So, before we get into this, I want to make it clear that I am absolutely not here to be a hater. I love theme parks, love them. I promise I could have found a better way to spend 67 of my days last year if I didn’t. This means it’s even more bizarre and disappointing when a theme park doesn’t quite hit the spot. You can probably see where I’m going with this. Europa-Park (in Rust, Germany) just didn’t quite do it for me. I’ve been wracking my brains to try and figure out why, and though I’m still not quite sure, I have a few ideas of what might have prevented me from falling in love with this widely adored park. By all measures, it should have become one of my favourite places in the world. In 2022, Europa-Park won the coveted Golden Ticket Award for ‘Best Amusement Park’ for the eighth year running (their streak ended in 2023 with Dollywood taking the crown.) They have loyal fans across the world who return year after year. I’m clearly in the minority here. But, whilst I didn’t come away head-over-heels for the park, there were definitely many things I did very much enjoy. So here is my (slightly extended) list of what I liked, and what I didn’t like quite so much, at Europa-Park.
Great: The Theming
Let’s start off with the obvious here. Europa-Park is absolutely stunning. Currently home to 16 different European-themed areas (Croatia will be 17th later this year), the park features a vast array of different architectural styles, echoing those of the various countries across the continent, and these areas really are something to behold. The Scandinavian, French, and Swiss areas, in particular, took my breath away, and really did make me feel like I was visiting a small town in each of these countries!
Not So Great: The ‘Real World’ Theming
Whilst I think Europa-Park does an incredible job of bringing the architectural style of various different European countries to life, it can’t help but feel almost lacking in imagination. There is, of course, an exception here with Minimoys Kingdom, and for this reason, that area is one of my favourites within the park. Filled with oversized plants, gorgeous lighting, and bug-shaped rides, this land is cute! Elsewhere, however, whilst the areas are impressive, there’s nothing that caught my imagination. No hidden animatronics or fantastical details to suggest that you are not in the real world. You’re here for a tour of Europe, and that’s what you will get. It’s a very enjoyable place to be, pretty in the extreme and fun to meander around, but there’s nothing memorable. There were no details that had me thinking, ‘I have to visit that every day!’ the way I do the dragon at Disneyland Paris, or even the Mole Pole at Legoland Windsor! Instead of walk-through areas, the lands were packed with shops selling uninteresting merchandise and (on my visit) closed restaurants. Whilst pretty on the outside, there was very little to actually enjoy within these areas. It felt almost too much like being in a real town. Outside of the Minimoys Kingdom, this is a park firmly grounded in reality and the worse for it.
Great: Wodan, Eurosat Can Can Coaster and Arthur
My top three coasters at Europa-Park were all very, very enjoyable rides! None of them have troubled the top of my coaster rankings, but I enjoyed each of them for a different reason.
I am, and most likely always will be, a GCI fangirl, so Wodan Timbur Coaster was right up my street. Whilst the attraction as a whole wasn’t massively themed, the stunning entrance archway and awesome dispatch effect (several statues all turning to watch as the train departs – so cool!) made for a very memorable experience. The coaster itself isn’t my favourite wooden coaster, or even favourite GCI (still Thunderhead), but it’s an incredibly enjoyable ride providing plenty of airtime whilst being as smooth as you could ever wish a wooden coaster to be! My favourite in the park hands down.
Eurosat Can Can Coaster is a themed indoor coaster (the one in the giant EPCOT-esque ball) that won me over with sheer ingenuitety. The queue and station are both gorgeous and deeply evoke Parisian nightlife, but as the ride begins, it becomes clear the theming in here isn’t quite as high quality. It’s a lot of flat UV-painted scenery, but when you’re flying past on a roller coaster, it really works! What I truly loved about this experience was the pairing of the thematic elements to the elevation within the ride. As we reach the top of the lift-hill, the Eiffel Tower and skyline are present. By the end, we’re darting through traffic on the busy Parisian streets. It’s beautifully done and has a fantastic soundtrack to boot. It’s just a really, really fun ride!
Then there’s Arthur. More dark ride than coaster in my book – even the outdoor coaster section is extremely controlled – Arthur has some of the best scenic design in the park, with one key scene in particular being jaw-dropping in its scale. It’s just a shame that this scene chose… well, they really chose some music. As you enter this beautiful, beautiful scene Still D.R.E. by Dr. Dre begins to play. I’ll let you google the lyrics for yourselves, but that first line? Played in full, with no censorship. I was so stunned that I could not tell you what happened in the rest of the ride and had to go back on to try and enjoy the attraction without the immense distraction. It didn’t work. Still a staggering attraction, and one I’d like to ride at least once-per-day on any future visits for sure!
