Benin Posted June 6, 2011 Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 So me and Nicky went to Germany last week (hence the lack of sarcasm on the boards, I will make up for it ), and since it featured coasters here's the report, have fun...Day 0 – Flight in and Travel to SierksdorfAn early Sunday morning is not always great, especially when you feel ill, but it was needed to be done, as there was a holiday to go to and coasters to ride... So a wake-up, bag-check and money-sorting and off to Heathrow’s Terminal 5 at 7 in the morning it was! Horray for sleeping all the way in the car I tell you, I like sleep...Anyways after checking in and finding out me and Nicky would not be sitting next to each other (evidently we picked the flight with the highest amount of single travelling people ever), we had breakfast, pondered around and eventually sat on our plane for the next 90 minutes... And naturally had to queue for the runway... Always bloody happens, silly planes...Although 30 minutes later than the expected arrival time, we landed in Hamburg, a new city for me and it wasn’t long before we encountered their Bahn machines (which, usefully are multi-lingual) and headed to the S-Bahn to get to the HaupBahnhof for our next proper train which would head us up towards Sierksdorf...Sierksdorf is the nearest station to Hansa Park, only about 15 minutes walk from the park, and is about 90 minutes train journey from Hamburg itself, including a change-over, which isn’t bad... But it is amusing to see how the train tracks all go to single rail, aufsteig rechts indeed...However when we arrived at Sierksdorf our mission was to find the hotel, so we walked towards the Baltic Coast and along the sea-front until we arrived at our destination, Hof Sierksdorf... Huzzah, a nice little sea-front hotel was to be our home for the next two nights, although my rather broken German didn’t seem to be particularly welcomed by the man who owned it, oh wells, at least the ‘rooms’ were nice...Yeah, more of an apartment than a hotel room, rather unexpected to get cooker hobs and a dishwasher included... But cool nonetheless... Dinner time called to us and after a steak and pork combo between the two of us a walk was elected to investigate the area further... Useful thing about the hotel was that they gave us a beach pass, which we obviously would have used more if we had been interested in that, but we weren’t but still a useful thing though...We also found MERLIN! They really are starting to take over the world now... We actually did go to the Sea-Life so that will be after Part 2, Hansa Park and FLUCH! Luke_A and thorpeparkjack 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark9 Posted June 6, 2011 Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 THIS REPORT DOES NOT DELIVER. Looks nice area actually, might emmigrate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Users Posted June 6, 2011 Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 Oh god, more crabs.Yeah, most Germans I have encountered are pretty picky with their language and normally just switch over to English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 You want a report that delivers?You want one that gives you Fluch?Here you go Day 1 – Hansa ParkA misty morning greeted us on the coastline, and after a quick grab of breakfast we began the 30 minute walk to the park from the hotel... A really nice walk actually to be quite honest, helps save money from the rather dis-regular bus services that do run along the main roads to the park from the area...At 9:30, we arrived at the very grand entrance...Hansa of course used to be a Legoland of all places, but is now a family run park with some real things to say if the last two additions have anything to say about it...After faff getting the tickets due to a distinct lack of staff, we entered, and immediately I discovered my first costumed characters of the tripThe entrance of the park is a very small main street plaza thing, which has some work being done on some of it, but it suits the recent aim of the park for theming and I was very impressed...Ohhhh, I spot coasters in the distance, Nessie and Rasender Roland, a Schwarzkopf Looping and Vekoma Mine Train respectively that interact with each other heavily...Now as Nicky was on coaster #97 before this trip, we decided that Fluch von Novgorod would be #100, so we did Nessie and Roland first...NessieThis is a weird one tbh, I wasn’t sure what to expect from it when we went on, but one thing I definitely didn’t was the excessive CLUNK this ride made at the top of the lift hill... That could have set the scene enough but at least lap bars prevent stupid amounts of head-bashing... Some impressive moments of interaction with Roland and a few strong helixes and small bit of airtime are all that follow after the initial strong loop... There’s just something different about Anton’s loops... Bless him for them as they are so different and forceful... The final plunge into a fish mouth (Krake didn’t do it first) was amusing as well before those BRAKES...It was fun certainly, so a solid 7/10 for me...Rasender RolandA rather winding queue with the first of many animatronic bands in this park led us to this custom Vekoma, and like most of their mine trains, it was just kind of bland without an excessive about of theming supporting the attraction on a whole... Again the interaction with Nessie is there and the water-splash was at least a good attempt to putting some theme to the ride, but it just had nothing around the main area of the layout, and hence didn’t