Benin

Another day, another park, but this park was more of a stop-over to break up the monotony of driving all the way to Stuttgart. The original plan was to actually hit up the Nurburgring, however once Ring Racer was confirmed as spited, Klotten was chosen as the park of cred run. Whilst it is in the middle of nowhere, it cannot be argued that the location on the mountainside with valleys all around is pretty amazing. The first port of call was Heisse Fahrt, the Gerstlauer Bobsled. I’ve always found these quite fun, rather than the boredom of constant turns on a Wild Mouse, and this one itself seemed very forceful and full of bountiful airtime too. Whilst the unfinished castle is a bit of a blot on the landscaping aspect of the ride, the rest of it does fit into the park rather well. Slightly interacting with the coaster and lying in the unfinished castle is Zum Rittersturz, a very peculiar ride indeed. Certainly takes the arguments of “is it a cred or not” to new heights, but what is very surprising about it is the random dark ride section that takes place prior to the rotating elevator lift (which provides a question of, why design it to need an elevator lift that needs to rotate?). Was also rather wet which was not particularly welcomed. We then wandered around the park’s Zoo; it was alright, with most of the enclosures sitting on the hillside. Another quick go on Heisse Fahrt was had after some food before we had a quick mess about on some swings before continuing our journey along to Stuttgart. Plenty of potential lies within the park. Hopefully they can finish that castle and then push on with a few bigger rides, be they flats or another coaster. They have some space, not much, but defo enough for two decent sized coasters.

It's a week away, there is no point getting antsy about it, because if they're closed there's nothing that can be done about it... I'm sure if they reopen someone will mention it...

That's really nothing new, believe me...

I want to do a google search of a spider as a Knight who says Ni now, but I'll be too scared of the potential results, cos spiders...

The second day at Phantasialand started similarly to the first, parking in the China car park and straight off to Black Mamba. A front row ride was in order since it was unlikely another chance would raise its head, front rows are very useful wake-up calls. Over to Wuze Town, and as Fear was having the morning off, Winjas Force was ridden, followed by another go on Tittle Tattle Tree. We then rode lots of the new Wuze Town stuff that has been added over the years, starting with the Monorail, Wurmling Express, which could do with a bit of a touch-up already with its rather dilapidated owls. Wakabato, the pointless not so Splash Battle was next, with dodgy guns, broken targets and unreachable boats meant that the point of them was missed. A quick run around the Hedge Maze led us back to Wuze Town by which point Winjas Fear had opened so we rode that. Tittle Tattle Tree followed again and we managed to sit in a side we hadn’t done before, hooray! We walked past a Balloon Show on our way to Chiapas. Still fab and welcomed in the nicer weather we had that day. It was show time, starting with the Eis Show, which was the typical Ice-Skating show until they decided to SET THE ICE ON FIRE! Love Germany and their obsession over it. JUMP was next, and it was basically Stomp but with MORE Trampolining, it was ok but not really a theme park show in my opinion. We then headed off to Mystery Castle, only to be bitterly disappointed by the cut down ride cycle, as it launched straight to the top with no faffy bit prior to it. Upset by this, Tikal was ridden again to fulfil the drop tower fix. Back in Mexico, it would feel wrong if we didn’t ride Talocan and Chiapas again, especially since Chiapas has the wonderfully useful single rider queue. We were back in the plaza to watch the street shows again (mainly as one of the three they run wasn’t on the day before) and have some snack time, which presented itself via wonderful Kinder Ice Cream. Extremely tasty and nom. The shows were all once again very good and all enjoyable. After the third show we went on Maus au Chocolat again. Rode Black Mamba once more before a quick run on the Carousel for a sit-down and rest before we discussed what our last ride on the park should be. It was agreed that Winjas Fear would win the coveted role before we would watch Drakkarium and marvel at the dove that tried to kill itself during the finale by trying to fly into the nearby building. Two days at Phantasialand is certainly enough if you time your trip just right. It wasn’t actually that busy over the two days, even the Saturday wasn’t horrendously bad, although we did have some show based times as well as getting all the Dragon character photos. As I said before, fantastic park and well worth staying for beyond the coasters.

