Europa Park

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AstroDan

It's not a tv advert, as they don't do tv adverts.

More just a promo trailer for the website etc.

:)

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Nightfall
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AstroDan wrote: It's not a tv advert, as they don't do tv adverts.

More just a promo trailer for the website etc.

:)
Am I reading this right? Germany's most visited theme park doesn't even bother with TV advertising? How do they manage it? Alton and the other Merlin parks must spend 10s of thousands of pounds on advertising yet Europa is hitting record attendance without even trying. No wonder they have so much spare cash for new development. I think Merlin is missing a serious cost cutting technique.
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AstroDan

Europa do not advertise in all of Germany. They do not advertise to most of France.

They simply haven't got the hotel capacity to deal with the potential increase in guest numbers that nationwide advertising could bring.

:)

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AstroDan

Construction Update: 25.1.12

The latest from the construction site - thanks to EPFans.

Coaster and brake run in foreground:
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The gap between Blue Fire and Wodan? The width of your hand!
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Station and Lift:
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Station construction:
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Mythical world:
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Detail:
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Hop over Atlantica:
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:D
Sazzle

Wow - absolutely stunning! I'm interested to see how the areas are looking from afar, i.e. the classic shots of Atlantica from the viewing area near the 'steps' at the far end of the pool, and Blue fire from the area entrance undernearth Fjord Rafting.

I'm very, very excited to see some testing videos and a POV :D.

Bring on April 1st!
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Russell
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Thanks Dan! :)

While I can't deny that this is looking fatastic, the rock work is superb, I still despise the way it interacts with ASS. The Blue Fire end I don't mind so much but it seems to really take away some of the imposing nature of ASS. Maybe I will be won over in April! :)
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From what we saw at New Year it will provide a great new headchopper on ASS, really looking forward to it :D
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BIan
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I am the opposite Russell, I think it goes better with Atlantica as the Wooden coaster goes with the pirate ship theme.  And it also adds a better near miss experience for that first (second if you count the mini backwards one) drop on Atlantica.

Its a shame more of Blue Fire could not be hidden, as that First brake run is the most hideous part of Blue Fire for me, and my worry is that having Wodan close to that part but not hiding it will make it stand out more.

Still, the scale and ambition that Mack and CGI have taken with this coaster is something other parks would not even attempt, and if it does not work out as well as we hope, they should be applauded for trying it when other parks would of played it safe.

I am looking forward to seeing this coaster next year, and all the photos everyone takes in April.

Ian
AstroDan

A fantastic little snippet from Pat Slattery, one of the Interns working for GCI at the moment. On his blog, it says:
Hi everyone, I’m Pat Slattery, and I’m the new intern here at GCII in Sunbury. Like former intern Eamon, I’m from the Ohio State University, and am in the Theme Park Engineering Group there. I actually first interviewed for this internship at the same time as Eamon, in October 2009. I interviewed again in October 2010, and then just a couple months ago finally got the call from Chris that I had been selected, over two years after my first interview with GCII. If I had to give one piece of advice to someone trying to get a job in this industry, it’s that patience and perseverance are absolutely vital.

I’ve been working at GCII since January 3rd, and despite my late start to this blog (at first due to lack of internet access, and then due to a lovely and enjoyable week-long bout with the flu), I do intend to keep this site fairly well updated. I’ll start by giving a quick overview of my time with GCII so far. This has been an extremely busy few weeks for everyone here as we work to complete three Millennium Flyer trains for Europa Park’s Wodan Timburcoaster. We completed the first three cars in time for them to be shipped on the 17th (while also working on the rest of the cars for the first train so they can be shipped this week). While I was out with the flu last week, the rest of the assembly crew (Adam, Dan, Chris, and Mats) worked like crazy and got the rest of the Train 1 cars done a few days ahead of schedule. There’s no time to stop and rest, however, as the second and third trains need to be finished in a few weeks!

