Euro-Mir at Europa Park has a case as the world s weirdest spinning coaster. This Russian themed
attraction was the original Mack spinner, but it rides much differently than the company s
later spinning coasters. But is that a good thing? Find out in this review of Euro-Mir.
Spinning coasters have been around since the early 1900s with wooden Virginia reels.
But the industry went decades without a new one. In the 1990s, multiple manufacturers reintroduced
the spinning coaster; this time utilizing steel track. Mack was one of those manufacturers
and their first was Euro-Mir in 1997. Today, Mack is well-known for spinning coasters.
Their family ones spin freely and wildly. Their larger xtreme spinners still spin freely, but
they rotate at a more leisurely rate because of how wild the layout is. While Euro-Mir s vehicles
resemble Mack s later spinning coasters, there is a key difference with the ride system. The cars
cannot spin freely. The rotation is controlled by motors at specific points in the experience.
Euro-Mir s spinning is never fast nor aggressive. You just rotate slowly. It feels more gimmicky and
quirky on this ride than the later spinners. Euro-Mir is located in the Russia section
of the park and the ride is themed to outer space. And I really like the look of the ride.
You have a giant space ship marking the ride entrance and the layout takes place around
these blue, reflective towers. You just see the tangled mess of blue track and it s near
impossible to tell where the train is going next. The outdoor queue line is a mess of switchbacks,
but the short indoor section features some fun lighting and most importantly the ride
s famous soundtrack. It s super catchy and it s going to get stuck in your head.
But that s fine because the song is so fun. You ll likely be bobbing your head to the beat.
And you probably won t be waiting in this queue line very long. Euro-Mir is a capacity machine.
Each train is comprised of 4 cars, seating up to 16 riders total. And most amazingly, there are
9 trains. Europa Park loads and dispatches this ride in less than 30 seconds, so you never stop
moving through that queue line. I ve never seen this line longer than 15-20 minutes.
But if you want to get on even faster, the coaster did have a virtual queue line
during the 2021 season. You could book a return time for free in the app. You d get
a 10 minute window and when you returned, you were basically on the ride in 5 minutes flat.
Return times for this ride were among the most plentiful of any attraction.
The trains look like the usual Mack spinning cars with the back-to-back seats and lap bars,
except these lap bars have a more pronounced and elevated bar for riders to hold onto.
I don t have a preference whether I ride in the front, back, or middle. I do like to experience
the main layout in reverse, but it s random which way you re oriented for that part. So you have
a 50-50 chance regardless of where you sit. Once dispatched, you roll out of the station
and enter one of the best lift hills in the world. It s basically a dance party. You have
nearly a 3 minute long spiral lift hill around a giant rocket. Then you have the iconic music
blaring and some strobe lights. And some of the cars will slowly rotate during this sequence,
which gets pretty disorienting. It s sensory overload and it s just pure fun.
The outdoor segment begins with a slow series of turns around the towers. There aren t any
thrills here, but you re going to lose all sense of direction between the rotation of the vehicles
and the reflective towers. And because this sequence is 92 feet or 28 meters tall,
you do get some cool views of the park. This part lasts just under a minute.
Then the vehicles lock and you head down the ride s largest drop. This twisting plunge is
a bit jerky, but the drop is quite thrilling if you experience it backwards since you get a bit
of a freefall sensation. Then the pullout offers some strong positive Gs for all.
You then coast over this giant camelback. It offers no airtime,
but the cars will smoothly rotate 180 degrees. This is the last of the spinning on Euro-Mir as
you re locked in place for the remainder of the ride. Ideally, you re going backwards at this
point if you want the most thrills. But if you re going forwards at this point, it means you
got to experience the drop backwards at least. The next pullout has some moderate positive Gs.
You then twist between the towers. Some of the transitions are a bit suspect on this ride,
so the advantage of going forwards is that you can more easily brace for them. I ve never found this
ride uncomfortable, but I have seen people smack their head on some of the abrupt transitions.
You then dive back down to the ground, getting some more positive Gs
and then you enter this super forceful helix. The sustained Gs on this element are
fantastic. It s the best part of the ride. You then have one more fast turn that also
offers solid Gs and then you hit the brake run. And you probably want to
brace yourself for the transition into and out of this turn. It can really jerk you.
Euro-Mir is roughly 5 minutes in length and features 3215 feet or 980 meters of track.
But only a fraction of that ride time and track length is dedicated to the high speed coaster bit.
Most of the ride is spent in the lift hill and on those elevated turns.
So what would I rate Euro-Mir? I would give this bizarre coaster a 7 out of 10. I enjoy this
coaster and all its quirks. What would otherwise be a boring start has some appeal because of the
club-like atmosphere and rotations. Then the ride culminates in an action-packed coaster segment.
This ride has some good positive Gs, particularly on the low turns and helixes.
Just brace yourself appropriately. Mack coasters nowadays are very smooth, particularly their
spinning coasters. But Euro-Mir has some questionable transitions in-between elements.
I also wish this ride had free-spinning vehicles throughout
and I wonder if Mack would have built this ride differently if it were made more recently.
So those are my thoughts on Euro-Mir, the original Mack spinning coaster.
What are your thoughts on this funky coaster? Do you like it and all its quirks? Let me know your
thoughts on the ride or the epic soundtrack down in the comments. If you enjoyed this review, I d
appreciate it if you gave this video a like and you considered subscribing since there will be a
lot more roller coaster and amusement park videos here at Canobie Coaster. Thanks for watching!