Two Days at Europa Park - the World's Best Theme Park

As an add-on to our ACE coaster trip in France, four of us decided to visit Europa Park, my favorite theme park. It's a massive park with a ton of rides, so we booked three nights in an on-site hotel so we could have two full days in the park and also get early entry. We arrived in the evening and checked in to Hotel Colosseo, which was set up for World Cup viewing. We had a fantastic couple of days at the park, and were able to re-ride some of our favorite rides while also riding a lot of the smaller supporting rides. And this park has a LOT of things to do, with over 100 rides and attractions. On to the park:

The courtyard of our hotel, set up for World Cup viewing.

The rooms are renaissance themed.

Even the vending machines are themed!

We walked past the Bell Rock hotel, which is New England themed.

A pretty good burger for dinner.

Night falls over the Colosseo courtyard.

Early entry the next morning at 8AM - this is the Spain section before the crowds arrived.

The first thing we rode was the new powered coaster.

Europa Park has a lot of little gems, like this elaborate church replica.

Time for Voltron, the newest coaster in the park!

The queue is elaborate and has giant tesla coils on the ceiling that play the ride's theme song.

The park is very green and full of natural areas.

Checking out the Ireland kids section.

Hey it's my play boat!

Photo op for the new racing ride.

There are so many cute details around the park, like this sheep reading the park map.

Even the sewer covers are custom.

My strategy for the laser maze was to run through as fast as possible.

Viki took her time instead. :)

The Arthur area.

A little mural on a wooden covered bridge.

The Croatia section is great.

The Poseidon coaster in Greece.

The Greece area is fun to wander around.

The station for Poseidon is elaborate.

We took the monorail past this plaza area.

The Monaco section has an F1 exhibit.

Time for the Can Can coaster in France!

Viki singing in the rain.

A local beer for lunch.

A traditional meat skillet - this is wild for theme park food!

In the morning we had come in through the hotel entrance, so we made sure to check out the main entry plaza as well.

The monorail station on top of the entrance.

There was an exhibit with models of various rides.

Model for Eurosat (now the Can Can Coaster).

A little hidden relaxing alleyway. There are so many things to discover in this park.

"Ride" in German is "Fahrt." Makes for some fun ride names.

Boots fahrt!

Super creepy clowns with puppets on this ride.

Nightmare fuel!

A smart dragon.

Passing over the boat ride.

The Italy section of the park.

A fun lil frog fountain.

The queue for the haunted mansion ride.

Yes, there's and EPCOT ball!

Overview from the sky tower.

Silver Star, the park's tallest coaster.

The Italy section looks like a model from up here.

The town of Rust is literally right next to the park.

There's the Ireland section.

The whole park is so lush and there are always things to look at.

Banjo sound intensifies.

Voltron with flowers.

Voltron is my favorite coaster in the park.

Kyle, Viki, and Craig using the photo point.

Yay Voltron!

There was a bench made from ride track.

Exiting the park we got nice views of an empty Scandinavia section.

Another atmospheric view.

We checked out the lobby of the Andaluz Hotel.

There's a bike share to get between hotels and parks.

We had a drink at the Sprit of St. Louis bar, which was themed to early aviation and Coca-Cola.

My lovely drink.

Viki ordered a drink from the "crazy" section of the menu.

Hotel Bell Rock at night.

Our hotel at night.

It rained over night, but started to clear up for our second day in the park.

Starting the day with Wodan in the Iceland section.

And back to Voltron, for for of the Tesla anamatronic.

Ed the mouse is in no way a copy of Mickey Mouse.

And the Pirates of Batavia ride is in no way a copy of Pirates of the Caribbean. :)

It's a great ride though!

Croatia also had a relaxing dome movie about the country. I almost took a nap.

The winter sleigh ride is one of the oldest in the park.

It was Bastille Day and there were special actors around the park.

And even a little brass/jazz band!

Another delightful area, Austria.

Happy Bastille Day!

The France section was decked out.

The old dinosaur ride (inspired by EPCOT's universe of energy) was updated with a new theme.

I guess friendly house dinosaurs?

Another great meal - lasagna and dessert in Italy.

There are so many rides we almost missed this one - an underwater dark ride.

River rapids ride time - I got soaked.

Some troll workers?

In the middle of the afternoon, three of us decided to go to Funny World, just a few miles away, to get the kiddie credits there. It was hard to pass up time at Europa Park, but we figured it would only take and hour total, and that ended up being right. A nice little bonus credit trip!

Entering Funny World.

Craig on the little pedal coaster.

A tiny butterfly coaster.

How much is the fee?

Some "fun" Mexican theming.

They had dueling boat jump rides.

Back to Europa Park - and straight to the log flume.

There was a random mask museum.

Late afternoon train ride.

A cosmonaut signed the space station module in the Russia section.

Bye bye Europa Park! See you later Ed and Edda!

Back at our hotel, getting ready to watch the world cup game.

France vs Spain.

The crowd was 95% for France, but Spain won 2-0 and went on the win the World Cup. It was a great atmosphere!

The next morning, we drove back to Luxembourg to drop off the rental car, then took the light rail to the main train station.

Stained glass window in the train station.

Arriving in Paris at Gare De L'est, where it was a short walk to Gare Du Nord to catch the RER to the airport.

My airport hotel has an Atlanta conference room!

Last dinner of the trip, at a neighboring hotel, also decked out for the World Cup.

They were showing the semi-final of England vs Argentina, in Stade D'Atlanta!

At the airport the next morning they had USA inspired rib flavored chips.

And that wrapped up the coaster tour and Europa Park add-on. I had an uneventful flight back to Atlanta, and am already dreaming of my next coaster excursion.