really do anything... Aside from be different to picture...Measly 6/10... Two coasters down so now it was time for Hansa’s biggest investment in the past few years and probably the biggest it has ever made, the Launched Eurofighter epic that is known as...Fluch von NovgorodTo think this opened the same year as Saw... Granted back then it was opened unfinished and they didn’t finish the interior theming until sometime last year, but, the result is nothing short of fantastic...The result this rides gives is the atmosphere of Hex, with theming that would impress Disney, and finished off with a quality smooth ride... The backstory for this ride is... Well complicated, especially if you don’t speak German fluently, but essentially bad things went down and unsurprisingly, we get stuck in the middle of it... Time for some photos, and since I only took photos of the outside queue (as they ask no photos inside) and only a third of the ride actually takes place outside...And the inside got even better, with several interactive elements, including a animated tapestry, finger slicer, talking statue head and falling chandelier, brilliant theming from floor to ceiling and just is generally amazing... The one flaw is that there is a lack of space, as the queue splits into 3 (and is generally split into 2 for the most part) near the station for front, back and single rider, which can be very claustrophobic and involve much elbow bumping and the like... But in the overall grand scheme of this ride, it is a tiny, tiny flaw...So we reach the station, and it is small yet grand, with a single car loading and offloading at one time as there is no need for them to have multiple cars doing so, especially as they were only running two anyways... But regardless, ravens caw as cars return from the ride, screams can be heard from the ride, and the epic chandelier really helps finish this setting and cement the theme... Once on board the traditional Eurofighter cars, the doors open (as the Germans do love their doors on dark coasters) some epic dispatch music plays, the lights go on and off and you leave into the darkness...Now this part will be spoilered as I will be saying what happens in the ride, so if you don’t wanna know, skip, if you do... Read on... A left turn stops you in front of an old statue, which comes to magical life and his soul sings NOVGOROD loudly at you whilst he points his sword at a helmet and what appears to be the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch... I doubt it is but I like to think so... But soon he vanishes and we again turn left and see some monks around a fire, one talks some speil in German and a wolf appears in the fire... At this point we get sent around the corner to the right under some mist and then...DROP...LAUNCH!Seriously, I think this is the first rolling launch I’ve done and what a way to start it, the drop is akin to Saw and Mystery Mine’s indoor drops but the way the launch slowly reaches and then physically pushes back into your seat was perhaps the biggest surprise this ride had in the end... It was just as powerful as the Intamins... That’s how good it was...Then outside we go through some smoke into a serious airtime hill before going into some oversized turns and a zero-g leading back into a 120ft odd tower... We hit some brakes as we head back inside once again and reach the bottom of a lift hill, the doors close behind us and lightning strikes numerous times... The lift goes into action and on the lift again is the monk from earlier... We stop vertically as he speaks to us once again, before continuing our rise up to the 114ft lift before reaching the top and once again, drop... The dive sends us into another airtime hill, before we end up riding parallel with the launch and slowing into some brakes before ascending into the real brakes... Were as we stop, a scarecrow drops from the ceiling in front of the car, scaring everyone as air cannons and a loud laugh punctuate this full stop the ride elected to give itself... Back around the corner, and we return to the station, amazed by what this ride has done... I could not speak highly enough of Hansa’s effort with Novgorod... It is absolutely fantastic from queue to exit shop... Even the exit is an adventure, as you can even use some steps or a slide to descend into the maze of an exit, and then a crystal covered mine shaft leads to the shop... The theming literally doesn’t end and to say that this ride needs more recognition is such a shame...The ride itself is forceful and smooth, no roughness or tearing itself apart, the story is complex and really engrossing regardless that I couldn’t understand it, the soundtrack (which is purchaseable) is also brilliant...I don’t give rides perfect scores often, but this one thoroughly deserves 10/10 for pure adulterated effort and joy...Rest of the park to come in Part 2... Luke_A, Fred, Ryan and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 Weirdly, Fluch’s exit delivers you into the park’s Mexican area, which is essentially where the park’s new aims collide with a lack of them... I’ll let the pictures speak...As you can see, there is such a good level of theming in the area, but the rides (which sit more outside the area) aren’t really themed brilliantly... The Bell ride is the most themed out of the 3 in the pics above, but even then it is rather minimal... After being on Fluch, I can only hope the park has massive plans to over-haul the rest of it, as it doesn’t fit well...The next ride on the list was a water ride, Rio Dorado, which is of course, a Rubber Dinghy ride