Fun in Europe. Review on Europa Park

A few months back, when I was stationed in the Deutschland on work it provided me a great opportunity to visit the beautiful Europe. One such place which I had loads of fun with my friends was this great Entertainment Theme Park called Europa Park.

Located in a place called Rust in the south of Germany, this place is worth visiting. Reaching Rust by train needs a bit of googling to do. From Stuttgart we changed 3 trains to reach this small town, Herbolzheim. Yes, faster trains are available like ICE but they are pretty costly.

So we settled for the more economical trains. At Herbolzheim right outside the Train Station is the Bus Stop. Here we took the waiting Bus (No. 7200) which took us right to the Europa Park. We didn't even need to query the driver in our broken (twice) German :-). One look at the crowded Bus and we knew everyone was heeded to this huge land of fun.

All along I had heard of this roller-coaster which is 73 mts. high at its tallest point. And lo! from where we alighted from the Bus, we could see this thing going up, up & away. It fell down in the blink of an eye and loads of screams from the people in it, to break off all decibel records. The 8 of us looked at each other and gulped hard. We swore, ok nobody's getting into this one. Somebody then gave a brilliant idea that we go into the Park.

The tickets are priced at Euro 26 per head for one entire day. Group tickets for more than 20 people are also available and so are some package tickets like the Annual one!!! It was sea of people all around. We managed to get hold of a map of the park and the layout where, what rides are located. Take my word, you need this piece of info. Else you'll get lost in here like you would in a stormy snowy weather.

Thankfully they had this info in English too :-). The entire Europa-Park is divided into 12 zones. The 11 zones are demarcated into each of the European Country (Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Russia, Switzerland, Greece, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Austria and Spain). The other zone is for the Kids. Each zone has number of rides, unique names for them comes from its country's origin, the people managing the rides sometimes even wear the traditional costume of the country.

Apart from the rides, there are dozens of restaurants to appetize your gastro hunger. Again these food joints dole out dishes special to that particular country. Phew!!! so much to cover and we have a single day. Nope, its entirely not sufficient. So we pored over the park map and marked out some rides which we found, were interestingly named. Another very useful stuff is that in each zone, there is something called as a Meeting Point. Its marked by a blue square with a small yellow circle in its centre & four arrows pointing to the circle from the four corners of the square.

Remember this one well, for it you get lost (and believe me you can get lost easily) from your group then you could go over to this place & wait for others to catch you up. Deciding on this, we heeded first to the ''Alpine Train'' in the Austria zone. Apline Train which will be loved by the kids. Its neither scary nor a damp squib. The train has 8-10 bogies and 2 each can sit in one.

It starts off from inside a building, weaves a huge left to the outside to slide over a bridge right above where people keep strolling, and goes into a dark tunnel like thing at a high speed. Inside here there are twists & turns and at some point a ball of flame leaps up. Certainly a fun ride, and is all the more fun because after the ride you can take a walk in this tunnel.

The Fjord Rafting in the Scandanivia section was our next halt. This is quite an innovative one. We got to sit in a inflated rubber raft which keeps moving by itself, because of the water's strong current. The ride is so well made up that the raft bounces along the sides of the wall at precise location. Water is sprayed into the boat at one turn, which is big surprise if you are not anticipating it. The raft starts of slowly and picks up the speed quickly. The rides ends when the raft goes between two torrents of water falls. A fun & enjoyable ride, it is. We topped of this experience by taking the Vindjammer. This one is like a yoyo except that it yoyo's from the left to the right & goes to a good 30 feet above the ground. My stomach did churn for a while, but it was fun.

Our next target was the Euro Mir in the land of Russia. Before going into the ride one can actually go inside a simulated Mir capsule. We settled for the ride. The loong queue took us inside a dark room & we settled inside the coze cars. Each train has four cars which can sit 2 people each. The trains starts off from the dark interiors and circles around to reach the top of the building. So far we were clueless as to what would be the scare. Voila!!! the train reached the top, comes out into the strong Sun and the bloody thing stops there. Aaarrgh...we are some 60 feet above the ground. What next!!! It then surges forward and comes down in great speed going left, right, centre and god knows where else.

All through the down ride I screamed off my lungs. Well it was a lot fun, I confess :-). We also took in a screening of a multimedia laser show. Great music & great laser lights, but it was all in German. Nevertheless we were thrilled again. Our thrill, doubled again as we took another ride in a simulated Russian mine car. All we had to do was sit in this simulator & the screen in front of us starts beaming a scene inside a mine. The experience is worth it, as the scene keeps changing our simulator too lurches to the left & right.

Another enjoyable ride in here. By this time the Sun was already up above our head. It was 12 noon and very hot. We had only covered some 5 rides. We then speeded up our pace. This was where I got separated from my group. A good 20 minutes later did I rejoin them, thankfully. All our hungry stomachs growled for some food.

I then heeded into the Italian ground to have my all time favourite Pizza. Priced at a reasonable Euro 6 the veggie stuff was adorably delicious. With stomachs filled and thirst quenched, we decided not go for another ride. Instead we visited the Magic Cinema 4D in the French territory. This 20 minute movie experience was a true delight. Its animation all through, with great sound & 3D. The 4th dimension is added in the form of seats moving, wind blowing & water spraying in our faces. It was an absolute delight and still remains my favourite :-).

I don't think this space is enough to complete my review.

Either I will have a part 2 or continue this in the comments section.