Djurs Sommerland

Full speed ahead on Karacho

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Preface

Erlebnispark Tripsdrill is not a good theme park. Although my reports always reflect a very differentiated and well-considered opinion, it makes sense for once to anticipate a judgement and play with open cards. I don’t like this park and I will probably never like it. The fact that I visited the park for a second time after 2009 was only because of the rather new launch coaster Karacho and even for this one I would never want to visit the park again, but more about that later. In general, the Erlebnispark Tripsdrill is overpriced, has an inferior gastronomy and demands a small contribution at every corner to be able to use the full offer. The wildlife park that belongs to the park is, as also the parking, included in the entrance fee, but is probably not really visited by many visitors; after all, the only reasonable connection to it is your own car.

History of the Theme Park

It all began in 1929 with the construction of the Altweibermühle zu Tripsdrill. Eugen Fischer, the owner of an inn in Treffentrill, took the idea of building the Weibermühle von Tripsdrill from the singspiel by Georg Anton Bredelin after some hikers in the region had explicitly asked for the mill. The allegedly rejuvenating cure of the wild slide was soon on everyone’s lips and thus Tripsdrill steadily developed into a popular excursion destination in the region. In 1957 the first zoo in the immediate vicinity of the mill followed and from the 1960s on the first rides.

Tour of the park

The rides of the front area

When you enter the park, you will immediately find yourself on the nicely designed village street, where you will find the pleasant panoramic Maibaum ride next to the Gaudi quarter, a covered children’s playground featuring a free fall. Here you can also buy the tickets for the crossing to the Wildparadies.

The Mühlental with the famous Altweibermühle is located next to it. To prevent the men from idly assisting the women’s rejuvenation there is also the Altmännermühle, a mechanical open-air obstacle course of an older construction. The Doppelte Donnerbalken, a more than modest vertical ride with a strange inclination effect, the leisurely boat ride Spirtztour der Seefahrer, the children’s log flume Mühlbach-Fahrt, as well as the unique Seifenkistenrennen round off this area.

Friends of overlong leisurely rides will find what they are looking for at the wedding market. Here you will find three of these attractions: the vintage car and horse-drawn Hochzeitsreise, the Schmetterlingsflug and the Wiegen-Hochbahn. Since marriages nowadays tend to be of shorter duration, a trip on the wine bucket ride Weinkübelfahrt is recommendable, before you try your hand at the soup bowl ride Suppenschüsselfahrt through the individual soups in a similar way. With the coffee cup ride, the spinning game could continue, but unfortunately the park runs all flat rides on a low flame, so that even the prototype of this popular classic is not convincing. But this only really gets worse with the Gugelhupf-Gaudi-Tour, the first and only modern waltz ride from Münsterhausen, which, with the best will in the world, has nothing in common with its predecessor. The three other rides, Wäschekorb-Rundflug, Schlappen-Tour and the Wellenflieger Wirbelpilz, are, outside of their design, accordingly worth no mention. After all, the big Tivoli roller coaster Rasender Tausendfüßler by the manufacturer Zierer still manages to entertain the passengers well.

Up to the present time of the report, the front theme areas of the theme park have been covered because they more or less form a unit and are connected to the rear area only by a rather narrow path along the outer park boundary. So there is no direct connection to the quite dominant roller coaster Karacho, which means that you can get lost mercilessly if you don’t know the place.  The peeps of the notorious computer game Roller Coaster Tycoon would have complained loudly about not being able to find attraction XY, especially since the signage is not optimal. In fact, I don’t know of any other amusement park in Europe that is as badly constructed as Tripsdrill, although it can’t be that difficult to build an overpass or underpass and create a second access route, which should also benefit the general distribution of guests.

Waschzuber-Rafting

But if one should have made it to the back area, one immediately comes across to the first big attraction of the park, the Waschzuber-Rafting. This stylish Hafema ride is completely dedicated to the topic of doing the laundry and has some interesting exhibits in its queue that reminds of a museum. The ride through the winding road is not particularly wet, nor fast, but nice and really well embedded into the landscape.

Badewannen-Fahrt zum Jungbrunnen

Behind the round boat rafting, the facade of the Rauhe Klinge Castle attracts all eyes, after all, this beautifully designed concrete block on one side houses two larger rides, which complement each other extremely well. The log flume Badewannen-Fahrt zum Jungbrunnen (Bathtub Ride to the Fountain of Youth) is quite unusual, its name says it all and surprises some, let’s say rather prudish, passengers a little bit.

