[Apologises for the length delay between reports - I've had an interview to prepare for recently, as well as a few other bits come up!]
After a surprisingly nice sleep in the hostel of meh-service, and a slight accident where Adam reserved into a lamp post (don't worry, no damage done to us or the car!), we set off to Phantasialand! Collectively, it was probably the park we were looking forward to most. We arrived at the park for their 9am, and headed into the park.
Our first port of call was Maus au Chocolat, which opened at half 9. We joined the short queue of people outside and were able to get on the ride pretty much straight away. It almost felt like a shame to have my first go on the ride be a pretty much walk-on, as it meant I didn't take in the awesome queue line as much. Enthusiast problems ey? As for the ride itself, I adored it. I loved the theme, I loved the shooting system, I loved the soundtrack, I liked the mixture of screens and real theming on ride. It can see why people think it is bit too long / repetitive, but I didn't find it like that myself to be honest. For me, this was basically the perfect indoor attraction.
We moved onto the first coaster of the day - Colorado Adventure. A ride which I'd heard decent things about, but I was a bit unsure about, possibly down to my underwhelmed thoughts Calamity Mine at Walibi the day before. Once again though, my preconceptions about the ride were wrong and, like many others, I do enjoy the ride. The lift hills are very slow though and really do kill the pacing of the ride, and that feeling isn't helped by the adjacent Chiapas and it's epic speedy hill. Still, a great family ride, and does live up to hype.
With it being a hot day, and with the 11 hour opening time suggesting it was going to be a busy day, we decided to stick to Mexico and ride Chiapas, which only had a 20 minute odd wait. I remember watching a POV of the ride when it first opened, and not really understanding what all the excitement was about, but I had heard brilliant reviews of ride, so went into it with mixed expectations. Fortunately, all I can really say about the ride is WOW. This must surely be the perfect water ride? Very good length, nice theming, a fantastic soundtrack, awesome backwards section, amazing final drop, and gets you a nice level of wet. Just sheer perfection.
Next up was the famous Talocan, the top spin well-known for its epic effects. Simply put, after experiencing Rameses Revenge and Ripsaw a few times, I just felt like top spins were rides I didn't really rate, and were just spectator rides. But I went into this with an open mind. However, my thoughts aren't changed - whilst we were sat on the good side, and had a set of brilliant effects running during the ride, the actual ride itself is still a bit uncomfortable and just a bit meh all-in-all. Great spectator ride, average riding ride.
We left Mexico and headed over to the Fantasy area of the park, which held 3 of the park's coasters. Before tackling them, we did a couple of the lesser rides in the area, starting off with Race for Atlantis. It was an awful simulator ride, with an awful pre-show (which I still can't work out if it was terrible on purpose), a juddery experience and a pretty meh film. We then headed over to Hollywood Tour, an indoor boat ride - unsurprisingly - themed around Hollywood films. It was a nice little experience in honesty, and I did enjoy it, but it certainly looked very old and tired, and in desperate need of some attention. It's hard to believe that a dark ride in this state is in the same park as Maus to be honest!
Temple of the Nighthawk, an indoor coaster followed. It was a walk-on, bar a couple of minutes wait following someone throwing up (hot weather + hot indoor building + roller coaster obviously wasn't a good idea for someone). Jack and I got front row. The coaster does two things in extreme - darkness and length. The ride is very dark, bar a few lights here and there, and way too long - three lift hills, with sections that feel like they do nothing. It's a very much a burden to ride it really, and it just feels boring. Another ride which needs a lot doing to it.
Random station theming is random.
Safe to say that the Fantasy area hadn't lived up to the bar set by the attractions earlier in the day. Felt like I was more in a Nightmare Land to be honest. The next attractions had a lot riding on them, as it was beginning to feel like a waste coming to this part of the park. Fortunately, the next attractions were Winjas, the set of two spinning coasters. I knew a bit more about these coasters than I would have liked to as a first-time rider (I read up on them a few years back in my days of "Well this is a park I'll probably never get to"), but fortunately that didn't ruin the coasters as a whole. We did Force first, then did Fear straight afterwards. To avoid spoilers for anyone - I found Force had the better second half, whilst Fear had the better first half. I feel as if the second half of the coasters could have been better themed and had some more off-ride effects, but I do see why they've decided to keep those sections very dark. But all in all, two excellent coasters!
Peaj was initially sceptical...
Was difficult getting any decent shots of anything indoors with my camera... ¬¬
We decided to polish off a couple of the smaller attractions in the area, including Baumberger Irrgarten, a nice little maze, and Wakobato - a splash battle type-ride which doesn't interact with any other boats, and has no (working?) effects. It was a pretty bad ride, even if it had some nice bits of theming.
