Burbs
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
Part 1
I first became aware of Phantasialand in 2013, when I saw the final stages of construction for Chiapas. The detail of the final product made me so intrigued about what the rest of the park had to offer, and I desperately wanted to go. Since then I have made 3 trips to Europa-Park, and I thought it was finally time to pay the Cologne theme park a visit. I went with a friend of mine (@JAMMYD778) for a total of 3 days in Germany, who also has a Europa-Park Clubcard and hadn't visited PL either. I will try and keep this as short as possible!
The Theme Park Itself
We got into Phantasialand for free, thanks to Herr R. Mack, and were greeted by a number of staff members in pre-war costumes, before we walked down into a retro Berlin with delightful broadway-style music playing in the background. The Berlin area street reminded me a lot of Main Street USA with the style of buildings, however it was much shorter. Not realising that despite the park opening at 9am, the rides didn't actually open until 10am, so we put our luggage in a locker under the Silverado theatre and made our way to the fantasy area of the park. Everything was so very well-themed in this area, as it was the rest of the park, however I did feel that the plaza area in front of the Winjas area was a bit sparse.
I personally found the park quite difficult to navigate. The lack of room to expand has meant that the park have no choice but to build new rides on top of old ones, which creates a multi-levelled maze! Pretty sure we took a much longer route from Chiapas to Black Mamba than we needed to. Regardless, everywhere was so intensely themed, it didn't matter as we saw so much more. I don't have much to say about China Town as we didn't spend too much time in there. Klugheim was mightily impressive however, with the rock work and how they have managed to fit a LOT of roller coaster track into relatively such a small area.
Ridecount and attraction reviews will be posted separately!
Travel and Accommodation
We flew with Eurowings (Voletarium tbh) between Manchester Airport and Cologne Airport, however our outbound flight was delayed by about an hour, meaning that we didn't arrive at our accommodation until about midnight. Fortunately the hotel we had booked in to (Airport Hotel by the New Yorker) was only a 10 minute walk away from the arrivals hall, and there was 24-hour check-in. The hotel was perfectly convenient, but lacklustre inside for the price we paid. Still, it was a bed for the night.
In the morning we made our way back to the airport's train station. Expecting the station to be rammed with commuters, we arrived around 20 minutes earlier than our train was due to arrive, however the ticket machine area was empty and there weren't many people on the platform. Single fare was 3,80€. We changed trains at Cologne Main Station and arrived in Brühl at 8:25am, where we hopped on the 8:55am shuttle bus, which cost 3€ return, and can be used any day. This dropped us off right outside the main entrance (Berlin) of Phantasialand by 9:15am.
At the end of the first day we made our way to our second hotel of the trip - Hotel SchlossDomäne Walberberg, which was a 30 minute walk from the main entrance, and about 20-25 minutes from the China entrance. It was, however, a wonderful hotel. We had a huge room (2 rooms put together really) and a lovely continental breakfast included in the price, which was only 6€ more expensive than the hotel at the airport! We left the park at 1:30pm on the second day, and on the way back to the airport we had an hour to spare so we went to have a look around Cologne Cathedral. An absolute wonder, huge and amazing architecture both inside and out. Our flight back from Cologne was just as nice as our outbound flight, and was actually 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
I first became aware of Phantasialand in 2013, when I saw the final stages of construction for Chiapas. The detail of the final product made me so intrigued about what the rest of the park had to offer, and I desperately wanted to go. Since then I have made 3 trips to Europa-Park, and I thought it was finally time to pay the Cologne theme park a visit. I went with a friend of mine (@JAMMYD778) for a total of 3 days in Germany, who also has a Europa-Park Clubcard and hadn't visited PL either. I will try and keep this as short as possible!
The Theme Park Itself
We got into Phantasialand for free, thanks to Herr R. Mack, and were greeted by a number of staff members in pre-war costumes, before we walked down into a retro Berlin with delightful broadway-style music playing in the background. The Berlin area street reminded me a lot of Main Street USA with the style of buildings, however it was much shorter. Not realising that despite the park opening at 9am, the rides didn't actually open until 10am, so we put our luggage in a locker under the Silverado theatre and made our way to the fantasy area of the park. Everything was so very well-themed in this area, as it was the rest of the park, however I did feel that the plaza area in front of the Winjas area was a bit sparse.
I personally found the park quite difficult to navigate. The lack of room to expand has meant that the park have no choice but to build new rides on top of old ones, which creates a multi-levelled maze! Pretty sure we took a much longer route from Chiapas to Black Mamba than we needed to. Regardless, everywhere was so intensely themed, it didn't matter as we saw so much more. I don't have much to say about China Town as we didn't spend too much time in there. Klugheim was mightily impressive however, with the rock work and how they have managed to fit a LOT of roller coaster track into relatively such a small area.
Ridecount and attraction reviews will be posted separately!
Travel and Accommodation
We flew with Eurowings (Voletarium tbh) between Manchester Airport and Cologne Airport, however our outbound flight was delayed by about an hour, meaning that we didn't arrive at our accommodation until about midnight. Fortunately the hotel we had booked in to (Airport Hotel by the New Yorker) was only a 10 minute walk away from the arrivals hall, and there was 24-hour check-in. The hotel was perfectly convenient, but lacklustre inside for the price we paid. Still, it was a bed for the night.
In the morning we made our way back to the airport's train station. Expecting the station to be rammed with commuters, we arrived around 20 minutes earlier than our train was due to arrive, however the ticket machine area was empty and there weren't many people on the platform. Single fare was 3,80€. We changed trains at Cologne Main Station and arrived in Brühl at 8:25am, where we hopped on the 8:55am shuttle bus, which cost 3€ return, and can be used any day. This dropped us off right outside the main entrance (Berlin) of Phantasialand by 9:15am.
At the end of the first day we made our way to our second hotel of the trip - Hotel SchlossDomäne Walberberg, which was a 30 minute walk from the main entrance, and about 20-25 minutes from the China entrance. It was, however, a wonderful hotel. We had a huge room (2 rooms put together really) and a lovely continental breakfast included in the price, which was only 6€ more expensive than the hotel at the airport! We left the park at 1:30pm on the second day, and on the way back to the airport we had an hour to spare so we went to have a look around Cologne Cathedral. An absolute wonder, huge and amazing architecture both inside and out. Our flight back from Cologne was just as nice as our outbound flight, and was actually 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
