Know much about German parks?

I'll be one of the thousands heading from the US to Germany this summer for the World Cup. I'll be there for at least two weeks but games in the first round are spaced out like 5 days apart, leaving me ample time to do other things besides just going to football and bar hopping. Things like coasters. :)

I admit I am not too well versed in city/states of Germany, where I need to be and when for the World Cup. My home base city will be Heidelberg, with matches in Gelsenkirchen, Kaiserslautern, and Nuremberg. Was hoping one of ya'll might be able to tell me if there were anything of interest to an enthusiast in the area of any of these places.

I don't know much about Germany, but one thing I know is you should probably check out Phantasia Land for Black Mamba. No matter how far it is. :P

Do we know the specs on Black Mamba yet? Last I had heard was just the element list which was similiar to other B&M inverts. Not that there is anything wrong with them :) Something special I outta know?

If you are in Gelsenkirchen, you are quite close to Phantasialand, (about one hour by train) which is near Cologne. This is a very densely populated area with more train and autobahn connections you could print on a map.

If you look at the most recent construction pics, you will see that its still a long way to go before the ride will snake through africa. Trackwork is long been done, but the surroundings area is far from being finished. I hope it will be open by suck.., er..soccer-time. They would be stupid if they won´t make it.

http://freizeitparkweb.de/cgi-bin/dcf/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&forum=DCForumID1&om=2805&omm=17&viewmode=

Specs on Black Mamba are not available apart from "hopefully awesome". Its a custom design, about the size of a Batman Clone with 4 1/2 inversions (the Immelman is not exactly inverting). Its going to be buried in the ground like no other Inverter before.

Now for your other locations: From Heidelberg its just 50 Kilometers to Holiday Park and from Nürnberg you will have easy access to Europa Park. (about 150 Kilometers)

So you have chosen your bases wisely.

If you don´t travel by car, check the website of the german railway www.bahn.de its very easy to use and it will even give you complete travel itineraries from door to park.

From the lift going through the structure to the slick looking elements, four 1/2 inversions, and the track snaking through the ground this looks like it could be one killer invert. Wow. Custom design is always good too.

Good to know I've got more options as well. Looking at Google Earth, I'm definately going to try for Black Mamba, Silver Star looks attractive as well (Nitro-esque) but Europapark is the most out of the way, Holiday Park is so close to home base the Intamin Mega probably will not get passed up. Staying in Heidelberg (free place to stay) seems to be located fairly well for getting to those parks and also the US matches.

As much as I'd like to hit the Autobahn I find traveling by car an extra hassle, especially in a city will an easily accessible rail system. Thanks for the link

BTW.. was "suck... er" a shot at the name we use for football or at football itself? ;)

^ it was a shot at football. I hate hate hate it! Words fail me how much I despise the game and everything (the whole culture) that goes with it. I try to ignore it since i was two years old (or so), but it is impossible to escape! You are forced to play it at school while you could do something useful with your time.

It is on tv 24/7. Total moron-millionaires (the players) pollute the airwaves and billboards and are treated as heroes.

And now with the world games its going to be all that only much much worse. Anyway: I love the expression "soccer mom". Its so spot on!

But there is hope: Birdflu has arrived in europe and the first voices are heard that the games could be cancelled if the situation would get out of control. Hurry up, birds! ;)

Was it easy for you to get tickets? For germans it is easier to get a greencard for the USA than getting (affordable) tickets.

Back to the parks: Holiday Park has not too much to offer apart from Ge Force. Its a small park with one good coaster.

Europapark on the other hand is a much better and larger park which takes at least two days to explore. It is usually packed and they don´t need your money as urgently as Holiday Park.

so if you still want to go after my rant ;) enjoy your trip.

Well I'm one of "those" people that goes to a park for the coasters. So if I end up choosing one park over another it will come down to what coasters interest me most.

As for tickets, in the past our federation's allotment has been able to meet demand but the increase in the sports' popularity here and the Cup being in Germany, a desirable place for Americans to travel, changed all of that. I got lucky but many others were not.

As for your rant, didn't come close to dissuading me, I've heard way worse from the anti-football crowd here in the USA. Wouldn't miss for the world the days of drinking, standing behind the net to sing, swear, harass the opponent and support my country with a few thousand of my closest friends at the world's biggest sporting event. ;)

But back again to coasters. Based only on the quality of coasters, not quantity, what do you suggest? *** Edited 2/27/2006 4:19:04 PM UTC by SnakeEyes***

I got to visit Germany last April, and it was a very nice time. Over two visits, I went to Berlin and Munich.

I did just one park, Europa Park, and one fair in Munich.

I highly recommend Europa Park. It has a great selection of rides and some really unique coasters. Beautiful theming and atmosphere worthy of Disney (thats a serious compliment!). You can get there by train and a 10 minute bus ride.

Let me add another plug for www.bahn.de Its an excellent site that will make travel in Germany easy, even for an American like myself!

If you have any other questions about Europa Park or travel in Germany, I'd be happy to help!

If you look at Mitch's poll, Expedition GeForce is always very near the top (1 or 2) and Silver Star, which I hear is quite over braked, is never in the same class as Nitro, let alone the top 50 (69th this year).

If you're just looking at coasterage, I would say Holiday Park is a must do while Europa is a nice add on.

<- Never been to either

2006 there will be 4 worthwhile coasters installed in parks in Germany -

Silver Star - Europapark - Rust, near Freiburg in the SW corner
Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park - West of Heidelberg
Black Mamba - Phantasialand - near Cologne
Colossus - Heidepark - Soltau, northern Germany
(There are some more, smaller Schwarzkopfs and Vekoma loopers and SLCs as well as Mice of different sorts)

And there are 3 travelling coasters that are kind of interesting as well:

Eurostar - travelling invert
Alpina Bahn - non-inverting family Schwarzkopf
(Unfortunately I couldn't find any info on the web where they will be in 2006 http://www.oscar-bruch.de/start.html)

Olympia Looping - travelling 5-inversion Schwarzkopf Looper - this is doubtlessly the queen of travelling coasters globally (Eurostar is bigger, but Olympia Looping has a better ride :)
Where it will be installed in 2006 can be seen here:
http://www.olympialooping.de/standorte.html

Thanks for the information. I do appreicate it. Special kudos to superman for the wooden coaster. Having not ridden anything outside the US I obviously have not ridden any of the new Intamin woods yet. And given the cost of going to the World Cup I doubt I can afford to get out to NJ this year.

Also, during the course of my stay Olympia Looping will be in Aschaffenburg, about 45 miles from Heidelberg.

It's really great they have that "tour"-page for Olympia Looping. They should do the same for the other coasters as well! :)

I find it always a little ironic, we have a lot of the world heroes of coaster production around and in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, but the vast majority of the really interesting ones are all installed overseas... or in Japan...