Europe Theme Park Trip - Summer 2025

[tactic]

Not 100% sure if this is the right place to ask for advice on this so feel free to move if needed.

 

Hi everyone, 

 

I'm currently in the stages of planning a theme park trip round Europe for the summer next year to celebrate finishing my A-levels with some of my friends. This is the first big theme park trip that I've planned so I'm not fully sure on how to do things and was thinking that people on here might have some advice for me! Currently we're thinking that the trip will be 3 weeks long, beginning after the last contingency day in the last week of June, and are planning to visit 9 parks (10 if you count Portaventura and Ferrari Land as seperate). I'm hoping that we will just about manage to miss some of the school holidays in Europe so that the parks aren't too busy; but then I have no idea when other schools across the continent finish for summer. The plan budget wise is to spend about £2000-2500 per person (there are 4 of us) and we are definitly happy to cheap out in some cases (e.g. going in hostels for cheap accomodation), because at the end of the day it's going to be money that stops us going.  

 

Below is the rough outline of what we are hoping to do, but I am absolutly open to any suggestions for changes of any size to make as like I said I've never done something like this before so I don't really know what I'm doing.

 

(Just to specify on a few bits: We are planning to get 21 day youth interrail passes, any travel time below not specified with a mode of transport is by train)

 

Day 1

Eurostar London → Paris

Day in Paris

AirB&B/Hostel outskirts of Paris 

 

Day 2

Paris AirB&B/Hostel → Parc Astrix (1.15 hours by bus)

Parc Astrix → Paris AirB&B/Hostel

Same AirB&B/Hostel (leave bags in AirB&B/Hostel)

 

Day 3

Paris→ Madrid (4 hour flight)

Day in Madrid

AirB&B/Hostel in Madrid 

 

Day 4

AirB&B/Hostel in Madrid → Parque Warner (1.5 hours by bus)

Parque Warner Madrid

Parque Warner→ Same AirB&B/Hostel (leave bags in AirB&B/Hostel)

 

Day 5

Madrid →Barcelona (4 hours)

Evening in Barcelona

AirB&B/Hostel in Barcelona

 

Day 6

AirB&B/Hostel in Barcelona → Port Aventura (2 hours)

Morning in PortAventura (10.30 -> 18.00)

Evening in FerrariLand (18.00 → 22.00)

Ferrariland → same AirB&B/Hostel in Barcelona (2 hours)

 

Day 7

Barcelona → Lyon (5.5 hours train) 

Evening in Lyon

AirB&B/Hostel in Lyon

 

Day 8

Lyon → Walibi Rhones-Alpes (1.5 hours)

Day in Walibi Rhones-Alpes

Walibi Rhones Alpes → Lyon (1.5 hours)

Same AirB&B/Hostel in Lyon

 

Day 9

Lyon → Freiburg (6 hours)

Afternoon/evening in Freiburg

 

Day 10

Freiburg → Europa Park (30 mins bus)

Day in Europa Park

Europa Park → Freiburg AirB&B/Hostel

 

Day 11

Freiburg → Brussels (7 hours)

Some time in Brussels

Brussels → Ghent (40 mins)

Stay in Ghent 

 

Day 12

Ghent → Plopsaland De Panne (1.5 hours)

Day in Plopsaland De Panne

Plopsaland De Panne →Same AirB&B/Hostel in Ghent

 

Day 13

Ghent →Amsterdam (2.5 hours)

Day in Amsterdam

AirB&B/Hostel in Amsterdam

 

Day 14

Amsterdam → Wallabi Holland (3 hour)

Day in Walabi Holland

Wallabi Holland → Same Amsterdam AirB&B/Hostel

 

Day 15

Amsterdam → Cologne (4.5 hours)

Evening in Cologne

AirB&B/Hostel in Colgone

 

Day 16

Cologone → Phantasialand (1 hours)

Day in Phantasialand 

Phantasialand → Cologne

Phantasialand to same AirB&B/Hostel in cologne

 

Day 17

Cologne → Berlin (5 hours)

Evening in Berlin

AirB&B/Hostel in Berlin

 

Day 18

Berlin → Krakow (8 hours)

AirB&B/Hostel in Krakow

 

Day 19

Day in Krakow

 

Day 20

Krakow AirB&B/Hostel → Energylandia (1 hour)

Day in Energylandia

Energylandia → Krakow AirB&B/Hostel

 

Day 21

Krakow → London Flight

 

Things to be booked in advance big time:

• AirB&Bs/accomodation

• Flights

• Interrail pass

• Train seat resevations (especially eurostar)

• Theme park tickets

 

[Benin]

That is a LOT of travelling.

