Mark9

A technique I adopted many a time.

I'd much rather be in a family friendly environment with amazing attractions then to be in a thrill seekers paradise where every ride is just there to scare you silly. Thats boring, thats not entertaining, thats repeitive and draining. Parks like Gardaland, Phantasialand, Europa Park do so well because they don't limit there target audience to an extent that others are basically told not to bother visiting. Europa Park does have thrilling rides, anyone who has ridden Eurosat, Euromir, Blue Fire and Silverstar are thrilling but more importantly, are fun.

Why oh why couldn't it have been a B&M or Mack rollercoaster.

Benin for leader at the next meet!

Yes, I'm sure Nemesis would have simply fallen apart without you at Batch gate or the main entrance. It would have caused a crack in time and space.

The Irony being that the lighting is the least of Vampires problems...

Gates? GATES?Old Vampire didn't need gates, you just used your brain and not walk out in front of a moving train.

Thins is as soon as a leader is made they ultimately get the blame for any shortcomings that occur but on the other side of that, people may think TPM is being to dictorial by deciding what the group does if they don't listen to anyone*.I think really the trips need a point. Why did everyone meet yesterday, any ideas? Before it's been opening weekend or Stealth Extra ride time, yesterday was just for the sake of meeting on what turned out to be a chaotic day at the park.*In saying this, I'd ask MikeyT to be the leader every time.

It's kind of the reason why I've only been to one TPM meet in about two years. I've been guilty of leaving members behind in the past, not deliberately but sometimes there are just to many people to try and talk to at once and you end up sticking to the ones you know best. Maybe what the meets need is some kind of point such as the meet with the Stealth ERT. Just meeting up on some rocks and having a group picture is a bit aimless when you could do that thing at any time of the year.

Exclusive: Blue Fire clone to replace Vampire.Themeparkmad dies.

I thought that but I also thought that it would be pretty short sighted for the park to add a coaster to a rapidly expanding place and forget to request an extra row.

Have you?

Hit right on the nose there Benin. If you are into pure thrill rides then thats easily do-able in a day. Eurosat runs 7 trains, Euro-mir can run 9, Matterhorn has 12 cars and Silverstars queue never stops moving on three trains.But if you really do like rides and not just the Merlin group ones then Europa is a key place to visit if you want to see a park that is at the top of its game every single day it is open. There are so many little things hidden away around the park and so much to do that it's worth staying 2, 3 nights just to explore everything. You could even devote an entire day to seeing all the shows because theres about 12-14 different shows a day.

On the other side of that, it's because UK guests are just generally thick. Once I was at fury and someone got off and decided that the lift hill was the exit to the ride... No wonder UK parks are so damn H&S critical if UK guests are going to try and jump into ride areas or get themselves into trouble.

