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Phantasialand: General Discussion

The new cinema could be opening imminently, the queue line has been placed out:

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1. We'll get a taxi from the airport, can we get dropped directly at Hotel Ling Bao or do we just go to the park entrance and walk from there?

2. Estimate we'll arrive around 3pm (though Ryanair so not relying on that) so hopefully get a couple of hours in the park. What's the best way to approach dinner? Bowser Jr has a very limited palette so generally pizza or bread based food is a safe option for day one. Is it better to eat in the park itself? The hotels all seem to be higher end food which i'm sure is delightful but probably not going to suit our needs. Or perhaps room service is an option?
1. Get dropped off at the hotel, it has its own entrance around the corner from the main entrance. Though it’s no big deal if you do get dropped off at the main entrance, it’s less than a 5 minute walk around the side of Matamba.

2. Park - There’s a few places that do Focaccia style pizza, such as one on the walkway between Berlin and Mexico. The Berlin restaurant may be open that I think does simple pasta dishes. I did the Matamba buffet which I enjoyed, but wouldn’t describe it as simple or bread based (there’s self serve bread available though). There was no room service in Ling Bao in the normal rooms. The free bottle of water in your room may be sparkling - if you don’t open it to can swap it to still at reception.
 
A few posters have been hung revealing the new movie (courtesy of Phantafriends again).

I sense there has been some mistranslation on the previous claim of "world's first" and it's simply referring to the premier of an exclusive new film.

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Sorry for double post but it has opened this afternoon for previews! Not sure how to link but there are stories on this account:


Seems a pretty safe bet it'll be open by the weekend.
 
With our trip a few weeks away I have a few rather specific questions hopefully someone can help with...

1. We'll get a taxi from the airport, can we get dropped directly at Hotel Ling Bao or do we just go to the park entrance and walk from there?

2. Estimate we'll arrive around 3pm (though Ryanair so not relying on that) so hopefully get a couple of hours in the park. What's the best way to approach dinner? Bowser Jr has a very limited palette so generally pizza or bread based food is a safe option for day one. Is it better to eat in the park itself? The hotels all seem to be higher end food which i'm sure is delightful but probably not going to suit our needs. Or perhaps room service is an option?
1. Stayed at Ling Bao in August..You do NOT want to get dropped off at main entrance. Our driver dropped us there and we got off to a stressful start as we could see hotel but could not find entrance. Had to walk out onto main road not sure where we were going.
THe car park/pedestrian entrance is closer to Matamba. Hope this works but it's the black sign you can see from roundabout (our driver went past that and took the left AFTER that which will plonk you in front of the turnstiles which you cannot go through. No ticket office windows were open for us to ask anyone.
Here is the sign you should look out for.

2. If for any reason you get there later than planned like us, you can always go for a swim in the evening.
We took food from train station for night 1. We did the buffets at Ling Bao and Matamba. Matamba I'd swerve. Ling Bao was great. There's a kid section that has basic foods whilst you can get an excellent feed from the Tepenyaki grill.
Food in the park was great..I recommend the stand near Wuze town. That was the best food I tried.


Hotel Ling Bao is the best theme park hotel I've stayed at and and the best sleep I've had in any hotel. Their beds are elite.

Enjoy your trip
 
1. Stayed at Ling Bao in August..You do NOT want to get dropped off at main entrance. Our driver dropped us there and we got off to a stressful start as we could see hotel but could not find entrance. Had to walk out onto main road not sure where we were going.
THe car park/pedestrian entrance is closer to Matamba. Hope this works but it's the black sign you can see from roundabout (our driver went past that and took the left AFTER that which will plonk you in front of the turnstiles which you cannot go through. No ticket office windows were open for us to ask anyone.
Here is the sign you should look out for.

2. If for any reason you get there later than planned like us, you can always go for a swim in the evening.
We took food from train station for night 1. We did the buffets at Ling Bao and Matamba. Matamba I'd swerve. Ling Bao was great. There's a kid section that has basic foods whilst you can get an excellent feed from the Tepenyaki grill.
Food in the park was great..I recommend the stand near Wuze town. That was the best food I tried.


