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Is there anything I should know before going to Europa Park for the first time?

My parents’ verdict on Holiday Park was a probable no (although they didn’t seem entirely dismissive). As I predicted, they understandably felt that 3 days in Europa Park would likely be too tiring for them to want a 4th theme park day, and my dad also understandably said that he’s unsure about how confident he is driving in Germany, so he wouldn’t want to stray too far from the already specified BadenBaden-Europa route.

As such, they said our plan will probably be to go sightseeing in Baden-Baden on our last day and make a quick journey to the airport when it’s time. To be honest, that sounds nice; Baden-Baden does look very pretty, and it would mean that we could likely take our time a little more in leaving!

Besides, I’m going to Europa Park, so it’s still a win-win situation!
 
Sorry to double post, but I just wanted to say; cheers for all of the advice, everyone. Not just about HP, for all of this thread. I'm hoping that my HP question is the last question I need to ask, as I feel like I've been enough of a pain to you all about Europa since September 2021... I've got to say, it's possibly the strangest park I've ever planned a trip to, because while I have pretty high expectations, what with all the praise the place gets, I'm also very, very unsure of quite what to expect, which I don't think has ever been the case for a park before. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to ruin Europa's surprises for myself, and I intend to stay away from overly major spoilers of anything besides the coasters (which rely far less on the element of surprise than other attractions), but it is weird, as even when avoiding too many spoilers about a park (which tends to be my policy for any new park I'm about to visit now), I still tend to have a fairly good idea of the sort of thing I should expect from a park, whereas with Europa, I'm honestly quite unsure what to expect, which is a strange feeling, I won't lie. I haven't watched too many videos or seen too much of Europa besides coaster POVs (and that's not for all of the coasters); I honestly think I've probably seen more of Phantasialand than I have of Europa, and that's not even the German park I'm going to in just over 2 months!

I've got to say, though; it feels really exciting to be ticking off a major bucket list park of mine in just over 2 months, particularly seeing as I've been wanting to do this trip for about 7 or 8 years now. Even if it ends up that I don't particularly like Europa; sure, I'll be disappointed, but I think the catharsis of finally having been will still be incredibly satisfying. I imagine that's a feeling probably more reserved for big trips like Asia or America for the more well-travelled among you, but right now, those parks feel as far away as Europa did to me when I was first reading about it at 11 years old on this site called TowersStreet that majorly hyped it up. To finally be going to a park I've wanted to visit since my early enthusiast years is pretty damn exciting to me right now, and I think had I known about this trip when I was 11 years old, I think I would have been thrilled!
 
Matt N said:
My parents’ verdict on Holiday Park was a probable no (although they didn’t seem entirely dismissive). As I predicted, they understandably felt that 3 days in Europa Park would likely be too tiring for them to want a 4th theme park day, and my dad also understandably said that he’s unsure about how confident he is driving in Germany, so he wouldn’t want to stray too far from the already specified BadenBaden-Europa route.

As such, they said our plan will probably be to go sightseeing in Baden-Baden on our last day and make a quick journey to the airport when it’s time. To be honest, that sounds nice; Baden-Baden does look very pretty, and it would mean that we could likely take our time a little more in leaving!

Besides, I’m going to Europa Park, so it’s still a win-win situation!
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Get the old folks to drop you off at Holiday Park for a solo visit and they can drive to the lovely town of Speyer just up the road for the day.
 
pluk said:
Get the old folks to drop you off at Holiday Park for a solo visit and they can drive to the lovely town of Speyer just up the road for the day.
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Cheers for the suggestion, but to be honest, I think it would be easier if I just went with my parents to Baden-Baden for the day on this trip.

They’ll have stomached Europa for 3 days, so I think it’s only fair for me to do something they want to do on the last day, and my dad said that he wasn’t keen on deviating too far from the BadenBaden-Europa route, so I don’t want to stress my parents out by making us go towards HP, as good as EGF looks. That might be one to save for a future trip.

Besides, Baden-Baden looks like a nice place!
 
I can't wait for your parents to realise what Europa-Park is.

My late-60s, non theme park going parents quickly realised just how good it was with the café culture, shows and scenery around the place.

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AstroDan said:
I can't wait for your parents to realise what Europa-Park is.

