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So I have just returned from a trip to Europe where I was able to sneak in 3 parks, Europa Park, Phantasialand and Legoland Billund. I was able to spend 2 days at each park. I'm going to start off however with something that really really p*ssed me off on this trip at the parks. I travelled on my own for this portion of the trip so of course was going to use Single Rider lines. Europa Park has about 6 rides and Phantasialand has 2 that have a Single Rider line. I have absolutely nothing against single rider lines, you run the risk of waiting long to get onto a ride as they're only used to fill empty seats, all good I accept that. What really p*ssed me off however was at both parks a staff member stood at the entrance to these rides and, as a single rider, I was forced to use them, which meant I couldn't queue for the front seat if I wanted to but also the staff member wasn't stopping groups from using the single rider line, which they did. A LOT. Now in credit to the loaders I saw none of them allow groups to be seated from the single rider line, even when asked they held firm and detailed the rules for the Single Rider line, but as stated above I was p*ssed that I was forced to use the line when groups could choose to use it. OK end of rant, onto the TR! Europa Park I wanna start by saying that this park is absolutely massive, I honestly think it would have to be one of the biggest parks out there. Themed around European countries overall the park is really well done. The theming is great, it's clean, their app works well (except for directions) and there is plenty of free wifi. The food at Europa is also top notch and cheap. Currywurst or Bratwurst in a roll for under $10 for example. Europa was also fairly easy to get to by train and when you get to Rust there is a free bus you can use to get around. Unfortunately when I was there it was the middle of Europe's summer holidays however operations at Europa are on point. I don't think I waited more than 30 minutes for any rides. Voltron This is the newest coaster in the park from MACK. This thing GOES. From start to finish it just does not let up. 4 launches, 7 inversions and some epic airtime later and you'll be running to reride it. 10/10 would definitely ride again. Being a single rider I was lucky to get rides in the front and back and it just slaps wherever you are. My only complaint with this was that by the end of the ride my thighs were a bit sore from being thrown into the lap bar so much. I really liked the operations on this ride. First off in the main queue hall if you have loose items you are given a keycard for a FREE locker for all loose items before you head to the station, interestingly if they catch you with anything after this point they will make you go back, put it in a locker, and go back to the end of the queue. When you get to the station the trains don't stop, the station is in constant motion and is loaded quickly row by row. The only time I saw the station stop was when a disabled person needed assistance, and even then the stop was minimal. Arthur OK this was an interesting ride. It's a family suspended coaster and its got some decent g-forces associated with it. Operations were similar to Voltron above with free lcokers and a constantly moving station. What struck me as really surprising however was 1 section of the ride, where you go through a bug city section indoors. The ride has onboard sound and during this section they've selected a portion of a Hip Hop track, not my cup of tea, but it fits with the section of ride. Now on my first ride I thought I'd heard something, second ride I specifically listened for it and by the 3rd ride I confirmed it. Now call me an old man but choosing a section of Hip Hop song that contains 2 racial slurs (N word) and the F word may not be appropriate for a kids ride, but that's just me. blue fire Megacoaster The OG Steel Taipan. Now I haven't ridden ST yet (I've been to Europe twice in 6 months, so haven't been able to afford to go to the Gold Coast), but I was pretty impressed by this. Lots of great speed and force along with some good airtime. I can see why it is so popular. Euro Mir This coaster was an interesting one. I've wanted to ride it since I first saw pictures of it way back in the 90s not long after it was built. When I finally got to ride it? Hated it. Hated it with an absolute