Not So Great: Every Other Roller Coaster
Ah, I’m sorry Silver Star, but if ever there were a mid hypercoaster, it’s you. I really love hypers so this was still a very enjoyable experience, but whilst the airtime was perfectly acceptable, it didn’t really do anything to make me even begin to consider where it would sit in my coaster rankings. It’s the sort of ride I’d make sure to ride when in the park, but never talk about afterwards. It’s fine.
Again, blue fire is fine. It was actually better than I imagined, with perhaps my rock-bottom expectations for a Mack launch meaning it packed more of a punch than anticipated! I found the layout a little meandering overall, but I certainly enjoyed the horseshoe roll over the rockwork. A fun little ride that, again, is just a little unremarkable.
There are eight other roller coasters at Europa-Park (until Voltron opens), forming the supporting line-up. Of these, I rode all except Euro-Mir, and they’re all okay. There’s nothing I wouldn’t ride again, but there’s nothing I’m desperate to either. Matterhorn Blitz has an adorable queue, though!
Great: Piraten in Batavia and Madame Freudenreich’s Curiosities
Better than any of the coasters in the park, in my opinion, are the park’s two star dark rides: Piraten in Batavia and Madame Freudenreich’s Curiosities. Two of the newer rides in the park (Piraten opened in 2020, Madame Freudenreich’s Curiosities in 2018) these are the attractions that give me hope Europa is moving towards the sort of park I could really, deeply fall in love with. For almost exclusively within these attractions, we are greeted with whimsy. There are things here that are a more than a little bit silly or a little cute! Things designed just to make us smile. And that’s why I love them to pieces.
Piraten in Batavia is a jaw-dropping dark ride. The fact that I even had to stop and consider whether I prefer it to Pirates of the Caribbean is a testament to the overall strength of this as an attraction. Packed full of animatronics, smells, and gorgeous projection mapping, this is everything you could want from a modern dark ride. It’s also the only attraction (in the theme park, I do rate Snorri) that featured a character I actively wanted merchandise of. Jopie, the otter, is a marvel, and his adventure throughout Batavia is what makes this really special for me. We have a cute animal mascot! A silly character that I care about! Finally. Piraten in Batavia really is a masterpiece and the shining jewel in Europa’s crown.
Madame Freudenreich’s Curiosities isn’t spectacular. It isn’t packed full of effects. There are no mind-blowing projections here. But it’s absolutely overflowing with charm. The whole attraction is a riot of colour and a love letter to the strange and heartwarming. The story is that we’re visiting an elderly lady who keeps dinosaurs as pets, and it’s one dinosaur’s birthday. From that strange concept, Europa squeeze every last ounce of joy, packing the attraction with different dinosaurs, different whimsical scenarios and a queue line that’s so filled with details that it had me stopping to take them all in. I simply can not do this attraction justice with words. You just need to experience it, and the joy it brings, for yourself.
Not So Great: Every Other Dark Ride
I need to start here with the owl in the room: Voletarium. I really wanted to love this. Really. The queue line is spectacular and, like Piraten in Batavia, seems to show the park moving towards the sort of story-driven, richly themed place that I adore. However, on both our rides, we were seated towards the edge of the theatre, and the whole thing was bendy. So many of the images were warped and really took me out of the experience. It was worse than any of my Soarin’ experiences, and I dislike that ride for the same reason! If a significant number of riders are going to get a sub-par experience, I just don’t think it’s a great ride, I’m afraid. Smelt fantastic, though!
Snorri Touren is another ride that I should have loved, and I thought the design of it was gorgeous. But, unfortunately, I felt the whole thing was let down by the simulator section. Whilst ambitious, I found this quite poorly executed and a little nauseating. The need to schedule the entire ride around this portion also meant that the speed we moved through the rest of the attraction was very strange, with some scenes feeling like we spent too long in them, and others too little.
The only dark ride I actively disliked was Piccolo Mondo, which started promisingly with a bird character on the ride vehicle, but was just… really ugly? I didn’t enjoy this one at all. Everything else, even the legendary ‘bench ride’ in Russia, was fine. They just didn’t live up to the calibre I’d expect from a park charging these prices. I’ve seen discussion before about how all these little dark rides are great as they soak up crowds, but they could do this and also be good? Right? With the new incarnation of Piraten in Batavia, I hope that the updating of these rides is something the park will consider in the future because right now, most of these supporting attractions felt like I should be paying for them with tokens at the seaside. (Note: I adore seaside dark rides, and all of these rides are ones I would quite enthusiastically ride again, I just think Europa-Park could, and should, be producing rides of higher quality.)
