End of September I honoured my birthday presents of 5 years ago and this year and got treated by Manu and Kathrin to a trip to the Europapark Rust.
We left Frankfurt on Sunday morning at 6:30, these early mornings seem to become a habit, but certainly not one I particularly enjoy. Thankfully the Autobahn was nice and empty and the stretch down towards Baden Baden and Freiburg doesn't have too many speed restrictions, so Manu could put her foot down and her little BMW cruised (sped) nicely at 200 km/h.
whoopee, Rust, here we come...
Upon arrival in Rust we checked into the "Colosseo" Hotel, a huge Italian style complex, and left the bags there. The hotel has a great courtyard, shaped like an amphitheatre and lit beautifully at night. The room was a family room with a double bed and two bunk beds with Leonardo da Vinci style murals and a bright, clean bathroom.
Well, the park itself had just opened (after ll, it was only 9:00) and the first thing we did was looking for a place to have a coffee and breakfast, which we did at the "Kaffi Hus" in the Iceland section, facing the Blue Fire Megacoaster. This wet our appetite for the thrill of fast and crazy rides and we worked out way through the park all day long, possibly managing 60-70% of all rides, including slow kiddy's ones.
Most memorable are:- Silver Star: a roller coaster with a high speed of 130 km/h (that's usually the speed limit on German motorways), length of 1.6 km, height of 73 m and enormous centrifugal forces of up to 4 G, this ride surely makes your palms sweat and stomach twist
- Blue Fire Megacoaster: a roller coaster that catapults you from 1 to 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds and then sports a 32 m high loop, three 360 rolls and a few more twists and turns on a 1056 m long track
- Eurosat: a roller coaster in the dark, not knowing what to expect makes it all the more exciting
Also great fun are the water-rides and the Swiss bob-run.
The whole park is built with great attention to detail and every country section lets you imagine you're actually travelling Europe without having to show you passport and lengthy train or plane rides. The food is good, diversified and surprisingly not overpriced and staff is really friendly and helpful, yet not over the top cheesy as American theme park personnel can appear.
At the moment there are hundreds of thousands of pumpkins decoreated all over, even the Eurosat globe is covered in orange sheeting, making it Europe's largest pumpkin.
When the rides closed at around 18:30 we went back to the hotel to freshen up and change for dinner, which we decided to have at the hotel next door, directly adjacent to the park, the Spanish themed "El Andaluz". There as well the food was delicious and reasonably priced and we felt like we could not move afterwards, just about managing the 5 minute walk back to our hotel's penthouse bar for a nightcap.
Monday morning at breakfast (a huge varied buffet) we met the Euromaus, the park's mascot. Does anybody know why a mouse seems to be the leading character for fun-/theme-parks? After packing our bags we went into the park again, hotel guests have early access from 8:30 already. This gave us another opportunity to go on the Silver Star and Blue Fire once more and sample some more rides. All in all I suppose we managed to try 90% of all rides/attractions.
We left about 13:30, heading back to Frankfurt, in order for me to catch the 18:00 flight back to London City airport.
It was such a fun-tastic weekend, a wonderful birthday present and well worth the 5 year wait, otherwise we would have missed out on the Blue Fire coaster, which only opened this year.
Thank you, Manu and Kathrin, so much for this present, and your time and continuous great ideas. I appreciate and value our friendship very much. Vielen lieben Dank!
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