I also visited for the first time a few months ago, and don't feel like doing a full trip report but still have some thoughts to share. Like Rob, I'll separate my experience into the good, the bad, and the weird. My visit was in early September when Black Mamba was down, so I wasn't able to ride that.
The Good
The theming at Phantasialand is world class, up there with the best Disney parks. Rookburgh, the Mexico area, and Klugheim are all about as good as it gets when it comes to immersive theming. Knowing the size of the park, what they've been able to do with the limited space they have is nothing short of incredible.
Taron is my new favorite roller coaster on the planet, and I can't imagine anything else taking that spot anytime soon. I much prefer theming to thrills, but why pick one or the other when Taron excels at both? The queue, the music, the impossible nature of figuring out where you're going next, and the second launch, seemingly directly up and into a waterfall, might be my favorite moment on any coaster on the planet. This was about a 10 minute average wait during our trip and we rode it probably 10 times over two days. Absolute masterclass, it reminded me of what The Matterhorn might have been like if it was built six decades later, and if Walt Disney thought it was a good idea for you to get a full liter of beer in a massive glass as soon as you exited the ride.
FLY was incredible, but something kind of felt off... it didn't blow me away like Taron did. I would recommend the front row for this one, you feel like you can actually fly rather than staring at the underside of someone else's Nikes. I don't love the flying ride position, so that might have been it. Still, the ride and the surrounding land are absolutely staggering to behold.
Chiapas, as many have said, is the best log flume on the planet. Splash Mountain is still one of my favorites, but beyond the theming it follows the same formula as every other log flume: a meandering first section with a small drop, potentially another smaller drop, and then the finale. Chiapas is nonstop action and beautiful theming from start to end. The music is great, the final plunge is jaw-dropping, and yes, you can get absolutely soaked. I got off this ride as if I'd taken a shower, much worse than River Quest, which left me reasonably dry.
Sleeper hits were:
Colorado Adventure. Big Thunder Mountain except way more intense, and with an average wait of "zero" you couldn't really go wrong. It was also very cool to be able to ride in the engine car up front.
The swing ride at the end of Berlin street. I normally find these rides relatively boring but with the synced fountains it became a different, more magical experience entirely.
Winja's FEAR certainly lived up to its name. Perhaps the best-timed on-ride photo I've ever seen, it truly captured the, well... fear in our eyes.
The new African Adventure Trail was great, but I bet it's a million times better when Black Mamba is running, which was a pity.
The Bad
It was incredible staying inside a theme park at Hotel Charles Lindburgh, but it was a hot day and the room was a bit stuffy which made it hard to sleep. We were on the ground floor and the bathroom window opened directly onto an external street, so I didn't feel comfortable having it open. The included dinner was also a shambles, it took us nearly 2 hours to finish the meal. The employees at the bar and restaurant were all great, there simply weren't enough of them to handle the crowd, so this seems like an instance of cost cutting by the park that was responsible for the bad experience. It was a less-than-ideal way to end our evening, that's for sure.
Crazy Bats: terrible! I can't imagine anyone above age 10 enjoying the movie, and the ride itself was boring and seemingly never-ending. I don't love VR rides but this one was particularly boring.
The Weird
What in heaven's good name is going on in the China area? Geister Rickshaw is terrible, just on the bad side of kitschy, and had I known that the mad house in that area had a 10 minute preshow with video straight out of a Sega Saturn game I might have skipped that as well. This whole area could use a complete razing and revamp in my opinion.
Mystery Castle, which has one of the coolest queue lines of any ride I can think of with the walkway directly head-on to the tall castle, was seemingly much ado about nothing. The ride system is great, but the ride itself seemed to be over in 20 seconds without any real thrills. Not sure if we got a strange cycle or something, but I feel like something was missing here.
Overall
I have to say, everyone here was right: Phantasialand is a world class park, but I'm not in a hurry to return the same way I try to visit Europa Park every year. The rides and theming are, at times, the best I've ever experienced, but there isn't enough extra to do beyond the big rides to warrant making a trip just for this park. Also, the lack of dark rides or places to sit and hang out makes it so you're on thrill rides basically all day, and at the end of the second day I had a bit of a headache from the sheer physicality of it all.