Plenty of potential in Shoreditch too...

But when they had high levels of thrillseekers the park wasn't making any money off the crowds... Thorpe have put themselves in that awkward situation as a result, and as you say, need to really go full out on attracting the family market to the park, but I can't help but feel that Merlin's reactive method to running the parks won't result in this...

Does the park really need anything new for thrillseekers though? They need to focus on getting the family market back to visiting the park, and providing a quality experience, especially given the poor numbers this year... Can't change things overnight even if Merlin think that's the only way things work (things not making enough money? RAISE THE PRICE!)

How long IS the lifespan of a dark ride though? Haven't seen Disney change the likes of Haunted Mansion much beyond updating the effects... So did Towers have to turn Haunted House into Duel? I think it's definitely a cultural thing, we English just aren't interested in dark rides anymore if at all...

Highly doubt a teacher would go out of his way to treat students badly unless they've probably given him reason to... I've been in plenty of classes where we've driven a teacher up the wall as a whole, and I've seen teachers over the years who are normally nice and whatever snap out because people are being burdenous, myself included...

Lol, clearly an insurance job, gotta pay for that new coaster somehow right?

Even Heide could manage two trains on things (apart from the things that either cannot run 2 trains or can run more than that) from opening... Thorpe's maintenance budget being low is a pitiful excuse for a major theme park...

Bla Taget from Grona Lund is a good example as a 'cheap' dark ride... But it wouldn't work in the UK as we don't embrace the crazy European nature of things... Badly done cheap dark rides can look awful though... Would love to see a Huntik style ride with or without the guns, but it would be immensely expensive, as much as a coaster and I doubt Merlin would think a typical modern dark ride would get the guests coming...

Well, there's always Sub Terra

Europa celebrated their 100'000'000th guest recently... An amazing number to acheive in the 39 years the park has been open, which on average would see approx 2.5m guests a year... Some parks could only dream of such numbers...

