We were done with Hamburg, so today was a day of driving as we headed to our next base of operations in Dortmund. We decided that because there wasn’t much option of things to do in Dortmund as we were staying in a soulless industrial estate and Dortmund isn’t known for having much in the way of touristy stuff (Football stadium aside, but it had a game on that if I’d known about I would’ve gone to), we would visit Schloss Beck instead to pass a few hours.

Schloss Beck is a tiny little park a stone’s throw away from Movie Park, so close in fact, that they will use their own car park as an overflow to Movie Park, and offer guests money off their parking fee of €5 onto paying to enter the park. The man who greeted us in the car park was very bemused that we had come to visit the park itself rather than Movie Park, but that was for tomorrow.

First stop was the cred, another Zierer Tivoli ingeniously named Family Rollercoaster. It had an enclosed lifthill but that was about as unique/interesting as it got.

Now it was time for the stuff that really excited me, the manually operated attractions. These are really common in the small German parks, but I’ve never been to a park that has them. I was able to pretend I was a ride operator again!

First up, the Nautic Jet, surprisingly terrifying when you realise all that’s holding you in is a flimsy bar and that jump hits you. The reverse climb as well has a wonderful sense of trepidation to it as well.

Next was some Zip Wire style attraction, which (in another flimsy seat) raised the wire up to send you backwards on your way across the river. You’d then return and do the thing twice more. I had to yell at a German kid as he tried to jump on in front of us, little git.

Then did the Pirate Ship next, which was a swinging cage with a dangling rope for riders to control the amount of swing available to them. Naturally, went the whole hog on full swing. Utterly terrifying.

There were also some slides which were done. The death slide was a lot steeper when you got to the top.

That was pretty much the ride selection exhausted (bar a dead spinning manual ride, a Dragon flat and some Dinghy Slides), so we grabbed some Dippin Dots and headed towards the nature walk that sits within the park grounds. Comparisons to Towers (what with the old house at the entrance) were quite high on the agenda, though not many parks where you can hear another major park’s show taking place.

We found a play area and messed about in it before having a nose around the old house thing. Not quite the ruins of Towers, but still nice.

Then we left, for what’s available (and for an entry price of €12 a head), it’s quite nice. Plenty of things for kids to do rather than adults but that’s what the target is. There was a nice atmosphere within the park and the raised nature walk was quite cool. Doubt it has the ability to expand further but it’s a nice enough place to visit regardless.