After one has left the, once again museum-like, queue behind him and got into his tub, the trip can start immediately. As soon as the boat swims freely in the canal, one dumbles a little towards the castle Rauhe Klinge. Parallel to the walls, the first lift takes the boat up for a short time before it goes down a short shot. In a right bend the canal leads you into the building, whereupon you have found the fountain of youth and indeed the old women seem to taper off into young, crisp and well-built women. But the view is only short and so the second lift leads up quickly. This is also where the first turntable is waiting for you, whereupon you take the second, medium sized downhill run backwards. At the back of the castle you now make a turn including the second turntable. Thereupon another lift hill leads you up one last time. At the top you can have a last look at the surrounding landscape before you turn left and enter the upper floor of the castle. After a shorter straight section the big and final shot of the lift takes place, whereupon contact with the wet element is inevitable. The spray is refreshing, so after returning to the station you will be very happy to get out of the tub.

G’sengte Sau

The second ride of the Rauhe Klinge Castle is the 1998 built bobsled coaster G’sengte Sau by the Münsterhausen manufacturer Gerstlauer and its sign the first new roller coaster from the former factories of the legendary roller coaster smithy Schwarzkopf. After the brisk lift hill, the ride starts with a very steep right-hand downward curve, whereupon an outward helix is completed in the same direction of rotation. This is followed by four powerful, contiguous serpentines, which are perfect for exerting some pressure on the person sitting next to you, before the ride, still introduced by the “Wetten, Dass…?”-sign of the famous bet of extreme sportsman Dirk Auer in 2001, goes into a rapid helix combination. The following camelbacks are quickly driven through and can lift you a little bit out of the car before it goes into a final helix-combination. After that the final braking section is reached immediately and shortly after that the station.

The G’sengte Sau offers all kinds of riding fun on the wild ride through the naked concrete world of the Rauhe Klinge castle. Beautiful is certainly different, which is shown above all by the identical Thor’s Hammer ride from the Danish amusement park Djurs Sommerland, but the ride is also incredibly cult, especially because of the banner of the family show “Wetten, Dass…?”, which was cancelled almost two years ago.

Mammut

If you follow the circular route, the next big attraction of the park is the wooden roller coaster Mammut. The roller coaster opened in 2008 and was designed and built by the company Holzbau Cordes, but the trains used are from Gerstlauer. The perfectly joined track and the trains with their sprung axles made for a much too smooth ride, especially in the first years, so that a wooden roller coaster feeling did not exist. A circumstance that made me call Mammut a rather bad wooden roller coaster, but the ride has aged nicely!

The journey begins with a short left turn out of the station and into an unsuitably designed disco sawmill. A small dip and the train hooks into the chain, whereupon it is brought to a starting height of 30m. The first descent is a steep left turn down to ground level. Here one passes a powerful valley before it immediately goes along a high turn with a good speed. A high camelback follows, where you are lifted out of your seat. This is again followed by a turning curve, but this one leads into a steep curve to the left, whereupon the train dives into a small ditch. A clearly low camelback now repeats the game of weightlessness of the passengers, whereupon a fast Bavarian curve is made. Now the track leads through the framework of the lift hill and along the back of the layout. Over a short zigzag track some shake & roll – attributes of a really great wooden roller coaster – takes place, before the train dives into a tunnel after a left turn and a short change of direction. Here, the wonderfully dynamic zigzag course is repeated one more time, whereupon the braking section is already reached.

Mammut is fun! In fact, so much so that, with the best will in the world, you wouldn’t expect it if you’d only seen it in 2009. It’s the best roller coaster of the park, which is why it’s even more a shame that it was on n one train operation during the visit, although there was quite a rush.

Karacho

Let’s get to the last and newest roller coaster of the park, the launch roller coaster Karacho. The expectations were quite high, because if there’s one thing Gerstlauer can do, it’s to launch a roller coaster onto a ride offering a very funny track, and indeed Karacho has both. But the layout couldn’t convince after getting on the train, as these trains are really uncomfortable and the operating personnel additionally pushes the bars down so far that the legs are literally squeezed between the bars and the edge of the seat. Ouch! Kärnan from Hansa Park, a theme park in northern Germany, shows how it’s done differently, but until the trains were delivered two years later there were certainly some changes to them.