passion. Typical of wild mouse lots of force going round tight bends at heights in front of mirrors and yeah, definitely not my cup of tea. Hated, hated, hated it. Wodan A fairly standard woodie, but was an awesome ride. Eurostat - Cancan Coaster Europa's golfball coaster. Pic above is of the model. I don't know why but I really liked this one. Really smooth, dark coaster. Silver Star This is a fairly standard B&M Hyper. Good speed and some great airtime, but nothing I haven't ridden before. There is a bunch of other smaller coasters like Pegasus, Schweizer Bobbahn, Matterhorn Blitz, Poseidon and Atlantica Splash which were all fun as well. Phantasialand OMG I wanna start by saying that this park is absolutely beautiful, I honestly think it would have to be one of the best themed parks out there, even as a former Mouse House employee, this place beats it hands down. The theming is out of this world, it's clean, their app works well but there is a real lack of free wifi. The food at Phantasialand is also top notch and cheap like Europa. Interestingly though it was cheaper to buy beer here than a coke. Phantasialand was also fairly easy to get to by train. Operations were also on point again never longer than about 30 minutes. Black Mamba No picture of this one, it is so super well hidden through theming but also it is mostly a ground hugging suspended coaster from B&M. Again this was on my list from very early on as it looked amazing and it lived up to the hype, unlike Euro Mir. Most of the course is through canyons and tunnels and it's a great ride. F.L.Y This is a flying coaster from Vekoma and damn it is amazing. Interesting operations as you load into a seated position and are then turned into a flying posting just before the launch. There are 2 launches and both pack a great punch. This was definitely a highlight of the trip. Taron Another launched coaster, this time from Intamin. As with everything at Phantasialand this is themed to the eyeballs and it's great. Lots of great airtime and some great forces. Raik Raik is a family boomerang that weaves in and out of Taron. Not a bad little ride. Colorado Adventure A family mine train roller coaster this could have been great. Great length, speed and layout but this has got to have the most uncomfortable seats on a roller coaster ever. And I've ridden Time Warp at Canada's Wonderland. Crazy Bats An indoor VR family coaster. The coaster itself wasn't bad, but when I rode it my VR was off and I had to turn my head to the side to make it look like I was going forward which was disappointing. Winjas OK this was interesting. 2 tracks, Force and Fear, and you can choose which one to go on, in a mass of people however this was difficult. Spinning Wild mouse coaster with some great drops and theming. Was also, for a wild mouse, surprisingly smooth. Talocan Not a coaster, but most people will recognise this Top pin after it went viral when it was built. This thing was amazing. Legoland Billund No pics for this one at the moment. This was a fairly standard Legoland. My biggest complaint however about this park was definitely the cleanliness. This park was filthy. Everything was dusty/grimy. For a park that closes for a few months each year it definitely needs some TLC. The park is of course aimed at families so there aren't many major thrill rides. It does however have 4 family coasters, 2 of which are mild thrill being X-Treme Racers (Standard Wild Mouse) and Polar X-Plorer (Which had a nice little drop surprise at the end). The food at Legoland wasn't bad, though expensive, but then again everything in Denmark is. I can recommend the ribs at Legoredo as they were pretty amazing. As an AFOL I really enjoyed all the builds and how they incorporated Lego into the park, just disappointed with how it was maintained. If you are in Billund you also can't miss the Lego House, this is more like a discovery centre/museum of Lego, but with lots of opportunities to build things and interact with them. You can also watch bricks being made and even eat in their robotic Mini Chef minifigure restaurant which was a bit of a novelty, but the food was pretty good. Overall across the 3 parks I got a really good mix of everything and was really pretty happy with my choices overall. I would definitely recommend Phantasialand if you get the chance, it was really so far out of this world with the theming and the rides were top notch.