Hotel Ling Bao is the best theme park hotel I've stayed at and and the best sleep I've had in any hotel. Their beds are elite.

Enjoy your trip

Thanks, this is really helpful!

So is the Ling Bao dinner all buffet?
 
The park has officially announced the new 4D attraction opens at 1300 today, along with a clearer poster and a trailer for the film.

"Opening today: Die 3 Mausketiere – a world first in 4D!
🐭
🎞
🕶️

Are you ready for a whirlwind adventure?
Dive into the secret world of mice beneath Berlin and join Lottie, Herbert, and Otto on a turbulent and funny mission – with you right in the heart of the action!
The world’s newest 4D technology propels you straight into the adventure: visually stunning. Audibly captivating. Wonderfully charming. And infinitely immersive!
💺
🌊
💨
👃
🎶

A (mouse)merizing 4D attraction for the whole family – now open at the Residenz Theater!"

Operations Director Chris Theis on his instagram stated "With the world's first Sound-Transparent Passive 3D LED Technology, movies shine in a whole new dimension. Add to that state of the art SFX motion seats with four degrees of freedom and countless effects - and you're right in the middle of the adventure".
Kraftwerk the company behind the attraction has a trailer for this new technology.

From: https://vimeo.com/1115504200


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Overview of the new technology from the website

The queue also features Easter eggs to past PHL media attractions like Pirates 4D and Galaxy, as well as the present with Maus au Chocolat.
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Park app details for the attraction, confirming the new 90cm height restriction.

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This is great news! I'm very happy, we always seem to have bad luck with visiting before new rides are open or my son being just too short so to go to a park for the first time just a few weeks after opening is brilliant!

The tech from that video looks the same as the 4D Cinema at Universal Japan which was astounding so if it's even half as good as that it'll blow anything else we've been on out the water.
 
Thanks, this is really helpful!

So is the Ling Bao dinner all buffet?
There is two restaurants in Ling Bao
Buffet https://www.phantasialand.de/en/celebreat/restaurants-bars-in-the-hotels/restaurant-bamboo/ menu - https://www.phantasialand.de/files/...peisekarten/speisekarte-restaurant-bamboo.pdf

Fine Dining a la carte (with prix fixe menu option) https://www.phantasialand.de/en/celebreat/restaurants-bars-in-the-hotels/restaurant-lu-chi/ menu looks very limited though - https://www.phantasialand.de/files/uploads/kulinarik/documents/speisekarten/speisekarte-lu-chi.pdf

To add- I've not eaten at either, we did Matamba and their buffet, which had plenty of interesting African flavours.
 
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Does anyone know if the ride queues stay open till park closing or do they shut earlier? Hoping for a few night rides on our arrival day if possible.

Availability has been pretty poor today, FLY didn’t open till 2pm and various other closures, the Bowser curse beckons in advance of our visit. At least they have a lot of good rides as back up!
 
Does anyone know if the ride queues stay open till park closing or do they shut earlier? Hoping for a few night rides on our arrival day if possible.

Availability has been pretty poor today, FLY didn’t open till 2pm and various other closures, the Bowser curse beckons in advance of our visit. At least they have a lot of good rides as back up!
For the first time ever this season, the queue lines do close at park closing time.

In previous years, they always closed 15 minutes early, or even earlier if the queues were long.

But this year they are actually keeping them open until 6pm. Also every ride has a tv screen next to the entrance, which has the queue time and the time that the queue line closes on it. They couldn’t make it any clearer 😊
 
They usually. close queues before park close. There is no rhyme or reason as to the timings of the queue line closures.

The queue times advertised often seem to be a work of fiction too. I’ve waited 50 mins for FLY when advertised at 10 and walked on FLY when advertised at 60 mins for example.

I haven’t been for a couple of years though…
 
The old policy of closing them 15 minutes prior is over.
Since last year queues stay open until park close unless there are other circumstances - Chiapas & Talocan in wintertraum will shut earlier for Tiempo de Feugo show and Crazy Bats closes early when the dinner show is on.

However as said above it is all advertised on the screens around the park well in advance.
 
I'll do a full report or an update at the end of our trip but i just had to regale this...

