Phantasialand (Part 1)

Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany – November 22nd & 23rd, 2021

Theme parks are designed to be places where you can lose yourself in another world. Germany’s Phantasialand, located near Cologne, certainly excels at this… with particular emphasis on the losing of oneself.

I’ve never been so lost at a theme park in my life. Phantasialand is a labyrinth of nonsensical adjacencies and unmarked, secretive pathways that are actually often the only possible way to get from point A to point B, even as the major thoroughfares skip past B entirely and take you directly to unintended point C. It seems the challenge is that each land was developed separately as a self-contained enclave for total immersion, which means they’re connected to the others via circuitous secondary routes around the peripheries, at the expense of maintaining any sort of centralized circulatory master plan. A complete absence of adequate wayfinding signage to compensate doesn’t help. I ended up missing entire attractions because I couldn’t find the entrance. Not even a careful study of the park map could save me. After two days at Phantasialand, I had learned that any time I felt confident in navigating my way across the park, it was simply pride before the fall.

Still, I suspect for many (and maybe even to a certain degree for myself) Phantasialand’s utter incomprehensibility is part of the charm. Navigating between areas of the park can be bewildering, but it also means you have to stay mentally focused and engaged with the physical environments; a contrast to most other modern theme parks that make it easy, even necessary, to be on your phone as you walk. Yet once you have found your way into the center showcase area of each land, the results are among some of the most thematically incredible of any theme park in Europe, if not the world. Not only are the environments superbly detailed, but often in ways that evidence an original creative vision, turning easily genericized theme park concepts like “Adventure” or “High Fantasy” or “Steampunk” into fully realized new worlds that feel like you’re once again discovering the genre for first time at Phantasialand.¹

One of the most apparent examples of this is found within the park’s Old Berlin theme section, which serves much of the same practical and thematic function of the Disneyland “Main Street U.S.A.” While it’s a commonly reproduced theme park trope, it finds new expression at Phantasialand by giving it a distinctly German twist. Disney’s Main Streets reflect a view of American history with a rose-tinted (and some could say white-washed) expression of a small town past… yet, with Civil War-era cannons silently flanking the public park and the Opera House’s tribute to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, it holds reminders of deep divisions and conflict this idyllic past grew from. In Old Berlin, by contrast, the worst of war and societal strife are still in the days ahead. Here, fine arts and culture are given prominence over the pleasant simplicities of small town life, which instead serves as a reminder of what was lost… but perhaps also a sense of gilded lavishness that conceals dangers approaching just out of sight. Of course it’s a theme park, so what lay hidden beyond the horizon are realms of ghosts, adventures, and fantasies, not the rise of National Socialism.

In place of a castle or other architectural icon, Old Berlin features rides: a magnificent double-decker carousel anchoring the front entry plaza, and a dynamic flying carousel with synchronized water geysers drawing guests towards the hub. Phantasialand may share the beauty of a Disney park, but it’s also several degrees more dynamic and thrilling than anything the House of Mouse has ever dared, with a target audience that exceeds the age range of even the most thrill-focused Universal parks.

Indeed, Phantasialand is just as much if not moreso renown as a destination park for the hardcore coaster enthusiasts as it is for themed design and storytelling aficionados. While there have been plenty of individual examples of successful crossovers², Phantasialand is unique for repeatedly and consistently exceeding expectations on both thematic and thrill fronts. The most surprising contradiction of this park is how it uses its compactness to render its environments in intimate, rich detail; yet four of their eight coasters hover near or above the 4,000’ long mark with multiple lifts or launches. Another is a twin-tracked racer with multiple custom “special effect” trick track segments. Somehow the most “standard-issue” ride in the park’s coaster collection (besides a custom family shuttle coaster that came intertwined with the park’s largest coaster as a “bonus”) is the five-inversion B&M inverted coaster that’s often named one of the Swiss company’s very best installations worldwide.

While the balance is tilted in favor of visible thrill hardware integrated with its landscapes, Phantasialand is also home to a handful of admirably competent dark rides. The most beloved of these can be found at the far end of Old Berlin as Maus au Chocolat.

Built by ETF and Alterface, the ride bears a direct resemblance to Disney’s Toy Story Mania attractions but with cars chained in groups of three rather than just two. The story meanwhile is basically Ratatouille for sweet tooths, with mice taking over a European pastry kitchen, and guests tasked to splat them with shots of cream and chocolate. While a rodent uprising taking over a factory dedicated to bourgeoisie decadence could very easily be read in social terms, the story hardly feels conflict-driven. The simplest explanation of Maus au Chocolat’s charms is right there in the title—mice are cute and chocolate is sweet. Covering the former with the latter becomes the dark ride equivalent of a warm (if distinctly European) hug.

It also ranks as one of the longest interactive dark rides I’ve ever done, clocking in at close to seven minutes from dispatch to return.³ It’s little wonder that the ride consistently rates higher among fans who have tried both the Phantasialand and Disney versions. While the gameplay lacks some of the reflexive satisfaction of its toy-inspired counterparts (which are basically a sequence of mobile app games on a big screen), on every other metric Maus au Chocolat shows the Mouse how it’s done.

