Rulantica is Europa Park’s water park. This water park is located just under 3 miles away from
Europa Park at Hotel Kronasar. Rulantica opened exclusively as an indoor water park late in 2019
for the cost of 250 million Euros, but the park recently opened an outdoor expansion
for the summer of 2021. I spent an evening at Rulantica after a full day at Europa Park
and thought this water park had a distinctly different feel than any other water park I’ve
visited. But is it worth visiting in your next trip to Europa Park? Find out in this review!
One of the most impressive things about Rulantica are the hours. One of the most
frustrating things with a lot of water parks is that they close before the amusement park.
Rulantica is always open later than Europa Park. As of this recording, Rulantica is open 10 am
to 10 pm daily. And if you’re a Europa Park hotel guest, you can get in even earlier at 9 am. So
there is plenty of time to enjoy this water park! And there are also several admission options. Full
day tickets cost 42 Euros as of 2021, but you can also purchase evening tickets after 5 pm
for 39 Euros or moonlight tickets after 7 pm for 29 Euros. I used the moonlight ticket and
had roughly 2 hours at the water park since I didn’t want to leave Europa Park early.
Thankfully 2 hours was plenty of time to ride the slides that I wanted to.
Along with the admission price, you will also need to pay for parking.
Like Europa Park and several other European parks, you buy your parking online
or at an automated machine and provide your ticket upon leaving the lot.
A lot of indoor water parks look sort of ugly from the outside, but I’m proud to say that’s
not the case with Rulantica. Since it’s part of the highly themed Kronasar Resort,
the building has a nice facade to dress it up. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The real wow moment occurs when you get inside. The lobby for Rulantica looks more like a
traditional hotel lobby than the ticket area for a theme park and the coolest thing
about this area are all these miniature models of both Rulantica and Europa Park.
The amount of detail on these miniatures was incredible and an attraction in itself.
To enter Rulantica, you are given a Rula Band, which is a RFID wristband
that opens and closes your locker. And you can use this band to make purchases.
And one interesting thing about this band is that you can make purchases without loading your credit
card onto it. So how does that work? Upon leaving Rulantica, you need to
go to this automated kiosk or ticket booth where your Rula Band is scanned.
You then need to pay any additional charges you accrued before being allowed to leave. It’s an
interesting system, but it does create a log jam when you go to leave at the end of the night.
Since Rulantica is brand new, the lockers and changing rooms
are modern. And the entire facility is spotless. But then it’s time to enter the indoor water park
and that’s a real wow moment. It’s rare to find themed water parks
and it’s exceedingly rare to find water parks with as much detail as Rulantica.
The indoor area is overwhelming with all the detail and there are several themed areas.
The two with the main clusters of slides are the most impressive.
You have Vinterhal, which is a giant wintery cavern with these giant stalactites extending
from the ceiling. This is to your left when you enter Rulantica.
On the opposite side of the park is Rangnakor, which is a city on stilts.
You have these classical villages elevated above the pathway, which is a really cool aesthetic.
And then in the middle, you have a massive wave pool and themed lazy river that takes
you through all sorts of caves. As I mentioned earlier, I visited at
night. The fantastical themes combined with the lighting gave the place a dreamlike atmosphere.
The theme is so well done that Europa Park even has a ride themed to this watery world,
the recently opened Snorri Touren dark ride. It gives a unique synergy between the parks.
There is one negative I have about the water park. It is challenging to find the water slides.
Very few are visible from the midway. Most of them are hidden behind the themed facades
and/or extend outside the building. I knew the general location for the slides,
but it took a little bit to find the different sets of stairs that serviced each slide.
And another obstacle is making sure you enter the line for the correct slide. In a similar criticism
to what I had about Volcano Bay, the slide names are tricky to pronounce and you really need to
do your research in advance to know which slide is which especially because, again, you can’t
see most of the slides even by their entrances. It’s a bit easier to locate the slide you want in
Svalgurok, which is the slide tower in the outdoor section. Every slide there
is atop this giant water fortress. This area had similarly whimsacle lighting to the indoor section
and I was surprised this area stayed open even as temperatures plummeted into the high 50s at night.
Thankfully all of Rulantcia has heated water which is a guilty pleasure of mine at any water park.
Rulantica reports the wait times for all the slides on the official Europa Park app,
but very few people will be carrying their phones around at a water park.
Thankfully there are these giant boards showing the wait times for every attraction in the park.
