Richard Bannister

Germany's best coaster in Germany's worst park. Such was remarked by Tim on a past trip to this fine country, based largely around the efficiency (or rather the lack thereof) of the operating staff. The coaster in question, Expedition Geforce, is indeed a superb piece of engineering, but is marred greatly by horrendously slow loading procedures. To give credit where it is due, since my last visit things have gotten as much as one hundred percent faster. In other words, they now dispatch a train every four minutes, rather than every eight last time I visited. Part of this was the fact that only one of the two trains was in use, but even still it should be possible to load a check a train in less than two minutes.

The resulting three quarter hour wait for front seat meant we only had time for two other rides. The Free Fall Tower was operating just one of its three tracks (do you see a pattern here?) but fortunately the wait was only a few minutes even still. Finally, and this was not my choice, came the awful headbanging of Super Wirbel. For some reason both Ethan and Tony liked this, putting them in a clear majority of two people on the entire trip who enjoyed it. Go figure.

Our remaining time in the park was spent enjoying a half hour exclusive session on Expedition GeForce. Since this was happening in the middle of the day, the solution was a simple one; adding the second train, which was reserved for us. Additionally, as coaster enthusiasts typically know how to check and secure their own restraints, the staff were able to get our train out quickly, thereby causing almost no delay for the public using the other train. As luck would have it, I managed two circuits in the back seat, from where the experience can only be described as stunning.

So, as regards Tim's comment; it's certainly Germany's best coaster, no question about it. It isn't quite the worst park; Movie Park Germany gets that accolade for me; but it's right down there purely due to the staff. A bit of motivation training and the park could be one of the top few in Europe; right now, however, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Parks aimed at children often have wonderful attractions that, for reasons of capacity, can rarely be found at adult parks. One such gem is the Nautic Jet, a splashdown ride where the single passenger boat is shot completely into the air before splashing down into water. This one had a weight limit of ninety kilograms, which one or two club members came pretty close to, though to my knowledge nobody got completely soaked, the obvious problem if the rider weight is too great. The fact that I didn't get soaked was of great disappointment to a good few people. Maybe next time they'll get their wish!

Some of us also tried out an interesting chair ride, which swung back and forth at a height over a distance of about fifty feet. The experience was good fun, though its maximum capacity of fifty guests per hour would be a bit of a liability in larger parks!

The only other ride of interest was of course the coaster, Heiße Fahrt, which we had to ourselves for an hour after park closing. Some people got in quite a lot of rides over this period, though I chose instead to wander around the ride, into areas that would normally be restricted, taking photo after photo. If the weather had been better more would have come out, but I picked up a few gems nevertheless.