My late-60s, non theme park going parents quickly realised just how good it was with the café culture, shows and scenery around the place.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
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To tell you the truth, Dan, I'm not entirely sure what they're expecting. They were very impressed looking at the hotels and restaurant selection, in fairness! Although they didn't like the look of El Andaluz, for some reason, which is partially why we ended up going for Castillo Alcazar.

I'm not sure what they'll think of it, to tell you the truth. I think they're anticipating being pretty knackered after 3 full days, though, which is partly why Holiday Park was vetoed.
 
Matt N said:
To tell you the truth, Dan, I'm not entirely sure what they're expecting. They were very impressed looking at the hotels and restaurant selection, in fairness! Although they didn't like the look of El Andaluz, for some reason, which is partially why we ended up going for Castillo Alcazar.

I'm not sure what they'll think of it, to tell you the truth. I think they're anticipating being pretty knackered after 3 full days, though, which is partly why Holiday Park was vetoed.
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They'll not be knackered.

Send them to the pool and spa after breakfast while you grab a few coaster rides!





Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
My parents have said they’re looking forward to it; they seem more enthused about this hobby when we’re visiting new parks we’ve never been to before!

To be honest, though, I’m trying to manage my expectations about whether we’ll get to go at all, what with the escalating crisis in Ukraine…
 
Matt N said:
To be honest, though, I’m trying to manage my expectations about whether we’ll get to go at all, what with the escalating crisis in Ukraine…
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That shouldn't have any effect on your trip Matt, even if Putin decides to send troops into NATO countries (which he wouldn't be able to do for a good while yet) he's still quite a way off Germany. Don't let it effect your mood for your trip, you'll have a great time.
Matt N said:
they seem more enthused about this hobby when we’re visiting new parks we’ve never been to before!
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My parents are similar in this regard, when I mention going Towers again they say 'we've got it to death' but when I mention visiting somewhere else they get quite intrigued.
 
I personally would NOT want to got to Holiday Park after 3 days of Europa-Park goodness. You are bound to be let down since HP is a much lesser park overall.

Edit: And instead of Baden-Baden I would rather visit Freiburg, which is in my opinion much more picturesque.
 
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Matt N said:
To tell you the truth, Dan, I'm not entirely sure what they're expecting. They were very impressed looking at the hotels and restaurant selection, in fairness! Although they didn't like the look of El Andaluz, for some reason, which is partially why we ended up going for Castillo Alcazar.

I'm not sure what they'll think of it, to tell you the truth. I think they're anticipating being pretty knackered after 3 full days, though, which is partly why Holiday Park was vetoed.
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I think you made a good choice with Alcazar. I like it very much for its medieval atmosphere. It offers nice views over the park and a great bar at the top. Andaluz is nice, but one drawback is that the room doors are all to the inner court where it can get quite noisy in the evening. So if you like me prefer a good sleep in order to be fit the next morning in the park, Alcazar is better in my opinion.
 
Thanks for the posts @Gurkensalat; I really appreciate the advice!
Gurkensalat said:
I personally would NOT want to got to Holiday Park after 3 days of Europa-Park goodness. You are bound to be let down since HP is a much lesser park overall.

Edit: And instead of Baden-Baden I would rather visit Freiburg, which is in my opinion much more picturesque.
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Even though we decided against Holiday Park after, I'd just like to clarify that I don't think Holiday Park as an overall park was really my main motivation for wanting to go, and I wouldn't have gone in with the same sort of expectations as I'll be going into Europa with. I was mostly motivated by wanting to ride EGF, in a similar vein to how the bulk of your motivation to visit somewhere like Oakwood in the UK would likely be to ride Megafobia as opposed to seeing the overall park. Or how the bulk of your motivation to visit somewhere like Lightwater Valley would likely have been to ride The Ultimate as opposed to seeing the overall park. That's not meant to be offensive towards Oakwood or Lightwater Valley by any stretch, but those two parks definitely have those coasters as the main "shining stars" that attract people to them from further afield, and I think EGF plays a similar role at Holiday Park. I know that isn't a perfect comparison, as Holiday Park is both larger and more highly received than the aforementioned UK parks, from what I can gather, but for me as a foreign visitor, the principle would be similar. As much as I appreciate more "complete" parks, and the more "complete" parks are the ones I rate most highly on the whole, roller coasters are my favourite type of theme park attraction, and a really revered one in the vein of Expedition GeForce is certainly a fairly good motivator to want to visit Holiday Park at some stage. I certainly wouldn't be going to Holiday Park anticipating a full-on, holistic theme park in the same vein as Europa, and my expectations would be adjusted accordingly.

