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Martin

TS Member
No, you grow up.

As the title suggests, last month I fulfilled a lifelong dream and attended the legendary Munich Oktoberfest, and joined the growing list of TSTers to visit and fall in love with Phantasialand. Oktoberfest has always been on my list, not just for the beer but also for the fairground, not least Olympia Looping, while Phantasialand opening Taron this year and a mix up with work meaning I couldn't make the road trip, plans were formed to hit up both locations in one trip. Sadly schedule and budget reasons limited the trip to just a couple days at each location, when either could easily soak up a whole week, but that'd be enough to get a decent feel for both and ensure I'll be returning in future.

Battery and weather in Munich meant there aren't as many pictures, let alone good ones as I would like, unfortunately. In Phantasia, being well aware there's already much better pictures than anything I could take, I mostly just went for a point-and-shoot approach, to give a sort of Martin-eye view of the place, so you see the park how I saw it. Pictures in the spoilers, but plenty more pictures, especially of Taron and Klugheim, here https://flic.kr/s/aHskKazKLc

I'm aware there's been quite a lot of trip reports of Phantasia and Taron recently but I thought I'd throw my opinions into the ring anyway.

So read on to part 1, where I barely contain my love for Oktoberfest, and part 2, where I completely fail to do the same for Phantasialand.

PART 1
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Oktoberfest is the world's biggest, most famous volksfest, in which a large open space in Munich is filled as far as the eye can see with rides, stalls and massive tents full of beer. Beer, rides, loud music, it's a place that could have been made for me. Our first day was a Saturday and the opening of the festival, which makes it one of the busiest days, not even the rather dismal weather put off the thousands of locals and tourists descending on Theresienwiese. On a busy day, particularly in the afternoon and onwards, getting a space in one of the tents can prove very difficult without a reservation, and although most tents have an outside area that is usually less crowded, the mad weather made the tents even more packed, and it is almost impossible to find a space, and with no seat, there is no service. Who would have thought it would be so difficult to buy beer at a beer festival?

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We were having no luck in getting inside the tents so instead spent the first evening focusing on the attractions, particularly the three major rollercoasters; Hollenblitz, Alpina Bahn, and of course, Olympia Looping, the coaster that had been top of my wanted list for many, many years. Hollenblitz is an indoor spinning coaster full of effects and trains about as long as the country of Chile, and with smaller trains could easily be replicated at a park, even unenclosed, as it has a much more fun layout than many custom and off the shelf spinning coasters. But it is the soundtrack, lighting and pyrotechnics, not to mention the outside theming, complete with waterfall, that makes it special. Alpina Bahn is a massive Schwarzkopf travelling coaster similar to Olympia but without inversions. I'd been rather looking forward to it and it did not disappoint. It has a ridiculously good first drop and a twisting layout full of airtime and is very smooth. I really enjoyed it and would love to ride it again.

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Olympia Looping however, was a ride I went in to with a lot of excitement. It looked great and I'd heard nothing but good things about it, but after waiting so long, would it live up to the massive hype?

Yes.

Constant massive, ridiculous forces combined with a solid, if familiar, layout create a relentless, thrilling ride and despite its age and being a travelling ride, it's extremely smooth and pleasant to ride. It's funny in a way that the year I finally get out to Germany to ride it is the year it comes to Britain for Winter Wonderland, but I'm delighted I'll be able to ride this beast again much sooner than I expected. Hopefully the long rumoured move to China doesn't go through because it'd be dearly missed, I have no doubt that Olympia is one of the best rides in Europe.

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There were also twin wild mouse coasters which we didn't bother with, but as well as the coasters, there are plenty of flat rides in the fairgrounds, and they're all without exception much better looked after than most permanent rides in England, let alone travelling rides, and they run on longer, more intense cycles. You may think you've been on a Huss Breakdance, but until you've done one at a German fair, you haven't really been on a Huss Breakdance.

