Europapark in the Summer

Many people, including me, always preach to never visit the Europapark in the summer, especially with school being out in many parts of France, Germany and Switzerland. Well, we decided to fuck all those warnings and risk it.

The weather forecast was actually perfect, it wasn’t supposed to be hot and a bit cloudy. So we drove there early to get a jump start on the popular rides and avoid long queues. Arriving there before the Park opened was a first for me but still, there were plenty of people with the same idea so we got worried. Surprisingly it paid off. The big rides at the other end of the Park were practically empty, so it was a walk-through, and by 10 am we were on all the rides (we even could stay seated on one and go again). the weather was a bit mixed with some slight rain a few times in between but nothing to be worried about.

We had lunch with a lake view (Picture above) and then decided to see what rides to go on depending on the waiting time for each of them. The weather got better and warmer so it was time to go on all those fun water rides. And again, we never had to wait longer than 15 minutes. It all seemed too perfect and then just as quickly as the sun came it started to rain. Coming from a water ride and being soaking wet was bad timing. It got cold and there was no roofed ride in sight. So it was either waiting somewhere safe or walking in the rain to a roofed ride and enjoying that in the meantime.

There are a few options, like the Horror-House, the classic Pirates of Batavia and the new Voletarium. Wet from head to toes from water rides and the rain we found shelter in the new video ride Voletarium which was quite nice but not worth waiting 30 minutes for it.

Coming out and the rain stopped but we started to get kinda tired. The only big ride we missed was the Silver Star (the whole morning they had maintenance issues) so we tried again but being closed half a day everyone had the same idea so waiting time was not worth it and our legs became heavy.

So we skipped that and headed for the exit where we were approached by young people doing surveys for the Park. Even though we were beaten we played along. The gift? A free ticket for the next visit! What a surprising end to an overall fun day on what I assumed would be a day waiting in line for rides. I would do it again, but you have to be clever nonetheless.