Europa Park Germany from Edinburgh - nightmare transferring from Basel or Stuttgart airports..?

[EUcookie]

Hi

We've booked into the park hotel, checking in Monday evening and checking out Saturday morning in the summer.

But we're now totally frazzled with trying to plan how to get from any local airport easily.

Flights out from Edinburgh work best if we fly direct into Basel Airport (easyJet). Flying back on the Saturday only works by flying from Stuttgart Airport to Amsterdam then to Edinburgh (KLM). Fine.

But we just can't see how to get to the Europa Park site easily with small tired children in hand.

A private hire taxi from Basel to Europa Park is about 400 euros, while the return would be 600 Euros for park to Stuttgart (!).
The only public bus seems to be a Flix Bus which only travels on the Monday at 17.30, then around 7pm from the park to Stuttgart on the Saturday back.

Trains look like a ticket and logistics nightmare with multiple stops and transfers, then busses on the end of you end up at Ringheim station. There's a reference to a free shuttle if you do make it to Rust but I don't see any easy way to get there short of having to throw £££s at transfer between airports OR praying you make the 1 a day Flix bus.

I'm a bit surprised it looks this hard between the airports nearby... I'm hoping I'm missing something obvious and someone who's been before can help unpick the logistics and offer some input..?

Ooh and we've just priced up hiring a Sixt car rental but it was going to be 100s of Euros too.

How are all the families with grumpy tired kids getting to the park??

Drive? Make it a week long trip with an extra day either end , from Scotland you'd need a ferry across to mainland Europe first, the drive to Dover would be prohibitive in terms of using the euro tunnel. From us it's about 9.5 hours driving, easily split with an overnight stay en route, we are further south though

Edited to add my view might be skewed by the slightly gung ho attitude both DH and I have to road trips and this might sound like a nightmare to others

No specific knowledge but how about car hire from the airport?

If it's that complex maybe you can do a one-way hire and another family hire the car the next day to go back.

The only car hire point in the Europa Park is Sixt who are looking at being about 600 euros for a pickup connection via Stuttgart. That's for the tiny cheapest car option which I'd be fine with but at that point we'd have spent over £1k on flights too.

I'm thinking of just ditching the idea of flying and driving all the way in chunks with an overnight stay in the middle, as suggested....
It seems mad to be thinking of driving it.i just assumed there would be decent connections to the airports (buses, trains) but there's just too many legs to making it work.

Am I mad to consider this 😁

Have you looked at flights to Strasbourg as it’s less than an hour from Europa Park.

Flight into a larger airport then train should be your best bet. Stuttgart makes no sense because there are no direct rail connections across the Black Forest. Frankfurt should be best normally but I just double-checked and it looks like the entire route is currently disrupted for months to come due to major renovation. So your best option is likely a flight to France and TGV in the direction of Freiburg. Probably Paris - train is just 2 hrs and a quarter.
https://www.europapark.de/en/theme-park/sustainable-travel-train#longdistancetravellers

By car you could take the dfds overnight ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Google suggests it’s a 7 hour drive from there, although that’s probably a bit optimistic.

There's direct flights to Frankfurt from EDI with Lufthansa. Fly out Sunday evening, overnight in Frankfurt then use that 8am train that's mentioned in the link above. Return on the 10am train on Saturday and fly home later in the day.
Or hire a car from the airport rather than the park itself?
Or plan D......is your hotel cancellable??

what a shame that it sounds so difficult.

I can't offer advances on what the others said, but if it is cancellable I would highly recommend Efteling in the Netherlands instead which we loved last year. Regular public transport options from Schipol airport in amsterdam take about 2 hours. Or it's closer to Rotterdam or Eindhoven. You can get an overnight ferry Hull-Rotterdam and it's only an hour's drive from there.