That's the obligatory review of the rides out the way, so back to what really matters, the beer. On the second day we actually managed to get ourselves spaces in some of the tents and tried some of the beers on offer. The way the tents work is very different to how pubs in England work. Each tent serves one of the several official Oktoberfest beers, and when a host approaches you, you simply ask for however many beers you would like, and moments later, that number of two pint steins will appear in front of you. At the risk of sounding like a teenager that's just been to Amsterdam and taken drugs for the first time, it almost feels like I had an epiphany, I never realised beer could be so good. You simply can't go back to Carling after trying the beer here. Of the beers we tried, our favourite was definitely Lowenbrau, but Hoffbrau, probably the most famous of the beers, is great too, less sweet and with more of a kick than Lowenbrau. Go steady though, as the beers here are brewed specifically for the festival and quite stronger than normal, even stronger the regular varieties produced by the Munich breweries themselves.

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As well as traditional beer, the festival is famous for its traditional food, and although there was so much more we wish we had tried, I strongly recommend the chicken from the Schutzen-Festhalle tent, it is absolutely perfect.

The site looks incredible by day and even more incredible by night, not just the fairground but the tents themselves, massive structures each with their own distinct style and features. Every tent has its own character too, the Hoffbrau tent is the largest with 10,000 and one of the rowdiest atmospheres due to its size and popularity with tourists and celebrities, while Armbrustschützenzelt holds crossbow competitions and the Weinzelt, as the name suggests, is the only tent to serve wine and champagne, alongside beer. Each tent has something to offer so if you're planning a trip it's worth researching them and working out which ones you most want to go to, and making a reservation.

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There's no one I would not recommend Oktoberfest to, but you people, reading this on here, I especially urge you to. It's rare to find a place that combines so many of my passions into one place and does it so well, but it turns out heaven exists, and it's a two week long folk festival in Munich. I'm hoping to go again for longer and with more money next year, learning Germany and getting myself a traditional rig out to fully go native in my spiritual home.

Swerve the leather shorts, though.
 
PART 2
Although sad to leave Munich, the next leg of the trip was only a short domestic flight away, and Germany's much superior public transport made the connections cheap, and after we worked out the timetables, easy. We could have travelled non-stop, but having to change at Cologne's main station, it would have been rude not to take a break to visit the famous cathedral, especially as it is situated literally outside the station. A beautiful example of Gothic architecture 600 years in the making, say what you like about the Catholics but they know how to put a building together. After taking as many photographs as possible before my phone died, and despite being in His presence, rudely refused to follow in Jesus' example and revive so I could finish being a tourist, we continued our journey.

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The stock of Phantasialand has risen massively in the last decade and a bit, joining Europapark and Liseberg at the top of the list of parks this Alton Towers fansite prefer to Alton Towers. Home to some of the best theming anywhere and some great rides, I had naturally desired a visit for as long as I've been aware of it, but after opening Chiapas and now Taron, it shot up the wanted list and the chance to ride Taron so soon after it opened was one I could not allow myself to miss.

My first flavour of Phantasia was our hotel, the magnificent Ling Bao. The level of detail, even down to the smell, is incredible, my jaw hit the floor walking in to the lobby, and stayed there for most of the next two days. Checking in, we were told hotel guests were entitled to an hour of ERT on Taron and Raik every night of their stay. If my jaw wasn't already on the floor, it would have punched a considerable hole in it when I heard this.

The transition from the hotel to the park is seamless, although the China area is sadly lacking in attractions to match its grandeur. Geister Rikscha, or as another TST member put it, Political Correctness: The Ride, is a long, problematic dark ride that I'm pretty sure is really Not OK. It seemed quite big though so could be perfect for redevelopment into something hopefully less racist. The only other ride here is the madhouse Feng Ju Palace, and God did it make me miss Hex even more. A lengthy, repetitive preshow eventually led to a completely underwhelming madhouse that relies on poor quality screens to tell the story, and not being German, I struggled to even tell who I was supposed to be rooting for.

