Europa Park - tips wanted

[BorisJohnsonsPhysique]

We’re off to Europa later this month - booked after 20th August so hoping it might be slightly quieter as some countries have started school that week. We’re in a park hotel and have two days in the park and one at Ruatlantica. We’re all very excited and would love any advice on best things to do (rides and non-rides), places to eat, best stuff to do in our half hour before general opening, and anything else really!

Love Europa Park. We are here now, just about to leave. We’ve been 3 times, always during school holidays, and never found queues to be a problem. Saturday just gone was really busy but even then, the longest queue I saw was for Voltron at 70 minutes early in the day. But it was around 40/30 minutes for most of the afternoon.

It sounds like you’re staying in a hotel. We use the extra time to get a couple of rides on Blue Fire as it’s open early. At 9am make sure you’re on the app if possible and get a virtual queue for a popular ride like Wodan or Voltron.

You can also go to Pirates at 8.30 and then wait in the Holland area to be let into Croatia early at 8.50 to ride Voltron. We did this and when we got to Voltron the advertised queue was 30 minutes, but it actually took about 15.

You don’t really need to plan at Europa Park and that’s one of the things I really love about it. There are so many attractions in the park that there’s always something to do. Because they don’t have a paid fast pass, the queues are nothing like most UK parks or Disney. There is a virtual line but it’s free, and quite limited, so it doesn’t affect queue times. Make sure you have the EP app so you can take advantage of this and check the app every now and then for virtual queue spots, which pop up periodically throughout the day.

Food is good. We actually really liked Food Loop. I’m quite fussy and didn’t think it was mediocre at all. My favourite thing is the salmon with pasta and vegetables. Cannot imagine being served anything like that at Thorpe Park! There is also a bakery on site where they bake their own bread. The Asian place in the Dutch area is also nice. The variety of food is nothing like UK parks…you can get flame cooked salmon near Wodan; I’ve never tried it but it looks good and you can watch them cooking it.

We have eaten at the Bell Rock “Harborside” buffet a few times. It’s not cheap but food is good, and I am not really a buffet person. We booked in advance but have also actually booked on the day. Keep checking for availability as people cancel and slots open up.

We visited Rulantica for the first time this trip. It’s good (and has the best showers in the world!), but do make use of your early entry if you’re a hotel guest because it gets very very busy from about midday onwards. By about 3pm I felt it was too crowded in the pools but I guess if you were queueing for slides this wouldn’t matter. The slides are fun and the outdoor area is lovely first thing in the morning on a sunny day.

Hope you enjoy your visit. I’m a bit of a theme park nut and in 2023 visited 9 theme parks in the UK, Florida and Germany. Europa Park is my favourite. 🤩

I got a largerhus sofa. You can't see the lockers in this picture. I was lucky to get the window.

It worked for us because the 10yo and 13yo had somewhere to come back to and meet us. We ate lunch in here.

One outside might be nice in August but for me only if I could guarantee shade.

Really jealous... we went in 2022 and looking to go back next year. I don't like fast rides but still managed to fill three days easily.

There's loads of food in each 'country' so we had bits and pieces rather than sit down meals.

Thanks for the extra info. I’m going to book a Lagerhuus sofa as I am dreadful in the sun and also think indoors is a safer bet if the weather lets us down!

So great to see these positive reviews of the place. We are spending a LOT of time on the app between us all and compiling a list of the things we most want to do over the two days. I suspect for food we’ll end up grabbing things in the park as we see them as we have two very picky eaters and no one really has a lot of interest in sitting around for meals for any length of time (the Michelin restaurant will have to wait!).

One day in and just wanted to report back! We love it! Queues for the big things are about 45 mins at peak times and virtual lines are thin on the ground but none of it feels too bad. It’s sold out every day this week so clearly totally peak time but it doesn’t feel too crowded. Both sides of the family are very happy with their offerings. One day in and there is still plenty to do. The coaster addicts have Voltron, Blue Fire, Euro Mir, Can Can, Silver Star and Poseidon at least to do (will have forgotten some I’m sure!). All water rides done (lovely in the heat) and will return to some today. The non-riders are just exploring, loving the play parks, the football arena, the buildings.

Just small things for anyone reading this to plan. There are no water fountains in the park and water is €4 a bottle so that is not ideal. We’re taking as much as we can carry today but that’s heavy of course! And speaking of bags, you take them on to almost every ride with you. We stupidly brought a largish backpack so that’s been fun! Keep it small or be able to do lots of bag swapping. We ate an early lunch after an early start from Strasbourg which turned out to have been accidentally wise as by 1pm there were queues out of the door for self service. Lunch at 12 let us just wander in.