Day 7 – Phantastic Part 1 My last visit to Phantasialand was 6 years ago, which in some cases doesn’t tend to mean a whole lot has changed. However, here, pretty much every single area had something different about it, be it from an addition of some flat rides in Wuze Town, to replacing some tatty old Flumes, or in several cases, the rides simply don’t exist anymore. Lots of change, but would I still like the park? We parked in the China car park (due to limited space, there are several car parks, one for each area), purchased our two day ticket for the awful price of €75 (a day ticket is €45) and entered the park. Phantasialand have one of those weird staggered ride openings, with the park opening at 9, some rides opening at 9:30, then more at 10 before the remainder (water rides) open at 11. So the first ride of the day was some B&M goodness in Black Mamba. Totally forgotten one of the best things in Phantasialand are the queues (unless it’s Winjas’). Mamba’s goes on such an adventure with some decent ride based interaction, and the station is so well themed and beautiful. The ride itself starts fantastically but ends poorly, always has done to me, because I just don’t think the helixes are powerful enough to finish up the ride in a constant fashion. I partly think that they could’ve chucked in the final inversion at the end (a la Nemesis, the clear inspiration for the ride), rather than just turn after turn. Prevents it from being a real top tier B&M, but it’s still a fantastic ride. We headed over towards Wuze Town to wait until it opened, whilst I marvelled at the (new to me) entrance area. We were greeted by a dragon which proceeded to do silly things and even drop the rope to open the area. Great piece of interaction. So off we went to the Winjas coasters. Starting with Force and then Fear, I do enjoy these two a lot, with Fear clearly being the better of the two coasters. The interaction when both are running properly (which they weren’t unfortunately) is brilliant, and the trick track sections can be very surprising for first time riders. The queue has changed nowadays so not only can you take your bag with you, but also the queue splits on the stairs down into the station. Of course this does mean a massive waste of queue space nowadays, but oh well. After both were done, we quickly did the Tittle Tattle Tree, because it’s secretly fab. Next door is Temple of the Night Hawk, a Vekoma MK-200 which has had its entrance moved since my last visit, and it involves a steep hill. The ride itself is long, arduous and boring when there are no effects working on it, coupled with 3 slow lift hills. Give me Vogel Rok anyday. We then headed back towards the entrance and Maus au Chocolat, the immensely themed and fantastic Midway Mania rip-off. The theming right from the door is top standard, like most of Phantasialand’s stuff, but it just keeps getting better and better. I’ve never known a ride queue to make me so damn hungry just by queuing for it, probably helped by the wafts of chocolate scented through. Hadn’t done a Midway Mania ride till now, and I do like the concept quite well, especially when it’s as heavily detailed as this. A big bonus is the theming between scenes, which from POVs appears to be the biggest flaw of MM. Overall it’s a really good dark ride, and probably the best dark ride we did over the course of the holiday. A giant waffle happened. Now it was time for Chiapas, to which I was quite hyped up for. Chiapas looks to be the perfect modern variant on the Log Flume situation, and whilst the issues with the ride system were plentiful (year long delay for opening, because Intamin), would it provide an excellent experience? The answer is yes. Although the boats are pretty claustrophobic and small (combined with the lapbar), the ride system itself is intelligent and insanely fast at sorting things out. The drops are all good fun and provide a suitable level of wetness and of course the best part of the entire ride is the Backwards Disco scene. IMAScore’s music perfectly fits the adventure vibe the park were going for as well, especially as the music constantly changes note and style throughout the ride, and the catchy tune gets into EVERYONE’S head. Would love to see Towers look into this as a viable replacement for their Flume, it’s that good. It was then time for Talocan, which is still one of the more intense Top Spins around. Still fortunate to always get the front side of it as well, so no rubbish wall for me, always go for the water and the fire effects of awesome. It’s a shame really that the modern ones don’t seem to have taken off for Huss, perhaps because every park in the world already owned one of the originals? There might be a park in the UK that could do with one of these mind. It was show time, and we started with Seiben, which was a pretty awesome magic show with weird gothic plot and stuff. Magic is always in the showmanship I feel, and the guy was very showy with the work, and some of the tricks were pretty much “HOW?!” aside from the time when he knocked on the fake mirror in two places and they made two distinct sounds. Still fab. We then had lunch whilst watching the Chinese Acrobats, to which we’d kinda had our fill of already in the trip. Ah well, we learnt that Currywurst is actually fab, a far more interesting thing indeed. As the weather was reasonably rubbish, it made perfect sense to go on River Quest. Probably the most unique Rapids ride in that it just features special sections rather than anything resembling actual Rapids. It’s quite similar to Bagatelle’s rapids in a way, in that on an overall scale they are brilliant rapids rides, but on a water ride scale they’re both very good. Terrifyingly wet to boot as well, mainly due to the old cheese wedge boat design, allowing water to appear from pretty much wherever the hell it wants to. Drying out times required, a task which fell to Mystery Castle, one of the best drop towers around as well as one of the best themed queuelines. The bonus addition of random actors is also quite a cool thing, especially when they’re making full use of the fact that the ride was a walk-on. The ride is still great fun too, with the long climb and descent mid-way through the cycle being the real highlight of it all. Shame that there’s not too many of these ride types around as a result to be quite honest. The final dark ride was Feng Ju Palace, a Vekoma Madhouse that’s not very good. Whilst it removes the whole language barrier issue, the plot is very boring, the pre-show takes forever and the effects in the ride section aren’t very good. Big old meh. The final cred of the day was Colorado Adventure, a Vekoma Mine Train of many lifts and many sheds. It’s still good fun mind, though it’s weird that the first shed is very much in pieces due to the Silver Mine removal, so half of it is now in the light. The mountain drop by Black Mamba is excellent as well, probably only beaten by Paris’ BTM in the Mine Train stakes. Within Colorado’s final helix these days lies Tikal, a double bill of kiddie spinny drop towers which are always a good laugh. These ones also had an epic detail in their theming, as they are themed to water pumps and every time the ride drops, a water pipe is activated. Love details like that. We headed back to the Entrance Plaza, catching one of their mini street shows along the way, before it was time for Hotel Tartuff, a Fun House. It was amazing, the theming was generally fantastic throughout, lots of random stuff going on, random live actor and topped off with a giant slide (though it lost points for needing to take shoes off). So, so fab. Wellenflug, the Chairswings were next with their epic fountain related times before we watched another street show which was brilliant. Some random dog kept barking at one of the actors and they kept losing it as a result, I like shows that allow for a bit of added actions as opposed to always being the same. Some re-rides were called for, so we Chiapas as we’d just finally dried off from River Quest before heading back to Black Mamba. Whilst we were in the station boarding the ride however, someone decided that it was time for rain of the heaviest variety. Resulting in a very painful ride and a very busy exit pathway as a result. We eventually broke out to make it back to the Berlin earlier, watched the storm develop for a bit, before joining lots of people in Maus au Chocolat. By the time we’d exited the rain had fortunately let up. The day ended with Drakkarium, their major end of day show by the main entrance. It’s very weird it must be said, with several of the dragon characters turning up in massively epic designed floats/chariots with supporting costumed characters. Then it has random stunt people doing generic stuff. I cannot help but feel this is a really big missed opportunity overall, though I doubt it was helped by the rains descending upon us once more and forcing the show to finish early, so we took our leave and made a break for it ourselves. Phantasialand is fantastic. It has the theming; it has a solid ride line-up and it’s generally just fab. I’d really forgotten how good the park was originally, and the changes they’ve made over the past few years have been completely for the better. Hopefully they’ll keep pushing forwards with redevelopments (so excited for the Mystery area one) and replacing the older rides in addition to that expansion they’re aiming for. A top tier European park.