So we're just about to head home from a trip to the UK to see family and, while we were there, do some theme parks - old and new. This will just be a relatively short summary of all the parks because, basically, I can't be arsed. In our party are me, my wife, and three sons (10, 6, and 3). So without further ado... Blackpool Pleasure Beach I used to live just down the road from here. Well, a few towns down the road, so about six miles. That's just down the road in Aussie terms. I always disliked the park growing up as the general consensus is that it was full of scrotes. My wife however quite enjoyed it and we went regularly, and I grew to quite enjoy it too. We quickly found that prices in the UK have become seriously shitty, especially in comparison to Australia. For a lot of things, just replace the $ sign with the £ sign and you've got UK prices, except with a crap exchange rate. Entry to BPB (or whatever they're calling it now) was in the region of £150 for the day for us all, and the park was only open 10-4. Annoyingly, as well as having bag checks and metal detectors when entering the park, every person has to "check in" to every ride, individually, using the Pleasure Beach app. Lots of people hated this, but we printed the QR codes out and used them. The rides - Icon was my favourite, a launched coaster that lasts a while, does a fair bit, and stays close to the ground. The Big One, the highest in the UK until very recently, is the best way to see the park as it winds over, under, and through a lot of attractions. Infusion is a suspended coaster which is full of elements, unfortunately not as smooth as it once was (my head was getting pinged about like nobody's business). Revolution is Revolution - a loop, which you go through forwards, and then backwards, but with excellent g-forces. I didn't get on Avalanche as I was taking smaller kids on rides, but I recall it as "good". And I daren't ride Steeplechase again as last time my legs were killing me. In terms of old wooden coasters, we did the Blue Flyer with all the kids - out youngest seemed to enjoy it but we're not sure as he didn't want to do any more coasters. Big Dipper was fun but one us aged folk definitely want to hang on for. Nickelodeon Streak - didn't get on that, and same with Grand National. But we've been on them before and know they're good fun, and towards the end EVERYONE makes a beeline for the Grand Nash. The park does have a lot of other rides - it puts a lot of other parks to shame in terms of amount and variety. There's a lot for the kids, and highlights were the carousel (not the huge one) where the attendant was very accommodating to the kids, the SpongeBob bus thing, and the old spaceships and the Eddie Stobart trucks. My wife and eldest son also went on Valhalla and said it was great but lacked the backwards bit which has just been replaced by a turntable, you get better than ever and was a bit overly dark rather than having as many effects as before. The park felt... worn. This was usually our favourite park but there was barely anybody about and most things were a short wait, if that. The park is actually in the middle of a bit of a rubbish housing estate with a road running under it, and the very grey sea just outside and biting winds. Lunch was handled by Burger King (which seemed to pale by comparison to HJs), and for tea we couldn't resist a proper chippy with gravy or curry sauce from a place outside. Blackpool was a bit of a letdown, which is odd as normally we come back and do the park at least twice - this time we only go into the park once, though we do come back to visit relatives and stop by the gift shop (we bought far too much). It's also a shame that Wild Mouse is gone, and the Grand Prix on its way out. Noah's Ark stands over the entrance, and River Caves was closed. We didn't have time to do Alice, and Ghost Train probably would have scared our middle child. In any case, on to... Alton Towers So we decided to get Merlin passes, they're pretty good value. Alton Towers was always a park we never thought much of - the rides seemed short, the place is big, the queues long, and the park just seemed a bit "up themselves". But no, we have the passed and we're determined to do AT twice to get round everything, and we're very glad we did. Hidden in the countryside, AT is both a theme park (with water park, hotel etc) and an old stately home. Since it is set in the grounds of the old home it can be a distance to get from ride to ride, and there's lots of things that you can find and hidden areas. I'm pretty certain we didn't go everywhere in the park on our two visits. Starting off, for both days we went shortly before half term and on a weekday, meaning queues shouldn't be big. And they weren't, with most rides a short wait or a walk-on. Parent swap was used quite often, and we got on just about every coaster on our first day, as well as a few