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chewie · Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:33 pm Post subject: Phantasialand 25/07/09

After we had finished at Europa Park on Friday, we got an early start Saturday and traveled 243 miles up to Bruhl to Phantasialand.

After exiting the Autobahn we could not believe how close we were to this place. Following the sat-nav we turned right into a street that could have been any street in any town, and if wasn't for the signs you would have no idea that this was home to a large theme park. I think on first impressions we were unimpressed. Even as we approached the ticket booths we thought we were gonna find a run down park...How wrong we were.

After getting our bearings and finding the major attractions (Which was quite difficult at first, because the park guides weren't much help), we started to think that the park had been designed this way. Not being guided exactly to the entrances to the rides made it feel like more of an adventure. We weren't quite sure at times what it was we were queueing for and this just added to experience.

We found Black Mamba (After some searching for the eingang) first and made a bee line for the front seats AGAIN. This was simply a great ride on the front, after the first drop it entered a 360 degree loop and after that i just lost my bearings completley, i remember being put through a few more inversions and then looking up at walls, before being whisked away in another direction, (Very exhilerating). It made me question if it was a better ride than Nemesis (reason for the poll i placed up here). Still now my head is telling me Black Mamba, but my heart tells me Nemesis. Will know for sure after Loopathon.

After BM we wandered up to Colorado Adventure and found it was a walk on, so it seemes rude not to have a ride. Glad we did. As you can't see a lot of the circuit, i was surprised to find out it had 3 pull ups and after each one a fairly fast and twisting decent. I ususally find these runaway trains boring, but this one was very different and we loved every minute of it. In my opinion it was a far better ride the 'Big Thunder Mountain' in Florida. A bonus coaster.

After that we hunted down Winjas Fear & Force, this also took some time, but eventually we found it, and after finding a locker to use proceeded to the entrance. We just followed the crowd into the line and we could see the queue split for the riders who wanted to ride 'fear' and the ones who wanted 'Force', but nobody was entering the 'Fear' line. We thought about walking down the empty passage, but thought only one of the coasters may be working, so decided against it so we didn't loose our place in the queue. Doh!! Both coasters were working and after a ride op directed the bussling crowd down the 'Fear' path the line soon filled up. Anyway we eventually boarded the carriage and was totally blown away once more. Instead of a chain lift we found something completley different. I don't want to spoil the surprise for those of you who haven't been to this park yet, so i'll stop there. But if you like Spinball Whizzer' this won't dissapoint.

After that we left the Winjas building, and crossed the way into the Temple Of The Nighthawk building. This is a very sedate and quite relaxing coaster, but still worth riding and has a few minor surprises. My daughter would love this ride eventhough its in complete darkness.

After that i think we went to Talogan, which is a bigger version of Ripsaw with water and pyrotechnics, we must have enjoyed it though because we came back round to the viewing area to get some pictures and saw it was another walk on so we rode it again. (Never got those pics).

By this time we were buzzing with excitment, and having done done most high adrenaline rides, we went for a nice cruise on on the river rapids ride, (Or so we thought). We queued for River Quest only to find out that it had broken down (DOH!!). They gave us a fast pass for another ride (Bonus), and after riding Winjas again returned to River Quest only to find it had reopened, (YEAY). So we went for our relaxing river ride, (WRONG). This was a mad rapids ride, clearly the best one i've ever ridden. A dry lift takes you to the top of the building its housed in, and lets you drop into an area with a whirlpool effect in the middle, before plummeting down what must have been a 40 maybe 50ft drop, at the bottom of the hill a huge wave engulffed one side of the boat, soaking some poor German guy and his partner. It looked like he had just jumped into a swimming pool or lake. This was madness, i'm more used to the likes of the rapid rides at Alton & Thorpe. This was a great ride and we certainly got more than we bargained for.

So we had nearly come to the end of our day in this wonderful, magiacal park and i was feeling truly like a child again, (Sign of a good park). There was just one thing left to do and i had been avoiding it all day like the plauge. MYSTERY CASTLE. This intimidated me all day because i had a fairly good idea of what lurcked at the bottom of the ramparts and i can't say i was looking forward to it much. After having had a panic attack on the observation tower at Europa, (Yeah, yeah i know what you all are thinking, haha). Nevertheless i strutted like John Wayne into the tower for my destiny with a 195ft drop tower in the dark, ( Or so i thought AGAIN). I suppose MC is a drop tower of sorts, but not a true one like Apocylpse at Drayton. Its more of a cross between this and the shot tower at BPB. Having said that it was a massive thrill to be pushed half way up this thing only to bounce/bunjee back down to the bottom, before being shot back up at great speed to the very top of the tower where it held you for a few seconds before...Well i won't spoil it anymore, but i suppose you can guess what happened next.

I can't tell you how much fun i had in this park. It was truly an amazing experience from start to finish and again would recommend it to everyone. Who knows maybe a club trip in the future?

Europa and Phantasialand are 2 of the best theme parks i have had the pleasure of visiting. Maybe you can tell me why we in the UK don't do parks like this. I enjoy very much visiting our parks over here, i just don't see why we can't go that extra mile and really put massive smiles on everybody's faces when they go home.

On leaving Phantasialand i was still smug in the knowing that i was going to ride what looked to be a fantastic woodie at Heide Park the next day. I'll post a report on this soon...All i will say is that i was very, very dissapointed with what i found at this Merkin park.
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