akin to Oxygenarium at Asterix and Storm Drain at Thorpe...Aside from the whole rainbow lift hill, it is themed really, really nicely... It also gains some epic music on said lift hill and was actually a lot longer than I expected it to be... But once again, you don’t get wet... I kinda don’t really see the point in a water ride that doesn’t get you even moist... But that’s for another time...I have to give special mention to Die Glocke (The Bell) although I didn’t ride it... It deserves something for having the worst ride capacity known to man... 6 people per ride... Let’s just be lucky Hansa is small enough to get away with this... Imagine if a UK park got this... Oh dear it would be horrible... But it did look cool and also randomly had fire and water effects... We then had a quick look at the rather closed looking Schlange von Midgard, the new Gerstlauer kids coaster, again similar to Fluch, it was heavily themed and... unfinished...So unfinished we watched a bloke paint it, seeing as we had some time before it opened, we headed off to another coaster...Crazy MineA standard Sohne Wild Mouse here, essentially Rattlesnake, without the snakes... Some theming is similar to it but there is less to some degree yet more in others...As I’ve probably made no sense, it’s 6/10...We did the StarFlyer afterwards, I like these, and the location surrounding the ride often helps it a lot in these cases... Overlooking the Baltic Sea indeed helps this one, even if you do get bored after a while of general, nothingness...After some more faffing in the Adventure play area thing which involved bridges, climbing, obstacle courses and many other things that we didn’t do, we noticed that the Schlange was testing, so headed to it...Schlange von MidgardThe newest coaster to the park and it is a hard one to review, simply because it just wasn’t finished in regards to the theming... I feel loathe to review something I haven’t had a full proper experience of, and as the doors weren’t operating, bathing the pre-lift scene in sunlight, the scene itself wasn’t done, and the way in which we weren’t sure if the animatronic was still saying the same thing the second time around, I can’t really give it a proper review...However, I can say that it will be a very different kids/family coaster when done, how many do you know that has a pre-lift scene with an animatronic? Exactly... It was a solid kids coaster ride wise, very smooth and nicely themed so far... But I don’t feel like I can give it a rating due to how unfinished it was because it would be unfair to it...Now that all the coasters had been done, was time to relax around the park and enjoy some of the other areas... On the way around we discovered a Huss Pirate Ship with some interesting rules...If you can’t understand that, 6 to a row, under 8s need an adult to ride... In other words, no minimum height restriction... Astounding the difference going across the pond can make to such simple things...Regardless of rules, we went on the random little boat ride next door to the pirate ship which was in the process of re-planting... Phill Pritchard and Luke_A 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 There’s been a distinct lack of Fluch photos in this haven’t there? Time to sort that out...At this point we decided to do the Log Flume, which annoyingly got me wet, but had amusing rats in the station that attacked the boats as they went through... Not a fan of having to leave bags on the platform though... Nicely themed and longer than realised...We then decided to go and watch the Sea-Lion show as we predicted that it wouldn’t matter toooooo much as we didn’t particularly understand much of the German language...That was to be a mistake...For you see, as part of their pre-show entertainment, they pick members of the audience to answer questions related to sea-lions and some other aquatical beings... And guess who the first person was?Nicky...Much lulz was had by myself as this happened, though later I had my own question which had no choice of answers and had to scroll in order to fit the screen, kinda unfair on me tbh but still, I wasn’t first...The show itself was good, if small and it was very funny when one sea-lion refused to participate to balancing a ball on his nose... Crafty old bugger that it was... The best part was when they got some kid on his birthday in there to drive around the arena in a boat and feed the sea-lions and help them perform tricks... It was a nice touch and something you rarely see in America (where these shows are king), and it ended up with him being smothered by a sea-lion...We did Fluch twice more before calling it a day, but we first had a parade to catch...Ok it ain’t Disney, but what you gonna do? Least they’re trying and doing very well for a family based park...Overall, Hansa was a very enjoyable place, very relaxed with a good mix of rides, just the old areas clash a lot with the new areas, Schlange is between about 3 of these areas and really does show the class between the newer rides and the old... Hopefully the park realises this and has plans in place to put some more theming about on some rides or just retheme them... But it is a really nice park with a good atmosphere, nice and relaxing park with a touch of quality in Fluch... Highly recommend this park to one and all...Farewell Hansa...But before we go...Next up, Hamburg... Phill Pritchard and Luke_A 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPDave Posted June 6, 2011 Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 I don't know if the building was still there, but