Tripsdrill
22nd July 2013
Tripsdrill has always been one of my favourite parks for a variety of reasons; quality coasters, pleasant landscaping, oddball theming, and so on. Today was an opportunity to show my girlfriend one of my favourite parks, but a member of staff caused a ridiculous incident early in the day that turned the whole experience sour.
We began our day with Rasender Tausendfüßler, the only coaster that opens with the park, before joining the back of an orderly queue (only in Germany!) waiting at the entrance of Karacho. The line began to move just after the scheduled time, and we dutifully followed the horde, ending up in the cattle grid with about fifty people in front of us. We were waiting patiently when an operator decided that her ride wasn't ready to open yet, and rather than allow people to wait she insisted on emptying out the queue. The result was that guests ejected from the line began to congregate in front of the entrance area, causing a blockage and forcing those who had been at the front all the way to the back. In the end, the organised line was replaced by an unruly scrum of a few hundred people in front of the ride entrance with us at the back.
We gave up and joined the slow-moving queue for Mammut. It took only a few minutes to realise that the dispatch delays were due to one-train operation, and while the second train was added eventually we were just about at the front by the time that happened, so it didn't gain us anything. The ride was running pretty much as I remembered; the straight sections were fine and fun, but the corners were marred by horrendous shuffling; it seems that whatever fix was proposed five years ago failed to work.
Karacho (#1952) had opened at this stage, so we joined the queue again. Three of the four cars were on the track today, and the operators were keeping them moving. While we waited, we had a group of eight people, one full car load, push their way past us. It was tempting to block them, but it is quite hard to do that with only two people and no knowledge of the local language.
The station building is currently a bare concrete box with a few model workers attached to the side, suggesting a work in progress that will be improved during the off season. The end result will likely look very well, as the cars already look fantastic thanks to dramatic lighting that comes on in the station area. It'd be great to see the train lights on for the whole ride, but on the other hand the park only operates during day time hours, so this might not be worth the effort.
The ride operators would not allow me to wear my glasses with strap, meaning that I spent the entire ride not being able to see properly. Despite that, however, the experience was an enjoyable one, thanks to an interesting layout and comfortable lap bar restraints. We did consider waiting for a second lap, but elected not to due to the queue length. We chose to skip the rapids for the same reason, but we did enjoy the Jungbrunnen flume ride, the tilting drop tower ride, and of course G'sengte Sau.
