jmc
TS Member
Day 1 - Movie Park Germany
This was a new park to me and one I had very low expectations of. In fact, I had no real desire to visit however it was decided that on what we expected to be a very quiet mid week trip, two days at Phantasialand might be a little much. I therefore went on to see what other parks would be fairly easy to get to via public transport. Toverland would have been the top choice given georgraphically it isn’t too far away, but sadly upon review it seemed logistically to be a bit of a nightmare to get there and back from Cologne in a day. Movie Park was a direct train from Cologne-Bonn airport to Essen, a brief stop and then a further 20 minute train roughly to the park entrance at Feldhausen. All in all it was fairly pain free.
Upon arrival, we were met with a very familiar sight to many of us - metres and metres of temporary metal fencing weaving through the entrance plaza. Stunning. After reminding myself I hadn’t accidentally turned up to a Merlin park, we dumped our belongings at the lockers and headed right, through the ‘main street’ and towards most of the attractions. This area looks very tired and could do with a clean up and refresh, but the basic premise is well done.
The Rides
Van Helsings Factory x1
A fun indoor Gerstlauer bobsled/dark ride. The queue line is a fairly unpleasant and stuffy cattlepen albeit with some good theming. The pre-show within this is terrible and fails to achieve its aim of convincing you Van Helsing himself is working away in a workshop. No peppers ghost but a pixelated screen set amongst physical props, which makes him look about 1.5x to scale. As you approach the station and up some stairs you are met with another Merlinism, with the theming suddenly becoming non-existent and replaced with plywood walls and a propped open fire exit.
The coaster itself is really quite fun, with surprisingly good theming throughout. There is a minor dark ride section at the beginning - a mix of physical props and (mostly broken) pixelated screens with characters talking to you again. There are some good forces and fun sections of laterals, but this coaster is more about swooping helixes and drops. Overrall we enjoyed what is a mediocre coaster plussed by decent theming and being in the dark.
Star Trek: Operation Enterprise x2
Probably the main draw of the park, next we opted for the Mack coaster which in my view you can’t go wrong with, unless you’re Icon. In what was a running theme of the day, and worrying for our a day at Phantasialand, the queue was in excess of an hour. As we had limited time we reluctantly opted for a one shot Speedy Pass, bypassing most of the queue with the exception of the Enterprise bridge recreation, which was impressive. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is a particular cheapness to the entirety of the Star Trek themed area, indoor and out. Not quite Leek signs but everything looks very budget.
Onto the ride itself, you board as normal and there is a small dispatch sequence of flashing red lights and sirens as the shutter rolls up, and your vehicle moves forward into some sort of anti gravity area - in reality this is the switch track into the launch. A forceless push forwards, followed by a rolling back into the launch track with a surprisingly punchy backwards launch up the spike. Forwards again and you are off on the main course. Sadly the ride is relatively uneventful, on par with Icon levels of force and speed at about a fraction of the length. There are a couple of nice moments of airtime but absolutely nothing to write home about. Overrall enjoyable, but underwhelming. I will however admit to somewhat abusing a bit of a glitch with the Speedy Pass system which gave us 2 each instead of 1, and went on twice.
Bandit x1
With time against us, queues large and a desire to increase my cred count we paid for another Speedy Pass. If it weren’t for the ride banging it enough I would have banged my head against a wall for forking out 8 Euros on this piece of crap.
This is truly a horrific coaster. I have previously ridden its sister at Parque Warner 10 years ago, and remember a lot of vibrations but nothing too violent (I will be seeing if my memory has served me right in a few weeks time). This ride is just pain. Every drop is followed by the most violent, painful slamming into its next transition. It really does feel like your brain is ricocheting off your skull. Even on the relatively forceless and boring turnarounds, you can feel and see the train shuffling side to side as it struggles to navigate them. I can honestly say this is the most painful coaster I have ever ridden and if there was ever a coaster that desperately needed the RMC treatment, it is this. Sadly, I imagine that cry for help will go unanswered as the ride still seems to be very popular with some of the longest queues of the park. The general presentation of the ride is also quite poor, in a very tired looking Western area.
Studio Tour x1
To be honest I don’t have an awful lot to say about this ride. It is a pleasant, forceless family coaster akin to our very own Th13teen without the drop. The theming is nice, themed to a tour of a movie studio with different set pieces and scenes throughout. The turntables/backwards section are novel, however I can’t really say they added a great deal to the experience. In my opinion it wasmissing something and I came off relatively underwhelmed, but I can see how it would appeal to younger thrill seekers.