things for the kids. Our second day was just Galactica (which was closed on our first day) and stuff for the kids. So, in any case, coasters first. Wicker Man was the main one I wanted to go on, this being the only coaster there I hadn't done before. Really enjoyed it, some great airtime and it wasn't too short - though wasn't too long either. Smiler was our favourite, for both my wife and I and our 10 year old. As well as all the inversions, it actually managed to space them out so it's not just "element after element after element". Unfortunately the song will haunt your dreams. Galactica is an alright flying coaster, but too short, while Nemesis - or Nemesis Reborn - is probably the most famous coaster in the UK, and a nice tight little SLC famously built under ground level due to local planning laws. I found it alright, but nothing special. Others - Oblivion I didn't go on, but from memory it's "alright", and the same can be said for Rita (though in the rain the launch feels like hail) and Thirteen with its track drop, and that's it. The Mine Train though was good fun, a powered family-friendly coaster which did a fair number of laps, and intersects the river rapids course - so passengers of both rides would wave at each other. In terms of kids stuff, our youngest loves Hey Duggee, so he was well at home in the giant Hey Duggee playpark. There was plenty more there for them, and he seemed to want to just go round the Night Garden boat ride. Our eldest enjoyed the David Walliams bit and our middle the driving school. I'm not sure whether AT is my favourite on the trip or not. Smiler is definitely my favourite coaster (though Wicker Man could be second). Our first day was pretty wet throughout, and our second fortunately a lot nicer. The park, at that time (I remember queues there on previous visits for Air being 45 minutes or more in the pouring rain) was very pleasant, and I'm actually a bit sad we didn't have time to go round the house and gardens much. It was the only park we went back to fir a second day, but also the only park we felt we needed to - it, and all the other parks (apart from BPB) were open 10-5. Forgot to mention, the Rollercoaster Restaurant was pretty good. Food prices were okay and the portions good, but it comes to you on a rollercoaster track which was pretty fun to watch. I will get round to summaries of the other parks soon.

Legoland Billund Monday 11th of July 2022 https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/legoland-billund for plenty more photos. So I’ve just returned from 3 weeks in Scandinavia. The first park I visited was Legoland Billund. Normally I’m not that into Legoland, I went to the one in Windsor because it was included in the Merlin Pass I had at the time, and I went to the one in Japan because I had an unexpected free afternoon (and basically wanted to ride the Mack Submarine Ride) , but they are just ‘okay’, a bit expensive and not really that engaging unless you are a kid or a real Lego fan. But, it almost felt rude to be doing a theme park trip in Denmark and not pay a visit to the original Legoland. This one is actually better than the rest and has a few rides that make it worth a trip even if you are a thrill rider. I arrived at 9 and stayed till 4, but would have had no problem staying right through till close at 7. I had a hire car to make this part of the trip a bit easier, its about a 3 hour drive from Copenhagen, with a spectacular crossing of the 18km long Great Belt Bridge. But you pay accordingly for using such a big piece of infrastructure, the toll works out to $50 each way. Intentionally left early so I could hop out and have a look around. Still I arrived well before opening time. The park has a wait time app and I’d already looked at it a couple of times in the preceding days to see what got bad waits and started my day on those rides. Flying Eagle is a Zierer Family Coaster with nice theming and cute little animals everywhere. As a coaster its pretty good, maintains it speed, and had this one bit with a few S bends. If I was after a standard model family coaster this would be it. It’s just a shame it has only one train, because it gets smashed with crowds. Next I kept moving towards the back of the park, but saw X-Treme racers had no line so I ducked into that too. It’s a larger model of a Mack mouse, so starts off with a big drop, does a few switch backs, couple more drops, couple more switchbacks and then done. Fine for what it was, but it’s just a mouse right? The cars do look pretty cool with their Lego Technic theme. Next door to it is the Lego Movie World, which is quite new and looks great. Apocalypseburg Sky Battle is a flat ride (but seemingly a popular one) however again I was ahead of the crowds so no wait. It’s what you’d get it you crossed Tailspin with an enterprise, so you are simply spinning around, with wings you can tilt to make your seat