Better however is the Mexico area, which is split in to an Aztec/Mayan section, a town section, and a Colorado section (I'm confused too), all of which blend together really well. Mexico is home to three of Phannyland's signature rides. Colorado Adventure, aka the Michael Jackson ride, is one of the best family coasters I've experienced, it has just the right amount of force, it's very long, has superb theming except the shed, and most importantly, it's tons and tons of fun. The seat backs are pretty low and uncomfortable for adults though, and the entrance could be easier to get to. Talocan is a floorless Huss Topspin, Ripsaw on gear, the theming is incredible, getting rid of the floor and adding fire adds extra thrill and the long, intense cycle is a real test, but it's so worth the ordeal, Talocan is easily my favourite flat ride anywhere now. Finally, there is Chiapas, and even after riding several times, I've still no idea how they managed to fit such a long water ride in to such a small space, without using the sort of ancient wisdom that used to get your burned at the stake. The drops are good fun, the big final drop is insane, and of course, throughout the theming is exemplary. I dare you not to get the music stuck in your head for days.

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The Berlin area is gorgeous, but Maus Au Chocolat wasn't that great, amazing theming but the 3D screens weren't great, I didn't really enjoy going past beautiful theming just to look at a screen for a bit, but it was fun. I was winning until the last two scenes, more than I can say for my experiences on Duel. The funhouse is great too, easy to miss but well worth doing.

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The Africa area too is stunning, and I love the integration between the area and the hotel, shame the path through Black Mamba's loop into the hotel was closed. Looking at Mamba, it's easy to see how it gets compared to Nemesis, the way its unique layout stays low to the ground, hidden away, twisting around the environment, but that's where the similarity ends, as the ride completely fails, in my opinion, to compete with Alton's invert. The first half follows the standard B&M opening, but is pretty forceful except the zero-g roll which was surprisingly bland, while the second half just doesn't really do anything. I wouldn't say it was boring or forceless but it just sort of, aimlessly wanders around. It's definitely not a bad ride, it's just decent, but apart from the theming there's nothing special about it to me. The operations are really bad too, very slow and only one train on the busiest day, but two on the quieter day. It also loses points for being even quieter than Air. That is not how a big B&M is supposed to be.

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Wuze Town was interesting, it's a pretty cool theme and some of the architecture actually reminded me of Gaudi, but feels like it needs brightening up, might just be its age coming through. Winjas was excellent, especially Fear. I quite enjoy Maurer spinners anyway but Fear really is fantastic. Force a bit less so, but it's still a solid family coaster. Past the main building though and you find the only weak part of Phantasia. Even the fairly new and annoyingly long splash battle, which features very little splash and absolutely no battle, feels neglected. With this part of the park being so close to housing I understand they can't do much, but it feels like a completely different park and it needs something more. I've put off mentioning it but I'll have to address it now, what the absolute feck is Temple Of The Nighthawk doing here? The building is ugly, the 'retheme' is hilariously half-arsed, the ride itself is in complete darkness, it's all so pointless and all so terrible. The coaster itself could be a decent family coaster if it wasn't treated like this, it's smooth and flows well and god knows it has enough lift hills to at least make it long enough to at least seem like it's doing something. Let's not even mention The Toilets That Time Forgot. With the exception of Winjas, this whole part of the park was done once and quickly avoided for the rest of the trip.

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I've left the Mystery area last to get to the obligatory lengthy Taron review, which I feel I ought to after the posts I made in the Phantasia topic. First though, the other rides. River Quest was a bit crazy for me, a rapids ride, in a tower, what even? It's really good though, we only did it once because the weather was less than ideal but I was definitely impressed, although as with the road trip, it was having big problems getting the boats up the ramp to the elevator lifts. Mystery Castle is yet another ridiculously well executed ride and luckily we got the full cycle. Anyone else ever gotten on to the ride op taking off his lab coat and standing right in front of one of the rows at the half way point? It's very cool but what's it all about?

