Richard Bannister

Day two of my trip was planned to coincide with an event at Europa Park organised by the European Coaster Club. Attendees were promised three fast-track passes good on any ride with a fast-track lane, unlimited fast-track access to Voltron for the last thirty minutes of the operating day, and a Q&A session with the Head of Park Operations Lukas Metzger. There was nothing in the schedule until early afternoon, and as such my day began with the running of the bulls towards the park's newest coaster.

Voltron (#3138) is the first installation of the Mack Stryker Coaster, an enhanced version of the 2016-era BigDipper with higher capacity sixteen-seat trains. It features seven inversions, a variety of special effects, and as per usual for Europa Park, an elaborate and superbly detailed theming package. The queue routes past a replica of the Wardenclyffe Tower and an imagined bell tower built in Croatian style, before heading indoors into a building designed to resemble an old hydroelectric power station. An animatronic Nikola Tesla can be found just inside the entrance, along with a series of Tesla coils on the ceiling that perform the ride’s theme tune once every ten minutes, all while shooting out bolts of artificial lightning. These can apparently be configured to play any desired MIDI file, which could allow for all kinds of fun for those with a twisted sense of humour. I found myself wondering what the most inappropriate track might be, bearing in mind that it would need to be something well known to cause maximum impact; would anyone care to offer an advance on Barbie Girl and/or God Save The King?

The park has installed a large bank of double-sided lockers towards the end of the queue. All loose objects are supposed to be left behind, though it’s worth noting that enforcement is visual rather than via metal detection, meaning that keys in zipped pockets are unlikely to present an issue. I can also report that glasses are permitted on board as long as a safety strap is worn.

The station features a continuous conveyor belt system that dispatches a 16-seat train every 36 seconds. The ruthless efficiency does mean that seating positions are entirely down to the luck of the draw. I’d have liked to have seen a dedicated front seat queue, but I’m not going to be too ironical about the lack of one given that Voltron consistently achieves its marketed 1600 passengers per hour. During the Q&A a club member asked how many people ride each day, and much to my amusement the question was dodged. I’m really not sure why; simple multiplication will give an answer that will be more or less accurate. Furthermore, the park put out a press release on May 2nd, just under a week after the official opening, announcing that they’d reached 100,000 passengers; that figure can also be munged fairly easily into an approximate daily total.

The experience begins with a brief dark ride section culminating in what the park calls an “effect track”: a few seconds where the train bounces up and down. This is a novelty, albeit one that I found myself nonplussed by (“what on earth is this?”) rather than something that I thought a material improvement. Moments later a bank of LSMs accelerate the train into an inside top hat, a real “wow” moment that takes your breath away. Unfortunately from that point forward the layout turns into a bit of an inversion salad; great if you like being thoroughly disoriented, but not particularly well-paced or for that matter fun. It is almost as if the designers selected a series of increasingly extreme elements in Roller Coaster Tycoon, rather than taking the time to think about how they might blend together. Furthermore, the comfort level today was decidedly mixed, with vibration and shuddering throughout.

After about forty-five seconds of dizziness the train comes to a halt on a turntable, which rotates 180 degrees to connect with the second half of the layout. A purple lighting effect at ceiling height sizzles briefly and a smoke machine discharges ahead of a backwards launch, stall, and forward launch into a series of airtime hills and two more inversions. I liked this section better than the first half, mostly because the upside-down moments were spaced out and thoughtfully placed, but once again my overall enjoyment was degraded significantly by awkward tracking.

The experience of Voltron reminds me very much of what I said about Smiler at Alton Towers back in 2013. The ride feels like two distinct roller coasters that have been bolted together, rather than one continuous ride experience. The theming package and presentation is top notch but can’t quite make up for shoddy tracking and a layout that lacks what I’d describe as the fun factor. Furthermore, quite a few club members no longer in their 20s (or even 30s) reported feeling nauseous after riding. I was one of them. My second lap in the evening left me a bit queasy, and a third lap half an hour later finished me off – to the point that I left the park before closing time handing an unused fast-track pass to a friend. I’m not sorry to have ridden, but equally I doubt I’ll be prioritising the ride on future visits to Europa Park; I’d rather pass my time on the park’s many better coasters.