flip. It felt a bit harder to get it to work, but you can usually get a couple of spins in one direction before it runs out of momentum, and then tilt the wings the other way to get some more spins. The main attraction is Emmets Flying Adventure - Masters of Flight A flying theatre like Sky Voyager, but the difference is that instead of the seats being pushed out towards the screen, you load facing the back wall and the whole row rotates to face the screen. The ride takes you out of cloud cuckoo land (complete with vanilla scent) one Emmets “Triple Decker Flying Couch”, but then the Duplo aliens attack, so cue a chaotic flight through various lego movie scenes. Great fun, but it definitely has a lot more movement than your usual flying theatres where you are gently flying over landscape. This had much more diving and spiralling. I didn’t ride Unikitty Disco Drop, but loved how it looked. By this point I was at the back of the park at one of my most anticipated rides, Polar X-Plorer, a Zierer ESC with a drop track. The theme is like an Arctic base where they are investigating animals, and there are various panels on the walls with scientific information, environmental messages etc. The ride is a bit more punchy than you’d expect! It carries momentum like a full sized coaster, with good speed off the first drop, pops of airtime and forceful turns. You then come around into the ice mountain seen in the middle of the ride (And they didn’t bother doing rockwork inside, they just painted all the framing and mesh black). Overhead is a screen with lego explorer people hammering into the ice, when all of a sudden you hear a crack and the whole section of track you are on drops about 5m, and stops at the bottom, linking up with the rest of the track. From here the track comes out of the mountain, but its basically at ground level now so all it can do is some tiny dips till it gets back to the station. But on the way as you re-enter the building you pass some windows looking into the Penguin exhibit. Which I decided to check out next. Ice Pilots School originally opened as Power Builder, and is a robocoaster ride. They made an attemp to theme it like a Hangar you’d see in some remote location for arctic flights which was nice, but overall the attraction doesn’t scream at you from the outside. Are they trying to avoid it getting overcrowded? It does seem like it could run into capacity issues. Here, you use a touch screen to program a motion sequence for your arm, get onboard, and try it out. Of course i picked the most extreme ones i could, so the arm is catapulting you all the way over the top, or spinning around on the spot whilst making your seat twirl too. It probably only goes for about a minute, and some of the movements are a bit forceful, so the cycle they give you is enough. Looping back towards the front of the park I passed the Temple. Every Legoland has this and it’s pretty meh. Imagine something like Buzz Lightyear with rotating cars and laser guns, except the sets are just bland lego egyptian themed and the guns work poorly. But it tends to just be a walk on most of the time due to the capacity of the ride system so fine for a diversion. I think at that point I opted to eat early (Park opened at 10) sinceI heard food places get bad lines (Which turned out to be true walking around a couple of hours later): Found a place selling the signature “Lego Fries”, which tasted about as good as they looked. I got in the queue for Vikings River Splash the river rapids ride. This is another ride I’ve seen and been interested in, since it it has a vertical lift and splashdown. As far as rapids go, its fairly gentle, and you wont get wet. Most of the theming was viking related humour that would appeal to kids (Eg 3 stone statues singing “We will rock you”). The lift hill comes halfway through the ride on this one, plus of course the vertical lift at the end. It’s just a shame the final drop doesnt spin you like the one at Califorina Adventure. Overall a good fit for the park though. Dragen had a bit of a line so I went for a lap on the monorail and got my bearings for the rest of the park (It’s in a bit of an L shape) I try to do observation towers around midday since it means the sun is out of the way for most of your photos and the tower itself isn’t casting strong shadows across the park. LegoTop is it, but only about 30m high, so it’s good for a view over Miniland, but the actual coasters are at the other end of the park so you dont really get a good overview of them. However up there I spotted Ninjago and realised that was one of my other priorities to ride. Ninjago is a Triotech dark ride with 3D glasses, but instead of guns you swipe your hand above a sensor and use that to direct your shots. Felt like it had a moderate level of control, though quite a few stray shots. It can be finicky, you have to hold your hands 10cm above the sensor, which