It opens up the usual can of worms though of what is and isn't offensive... Some people find the lesbian lizard/human couple in Doctor Who offensive, some don't care... Then when religion gets brought in this sort of petitions and stuff get bogged down into it... Although it seems that the guy who did the original video said it was satirical (read - I got hate for it)... Shame things like politics and religion have to just mess life about...

There's only one best 'whatever' park though, and as Europa is essentially better than CP in pretty every area aside from arguably the ride hardware depending on opinion... CP isnt even the best park in America tbh...

Flying Turns was up for best new attraction though, so was up against the likes of Banshee and whatever else opened this year... It deserves an award anyways purely based on the fact it was actually built imo... The top 10 steel coasters is crap though... All airtime machines apart from New Texas Giant, which should be in the wood category anyway if bloody Outlaw Run is in there... S'all opinions anyways, problem is that we see these awards as not meaning anything because the same things win it year in year out, so they've become a parody of themselves...

Hopefully their recent troubles with Cobra and T'Edge and the locals have been smoothed over enough for them to get another cred... Would be a shame if the park couldn't capitalise on the success of Peppa Pig...

Guess who just won the Golden Ticket for Best Amusement Park? This one... Presumably annoying all the Cedar Point fanboys in the process and the only European park to actually win one (making a change from, none)... Excellent news, even if the awards don't really matter... Tis a testament to how good the park is...

Depends when you go, but yep those 3 have the biggest queues... It may be worth investing in a qbot if you're visiting in busy season, if only so you don't have to queue for the crap creds at the place...

Pro Tip - Don't ride River Quest if that's your fear... Of course, a waterproof bag or placing deliacte objects in those little plastic bags you get in airport security (or IKEA) are other options available...

Blackpool used to be like that though, since I dont visit if often (nor care how it operates), and given that its the only UK comparison to Liseberg's pricing structure, does it really matter?

LotD 'stage' and Madagashcar are the most likely areas for any shows... Unless they do a temporary job...