Flossbolna
Sea days are just so relaxing!
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2006
5/15 Phantasialand - Part 1
This day we had big plans. Very close to Cologne is Germany’s second most visited theme park: Phantasialand. (#1 is Europa Park). We had been there last year, even stayed on site in one of their beautifully themed hotels, so we had not planned to return. But then sometime in the spring I got an email from them offering half-price tickets for spring dates if you pre-purchased them. Since tickets aren’t expensive to start with, we figured that 27€ per person would be worth it for even a not full-day visit.
We started the day with the breakfast buffet at the Hyatt that we got with the club lounge access. There were lots of selections, they even had sparkling wine. Lots of different smoked fish, cheeses, meats, cereals, baked goods, they had a very nice omelet station with made-to-order omelettes. We took our time to enjoy the breakfast and then had to rush a bit to make it to our tram.
I believe breakfast is a meal you sleep through ... or have in West Hollywood at the IHOP at 3 a.m. after a wild night. But this is an exception. Absolutely one of the best spreads, if not the best, I have ever had in Germany ... and they take breakfast very seriously here.
Getting to Phantasialand without a car is a bit convoluted. It is in the nearby town of Brühl and you can go there either by train or by tram. But then you need to take a park shuttle that costs 3 € per person to go the final few miles (the return trip is free). On the tram Michael saw a big store by the publisher Taschen - they do all kind of coffee table books, some of them about pop culture and they have published a few very nice Disney-related ones. So, visiting that store was put on the agenda of things to do the next day. The tram trip was quite eventful. Next to us was a group of three Asian women who had a very big picnic on the tram. And then a lady with the largest dog I have ever seen boarded the tram. The dog was very interested in the picnic foods!
We made it it to Phantasialand at 12:10 pm. The entrance area is kind of a Main Street themed to Berlin of the early 20th century. I do have a bit of qualms about that choice as there really was never a truly romantically nostalgic good time in Berlin that time frame if you look at German history. But then, it’s a theme park and we can dream a little…
Fist stop was a potty break (people who have read previous reports will remember that this is a tradition for the man with the smallest bladder, aka my husband). This lead us through the very beautiful Mexican area with a water ride that we still haven’t been on due to us being chickens and not wanting to get wet.
Our first real destination was their African-themed area where there was a new attraction. It was called Deep In Africa Adventure Trail.
Here is a map for it:
And that’s what it was: a trail with climbing, balancing, water spouts, air arrows and ending with a slide. It was a lot of fun, but also challenging and we were quite exhausted afterwards. I think we are a bit too old for it…
YOU THINK?!?! ... Actually, we did this attraction because our good friend, we'll call him Steve, had visited the park before and had done the Camp Discovery Challenge Trails at Shanghai Disneyland and thought this was close to that. If you read our never-finished, epic 2017 Asian Adventure trip (the one where we might have decided to get hitched!), you'd recall that we really wanted to do these, but waited until late afternoon on our final day only to be turned away for wearing open-toed sandals. Anyway, the SDL trails have you attached to a harness like you are going zip-lining. Nothing bad can happen to you. Not so here. There are ropes. There are stones in rushing water. There are ladders. But if you screw up, you risk not just an injury, but a potentially serious one. We got through it just fine. I bumped my head on the slide out. But I will not do it in the future. There's just too much that could go wrong and it's not fun.
The whole Africa area is beautifully themed as well. They even had a meet and greet with the local dragon. They have a dragon for every area as a mascot and you can meet them during different times of the day.
Since we already were in Africa we decided to go on the coaster there: Black Mamba. In my opinion the best overall coaster in the park. It is an inverted coaster and so smooth. We did it twice since the wait was very short.
We then went to one of the newer areas of the park: Klugheim. It kind of has a Nordic mythical theme.
It is home to two coasters. One family coaster that we found very short and not very exciting the one time we did it and a big coaster with multiple launches: Tarron.
It is very fast but a bit boring. In a way it is similar to Velocicoaster at Islands of Adventure as it just keeps up the speed the whole time. But the track was just not as fun as there. Part of that might be the constraint in space. Phantasialand is not large at all and since it is next to houses it has strict limits of what they can do there. So, they put this new coaster in the middle of the park and it is just very tight there. We also had a long wait (40 minutes despite aposted 30 minutes) and maybe we were just grumpy because of that.
Taron is a fun ride. But in no way compares to Velocicoaster.
You might have noticed in some of the pictures so far and seen the great amount of stairs everywhere. This theme park is built on a hillside and doesn’t have a lot of space, so everything is very tight and there are stairs everywhere. We have no idea how anyone with a stroller or a wheelchair would navigate this park! In some ways the many different levels make for interesting views and truly add to the theming, but then you are constantly walking up and down stairs - all the time!!! So a word of warning, this park is only for people who are reasonably fit!
After the trail and the coasters I was parched and decided we had to get drinks. Michael was smart and didn’t drink the whole bottle, so he had it for lunch later on.
Our next stop was Mystery Castle, which is an indoor freefall tower.
I wasn’t a fan when we went on it the first time we went on it a few years ago, but Michael had decided that he enjoyed it. This time, we both agreed that it was strange and boring. We both remembered there was a cool pre-show with a mad scientist, but this time it was go in, get in your seat, go up in the dark and get dropped. Also, the seats were incredibly tight! But I have to admit that both of us have expanded in width since we were on that ride last, so that might have been on us.
