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|  Dutch Coastin' .// Poseidon (Europa-Park)A long time ago, when monsters and cyclops filled the hearts of people with fear, the ancient Gods ruled. One of them was Poseidon, god of the sea. He was one of the mightiest of all gods. His powered was as never seen before. Even the great Zeus had respect for Poseidon. Thus beware of the rath of Poseidon! In the last 25 years, Europa-Park has grown into one of the major European amusement parks, and the number 1 of Germany, only proceded by Heide-Park. Europa-Park has American propertions, with the lavish El Andaluz hotel, the medieval Castillo al Alcazar and the amazing shows. Drawing 2.5 million visitors a year, Europa-Park is a thriving amusement park. Eleborately and extremely realisticly themed areas are devoted to the European cultural heritage. You can find Italy, France, Spain, Scandinavia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Greece here. Theming is truly pussed to the limit of realism. You can find pieces of the Berlin Wall in the German-themed area, and an exact replica of Mir in the Russian area. But what is the most interesting about the park still is that its nothing but an operational display for a single developer: Mack GmbH. The German ride manufacturer Mack has been doing business for over 200 years. In their portfolio you will find among others steel coasters, flume rides, Wild Mice, bobsled coasters, dark rides, boat rides, monorails,
So did Mr Mack think. Mack wanted a place to test and display its prodigious output. It didn't take long for them to decide that the easiest way to test their rides was with people in them. And thus they decided to build a themepark of their own. An ideal property in the town of Rust (not far from the Mack plant in Waldkirch) was found and Europa-Park opened its doors in 1975. During time, the park grow to impressive proportions. And almost all rides are Mack models; the Euro-Sat indoor coaster, the Tyrolean White-Water Run, the Alpenexpress Enzian runaway train coaster, the Fjord Rafting ride, the Mississippi Steamboat, the Bobsleighs, the Poseidon watercoaster, the SilverStar hypercoaster. Who wouldn't want to buy a Mack ride after visiting this park? After the opening of the amazing Euro-Mir in 1997, Europa-Park had to come up with something truly ballistic. They celebrated their 25th anniversary in 2000. And they celebrated it bigtime! They opened up a complete new theme-area: Greece. This area featured the madhouse Fluch der Kassandra and Europe's first watercoaster, the astonishing Poseidon. Poseidon tells you the greatest tale in history, written by the greates writer in history. Homer's Odyssee. With thousands of words are the journeys of the heroic Odysseus reported. On his way home, he was delayed by monsters, giants, and the fury of the gods. I can remember them pretty well, my lessons in ancient Greek. I can hardly describe how boring the language itself was. Another thing I can't describe is the fascination my teacher had for Homer. He could read his work for hours, and did so. Even today, I know the Odyssee by heart. They where long, hot, and painfull hours. But they have paid of. I now understood what a trememdous job it must have been to design a ride in which you must capture the greatest literary work of all time. It took 2 Europa-Park designers over 2 years to design both Poseidon as Fluch der Kassandra. Many artists have been hired for the wallpaintings and the lav ish theming. And not without an effect! The boarding station
You can spot the shapes of Poseidon from the parking lot. Its one hell of a contraption. If you're lucky, you can hear the boats skidding the track, the people insied screaming their brains out, and the supports pulling the concrete out of the ground. You're eyes follow the track, and rest at the boarding station. Is this for real? Has Europa-Park truly built a Greek temple? The answer is simple; they indeed did. And they did it in style. When you walk towards the queue-line, you can get a good look at Poseidon and the lavish theming. You notice that everything is themed, even the smallest detail. Nothing has gone undetected. Once you enter the queue-line, your attention is immediately drawn by the gigantic wooden horse that stands over the entrance to Poseidon. Its beauty and magnitude are overwhelming. This breathtaking horse is the largest wooden horse of the world, even larger than a scientific replica of the original Trojan Horse. You now understand why the Trojans where foolish enough to take the horse inside the citygates. Who could ever resist such beauty? While you walk underneeth the horse, looking up simply because you can't get your eyes of of it, you hear a loud thunder. Almost like Zeus tearing the skies apart with his lightning. You then realise that you're standing on a bridge, and that the boats of Poseidon are speeding underneeth you. You look in the direction of the roaring, and can just see a large splash. The boat has plunged into the water with gigantic speed. Time to board. You must realise that once you get into one of the boats, you challenge Poseidon. You will no longer be safe, the fury of Poseidon will be released on you! Just before you leave, you get one last warning. The tritan gives you one last flashing sign. But you ignore it, you want to explore. You forget the fury of Poseidon. The boat calmly moves towards the lift hill. Around you, you can see ruïns of Troje. This is what happens to you when you go into battle with the gods. But it's too late now. You can no longer stop, you're already being winched up the lift hill. Once you're on the top of the lift, you have a beautifull view of Europa-Park. But only for a very short period of time. You swiftly roar down a helix. You can hear the boat skidding down the track, the whet wheels clearly don't have a firm frasp on the track. The boat is slightly shaking. You feel the wind blowing through your hair, you tighten your grip on the person next to you. The boat just keeps going.
You're granted some time to gain consciousness now. Whilest you move slowly towards the second lift, you get to enjoy the outside of the boarding station, Fluch der Kassandra, and of course the final splash. The fear is getting to you now. You can see boats, just like the one you're sitting in right now, plunge down a 28 metre slope straight into the ground! A nerve wrecking sight. You're heart is still pumping pure adrenaline, pure fear, through your system when you're hoisted up the second lift. This takes much too long. You've got plenty of time to see how high you actually are, and how far you can fall before you're down again. Once you've reached the top, you slowly move through a 180 degree turn. You look over the track, but can't see where you're going to end. All you can see is the track disappearing underneeth the edge of the boat. Once the boat is gaining speed, and moving down the drop, you can see the cave you're plunging into. With a speed of over 65 km/h you roar through the cave, you're sight minimalized because of the fog-effects. You take a deep breath, knowing what's coming up next. The boat hits the water with a speed of over 60 km/h and creates one hell of a wave! You can see the people who stand beside the drop walking away soaking wet. You yourself aren't that wet. You may now congratulate yourself. You have survived the fury of Poseidon!
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