Earlier this year we took a trip to Germany, and visited Holiday Park which is most known for its headline attraction Expedition GeForce. The theme park is located near the city of Mannheim and is within a reasonable driving distance from Stuttgart, Strasbourg, and Baden-Baden airport.
The park has a lovely entrance plaza, and a further open area once entering the park with fountains which seemed popular to run around in, even in the cooler weather.
Expedition GeForce was the main draw to the park for ourselves and it certainly didn't disappoint! The Intamin coaster is over 50 meters tall, with a drop at an angle of 82 degrees and a top speed of over 70mph, it really is an exhilarating ride. The ride experience features the breathtaking drop, over banked turns, and lots of forceful airtime which we loved.
The park has a selection of other main thrilling and fun rides. Sky Scream is a launched Premier Rides coaster, which features forwards and backward launches in a fun compact layout. The slow inversion at the top of the ride is certainly sure to get your heart racing! Sky Fly is a Gerstlauer ride themed around flying, and the idea of the ride is to do exactly that. There are wings next to each individual seat which can be moved to help create a spinning motion whilst going around, which makes for a great interactive ride which you decide how intense it is. Anubis is the Intamin drop tower standing prominently at the main plaza area once inside the park. It has 3 sides, and all give great views of the park and surrounding area to enjoy on the slow journey up, before plummeting back down on Europe's first free-fall drop tower!
Holiday park have 2 main water rides which are staple attractions at a theme park and we were glad to see. Wickie Splash is a lengthy log flume with 3 drops, including a dark section which we thoroughly enjoyed and certainly got wet! The Roaring River is the park's Rapids attraction and like all good rapid rides a comes with a big element of uncertainty, you can never really tell if you're going to get wet or not - some of our group got a soaking when we were least expecting it!
For 2017 the park have put a lot of effort into re-themeing a section of their park, with the addition of 2 new family attractions. The area is on the edge of the lake where the park's impressive live action show takes place, so it's only fitting the park have gone for a seaside/beach theme. The existing star flyer attraction is included in the area, themed to a lighthouse, and gives great views of the park and surrounding area at the top, though you definitely need a head for heights as it's surprisingly tall.
The park also has a specific area for younger children called Majaland which includes a large variety of rides. There are also other rides for children and families throughout the park.
We had the opportunity to film a couple of Point of View videos on the parks headline rollercoasters. (Note: The policy at the time of recording required a secure chest harness and permission from the staff members on each ride)
We incorporated Holiday Park into our Germany theme park trip which consisted of Tripsdrill & Europa Park as well. We strongly feel it is difficult to compare the parks, as each one has it's own charm and atmosphere, but one thing they all share in common is world-class rollercoasters in their attraction lineup, and are not to be missed.