Movie Park is located in Bottrop and the nearest train station is Feldhausen. It is easily do-able from Cologne in around 1.5-2 hours on a couple of trains but the time it takes very much depends on which trains you use.
As we were in Cologne for the week, we were using the Eezy NRW app so we could use all transport in North Rhine Westphalia. This comes with the exception of the high speed ICE trains which would have probably knocked around thirty minutes off the journey time as we did have to do a bit of waiting around the get the trains we needed.
We caught a train from Köln Messe/Deutz to Essen at around 7.50am. This took around an hour. We had roughly forty minutes in Essen before our connection so we had a walk around, saw the church and a bit of the shopping area. The station had plenty of shops and food outlets, so we popped into Reformhaus for a couple of gluten free cereal bars to keep us going. The next train was at 9.30am and we almost couldn’t find it as platform 8 was located at the very end of platform 9 – luckily we had plenty of time.
I would strongly advise you to give yourself extra time when you need to change trains. We found a lot of the stations in Germany to be very large, with platforms not always where you expect them to be. A few minutes change time would not be sufficient to find your platform and train in a hurry and we decided against what might have been a slightly quicker route (involving three trains) because of this.
The journey from Essen to Feldhausen took just over twenty minutes. Both of these trains were very busy so be prepared to stand, The Cologne to Essen train also serves Dusseldorf Airport so was very busy both ways plus we were travelling in rush hour at both ends of the day.
The walk to the park from the station takes less than ten minutes so we arrived just in time for gates opening and were able to scan through turnstiles with no problem. The tickets do state on them that you need photo identification for each visitor. We were not asked for this when we visited but its worth remembering to take it with you just incase. There are lockers at the main entrance that you can rent for the day if needed which cost €5 for a small locker and €8 for a larger one. You can re-open them throughout the day.
The first ride you can see when you walk in the gates is Star Trek: Enterprise but the entrance to the queue line is a short walk away down the main street and to the left. All the areas are themed around different times/places such as Old West and Hollywood, plus there is a Nickleodeon themed area for younger visitors. Despite not being young, we went on a couple of rides in the Nickelodeon area – Jimmy Neutrons Atomic Flyer and Ghost chasers, both pretty much walk on and very enjoyable.
There is loads to see and do at this park for all ages, we were really impressed with it. The cost to get in was €42 each when pre-booked online.
We hadn’t done a lot of research into this park or really watched any POVs as our visit was decided at the last minute but we were really impressed. Star Trek: Enterprise was a great ride with some unexpected elements. It has the new style lap restraints which were really secure and were tested with some decent hang time. The start of the ride was fun. You go through a door, which looks like a sort of holding area before the start of the ride, and then change track sideways. The train starts to go forward then you are suddenly fired backwards to pretty much vertical – we weren’t expecting it and it was a great twist. We had two rides on this one – we did it first and last. The queue line was well themed but quite slow moving so thankfully we didn’t have to wait longer than twenty ish minutes either time.
After our very wet experience at Phantasialand a couple of days earlier we stayed away from the water rides as we didn’t fancy a two hour train journey soaking wet. I also only had two pairs of shoes on this trip – normal Converse and smart Converse – neither of which are waterproof. There are two water rides here – Excalibur which is is a river rapids style ride, and Area 51 which is a log flume with indoor and outdoor elements. I would gave given this one a go on a warmer day. There is also a Dora the Explorer water coaster in Nickelodeon Land.
Next up was Studio Tour which went down with technical difficulties about ten minutes after we joined the queue so we had to abandon it and come back later in the afternoon.
As I mention on my page about gluten free food in Cologne, the food situation here was quite difficult for us as not a lot was open and of what was open there wasn’t much that was marked as gluten free. Our hopes were raised when we saw a Subway, only to be disappointed when it turned out they don’t offer the gluten free subs. It wasn’t clear if they had run out or if they just don’t do it. A lot of places were closed – we could choose between fries (which couldn’t guarantee no cross contamination), spiral crisps and allegedly jacket potatoes (these were shown on the app as being in one of the mobile food outlets but we couldn’t find them anywhere). If you are coeliac this would be difficult so it may be worth considering bringing food with you if necessary.
