Chris Brown
Mr CoasterForce 2016
Excuse the formatting, im writing this on mobile on my honeymoon in Italy!
A slightly different trip report for my recent Phantasialand trip. This one was for my stag do, which was primarily in Cologne and featured a day at Phantasialand. My logic being, you don’t get many opportunities to drag a bunch of friends to a theme park, or at least a good one outside of the UK. So I figured this was my best opportunity.
My options in the run up were Energylandia, Liseberg or Portaventura. I’ve visited all 3 and wanted to use the opportunity to give me friends a really good European park experience whilst having a city nearby to do the usual boozy stag weekend antics. I’ve not visited Energylandia since 2018 but I was nervous it would be a bit too coaster heavy as one of my best men suffers from motion sickness. Liseberg, I’ve visited twice but always found it to be a significant drop down in quality once you’ve done the big coasters. Portaventura, I’d had an amazing trip December 2025 but wasn’t sure how people would fare in May heat with the park being a bit busier.
Ultimately I went for Phantasialand for what I believe to be its amazing all roundness, and great support line up of attractions. That and cheap flights and a popular stag do city nearby.
I’d previously visited Phantasialand 4 times on various trips with coaster friends / Coasterforce so I’m relatively well versed in how to make the most of the park. That didn’t stop my anxiety running a-mock in the build up to the trip, not helped by me being restricted to booking the trip over the notorious ‘Ascension’ bank holiday weekend.
Ascension (bank holiday) was on the Thursday (14th) so I figured the best bet was to get to the park on the Friday. Tickets were booked in advance, however, in the run up a bit of research lead me to finding out the Friday is a ‘bridge day’ and usually ends up being the busiest day for theme parks over the bank holiday. This was made worse by the weather forecast looking pretty awful. Gloomy and wet.
Anyway, me and 9 others (7 close mates, my dad and my brother) started the weekend from Gatwick airport. As is typical in British stag do’s, I ended up in some pretty awful clobber. I’m known in my friendship group for being political and the guys opted to dress me up in various outfits that best represent the opposite of my political opinions. This meant I started the trip in a full British patriot outfit, ‘stop the boats’ t shirt, St George’s flag bucket hat, reform UK tote bag. This got me stopped in airport security with the T shirt being confiscated, honestly, this kinda made things worse as the reform tote and bucket hat kinda softened the outfit so it wasn’t so obvious I was on a stag, oh well!
Friday - themepark day!
I had the boys all up at 8am ready to get to the park for 8.45 on the dot. I’d had a look at the queue times on previous ‘bridge’ days and it was looking historically grim. Typically 98% - 100% capacity on park. I knew I’d need to be pretty diligent in order to tick the big hitters off.
In typical Phantasialand fashion, the weather turned out great, a little cloudy on opening but mostly blue skies for the rest of the day (this has happened nearly every visit, rain predicted but it never comes).
Entrance / FLY
We rope dropped the entrance and went straight into the FLY queue, we rotated to grab coffees and just absorbed the atmosphere of Rookburgh. Everyone was amazed by the attention to detail, the interaction and the little bits like the cars, the steaming drains and the Charles Lindberg hotel. The hour wait until FLY opened went pretty quick and we were soon winding through the queue to the station. Everyone was shocked by the fact you boarded sideways and let out cheers as we rotated to the flying position.
Everyone in the group loved it, excluding the motion sickness guy who sat it out, they all came off absolutely buzzing, filming the ride, taking pictures of the area. This was the first flyer for most and despite watching multiple test runs from the queue none of them managed to clock quite how long it was or how it had 2 launches so all were in awe of how long it was. The perfect start really!
Winjas
Next I lead the group over to Winjas. I wasn’t sure whether to do this initially as I was nervous about our ability to get on the rest of the must do’s in the park. A quick check of the park App and the 15 minute queue sold it to me.
Everyone was a little confused about Wuze town, which is fair, but all liked the main area with the two creds racing round eachother. 2 sat this out, motion sickness and another guy that isn’t great with ‘spinny ones’.