In terms of Baden-Baden vs Freiburg; I think we mainly picked Baden-Baden for convenience, as we're flying to and from Baden-Baden/Karlsruhe airport and one of the key reasons my parents vetoed Holiday Park was because my dad was unsure about how confident he'd be driving in Germany, so wanted to stick to the Baden-Europa route. Besides, my parents also liked the look of Baden-Baden, and to be honest, I thought it looked nice too. It looked a bit like something out of a fairytale from the pictures I saw!
Gurkensalat said:
I think you made a good choice with Alcazar. I like it very much for its medieval atmosphere. It offers nice views over the park and a great bar at the top. Andaluz is nice, but one drawback is that the room doors are all to the inner court where it can get quite noisy in the evening. So if you like me prefer a good sleep in order to be fit the next morning in the park, Alcazar is better in my opinion.
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I thought it looked nice online, and my parents preferred it to Alcazar. Let's hope we like it just as much in person!
 
I see you reserved a standard plus room with view over the park, very nice. I would recommend to send them a message asking for a room in the upper floors for better view, if possible. Often they try to accommodate such requests.

Also (I did not read every post here, so this you may already know), you can get a free ticket for the park for the last hour of opening as a hotel guest. So you have the option to arrive during the day, check in and visit the hotels, use already the pool etc. And then go in the park in the evening. One hour sounds not much, but the last hour normally has less crowd and shorter queues, so you can have several rides, and you can still stay in the park after hours for some time, up to another hour and just discover it, the landscaping and gardening, the many pieces of art standing around, the Märchenwald etc, which are all still accessible after the park closes officially for some time. I love the quite atmosphere at this time when most people already left. The Spanish area around the hotels is even longer open for strolling around.

And then the next morning I recommend to get up early, breakfast at 7 or 7.30h, to get ready for early park entrance at 8.25h since the morning is best time to experience many rides without long queues. Although I would not expect very long queues generally at your visiting days, since there are no holidays. When I was there at such a time, the longest time I saw was around 20 min, and then you just do something different and come back later. Like that I never waited longer then 5 min.

Absolute must do in my opinion (besides the big coasters depending on your taste of adrenalin): Eurosat, Voletarium, Piraten in Batavia, Arthur. Very recommended and often overlooked: Fluch der Kassandra, Abenteuer Atlantis, Madame Freudenreich, Zauberhöhle der Diamanten, Whale Watching, Dancing Dingie, Snorri Touren. Your parents will love Volo da Vinci and probably the new Josephines Magic journey. I now should stop myself before recommending everything. :) OK, things to avoid: Historama (lame advert for Rulantica), Piccolo Mondo (not very good kiddie ride). Have a nice time!
 
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Whilst I agree Historama’s theatre is now pretty appalling and lasts far too long, I don’t think Piccolo Mondo is something to skip. It’s a nice diversion with a catchy soundtrack which almost never has a line. It’s certainly worth a go once; after all, those quirky tertiary attractions with no queues are one of the elements which make EP such a charming park.
 
venny said:
Whilst I agree Historama’s theatre is now pretty appalling and lasts far too long, I don’t think Piccolo Mondo is something to skip. It’s a nice diversion with a catchy soundtrack which almost never has a line. It’s certainly worth a go once; after all, those quirky tertiary attractions with no queues are one of the elements which make EP such a charming park.
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I agree that the abundance of smaller rides is one of the main strengths of EP. I personally do not like Piccolo mondo, but it is ok to do once, if you do not find something else to do. I personally would rather do every other ride nearby (Geisterschloss, Jim Knopf, Elfenfahrt, Volo da Vinci, Marionettenfahrt, Ep Tower....) than do Piccolo again, but that is just me. When I posted that, I just thought "What in the park would I never want to do again" and only those 2 popped up. :) Which is not bad for a park with about 100 attractions and shows.