The ride on Karacho begins with a slow right turn out of the station. After a short and relatively steep dip, a heartline roll is initiated on a straight line. This happens rather clumsy in my opinion, as the dynamics seem to be missing during this roll; an example how to do it better can be found at the English amusement park Thorpe Park on Saw – The Ride, where the roll is passed after a short bend. Then you pass the first block brake and shortly after that another, in my opinion much too small, dip. With Karacho you are now accelerated to a speed of 90 km/h, whereupon you shoot up a top hat element. Without taking a breather, the car crashes towards the ground, passes the following valley with full force and daringly shoots an oversized corkscrew towards it. Here you are turned upside down for a second time before the train is longing for the ground again. Very restless and quick-witted, the car now takes you over a hill that is strongly inclined to the side, just before you screw up to the block brake in a steep curve. Here you are slowed down to walking speed, whereupon the following part of Karacho is driven through very leisurely. A short gradient changes into a short and uneventful camelback, whereupon you stay in a right turn for a very long time. But then the car takes momentum again and turns the passengers upside down once more while going down in a diveloop. Another corkscrew joins in and at the same time leads into the braking section, whereupon the station of the roller coaster Karacho is reached soon.

Karacho is not only uncomfortable, it also lacks the bite. The ride would be just ok if you could ride it without pain, i.e. with the classic roller coaster trains of the manufacturer, but it wouldn’t be anymore either. Especially the part with the dive loop is done without the insane force of earlier coasters and therefore hardly gives an impression; not to mention the absolutely nonsensical ride part before. Karacho certainly does justice to the target audience.

Pictures Erlebnispark Tripsdrill

Conclusion Erlebnispark Tripsdrill

The Hansa Park of the South is not a good park; it is a nice park, but simply not a good one.  I have tried to understand and comprehend the whole adulation of various roller coaster and amusement park fans in different forums, but I just can’t. It’s a fact that even among Swabians (at least the one I met during my time in Stuttgart) it’s more of a toddler park. There’s simply nothing here that justifies the high entrance fee. Let’s see if the novelties after Karacho can change my opinion…

 

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Erlebnispark Tripsdrill

About the Freischütz and other roller coasters

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Bayern Park

Bayern Park is one of the more highly praised amusement parks in Germany, and has attracted the attention of roller coaster enthusiasts since the construction of the Freischütz. We arrived at the park just in time for the opening, after all we only had about 6km to drive that day, and the first impressions were quite positive, although the weather wasn’t quite as good as the day before.

As most of the rides hadn’t opened by this time, we enjoyed the Heege Comet Swings, which offered plenty of airtime. Unfortunately we missed the whole upper part of the park where the wave swinger, an arcade with a butterfly in space optics and the second butterfly were located. So we did not visit this part of the park until the end of our visit.

Froschbahn

The main part of Bayern Park is located further down the hill anyway and can offer the first coaster ride of the day in the form of the Froschbahn. This small coaster from Zierer opened a little late, as it had to do some test rides. Thanks to a small group of young people, the train was packed and took a few laps around the small oval layout in a great atmosphere.

Achterbahn

Lovers of extra-long coasters trains will find something to their liking on Zierer’s New Tivoli roller coaster, with the incredibly original name of Achterbahn. This coaster is identical in construction to the Green Scream at Adventure Island in Southend-on-Sea.

After the train has left the station, it climbs the lift hill after a left turn and the train shows its full glory for the first time. The first descent is very flat, but quickly gains speed in a right turn. This is followed by a left helix, so that the layout becomes a figure of eight. Above the station building, the ride picks up speed again and the next valley is a powerful one. Another helix follows, this time clockwise, and circles the lift just before it takes the shortest route to the end of the ride.

The coaster has a very neat layout and makes a good impression due to the strong forces, if it weren’t for the totally incompetent staff. It’s a big mystery to me why, despite the covered station that the train was completely wet. The staff standing at the other end of the station did not even think to clean the train before the first guests arrived. Funnily enough, even Karlo’s taxi in Denmark’s Djurs Sommerland was cleaned by an elderly gentleman before our ride. But as the day went on, it became clear that this competence was lacking everywhere in the park.