Queue was a little long than anticipated as i wanted everyone to get on Fear, despite forces queue being longer and some burdens quick pass delayed trains.
General consensus from the group was that it was a sleeper hit, none of them expected the elevator and drops and none expected it to be as forceful as it was. A lot of shouting and laughs as the cars went round. Much better than the pinball one at towers. I’d made a bit of a plan in the queue to hit the water rides next as the queues stay pretty low in the morning and I wanted my motion sickness friend to get some rides in.
Chiapas
A nice quick 10 mins queue and we were on. All 10 of us split across 2 boats. Rave in the disco skull room, everyone soaked, screams on the drop. Best log flume any had been on!
We stopped for a quick beer after this by the entrance to the ride. We then headed up to Talocan to dry off in the sun.
Talocan
I didn’t want to hit this one yet, leaving it to the end of the day, as I know how intense it can be. But with a little Dutch courage the group (excluding the non spinny and motion sickness guys headed in)
The queue was about 20 mins which flew by. For some reason it wasn’t intense as I remember it being, despite a hangover from the previous night still lingering. Boys all loved it, and enjoyed the spectacle, filming, picking out individual people and watching them the entire cycle etc. Next up was River Quest.
River Quest
All 10 of us went on this one, queue was near enough walk on and only one person (my brother) knew anything about the goings on of this ride. This was made better by my friends having only really experienced rumba rapids and Congo river rapids.
Unfortunately the boats seat 9 so we couldn’t do a single boat, we split into 2 5’s and off we went. As you all know there’s not really any preparation for what unfolds on this ride and it takes everyone by complete surprise. The reactions as we went into the elevators was complete confusion, terror and excitement. Shouts and chants as the barriers lifted to reveal the drops were great. Everyone soaked. Genuinely the best thing ever seeing the enthusiasm and excitement from everyone.
(Motion sickness confused by the elevator)
(Motion sickness when he realised it was an elevator)
(Reaction on the first drop reveal)
We dried off after and watched the various videos taken laughing and sharing stories. Consensus was that they didn’t have words for it, all wanted to do it again. All complaining that we don’t have anything like in the UK! By now 2 of my friends had already told their girlfriends that they were coming here for their next holidays.
Black Mamba,
The queue was sitting at 35 mins which was fine. Boys all enjoyed the ride (only motion sickness dropped out in the station which I told him to do). Throughly enjoyed by all, however, the guys did all expect something special when we were sat in the pitch black brakes. I guess they’d come to expect things from Phantasialand given the surprises on the other rides so far.
Next we had a quick pitstop for lunch in China with another quick beer.
I made the impromptu decision to take them all on Feng ju palace after establishing none had ridden Hex at towers. I couldn’t remember it and was dreading a dragged out pre show in German with 10 blokes high on adrenaline and a few beers pissing off the other people. Turns out it’s now in English as well and nowhere near as long as I thought.
All enjoyed the ride (even motion sickness as I’d forgotten to tell him to sit it out). Blown away by the concept and general excitement after finishing. We mooched over to mystery castle next.
Mystery Castle
No throughout the day is managed to keep the huge visually obtrusive tower on the down low, I’d said it was a tower you walk up and that we’d do it if you we do everything else. Surprisingly this was actually believed until we got right by the door at the end of the queue, I’d manage to keep everyone talking and laughing over the sound of the screams and launch system.
Motion sickness had started to enquire behind the doors, the batch before us he was trying poke his head around to see what was going on. Our turn the guys all looked rather confused, but, all sat in the seats.
Lots of screams, motion sickness grabbing my hand after the first little dummy launch. All came off loving it, most ashamed to admit that even after pulling the harness down they didn’t realise what the ride actually was or where they’d go.
Next up was Colorado Adventure.