My second stop was at Alpenexpress Enzian, a new-for-2024 powered coaster that closely follows the route of the former ride of the same name that was destroyed by fire in June 2023. The main difference in the v2.0 experience is in theming; the park has elected not to rebuild the Zauberwelt den Diamenten (Magic World of Diamonds) exhibit that the original ride passed through. Instead, the route now features additional rock work and greenery. I have no opinion as to which version was better; the only thing to say is that the experience remains that of a good family coaster, which is at the end of the day what matters.

For some years now the park has offered a VR up-charge on Eurosat with a separate loading station in order to minimise the impact on overall ride capacity. The original space-themed movie was retired earlier this year in favour of one based around the Phantom of the Opera, and as I adore musical theatre of all kinds this was an absolute must-do for me despite it having decidedly mixed reviews. The ticket I bought had a 40-minute return time, which I thought might be enough to do a lap on Eurosat without VR by means of the single rider queue. Unfortunately this didn’t work out; the line didn’t move in any way for nearly a quarter of an hour, and as I was nowhere near the front I decided to abort so as to be at the VR entrance a few minutes ahead of time.

On my return, I joined the back of what ended up being an hour wait – a bit of a surprise for a paid up-charge with a specific return time, but that’s a rant for another day – that finished up in a small pre-show room where a framed portrait of Carlotta came to life to explain the ride rules and regulations. We then entered a second pre-show area where we put our VR headsets on. Looking around this space in the virtual world revealed that I was now surrounded by people wearing period costume. In due course the virtual lift platform we were all apparently standing on began to descend into the depths of the Palais Garnier, from where we were able to climb into a boat (yes, really) for our onward journey.

Up until this point the experience was pretty good, barring the wait time, but I’m sorry to say that the actual ride portion was somewhat lacking. The lift hill featured artistic imagery that did not connect in any way with the motion (or for that matter the story), and any soundtrack the headsets might have been producing was completely drowned under the music of the parent coaster. The gravity portion had our boat (which somehow had developed the ability to fly) racing through a burning opera house, and while some portions worked well enough the overall frame rate wasn’t high enough to be convincing. The potential of the VR technology is clear, but I there’s still a fair bit to be done before it’s completely ready for prime time.

Once back in the real world I decided to make a second attempt at Eurosat in non-virtual form. Rather than return to the ineffective single rider queue I joined the standby line, where the wait time was just shy of 40 minutes. The experience today was exactly as I remembered it from my pandemic visit in 2020; a superb indoor thrill ride that is a definite contender for the best overall coaster at Europa Park. In a world where rides tend to go bigger, faster, and longer it is refreshing that a thirty-five year old coaster with no records can still hold its own.

By the time I disembarked it was time to meet up with the club group for the planned Q&A. The park has requested that some of what was said remain confidential to those present, but one thing I can share is why there are no metal detectors on Voltron. The park’s view is guests hate them and that they slow things down, an answer that earned a round of applause from those present. I’ve been downvoted on Reddit more than once for making more or less the same point, usually by Americans; so it goes. Herr Metzger had a nice surprise for us too; anyone who wanted one would be given a tour of the Voltron maintenance shed. No photos were allowed in the backstage spaces, but that was fine; I won't forget what I saw any time soon.

There were two other must-do rides for me today. The first was Piraten en Batavia, arguably the park’s signature dark ride. The other was Euro Mir, a long-time staple of the park that I rather suspect to be in its twilight years. Recent geopolitical events have sapped European enthusiasm for all things Russian, and even if that were not the case the hardware is approaching the age Eurosat was when it was given a complete track replacement. Today the experience was as it ever was; intense and thrilling, and a classic that I’m glad I was able to do one more time.