they have grand plans to re-theme the place. If it all turns out like the concept it will be amazing!Did you go on the huge trampoline things? That was probably the most fun I had all day :)Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pickles Posted June 6, 2011 Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 I. Hate. You. Jealous. Tbh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted June 6, 2011 Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 Great report, your findings are pretty much indentical to mine. Although, Rasender Roland is a Vekoma Junior Coaster, not one of their Mine Trains! And some of their Mine Trains are epic (I.e. Colorado Adventure at Phantasialand!). I don't expect to agree with your KRAKE findings, though. Novgorod is a top 10 coaster for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted June 7, 2011 Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 Nice report Benin I love how you managed to get the little birdie toy in the picture with the stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 Day 1 – Sea-Life TimmendorfYeah I lied when Hamburg was next, as me and Nicky decided that after finishing at Hansa at around 3 we would search for that Sea-Life we saw advertised on our walk along the sea the night before...So a quick walk back to the train station and a few minutes later we were on the quick journey from Sierkdorf to Timmendorf Strand... We knew the Sea-Life was on the coast, so we began walking down towards the sea, keeping an eye out for any signs that would help us...We ended up going through a rather nice little park area heading into the main town centre, and a few right turns lead us to... Now on the UK Annual Pass website it tells us that we can get 50% off international Merlin attractions, so we naturally queried this to the gentleman at the desk, and unsurprisingly this confused both him and his colleague, who proceeded to phone up their manager to find out about it... This is kinda typical of Merlin I fear, as a lack of communication seems to be a rather regular thing, as no-one knew about this rule in Germany (we meant to check at Hamburg Dungeons as well but didn’t), so is a bit of a fail... However, as we must have been so nice about it, we got in on BOGOF... Winning! This Sea-Life is underground, and isn’t very big, probably just slightly bigger than the park versions over here, however, end of the day, Sea-Life is a Sea-Life is it not? And it’s always good to see how they run them differently... Case in point, stools for younger children to stand on... Brilliant idea, needs to happen more really...So the doors opened and we were greeted by... Otters! New... Never seen them at a Sea-Life before...Usual good standard of theming around when it was around... Another interesting thing that Nicky is demonstrating here is that they had a cold area with a lot of condensation going on over the glass, so they had some wipers primarily for the kids to use... Decent idea... But the numerous high amounts of condensation was a bit too much...Ahhh, more spider crabs (and condensation), but with an actual well designed tank for them as we could actually get close to them without having to sit on the floor... No idea what this is doing... Anyone know their crustaceans? Fish doing a Queen tribute it would seem... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 Someone’s future dinner... Fortunately, unlike Towers, this still has their Ray pool... They had some uber comfy chairs looking into the big tank with the tunnel, as I am demonstrating... Yes it has a tunnel like every other Sea-Life... Part of the brand these days...And that’s it... Would I recommend it? Only if you were really excessively bothered and had a few hours to spare... I couldn’t see much else to do in Timmendorf but we didn’t really explore far as we had a bit of a time deadline on going into the Sea-Life... It could be done in an hour and there wasn’t much there I hadn’t seen before, but I do enjoy going into Sea-Life’s as I do find them relaxing and it was good to get out of the sun for a bit... Next up is definitely Hamburg... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPDave Posted June 7, 2011 Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 Is this the Sea Life that Paul the Octopus lived at?Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted June 7, 2011 Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 To be honest, and I don't mean this in a bad way, why on earth would you visit Hamburg and go to a Sea Life centre? They're pretty generic and there are loads in this country. Not least, you'd have had to pay the 50% entry rate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 To be honest, and I don't mean this in a bad way, why on earth would you visit Hamburg and go to a Sea Life centre? They're pretty generic and there are loads in this country. Not least, you'd have had to pay the 50% entry rate? Actually read it? We weren't in Hamburg at this point, there wasn't much else to do in the area, and so what if we had to pay? It's a holiday, we knew that a Sea-Life would provide at least an hour of amusement and interest to us compared to the other option of just sitting in the hotel room doing nothing... In regards to it having Paul the Octopus... Wikipedia says no... Oberhausen is not Timmendorf... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phill Pritchard Posted June 7, 2011 Report Share Posted June 7, 2011 Thanks for a great TR so far, I think we will have to try out some more of the German parks at some point. Fluch von Novgorod looks and sounds so good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark9 Posted June 8, 2011 Report Share Posted June 8, 2011 Okay, finally had the time to read your report properly. The one thing I always get from these small parks is just how every single thing has 100% put into it. There's no thought about pleasing the share-holders or hitting records, it's all about the person riding it having a fantastic time. Fluch looks lovely, it's interesting how varied Gerstlauer Eurofighters seem to be on the finished products. I hate that bell ride though, it just looks hideously meccano like from every photo, 6 people?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted June 8, 2011 Report Share Posted June 8, 2011 Actually read it? We weren't in Hamburg at this point, there wasn't much else to do in the area, and so what if we had to pay? It's a holiday, we knew that a Sea-Life would provide at least an hour of amusement and interest to us compared to the other option of just sitting in the hotel room doing nothing... In regards to it having Paul the Octopus... Wikipedia says no... Oberhausen is not Timmendorf...Sorry, I didn't mean to criticize your own choices, I was just a little baffled by the idea. I suppose if there wasn't much else to do, then go for it.Loving the rest of the TR (apart from the fact it takes an age for the images to buffer!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 9, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2011 Day 2 – HamburgSo after a very nice day at Hansa Park, it was time to pack up and head for the city of Hamburg itself, with a quick plan of what we were going to do, we set off back to the station and said farewell to Sierksdorf...When we returned to Hamburg, we were unsure if we could dump our bags at the hotel (as it was one designed primarily for business people in mind), so we used the MASSIVE lockers located within the train station for 5 euros for the rest of the day... Rather decent pricing considering we fit two suitcases into one locker...One sorted, we headed to the U-Bahn and attempted to work out what train ticket we needed, as they seem to go more by zones rather than destination... Rather than risk it, we took the middle ground although we were only on for about 4 stops, better safe than sorry...We arrived at Rödingsmarkt and headed towards our first landmark, the St. Michaelis Church...It seems to not be a good idea to be a church in Hamburg we later discovered, but this is the most famous of them all, and we gave it a jolly good bombing back in the war what-what... Hence why the tower is blackened (and indeed, this seemed to be a trend throughout the city)... Not being much into the religion times (and the church not being Catholic) we continued our walk towards the Hamburg History Museum... We managed to get student discount to go in, resulting in only 10 euros for the two of us, which made me happy as that meant I wasn’t spending so much, and after we dumped off our bags in a locker (no other option but at least these repaid you your euro) we delved deeper into the museum... It was about this point that two things happened, firstly, two security guards made some conversation with me about not having flash photos (which, as most of my pics prove, I didn’t, dam ISO), which was rather confusing and tbh flustering... Don’t like security needlessly bickering at me in another language, let alone my own... Then I felt really sick, not sure if it was the fact that the museum was boiling or stuffy or what, but I felt like I was going to heave... Brilliant... However, we soldiered on up to the 3rd floor to investigate something that the Germans are also very famous for, a model railway... They only demonstrate it a few times each day, presumably to save energy as these things probably drain electricity like there’s no tomorrow, but regardless, it was still a rather impressive bit of kit... Least we thought so that day... After a while, we left and quickly went through some other parts of the museum since I was still feeling like crap... We went towards the St. Pauli station (which is the relatively famous red light district of the city, so typically European in the fact they promote it as much as ‘normal’ attractions), ended up helping some other tourist with the machines, before retrieving our luggage back at the Hauptbahnhof and retiring to the hotel and watching English Sky Cinema... Huzzah!Next time, more Hamburg... Luke_A and Phill Pritchard 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 11, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Day 3 – Hamburg Part 2So after our night in the business style Travelodge, we checked out, left our bags and then descended upon the city once again... This was across the road from the hotel, a picture was indeed required... Good old fashioned translations going awry...Regardless of such buildings, it was time to get back on the U-Bahn... After the quick train journey to Baumwall (only a stop away from our journey yesterday), we sauntered through the construction site towards our destination, Miniatur Wunderland... Ah... Something’s wrong here... Yep, Merlin’s worldwide grasp is particularly strong in Germany, whilst we didn’t go in the Dungeons, it shared a few similarities to London, mainly with Labyrinth, the Judge, Traitor and Extremis... However some of the scenes interested me, such as the Haunted Library and some pirate’s execution... They do English tours as well which is quite a good idea, though I would love to do the tour in German cos of the interest in how amazing