 

Europa is not a 1 day park. Port Aventura is just about maybe. But you'll be rushing around like headless chickens trying to tick off doing as much as possible.

 

I'd probably sack off the Spanish parks out of the choices. As well as maybe looking to finish either Walibi or Plopsa, as Eurostar goes in that vague direction if I recall.

 

Would also be a shame to only do an evening in Berlin. Lovely city.

[Mark9]

It's a wide open trip and if I'm being honest there's so much potential for stress in there. I'm with Benin, I'd sack of Spain completely and keep it to North Western Europe. I'm not too sure on train travel with this but I'd definitely consider Efteling, Plopsaland, Heide Park and Hansa Park instead of traversing down to PortAventura.

 

Really exciting though, if it's your first visit to Phantasialand and Europa Park, give them more days as they will change your perception of theme parks and you'll want more time at both. 

[Inferno]

I’m useless with this sort of stuff so unfortunately I’m no help - all looks very exciting though!

 

I’ll tell you the truth Tactic, I’ve always been a bit like this - cramming loads in! And my wife is the one to remind me to take it easy! She’s usually right to be honest; we’ve traveled places before where I’ve been very glad of a break that she’s forced in to the plans 😂

 

As much as I absolutely love this plan - what a trip - I agree with the above.  Less can often be more with this sort of thing in my opinion.  Allow yourselves to rest if you can. Traveling gets tedious after a while doesn’t it!

 

Ryanair is still cheap, so if you do end up removing some of these parks this time around, you can fly to them cheaply in the near future and make a few weekend breaks to a couple of places in turn! Even better!

However, when I was your age, this sort of agenda would be very similar to what I’d be up for doing!

 

Good for you getting out there and doing some traveling   Wherever you end up going I’m sure you’ll have a blast! Good luck with the planning and please do keep us up to date!

[JoshC.]

Just on a more logistical perspective, how would you plan to carry around sufficient clothing? I'd imagine you're not planning on taking 3 weeks' worth of clothes, but then you need to factor in accommodations / time and places to do washing and drying of clothes. And that could well increase costs more than you initially realise. It would also be a lot to lug around when using public transport!

 

Port Aventura, Europa and Phantasialand are parks you don't want to do in a day, especially if you're at the mercy of public transport and not able to guarantee getting there for opening / staying until closing. You certainly could get all the major / highlights done in a day, but they're parks which deserve more time.

 

In general, as others have said, it's a lot of travelling to do. I will say it's sensible you've got non-theme park days; it's something you hear people mentioning of getting burnt out of theme parks after doing so many in such quick succession. 

 

I will add as well that, broadly speaking, the norm is that people will do these big multi-park trips whilst driving, as opposed to using public transport. It's possible of course, but harder. It may mean it's harder to get advice related to travelling to some of those parks by public transport though.

 

Have you ever heard of coast2coaster.com ? It's a great tool for planning multi-park trips (or just for finding out if a park is near a certain place you're going). You're looking at doing multiple parks in multiple countries and, simply put, it's something which realistically should be done across multiple trips. You're already looking at some Dutch and Belgian parks, so perhaps consider something along the lines of visiting:

Parc Asterix

Plopsaland

Walibi Belgium

Walibi Holland

Toverland

Efteling (also not a 1 day park, FYI)

Phantasialand

 

You could chuck on extra parks like Europa / Energylandia if you wanted to travel further afield too.

 

There's a couple of parks there that aren't on your list, but definitely worth looking at. Doing those parks also gives you some time to look at nearby cities / take breaks, which if part of your plan currently (although, again, different places). It significantly reduces the travelling, and also the length required. 