Great: The Food
Bamboo Baai might just be one of my favourite theme park restaurants. It’s cheap (a vegan bowl comes in at under €15), it’s delicious, and it’s mind-blowingly beautiful. You could simply ask for no more. The meat-free options here are also incredibly good, with their vegan fillet being very good quality. The customisable bowls mean that there should be a good choice here for everyone, too, and you can eat it all whilst watching the Piraten in Batavia boats sail by. Of everything at Europa-Park, I think about Bamboo Baai the most.
Not So Great: Food Availability
The reason the only in-park restaurant I can vouch for is Bamboo Baai? We ate there both days as so little was open. On day two we circled the entire park looking for open restaurants that had a good vegetarian option, and whilst there were other places, we couldn’t find a single quick-service option that served a decent vegetarian option. If we wanted table service, there was a pizzeria in Italy where I could get a margherita, a burger and chips at the Irish bar, or we could even opt to join the enormous queue for a burger at Food Loop (honestly, it was longer than I’ve ever seen at Rollercoaster Restaurant) but Bamboo Baai remained the best option.
Great: Operations
With the exception of one day where Silver Star was running one train and had correspondingly tragic ops, Europa-Park definitely lived up to the hype where operations are concerned. Trains were being pumped out on every coaster with barely a blink, and we hardly stopped moving in any queue we entered. Getting onto rides was never, ever a worry, and at any theme park, that’s one of the best things you could wish for.
Not So Great: The Blatant Rip-Off of Other Theme Parks
Before visiting Europa-Park, I was very much aware of their long history of, shall we say, Disney ‘inspired’ attractions. The geodesic dome, the mouse mascot, Geisterschloss, a pirate dark ride… the list goes on. But, I wasn’t really ready for the Efteling rip-offs.
There’s a whole area of this park dedicated to fairy tale dioramas, and whilst I don’t have any photos of it (I’m shocked at how few photos I actually took of the park, I need to get better!), I do have a photo of one thing, and that’s the speakers in this area.
Now I’m British, and I first visited Efteling in 2021 at the age of 27. I don’t have the emotional connection that many people, particularly Dutch, do to the park. I still haven’t had my photo taken on the park’s iconic toadstools (next time, I promise!), but even I know of that tradition. I know the cultural importance of those toadstools. And to take them and produce a lower-quality copy for your area clearly inspired by Efteling isn’t just laughable, it’s actually a little insulting.
But anyway, back to the well-documented Disney rip-offs. First up: Geisterschloss. I actually quite enjoyed this ride. It was kitschy and spooky, two things I love! But whilst I was prepared for the inevitable singing busts – they didn’t disappoint – I was not prepared for the stretching room. Again, we’re met with a low-quality rip-off of an iconic part of a theme park. It’s just not it.
Oh, and then there were these monstrosities dotted around the park. To which, I simply ask why? Putting the flag of the land they’re in on them means they don’t break the theme, right?
Let’s just not talk about their version of the Enchanted Tiki Room…
Great: The Hotels
For two nights of our visit, we stayed in Hotel Krønasår, the newest hotel at Europa-Park, and it was gorgeous. As we pulled into the car park, I was teary-eyed. I simply couldn’t believe that I could be staying somewhere so beautiful. The lobby somehow was even more impressive, with an enormous skeletal sculpture as its centrepiece. Connected by bridge to Rulantica, this made a perfect base for our first night particularly. We did intend to do a bar crawl around the various Europa-Park resorts, but sadly didn’t manage to fit it into the schedule, so I can only vouch for the one resort, but it really was something special.
Not So Great: The Price
I’ll be honest, I’ve got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this one. Something I see very frequently on social media is people stating that Europa-Park is fantastic value, better than Disney even. There are, of course, ways in which this is true. You can certainly eat at Bamboo Baai far more afforably than you ever will at Captain Jack’s, should you be keen to eat in a restaurant with a pirate-themed dark ride passing through. But for your basic package (room and park admission), Europa-Park is not, in my experience, better value. Not in the slightest. For my visit to Europa-Park, we stayed at Hotel Krønasår (the cheapest option at our time of booking) for two nights and paid additionally for two days admission to Europa-Park and one day at Rulantica. The package was mid-week, in the slow season (early December), and booked with the 20%-off ‘Hot Deals’ offer (on both room and tickets), meaning that it was entirely non-refundable or amendable. This package cost more than my (entirely refundable) packages at Disneyland Paris both in the October school holidays (peak time) and in January. Both were for 2 nights on-site with three days, two-park admission. Sure, you can choose to stay in a hotel in Rust. But the first time I visit a theme park, I like to try and get the whole experience if I can. For years, I’ve been told that when visiting Europa, it’s all about the hotels. But if you’re staying on-site, there are no value options. Sure, in the summer you can lug your sleeping bag with you and stay at the camp resort. But that’s just not practical for an international visitor! We ended up staying an additional night at the B&B hotel, a ten-minute drive away (£40/nt), because, for the Friday night, Kronasar were asking over €400. Europa-Park is simply not a value option. It certainly may be good value for you, but it is not cheap.
