Theme Park Discussion / gdb goes to phantasialand

hey guys. yesterday i went to phantasialand, so here's my trip report of it!

so first of all i gotta say that the only real park i've been to before this is walibi holland. i rode big thunder mountain  at disneyland paris and jetline at grönalund once though so i guess those count as well. 

Me and my friend arrived at the park at 10 AM. The entrance area was filled with stunning architecture and other cool things, you can certainly tell that phantasialand is one of those parks that takes theming incredibly serious. 

we both made the mistake not getting a map of the park though, which led to us having no idea where any of the entrances to the rides were. what worsened this was that phantasialand's mexico and africa areas are scattered with tunnels, bridges and other things. once we got our hands on one we immediately went towards black mamba. from what we could tell the line was quite long, however the wait didn't last long as they were running with 3 trains. one thing i noticed arriving at the station was that everybody working in the africa area had dark skin, now that's what i call dedication to a theme! here in the netherlands they'd probably just plop a random teenager in there and that'd be it . but on to the ride, holy shit O_O, it's so smooth! my head wasn't banged back and forth like the many times i've ridden El Condor (SLC) and even riding it on the front seat wasn't too rough! this is probably my favourity coaster ever, though that probably also says something about the coasters which i've ridden so far. what made it even better was that we were visiting the park on a not so busy day so we got to ride Black mamba thrice.

after that we went on to the Mexican area. first thing we rode there was Colorado adventure, and I must say that it was suprisingly good! I expected a smallish minetrain, but wow it was so much more than that. while it's a bit rough (riding the front seat is hell) the ride is incredibly fun and is very long (3 lifthills!). and to think my friend thought it was some kind of kiddycoaster . got to ride this thrice as well

once done with Colorado Adventure we headed over to the rest of the mexican area, towards Chiapas, the flume. once again this ride was something that blew my mind. i know it's just a simple flume, but then again i've only been on one flume before this, though i think it'll be hard to topple it as my favorite . the area around it is just as amazing as the flume, you can tell they really care about their theming

then after that we went to Chinatown, which wasn't all that special. there's a cool hotel and from what i've read quite a good restaurant there but we didn't bother with that . no real rides there either, so we just kinda walked through it. from there you get a nice look at Taron though, which is always nice

the medieval area was nice, the rapids (if that's even the correct term for that ride) were amazing and unlike any other, i mean come on there's a motherfucking lift, and since there was no line at all we got to ride it twice in a row! it's a shame you couldn't get a good view of the rest of the park though from above. after that we went into the intamindroptower Mystery Castle, which is themed really well from the inside i must say. overall quite an enjoyable area, but will be made a whole lot better once Taron is completed.

after that we went to Wuzetown. we pretty much walked through it on our way to Winjas. my first spinner, many firsts that day! overall quite an enjoyable ride, there's some nice effects in there though it wasn't anything amazing like Black Mamba was. after that we rode Temple of the nighthawk, and man what an underutilized area, there's just so little there with virtually no theming whatsoever. the ride itself was nice but it felt kinda weird being in total darkness all of the time. after that we rode the hollywood boattour just for the lulz, felt more like going to an animatronics museum haha. didn't take any pictures of this area as it just didn't really strike me as amazing, but some of the rides were enjoyable.

we left the park around 17:30 having ridden most of the coasters multiple times, not many flatrides though as there just didn't seem to be much of them there. the only flats they had were for children so we just skipped those to ride some of the coasters another time, the topspin was amazing though in terms of theming. 

overall Phantasialand is a park I can really recommend, especially if you live in the area (let's face it those of us who do have already been there ). The tickets we booked are good for going two times in the month may as well appearantly (for the same price as normal admission), but you can pretty much explore the whole park inside out in less than a day so i don't think we'll make the 250 milometre journey again .

8.5/10

I love it when NE people do trip reports, we always take photos of the stuff we're interested in (ie, facades and themeing)

I do wish your pictures were smaller though, I can barely see anything when I open them

sorry, blame my old 3GS

try opening the Image as a new tab, that should work

I'm really happy you were able to make it to PHL. Good for you!

I agree with most of what you wrote. I've been to PHL like 2 or 3 times but I would still be confused about the path layout. Plus, Talocan isn't only amazing in terms of theming but is an incredible ride as well. I haven't ridden to many Top Spins (because there aren't that many and they always seem to be broken when I'm in the park) but this one is far and beyond better than any Top Spin I rode. Plus, you are totally underselling Winjas, incredible Double Coasters.

Phantasialand is one of those parks that seems to have a huge influence on RCT, I see things drawing inspiration from it all the time. 

great report. 

Well that's the most rct looking 3d cinema i've ever seen.

You didn't ride River Quest?!  

that's what i meant with the rapids, couldn't remember the exact name

Oops I missed that part somehow. I've seen a lot of people say it's the best rapids in the world, glad you got to ride it!

yeah it's quite fun, not sure wether it's the best though. it's got some nice drops and other cool parts such as the elevator but it didn't feel as wild and didn't seem to be as long as other riverrapids

Oops I missed that part somehow. I've seen a lot of people say it's the best rapids in the world, glad you got to ride it!

It's easily the best themed river rapids in the world, but Popeye at IoA is much better as ride.