Burbs said:
Er! Piccolo Mondo is better than Nemesis and I won't hear otherwise!
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Since I do not know Nemesis, I refer to your expertise :)
 
Cheers for the informative post @Gurkensalat!

In terms of my initial to-do list of main attractions I want to do at least once in my 3 days at Europa, I’d say it is as follows:
  • All roller coasters, with the exception of B-a-a-a as I do not do kiddie coasters. I am a credit counter, and roller coasters are the theme park attractions that interest me the most, so I would ideally like to give all of Europa’s non-kiddie selection at least one ride. Wodan, Blue Fire and Silver Star, the park’s big 3, are particularly high on my interest radar, and if I’m being opportunistic, I’d possibly hope for 2 rides on each of these.
  • Piraten in Batavia. I don’t know too much about it other than that it’s similar to Pirates of the Caribbean and is a like-for-like replacement of an old attraction that burned down, but I liked its Disney source material, and I’ve heard very good things about it, so it’s certainly one I’d like to try.
  • Voletarium. I liked Flight of the Sky Lion at Legoland, and Voletarium is a fairly major and seemingly well-received dark ride within Europa, so it definitely seems like one to try and do.
However, that is far from an exhaustive list of things I’ll do if presented with the opportunity, as I would like to do more attractions if possible, and I hope to experience at least some of the quirkier attractions at the park. There are a few I know of and would like to hopefully try (for instance, I’d like to try Geisterschloss, as I rather liked Haunted Mansion, and I’ve also heard good things about Madame Freudenreich’s Curiosities), but I’m open to surprises! I’ve heard that Europa is a park that is really good for discovering things you never knew existed, so I’m purposely maintaining a somewhat baseline level of knowledge as opposed to researching too in-depth about it.

I’ll admit, though, that I look at my above list and think; am I being slightly ambitious wanting to cram all of that into 3 days? Will I even be able to do 12 coasters and 2 major dark rides within 3 days? I guess I was able to do all of the coasters bar Octonauts in 2 days at Alton Towers (~5 hours day 1, ~5 hours day 2) on my last trip, as well as Duel, so it might be doable in 3 full days at Europa, particularly seeing as I’ve been informed that late April is a typically quiet time, but it does seem quite opportunistic to want to do all of those rides across 3 days as well as all these less major rides you guys recommend I try, and that’s before even thinking about rerides, food & beverage and so forth…

In terms of your second thing about the hour on the first day; I don’t think we’ll be able to make use of that, unfortunately. Our flight doesn’t leave London Stansted until about 2:30pm, and is about 1h 30m long, so we won’t be arriving in Baden-Baden until 4pm UK time, which is 5pm German time. By the time we’ve gone through border control, gotten the hire car, and driven 45m to Europa, I’d assume it’ll be getting on for 6:30pm to 7pm, and we’ve got a dinner table booked for 7:30pm, I think.

With that in mind, I’m making the assumption that my first experience of Europa Park will be in the morning on 27th April.
 
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Burbs said:
Matt. Stop stressing. You have 3 days. You'll get on everything, most more than once. You'll be FINE.
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John said:
Getting on a lot of rides at EP just isn't an issue even if it's busy, it's not like Towers. Last year me and Dan did something like 11 small rides in 90min on one of our days, then joined the Wodan queue at ride close.
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It might not help that I’m basing my assumptions on the parks I’ve done. Is EP different in terms of average queue lengths for major rides to Towers? I know they have a lot more minor rides, which might help ease the burden on Wodan, Blue Fire, Silver Star et al.

Also, am I correct in saying that late April (27th, 28th and 29th April are the days we’re on park for) isn’t typically a busy time at Europa?

I guess I am just a worrier about that sort of thing when going to a new park, particularly one the size and scale of Europa. I’ve noticed that enthusiasts’ attained ride counts at parks always seems to be higher than the ride counts we attain at a park under similar conditions. I think one difference that might benefit us here, though, is that I get the impression that my parents are quite happy to do 3 full days at Europa, possibly even including ERT, so no leaving early or arriving late like we might for a UK park trip when we’re coming from further afield (in the day, I mean; the fact we’re staying on site and doing our travel to and from Germany on separate days to when we’re visiting EP removes the obstacle of having to leave early to get back to the airport).
 
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