Europa-Park: Two Days in Europa-Park
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One of the best theme parks in Europe, Germany’s Europa-Park is worthy of a two-day visit.
For the third and final theme park on our Germany trip, we chose to spend two days at Europa-Park. The park is by far the most popular in Germany and is probably second only to Disneyland Paris in all of Europe.
About Europa-Park
The park is owned by the Mack Family. They have been in the roller coaster-building industry for nearly a century. If you’ve been to a theme park, there’s a good chance you’ve been on a Mack-built ride. Their coasters are on every continent and are in use at Disney, Universal, Six Flags, and hundreds of other lesser-known parks.
Where is Europa-Park Located?
The park is located near the Black Forest in the southwestern portion of Germany near the Rhine on the border with France. The town of Rust is the nearest city with the closest major train stop nearby in Ringsheim. The park is reachable by public bus from the Ringsheim train station.
Europa-Park From Heidelberg
We came into town late in the evening after a day exploring Heidelberg. Instead of the train, we took the affordable and massively convenient FlixBus. The bus picked us up at the Heidelberg station and dropped us off at the front gate of Europa-Park. The journey on the air-conditioned and Wi-Fi enabled bus took just under two hours. The tickets were USD$10.15 each. Easy-peasy.
Europa-Park Hotel
We booked two nights at the Hotel El Andaluz, a hotel on the property themed as a Spanish villa. The hotel was a bit on the expensive side for what we normally look for, but you essentially walk out the back door and enter the park, so we splurged a little for the convenience.
Europa-Park Roller Coasters, Rides, and Attractions
Europa-Park is separated into eighteen themed areas. The buildings and attractions in each area are themed to a country in Europe. In England, you’ll find the Silverstone Race Track where you ride through English gardens, a theatre recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe, and lots of soccer (aka football). In Italy, you can ride Volo Da Vinci a suspended monorail themed after Leonardo da Vinci. In Russia, you can ride a spinning rollercoaster named Euro-Mir that is themed around Russian space travel.
A few other areas fall outside of a national theme including Adventureland, Grimm’s Forest a fairytale land for kids, and Minimoys Kingdom home to ARTHUR.
The rollercoasters in the park are top of the class. In France, you can ride Silver Star a hypercoaster with a 220-foot drop and a crazy horseshoe turnaround. Iceland is home to the giant car racing-themed Blue Fire. It shoots you out of a dark tunnel into the daylight on a crazy-fun ride. Wodan Timbur Coaster, also in Iceland, is a wooden Norse-themed coaster with indoor and outdoor portions, smoke, and projections. Finally, ARTHUR, a ride themed after the Arthur books and films, mixes thrills with show scenes on an inverted track.
In the dark ride category, the attractions have the perfect mix of cheesy and fun. Greece is home to the Atlantis Adventure a boat ride through the imaginary lost city. In Italy, you can ride the Ghost Castle the park’s haunted house. In Germany, there is an elf ride that will bring joy to anyone who rides. In the Netherlands, Pirates of Batavia, the park’s Pirates of the Caribbean inspired attraction is set to re-open after being destroyed in a 2018 fire.
In the water ride category, Poseidon combines a dry track with a wet boat ride over two great drops. Themed around Portuguese Conquistadors, Atlantica SuperSplash is sure to get you soaked.
Additionally, there are loads of smaller spinning carnival-style rides, boat rides, car rides, and children’s rides.
Europa-Park Summary
I was glad we set aside two days for this park. We would have never been able to ride and see everything we wanted in one day. The park is just too big. Spacing it out over two days allowed us to ride all the coasters but also experience all the smaller rides that are completely unique to the park. It also gave us extra time to poke around the themed areas. There are lots of extra surprises in the theming if you take the time to look around.
Europa-Park is by far one of my favorite theme parks in the World. I look forward to someday returning to experience the new Pirates ride and to check out Rulantica, the adjacent water park.
Earlier in the trip we visited Phantasialand, another great European Theme Park.
This is part of our Two Week Germany Itinerary.
