u/Responsible_Dish_353

So, I have visited the two hottest contenders for Europe's best coaster lineup within the span of 2 weeks. Here's how I would compare their coasters and the parks in general:

🎖️Créme de la créme a.k.a. best coasters:

Energylandia wins. Voltron is an engineering masterpiece and a great coaster for airtimes and inversions, but Zadra is also a masterpiece in terms of pacing and most importantly how all the elements thrown at you are so intentional with their forces. Alan Schilke really knew what he was doing with this giant and it's my current #1. Voltron is also let down by the rattle in outer seats. Furthemore, I think Abyssus is better than anything other than Voltron in Europa-Park. To me it's a hugely underrated ride. I know many people love Hyperion, and the first drop and camelback are truly an out of body experience, but most of the layout is about speed and snappyness, which don't do much for me personally. Wodan, Silver Star and blue fire are all great in their own way, none of them is mind-blowing tho. They are highly enjoyable and even not so masochistic individuals in regards to intensity will like them. Basically crowd pleasers.

🎢 Full coaster collection:

Still, if I were to choose between [Zadra, Hyperion and Abyssus], and [Voltron, Wodan, Silver Star and blue fire], which are the coasters you’d happily queue for multiple times, I would pick the latter. Europa-Park's collection feels more well-rounded and distinct from each other. This translates also to rest of the parks' lineups... 

In Energylandia, Formula is basically a shorter, discount Abyssus, from a ride standpoint. It's good, but Abyssus does everything better with same or less wait times, and so you do Formula once and don't return to it. Dragon is amazing family coaster, but still a family coaster. Speed is the best water coaster between the two parks, tho if you optimize visits to avoid lines like me, you are going to big theme parks outside the summer holiday season, and it's not that appealing to receive a splash during most of the year. I honestly did like Mayan. Some transitions are awkward, but it's not painful and [unbelievably] its jankiness actually works well with its intensity. Then you have ChocoChip, Light Explorers and Honey Harbour, which you can still extract some joy from. And there the excitement ends for you as a coaster enthusiast. I will not however complain about other attractions *being there*, as so many people do. Energylandia is not trying to be Six Flags. It's just as much a park for kids and families, as it is for thrill seekers. It's the first big amusement park in eastern Europe outside Russia, so it has the full spectre of visitor types to pull in.

Europa-Park's support lineup therefore wins by quantity and diversity. And that diversity is also achieved by theming! I ride roller coasters for the thrills, however, 2 coasters that would feel similar in Energylandia, wouldn't feel like that in Europa-Park, thanks to all the sets that complement the ride. The reason I rushed my visit there was that I wanted to ride Euro-Mir before they remove it. And I was pleasantly surprised! It has its flaws, like a bit of roughness, but it's a long experience that gets progressively more intense from start to the finale, and I love it! Arthur is a nice mashup of a dark ride and a coaster, despite perhaps suffering a bit from trying to do both. We did CanCan both with VR and without. I am not a huge fan of VR tech in general, but here it really brought something new and interesting. Matterhorn-Blitz (the best non-spinning wild mouse I've ridden so far), Pegasus and Alepenexpres Enzian are nice, enjoyable and not forceless rides. Atlantica SuperSplash is good for theatrical splash, if you fancy that. Poseidon and Swiss Bob Run I didn't like. Both rode like trash.

🎡 In flat rides department, I wasn't impressed by Energylandia, their drop tower being basically a broken elevator, and their pendulum swing being mid-tier, only Space Booster deserves to be highlighted. But Europapark had even less. Actually, there's not a single great thrilling flat ride. Funnily enough, Linnanmäki, with its fraction of size compared to these two megaparks, has magnitudes better flat rides than both Energylandia and Europa-Park combined. Of course then, Europa-Park has something Energylandia completely lacks - dark rides.

🧞 Theming... aah yes, Energylandia's front half theming, everyone's favorite subject to complain about. Everyone's other than local visitors'. As an eastern European, let me explain. Here in post-socialist Europe, there's very little escapism to fantasy among adults. Adults here are not big on fairytales and even less on franchises. During the socialism, there was no economic incentive to draw adults into fantasy, unlike in west, where businesses like Disney needed adults' money, so there was a reason to make fairytales interesting for grown-ups and attract them. Therefore, here theming is seen mostly as something for kids. And kids here are pretty much satisfied by Energylandia's front half. So I won't criticize the park on that front. But I will still say, Europa-Park is better in my eyes. Funnily enough, my fiancee liked Energylandia's lands more, and I think they are good, but level of detail in Europa-Park's countries is unmatched by them. German park also easily wins in queue theming and in beautiful landscaping.

🏆 So my final verdict for a coaster traveller is this:

If you can spend one day only in one of these parks, pick Energylandia. On weekdays outside school holidays you get sub-10-minute wait times on almost everything. Waiting 5 minutes for rides like Zadra, Hyperion and Abyssus is a dream, isn't it? You can do everything without ever feeling hurried. Or ignore family attractions and get many rerides on best coasters. Energylandia is clean, has great food, great operations, you are almost guaranteed to enjoy your visit if you go on a weekday. 

If you can spend two days in one of the parks, Europa-Park is the better one. We went on weekdays with slightly rainy weather, outside of school holidays in Germany, France and Switzerland, yet we had on average 35 minute wait times for Voltron, 30 for Wodan and Arthur, 25 for Cancan, 20 for Silver Star, blue fire and some other rides. We made aggressive use of virtual line, but still, it's challenging to do all the good stuff in the park in one day, even if it's one of the quietest ones. And that's not because of operations! Those are even better than in Energylandia. It's just that the park is so popular. But 2 days is enough and lines aren't so bad to stress you out when you know you have time to do everything and still get multiple rerides on best coasters.

💬 Which park and which coaster collection did you enjoy more? Also, do you think any park in Europe has even better lineup? I don't think there are competitors with as much quality and quantity at the same time on the continent (or basically anywhere outside the US), but I'm curious about your opinions and experiences.

⚠️ Notice: Some Energylandia's photos are from my last year's visit, that's why the construction site in back of the park is missing and ChocoChip theming is unfinished.

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When I was planning our Europa-Park visit, I missed an up to date map in jpg/png/pdf. The interactive map on their website doesn't provide a very good big picture perspective of the park, and you can't highlight stuff in it. So here is the high quality photo of park map I obtained physically on site, hopefully it helps some of you with your planning :)

If you use reddit in mobile app and it doesn't show in full quality, download the image, then you should have the 5518 x 3279 px version.