I understand if that's not your thing, but tap water is perfectly drinkable in that region, so you can fill bottles up in bathrooms.

Glad you're enjoying it! Are you staying on-site? If so, a tip ...

They will put fresh water in your hotel room every day when they clean it (at least, they do this in Bell Rock). We got 2 bottles in the room each day. Then at breakfast they have water by the fruit juice and you can refill any empty bottles then. Or get some from the Lidl over the road. But as @DecafDodger said, plenty of people also fill up in the bathrooms.

Enjoy the rest of your time there - I just love EP!

We decided not to stay on site this time to save some money but the place we’re staying also has plenty of water. We’re just blazing through it as it’s hot and we tend to drink a lot normally. To be honest it hadn’t occurred to me to fill up in the bathrooms - I have nothing against tap water at all but hadn’t linked the two. Sadly my autistic daughter wouldn’t find that acceptable although I could always try doing it when she wasn’t watching…

Anyway, second day done and Rulantica tomorrow where I understand refills are the order of the day. We’ve all had an absolutely amazing time. The thrill seekers ticked off everything on their list (Voltron apparently the best thing they’ve ever done in their lives - I’m afraid I sat that one out after Wodan finished me off) and the others filled two days effortlessly with a whole range of things. A more relaxing day on my indoor sofa and book awaits me tomorrow while the water slides are conquered!

Thank you for this post as we are going next week and are very excited, I just wanted to check as you said your daughter is autistic are you using the queue assist for disabled guests?

No, we’re not. We don’t have an access card and it would also just be a pain as it would leave her sister out. She doesn’t have a problem queuing so it would also feel a little dishonest. She does find the last minute stresses of where to sit a bit overwhelming, and is very reluctant to sit next to people she doesn’t know, but the desire to go very fast and upside down is enough of a driver to get her going! From what I’ve seen of people using the arrangement, it works pretty smoothly though.

I’m a bit out of touch, but last time we jumped the queue at a theme park, our entire party was able to go on the ride together, not just the disabled child and one carer. Worth looking into for the future?

Europa Park states one accompanying person, and that’s what I’ve seen in action too. I had a look (we have two autistic children so it’s always one of my checks) but it would have created more problems than solutions. My other child does NOT do fast rides.

Hi @BorisJohnsonsPhysique we are currently at EP too! We did our Rulantica day first, then yesterday first day in park. We did so many water rides I think I was damp all day, didn’t feel too hot at all.

A couple of tips @memememe or anyone else reading later.

If you go to Rulantica,

• if you are an EP hotel guest you can park free in hotel Kronosar car park
• stay until it’s dark at least. It’s beautiful when the lights come on. There’s a pool party outside and many of the slide queues shorten. Leave a little before the end though because the showers get busy (the showers are indeed fabulous). We left at 9.15 so we just had time to change, and then caught the light show in Hotel Kronosar at 9.45pm (we are staying at a hotel so we watched from the bridge between the hotel and Rulantica but that’s only accessible if you at ha hotel guest).
• you can borrow a flotation vest for your small child, there are loads of them available
• the pizza in the restaurant near the big screen is absolutely great- adult pizza about Eur 12 and we found it was enough for two hungry kids

Tips for EP

• Food loop was great, food was expensive (dd had the salmon which was 22 Eur, but I shared a bolognese with my son, it was enough for two on a hot day)
• The park was open until 20.00 yesterday. At the end, Atlantic Splash queue was one minute, Voletarium was 5 mins, Euromir 5 mins
• Even if you are not a hotel guest I think you could discreetly go to watch the Coloseo show at the Colloseum hotel at 9.45pm. You just walk into through the hotel foyer. It’s only about 15 mins but it’s really memorable and entertaining one evening. We stood down by the central dance area, rather than climbing the colosseum to sit down but the view of the lights/pictures on the walls was still fabulous.
• we ticked off loads of rides on day one even though we were pretty disoriented- there’s always something to do. My favourites have been Arthur and Pirates of Batavia so far
• the virtual queue app is odd - most of the time during the day it appears full but frequently a queue vacancy suddenly opens up so my advice is to take a small battery pack and when you’re queuing keep checking the app for ride availability. Problem is, once you’ve bagged a place in a queue you can’t easily see other queue availability without leaving your queue and losing your spot. We did discover that whilst you can only use queue for one ride at a time, you can have the ride app loaded on more than one phone Which means you can keep an eye on which queues have current available spots. You have to move extremely fast to bag a queue spot as they will be there one second and not the next !

