Burbs
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Iron Gwazi
After fretting for a while over whether it would happen or not, last week a small group of us finally managed to get away for the first time in over a year! Once planned for summer 2020, before being delayed to summer 2021, and then finally postponed to October, we embarked on a road trip to Europa-Park, including a day at Rulantica and a trip out to the Hasenhorn Coasterbahn.
We began with a rocky start, as the Eurotunnel service was heavily delayed all day. We'd booked onto the 5.20am shuttle (for our sins) and yet didn't depart until around 9.30am due to a broken down train and another train ripping down over 600 metres of overhead catenary cables in one of the tunnels. We considered ourselves to be very lucky however, as it turns out that should we have arrived any later, we would have faced delays of over 10 hours. Regardless, once we'd made it over to France it was plain sailing down to Rust using the French toll roads.
We had 3 days planned in the main park, staying offsite for 5 nights at Sohana Lifestyle Apartments. The accommodation was really nice and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone looking at staying in the town rather than the hotels. From the balcony you could observe the tallest rides in the park, and I certainly didn't sit there one evening tracking Silver Star's throughputs...
As for the park itself, besides F&B, everything was up to scratch! We managed to make good use of Virtual Line, (especially useful for Blue Fire, Wodan, CanCan and Arthur), although I see little use for it to be available for Piraten in Batavia or Euro-Mir considering you get merged in half way through the main queue anyway. Still, I'd rather it be gone completely, although I can't see that happening any time soon. The biggest disappointment was the poor offering of food and beverage, with a number of major outlets closed during our time there, inflating the wait times for the few options that were available.
Half of our group did Traumatica on one of the nights, 2 went off for lovers-sosche and so I decided to GET OVER THE BARRIERS OF LIFE and give YULLBE a try - my views of which I shall air in the dedicated topic. On our second full day, we spent the morning driving out to Todtnau to have a couple of goes on the Coasterbahn mountain coaster. Despite most of the group having done it before, it would be my first time, and I was somewhat apprehensive about a) the newly-added automatic braking, and b) slow riders in front of us. Fortunately the operator at the top of the coaster was doing a great job by distancing riders based on how fast or slow they were going, and even fiddled with the brakes on our cars to make them go faster! We went down twice and it's certainly my favourite alpine coaster to date.
In the afternoon, we headed over to Rulantica - always a highlight of my trips to Europa nowadays. Unfortunately my favourite attractrion - Vildstrøm, the outdoor rapids - was closed for the day. However the fact that Svalgurok was fully open (despite the fact it's officially closed from mid September) more than made up for this. The new outdoor area really is fantastic, with some really intense slides (Spiralrok, Stormrok and Slalomrok in particular). We also paid extra to use the new Hyggedal relaxation area, where a few of us decided to get lunch. The Hyggebowls were really tasty and a good hearty alternative to the stodgy offerings available at Lumålunda and Snekkjas. Hyggedal is a fabulous area to get away from the hustle and bustle of the main hall, and it would be very easy to nip up there for an hour or so to doze off for a bit. I'm not sure it's fully worth the 10,€ surcharge for what it is unless you plan on using the sauna as well, but it certainly makes it feel much more exclusive and secluded.
Another couple of days in the main park were in order, before a long drive home. Naturally, the Eurotunnel spited us again with yet another delay of 2.5 hours, but at this point we were past the point of caring. Despite the travel issues, we all had a fantastic time and this has been one of my very favourite trips to Europa. Of course, I managed to film a video while out there as well!
We began with a rocky start, as the Eurotunnel service was heavily delayed all day. We'd booked onto the 5.20am shuttle (for our sins) and yet didn't depart until around 9.30am due to a broken down train and another train ripping down over 600 metres of overhead catenary cables in one of the tunnels. We considered ourselves to be very lucky however, as it turns out that should we have arrived any later, we would have faced delays of over 10 hours. Regardless, once we'd made it over to France it was plain sailing down to Rust using the French toll roads.
We had 3 days planned in the main park, staying offsite for 5 nights at Sohana Lifestyle Apartments. The accommodation was really nice and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone looking at staying in the town rather than the hotels. From the balcony you could observe the tallest rides in the park, and I certainly didn't sit there one evening tracking Silver Star's throughputs...
As for the park itself, besides F&B, everything was up to scratch! We managed to make good use of Virtual Line, (especially useful for Blue Fire, Wodan, CanCan and Arthur), although I see little use for it to be available for Piraten in Batavia or Euro-Mir considering you get merged in half way through the main queue anyway. Still, I'd rather it be gone completely, although I can't see that happening any time soon. The biggest disappointment was the poor offering of food and beverage, with a number of major outlets closed during our time there, inflating the wait times for the few options that were available.
Half of our group did Traumatica on one of the nights, 2 went off for lovers-sosche and so I decided to GET OVER THE BARRIERS OF LIFE and give YULLBE a try - my views of which I shall air in the dedicated topic. On our second full day, we spent the morning driving out to Todtnau to have a couple of goes on the Coasterbahn mountain coaster. Despite most of the group having done it before, it would be my first time, and I was somewhat apprehensive about a) the newly-added automatic braking, and b) slow riders in front of us. Fortunately the operator at the top of the coaster was doing a great job by distancing riders based on how fast or slow they were going, and even fiddled with the brakes on our cars to make them go faster! We went down twice and it's certainly my favourite alpine coaster to date.
In the afternoon, we headed over to Rulantica - always a highlight of my trips to Europa nowadays. Unfortunately my favourite attractrion - Vildstrøm, the outdoor rapids - was closed for the day. However the fact that Svalgurok was fully open (despite the fact it's officially closed from mid September) more than made up for this. The new outdoor area really is fantastic, with some really intense slides (Spiralrok, Stormrok and Slalomrok in particular). We also paid extra to use the new Hyggedal relaxation area, where a few of us decided to get lunch. The Hyggebowls were really tasty and a good hearty alternative to the stodgy offerings available at Lumålunda and Snekkjas. Hyggedal is a fabulous area to get away from the hustle and bustle of the main hall, and it would be very easy to nip up there for an hour or so to doze off for a bit. I'm not sure it's fully worth the 10,€ surcharge for what it is unless you plan on using the sauna as well, but it certainly makes it feel much more exclusive and secluded.
Another couple of days in the main park were in order, before a long drive home. Naturally, the Eurotunnel spited us again with yet another delay of 2.5 hours, but at this point we were past the point of caring. Despite the travel issues, we all had a fantastic time and this has been one of my very favourite trips to Europa. Of course, I managed to film a video while out there as well!
