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3rd September 2016 - Phantasialand FantasyPride
We arrived around noon at the park. Of course the park was already overloaded with people due the FantasyPride event. To simply sum up this event. A Gay-day with various events around the park and a fun party late in the evening at Wuze Town. The queues were open until 8pm due the massive crowds. Queuing up at a big ride for at least an hour wasn't an exception.
We've managed to find a parking spot somewhere near the front and got our tickets to go in. Immediately walked over to Taron and check out the new area.
When walking in you'd immediately are being overwhelmed by a ton of steel and some beautiful structures that make up the entire area. With the launching sounds dominating the area as you walk through.
Beautiful steel everywhere
Checking the entrance of the ride we noticed it had a 2,5 hour queue. Dang! O.o Checking the Single rider entrance right next to it, it also had a massive line! My friend had already been here before and told me that the Single Riders was longer than the original queue! I'm not surprised with all those huge groups in there. The Junior Boomerang also had a queue of 75 minutes, again with a massive line for single rider as well. So we figured to go elsewhere first.
Junior Boomerang flying by, seemed like a small but fun ride. On the right you can see a part of the queue for it.
My friend broke out the surprise for us. He was on the airport at the right time. Apparently in the newspapers, there were free Quick Pass coupons. One coupon gives you a single entry to any of the rides that have a Quick Pass queue. He apparently took his time to collect as many newspapers there, because he had about 20+ coupons of those torn out of the newspapers. That beats us a bunch of queuing! <3
I realized how crowded it was when we entered the Chiapas Quick Pass line, there was even a 10 minute queue for that! (And 1,5 hours for the original queue.) Quite amazing! All the other Quick Pass lines didn't had any queue at all!
The parks wave swinger, the water effect underneath is quite cool. It's just low enough to not get wet from it.
We also did a ride on Maus Au Chocolate. aka. The way better version from Toy Story Mania. Always highly recommended to do on a visit.
Winjas of course we couldn't leave behind. Coasterwise they aren't really special. Fear has a lovely airtime hill and Force has a fun triple down. The thing that makes these rides so special are the 2 unique tilt elements in the ride. Imo it kills a lot of momentum that I'd rather see being put in a longer layout, but they're still fun none the less.
With all these massive crowds in the park, we figured to walk around the lake near Wuze Town. Ride wise it has nothing special. It has a Splash Battle where it's impossible to soak other people. All targets you shoot just activate a fountain. You won't even get any splash damage from it as it happens quite far away from the boat.
But the area is nice and calm compared to the rest of the park.
An overall view of how crowded it is. River Quest and Taron both around 2 hours, Chiapas and the Winjas Coasters around 1,5 hours, Raik and Mystery Castle over an hour. With the rest of the bigger rides variating between 30 min and 60 min queue.
Walking by Taron again. Always great to see this tangled track everywhere.
Although it seemed awfully quiet for a bit.
Oh... Empty train on the track. I assume they have some technical difficulties again. Change plans again and let's do something else.
Like this one for example! Still one of my favorite Mine Train coasters. If you ride this, definitely ride it in the backseat. There is airtime to be found.
Also did a ride on River Quest. With the renewed theming around the vertical lift. I was curious if they had added anything special. But apart from a little longer tunnel, nothing was really added.
Back to Taron again.
Still an enormous line, but since we've ridden the rest around the park. Why the hell not.
Queuing up was a great way to take a shitton of pictures of the ride.
Cool! The trims on the final 2 hills are retractable. Depending on the speed throughout the ride they can be activated or not.
Lovely view over both the launches.
2 hours later, we've finally reached the station. With barely anyone queuing up for the front row. We went frontseat for just 2 additional trains waiting.
I love those green lights in the station. Looks great on the train!
Seated and ready to go! <3
One ride later, result: Very fun coaster! First launch is a lovely warm up on what you'll get on the ride. The hill after the overbanked turn provides some fun laterals as well. Something you don't see very often on steel coasters like these. Some fun twists that provide some nice airtime as well. 2nd launch just blasts you off and on the left side you'd get hit by some waterdroplets from the waterfall on the way up. Powerful overbank and with some more nice fast paced turns and little pops of air, there were 2 nice floaters on the final hills.
