosphere!
Why? 