(Long Trip report)It's trips like this which make you see how pitiful the effort is in the UK. Yes, Wild Asia for British standards is pretty good and Alton Towers even bothering to do a single 30th birthday event is pretty commendable. But all of it falls down when Europa do this on a daily basis. I haven't been to Europa Park since 2006 and back then I was far more into rides then the experience. I've been known to say Europa doesn't have a signature ride, what it has is loads of really solid rides that come together to create a complete day out. Well now, in Blue fire they have a ride that is an icon ride, it is single handedly more enjoyable then any B&M or Intamin rollercoaster.During my visit they were only running three trains. Now if this was any other park that would be full capacity but oh no, not at Europa. This thing can run 4 trains and has a spare train to boot. The throughput of this thing on three is astonishing and to have one train come in just as another goes out makes you feel like you never stop moving. Blue Fire is in the Iceland area of the park and is themed around escaping gas pressure which launches through the volcanic ruins of the area. If this thing was an Intamin rocket it would shakle you to hell, be painful and would cut your neck to pieces. Instead, this being Mack brilliance, the restraint is more like a lap bar. In some respects, it's simialr to Maurer Sohnes lapbar, except works better because you aren't crushed to death. Blue Fire is incredibly smooth and very fast. The inline twist near the end of the ride is a particular highlight, I had a smile beeming from ear to ear. I can't believe this is Mack's first upside down, with this model they deserve to sell and sell as Blue Fire for me, is a pure 10/10 ride.And yet, we're stuck with Stealth and Rita. Fabulous.The new ride for 2010 is Whale Adventure. It's essentially a Splash Battle where the effects all work, as do the guns, the theming and water effects are all top notch. It has an amazingly long queueline and hanging from the top is a huge whale. It's an amazing piece of work and I believe is the same layout as Battle Galleons.Now.. if you can tell me whats wrong in this picture you win a prize.Yes thats right, there's no need for checking bars (or even having bars down in some cases). Germans have theme parks so much more sussed then we do. They don't rely so much on Health and Safety as we do so when that MikeyT bought up the Tomb Blaster thing in the other topic I facepalmed so much. Alpine Express, for those that don't know, is an amazing powered coaster which journeys into a diamond mine, up and over the log flume and past a giant robot dragon. This ride opened in 1984 and yet it still looks brand new.So to take a break from the rides, we stayed in Hotel Colosseo. The park has four hotels which are all themed immacuately. The main attraction at Colosseo is the water feature in the centre of the circle. Water shows occur regularly and are very impressive and worth a watch. Our room overlooked the circle.So back into the park we go and to celebrate 35 years of Europa Park, a new show for year has appeared in Greece. It's basically an ice show. At the end a huge champagne bottle is wheeled out, lifted to the top of the tent and out comes Euro Maus. This was such a magical experience and just another element of Europa Parks charm. Their themed characters do more then get wheeled out on busy days, they are constantly in the area.Another part of the celebration is a small museum in the Italy section of the park showing some of the past rides and elements that are still in the park to this day.A few other park facts. The park runs Early ride time for Hotel guests, this starts at 8:25 and features Alpine Express, the Spanish spinning rides, the Log Flume, Atlantica Supersplash and the Whizzer ride. The park then opens at 9-6 pm every day (unless hours are extended). During our visit we only saw one ride not available. Considering Europa Park nearly has 50 attractions this is incredibly impressive. If all rollercoasters at peak capacity there hourly throughput is 15,000 people. That's Chessingtons max capacity and Thorpe nearly at capacity. Considering the coasters are 1/5 of the park that is incredible, so when you go you will always be able to get at least ten rides.I won't list all the rides we rode, I'll just show how many rides we got in during the day.Day One - 36 ridesDay Two - 27 ridesDay Three - 23 ridesIt's an awesome park, anyone that has even a small interest in theme parks needs to go because its an incredible, magical park.

Working on a ride doesn't mean you have to like the theme. Out of the 12 rides I operated, only Runaway Train and Rattlesnake were well themed. The rest were ****e.

I sometimes wish Merlin had gone for a "decent" manufacturer like B&M or Mack. This is no disrespect to Gerstlauer or Intamin but what they build are cheap ride systems. Yes they get the people in the park and they are awesome looking rides but when one can't build their rides to be comfortable, the other can't build reliable or/and 'safe' rides then it's just beyond believe. Ryan, you are incredibly lucky to find Saw smooth. I have a high pain threshold so can take the pain from Vekomas and jerky rides like Eurosat and Coaster Express but I just can't do front row Saw without getting a headache.

A few plaudits? He got more praise then anyone else!

God, you've all gone for the boring phsyics answers Has anyone thought that maybe Thorpe only requested 7 rows for the coaster. Parque Warner Madrids Batman clone only has 7 rows, when normally they have 8.

It's absolutely mad that a one year old coaster is so rough. I mean after 18 months, it's aged terribly so I'm scared to know what it will be like even next year.

That can only be Micheal from Chessington that was on Fury last year. Unique is definitly a word I would use to describe his dedication.

Thats exactly what I was thinking, considering the size of the park and the long queues, getting on 10 rides in any park is very good.