Hi @SpringKitten ! Enjoy today. We definitely found day two easier to navigate!

I happened to notice that a whole bunch of virtual line places appeared on the half hour at one point - managed to score Voltron thankfully as the queue for that stayed fairly long right till the end. We found it a bit tricky to only be able to have the line on one phone as it meant occasional haring across the park from one group of us to another! But yes, useful to be able to check without losing what you had.

The line for the Voletarium more or less disappears in the afternoon when most people are way away from the entrance. It was high on our non-coaster party’s list and they did it about six times.

We had lovely cheesy chips at the Friterie in Holland for a cheap lunch yesterday- I split a large with a child. And more adventurous eaters (it doesn’t take much tbh) went to the noodle and rice restaurant that is part of Pirates of Batavia. And we all designed our own Magnums for an afternoon snack.

My favourite rides were Can Can and Poseidon. I like a nice mid-range coaster! My junior companions voted Voltron, Silver Star and Blue Fire. Non-speedy people loved Voletarium, the football dodgems, the boats on the Austrian lake, and the water park in Iceland. And Whale Spotting.

We have plenty to go back for, and we definitely want to try a park hotel next time.

The tips on here have been brilliant and glad other people are using them too. Europa is just so good.

Glad to hear you has a fab time. I want to go back!

Hello! Glad you're enjoying Europa Park! Just to add if you enjoy German theme parks we've just been to Hansa Park. Much smaller than Europa Park so easily doable in a day. Was really really good. The Oath of Karnan rollercoaster was probably the best we've been on, a cross between oblivion and the Smiler and the theming was so good. Both times we went on the riders applauded as there were a few surprises on it! ) Also the drop tower was phenomenal (4th highest in the world). Some other great rides as well All for €49 each. We're off to visit Liseberg in Gothenburg this weekend, and Tivoli next week.

Oh, thanks! I’ll add that to the list. Efteling (not German I appreciate) is the next one along but will be held up by general demand to visit Europa again.

If anyone does want a recommendation of a place to stay, we’ve been in an apartment in Pension Jaeger in Rust. Three bedrooms and a kitchen and a small balcony. It’s been great. And the rooms are themed!

If you are in that region and looking for a smaller amusement park, Petit Prince is cute and great for younger kids. And for toddlers, Cigoland is perfect.
Also Ecomusee Alsace is worth a visit.

We’re off to the Alps after this but love the Alsace and often visit, so all recommendations welcome. Thank you.

The Germans are a lot better at theme parks than we are in the UK. I’m enjoying reading your little reports, those of you currently in EP, because it brings back nice memories.

I think it’s my favourite theme park in the world at the moment. We’ve been during summer, Halloween, and I’d love to go at Christmas next.

We liked Rulantica but found it much more crowded than the theme park.

I’d also really like to go to Phantasialand. It has a hotel called Charles Lindbergh, which is very heavily themed and looks incredible.

BTW you do not need to be a hotel guest to visit any of the Europa Park hotels, watch the shows or eat in the restaurants. You only have to be a hotel
guest to use the pool. And if you’re staying in one hotel you can use the pool at any of the others.

Phantasialand was superb. Everything, the rides, the theming, the food. From what I recall from 2 years ago the Charles Lindbergh was really central, it was accessible by one of the rides (fly, which is like galactica but a million times better! ) so the rails went right past the hotel rooms! We stayed at Ling Bao which was fab lovely outdoor pool which was great fro decompressing in the evening! we're back there the week between Xmas and NY, the hotel has a new spa too so kids can go off and I can have a swim and a few saunas ! Buy yeah phantasialand was very impressive.

Interested in what you say about Rulantica as that was exactly the comment I’d thought of. Like Europa, it’s really well done, but it felt a lot more crowded. It only takes a couple of groups of teenagers to make it tricky to be in a small area of water with smaller children. Luckily my lot found plenty to do without going on the big slides as the queues were just too long. The play areas were brilliant.

The Lagerhus sofa was the tip of the decade though! A great quiet place to retreat to, and shelter from the sun. One of the sofas right by the pool would have felt too much I think!

Please tell me the Voletarium is a vole-themed zone.

I kept calling it the Vomitarium. My kids got cross.