Europa-Park: Epcot ripoffs and eerie rides in Rust, Germany
Europa-Park is a gorgeous and wonderful theme park, but it has some of the most blatant Disney Parks ripoffs I’ve ever seen! From the Spaceship Earth geodesic sphere clone to the Universe of Energy dinosaur ride, from the Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion copies to the bizarre Carousel of Progress-esque rotating show, they really outdid themselves trying to copy Disney. Not that these are bad rides – Geisterschloss is creepy and gory in a way that wouldn’t fly in the family-friendly Haunted Mansion, and fitting a coaster inside Spaceship Earth is an engineering marvel. But really, some of the best attractions at Europa-Park are the utterly original and completely bizarre non-clones, like Piccolo Mondo and the Magic World of Diamonds, or the world-class coasters like Arthur: The Ride, Euro-Mir, and Alpenexpress (which was testing a VR-goggles version while we were there).
Honestly, ripoffs and all, this place is a LOT nicer than Disneyland Paris or even current-day Epcot. Highly recommended.
I do want to thank the management at Europa-Park for giving us a short tour, and for letting us crash their Haunted Horror Nights Grand Opening event.
More Europa-Park videos are coming soon, so stay tuned! I have one about their Haunted Horror Nights, and one about the on-property hotels. Also going to do full multi-angle HD ride-thrus of the Pirates and Haunted House rides.
(Banner photo courtesy of Europa-Park)
Leonard Kinsey is the owner of Bamboo Forest Publishing, and the bestselling author of “The Dark Side of Disney”, the Anarchist Cookbook of Disney travel guides. He has lived in Baltimore for over 15 years, and enjoys drinking craft beer in unique places, eating nachos and pizza, listening to 80s hair metal, and arguing about Star Trek minutia, often all at the same time. Watch out ladies!