Now back to our previously scheduled trip...the next day we were on our way to a fun filled weekend with friends to Europapark, a theme park in Germany. Starting with the mice for mascots, to the park being organized by different countries like Epcot, right down to rides like the tea cups, a pirates of the caribbean type ride and a hunted house, lots of things reminded me of Disney.
Europapark was amazingly clean and well organized and had entertaining shows as well. The biggest difference was that everything was in German. We watched two shows, one in German but with lots of action, so it was easy to follow the story and the other was the music of the Beatles and the cast literally sang the entire show in English of course!
The park is located just over the French border, so a lot of communication was in French as well. Fortunately, the employees wore badges that indicated what language they spoke and between my French and English we were able to communicate. Well there was this one drink ordering incident in which I was relegated back to charades since the server only spoke German. I didn't get exactly what I wanted, but I did get a drink!
I would say my favorite part about this trip was the value. We spent less on two-day tickets to Europapark than we would have on a one day ticket to Disney. And the value continued as far as our hotel and food as well. We were able to stay within 5 minutes walking distance from the park at a very nice guesthouse. It was very family friendly including a nice yard and game room and the price for 3 nights was the same as one night in Paris!
One thing that was not like Disney was the fact that the park closed at 6pm. The great thing about that is we left the park at a reasonable hour and were able to enjoy nice dinners out and go back to our hotel to rest up for the next day instead of trying to stay in the park all night.
Of course the best part of the vacation for my children was the fun we had on the rides. I would say that some of the roller coasters were more thrilling than Disney and much more smooth than coasters at home. I am glad that we all love roller coasters and have the height to ride together. As you can see from the picture, there were lots of thrills!