The maze had bridges.
Unfortunately, Phantasialand didn't get the memo that "If I wanted to look at trees, I'd go to a garden centre".
With lunchtime approaching, we decided to grab a bite to eat, and were able to catch the majority of the show that happens in the China Town area. Was a nice little thing to watch whilst munching on a bratwurst and chips. We took things easy for the next couple of attractions, doing Wellenflug, the chairswing with awesome water fountains, and Das verruckte Hotel Tartiff - an epic fun house. We had no clue what sort of attraction Hotel Tartiff was, so after experiencing the fab pre-show, I think all our faces lit up when we realised what it was!
With lunch settled down, the next stop was truly obvious to us - Black Mamba. I'd heard great things about Mamba, and with the similarities to Nemesis, I was very excited. With a very short queue and plenty of time left in the day, we opted to do front row for our first ride, knowing we'd have time for back row later on. I absolutely adore to the station; so nicely themed! The ride itself is good too and another coaster I really enjoyed. I feel as if the ride does too much too soon, leaving the end of the ride to feel a bit lacklustre. It's not a terrible thing of course, as the ride is still nicely paced and does a lot with what it's got, but I just think something else is needed at the end really. I did like the idea of how you enter the station building and are in darkness before returning to the station; it just seemed to work.
Station! (Unfortunately, having flash on has taken away the really awesome atmospheric lighting).
With only two major rides left, we headed over to the Mystery area for two rides I'd heard some good reviews about. First up was Mystery Castle, which was walk-on. The queue was fabulously themed and so so atmospheric. The loading for the ride was great, and I really liked how the control booth was in the middle of all the towers; it was another little thing which really worked, and makes the experience so much better. However, the ride experience was a bit underwhelming. Too short, no standout special effects. It even felt quite small; like it wasn't using the full height of the ride? It does seem we caught it on a day with short cycles, which is a real shame. One thing I did like about the ride itself was how at one point I genuinely couldn't tell if we were going up or down - we were quite obviously moving, but my sense of direction had be distorted enough for me to have no clue what was happening! Just a shame there couldn't have been more of that really.
We then moved next door to River Quest, the park's 'rapids' which had a 20 minute queue. Not really seeing any of the ride before, and fortunately avoiding POVs online, I was really intrigued by this. But, at the end of it, I was a bit disappointed. The ride itself lacks any real theme or theming, it isn't very rapids-y (a by-product of the space issue with the ride I guess) and left me absolutely drenched, especially from the waist down. Yes, I know it's a water ride and you're meant to get wet, but I just don't like get absolutely drenched! As I say, a bit of a disappointment really.
We still had quite a few hours left on park, so we went into China Town to do the attractions there. Their madhouse, Feng Ju Palace was very average, possibly the worst I've done given how bad the pre-show was. Then again, since this was the third day in a row of doing new madhouses, I think I was beginning to tire of them a bit! Their omnimover, Geister Rikscha, was also very average really, which was a bit of shame.
With everything of note now done, we essentially had the rest of day (I think 3-4 hours?) to do rerides and the some of the park's shows. We saw Pirates 4D which was a great blast from the past, as well as the on-park ice skating show, which was good fun. We re-rode all of the major attractions I think (though I gave a miss on River Quest, but in the end, the guys came off practically bone-dry; typical!). Back row on Mamba was a particular highlight! The day ended with us being the last group of Maus au Chocolat, with the queue line being shut as soon as we joined and the staff in the station area not actually knowing we were coming. The fact we rode it 3 times during the day and I didn't tire of it says to me that this will probably be one of my favourite rides for a long time to come!
With the longest on-park day over with, we had a nice hour long drive to Dusseldorf, where our next hotel lay in wait. It was a decent enough hotel; easy enough for me to crash out and sleep whilst the rest of the group discovered what highlights Dusseldorf had to offer (which, if I remember correctly, wasn't much!).
Final Phantasialand Thoughts: All in all, I really enjoyed Phantasialand. It is obviously a top quality park with some truly fantastic attractions. The trouble I have is that there are quite a few attractions on park which are either very meh or are crying out for something to be done to them (or even just scrapped altogether). Whenever I think about the park, the first things which come to mind are the likes of Maus, Chiapas, Winjas and Mamba, but then the likes of Temple, the Mystery and China Town attractions and the poor filler rides in the Fantasy area just leave me with a bit of a disappointing after-thought. That being said, I still really did love the park, and genuinely can't wait to go back to it!
