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Planning a German Theme Park Adventure...

Looking at going to visit Europa Park, Tripsdrill, Holiday Park and Phantasialand in September and was looking for some advice.

Me and the missus are off from the 16th - 24th September so was looking to go between them times but I noticed that Europa, Phantasialand & Tripsdrill are open through-out September but Holiday Park isn't and is only opens at the weekend around the time of when I want to go. I need to come up with a plan of what is going to be best route for getting there and doing which parks which days. I'm thinking:

Europa Park - 3 days
Phantasialand - 2 days
Tripsdrill - 1 day
Holiday Park - 1 day

The order would have to be Holiday Park at the beginning of the trip or at the very end. Whats the best place to fly to and fly out from? Any help would be muchly appreciated as I know some of you are veterans of Germany/Europa Park (Astro). Also how is public transport, are all the parks all easily accessible via public transport or do you 100% need to hire a car?

TIA
 
As an only 1 time Germany visitor I'm probably not best placed to answer here, but I looked at doing exactly same selection as you last year and really felt that Phantasia was just too far away. That would be even more the case if you have to start and end at Holiday Park which is roughly half way between Phantasia and Europa.

- Holiday Park, Tripsdrill and Europa make a nice 'little' circular driving route from Baden Baden airport, or with mountain visit.
- I can't imagine how on earth you'd get to Tripsdrill without a car. I wouldn't worry too much about driving out there, it's fine.
- We detoured for a couple of nights in the mountains, and I would thoroughly recommend this. Or just making time to take in in any of Germany outside the parks as it is a lovely place.

My annoyingly photoless trip report here might have a couple of bits of info that could help. Maybe someone here who has done both will say otherwise, but I'd recommend doing that selection over two trips and clump Phantasialand with a couple of parks local to it like Movie Park and Efteling some time in the future.
 
I'd maybe drop Phantasialand too, if you can do it separately. As pluck says that'd give you chance to do Efteling etc. In fact Toverland is pretty much bang in between Phanta and Efteling if you do that round trip. Plus you could maybe extend your EP stay by a night or two - 5 days certainly isn't too long if it's your first trip and you're planning to do all the shows, hotels and have a few beers along the way.

I think even if you were doing Phanta you're probably best flying to Basel. If you're hiring a car it'll be significantly cheaper to return it to the same location and car hire at the French side of Basel is a breeze.
 
Thanks for the responses. Now I've had to persuade the missus to do this trip as she likes Theme Parks but isn't mad like I am so think this maybe my only chance to get her to do the German parks (although might go back just for Europa if she likes it, which I'm sure she will). Now I know some of you had said leave Phantasialand but I really want to go and don't think I'll get her back to visiting that area again. Here's the plan:

Saturday - Manchester > Dusseldorf Airport - arrive at 10:30AM > Drive to Movie Park Germany (40 Mins) and spent the remainder of the day there. > Drive to hotel near Phantasialand (1 Hour 20 mins)

Sunday - Spend at Phantasialand

Monday - Spend at Phantasialand > leave at 4/5 > Drive to hotel near(ish) Tripsdrill (3 Hours 20 mins)

Tuesday - Spend at Tripsdrill > Drive to hotel near Europa Park (2 Hours)

Wednesday - Spend at Europa Park

Thursday - Spend at Europa Park

Friday - Spend at Europa Park > Drive to hotel near Holiday Park (40 Mins)

Saturday - Holiday Park > stay at the same hotel as Friday night

Sunday - Drive to Stuttgart Airport (1 Hour 20 mins) > Fly home at 3:45PM (German Time) > Arrive in the UK 4:40PM (UK time).

Here's the route: Click here

Now worst case we may skip Tripsdrill for a chilled day if we are getting overwhelmed.

Now we are renting a car obviously to cover the vast journey. Now most rentals have silly excess' unless you buy their top package, is there anyway around this? Also is there any recommendations for hotels at either of the stops above. Now I know Pluk said Speyer is nice to stop for Holiday Park.

Saturday/Sunday Night - Hotel near Phantasialand

Monday - Hotel near Tripsdrill

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday - Hotel near Europa Park

Friday/Saturday - Hotel near Holiday Park (Speyer area?)

Thanks in advance.
 
The plan looks good :D

As for car rental insurance. You can risk it and hope nothing happens and pay the stupid excess (Usually between £250-£800), you can buy a insurance at the desk (usually costs about £40-£80) or you can arrange your own rental insurance. I have never actually done this but here is a handy link
I have always risked it with option A but make sure I photo every square inch of the car before leaving the car park just so that the rental company can't pull a fast one.

In Phantasialand I would fully recommend stopping at the Matamba. We did this last year and it was amazing and really added to the experience. Also we had a view of Black Mamba from our room :) It is expensive but we offset it with a cheap night at ibis budget Koeln Marsdorf. The food at Zambesi is amazing and I would fully recommend getting to the restaurant for an African buffet and having a drink at the Ling Bao even if you are not stopping there.

We are heading to Tripsdrill in September and found very little worth it in the area so settled for stopping in one of the wagons. It seems reasonable and part of the experience.

I'm sure others can guide you regarding Europa Park.

Have a great trip :)
 
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Anyone got any tips on visiting any of these park such as which way around to go for maximised riding/less queuing.

The plan is to do what was in my previous post, Movie Park Germany (1 day), Phantasialand (2 days), Tripsdrill (1 day), Europa Park (2/3 days) & Holiday Park (1 day). Do you think it is worth buying fast-track for the parks that offer it?
 
For hire car insurance when I did a similar trip in Germany I took their basic cover with the huge excess, and then took out excess insurance through quidco (can't recall name if company used) which I think only cost about £20 and had good reviews. If you claim you have to pay out that excess, so need the funds available, but then claim your excess spend back. I didn't have to claim myself, fortunately.

As for queues, I did Holiday Park and Tripsdrill on weekdays and basically never queues for anything. Holiday park run GeForxe one train when it's quiet, so even a station only queue can easily be 20mins, so hit that first. At the end of the day it returned to walk on though, so I whored it then.
Speyer is a perfect base for Holiday Park, and a lovely city to spend the evening in.
Tripsdrill have fab wagons to stay in. There is a separate wildlife park which is nice for a couple of hours relaxing which is free if you stay on site.
We spent weekend days relaxing in the mountains, which was nice and allowed time for mountain coaster. Europa was still very busy for us on weekdays, but operations make it barrable, especially if you download their live queue time app which means you can avoid the bigger queues as they seem to fluctuate around the park quite randomly.
 
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