Schmetterlingstanz and the luge of the game park

After a meandering ride on the HUSS Airboat Schmetterlingstanz, we crossed a bridge to a part of the park with little significance. Not every park can afford a completely filthy lake with a steamboat ride and an artificial Bavarian castle at its edge. A small boat ride through its visually appealing garden takes you to a grotto where a fountain of youth awaits – the hottest temptation for Americans since the dawn of Europe.

In this corner you will also find the entrance to Bayern Park’s game park, which is probably the only reason why it is worth making the long way round. Lovers of luges may disagree, but charging extra for compulsory rides in a theme park where even the Heege rides are free seems a bit cheeky. There is also another luge in the upper part of the park doing the same. 

Thalon

Back in civilisation, we were able to watch the first test runs of the Freischütz, but it didn’t look like the ride was going to open any time soon. So we climbed up the mountain parallel to the track, because at the top of this way is the indoor drop ride Thalon.

The ride inside the former observation tower is a Zierer Family Freefall Tower, the best examples of which are Tikal at Phantasialand or Majas Blumenturm at Holiday Park. In contrast to these ingenious rides, however, Bayern-Park has tried to enhance the ride with an irrelevant backstory and illuminated scenes at different heights without any animatronics. The concept itself could be good, but the ride should be more dynamic and not run in toddler mode. The interior scenes make no sense at all and could be omitted, which would make the ride even better and also improve the look of the tower, as the extensions for the interior scenes do not make the tower very attractive, even if the ugly colour scheme has already retouched some of it.

Next to the tower is a Zierer Kontiki with a stone-like appearance, which doesn’t really have much to offer apart from the queue, where you’d better watch your head if you’re an adult. But admittedly, it fits in nicely with the Thalonia theme.

Wildwasser-Rafting

Below these attractions is one of the highlights of Bayern Park: the abc rides Rapid River Splash Wildwasser-Rafting. At first glance, this beautifully designed ride does not look much different from the smaller rides from the same manufacturer, but the ride features a longer section before the lift hill and even a waterfall. Once you reach the top of the lift, the boat slowly but surely picks up speed and after the first combination of turns you will be spinning like crazy. The boats also have a very pronounced upswing, which makes the descent very entertaining. At the end of the slide, the obligatory splash awaits the passengers and, depending on the load of the boat, at least one person will get wet.

Freischütz

The second highlight of the park is right next to the rafting ride, but unfortunately the entrance is on the other side, so you have to walk a long way up and down again. Beautifully designed waiting areas have their charms, and the opera rollercoaster Der Freischütz certainly has one. A path under the inside tophat leads through two buildings with zigzagging paths to an open square before entering a maze. This is followed by a larger square before a series of smaller paths with various obstacles, but here only one path was open. At the end, visitors find themselves in a very modern station.

As soon as we board the train, the ride begins. After leaving the station we are launched into the first inversion. In the following valley we are pushed into the car with a lot of force, but we are also shaken quite a bit. The looping that follows is as intense as a looping can get. This is followed by an insanely intense bavarian curve with an equally intense heartline roll. This is followed by a more leisurely steep turn before the final inversion. Another right-hander later, we head through the station and, with a bit of luck, are sent on a second lap of the track. Most of the time the train is braked and brought back to its starting position.

The Freischütz is a very good roller coaster by the Munich coaster manufacturer Maurer Söhne, but it is notorious for its pronounced rocking of the cars, which is more pronounced at the front of the train than at the rear.

Pictures Bayern Park

Conclusion Bayern Park

Bayern Park is a well-kept amusement park with some good rides and good value for money, both in terms of admission and food. However, a park loses a lot of sympathy points if the staff turn out to be incompetent, unfriendly and, above all, unenthusiastic. Apparently this is quite normal in this area, as the staff at the premium partner hotel Schlappinger Hof were the same. Sure, Bayern-Park attracts tourists and you don’t have to like them, but elsewhere you’d at least get a smile or two on your face while serving your guests professionally and without grumbling – why they don’t do that here is highly questionable, even though it was only one day in the off-season.