Iron Claw x1
Another SLC to add to the list. Your usual jolts and dodgy transitions aside, I understand this has recently been renamed and the queueline rethemed to fit the western area. Sadly this is a very cheaply done retheme, the quality of which reminded me of a crap scare attraction. There are some graves with wooden crosses that have very poorly worded limericks literally Sharpie’d onto them (think a very poor version of Curses queue graves) and a walk through a shipping container with stacks of fake dynamite. You can’t polish a turd as they say.
Ghost Chasers x1
A fun little off the shelf Mack Wild Mouse. Again, this ride looks extremely tired and in need of a good clean but it provided a minute of fun - I have a soft spot for Wild Mice.
Side Kick x1
A fun Huss Frisbee, which I enjoyed as I’ve only ever experienced one other facing inwards. An amusing observation was their guest ‘mess’ cleaning procedure was a quick hosedown of the seat and an empty cycle. Safe the say guests in the queue being splashed by the spin dry were not amused, even though I couldn’t understand them.
Sadly we didn't get to experience any other rides due to only spending an afternoon here and horrendous queues. I also realised I seem to be cursed when it comes to Intamin Gyro Drop Towers - Atmosfear was in pieces then I visited Liseberg, Scream was dead when I visited Heide Park, and the one here seemed to have its catch car stuck at the top at a wonky angle. It really was quite the whistestop tour and a rush to get as many of the coasters in as possible.
Rides aside, from what we saw the park itself feels very tired and unloved. It really needs quite a bit of attention to bring it up to its German counterparts as it stands out like a sore thumb in terms of quality, even against Heide Park. The newer additions such as Studio Tour and Star Trek do seem to be an improvement to a degree, so hopefully they willcontinue this trend over time demolish the SLC and RMC Bandit. The food we experienced was typical mediocre theme park fayre - special shout out to the Coca Cola postmix that just tasted like soda water.
All in all, we had an enjoyable albeit short day at the park, which was probably helped by the weather being glorious and me being high on caffeine after a 3:00am start. Would I return? Not unless they pulled something worthwhile out of the bag. Unfortunately the coasters are ones you can find in abundance elsewhere, or inferior versions of their cousins in other parks. Star Trek and Van Helsing were the standouts but that isn’t really saying much. The overall presentation of the park is very, very tired and feels quite soulless.
After a long, long day we headed back to Cologne and instantly passed out in bed, ready for our next day at Phantasialand to experience F.L.Y for the first time.
This was a new park to me and one I had very low expectations of. In fact, I had no real desire to visit however it was decided that on what we expected to be a very quiet mid week trip, two days at Phantasialand might be a little much. I therefore went on to see what other parks would be fairly easy to get to via public transport. Toverland would have been the top choice given georgraphically it isn’t too far away, but sadly upon review it seemed logistically to be a bit of a nightmare to get there and back from Cologne in a day. Movie Park was a direct train from Cologne-Bonn airport to Essen, a brief stop and then a further 20 minute train roughly to the park entrance at Feldhausen. All in all it was fairly pain free.
Upon arrival, we were met with a very familiar sight to many of us - metres and metres of temporary metal fencing weaving through the entrance plaza. Stunning. After reminding myself I hadn’t accidentally turned up to a Merlin park, we dumped our belongings at the lockers and headed right, through the ‘main street’ and towards most of the attractions. This area looks very tired and could do with a clean up and refresh, but the basic premise is well done.
The Rides
Van Helsings Factory x1
A fun indoor Gerstlauer bobsled/dark ride. The queue line is a fairly unpleasant and stuffy cattlepen albeit with some good theming. The pre-show within this is terrible and fails to achieve its aim of convincing you Van Helsing himself is working away in a workshop. No peppers ghost but a pixelated screen set amongst physical props, which makes him look about 1.5x to scale. As you approach the station and up some stairs you are met with another Merlinism, with the theming suddenly becoming non-existent and replaced with plywood walls and a propped open fire exit.
The coaster itself is really quite fun, with surprisingly good theming throughout. There is a minor dark ride section at the beginning - a mix of physical props and (mostly broken) pixelated screens with characters talking to you again. There are some good forces and fun sections of laterals, but this coaster is more about swooping helixes and drops. Overrall we enjoyed what is a mediocre coaster plussed by decent theming and being in the dark.
Star Trek: Operation Enterprise x2
Probably the main draw of the park, next we opted for the Mack coaster which in my view you can’t go wrong with, unless you’re Icon. In what was a running theme of the day, and worrying for our a day at Phantasialand, the queue was in excess of an hour. As we had limited time we reluctantly opted for a one shot Speedy Pass, bypassing most of the queue with the exception of the Enterprise bridge recreation, which was impressive. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is a particular cheapness to the entirety of the Star Trek themed area, indoor and out. Not quite Leek signs but everything looks very budget.
