Everything you need to know about your trip to Europa Park

Before working in the Attractions industry, I’d never heard of Europa Park, a massive theme park in southern Germany but quickly learnt how much of a big deal it is, and is rated as one of the best theme parks in mainland Europe!

Walking around the park, you may be fooled into thinking you could be in EPCOT, Orlando, from the massive golf ball which dominates the centre of the park (there’s also a ride inside too!). There’s also a parallel with the theming and the fact that it’s based on different countries, however this place takes EPCOT’s world showcase and multiples it by 10! The theming truly makes it an unforgettable experience, as we recently found out on a recent trip to the park in August.

Interested in visiting, or already have a trip planned? Then stay tuned for some tips and tricks which we learnt along the way!

The logistics ✈️🚘

You may be wondering, this sounds great, but how do I get there? The closest airport to Europa Park is Basel airport located in Switzerland and this is how we got there. We’re lucky enough to have friends who live in Basel so could stay with them prior to heading off to the park. It’s around an hour’s drive so decided to hire a car. There are bus and train options too at affordable prices which go direct from Basel to Europa Park, but we opted for the hire car for more flexibility. We picked up the hire car at Basel airport which was super easy. Be warned though, car hire is on the pricier side in Switzerland (as is everything else) and cost around £310 for a car from Friday to Monday which we split between the four of us. They also upgraded us for free at the airport and we had an absolutely superb Mazda CX5, which was super comfortable, with loads of room for the four of us.

We headed to Europa Park early Saturday morning and arrived just in time for the park to open at 9am. The route from Basel is super easy and is mainly one big motorway.

💡Pro Tip: When picking up your hire car, be sure to ask about the ‘vignette’, a permit that the Swiss use to go in and out of Germany. There was one stuck onto our windscreen which meant that when crossing the Swiss/German border, we weren’t stopped as border patrol simply took one look and we were good to go.

Tickets 🎟️

During summer the park is open later, sometimes not shutting until 8pm, which means plenty of time to ride all of the coasters! We had pre-booked our admission tickets meaning that we didn’t have to queue very much at the gate and just had to scan our QR codes and we were in. Europa Park is slightly more expensive than some other major theme parks, however we felt that it was well worth the money. We paid around £145 each for a two day park ticket and an evening ticket at Rulantica, their water park which is located next door.

Accommodation 🏨

There are plenty of accommodation options on-site and all of Europa Park’s hotels are themed. We decided to stay offsite due to how eye-wateringly expensive they were and stayed in a recently refurbished Holiday Inn Express which was about a 6-7 minute drive away. This was a bargain, costing £135 per room per night which included a really good breakfast. I would definitely stay in this hotel again, but the nearby town of Rust also boasts lots of affordable hotel options (Germany is far cheaper than Switzerland and you can really see the difference in hotel prices!). Even after factoring in €10 per day for parking at Europa Park, we would definitely continue to stay offsite in future. Besides, you can always pop into one of the themed hotels for a bite to eat or a drink, something we’ll definitely be doing in future.

Overview 🎡

We had been warned before going that there is so much to see and do here that you need a minimum of 3 days and boy were they right! In future, we’ll spend a whole day in Rulantica, but more on that later! Europa Park is divided into 16 areas, all attributed to a particular European country, each perfectly themed, including themed attractions and food. You could easily spend half a day wandering around watching shows and visiting attractions that aren’t rides. It’s also one of the most organised and efficient parks I’ve ever been to also bearing in mind that we visited during school holidays and on the weekend! The longest we had to queue for a ride was 40 minutes and they actively opened and closed rides ensuring that people got a chance to get around the park and/or they open virtual fast track lanes. We found that the food was no pricier than what you’d expect to pay for in a standard theme park with a full lunch/main meal costing £10-£15. Bear in mind that most of the food is themed depending on country, it really does make for a very cool and interesting culinary experience!

The rides 🎢

The rides here are INSANE. They really do have fun for any age; from MASSIVE thrill rides, to rides for little ones, to family rides. If like us, you want big thrills, then the main rides are Voltron which you will find in Croatia land (recently opened and highly anticipated!), Blue Fire, Wodan (both in Iceland) and Silver Star (located in France). These absolutely blew us away and Voltron is up there in joint-place with my all time favourite rollercoaster (joint with Hyperia which you will find in Thorpe Park, England and funnily enough made by the same manufacturers – Mack rides!). We loved how they’d even themed the rollercoasters to the country from the Russian space rocket themed coaster, Euro-Mir to the Can Can Coaster which you’ll find inside the golf ball in France land!

With so much fun on the rollercoasters, do not underestimate the water rides. I’m less of a fan of these for fear of getting drenched, but as it was so warn (35C!) we thought we’d ride a couple as a great chance to cool down and this worked out well! I tend to pack a pair of flip flops when visiting a park with water rides and they came in handy on this trip! With some fantastic water rides in the Portuguese and Spanish themed lands, you’re sure in for a treat.

Bags of fun 🎒

One question I always have when visiting theme parks is what do we do with our bags when on the rides? While some US parks favour lockers, Europa Park had quite a unique contraption for most of the big thrill rides which I think is worth sharing here. When getting on many of the rides, you place your bag on the side of a particular shelf, then when the ride sets off, the shelf self-locks and only unlocks when you’ve finished the ride meaning that while on the ride, your valuables are secure! I’ve never seen this before and thought it was really nifty.

Rulantica💧

We love a waterpark but by the time 5pm rolled around and we could enter the water park with our evening ticket we were all exhausted! Nevertheless we set off; we’d paid for our ticket afterall! Not is there loads of pools and waterslides, but there’s even a DJ which plays a set from 7pm in the outside pool area. The fact we could drink and listen to live music felt like we were more in Ibiza than a German waterpark! The water slides are amazing, featuring Europe’s largest racing slide (you will have to climb 13 flights of stairs to get to the top, though!). We stayed from 5pm-10pm which is when it closes and really underestimated how much there is to do here. Next time, we’ll spend an entire day as there are so many sun loungers inside and out, meaning you could have a whole day relaxing and playing around too. There are also some good food options inside. I also have no photos of Rulantica as our phones were locked away and we were too busy throwing ourselves down water slides! Google it to check out how awesome the attractions are here, though.

Again, German efficiency was on display with how they organised purchases in the waterpark. Upon arrival and scanning our tickets, we were given a wristband which we could use for all purchases; food, drink and shop. At the end of your visit you simple settle your bill and that’s it!

In conclusion 📝

Is it worth it? Absolutely! We’re already planning a trip back and want to make it an annual trip. IMO it’s better than some Disney parks, made better with how efficiently run it was and how organised the whole place was. With so many cheap flights to Basel too, it probably comes in at half the cost of a Disneyland Paris trip.

Top tips when visiting next time:

🕐 More time! A minimum of 3 days is required if you really want to see an experience everything. Next time, we’ll opt for two full days in Europa Park and a day in Rulantica.

☀️ Consider the time of year to visit! Although we had beautiful sunshine, walking around in 35C heat in the height of August was no joke and at times made us feel ill (which was nothing to do with the rides), visiting in Spring or Autumn seems like a much better plan.