Today, all of the cars for Train 2 were flipped.  For those who haven’t followed this site before, when a Millennium Flyer is built, all the chassis start out upside down.  The running gear (wheels, anti-rollbacks, chain dogs, etc) is built with the car upside down, as it’s a lot easier to access that way.  Then, the cars are all individually flipped, placed on custom made pallets, and the seats, lapbars, running boards, etc, are added on.  The flipping process was very interesting today, as we used a new method that Chris developed over the past couple weeks (it’s not like you can just pick the cars up by hand and flip them over- a fully assembled Millennium Flyer car weighs almost six hundred pounds!).  While it took a couple attempts for everyone to fully learn the new process, it seems to me like it works much more smoothly and safely than the old way of flipping the cars.  With all of the Train 2 cars flipped right side up, we hope to have the full train completed by the end of this week.  Keep watching this site, as I’m hoping I’ll be able to get some pictures within the next several days of the progress so far!
So - trains to see soon!

:D
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I agree with Russell if I'm perfectly honest. The rest of the ride is looking absolutly stunning, but the hop over Atlantica spoils it for me. To me it just says "we've run out of space, so lets start to build over other things". I always have this opinion that unless two rides are meant to duel they should not come this close (RMT and CRR being the exception I guess, as the main place this happens is in the tunnel, and even then they're on a level with one another so it has little impact).

I just think of the rides as having personal space I guess :P In this instance Wodan is invading Atlantca's. It probably wouldn't look so bad if it wasn't a woodie, as there'd be a lot less supports. But I personally think it looks a bit cluttered with all that wood and steel.

Even if they just clad the sides of Wodan in some fake rockwork I'd think it looks better. It'd add to both rides, with the creation of a themed tunnel on Atlantica, and a sort of bridge for Wodan to use to get over Atlantica.

I'll reserve some degree of judgment until I see it in person, but from the images I've seen that's what I think of it. The rest of the ride is looking great though :D

Also, for someone who's not been religiously reading this topic, what is the restraint and train situation now, or has there been no official responce?
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Russell
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Now covering the hop with rock work could change my mind. Nicely thought BOTE! :) I think for me one of my biggest bug bears is that it's encroaching on a completely different themed area. It does seem very 'Oh we have run out of room... lets just plonk this corner over Atlantica'!  :-s
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AstroDan

Personally I think it'll look fine, and add to the ride on Atlantica. Fussy, much? :P

Latest photo's from GCI:

One more bit of track to go:
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Heading into some heavy banking:
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Fit!
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Yeah!
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Station from above:
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The Barrel structure:
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:D :D
Big Dave

Last bent (support) has now been inserted

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Miles Hi
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Does anybody know when is the opening date?
I´m going at the end of april and would love to try it!!!
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James6
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It opens on the 31st March :)
If you go down to the Towers today, you\'d better ride Th13teen. :P
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Scott
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Watching the construction of this has finally pushed me into going to Europa Park, I'll be going in June for 3 or 4 days and I am already very much looking forward to it.

I'd just like to say thanks to those of you on here who keep posting the construction photos and thanks to those who have given me advice on going to Europa this year.
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Sam
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From GCI:

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"As of last Thursday, January 26, Train 1 is on its way to Europa-Park Mack KG!"
AstroDan

Trains! On their way! HOORAY!

They need to get the blasted thing fully tracked ASAP so we can see this thing racing round the circuit!

:D
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Sam
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Dan, based on your knowledge of recent EP coaster openings, what do you think they'll do for the test runs? Not film them? Film it from the ground like The Swarm team did? Do a big professional job for the first run-through? POV? :)
AstroDan

Sam wrote: Dan, based on your knowledge of recent EP coaster openings, what do you think they'll do for the test runs? Not film them? Film it from the ground like The Swarm team did? Do a big professional job for the first run-through? POV? :)
Blue Fire tested for the first time on February 27th 2009.

Here is the video released to EPFans on that day.

It shows the train going right around, so hopefully Wodan will be similar.

Given that Wodan opens a few days earlier than Blue Fire did in 2009, I would hope to see testing commencing during February Half Term at Alton Towers, although realistically it could wait until the last week of February.

:)
Last edited by AstroDan on Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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