It’s easy to fall into Disney comparisons, which is a shame as it limits the discourse on the terms of the entertainment industry’s most monolithic competitor and avoids directly engaging with Phantasialand on its own terms. And sometimes those terms are batshit crazy! Case in point is the park’s Fantasy section. Lots of theme parks have a fantasy themed zone. But none of them are anything like this Fantasy land. Made up of several sub-sections added over the years, the anchor is the indoor Wuze Town complex (which I could only find access to on my first try after climbing what felt like a half-mile long uphill helix ramp). Once inside, I had to find my way back downstairs through a kingdom of subterranean-dwelling fairy-beings that feels a little bit Arthur and the Invisibles, a little bit The Dark Crystal, and (perhaps unintentionally for taking place in a giant empty mall) a little bit Dawn of the Dead.

Despite Wuze Town’s expansive interior, the space feels underutilized. The undoubted highlights are the twin-tracked steel spinning coasters Winja’s (Force and Fear). Designed by Germany’s own Maurer Söhne, these are possibly the most technically ambitious free-spinning coasters ever designed. Each side features three special effect trick-tracks that would feel innovative even if introduced in today’s market, let alone when the ride debuted over twenty(!) years ago.

Each track starts with an elevator lift, which while a relatively common element today, less so is the fact that the elevator also tilts as it approaches the top to connect to a downhill sloping track, allowing gravity to dramatically kick in as soon as the cars are released. Some deep drops in the dark eventually give way to a more typical spinning coaster section out in the open (lulling observers into complacency before their own ride) before some more tight twists and turns in the dark. It eventually comes to a stop at the second trick track: on Fear, the track seesaws forward, a less effective implementation of the same effect achieved at the top of the elevator lift. Force, however, falls sideways to connect to the next stretch of track at a heavy lateral tilt; an utterly unexpected sensation that should have inspired a legion of imitators at every park that ever tried to brand “story-coaster” or “psychological coaster” as A Thing.

After this piece of trickery (which I’d describe as “inspired” in the case of Force, and “functional” for Fear) there’s some more swirling helices before arriving in the brake run. At first I thought I’d missed the third trick-track, but it’s actually hiding during the final stretch of brakes: as the car advances (without stopping or even slowing), a section of the sloped track detaches on a hinge just after the car passes it, gently bouncing down into a level position as the car continues forward unimpeded. When I first realized what happened it blew my mind for two reasons: 1): The sheer technical complexity required for a moving car on a dynamic hinged trick-track to be pulled off in mere seconds; 2): The fact that such an astonishing technical element was used to make a dip in a brake run slightly more interesting, and in fact is so subtle a motion that the majority of riders will never notice.⁴

It reveals the fundamental flaw of Winja’s and all of Wuze Town. While the technology and amount of infrastructure is impressive and no doubt costly, they’re lacking in emotional payoff. Winja’s is an amazing piece of engineering, but too much of it is left obscured by the dark. So too is Wuze Town, a very big and elaborate building that mostly alienates anyone trying to engage with the purported theme inside. The bones for something good are there, but it’s all desperately in need of some real showmanship.

However, I suspect that the roller coaster bordering Wuze Town, Crazy Bats, will be next in line to receive an overlay, if not be replaced altogether. This indoor Vekoma coaster from 1988 started off as the necessary “Space Mountain-inspired” coaster before getting a jungle makeover as Temple of the Night Hawk, and then a third VR overlay in 2019 as Crazy Bats. The VR didn’t work for me; the train dispatched before I could even put the headset on, much less secure the safety straps nor trigger the video to start. What I was treated to was a 3,855 foot long, triple lift hill trip around a dark empty warehouse, while debating whether or not I could get away with simply chucking the cumbersome and unwanted piece of equipment overboard without anyone noticing (or caring). The tracking wasn’t particularly smooth, which would have certainly been a decent cover that the headset was simply bumped out of the car. Ultimately I decided as much as I would love to kill a piece of a VR coaster in the country that originally gave us the misguided concept, it wasn’t worth the risk returning empty handed.

Making my way to the other side of the park, I was afforded a beautiful vista overlooking the Mexico section of the park and its signature Intamin water ride Chiapas, but I had no idea how to get down there, nor to the nearby Talocan Huss Top Spin which I watched from a bridge leading to Africa. As it turned out, I would get to ride neither on my trip. Chiapas… well, it was too cold for a flume ride, while Talocan I earnestly spent fifteen minutes trying to find the entrance, and when I finally did, realized I wasted too much time to both ride it and still get a night ride on a high-priority coaster elsewhere before the park closed. “I can’t find the entrance to Top Spin 1!”

