Europa Park - Review
I just came back from 4 days in the Europa Park amusement park, in Germany. I highly recommend it, if you want a nice theme park vacation with the kids. It's far superior to Euro Disney (where I was 2 years ago).
Here's what's good about it:
- Not too far (4.5 hours from GVA by train, door to door)
- Reasonable prices. None of these parks are cheap, but here you don't feel like you're getting ripped off (like you do in Euro Disney)
- Excellent rides, for yound kids and for older kids.
- Super clean.
- Excellent service from all staff. I don't know how they hire, but it's amazing - every staff person we ran into, was motivated and took the extra step.
- Excellent hotels on the premises. We stayed at the Colloseo hotel, and loved it.
The less good things:
- At peak season (July-Sep), you got to wait a long time for the popular rides.
- The animated character speak German! Takes a bit of getting used to...(-;
Tips:
- Go in mid week (and not in the weekend) if you can. There's significantly less people on the mid week.
- Sleep in the park. It might be a bit more expensive, but damn - it's worth it. Especially the Colloseo hotel: what a pleasure!
- Take the Europa Park shuttle from Basel. It comes out slightly more expensive than a train (for a family of 4), but you save 1 hour and a lot of hassle.
Really - it's a great place, and very well managed. I highly recommend it, and am 110% sure you'll enjoy it more than it's Disney competitor.
Have a great vacation!