 

Obviously it's your trip and your plan, but I think anyone who's done a big multi-park trip before will strongly recommend you scale it down a touch, in regards to distance travelled and length of the trip.

[tactic]

Thank you everyone for the words of advice! Seems I have been a little optimistic with my plans then...

 

I'm very much a person who once they get an idea in their head wants to do it all at once, thus why I tried to plan as many big parks as possible (it took my friends a while to convince me we wouldn't be able to do 6 differnt US parks in two weeks...). Would you guys then reccomend that we decided to do all the Northen France, German, Belgium and Dutch parks this trip then (and maybe throw in Energylandia too as I really want to ride Zadra) and save Portaventura and Parque Warner Madrid for another trip in the future?

 

3 hours ago, JoshC. said:

Just on a more logistical perspective, how would you plan to carry around sufficient clothing? I'd imagine you're not planning on taking 3 weeks' worth of clothes, but then you need to factor in accommodations / time and places to do washing and drying of clothes. And that could well increase costs more than you initially realise. It would also be a lot to lug around when using public transport!

The maybe slighyly unreasonable thought here was to take a rucksack and a overhead locker size bag each with about a weeks worth of clothes in and then book an AirB&B with a washing machine and dryer once every week so we could clean our clothes. While out and about the plan was just to leave them in the place we were staying if we can and if not rent a locker while at a theme park or just carry them with us while on the train.

 

3 hours ago, JoshC. said:

I will add as well that, broadly speaking, the norm is that people will do these big multi-park trips whilst driving, as opposed to using public transport. It's possible of course, but harder. It may mean it's harder to get advice related to travelling to some of those parks by public transport though.

We did consider driving, but as all 4 of us will be 18 and not wanting to do 3+ hours of driving in a row it would be very very expensive to either insure all of us on someones car or practically impossible to rent from somewhere so we could share the driving (also completely ignoreing the fact one of my mates decided to learn in an automatic for some silly reason). I'm also quite excited by the idea of interrailing after looking into it lots, the idea of exploring lots of places in Europe by train really interests me for some reason even though I'm not normally the type of person who enjoys travelling by train that much

 

3 hours ago, JoshC. said:

Have you ever heard of coast2coaster.com ? It's a great tool for planning multi-park trips (or just for finding out if a park is near a certain place you're going). You're looking at doing multiple parks in multiple countries and, simply put, it's something which realistically should be done across multiple trips.

I have been using coast2coaster yeah, it's been a very useful tool! It has made me realise that Europe is a lot bigger and harder to get around than that website make it look however, it's quite amusing when the journey from a city to a park that look quite close on the map turns out to be 2-3 hours.

 

10 hours ago, Benin said:

Europa is not a 1 day park. Port Aventura is just about maybe. But you'll be rushing around like headless chickens trying to tick off doing as much as possible.

I did not expect that I'll be honest, from looking at coaster details on RCDB Europa park looked like it would be a one day park for me as lots of the coasters are more family orientated, which don't overly interest me. Although I have heard the atmosphere there is very good, so maybe that's something I've overlooked when planning which parks to go to.

[Benin]

Often with some parks (especially first visits to them) it's worth taking time and just enjoying them.

 

Cred runs can also be fun don't get me wrong, but being able to just take it in is also a great benefit.

 

Looking at map might be worth just doing France, Germany, Holland and Belgium parks. Potentially as below:

 

1 - Travel to Paris

2 - Asterix

3 - Travel to Lyon

4 - Walibi Rhonde

5 - Travel to Europa/Rust

6/7 - Europa

8 - Travel to Cologne

9/10 - Phantasialand 

11 - Travel to Hamburg

12 - Hansa Park

13 - Heide Park 

14 - Travel to Amsterdam

15 - Amsterdam

16 - Walibi Holland

17 - Travel to Ghent

18 - Plopsaland

19 - Travel to Brussels

20 - Walibi Belgium

21 - Home via Eurostar

 

As mentioned you'll need to check on how easy some places are via public transport (Hansa & Phantasialand definitely are from Cologne & Hamburg). Though if inter-railing it most of the costs might be covered. Also if the journeys are a bit shorter have more time to relax or look round the cities. 

