Travel Note 9th May 2016 Day three of our trip began with an early morning flight from Paris Orly airport to Vienna. The reader might legitimately question whether the use of ORY was a deliberate ploy on my part to clock up an additional airport credit, but I can assure you it wasn't; it was in fact a tactical decision based on the availability of cheap flights. In an ideal world I'd have flown out of Lyon, which was an awful lot closer to yesterday's park, but though a non-stop route was available the one-way fare of €795 per person (yes, seriously) made that option unrealistic. The flight we ended up taking, on Transavia, was just €68 per person including a checked bag, and the service (and leg room) was worthy of a flight costing three times that. Readers returning a rental car to Orly Airport should be aware that accessing the car park is quite a challenge, especially at night, as there are about ten different turns to follow and the signposts are easy to miss. Drive slowly and carefully and be ready to swear emphatically when you overshoot. I'd describe the steps here but unfortunately Google Street View cuts off around the third turn.

Familypark 9th May 2016 One of the biggest embuggerances in this hobby is when a park in an inconvenient location (otherwise known as one not easily reached by convenient cheap flights) announces a new credit in the immediate aftermath of a visit. This is of course a first world problem to which the phrase stuff happens (or perhaps no one cares) is the best response, but it was hard to be completely stoical when a new credit was announced just eight weeks after a trip, especially when the cost of that excursion was increased somewhat by the Austrian police. One person in the car that day was so cheesed off that he altered his 2013 plans to fit in a return visit. The rest of us were somewhat more relaxed and elected to wait until a convenient time in the future. We arrived at Familypark shortly after opening following a pleasant hour long drive from Vienna Airport that took us within a few kilometres of both the Slovakian and Hungarian borders. I'd bought tickets online in order to save time, but the benefit turned out to be marginal, as the park was almost completely empty, with no more than two dozen cars in the parking area. The friendly gate attendant greeted us with something incomprehensible in rapid fire German that I'm guessing translated roughly to have a nice day. The main entrance gate opens out into an area with several self-operated rides, including Adlerflug (#2222), a mark two Heege Butterfly that stands on the same spot as the Pendelbahn Flic-Flac that was retired at the end of the 2013 season. The ride represents a bit of a conundrum for coaster counters in a world where the community has decided that complete rebuilds don't necessarily count as new credits. Be that as it may, I've decided to claim a plus one on my list thanks to a clearly visible manufacturer plate, and at the end of the day the only people who really care about such things should find something better to do with their lives. As with its predecessor the ride is a €1 up-charge, and once is likely to be enough. The park dedicates quite a lot of space to walkthrough attractions and play equipment that is designed to be instructive while also being fun. Though aimed at children we passed several enjoyable minutes exploring Neptun's Wasserwelt, a gentle flowing stream on a stone surface with a variety of water wheels and adjustable dams that could be used to change the direction of flow. As the name suggests the entire area was guarded by a statue of the Roman god holding a trident and wearing an expression of good natured constipation. Directly next door was the Drachenhöhle, a cave populated by Dragomir Schwefelstein, a friendly green and purple creature who spoke enthusiastically to us in the local patois before spraying us with water. We dried off by climbing across Römerfallen, a ropeway leading to a carefully hidden treehouse that (oddly enough) wasn't designed with adults in mind. The first worthwhile coaster of the day became Götterblitz, an extended version of Pegasus at Europa Park with an elaborately sculpted station building. As with its parent ride this was very good indeed, delivering a smooth thrill that made a complete mockery of the more common family coaster designs. The only criticism of the design I have, and it's a serious nitpick, is that the enormous figurehead on the front car blocks the view for smaller riders; it'd be nice if that could be scaled back a bit on future installations. There was nobody waiting in the queue when our train returned and given that the operator gave us all a second lap. Megan had been itching to try a Gerstlauer Sky Fly since we'd missed the new one at Duinrell by a few days. I decided to keep my feet firmly on the ground while she practiced her aerobatics on Leonardo's Flugmachine, and she apparently liked it, completing four rides at various stages of the day and describing it variously as her new favourite flat ride and one of the most intense rides I've been on. The park added its fourth roller coaster last year in the guise of Herkules, one of six installations (to date) of the Gerstlauer Kiddy Racer, pictured below. As its dimensions suggest this is a ride that is only available to small children, thanks to a height limit of 1.2m (~4ft) and a weight limit of 40kg (~88lbs). The only coaster counters ever likely to have these rides in their track records are those with really cool parents, though one suspects it'll be a few years before any of those start showing up on Coaster-Count. It's a shame, really, as they do look like a lot of fun. Your browser does not support the video tag. Our target credit was not visible from the area of the park we were in, forcing us to consult the map, which revealed it to be almost half a kilometre away in a wooded area at the far end of the park. The green track of Rattenmühle (#2223) took full advantage of the challenging terrain with a wonderfully paced sequence of directional changes that were negotiated with only mild jarring. It was interesting to see five cars on course today despite a nearly empty park, many of which were being dispatched empty; we completed four laps in total and we could easily have done more. We also had the opportunity to ride three different track rides, including Schweinchenbahn (pigs), Traktorbahn (tractors), and Waldtierrennen (forest animals). The former two were self operated, reflecting the fact that Austrian children know how to behave themselves and follow instructions. The latter was a very tight fit for me, but I managed to shoehorn myself on board.