Continued in Part 2
This day we had big plans. Very close to Cologne is Germany’s second most visited theme park: Phantasialand. (#1 is Europa Park). We had been there last year, even stayed on site in one of their beautifully themed hotels, so we had not planned to return. But then sometime in the spring I got an email from them offering half-price tickets for spring dates if you pre-purchased them. Since tickets aren’t expensive to start with, we figured that 27€ per person would be worth it for even a not full-day visit.
We started the day with the breakfast buffet at the Hyatt that we got with the club lounge access. There were lots of selections, they even had sparkling wine. Lots of different smoked fish, cheeses, meats, cereals, baked goods, they had a very nice omelet station with made-to-order omelettes. We took our time to enjoy the breakfast and then had to rush a bit to make it to our tram.
I believe breakfast is a meal you sleep through ... or have in West Hollywood at the IHOP at 3 a.m. after a wild night. But this is an exception. Absolutely one of the best spreads, if not the best, I have ever had in Germany ... and they take breakfast very seriously here.
Getting to Phantasialand without a car is a bit convoluted. It is in the nearby town of Brühl and you can go there either by train or by tram. But then you need to take a park shuttle that costs 3 € per person to go the final few miles (the return trip is free). On the tram Michael saw a big store by the publisher Taschen - they do all kind of coffee table books, some of them about pop culture and they have published a few very nice Disney-related ones. So, visiting that store was put on the agenda of things to do the next day. The tram trip was quite eventful. Next to us was a group of three Asian women who had a very big picnic on the tram. And then a lady with the largest dog I have ever seen boarded the tram. The dog was very interested in the picnic foods!
We made it it to Phantasialand at 12:10 pm. The entrance area is kind of a Main Street themed to Berlin of the early 20th century. I do have a bit of qualms about that choice as there really was never a truly romantically nostalgic good time in Berlin that time frame if you look at German history. But then, it’s a theme park and we can dream a little…
Fist stop was a potty break (people who have read previous reports will remember that this is a tradition for the man with the smallest bladder, aka my husband). This lead us through the very beautiful Mexican area with a water ride that we still haven’t been on due to us being chickens and not wanting to get wet.
Our first real destination was their African-themed area where there was a new attraction. It was called Deep In Africa Adventure Trail.
Here is a map for it:
And that’s what it was: a trail with climbing, balancing, water spouts, air arrows and ending with a slide. It was a lot of fun, but also challenging and we were quite exhausted afterwards. I think we are a bit too old for it…
YOU THINK?!?! ... Actually, we did this attraction because our good friend, we'll call him Steve, had visited the park before and had done the Camp Discovery Challenge Trails at Shanghai Disneyland and thought this was close to that. If you read our never-finished, epic 2017 Asian Adventure trip (the one where we might have decided to get hitched!), you'd recall that we really wanted to do these, but waited until late afternoon on our final day only to be turned away for wearing open-toed sandals. Anyway, the SDL trails have you attached to a harness like you are going zip-lining. Nothing bad can happen to you. Not so here. There are ropes. There are stones in rushing water. There are ladders. But if you screw up, you risk not just an injury, but a potentially serious one. We got through it just fine. I bumped my head on the slide out. But I will not do it in the future. There's just too much that could go wrong and it's not fun.
The whole Africa area is beautifully themed as well. They even had a meet and greet with the local dragon. They have a dragon for every area as a mascot and you can meet them during different times of the day.
Since we already were in Africa we decided to go on the coaster there: Black Mamba. In my opinion the best overall coaster in the park. It is an inverted coaster and so smooth. We did it twice since the wait was very short.
We then went to one of the newer areas of the park: Klugheim. It kind of has a Nordic mythical theme.
It is home to two coasters. One family coaster that we found very short and not very exciting the one time we did it and a big coaster with multiple launches: Tarron.
It is very fast but a bit boring. In a way it is similar to Velocicoaster at Islands of Adventure as it just keeps up the speed the whole time. But the track was just not as fun as there. Part of that might be the constraint in space. Phantasialand is not large at all and since it is next to houses it has strict limits of what they can do there. So, they put this new coaster in the middle of the park and it is just very tight there. We also had a long wait (40 minutes despite aposted 30 minutes) and maybe we were just grumpy because of that.
Taron is a fun ride. But in no way compares to Velocicoaster.
You might have noticed in some of the pictures so far and seen the great amount of stairs everywhere. This theme park is built on a hillside and doesn’t have a lot of space, so everything is very tight and there are stairs everywhere. We have no idea how anyone with a stroller or a wheelchair would navigate this park! In some ways the many different levels make for interesting views and truly add to the theming, but then you are constantly walking up and down stairs - all the time!!! So a word of warning, this park is only for people who are reasonably fit!
After the trail and the coasters I was parched and decided we had to get drinks. Michael was smart and didn’t drink the whole bottle, so he had it for lunch later on.
Our next stop was Mystery Castle, which is an indoor freefall tower.
I wasn’t a fan when we went on it the first time we went on it a few years ago, but Michael had decided that he enjoyed it. This time, we both agreed that it was strange and boring. We both remembered there was a cool pre-show with a mad scientist, but this time it was go in, get in your seat, go up in the dark and get dropped. Also, the seats were incredibly tight! But I have to admit that both of us have expanded in width since we were on that ride last, so that might have been on us.
Continued in Part 2
I would be afraid that there would be a diaper breach! 