Colorado Adventure
Queue for this was sitting slightly higher than I expected. Sign was saying 20 mins which meant I wasn’t sure whether or not to go for it (I was aware we hadn’t done Taron, Maus or any re rides yet) but went for it. Annoyingly it ended up being closer to 40 mins, in the station there just seemed to be constant quick pass faff. Unsure how the system worked but I looked like the quick passes were scanned at the bottom of the quick pass queue or something as each train would have to wait for the quick passes despite the regular passengers having been loaded for a while.
Anyway, ride was very well received. I made everyone go for back the back 5 rows as I know this is pretty wild in the back. All were amazed by the interactions, the general atmosphere intensity and the surprising airtime. Couldn’t believe it was a family ride!
Next up we stopped for a quick beer and snack in the bar next to Rutmors tavern which was great for building anticipation, everyone had clocked taron when we got lost numerous times throughout the day!
Taron
Queue had dropped to around 40 mins (it was around an hour for most of the day) this went pretty quickly and luckily the top cattle pen wasn’t being used. Quite surprising considering the queue was out onto the main bridge most of the day.
Plenty of videos and filming done by my friends who were loving just how close you can get, also, lots of comments on the noises of the launches.
I reserved myself back row and off we went. I’ve probably been on Taron 40+ times over the years so I know it pretty well. My friends were in complete shock after, second launch was described at the best thing ever, comments about how it felt like they were getting thrown out of their seats. Buzz after the ride was amazing, firmly placed as everyone’s favourite coaster!
After that we all went and sat in the square for a bit of a chill out. 4 went off for a re ride on River quest and me and others went for a quick single ride re ride on Taron which was super handy.
Maus
After that me and the Taron single riders headed to Maus, was a bit of a shame as I’d be banging on about how the entire group was going to smash the high scores on Maus, given the wrist action involved…
All 6 enjoyed, I smashed them all on the scores but overall they really liked the theme, the concept behind the ride and the screens / shooting.
After that we all met back up in the square, some popped for fancy cakes in the little entrance shop and others headed for gelato. It was around 6.30 by now (the park extended opening to 7) but we were all done and had a booking in the city at 7.30.
All in all, despite the park being at capacity everything worked out amazingly well. We never queued more than an hour (excluding the initial wait for FLY to open) and got on everything that i thought was necessary. In all FLY tended to sit around 35-45 mins throughout the day, Taron, slightly higher sat around 50 - 110 mins but I never saw it any higher, Mamba was around 30 - 45 mins, slightly less for Colorado, Winjas sat around 45 mins all day after we’d got it out of the way early on. Maus was 20 mins most of the day, Crazy bats and Raik seemed to stay high around 50 mins, Chiapas and River quest never seemed to get above 25 mins.
Lots of comments throughout the day about how beautiful and well themed the park was, the guys couldn’t really comprehend how small it was and how they’d managed to cram it all in. Looking at google maps and seeing how close everything is together surprised them. Numerous dogs spotted throughout the day which was a nice addition, food and snacks were great, vibes all round were just so different to UK’s offering. One thing they really liked was just the sheer amount of effort put into everything, they were blown away by the food, the settings of the eateries, the value, and just how it was obvious the park really cared about the guest experience. I did obviously tell them that the park was at capacity and my other visits have been much more relaxed but they’re used to one train ops waiting an hour for colossus or just doing rides at Towers for the sake of it because there is no decent filler away from the coasters.
Ultimately the main takeaway was that they kinda understand my weird little roller coaster obsession a lot more now, they’ve been asking for advice for any similar city break or good European park trips they can visit themselves, which I’ve happily given!
After the park we went straight to a karaoke bar in the city and I murdered various songs in front of 400 odd people, Limp Bizkit - break stuff, Smash Mouth - All star, Natalie Imbruglia - Torn, Oasis - don’t look back in anger to name a few.
So, if you’re considering it for your stag or just wanna suggest a park trip to non enthusiast friends, I’d say go for it, expect some grumbles when you tell them they’ve gotta be ready for rope drop or that you’re expecting to stay til closing but, pick the right park and all will be grand, even if it’s the busiest day of the year!