can feel unnatural and some kids struggle with it. The queue was a series of interconnected dojo rooms, which carried through into the ride itself. The story I wasn’t really familiar with, but at each screen there were hordes of skeletons or bad ninjas and even dragons you were shooting at. A couple of scenes used projection mapping onto rockwork. There were still a few more things I wanted to ride. Ghost - The Haunted House is a fairly kid friendly haunted house walkthrough, with some interactive dioramas and a mirror maze. The finale of the ride is actually a little drop ride (High capacity frog hopper really) where you are ‘levitated’ by a mad professor and then dropped. Seems like is a Merlin special, becuase a lot of the Dungeon attractions they run have this ride, as well as Sub Terra at Alton Towers. Visually it’s nicely done overall but could have been a more coherent experience Piratbade is one of those Mack towboat rides that actually goes through a substantial enclosed dark ride. Quite liked this actually, it was mostly static with the odd lighting effect, but nice and relaxing and quite popular. More parks need the slow scenic boat rides IMO At that point I was over near Dragen, the Mack powered coaster, so waited about 30 mins for that. I’ve heard mixed reviews of this one but I thought it was pretty cool! It starts off with a dark ride section through castle scenes, eg the kitchen, the jesters court, the wizards lab and of course an encounter with a dragon. It’s a powered coaster, so once you reach the dragon it actually picks up speed along a long straight (I guess the closest thing to a family launch coaster with 1997 tech), climbs a bit of a hill then does some helices in rocky area with shrubs and vines. The coaster portion was short but you know what I didn’t mind and thought this was better than the other Dragon coasters at other Legolands. At this point I was getting close to the time I had to leave. I went back to Polar X-Plorer for a second go at the back of the train, still good Back at the front of the Park is Atlantis, one of Merlins Sea Life aquarium, but with an entirely too long pre-show where you watch an average 3D animation of you going down below, dragged out by the fact all the story telling has to be in 3 languages (accomplished by the 3D interior of the sub having cartoon speakers labelled with the Danish, English and German flags) The actual aquarium was well themed and larger than I expected, with many gummysharks and tropical fish. I do wonder about the messaging of having all those lego models in the tanks…plastic in our oceans I rounded out my visit at Miniland. This one was mostly focused on Denmark, with a bit of Scotland, Norway and I think Germany, they also had a section of worlds tallest buildings with model of the Burj Khalifa, Shanghai Tower, Mecca Royal Clocktower. Really nicely done, I liked the oil drilling rig, and the working port with the various moving boats. A lot of the other usual world wonders you’d see at Legoland had been spun off to be located along the Minibade self drive boat ride, but you can still see them from the walkways around that ride. I wouldnt have minded doing the Lego Canoe flume ride but the sun was beating down a bit and I didnt feel like waiting 40 mins. Overall, I had a good visit despite the crowds and got a fair bit done there. The one thing they needed to fix was the F&B lines. They were spilling out everywhere, and to add insult to injury a lot of the vending machines were broken so I couldnt just grab a drink that way. As for what I’d do to improve the park? Tough to say, it’s quite complete as far as family parks go, they have enough water rides, enough dark rides, enough flat rides etc, and enough in terms of unique flagships. I filled up several hours, and of course if you are kid you are going to want to do the splash battle, more of the flats, the driving school etc. Maybe a really small duplo coaster like the one in Windsor to take pressure off Flying Eagle? As always, you can see more detailed photos of the whole park here: https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/legoland-billund After finishing at the park I drove an hour up the road to check out Elia, which was once featured in a Tom Scott video. From a distance the steps look normal sized but they are more like climbing the tiers in a grandstand. Its supposed to let off a jet of fire once at random times, but didn't when I was there.

An interesting article about Legoland in the UK. Is it a case of you get what you pay for? https://uk.news.yahoo.com/legoland-renamed-deep-fried-crap-105000819.html

Was googling some things and came across this recent article; https://www.ausleisure.com.au/news/merlin-entertainments-looks-to-develop-new-australian-expansion/ It seems they want to open up a 'Dungeons' somewhere here... and they want to open another Legoland Discovery Centre.