the accent would sound...Anyways, off to the Wunderland, which has a relatively steep looking price (for students it’s 9 euros) but when we went into the attraction (after having to put bags in a locker, again, very good idea) and saw this, we realised what we were paying for... Yep, this is one serious model railway... It goes through 2 floors, and several rooms with all different areas and with further plans to expand even MORE in the future... This is one serious piece of kit... With lots of interactive pieces as well to see, it was an absolute surprise and very worth the entrance fee... Scenes like the Flugtag reminded me very much of a Lego Miniland... Lots of little details and jokes dotted about to try and spot... Fully working concert... With camera flashes from the audience... Lots of PLCs... Each area had its own day/night alternation, and worked very well... This was their newest area, the working airport... Yes, the plane is coming into land whilst the other one is waiting... This was one bloody impressive area and I have no idea how they did it all... The sheer scale of this was just amazing... Luke_A and Phill Pritchard 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 11, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 All aboard the party boat! There were trains going around, and can go from the bottom of the Switzerland area alllllll the way through to the Scandinavian bit right on the opposite end... But they are definitely not the main draw of this place... FUNFAIR!!! And yes, with added working credit! Just to show how far down this place went... A fair few of the rides moved as well... They have gone all international as well, with a massive American area... Of course, they had to have a recreation of Hamburg as well... Watching this bloke fix sommat was just as impressive, as he was attempting to not knock anything over... Another cred, though it is a mixture of Manhattan Express and Speed in Vegas... Urgh... Hell yeah Pixar! Oh yeah, they also have space shuttle launches here... I love this short... So much... Phill Pritchard 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 11, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Brilliant way of doing the water and making it see-through for the extra details at the bottom... TROLLLLLLLLL!I highly recommend this place to anyone visiting... It’s very awesome even if you have no interest in model railways and the like... It’s just full of win and deserves more recognition...Anyways, that finished, we elected for lunch, and due to knowing about the so called Roller-coaster restaurant in the city (sort of), we had planned a route there and headed back to the Hauptbahnhof and got the S Bahn number 31 to Harburg, and a short walk later we found it... Now notice something about this? It was open, lights on, music on, but no staff or customers... Staff saw us milling about inside but made no attempt to talk to us or indeed inform us of what to do... After a while we left rather disappointed by this lack of good form I expect from the Germans and it was really a wasted journey in the end... Right shame...So we headed back to Hamburg proper as we needed to catch our train towards Soltau for the final part of the holiday, Heide Park... And we got our MetroNOM (no joke) train over to Buchholz (Nordheide) for our connecting train to Soltau... On our way from Hamburg we realised that we had a 3 minute connection time between the trains, and our NOM arrived at platform 1, whilst the next train left from platform 11...This naturally, caused worry, until we reached Buchholz and we saw that, for some reason, 1 and 11 were right next door to each other... Confusion aside, we still ran to get on the train and enjoy the nice long sedate journey over to Soltau... Upon arrival, we waited for a taxi (as Heide is rather far away from the station, there is a bus but that is rather infrequent in non-peak hours), and eventually we arrived at the Hotel Port Royal...Gonna end this part of the report here and keep all Heide together, which will include a review of the hotel and of course, Krake... Woo... Luke_A and Phill Pritchard 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phill Pritchard Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Wow... just wow! The level of detail at that place looks amazing. Another one for the list! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pickles Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 I'm not joking I love train sets and stuff so to go and see that would be amazing for me Tom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 14, 2011 Day 4 – Heide Park Part 1So after our arrival at Heide Park we did naturally go around and investigate the rather impressive looking hotel... It rather reminded me of both of the Towers hotels, with the look and style of the original one with the restaurant style of Splash Landings (with an overally expensive buffet or a la carte options for food)... But I did like the theming throughout, however, having just one lift in the reception area doesn’t work in a busy hotel... Plus having only BBC News and CNN as the only English channels was just a chore...Oh wells, pictures! Why is it always gone? We got a room with a view... NOM! As you can see, the rooms are very well themed... Soooooon... Familiar looking idea... Just outside the hotel... Home of the super secret hotel guest entrance to the park... Quick view of the restaurant... Reception seats... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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