Made it home safe after just about surviving the remaining days. Then got married shortly after!
A slightly different trip report for my recent Phantasialand trip. This one was for my stag do, which was primarily in Cologne and featured a day at Phantasialand. My logic being, you don’t get many opportunities to drag a bunch of friends to a theme park, or at least a good one outside of the UK. So I figured this was my best opportunity.
My options in the run up were Energylandia, Liseberg or Portaventura. I’ve visited all 3 and wanted to use the opportunity to give me friends a really good European park experience whilst having a city nearby to do the usual boozy stag weekend antics. I’ve not visited Energylandia since 2018 but I was nervous it would be a bit too coaster heavy as one of my best men suffers from motion sickness. Liseberg, I’ve visited twice but always found it to be a significant drop down in quality once you’ve done the big coasters. Portaventura, I’d had an amazing trip December 2025 but wasn’t sure how people would fare in May heat with the park being a bit busier.
Ultimately I went for Phantasialand for what I believe to be its amazing all roundness, and great support line up of attractions. That and cheap flights and a popular stag do city nearby.
I’d previously visited Phantasialand 4 times on various trips with coaster friends / Coasterforce so I’m relatively well versed in how to make the most of the park. That didn’t stop my anxiety running a-mock in the build up to the trip, not helped by me being restricted to booking the trip over the notorious ‘Ascension’ bank holiday weekend.
Ascension (bank holiday) was on the Thursday (14th) so I figured the best bet was to get to the park on the Friday. Tickets were booked in advance, however, in the run up a bit of research lead me to finding out the Friday is a ‘bridge day’ and usually ends up being the busiest day for theme parks over the bank holiday. This was made worse by the weather forecast looking pretty awful. Gloomy and wet.
Anyway, me and 9 others (7 close mates, my dad and my brother) started the weekend from Gatwick airport. As is typical in British stag do’s, I ended up in some pretty awful clobber. I’m known in my friendship group for being political and the guys opted to dress me up in various outfits that best represent the opposite of my political opinions. This meant I started the trip in a full British patriot outfit, ‘stop the boats’ t shirt, St George’s flag bucket hat, reform UK tote bag. This got me stopped in airport security with the T shirt being confiscated, honestly, this kinda made things worse as the reform tote and bucket hat kinda softened the outfit so it wasn’t so obvious I was on a stag, oh well!
Friday - themepark day!
I had the boys all up at 8am ready to get to the park for 8.45 on the dot. I’d had a look at the queue times on previous ‘bridge’ days and it was looking historically grim. Typically 98% - 100% capacity on park. I knew I’d need to be pretty diligent in order to tick the big hitters off.
In typical Phantasialand fashion, the weather turned out great, a little cloudy on opening but mostly blue skies for the rest of the day (this has happened nearly every visit, rain predicted but it never comes).
Entrance / FLY
We rope dropped the entrance and went straight into the FLY queue, we rotated to grab coffees and just absorbed the atmosphere of Rookburgh. Everyone was amazed by the attention to detail, the interaction and the little bits like the cars, the steaming drains and the Charles Lindberg hotel. The hour wait until FLY opened went pretty quick and we were soon winding through the queue to the station. Everyone was shocked by the fact you boarded sideways and let out cheers as we rotated to the flying position.
Everyone in the group loved it, excluding the motion sickness guy who sat it out, they all came off absolutely buzzing, filming the ride, taking pictures of the area. This was the first flyer for most and despite watching multiple test runs from the queue none of them managed to clock quite how long it was or how it had 2 launches so all were in awe of how long it was. The perfect start really!
Winjas
Next I lead the group over to Winjas. I wasn’t sure whether to do this initially as I was nervous about our ability to get on the rest of the must do’s in the park. A quick check of the park App and the 15 minute queue sold it to me.
Everyone was a little confused about Wuze town, which is fair, but all liked the main area with the two creds racing round eachother. 2 sat this out, motion sickness and another guy that isn’t great with ‘spinny ones’.