Almost came to tears after our ride on FLY. As some of you may remember, my son has profound autism including being non verbal and for us theme parks have been a major bonding subject. He's the reason i've become an enthusiast again in the last few years after a multi decade absence.

The feeling of flying together around the rooftops, seeing the pure unbridled joy on his face. Total freedom, And the way the seats are located meant we could hold hands like Peter Pan, nothing else mattered as we soared blissfully through the air. It was a truly a magical experience i'll never forget.
 
Well there we go, our trip is over. I won't do a full report as i don't have any photos and reports tend to become a wall of text without them so i'll just summarise a few noteworthy things.

Firstly, the thought kept crossing my mind that our Germanic European friends must be absolutely horrified when they visit our parks. Phantasialand is simply world class. Everything is better than any UK park... the rides, the theming, the food, the operations and availability, the queues.... the queue lines even! In fact the only thing i think we do better is accessibility. This is a difficult park to visit if you are disabled. I knew this going in and accepted it so we planned accordingly. Fortunately it turned out to not be an issue for the most part.

Despite spending a rather hefty sum on Fast Track for the duration of our visit due to the park not offering RAP, it was actually very quiet. Most rides were on 5-10 minutes at all times with the only exceptions being some of the indoor attractions due to a good amount of rainfall.

The 4D cinema is... delightful!! Probably the best i've ever been to (or at least as good as Conan 4D at USJ). The quality of the screen and effects is sensational! It was borderline a flying theatre at times. Obviously the story is in German but it was easy enough to follow regardless and generally action packed. My son loved it. Loads of seating too, it's essentially a full sized cinema so the capacity seems very high.

Taron.... oh my. Light years ahead of anything at home. Just a phenomenal ride. Smooth, relentless, long, fun. Everything Hyperia isn't my non enthusiast wife said. . She was even happy to go on it repeatedly. Always on 3 trains despite no queue. Got a dark ride in too! The roar!

FLY... i mean, what even is this? It's a masterpiece. It feels like more than a ride. The whole construction of Rookburgh is mind blowing. Don't know what else to say, something to experience. My only gripe is the queue line is very very very long. It's great but when it's quiet they really should open up another route. We tried to go in the Lindburgh guests only entrance and were denied, despite there being no queue and me explaining my son struggled with all the steps. The equivalent of making people walk round The Curse graveyard but with added stairwells.

Chiapas wasn't operating on our first day, which was the only dry day so sadly was not meant to be.

Mystery Castle was my son's favourite ride after Taron, we must have done it about 10 times over the trip. The cycles seemed to vary randomly, it definitely wasn't one in the morning and one in the afternoon. A brilliant ride though. Is Sub Terra essentially the same? That's 1.4m but i'm assuming that's down to UK attitudes on the suitability rather than any notably different experience?

Raik they were sending round twice as the queue was so short! Such a nice little thing to do.

We didn't do Crazy Bats in the end. Tbh we couldn't even find it the first 2 days. When we finally did we figured the VR probably wouldn't work out for us and our time would be better spent going on Taron a few more times :)

A theme park with good food!!! People visiting a theme park to enjoy the food! Imagine! I really noticed how happy people were to just hang out. In fact there were more people spectating Talocan than riding it. People just hanging out drinking etc. Such a different atmosphere to UK parks. Could do with a bit more seating though. Lots of great viewing area to compensate at least.

Also Germans don't scream hysterically on rides which is so much more pleasant. My son wears ear defenders a lot when we're out, especially at theme parks but he was happily taking them off as the only noise was music or the ROAR of Taron.

Ling Bao hotel was lovely. The pool was admittedly a very loose definition of heated but was tolerable for 20 minutes or so. Could do with some proper changing rooms and no facility to use the lockers without a coin and no ability to obtain said coin. Probably makes more sense to change in your room when using it.

Anyway, i realise this is turning into the trip report i promised it wasn't so i'll leave it there for now. A wonderful wonderful theme park, we're already talking about going back for Christmas next year.
 
Well there we go, our trip is over. I won't do a full report as i don't have any photos and reports tend to become a wall of text without them so i'll just summarise a few noteworthy things.