Are you checking car hire from Basel Airport? Because if you select ‘Basel’ as the airport name, you get car hire on the Swiss side of the airport….which is MUCH more expensive. If you select ‘Mulhouse’ or ‘Freiburg’, you’ll get French or German car hire, usually more reasonable.
We’ve done EuropaPark from both Basel and Stuttgart airport, from Edinburgh with EasyJet, hiring cars both times. We timed our days in the park with the flight times….an early flight gave us time to get to the park, and a later flight gave time to get back. The Basel flights are daily.
EuropaPark hotels offer free amendments don’t they? I would sort the flights first and then work your time in park from that. Perhaps add in a night in Mulhouse (there’s an amazing motor museum there, if the kids are into that), to give you some breathing space. 5 nights is rather a lot of the park….we LOVE it and still wouldn’t stay that long. There’s lots else to see around - you can drive via the Alsace from Basel and stay a couple of nights , which is stunning, for example.

there are a few FB groups with loads of people discussing the options - “Europapark for Brits” groups. You’ll get a lot of enthusiastic replies if you ask on there

you can get the train directly from Basel to Rust (the Europa Park stop) I've done this in the other direction ie from the North.

The train that you would need is the Europe Express which I believe starts in Milan. <a class="break-all" href="http://www.sbb.ch/de?date=%222024-01-20%22&moment=%22DEPARTURE%22&selected_trip=5&stops=%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%2222%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22ID%22%2C%22label%22%3A%22Basel%22%7D%2C%7B%22value%22%3A%221104971%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22ID%22%2C%22label%22%3A%22Rust%2C+Europa-Park%22%7D%5D&time=%2211%3A06%22" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.sbb.ch/de?date=%222024-01-20%22&moment=%22DEPARTURE%22&selected_trip=5&stops=%5B%7B%22value%22%3A%2222%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22ID%22%2C%22label%22%3A%22Basel%22%7D%2C%7B%22value%22%3A%221104971%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22ID%22%2C%22label%22%3A%22Rust%2C%20Europa-Park%22%7D%5D&time=%2211%3A06%22
On this link you can see the train you need, but need to make sure if you are looking for other dates and times, that you get this direct one, otherwise you will have to change somewhere. There is a shuttle to the park, and it stops at the hotels.

I'm going to Europapark at Easter flying to basel. The park hotel is cancellable so you aren't stuck but I'd still try and make it work. I would never do a 2 stop flight on the way home. Driving (+ferry) would be a good solution or a flight/train option as suggested upthread. There's so many airports you could fly into with easy enough train transfers. As long as you get an easy direct short flight a 2-3 hour train journey would be doable and relaxing.

Alternatively can you fly back on Friday or Sunday to do a round-trip from basel. Car hire is usually cheaper that way. My car hire for 6 days is going to be £400- £500 but I've not looked at French side yet... Will do that now.

For a different German theme park holiday i can recommend Phantasialand near Cologne Cologne has the Lindt chocolate museum, hot spas, a fab zoo and a water park. If you like rides it's just amazing. They've got some beautiful theme hotels.

What about all the way by train?
Edinburgh direct to Kings X, Eurostar to Paris, then Paris to Freiburg.

We have done similar in the past, I usually found it didn’t take much longer than flying when you factor in all the faffing around with getting to airports and checking in.
Edinburgh-London leg will be the longest, but then you are right on the spot for Eurostar. You could break the journey in London. the other two journeys should be under 2.5 hours each.

Hire a Motor home?

I would look at hiring a car for the whole week through a cheaper rental than Sixt. Then you can go out and about / see things in the area, as Europa Park isn’t that great so not sure you will need 4 full days there!

In Basel take a bus to Basel station and then a train to Herbolzheim. From there take a taxi or a bus. Will still be cheaper than a taxi all the way.

Return from Stuttgart is a bit silly, can’t you book Frankfurt or Basel? It will take you 2-3 hours to get to Stuttgart and then you don’t even have a direct flight? Madness and massive waste of time