Queue was a little long than anticipated as i wanted everyone to get on Fear, despite forces queue being longer and some burdens quick pass delayed trains.
General consensus from the group was that it was a sleeper hit, none of them expected the elevator and drops and none expected it to be as forceful as it was. A lot of shouting and laughs as the cars went round. Much better than the pinball one at towers. I’d made a bit of a plan in the queue to hit the water rides next as the queues stay pretty low in the morning and I wanted my motion sickness friend to get some rides in.
Chiapas
A nice quick 10 mins queue and we were on. All 10 of us split across 2 boats. Rave in the disco skull room, everyone soaked, screams on the drop. Best log flume any had been on!
We stopped for a quick beer after this by the entrance to the ride. We then headed up to Talocan to dry off in the sun.
Talocan
I didn’t want to hit this one yet, leaving it to the end of the day, as I know how intense it can be. But with a little Dutch courage the group (excluding the non spinny and motion sickness guys headed in)
The queue was about 20 mins which flew by. For some reason it wasn’t intense as I remember it being, despite a hangover from the previous night still lingering. Boys all loved it, and enjoyed the spectacle, filming, picking out individual people and watching them the entire cycle etc. Next up was River Quest.
River Quest
All 10 of us went on this one, queue was near enough walk on and only one person (my brother) knew anything about the goings on of this ride. This was made better by my friends having only really experienced rumba rapids and Congo river rapids.
Unfortunately the boats seat 9 so we couldn’t do a single boat, we split into 2 5’s and off we went. As you all know there’s not really any preparation for what unfolds on this ride and it takes everyone by complete surprise. The reactions as we went into the elevators was complete confusion, terror and excitement. Shouts and chants as the barriers lifted to reveal the drops were great. Everyone soaked. Genuinely the best thing ever seeing the enthusiasm and excitement from everyone.
(Motion sickness confused by the elevator)
(Motion sickness when he realised it was an elevator)
(Reaction on the first drop reveal)
We dried off after and watched the various videos taken laughing and sharing stories. Consensus was that they didn’t have words for it, all wanted to do it again. All complaining that we don’t have anything like in the UK! By now 2 of my friends had already told their girlfriends that they were coming here for their next holidays.
Black Mamba,
The queue was sitting at 35 mins which was fine. Boys all enjoyed the ride (only motion sickness dropped out in the station which I told him to do). Throughly enjoyed by all, however, the guys did all expect something special when we were sat in the pitch black brakes. I guess they’d come to expect things from Phantasialand given the surprises on the other rides so far.
Next we had a quick pitstop for lunch in China with another quick beer.
I made the impromptu decision to take them all on Feng ju palace after establishing none had ridden Hex at towers. I couldn’t remember it and was dreading a dragged out pre show in German with 10 blokes high on adrenaline and a few beers pissing off the other people. Turns out it’s now in English as well and nowhere near as long as I thought.
All enjoyed the ride (even motion sickness as I’d forgotten to tell him to sit it out). Blown away by the concept and general excitement after finishing. We mooched over to mystery castle next.
Mystery Castle
No throughout the day is managed to keep the huge visually obtrusive tower on the down low, I’d said it was a tower you walk up and that we’d do it if you we do everything else. Surprisingly this was actually believed until we got right by the door at the end of the queue, I’d manage to keep everyone talking and laughing over the sound of the screams and launch system.
Motion sickness had started to enquire behind the doors, the batch before us he was trying poke his head around to see what was going on. Our turn the guys all looked rather confused, but, all sat in the seats.
Lots of screams, motion sickness grabbing my hand after the first little dummy launch. All came off loving it, most ashamed to admit that even after pulling the harness down they didn’t realise what the ride actually was or where they’d go.
Next up was Colorado Adventure.
Colorado Adventure
Queue for this was sitting slightly higher than I expected. Sign was saying 20 mins which meant I wasn’t sure whether or not to go for it (I was aware we hadn’t done Taron, Maus or any re rides yet) but went for it. Annoyingly it ended up being closer to 40 mins, in the station there just seemed to be constant quick pass faff. Unsure how the system worked but I looked like the quick passes were scanned at the bottom of the quick pass queue or something as each train would have to wait for the quick passes despite the regular passengers having been loaded for a while.