Firstly, the thought kept crossing my mind that our Germanic European friends must be absolutely horrified when they visit our parks. Phantasialand is simply world class. Everything is better than any UK park... the rides, the theming, the food, the operations and availability, the queues.... the queue lines even! In fact the only thing i think we do better is accessibility. This is a difficult park to visit if you are disabled. I knew this going in and accepted it so we planned accordingly. Fortunately it turned out to not be an issue for the most part.

Despite spending a rather hefty sum on Fast Track for the duration of our visit due to the park not offering RAP, it was actually very quiet. Most rides were on 5-10 minutes at all times with the only exceptions being some of the indoor attractions due to a good amount of rainfall.

The 4D cinema is... delightful!! Probably the best i've ever been to (or at least as good as Conan 4D at USJ). The quality of the screen and effects is sensational! It was borderline a flying theatre at times. Obviously the story is in German but it was easy enough to follow regardless and generally action packed. My son loved it. Loads of seating too, it's essentially a full sized cinema so the capacity seems very high.

Taron.... oh my. Light years ahead of anything at home. Just a phenomenal ride. Smooth, relentless, long, fun. Everything Hyperia isn't my non enthusiast wife said. . She was even happy to go on it repeatedly. Always on 3 trains despite no queue. Got a dark ride in too! The roar!

FLY... i mean, what even is this? It's a masterpiece. It feels like more than a ride. The whole construction of Rookburgh is mind blowing. Don't know what else to say, something to experience. My only gripe is the queue line is very very very long. It's great but when it's quiet they really should open up another route. We tried to go in the Lindburgh guests only entrance and were denied, despite there being no queue and me explaining my son struggled with all the steps. The equivalent of making people walk round The Curse graveyard but with added stairwells.

Chiapas wasn't operating on our first day, which was the only dry day so sadly was not meant to be.

Mystery Castle was my son's favourite ride after Taron, we must have done it about 10 times over the trip. The cycles seemed to vary randomly, it definitely wasn't one in the morning and one in the afternoon. A brilliant ride though. Is Sub Terra essentially the same? That's 1.4m but i'm assuming that's down to UK attitudes on the suitability rather than any notably different experience?

Raik they were sending round twice as the queue was so short! Such a nice little thing to do.

We didn't do Crazy Bats in the end. Tbh we couldn't even find it the first 2 days. When we finally did we figured the VR probably wouldn't work out for us and our time would be better spent going on Taron a few more times :)

A theme park with good food!!! People visiting a theme park to enjoy the food! Imagine! I really noticed how happy people were to just hang out. In fact there were more people spectating Talocan than riding it. People just hanging out drinking etc. Such a different atmosphere to UK parks. Could do with a bit more seating though. Lots of great viewing area to compensate at least.

Also Germans don't scream hysterically on rides which is so much more pleasant. My son wears ear defenders a lot when we're out, especially at theme parks but he was happily taking them off as the only noise was music or the ROAR of Taron.

Ling Bao hotel was lovely. The pool was admittedly a very loose definition of heated but was tolerable for 20 minutes or so. Could do with some proper changing rooms and no facility to use the lockers without a coin and no ability to obtain said coin. Probably makes more sense to change in your room when using it.

Anyway, i realise this is turning into the trip report i promised it wasn't so i'll leave it there for now. A wonderful wonderful theme park, we're already talking about going back for Christmas next year.
Did you not do Black Mamba?
 
I'm more interested in your thoughts on the actual best coaster there (Colorado Adventure)

Other than the fact both rides only move vertically, I don't think Sub Terra and Mystery Castle could be much more different ride experiences. NST is part show, part walkthrough with a small ride in the middle. Mystery Castle has theming and a story of sorts but the ride hardware is very much the focus.
 
Did you not do Black Mamba?

Alas no, Bowser Jr wasn't tall enough (though they didn't check his height on a single ride and don't seem to have the facility to do this at batching so it did cross my mind just to try it but responsible dad overrode that thought). A reason to go back!

I'm more interested in your thoughts on the actual best coaster there (Colorado Adventure)

This was also great! Much like all the coasters, it's so long! My wife couldn't believe it when we started going up a third lift hill 😂
 
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