As some people are claiming this to be better than Maverick. Not in my opinion. Very fun coaster indeed and definitely a high class coaster. But not breaking my No.1 steelie. But it seems definitely top 5 material on European coasters. Gonna save of my final verdict when I've ridden it a few more times.
I kinda expected a rolling launch, but it stops for a few seconds before the initial first launch.
Launching all the way up after the 2nd launch.
A picture probably everyone shot at their visit of Phantasialand at least once.
I have shot no pictures of Black Mamba unfortunately. If you want to see the ride that badly, scan the background of various pictures. I'm sure there will be a lift hill or something on there. The ride was still running as fun as always.
We were slowly getting a little hungry and walked back to Klugheim to check out their new restaurant. Theming wise it looked fantastic, even the benches and chairs had all beautiful detailed carvings. The menu itself has some reasonably priced food for the quality they deliver. It was all very tasty and on the amounts just right to not overeat yourself. Too bad the drinks were quite expensive. ???2,50 for a 0,2L drink. Meanwhile in the rest of the park you get a bottled 0,5L drink for around ???3,-.
Kinda off on their prices.
Occasional trains flying by. In the USA there would have been netting everywhere.
Eventually we took another look at the queue from Raik. It shortened down to about 40 minutes. Checking down the Single Rider queue, we noticed it was entirely empty. Only 2 minutes later, we already boarded the next train!
Fun little ride, but personally I expected it go up higher on the 2nd spike.
Theming in the station. As Raik is apparently themed to something that alters time.
Train reaching it's highest point.
Again, more technical difficulties as it seems. Good thing I'm not in the queue now.
A panoramic view of the ride
On the central square there was a special podium for the event. Probably some stuff happened from time to time. But didn't care much about it.
Oh yeah, This classic Vekoma is also still there. Now back to it's standard busy day queue length of 2-3 rides maximum.
I walked back to Taron once more for the final ride. Entering the queue around 7:30pm, which was 15 minutes before closure.
Lots of people queuing, but luckily I've got some track and coaster to watch in this area.
The highlight of the queue. About 1,5 hours worth of queue squeezed into an area beside Chiapas and Klugheim.
Luckily you can still see a little bit of coaster cycling around.
Queue slowly emptying out. Getting darker as well! This could be fun.
Back to the last few curves in the themed area.
Special front row queue is closed, now it's all in the hands of the grouper.
And done! I've managed to get a seat on the 7th row. This was a lot better then my initial front seat ride. Probably being in the dark improved the experience a lot due not seeing and knowing the curves of this ride! Really got tossed around this time on various spots around the coaster. Can't wait to go back on a hopefully more quiet day. If even the daytime backseat rides are this good. It might get close to being the actual top European Coaster.
Look how lovely the lightning is at the 2nd launch. That red pit of doom looks great!
I was quite surprised there is minimal lightning around the Klugheim area.
Very minimal lightning. I'm not sure yet if I like it, but it kinda fits with the ride I guess. Although it does feel weird in a park like Phantasialand.
Quite dark...
And then you see Chiapas next door. xD
I walked over to the Winjas Area to check upon the party. On my way I saw on the signs that they still had the Winjas coasters open. And if the signs were telling the truth, only 10 minutes queue... Definitely had to check that out! Passed the stage on the central square and it had a ton of people watching something. Didn't care much about it to actually pay attention to see what it was. Upon entering Wuze Town: Dang, Winja's are still running! I wonder how long it takes before drunk guests start taking over the spinning coaster.
The party still seemed empty. Obviously because it was only around 9:20pm or so and everyone had still their eyes on the other stage.
A few rides in, the queue went quickly very long and I called it a day. Nice time as well because the party was now fully going and I still had to get back home in time. Something with work the next day.
In overall this day went fantastic. Even due the late arrival, the coupons from my friend really helped us getting throughout the day and get at least all the major rides in, without queuing endless for it. Taron and Raik are both fantastic new rides for the park and I'm sure Taron will end up high on many enthusiasts their coasterlists.
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