 

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Bayern Park

A tale of a very wild Train

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Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen

The Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen is a small amusement park on the outskirts of Strasswalchen close to the city of Salzburg. Founded in 1996, the park mainly focuses on fairy tales, but also has some special rides, such as the Wild Train roller coaster, which is very popular with many amusement park enthusiasts.

If you enter the Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen you will immediately be greeted by an animatronic. In the same room there is a lovingly designed exhibition that recreates the story of Snow White with soft toys.

Schloß Drakula

Through a door the visitors get to the forecourt of Drakula’s Castle, one of the main attractions of the park, where a guided tour takes place at regular intervals. Due to the lack of abundance within the park and the alternating opening hours of the rides, we unfortunately had to miss out on a visit.

Sindbad’s Abenteuerreise

Starting from here, you can either go directly to the western section of the park or take the big tour around the lake. Within the fairy tale forest you can find some children’s rides, an antique car train, as well as a monorail pedalway without its pedal function. Following the ways through the forest we end up in a generously sized oriental theme area. The dark ride Sindbad’s Abenteuerreise and a 4D cinema are located here. Despite the advertised opening hours of the dark ride, there was no employee to be found nearby.

Mami Wata

If you continue along the path you will come across the pirate boat swing and the construction site of the Hafema log flume Mami Wata, which is this year’s novelty of the amusement park. On a small area you will soon find a splash ride with two drops, where the starting height of the bigger descent will be reached by a vertical lift.

Knights Ride Tower

Along the picturesque western section of the Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen, the path leads us straight to a building that seems rather inconspicuous from the outside. Inside there is the Knights Ride Tower, a small free-fall tower built by abc Rides. The queue of this tower is nicely designed and raises the expectations, as we already know comparable installations of the Merlin Entertainments Group Dungeons and amusement parks.

Strangely enough, you have to strap yourself to the ride before the ride can finally begin, which was not at all an easy task in a darkened room without my glasses. Now, we move up slowly and stop at different levels with different video projections and animatronics. On the first floor you can see a sleeping dragon and a knight galloping through the cave, on the second floor a mythical creature playing a musical instrument in front of a fire, on the third floor several awakened dragons in attacking mood, and on the final floor a fight between a horseman and a dragon. The free fall follows and a detached hand embedded in the ground is illuminated.

The Knights Ride Tower is what Thalon at Bayern Park would like to be, which is a rideable vertical ride with a good background story. Although the ride is a bit lengthy due to the many stopovers, the potential of the ride type is never missed and the scenes and projections are of the highest quality. The drop itself, similar to all the other abc towers, is very pleasing and shows once again that the height of a free Dfall tower is not the decisive argument.

Dino Adventure

In the back corner of the park – next to the park railway Dino Adventure, which leads along several prehistoric scenery pictures – you can find a ferris wheel, a wave slide, another bumper car and a racetrack, which is not included in the entrance fee.

Wild Train

Above the race track you find the highlight of the Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen: the roller coaster Wild Train. The roller coaster is highly exotic not only because of its support construction but also because of its Russian manufacturer called Pax. From the outside the layout seems to be quite normal for such a small ride and even the train seems to be only wild because of its design, but if you know the predominant opinions about the ride you already know that the roller coaster is much wilder than it seems.

When the train is ready to move, the wild ride can start. Slowly but steadily we climb the friction wheel lift. A small hill follows after the first steep turn, which lets the passengers fly off their seats immediately. This is followed by an uphill helix. Regardless of any losses, it is followed by a drop with immensely pronounced ejector airtime, similar to Piraten from the Danish amusement park Djurs Sommerland. A camelback repeats the previously experienced change between pressure and weightlessness. On a Bavarian curve you now circle around a small castle before it reaches the most insane point in the whole layout. With full force you are now being shot into your lap bar, only to be shaken through the next bend due to the missing ground contact. Another hill and yet another bavarian curve lead you back to the station.

The Wild Train is a crazy roller coaster and also one of the few roller coasters that leaves something lasting behind for its passengers. Be it the bruise on both thighs or the memory of a truly incomparable intensive family roller coaster. Unfortunately the ride closes immediately after the first raindrop, maybe it wasn’t the worst for our health.

Pictures Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen

Conclusion Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen

Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen is a small, friendly family park, which always distinguishes itself from similarly small parks by well-considered investments. The park is a great one and offers many surprises during your visit.

 

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Fantasiana Erlebnispark Strasswalchen