Great: The elevation of basic flat rides
Throughout the park, family flats are tucked into so many of the lands, and they are almost all themed exquisitely. (Note: there are no thrilling flats to speak of, something really missing from the park!) My favourite of all of these though had to be Kolumbusjolle, a rotating ship ride in which the use of lights makes for an experience that was nothing short of spectacular. Just look at all those little lanterns on the boats! This was also the first of these rides where I’ve been able to control my direction and even spin the boat around a bit. It was a lot of fun and something I’d love to see done to a similar standard in other parks!
Not So Great: The Merchandise
Despite spending four days across the Europa-Park resort, the only merchandise I managed to come away with was the soundtrack to Piraten in Batavia. That’s it. I’m the sort of guest who loves to buy a t-shirt of the park or my favourite attraction, but the recurring theme across the park’s merchandise was low quality for a very high price. On exiting Piraten in Batavia for the first time, I was desperate for a plush of Jopie the otter. In fact, I marched straight into the nearest shop, determined to pick one up, so sure was I that he would exist. And he did! For €30. This still wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker necessarily, but this plush was just… not nice. The fur was such low-quality, shiny polyester that the colours were washed out. His little jumper hung limply off of his (not very large at all) body. There was no way I could justify the price. This held true for every other piece of merchandise. Tacky hoodies were €75. T-shirts featuring ride statistics existed, but sadly, those just aren’t my thing at all. The Snorri plush was slightly better in quality, but no better in price. All of it was just unjustifiable for me, sadly.
Great: The Entertainment
First up, Europa-Park has a parade. Any park that produces its own parade is always going to get a thumbs up from me. It was a great one, too, with a large number of unique, festive floats and plenty of dancers in between. Not only that, but there are a variety of theatres within the park offering different shows. During our visit, there was a comedy show in the Globe that we didn’t catch, but we did make a beeline for the ice show: A Christmas Dream. Whilst I have mixed feelings about the show as a whole (more on that in the next section), the production values were great, and the cast superb. It was a fantastic inclusion in the parks offering and was very much enjoyed, from looking around us, by many of the older guests visiting the park. I will say that each theatre we visited was very uncomfortable though, they could certainly do with upgrading the seating! (The obvious exception being the giant dome where you lie on bean bags, more of that, please!)
Not so Great: MackMackMAck
Where better to finish than the elephant in the room, the Mack family. And truly, an elephant would have more subtlety than the presence of the Mack family in Europa-Park. Of course, I do not begrudge the family the right to celebrate their achievements. This resort is a staggering achievement for a family-run business! But, if Europa-Park is a true theme park, then surely the theme should come before everything else? For me, the fact that the Mack stamp was on everything across the resort, whilst the resort was themed to European countries, made me uncomfortable. I honestly felt as though I was in some version of Earth where the Mack family were the leaders. It didn’t matter what country we were in. There they were, and it really did break the immersion for me. On the drain covers, in the hotels, in Batavia, in the Eurosat queue, in the shops, their name placed on top of the pre-show video in Voletarium and most egregiously for me, in the ice show. This Christmas-themed ice show was ostensibly about Ed and Edda meeting Santa. However, the story was paused for a lengthy, large-scale tribute to Franz Mack halfway through, as video clips of the park’s founder filled the screens and sad music played. I didn’t begrudge this at first, thinking that Mr Mack must have passed away recently, and they wanted to honour him. But, he passed away in 2010, and this is the Christmas mouse show? I’d never expect to see a solemn tribute to Walt Disney in Mickey’s Christmas Big Band or similar, and it didn’t feel appropriate here.
Exhale. Apologies for any feathers I’ve ruffled with this one. Please know that I fully intend to return to Europa-Park for Voltron, and I would love to visit with someone who loves the park and can help me warm to it! I also have not written this for attention or to purposefully ‘hate the popular thing’. I really, really wanted to love this park. For now, it’s nice, but it just doesn’t hit that mark for me. But, with the addition of what looks to be a truly spectacular coaster, plus the direction the park is clearly moving in with their most recent dark rides, could this become one of my favourite places in the future? I wouldn’t count it out!
Speak again soon,
Claire
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