But to get the most use out of it, you need to know which slide is which.
One additional thing I’d like to see in the future is a display board at each individual
ride entrance showing the wait time. Europa Park does this at their dry park,
so I’m optimistic it could be done at Rulantica in the future. It would really help!
On the night I visited, lines were minimal. All the body slides were walk-ons.
And most of the tube slides had minimal waits as well. The longest lines were for the family raft
slides and the bowl slide, which hovered around 20-30 minutes. Like Europa Park, the lines remain
open until park close so if there’s a slide with a long line, I’d save it for the end.
This was the first water park I visited in Europe and one of the most striking things to me was that
many slides didn’t have attendants at the top. Guests themselves were responsible for following
the automated red lights and green lights atop most of the slides. Compare that to America where
you see an attendant atop each and every slide. As with Europa Park, the staff members
are efficient and quite friendly. And most of them speak multiple languages,
which is a major help since Europa Park pulls guests from all over Europe.
Moving onto the slide lineup, it’s pretty good for a park that’s less than 2 years old.
The one slide type the park missing in my opinion for a park of this scale is a water
coaster and I hope one is added in the future. The most popular slides are in Vinterhal.
Isbrekker and Tva Fall were walk-ons the night I visited. Tva Fall is a relatively standard
tube slide with a few small dips and tight turns. Isbrekker is a short body slide that drops you
into the pool, which is for strong swimmers only. The other three were the slides that had the
20-30 minute waits. Stormvind has the standard ProSlide bowl slide layout
that starts with a sizable plunge, but this one is entirely enclosed and the bowl section has this
dazzling lighting to make it standout. Svalgur Rytt is your standard family raft slide
and last but not least you have Vinter Rytt, which was a half pipe slide. The drop into the
half pipe had some airtime and the dragon adjacent to the slide looks stunning.
Over at Rangnakor, you have the park’s most extreme attraction in Dugdrob and Vildfal. These
are from a company I’ve never heard of before in Aquarena, but the slides were very smooth
and intense. The initial plunge gives a good falling sensation and the slide lasted longer
than expected. You have a few more intense and forceful turns before hitting the splashdown.
But the most notable thing about this slide is the drop itself. After the guests themselves close the
pod, there are a few options. If you do nothing, the employee nearby starts a 3 second countdown.
Alternatively, you can hit this green button next to you that immediately opens the chute
and drops you. On my first ride, I thought you had to hit the green button to signal
you were ready to the employee. So imagine my shock and shriek when I all of the sudden
dropped. It was a very memorable ride and one of the funnier experiences I’ve had at a park.
You also have Hugin and Munin, which are two racing tube slides.
The slides themselves have no notable elements, but the racing element is executed better than
Cheetah Chase since the sections where you pass the other slide have no barriers.
Moving outdoors, you have that aforementioned rain fortress with a few slides. The largest
is Stormrok, which is a weird body bowl slide. This one started with the usually fast plunge,
but instead of spiraling around the bowl and being comically dumped into the pool below,
you immediately hit a splashdown and come to a stop. You then need to get up and walk over to a
second slide in the middle to get to the bottom. It’s a much less thrilling set-up, but it makes
the slide more family friendly and removes the requirement of being a strong swimmer.
Most of the other slides are relatively tame, but the other large body slide in Spiralrok
has a surprisingly tight spiral that actually pulls some Gs. That one caught me off-guard.
Then the water fortress also has the familiar water features such as a dump bucket and these
are unavoidable if you want to access the slides. In the indoor section, you also have a few
different kids areas that are also themed with a smaller water
fortress and pint-sized water slides. And then for those who want to relax,
you have several different pools and lazy rivers in both the indoor and outdoor section.
So do I recommend Rulantica? I would prioritize your time at Europa Park, but I do recommend the
moonlight ticket. This was plenty of time for me to experience all the major slides without
sacrificing any park time at Europa. I probably couldn’t spend an entire day
here myself, but the park has a deep collection of slides and an incredible atmosphere.
Rulantica is one of the most visually stunning water parks I’ve visited,
so if you’re big into atmosphere and theming, I’d maybe put more effort into visiting Rulantica.
So those are my thoughts on Rulantica, the new water park at the Europa Park Resort in Rust,
Germany. What are your thoughts on this water park- whether it be the slides or theming? Is
this a place you want to visit? Let me know 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!