Bandit was one coaster I was not looking forward to but it had to be done as its a classic. Its a huge wooden coaster – the first of its kind in Germany when it was built. The queue line had videos and imagery of the ride being built back in 1999 which was really interesting to watch and a better distraction than the usual booming music or annoying noises that are forced upon us in most queue lines! It was originally named Wild Wild West before being rechristened as Bandit in 2005. The ride itself was as rough as rumoured but only in places – you could see where parts of the track are damaged causing the trains to jolt. It was actually really enjoyable although there were parts where I thought my brain had come loose.
Iron Claw was a bit like Infusion (Blackpool)/Mayan (Energylandia) but nowhere near as rough and actually one I managed to enjoy mainly due to there being something to hold on to in a position where it was actually comfortable enough for me to feel secure in the seat. Definitely the best of this type that I have been on.
One of the strangest rides we did was called Time Riders which was a VR simulator. You queue outside for this and a set number of people are let in for each show. We hadn’t taken into account our distinct lack of German language skills when we did this one. We were shown into a large room resembling a library/laboratory by a man who climbed up a ladder and spoke to us in German on a microphone. He then introduced another man who appeared on screen to tell us about a time machine he has built. The man on the screen was none other then John Cleese, made all the more funny to me because – as readers of a certain age may remember – he is responsible for the comedy classic Fawlty Towers which features an episode where some German guests come to stay and he spends the whole time telling people not to mention the war whilst himself mentioning the war every other sentence. I think I might have been the only person in the room who knew who he was! He also had subtitles so we got the idea that he was going to take us for a ride in the aforementioned time machine.
After this we were ushered into a large auditorium style room with seating facing what looked like a load of pipes and another screen. John Cleese appeared again but unfortunately he’d left his subtitles in the previous room so we were back to being clueless and a bit nervous about which parts of the room might start moving. The pipes around and below the screen started lighting up and the sound effects got more urgent making us think we were about to “take off”. Then it all went dark and we were ushered out of that room and into smaller rooms which were unmistakably the simulator part of the ride. Each compartment held about 12 people. We sat in individual seats which lap seat belts which we buckled ourselves. I can’t tell you how grateful I was for that seatbelt. The seats were high up of the floor and I was not able to put my feet on the floor to steady myself, so when the ride started I had to hold on to the underside of my chair to steady myself. The visuals were good but the ride was pretty violent – I’m not sure how the smaller children managed to stay in their seats! It was great fun despite not understanding a word of the plot.
Back to Studio Tour for our second attempt and a pretty short queue of about ten minutes. There is a pre-show before the next part of the line which explains a little of the concept of the ride – this one did have subtitles thankfully. There was also the option to walk behind in a separate line and skip the pre-show. This is something Wicker Man at Alton Towers might benefit from as there are only so many times one can be sacrificed. The ride itself is a combination of indoors and outside with dark elements and a brief backwards journey. Instead of one long train we were loaded into smaller cars cars, each with three rows of two. We were front of our cart which we were delighted with. This is a great family ride, fast enough in parts to be thrilling and with some great theming in the indoor parts.
Our close favourite with Star Trek: Enterprise was Van Helsing’s Factory. We left this until the end mainly because the queue had been over thirty minutes for most of the day with everything else shorter. I don’t know the story of Van Helsing but judging by the set design there were both vampires and vintage cars involved. Much like Studio Tour you are loaded into individual carts – this time for four people – so the queue moves pretty quickly. We only queued ten minutes so we went straight back around for our second ride. We rode front and back of the cart. The entire ride is in the dark and pretty fast but also quite short. We really enjoyed it and hope to see something similar in the UK again one day as since X closed at Thorpe Park there is nothing else like it at the moment.
A fantastic day and well worth the longer train journey. Decent theming and nostalgia combine well with the newer elements of the park. In some ways I enjoyed this more than Phantasialand as it felt more relaxed. Definitely one for families with varying ages as there are a lot of smaller rides to enjoy.
We bought an ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce (for a very reasonable €3.95 – reasonable for a theme park anyway!) from the shop at the end of the main street for our walk back to the station.
An apology: my photos are shocking again, I was too busy having fun!
compass and coaster 
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