 

Only given Heide one day because it really isn't worth more.

[tactic]

Ok, that definitely looks like a fun plan! Thank you for the help. Is there one park there you would maybe suggest skipping so that we could potentially go to Energylandia for one or two days instead, as I really want to go there as well as I’ve been told that Krakow (and Auschwitz if we are up for it) are places that are 100% worth visiting.

 

Do you think that would be a good idea to add on to this trip as a replacement for something else, or maybe make Poland another trip in the future?

[JoshC.]

10 minutes ago, tactic said:

Do you think that would be a good idea to add on to this trip as a replacement for something else, or maybe make Poland another trip in the future?

 

 

Make Poland another trip.

 

I get you want to do a lot and are excited by the prospect of doing Energylandia and the country in general, but it's better to try and localise things. Waiting longer for Poland, for example, won't mean you'll miss out on anything (in that, everything you want out there will still be there a year or two later), but it'll be much easier to do.

 

 

Another general note: from a personal perspective, I found it took me a couple of trips before I was able to minimise costs, whilst still keeping quality good. That might just be a me thing, but if you cram in too much in a first trip, you also run the risk of the cost spiralling more than how it might have been over a couple of different trips

[Benin]

I'd probably also say make Poland another trip. Especially if you're going to do Auschwitz (not been mind but on my list) with it and the mental toll that apparently takes.

 

One thing I only realised on my trip plan was the time taken between the German stops and Amsterdam. So still lots to consider. What I've tended to do with many longer trips is stick to one country to minimise the travelling and dealing with languages.

[tactic]

Cool, thanks for the tips! I'll make Poland and Spain and maybe like the Scandinavian parks (Liseberg etc.) all seperate trips in the future allowing for this summer to be more relaxed and managable.

 

When doing multiple days at the same park what would the suggestion be for accomodation. I would assume the best idea would be to stay in a cheap AirB&B or something nearby rather than staying at the hotel at the theme park, but then at somewhere like Europa for example, would the hotel be part of the experience that I don't want to miss out on even if it costs a lot more?

[Benin]

Hotels for Europa are great but expensive. Depends on budget but Rust is full of B&Bs that are walkable distance to the park.

 

Phantasialand is same situation really.

[tactic]

Hi all!

 

After discussing the plans through again with my mates we have come up with a revised plan. We have tried to keep days with very little traveling to allow us to rest for the majority of the day and have also chosen to do multiple days at some theme parks. 

 

What does everyone here think of this new version of the plan?

 

Day 1:

Eurostar to Paris

Day in Paris

AirB&B/hostel in Paris

 

Day 2:

Paris AirB&B/Hostel to Park Astrix (1.15 hours by bus)

Parc Astrix

Park Astrix to Paris AirB&B/Hostel

Same AirB&B/Hostel (leave bags there)

 

Day 3:

Paris to Lyon (2 hours)

Afternoon/evening in Lyon

AirB&B/hostel in Lyon

 

Day 4:

Lyon to Walibi Rhone-Alpes (shuttle bus service Tuesday-Thursday)

Walibi Rhone-Alpes

Walibi Rhone-Alpes to Lyon

Same AirB&B/Hostel (leave bags there)

 

Day 5:

Lyon to Rust (6.5 hours)

Evening in Rust

AirB&B/hostel in Rust

 

Day 6:

Rust to Europa Park (walk)

Europa Park day 1

Same AirB&B/hostel in Rust (leave bags there)

 

Day 7:

Europa Park day 2

Same AirB&B/hostel in Rust (leave bags there)

 

Day 8:

Rust to Cologne (5 hours)

Afternoon/evening in Cologne

AirB&B/hostel in Cologne

 

Day 9:

Cologne to Phantasialand (1 hour)

Phantasialand Day 1

Same AirB&B/hostel in Cologne (leave bags there)

 

Day 10:

Phantasialand Day 2

Same AirB&B/hostel in Cologne (leave bags there)

 

Day 11:

Cologne to Essen (1 hour) 

Day in Essen

AirB&B/hostel in Essen

 

Day 12:

Essen to Movie Park Germany (30 mins)

Movie Park Germany

Same AirB&B/hostel in Essen (leave bags there)

 

Day 13:

Essen to Amsterdam (3.5 hours)

Afternoon/evening in Amersterdam

AirB&B/hostel in Amsterdam

 

Day 14:

Amsterdam to Walibi Holland (2.5 hours)

Walibi Holland

Same AirB&B/hostel in Amsterdam (leave bags there)

 

Day 15:

Amsterdam to Tilburg (2 hours)

Afternoon/evening in Tilburg (music scene????)

