How many days do you need at Europa Park?

Continuing my current series on Europa Park following my October trip today I ask ‘How many days do you need at Europa Park?’ and share my personal opinion on allowing enough time to get everything in at this massive theme park in Germany which spans 95 hectares.

If you’re looking for a guide on getting to Europa Park from the UK you might also want to check out this post.

How many attractions are at Europa Park?

The official Europa Park website lists 93 attractions, this includes rides, the Coastiality VR ride experiences and play areas. This doesn’t take into account shows which includes ice shows, 4D shows and shows which vary depending on the season on different stages and in different venues across the park.

These 93 attractions span 20 themed areas many of which are themed around countries allowing you to travel through world through Spain to Italy, Liechtenstein to Russia.

What roller coasters are at Europa Park?

If you’re looking to up your coaster credits then Europa Park has some fantastic roller coasters.

The roller coasters offering the biggest thrills are:

1. Blue Fire Megacoaster – A Mack launched coaster with some good theming and fun inversions.
   Wodan – A wooden coaster manufactured by GCI international packing in some fantastic near-misses, twists and turns.
   Silver Star – A B&M hyper coaster with an out-and-back layout going over the car park. This coaster offers some great airtime.
   Voltron – A Mack striker coaster which opened earlier this year. This coaster is so good I wrote a whole review!

Then you have some fun coasters which don’t offer as big-a-thrills but are great none-the-less. This includes Matterhorn Blitz (a Mack wild mouse), Alpine Express (a powered coaster), Euro-Mir (a spinning coaster), CanCan Coaster (an indoor coaster), Swiss Bob Run (a bobsleigh coaster), Arthur (a beautifully themed suspended powered coaster) and Pegasus (a kids coaster) plus a couple more kids coasters.

Europa Park is also home to some fun water rides including a water coaster, log flume, rapids ride and Antartica super splash.

So, how long do you actually need at Europa Park?

Essentially this depends on how much of the park you want to experience and who is in your party. Having experienced it recently as 2 adults I’d say three days is perfect (we had a break between days 2 and 3 to visit Rulantica, the water park, which is also well-worth a visit). We found that 3 days allowed us to not be constantly rushing to get on the next thing, allowed for re-rides and kept a nicer pace.

It’s also worth noting that when we visited it was pretty busy with some coasters reaching queues up to 65 minutes but that if it’s busy the park extends the hours so you’re guaranteed a park day from 9am until 6pm but each day this was extended to 8pm. There is also the option for some free virtual queue via the Europa Park app.

For us, day 1 was about getting a feel for the park. We started with a monorail trip around the entire park to see everything from above and then started working through the themed areas checking out some of the coasters and flat rides as we went along. This day also happened to be 20 degrees and sunny (which is odd for October) so we took advantage and got some water rides in too! Finally, we even managed to squeeze the Ice Show in on this day too.

We had 1 night at one of the Europa Park hotels which meant 2 day we came in via the hotel entrance into Spain rather than the main park entrance, we took advantage of this and took the train around the park to see everything from a different perspective.

Europa Park actually has 2 monorails and a train all of which have stops around the park making them great for viewing the whole park but also for getting around.

Day 2 gave us a chance to finish off the major coasters and of course, get some re-rides in on Voltron, Wodan and Silver Star.

Then day 3 was about covering the rest of the park, we managed some of the smaller dark rides and boat rides and then focused on re-riding the things we’d loved the most.

We tried not to take things too quickly and consequently, there were still a lot of smaller rides which would have been fun to do that we didn’t have time to do because we prioritised re-rides.

If you’re main purpose of Europa is getting your coaster credits then you could probably march yourself around the park and do these in a day, even with long queues the park hours and impressive operations means you could fit them all in but I’d recommend at least 2 days so you can soak in the atmosphere and beauty of this stunning park.

What if you have kids?

For families you might want to push it to 4 days because there’s a lot of rides for smaller children. Europa Park also offer a ‘baby switch’ service (this doesn’t mean you can swap your stroppy child for a nicer one!). This service means one of you can queue and ride, ask the staff for a baby switch pass and your partner can then ride after you without having to queue. This service is fantastic and is available for all attractions you cannot ride with your child.

Europa Park also has a baby supply store on site and rents out pushchairs.

I don’t have kids so can’t comment more on Europa for families but there’s a lot to do, especially if you go and see the shows too, and you’ll certainly want to rely on the transport rides to get around the park.

Summary

In summary Europa Park is not just a massive theme park but it’s packed with beautiful theming, shows, roller coasters, flat rides and plenty of spaces to stop for a drink, snack or meal. It’s a park that you fall in love with and want to return to as soon as possible but, for those travelling, you’re certainly going to want to allow 3 days to get the most out of your visit in my opinion.