Recently Mr. Meena and I visited Holiday Park in Haßloch, Germany. It’s nearly three hours away from where we live and it was a very appropriate trip since we were celebrating Mr. Meena’s 25th birthday (in case you don’t know, he is a roller coaster fanatic in every sense of the word). We had something really special happen during this trip (which I’ll share below)! I’m going to talk about the coasters at the park, their waterpark show, the kiddy section, and of course include some fun quirks we saw along the way.
The entrance, was decorated for their “Rocking Halloween”.
This is actually the smallest theme park that I have ever visited; they only have three coasters. So you can imagine my surprise when Mr. Meena told me that there are many people in the coaster community that think they have the best steel coaster in the world. But being small doesn’t stop it from being one of the most popular theme parks in Germany, receiving a million visitors each year (according to Wikipedia).
Without further ado, let’s meet the coasters, shall we?
Holly’s Wilde Autofahrt.
This is a typical mouse track ride similar to what you might see at other theme parks. But Holiday Park made the coaster into a driving experience; hence the name, which translates to “Holly’s Wild Car Race”. And it is certainly wild. We got our first German instructions of the day as we were rolling out of the station. We used our go to phrase “nein Deutsch!” and were sternly told to “please hold”. So we did. One of my favorite things about the ride is that all the hairpin turns have signs that oppose what you are doing, such as “no left turn” when you go left, as well as “stop”, “yield”, and “one way” signs. We only rode this once because the brakes punched me so hard in the stomach that I became nauseous. I also advise you to “please hold” on this one.
The area around the ride has a driving theme, with “Holly’s Driving School” being a popular place for kids to practice their driving in electric cars. Mr. Meena observed that German kids start learning to drive correctly early on, while I observed a head on collision when a kid went through his red light.
Sky Scream
This is a pretty new ride (April 2014) and it was really, really decked out for Halloween. It was so scary that I almost didn’t make it through the queue line.
I do not like being scared.
It’s a launched coaster that sends you forwards, backwards, and then forwards again to go through their huge 150 foot tall non-inverting loop and then swirl through the in-line twist. Even though I was terrified before the first ride, mostly because of all the Halloween frights, it quickly became my favorite launched coaster. It’s gentle and the design is different from anything I’ve experienced before. Plus the view from the top is incredible.
It’s a pretty short ride and tops out at 62 mph, but it’s thrilling nonetheless. Plus there was no line for it each time we returned, perhaps because it’s a little bit too intimidating.
Expedition GeForce.
There is a reason the coasters are listed in this order. After our epic roller coaster vacation last spring Mr. Meena had ridden 197 different roller coasters (he uses a neat site called Coaster Counter to track them). As you can imagine, he was in a bit of a frenzy to hit 200. So this park with three coasters, one of them being the famous GeForce steel coaster, was perfect for the occasion. We intentionally rode this one after the other two coasters so that it could be his legendary 200th coaster – on his 25th birthday no less.
Then something incredible happened. We were waiting in the front row queue line (because of course) and we noticed there were cameras attached to the seats in the first train. Then we noticed that there was a whole camera crew gradually placing cameras and getting ramped up for some filming. When we got on the ride and were waiting to leave the station, Mr. Meena leaned over and told the camera man that this was his 200th coaster. He nodded as we took off, thanks to the cable lift hill.
When we pulled back into the station the whole camera crew was ready. They were kind of blown away to capture Mr. Meena as he stepped off his 200th coaster and ask him what he thought about it.
Photo credit: Holiday Park. Used with permission.
It turns out that the crew was from the UK and was filming for a new television show called “The Science of Thrills”. How cool is that! We’ll be keeping an eye out for its premiere.
Anywho, back to the coaster. It’s an Intamin that takes you up nearly 174 feet with a cable lift hill and then gives you one of the most unique drops you’ll ever experience. Take a look at how it dives at 82° while it turns at 74°.
It really makes you feel like you were swept off your feet.
When we were riding in the front row I was a bit alarmed to discover the gyroscopic feature on the train nose when it pitched to the left as we dropped. Of course, this quirk fits in well with the rides theme that focuses on changes in orientation to quite literally throw you off balance.
Photo by Jeremy licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The coaster boasts seven periods of weightlessness, several overbanked turns, large and small hills, twisting track sections, and a top speed of 75 mph. I was a bit overwhelmed by how quickly the coaster was going and how fast we kept encountering different features, which I’m sure was the intention of the designers. I got off the coaster a little bewildered about what we actually experienced. So we rode again.
Of course Mr. Meena was obsessed with the uniqueness of this coaster and was ecstatic to finally ride it after years of dreaming about it. He couldn’t even take his eyes off it while we were eating lunch.
The Waterpark.
In the afternoon we stumbled upon the parks water show called “Hollywood’s Talking Dead”.
Now, many theme parks have a water section but it’s usually filled with wave pools and slides. I guess that wouldn’t make sense in Germany considering how often it would be too cold to enjoy the water. So instead, Holiday Park puts on a waterski comedy complete with zombies, over the top stunts, and fiery explosions. I was having fun watching, especially since they serve beer in the park so casually, but little did I know that we were about to have our second incredible experience of the day.
I was completely caught off guard when I saw one of my favorite childhood video games coming to life.
It’s called a “Jetovator” and it can go a lot higher than I would have expected. I was so glad that we stopped to watch the show. I can’t really comment on the comedy aspect of the show, since it was all in German, but the crowd seemed to laugh often. One thing is for sure, that Holiday Park knows how to make themselves stand out.
For the Kids
We also enjoyed the kiddy section, called “Majaland”, although I felt that it was overwhelmingly geared towards girls.
On this ride you get to pedal and spin the flower on the back of the seat.
Or you could always ride in a flower instead.
I loved trying out Flip, the Grasshopper.
I seriously regret not getting a photo of Mr. Meena on this ride. You sit on the grasshopper (far right of above photo) and he makes sounds and kind of bobs back and forth along the track). There were two German adult men ahead of us that laughed, smiled, and called out “Yipee!” to us as we rode around. It was the funniest thing all day.
Even though I felt like the decorations and rides in the kiddie section were overly feminine, there are several attractions that little boys would probably love. You can see all the kiddy rides for yourself here. They also have lots of shows for kids throughout the day, such as “Maya’s Birthday Party”.
There you have it; the core of our day at the park! Soon I’ll be posting a photo gallery with more photos of the park and also about how the park is different from a stereotypical American theme park.
