Riding the Highs at Europa Park

It was our earliest start yet for the drive to Europa Park. Our first Europe theme park, and first time we're actually staying at the park. We were pretty excited! We have something of a tradition of our first rides at theme parks being wooden coasters, after starting with Colossus the two times we've been at Magic Mountain. We thought we'd continue this and so once we got in the park (pretty close to the 9am opening time), we headed to Wodan, expecting your typical wooden coaster. It was anything but! I have no idea how they make a wooden coaster go so damn fast! Greg and I got off it on such a high, and it certainly started the day off right.

Me chilling in "Iceland" with Wodan in the background
Fun facts: top speed over 100km / h, height 40m, length 1040m, number of nails 2,000,000!

From there we headed to the Blue Fire megacoaster. Basically imagine the little coaster at Rainbows End, make it a gazillion times bigger, faster and smoother, and let your feet dangle. Amazing!!

We decided to keep on as we were going and try hit all the big rides hopefully before the queue got to big. The next was Silver Star which is one of the longest, highest and fastest in Europe. It went out over the carpark, and had loads of cool humps in it which meant you totally left your seat. So fun!

Arthur Coaster

After doing another couple of coasters, including one in the dark (it was so dark!), we decided to take it down a notch and headed towards the Arthur and the Minimoys area. It was so cute, and so well done. The coaster was fantastic. Not the huge thrills of the previous rides, but absolutely gorgeous.

We finally slowed down around 1 (after 5 hours!) and got ourselves some good ole burgers for lunch to recharge. Then it was off again. We went on the water rides in the afternoon and got completely soaked! They were pretty impressive, except the log flume wasn't quite up there with DisneyLand - we missed the zippity doo dah!

In general, the park was super clean and the grounds so nicely done. There were a couple rivers running through that apparently come from nearby natural sprints, and loads of trees. Each area of the park was done as a different country, and had its own themed rides and restaurants.

The entire day we thought the park closed at 6, so it was an awesome surprise to find out that it stayed open til 8. It meant we had time for another break for sangria and tapas in "Spain". We were in the park for a total of 11 hours, and loved every minute off it! We went on all the coasters, including multiple rides on our favourites (even ran to get back to back last rides on Wodan as the park was closing). Even so, we didn't get to completely explore the park. There were so many shows we would have liked to see, and so many cool little areas we just didn't get to. We debated going back in the morning, but were so exhausted, and felt we'd done such a good job, we decided a sleep in might suit us better!

Sangria and Tapas in "Spain"

"Italy"

After the park closed we headed back to our Italian themed hotel (Colosseo), complete with it's own coliseum. We had dinner out on the courtyard, where they had this amazing show - kind of like a mini cirque du soleil.

In the morning we had a sleep in, then a swim in the pool before wandering around the other themed hotels (Spanish, Portuguese and USA), and decided our hotel was the nicest. Then it was into the car and on to the next stop.

In all, we really loved Europa Park. We are total theme park junkies, and this one hit the spot. Cool theming, great rides. Was interesting to have all the commentary in German, and we felt we missed a little of the stories of some, but overall it was great, and we're already talking about when we can come back!

Poseidon (so glad we did this one late in the day as we go soaked!)

Chilling in the Brothers Grimm forest

And the slipper fits!

Atlantica Super Splash and Wodan

Greg about to slay the giant

Greg now being a King

Swimming next to the "Coliseum"

Greg at our hotel

In the "Coliseum"