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And that leads nicely to the new mini-area in the Mystery section, Klugheim, home to two new coasters for 2016, Raik, the largest yet Vekoma family shuttle, and Taron, a mult launching record breaker which is clearly Intamin's attempt to put Mack back in their place. Before talking about the rides, it has to be said, even with the high standards set by the rest of the park, the theming here is unbelievable. It's not just the massive rock work, or the painstaking attention to detail, it's how well everything comes together and feels almost real and bigger than it is, there are bridges and paths everywhere, and all around is twisting rollercoaster track. One of the few regrets from the trip is not getting a chance to check out the new tavern. It looks great but understandably it was always very busy.

Raik is a decent family coaster, nestled in the corner, almost as if it's Taron's baby, it's almost a shame it opened alongside the bigger coaster and so won't get the recognition it could get. It's nothing spectacular but it's enjoyable, especially on the front, and I love the smoke effect at the start, pouring out the barrel at the front of the train. The changing lighting and moving instrument in the station are really cool too.

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And so Taron. When I said I thought I had been on a different ride than the road trip gang, I was of course fishing, but there was an element of seriousness in it, my experience was so much different from what had been described. Not just in the ride experience itself but the reliability problems, the trains being in pieces, etc, there was no sign of anything like that. The whole time we were there, Taron ran perfectly except for a few minutes downtime at the start of our second ERT, which doesn't really count; what rides don't throw the odd tantrum here and there? I will say though that one of the three trains they were using is either smoother or rougher than the others, although I wasn't paying attention enough to work out which way round that is. It's not a big difference but I'm glad most of our ERT was on the smooth train, it was definitely less taxing on the body.

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The trains look amazing, and I'm actually going to go out on a limb and say I prefer them to Mack's. The restraints are pretty much the same (ie excellent), but the seats don't wrap around so much, so you feel more exposed and can be thrown about a lot more; there are several points where it very much seemed like I would be ejected from the ride.

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On to the coaster itself, the first launch lacks the punch of Intamin's hydraulic launches, but it gets the job done and the train rather aggressively slams in to the first turn, which is followed by a crazy airtime hill and a turn that both try to throw you out, before sweeping up into a shockingly violent direction change. After this, the ride calms down and changes pace, going for a more sweeping feel as it gracefully traces its way around the area, producing several moments of airtime as it narrowly weaves its way through buildings and rock faces. It's much calmer than the opening, but the scenery interaction keeps it interesting. However, after a slalom that is really good fun in the back, it's impossible to not feel the ride is fizzling out. Luckily, at just the right moment it steps back on the gas, diving into a trench and into the second launch, which is now probably my favourite launch on any coaster; despite the train already being in motion, the launch has a really strong pull to it, yanking you up to top speed and into a second big overbank, getting sprayed by a waterfall as you climb the very steep gradient. Now Taron really means business. The downhill slalom is great fun and after another diving turnaround, a series of sharp s-turns again threaten to throw you out your seat producing all sorts of forces, and this goes on until admittedly, the ride's weakest point. With nowhere left to go, it climbs to the left reaching its slowest point and as it drops, it hits a trim, which robs the slowest point of the second half of its airtime. Another hill follows and then the ride closes with a tight turn into the brakerun.

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A lot of people have complained about the trims, but happily, during our visit, only the first trim was active, so the second hill did at least produce some airtime, and having experienced it with one trim, I am completely convinced trimming is necessary for the final turn. It's quite paradoxical how immediately after the ride reaches its slowest point in climbing round to the humps, it reaches a point that needs trim brakes to navigate comfortably. Now, maybe the last turn could have been designed differently to not need trimming, but I'm going to make what I think is a reasonable assumption and assume they tried and could not find a better solution, I'm sure trimming it was the last thing they wanted to do, for obvious reasons. It's like Wildfire, the ending is the weakest point, but there's no where else for them to go, but like Wildfire, the rest of the ride makes up for it.