The one ride in the Mexico section I did get to ride was the Colorado Adventure mine train coaster. But approach the station inside the theme zone and you’ll be greeted with this sign:

The entrance is not simply around the corner, but requires navigating through the entirety of the China Town theme section to a hidden corner in the far back of the park. In that spirit, I suppose I’ll structure my reviews in a similarly non-linear pattern. The China Town area is possibly the weakest of the thematic zones, not necessarily for lack of quality of detailing, but because it lacks invention and simply repeats Western architectural cliches of imperial Chinese design. The space is rigidly rectilinear, with little warmth nor intimacy, and no outdoor attractions or other kinetic activations. Oddly, the two indoor attractions are both based on supernatural Chinese ghost stories and legends, a mythic quality that I hope can influence the aging land’s eventual re-design.

Feng Ju Palace channels 1970s and 80s Hong Kong wuxia and horror movies into a Mad House style ride experience. The preshow is terminally long and repetitive, with a whole film’s worth of drama and combat sequences projected as ghostly apparitions all spoken in German. While I appreciate the effort at more sophisticated drama, I’m sure it was far more compelling on the page than on the stage. We’re finally seated in the Mad House, where presumably the story culminates as the supernatural chamber turns topsy-turvy. Unfortunately, the detailing in the chamber is far more plain than other European Mad Houses, as there’s very little to distinguish the stone floor from the walls from the ceiling, rendering the inverting effect less than effective. Mad Houses are an interesting idea in concept, but there are few examples that actually put the concept to good use and make sense for the story being told; Feng Ju Palace least among them.

Geister Rikscha (literally “Ghost Rickshaw”) is the far more compelling of the two. An omnimover dark ride with some obvious parallels to the Haunted Mansion, it nevertheless manages to implement its own unique take on the concept. Built underneath China Town, one enters an unassuming portal through a Chinese fortress, where the cement columns soon give way to twisted tree trunks of a surreal nighttime forest. The ride itself has a similar sense of uneasy unreality, forgoing the usual spooks and specters in favor of more corporeal demons and monsters. Even the scenes that directly recall Disney, such as talking busts or a haunted ship sailed by a skeleton crew, find ways to transform the material into newly horrifying tableaus. There’s no consistent storyline to follow, certain sections need updating (not least a scene that takes us past a wide-open view of the ride’s maintenance transfer), and it’s light on any true “scare” moments. Yet Geister Rikscha maintains a consistent aesthetic vision that’s as distinct as it is disturbing. It’s by far the most rewarding attraction of “Old Phantasialand” remaining.

Okay, back into Mexico, or at least the little outlying enclave behind China Town that serves purely as the entrance to Colorado Adventure. Opened by Michael Jackson in 1996 (for many years the ride was subtitled “The Michael Jackson Thrill Ride), it was one of the early Vekoma Mine Trains before the standard “dual lift” design was established for every subsequent model. This makes Colorado Adventure unique, more freeform in layout akin to a classic Arrow Dynamic style, but with Vekoma’s trademark swoopy curves and helices in place of the segmented, rampy Arrow track style. The hard, narrow bench seating doesn’t do the ride a ton of favors, but with less breathing room between track transitions the experience is surprisingly intense for a mine train, especially in the back row. With numerous sight-blocking and sound-shielding tunnels erected around the track, it proves especially riotous at night.⁵ With so many newer coaster competitors in the park, it might have been easy to write the aging Colorado Adventure off as a “one-and-done” experience, but it continues to hold its own among coaster fans and families as one of the top rides in the park.

The last time I was in Germany in 2010, Black Mamba was still the big news that had people buzzing about Phantasialand. My travel schedule that year made a visit unlikely even if it had been a high priority for me, but to be honest it wasn’t. I was annoyed by claims online that Black Mamba represented B&M’s best inverted coaster, or perhaps their best ride period. At the time I couldn’t deny that the surrounding Deep In Africa zone certainly looked impressive (being the first full example of the modern “Phantasialand quality” that set the stage for Klugheim and Rookburgh), but remove the thematic layers from the equation and it seemed like a fairly run-of-the-mill inverted layout, not significantly different from other middling inverted coasters from that era such as Nemesis Inferno or Patriot. A curving drop into a standard-issue sequence of standard-issue inversions, bleeding off the rest of the speed with some simple ground-level curves and helices before hitting the brakes. I can only imagine the type of skeptical review I would have written if I had visited in 2010.

Fortunately, with time and newer rides like Taron and F.L.Y. taking much of the pressure off Black Mamba to be a World’s Greatest coaster, I was able to approach Black Mamba more or less on its own terms. And it is a really good ride. Yes the layout is a bit boilerplate, but it’s also forceful and dynamic, with the first five inversions (four if you don’t count the slanted almost-immelmann) hitting in rapid-fire succession, and the following twists and turns providing an long series of “trench run” foot-skimming maneuvers that demonstrates the best use-case of the inverted seating configuration. It’s still no Nemesis, but the tight scenic envelope makes a strong case that there should be more highly themed and/or terrain-hugging inverted coaster than there currently are. And it’s smooth. As the years go by, that becomes a more salient factor. Due to the endless labyrinthine queue and “no re-ride” policy despite the low crowds, I only got three rides during my visit, perhaps making it the attraction at Phantasialand I most wish I could have spent some more time with. Reason to return in the future…

Next: Phantasialand (Part 2)