Onto the ride itself, you board as normal and there is a small dispatch sequence of flashing red lights and sirens as the shutter rolls up, and your vehicle moves forward into some sort of anti gravity area - in reality this is the switch track into the launch. A forceless push forwards, followed by a rolling back into the launch track with a surprisingly punchy backwards launch up the spike. Forwards again and you are off on the main course. Sadly the ride is relatively uneventful, on par with Icon levels of force and speed at about a fraction of the length. There are a couple of nice moments of airtime but absolutely nothing to write home about. Overrall enjoyable, but underwhelming. I will however admit to somewhat abusing a bit of a glitch with the Speedy Pass system which gave us 2 each instead of 1, and went on twice.
Bandit x1
With time against us, queues large and a desire to increase my cred count we paid for another Speedy Pass. If it weren’t for the ride banging it enough I would have banged my head against a wall for forking out 8 Euros on this piece of crap.
This is truly a horrific coaster. I have previously ridden its sister at Parque Warner 10 years ago, and remember a lot of vibrations but nothing too violent (I will be seeing if my memory has served me right in a few weeks time). This ride is just pain. Every drop is followed by the most violent, painful slamming into its next transition. It really does feel like your brain is ricocheting off your skull. Even on the relatively forceless and boring turnarounds, you can feel and see the train shuffling side to side as it struggles to navigate them. I can honestly say this is the most painful coaster I have ever ridden and if there was ever a coaster that desperately needed the RMC treatment, it is this. Sadly, I imagine that cry for help will go unanswered as the ride still seems to be very popular with some of the longest queues of the park. The general presentation of the ride is also quite poor, in a very tired looking Western area.
Studio Tour x1
To be honest I don’t have an awful lot to say about this ride. It is a pleasant, forceless family coaster akin to our very own Th13teen without the drop. The theming is nice, themed to a tour of a movie studio with different set pieces and scenes throughout. The turntables/backwards section are novel, however I can’t really say they added a great deal to the experience. In my opinion it wasmissing something and I came off relatively underwhelmed, but I can see how it would appeal to younger thrill seekers.
Iron Claw x1
Another SLC to add to the list. Your usual jolts and dodgy transitions aside, I understand this has recently been renamed and the queueline rethemed to fit the western area. Sadly this is a very cheaply done retheme, the quality of which reminded me of a crap scare attraction. There are some graves with wooden crosses that have very poorly worded limericks literally Sharpie’d onto them (think a very poor version of Curses queue graves) and a walk through a shipping container with stacks of fake dynamite. You can’t polish a turd as they say.
Ghost Chasers x1
A fun little off the shelf Mack Wild Mouse. Again, this ride looks extremely tired and in need of a good clean but it provided a minute of fun - I have a soft spot for Wild Mice.
Side Kick x1
A fun Huss Frisbee, which I enjoyed as I’ve only ever experienced one other facing inwards. An amusing observation was their guest ‘mess’ cleaning procedure was a quick hosedown of the seat and an empty cycle. Safe the say guests in the queue being splashed by the spin dry were not amused, even though I couldn’t understand them.
Sadly we didn't get to experience any other rides due to only spending an afternoon here and horrendous queues. I also realised I seem to be cursed when it comes to Intamin Gyro Drop Towers - Atmosfear was in pieces then I visited Liseberg, Scream was dead when I visited Heide Park, and the one here seemed to have its catch car stuck at the top at a wonky angle. It really was quite the whistestop tour and a rush to get as many of the coasters in as possible.
Rides aside, from what we saw the park itself feels very tired and unloved. It really needs quite a bit of attention to bring it up to its German counterparts as it stands out like a sore thumb in terms of quality, even against Heide Park. The newer additions such as Studio Tour and Star Trek do seem to be an improvement to a degree, so hopefully they will
All in all, we had an enjoyable albeit short day at the park, which was probably helped by the weather being glorious and me being high on caffeine after a 3:00am start. Would I return? Not unless they pulled something worthwhile out of the bag. Unfortunately the coasters are ones you can find in abundance elsewhere, or inferior versions of their cousins in other parks. Star Trek and Van Helsing were the standouts but that isn’t really saying much. The overall presentation of the park is very, very tired and feels quite soulless.
After a long, long day we headed back to Cologne and instantly passed out in bed, ready for our next day at Phantasialand to experience F.L.Y for the first time.
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