AirB&B/hostel in Tilburg

 

Day 16:

Tilberg to Efterling (1 hour)

Efterling Day 1

Same AirB&B/hostel in Tilberg (leave bags there)

 

Day 17

Efterling Day 2

Same AirB&B/hostel in Tilberg (leave bags there)

 

Day 18:

Train Tilberg to Brussels (2.5 hours)

Afternoon/evening in Brussels

AirB&B/hostel in Brussels

 

Day 19:

Brussels to Walibi Belgium (1.5 hours)

Walibi Belgium

Same AirB&B/hostel in Brussles (leave bags there)

 

Day 20:

Brussles to Dunkirk (2.5 hours)

Afternoon/evening in Dunkirk

AirB&B/hostel in Dunkirk

 

Day 21:

Dunkirk to Plopsaland De Panne (1 hour)

Plopsaland De Panne

Same AirB&B/hostel in Dunkirk (leave bags there)

 

Day 22:

Dunkirk to Calais (1 hour)

Eurostar to London

[Benin]

Looks decent, though not sure about Eurostar stopping at Calais to get you back to London. Unsure if Eurotunnel does foot passengers either.

 

Definitely goes from Brussels though, so can either double back on yourselves or swap Walibi & Plopsa days.

[tactic]

55 minutes ago, Benin said:

Looks decent, though not sure about Eurostar stopping at Calais to get you back to London. Unsure if Eurotunnel does foot passengers either.

 

Definitely goes from Brussels though, so can either double back on yourselves or swap Walibi & Plopsa days.

A quick google told me that it does, but then don't trust everything google says. I'll defo double check that now!

[tactic]

Just coming back to this thread now having booked the interrail passes for my group last night! I'm getting quite excited now! 

 

Does anyone have information on the shuttle bus that runs from Lyon to Walibi Rhone-Alpes? The walibi.fr website says that there is one that runs Tuesday-Thursday, but when I press on the booking section it says there are no tickets avaliable for whatever day I press. I've also found a tripadvisor page for the bus company that runs the shuttle but the link on their website takes me to the same booking one that the Walibi site takes me to (which looks like it hasn't been updated since the parks halloween event).

 

Also, do any of you on here know anything about the GuestHouse Hotel in Kaatsheuvel for when we're going to Efteling. I've been looking at their BunkHouse Room 4 + Efteling Package Large deal (3 nights in a 4 person room as well as 2 days Efteling entry included) for the dates we're going to be there and it's cheaper than any other near by accomodation with the Guesthotel price of £69 a night per person also including the 2 theme park tickets per person with all the other local accomodation doesn't include. I'm always slightly sceptical of almost too good deals like this seems to be so was wondering if anyone has stayed there and can let me know if there is maybe some kind of catch that comes with all of it?

[JoshC.]

14 hours ago, tactic said:

 

Does anyone have information on the shuttle bus that runs from Lyon to Walibi Rhone-Alpes? The walibi.fr website says that there is one that runs Tuesday-Thursday, but when I press on the booking section it says there are no tickets avaliable for whatever day I press. I've also found a tripadvisor page for the bus company that runs the shuttle but the link on their website takes me to the same booking one that the Walibi site takes me to (which looks like it hasn't been updated since the parks halloween event).

 

It can be somewhat awkward trying to plan/book trips over the winter. Some parks won't have fully finalised or released their opening hours, tickets, etc, others may not have transport links confirmed.

 

I'm not saying that's the case here (I haven't used the Shuttle Bus), but it will be something to keep in mind if you're booking stuff now.