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I really do believe they got exactly what they wanted with Taron, I don't think the ride's softer first half is bad design or anything, I think it was deliberate. It takes you around the area, focusing on immersing you into Klugheim, before the second half focuses on the white knuckle side. They get the balance just right-after a strong opening, it settles in to a softer section that explores the area and allows the ride to be as long as it is by not relentlessly wearing you down, then as soon as it starts to die out, it kicks back in and goes harder than ever, until it literally runs out of space, having to resort to climbing up high and then trimming itself in order to make its way back. It's not the European Maverick, I don't think it was ever meant to be, and maybe if it was it would be even better. Maybe too an inversion or several could elevate Taron higher, but as it was designed to not invert I will accept that, I think it does enough without one anyway.

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And I stand by my second comment in the Phantasia topic, that the reception to this ride on here has been strange. I don't think I've ever seen the amount of defensiveness over opinions, particularly from the people who don't like it as much as others. Admittedly I am still a bit less travelled than many on the road trip, much less travelled than some, and that undoubtedly will have an influence on my experience with Taron, but looking at the reception the ride has had elsewhere and from members here who rode it at a different time to the road trip, it really does seem the road trippers caught it on a bad day. Personally I'd put it in my top 3 behind Helix and Wildfire, but it's fine if you don't. It's just good to see the ride get a universally good reception, even if some don't like it as much as me. I find the less positive reaction here interesting, it reminds me of how another site (TPR I think?) collectively rate Nemesis less than pretty much every other collective of enthusiasts, so maybe it's one of those things. Either way though, for me, Taron is incredible and I love it.

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Well I was always going to ruin one photo with my finger but did it really have to be this one?

What I loved about Phantasia is the lack of profit hunting, there's even a lack of ORPs, even Taron doesn't have a camera. Unlike other parks, you aren't forced into a gift shop on your way out of every ride. Everything, except for the area past Wuze, is clean and looks new and fresh. The food is good, I loved the little pizza place overlooking the Mexico area, with the sun shinning on the last day it really felt like I wasn't in Germany. The Mexican area bar has big Corona branding, but it's not in your face sponsorship, it adds a degree of realism, it actually looks like a bar in Mexico would, especially as Corona is a Mexican beer. One of the few examples of product placement that actually works. As for the hotels, the restaurants are great and the bars are wonderful. Unfortunately Dragon Bar was closed, but I could easily spend days in Bar Jafari and particularly in Li River and the beautiful outside area.

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Excuse the selfie

I keep mentioning it, but the theming at Phantasia is beyond belief, especially considering how small the park is. Everything is nestled together and yet you could never tell. My only experience of Disney is the Paris one, admittedly the worst, but many parts of Phantasia walk all over many parts of Disney. It's just as high quality, just as big and expansive, just as much attention to detail, but packed into such a smaller space, on such a smaller budget. It doesn't hurt that the rides themselves aren't just average Vekomas either. If Phantasia had the same sort of space and budget as say Animal Kingdom or DisneySea, I'm sure they could even top those parks.

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Must take balls to put a mosaic of Chairman Mao (Maosaic amirite) up in your hotel. (At least one more ball than Mao had lolol etc)

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Shot of Dusseldorf airport's suspended monorail, for the true geeks

As always, thanks for reading!
 
Mmm, Lowenbrau is one of my fave beers from my Perfect Draft machine....
 
Geister Rikscha, or as another TST member put it, Political Correctness: The Ride, is a long, problematic dark ride that I'm pretty sure is really Not OK. It seemed quite big though so could be perfect for redevelopment into something hopefully less racist.

Haha! Yeah that was me, it is rather racist :eek:

Loved your report and scarily similar in views to myself. Welcome to the Taron fan club :D
 
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