Anyway, ride was very well received. I made everyone go for back the back 5 rows as I know this is pretty wild in the back. All were amazed by the interactions, the general atmosphere intensity and the surprising airtime. Couldn’t believe it was a family ride!
Next up we stopped for a quick beer and snack in the bar next to Rutmors tavern which was great for building anticipation, everyone had clocked taron when we got lost numerous times throughout the day!
Taron
Queue had dropped to around 40 mins (it was around an hour for most of the day) this went pretty quickly and luckily the top cattle pen wasn’t being used. Quite surprising considering the queue was out onto the main bridge most of the day.
Plenty of videos and filming done by my friends who were loving just how close you can get, also, lots of comments on the noises of the launches.
I reserved myself back row and off we went. I’ve probably been on Taron 40+ times over the years so I know it pretty well. My friends were in complete shock after, second launch was described at the best thing ever, comments about how it felt like they were getting thrown out of their seats. Buzz after the ride was amazing, firmly placed as everyone’s favourite coaster!
After that we all went and sat in the square for a bit of a chill out. 4 went off for a re ride on River quest and me and others went for a quick single ride re ride on Taron which was super handy.
Maus
After that me and the Taron single riders headed to Maus, was a bit of a shame as I’d be banging on about how the entire group was going to smash the high scores on Maus, given the wrist action involved…
All 6 enjoyed, I smashed them all on the scores but overall they really liked the theme, the concept behind the ride and the screens / shooting.
After that we all met back up in the square, some popped for fancy cakes in the little entrance shop and others headed for gelato. It was around 6.30 by now (the park extended opening to 7) but we were all done and had a booking in the city at 7.30.
All in all, despite the park being at capacity everything worked out amazingly well. We never queued more than an hour (excluding the initial wait for FLY to open) and got on everything that i thought was necessary. In all FLY tended to sit around 35-45 mins throughout the day, Taron, slightly higher sat around 50 - 110 mins but I never saw it any higher, Mamba was around 30 - 45 mins, slightly less for Colorado, Winjas sat around 45 mins all day after we’d got it out of the way early on. Maus was 20 mins most of the day, Crazy bats and Raik seemed to stay high around 50 mins, Chiapas and River quest never seemed to get above 25 mins.
Lots of comments throughout the day about how beautiful and well themed the park was, the guys couldn’t really comprehend how small it was and how they’d managed to cram it all in. Looking at google maps and seeing how close everything is together surprised them. Numerous dogs spotted throughout the day which was a nice addition, food and snacks were great, vibes all round were just so different to UK’s offering. One thing they really liked was just the sheer amount of effort put into everything, they were blown away by the food, the settings of the eateries, the value, and just how it was obvious the park really cared about the guest experience. I did obviously tell them that the park was at capacity and my other visits have been much more relaxed but they’re used to one train ops waiting an hour for colossus or just doing rides at Towers for the sake of it because there is no decent filler away from the coasters.
Ultimately the main takeaway was that they kinda understand my weird little roller coaster obsession a lot more now, they’ve been asking for advice for any similar city break or good European park trips they can visit themselves, which I’ve happily given!
After the park we went straight to a karaoke bar in the city and I murdered various songs in front of 400 odd people, Limp Bizkit - break stuff, Smash Mouth - All star, Natalie Imbruglia - Torn, Oasis - don’t look back in anger to name a few.
So, if you’re considering it for your stag or just wanna suggest a park trip to non enthusiast friends, I’d say go for it, expect some grumbles when you tell them they’ve gotta be ready for rope drop or that you’re expecting to stay til closing but, pick the right park and all will be grand, even if it’s the busiest day of the year!
Made it home safe after just about surviving the remaining days. Then got married shortly after!
Attachments
Last edited:
