Rowe
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Matterhorn Blitz (with an Aperol Spritz!)
Me, Rowe, occasional meet attendee and forum recluse, actually writing a trip report? What is this? The early 2010s? Whelp, let’s crack open a beer or two and type this stream of consciousness out before I decide this is a bad idea.
So yes, Cheese and I indeed returned to Phantasialand this May. Whilst I don’t remember when Cheese made his last visit, I made a solo trip in November 2019 to experience Wintertraum and got to meet the very cool and informative CSLKenny. So after a beleaguered near 3 years out from travelling abroad, being stuck with Merlin parks (and the delightful Paultons Park) for theme park trips, we were very keen to go back once restrictions and rules were relaxed. We chose Phantasialand as our first mainland European park (as opposed to mutual favourites Europa-Park and Liseberg) since Rookburgh and F.L.Y. had finally opened, we dearly missed most rides, food offerings and, of course, the local Kolsch beer. What also helped the decision was the ease of public transport from Cologne to Phantasialand and vice versa. And, as we were staying on resort, we had the whole craic surrounding payment. Why Phantasialand doesn’t update their booking software to include immediate payment is beyond us. Nevertheless with my extensive itinerary and everything booked, the holiday finally rolled around.
Tuesday
We arrived at Heathrow T2 around 6am, exhausted and/or sleep deprived, and suffered mild annoyances such as slow service at the Eurowings Check In desk, us being split at security with me put behind a young family extensively deconstructing their pushchair and Cheese being given the wrong type of tea at Wondertree. Ah well. We boarded the quiet flight and landed at Cologne-Bonn Airport 20 minutes early. This early arrival time was quickly sucked up by passport control but as frustrating as the wait was, we did at least get this exchange.
After picking up our luggage, we picked up a 24hr 2b ticket to Bruhl and hopped on the next train to Cologne Hauptbahnhof. The best bit was we didn’t even have to look at our watches to know the time as the CologneGIBthedral Cathedral and the church across the train plaza banged their bells over noon time. We had a relaxed lunch at Gaffel am Dom with our Kolsch stanges topped up on the regular, then got a delayed train down to Bruhl, followed by the Phantasialand bus. We had change ready until the bus driver waved it away. Thorpe Park 950 Bus would never. Under half an hour later, we arrived at Phantasialand’s doorstep and wheeled our way to Hotel Ling WOW. We checked in, got our vaunted 6 quick passes, sorted breakfast and a Bantu booking and headed upstairs to our lovely room with a view of the park with Taron roaring in the distance, the Ling Bao garden and, to Dave’s grimace, the pool undergoing refurbishment.
After a much needed nap and narrowly avoiding rain, we strolled around the park entrance, checking out the delightfully miserable looking Hotel Charles Lindbergh, Hotel Matamba and headed to Bamboo for dinner. My highlight was taking photos of Black Mamba, Blamba if you will, whilst on the kiddy rope bridge outside Bantu and Cheese finding me as such. Whilst I hadn’t stayed in Ling Bao before, I had previously been to Bamboo and didn’t think much of it. Though that opinion had been made in the mid 2010s when I didn’t pay attention to food and drink options. Also I remember seeing a man eat sushi with a knife and fork, not that it’s a complaint, it’s merely a vivid memory. But I digress (to digest). I’m not one for buffets but Bamboo had enough variety to keep me interested and, when we did get service, our server was very good. The teppanyaki grill was cool (for a hot plate) and the chef’s plate presentation was gorgeous but I felt so awkward waiting for the snapper to cook (not because the grill was cool, it was obviously at a high temperature). Since Dragon Bar was closed, we went to the Li River Bar for a few drinks and the nice ambient music stopped playing around 10pm leading to a bereft atmosphere. It’s overall a very nice bar with cocktail choices and cosy seating but still.
The Park - Wednesday & Thursday
We were back at Bamboo in the morning, this time for breakfast. After our last Splash Landings stay where the tough Flambo pancakes mimicked old P.E. frisbees and a lacking pastry choice, I was pleasantly surprised with fresh floppy pancakes and a good spread of pastries (custard and jam crowns, maple and pecan plaits, you name it). Pancakes, pastries, a good strong tea: All I ever really want for breakfast.
We eventually made our way to the park from 9am onwards, through Klugheim, Mexico and Berlin and strolled through the Rookburgh entrance to find out if our avoision paid off. And it mostly did. At first glance, Rookburgh is another brilliantly contained area featuring the cool and swish looking F.L.Y. which commands your attention at every turn. Pure photography fodder for me. Alas we got in the queue and eventually wound our way through the long corridors from 10am onwards, up and down steps and to the ‘first row queue’ and ‘second to tenth row queue’ split. I floated the idea of making front row our first go after seeing a few groups ahead, Cheese agreed. However, that turned out to be a very stupid idea because not only did we not know how their first row queue worked, the coaster also broke down. Once we got an explanation from the ride host (you receive a red wristband and wait in an additional queue but they were all out of red wristbands at the time), we re-joined the main queue and received our blue locker wristband. We finally boarded F.L.Y. and whoo, that was amazing. It makes Air look so clunky by comparison. The leg restraints were uncomfortable on my calves though and I would recommend to long haired visitors to tie their ponytail behind their neck rather than at crown level like I tend to. Otherwise, great coaster, love it, happy to see it around and I just hope whoever takes over from Eric Daman, Phantasialand creative director who unexpectedly passed away this year, does an excellent job with their next investments.
Leaving Rookburgh, we got ready for a good soaking off my fave Chiapas and River Quest, respectively, had a quick snack and smashed through the ChinaTown and Mexico rides in quick succession. Since Hex was closed, Feng Ju Palace gets my ‘first Madhouse of the year’ award. Well done, BUT YOU THERE! SIT DOWN! The queues were overall fine, under 30 minutes for most attractions and some were walk-on like Colorado Adventure. We also received the Misery Castle cycle. Blamba and Taron were hitting over 45 minutes and the former had a queue coming out the main entrance. The fast food queues weren’t great either as we waited perhaps 30 minutes to be served at Baobab Snack. Shame the beer choice was Heineken but the falafel pitta was still great. Hotel Tartuff was bonkers as ever with a fun attraction host and the Winjas queue was intolerable as ever. I finally visited Rutmor’s Tavern and can absolutely understand the positive opinions on food portion size. We then queued in the Taron cattlepen where school boys queue jumped and couldn’t be stopped. Joy. We also saw some queue jumpers aiming to get on the last ride of the day but were stopped by park security. Either way, Taron was a blast and I’ve missed it. Phantasialand were ever so slightly generous in offering an extended park close from 6pm to 6:30pm. Slightly being the key word here.
Though we had a fun day, we definitely felt we could have benefitted from more time and perhaps better planning. We also mis-stepped food wise as, whilst we were full from Rutmor’s Tavern, we didn’t book anywhere for dinner afterwards. None of the bars were offering food post 6pm or had easy bagged snacks like crisps or nuts. Vending machines seemed to be absent in the hotels too. At least fruit came with the cocktails in Matamba’s Bar Jafari and Ling Bao’s Li River Bar.
Thursday was Ascension Day and, from having read a few posts regarding theme parks on what is essentially a bank holiday in mainland Europe, we were expecting the park to be very busy (hence smashing through all the dumb fun attractions the previous day). It, uh, actually wasn’t that bad. We went on F.L.Y first thing after queuing from 9:30ish, visited the glorified toilet stop that is currently Restaurant Unter Den Linden and made our way to Winjas. I decided to pay my respects to the long departed Hollywood Tour (whose boats were no longer departing) with a small plastic rose bouquet. Whilst we were in the area, a surprising amount of people had strolled just for the ride and were met with disappointment. Understandable as Phantasialand, in typical Phantasialand phorm, still hasn’t made a proper press release regarding its fate.
We headed to Cocorico for a tapas lunch and sangria, which I would honestly recommend if you’re feeling adventurous. You get a lot of bread with the 4 choice tapas too. We went on F.L.Y. again, got the fun Mystery Castle cycle, got on Blamba and Colorado Adventure. As time was getting on, we remembered about the quick passes and used ours on Talocan. We were also keen to get on Chiapas with the quick pass too until, unfortunately, the ride broke down. Sad. Cheese and I parted ways, I opted to get more photography done around the Mexico area and parked myself by Talocan for a good while. I headed over to the big Berlin gift shop where Phantasialand’s merchandise proved a dull disappointment. They had a few basic clothing items for F.L.Y. and the Rookburgh soundtrack, maybe one or two other new items or changes like the Chiapas t-shirt switching from dark grey to black, but it all looked exactly the same as when I had last been. And, although I didn’t want it to be my last ride, I reluctantly re-rode the mad coaster that is Colorado Adventure.
We then got ready to dine at Hotel Matamba’s Bantu restaurant. Again like Bamboo, it had been many years since my last visit and all I remember it being low lit and posh. And, again like Bamboo, we had the same server who eventually recognised us. The food was delicious, beautifully presented and the size of the glass I was served a martini in reminded me of the now dismantled Europa-Park satellite. It would’ve been nice to have sat outside whilst the sun was setting but the playing children put us off and, after a long day, the light jazzy music and low lighting definitely helped decompress the nerves. We slunk back to Li River Bar for drinks.
Friday
Considering how delightfully sunny and warm the weather had been the last two days, it was funny that our travel days were bookended by rain. We got the Phantasialand bus back to Bruhl (again, the driver let us board without payment) and we went straight from Bruhl to Cologne-Bonn Airport by way of Hauptbahnhof. We also saw the same fluffy Pomeranian on the train, at the Eurowings check in and after Terminal security. Cologne-Bonn airport security proved to be an overwhelming cattle pen and we walked a considerable distance to our gate. After a slightly delayed departure and lots of banked flying over East London, we arrived safely back at Heathrow T2.
Epilogue
Phantasialand is a park I’ve had a soft spot for since my first visit in 2014. It’s full of weird decisions from convoluted hotel payments to queue closing times, it hasn’t changed its mediocre merchandising lines and suffers from slow, spotty service. And in the same breath it has two of my favourite attractions (Chiapas and Taron), excellent recent thematic additions such as Klugheim and Rookburgh and is just an overall delight. Am I excited yet tentative over what Phantasialand spends ages developing next? Yes. Am I looking forward to returning despite nothing new being presumably added until their next investment? Sure. Could this report have been better? Totally
So yes, Cheese and I indeed returned to Phantasialand this May. Whilst I don’t remember when Cheese made his last visit, I made a solo trip in November 2019 to experience Wintertraum and got to meet the very cool and informative CSLKenny. So after a beleaguered near 3 years out from travelling abroad, being stuck with Merlin parks (and the delightful Paultons Park) for theme park trips, we were very keen to go back once restrictions and rules were relaxed. We chose Phantasialand as our first mainland European park (as opposed to mutual favourites Europa-Park and Liseberg) since Rookburgh and F.L.Y. had finally opened, we dearly missed most rides, food offerings and, of course, the local Kolsch beer. What also helped the decision was the ease of public transport from Cologne to Phantasialand and vice versa. And, as we were staying on resort, we had the whole craic surrounding payment. Why Phantasialand doesn’t update their booking software to include immediate payment is beyond us. Nevertheless with my extensive itinerary and everything booked, the holiday finally rolled around.
Tuesday
We arrived at Heathrow T2 around 6am, exhausted and/or sleep deprived, and suffered mild annoyances such as slow service at the Eurowings Check In desk, us being split at security with me put behind a young family extensively deconstructing their pushchair and Cheese being given the wrong type of tea at Wondertree. Ah well. We boarded the quiet flight and landed at Cologne-Bonn Airport 20 minutes early. This early arrival time was quickly sucked up by passport control but as frustrating as the wait was, we did at least get this exchange.
After picking up our luggage, we picked up a 24hr 2b ticket to Bruhl and hopped on the next train to Cologne Hauptbahnhof. The best bit was we didn’t even have to look at our watches to know the time as the Cologne
After a much needed nap and narrowly avoiding rain, we strolled around the park entrance, checking out the delightfully miserable looking Hotel Charles Lindbergh, Hotel Matamba and headed to Bamboo for dinner. My highlight was taking photos of Black Mamba, Blamba if you will, whilst on the kiddy rope bridge outside Bantu and Cheese finding me as such. Whilst I hadn’t stayed in Ling Bao before, I had previously been to Bamboo and didn’t think much of it. Though that opinion had been made in the mid 2010s when I didn’t pay attention to food and drink options. Also I remember seeing a man eat sushi with a knife and fork, not that it’s a complaint, it’s merely a vivid memory. But I digress (to digest). I’m not one for buffets but Bamboo had enough variety to keep me interested and, when we did get service, our server was very good. The teppanyaki grill was cool (for a hot plate) and the chef’s plate presentation was gorgeous but I felt so awkward waiting for the snapper to cook (not because the grill was cool, it was obviously at a high temperature). Since Dragon Bar was closed, we went to the Li River Bar for a few drinks and the nice ambient music stopped playing around 10pm leading to a bereft atmosphere. It’s overall a very nice bar with cocktail choices and cosy seating but still.
The Park - Wednesday & Thursday
We were back at Bamboo in the morning, this time for breakfast. After our last Splash Landings stay where the tough Flambo pancakes mimicked old P.E. frisbees and a lacking pastry choice, I was pleasantly surprised with fresh floppy pancakes and a good spread of pastries (custard and jam crowns, maple and pecan plaits, you name it). Pancakes, pastries, a good strong tea: All I ever really want for breakfast.
We eventually made our way to the park from 9am onwards, through Klugheim, Mexico and Berlin and strolled through the Rookburgh entrance to find out if our avoision paid off. And it mostly did. At first glance, Rookburgh is another brilliantly contained area featuring the cool and swish looking F.L.Y. which commands your attention at every turn. Pure photography fodder for me. Alas we got in the queue and eventually wound our way through the long corridors from 10am onwards, up and down steps and to the ‘first row queue’ and ‘second to tenth row queue’ split. I floated the idea of making front row our first go after seeing a few groups ahead, Cheese agreed. However, that turned out to be a very stupid idea because not only did we not know how their first row queue worked, the coaster also broke down. Once we got an explanation from the ride host (you receive a red wristband and wait in an additional queue but they were all out of red wristbands at the time), we re-joined the main queue and received our blue locker wristband. We finally boarded F.L.Y. and whoo, that was amazing. It makes Air look so clunky by comparison. The leg restraints were uncomfortable on my calves though and I would recommend to long haired visitors to tie their ponytail behind their neck rather than at crown level like I tend to. Otherwise, great coaster, love it, happy to see it around and I just hope whoever takes over from Eric Daman, Phantasialand creative director who unexpectedly passed away this year, does an excellent job with their next investments.
Leaving Rookburgh, we got ready for a good soaking off my fave Chiapas and River Quest, respectively, had a quick snack and smashed through the ChinaTown and Mexico rides in quick succession. Since Hex was closed, Feng Ju Palace gets my ‘first Madhouse of the year’ award. Well done, BUT YOU THERE! SIT DOWN! The queues were overall fine, under 30 minutes for most attractions and some were walk-on like Colorado Adventure. We also received the Misery Castle cycle. Blamba and Taron were hitting over 45 minutes and the former had a queue coming out the main entrance. The fast food queues weren’t great either as we waited perhaps 30 minutes to be served at Baobab Snack. Shame the beer choice was Heineken but the falafel pitta was still great. Hotel Tartuff was bonkers as ever with a fun attraction host and the Winjas queue was intolerable as ever. I finally visited Rutmor’s Tavern and can absolutely understand the positive opinions on food portion size. We then queued in the Taron cattlepen where school boys queue jumped and couldn’t be stopped. Joy. We also saw some queue jumpers aiming to get on the last ride of the day but were stopped by park security. Either way, Taron was a blast and I’ve missed it. Phantasialand were ever so slightly generous in offering an extended park close from 6pm to 6:30pm. Slightly being the key word here.
Though we had a fun day, we definitely felt we could have benefitted from more time and perhaps better planning. We also mis-stepped food wise as, whilst we were full from Rutmor’s Tavern, we didn’t book anywhere for dinner afterwards. None of the bars were offering food post 6pm or had easy bagged snacks like crisps or nuts. Vending machines seemed to be absent in the hotels too. At least fruit came with the cocktails in Matamba’s Bar Jafari and Ling Bao’s Li River Bar.
Thursday was Ascension Day and, from having read a few posts regarding theme parks on what is essentially a bank holiday in mainland Europe, we were expecting the park to be very busy (hence smashing through all the dumb fun attractions the previous day). It, uh, actually wasn’t that bad. We went on F.L.Y first thing after queuing from 9:30ish, visited the glorified toilet stop that is currently Restaurant Unter Den Linden and made our way to Winjas. I decided to pay my respects to the long departed Hollywood Tour (whose boats were no longer departing) with a small plastic rose bouquet. Whilst we were in the area, a surprising amount of people had strolled just for the ride and were met with disappointment. Understandable as Phantasialand, in typical Phantasialand phorm, still hasn’t made a proper press release regarding its fate.
We headed to Cocorico for a tapas lunch and sangria, which I would honestly recommend if you’re feeling adventurous. You get a lot of bread with the 4 choice tapas too. We went on F.L.Y. again, got the fun Mystery Castle cycle, got on Blamba and Colorado Adventure. As time was getting on, we remembered about the quick passes and used ours on Talocan. We were also keen to get on Chiapas with the quick pass too until, unfortunately, the ride broke down. Sad. Cheese and I parted ways, I opted to get more photography done around the Mexico area and parked myself by Talocan for a good while. I headed over to the big Berlin gift shop where Phantasialand’s merchandise proved a dull disappointment. They had a few basic clothing items for F.L.Y. and the Rookburgh soundtrack, maybe one or two other new items or changes like the Chiapas t-shirt switching from dark grey to black, but it all looked exactly the same as when I had last been. And, although I didn’t want it to be my last ride, I reluctantly re-rode the mad coaster that is Colorado Adventure.
We then got ready to dine at Hotel Matamba’s Bantu restaurant. Again like Bamboo, it had been many years since my last visit and all I remember it being low lit and posh. And, again like Bamboo, we had the same server who eventually recognised us. The food was delicious, beautifully presented and the size of the glass I was served a martini in reminded me of the now dismantled Europa-Park satellite. It would’ve been nice to have sat outside whilst the sun was setting but the playing children put us off and, after a long day, the light jazzy music and low lighting definitely helped decompress the nerves. We slunk back to Li River Bar for drinks.
Friday
Considering how delightfully sunny and warm the weather had been the last two days, it was funny that our travel days were bookended by rain. We got the Phantasialand bus back to Bruhl (again, the driver let us board without payment) and we went straight from Bruhl to Cologne-Bonn Airport by way of Hauptbahnhof. We also saw the same fluffy Pomeranian on the train, at the Eurowings check in and after Terminal security. Cologne-Bonn airport security proved to be an overwhelming cattle pen and we walked a considerable distance to our gate. After a slightly delayed departure and lots of banked flying over East London, we arrived safely back at Heathrow T2.
Epilogue
Phantasialand is a park I’ve had a soft spot for since my first visit in 2014. It’s full of weird decisions from convoluted hotel payments to queue closing times, it hasn’t changed its mediocre merchandising lines and suffers from slow, spotty service. And in the same breath it has two of my favourite attractions (Chiapas and Taron), excellent recent thematic additions such as Klugheim and Rookburgh and is just an overall delight. Am I excited yet tentative over what Phantasialand spends ages developing next? Yes. Am I looking forward to returning despite nothing new being presumably added until their next investment? Sure. Could this report have been better? Totally
