Phantasialand

12 August 2018

My first experience of Germany was landing at Frankfurt airport for my connecting flight just after the terminal had been evacuated due to a security issue. Chaos doesn’t quite cover it. Around 7000 people crammed in to the check in area, desperately trying to rebook tickets, with no air-conditioning during a heat wave. There were people fainting, young solo travellers in tears, and lines that were heading outside the building. After lengthy delays, I enjoyed a few ride-free days in Salzburg (Austria) and Frankfurt, catching up with my lovely friend Katrin who showed me some excellent parts of town, including a cider festival.

After a few days, I finally reuniting with Terror as we jumped straight on a train bound for Cologne. While Frankfurt was an awesome city, and it was wonderful seeing Katrin again, I was glad to leave the airport behind.

We had a casual afternoon doing touristy stuff like visiting a cathedral and a chocolate museum, before getting an early night at the Marriott Hotel in preparation for Phantasialand the following day. We caught a train followed by a shuttle bus, arriving just before the 9am opening. I didn’t know much about this park, except that it had recovered from a devastating fire in 2001 which destroyed a beautiful wooden coaster. We also discovered early on that is was not ok to take dogs, cats, and pipes on rides…

We went straight to the big ticket item in Mystery land (Taron), but the park layout was a bit confusing and it took us a while to find the entrance. By the time we arrived, the line was already stupidly long and there seemed to be a delay with opening. We had purchased the fast passes, but these could only be used on four occasions, and only on selected rides (which did not happen to be the good rides!) We were also unimpressed that people were ignoring the no smoking signs, and simply lighting up in the lines. After a one hour wait we were both stinking like an ashtray, and my eyes were really irritated and itchy. I guess we are pretty lucky in Australia as the laws around where you can smoke are pretty strict!

We spent the time in the queue downloading the Phantasialand app, which provided real time updates about queue lengths, and directions to attractions. Luckily, Taron was an awesome ride, and we would have ridden it all day if the queue conditions were different. I am yet to find a fast launch coaster that I haven’t enjoyed, and Taron was no exception. Billed as the world’s fastest multi-launch coaster, we enjoyed the traditional trains, as the lack of harness meant we could enjoy the zippy turns without getting knocked around. The construction around the coaster was pretty epic too, plus the track was spectacular with its intricate web of cross sections. We spent a while just admiring the design of the ride!

I still have no idea what the theming was all about, but it felt a bit Game of Thrones-esque. This would be a common theme at the parks in Germany, as my understanding of the German language is shamefully terrible. I found it hard to remember the names of the rides and what story they were telling me, so resorted to crossing them off the map as we went to make sure we didn’t miss anything.

Next was a fairly standard boomerang coaster called Raik. Fun, but uneventful, and definitely not worth the wait for such a short ride.

I was pleasantly surprised by Mystery Castle though. This was an indoor drop/bungy tower and is probably the most fun I have ever had on a ride like this. I think I would rate it above the Tower of Terror in the US! As mentioned previously, I think I was becoming a little fond of the drop towers after so many years of hate and fear. Mystery Tower had a huge seating capacity which meant a relatively short wait time, and you were all facing in, so could see the looks of amusement and/or fear on everyone else. The ride was quite dark, so the element of surprise with the falls was brilliant. We had a few turns on this one, and it was certainly one of my favourites of the day.

Chinatown was pretty ordinary in terms of rides. We started out in the Feng Ju Palace mad house attraction, but got bored with the animated presentation and left. This meant that we missed the on ride component later in the experience, but I have no regrets. Geister Rikscha was like the ghost equivalent of the Little Mermaid ride, so we were bored within about 30 seconds.

The Mexico area was a lot more fun, starting with and ice skating show which was like High School Musical. The skaters were entertaining, and it was nice being out of the hot sun for a bit.

We then ticked off a little mine-train style coaster called Colorado Adventure using our second fast pass. Apparently this ride was opened by Michael Jackson, but after his death, the association with his name was removed. Colorado Adventure was the only ride photo we bought, because Terror and I had just accidentally headbutted each other before the camera went off. The hysterical laughing was real.

Still giggling about how we managed to hurt each other on a roller coaster, I eyed off a top spin ride called Talocan. After having her gorgeous baby boy, Terror was less inclined to experience the spinny/dizzy rides, so I went solo on this one. It was similar to the Thor Thunder Spin (Dubai) in terms of intensity and hilarity, but the wait time was a lot longer.

Deep in Africa, we were finally able to use one of our fast passes with Black Mamba. We both agreed this inverted coaster was disappointing though, even though it looked pretty cool. It is hard to know whether we are both so desensitised that we need something spectacular to get an adrenaline kick, or whether the ride was a little dodgy in terms of roughness and lack of air time. Possibly a little of both!

Our step count certainly rose as we made our way across the park to the Fantasy area, which felt like a really long walk. Most of this area was indoors, but was not as well designed as the indoor parks in Dubai. I laughed a lot on the little coasters Winja’s Fear and Winja’s Force. The round trains would spin as you went around the track, which meant that Terror got pretty queasy. I think the only reason she went on both, was because she didn’t want the fast passes to go to waste. Needless to say, we needed some downtime after those two coasters!

A little while later, we finished off the coasters with Temple of the Night Hawk, the world’s longest indoor coaster. The track felt pretty traditional for a dark coaster, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

Even though it was our first park in Germany, we were completely over waiting in lines. We decided to duck in to Das verruckte Hotel Tartuff on the way out, as it was near the entrance, and as it was a self-guided experience, the line moved freely. This fun house was one of the most enjoyable things about the day, which made me worry that perhaps I was falling out of love with fun parks a bit.

We thought we had planned the perfect trip, trying to avoid school holidays, weekends and the crowds. Phantasialand was so busy though, and as a result we didn’t actually go on that many rides. At $75 it was mid-range in terms of cost, but we still didn’t feel like we got value for money once we had added on the fast pass. Although the park did not close until 8pm, we were relieved to get back to the hotel early evening, where our frazzled brains could enjoy resting in a quiet and smoke free environment for a while.

If I am ever lucky enough to return to Germany, I would revisit Phantasialand though. A new coaster (F.L.Y) is scheduled to open in 2019, which looks like a brilliant flying coaster (lying down face forward.) Plus, it will be the world’s first fast launch flying coaster. I will just have to pick my time of year a little better to avoid the crowds!