Heide Park is the largest theme park in northern Germany yet I also think it may be the country’s
most underrated. Whenever people talk about German theme parks, they always rave about
Phantasialand and Europa Park. But I think Heide Park is comfortably Germany’s third best park
because it does so much well. A lot of people talk about this park’s impressive coaster lineup,
but the park does a shockingly good job with atmosphere, appearance, and theming.
This review will cover everything you need to know about Heide Park.
This park opened back in 1978 on the site of the Heidenhof Wildlife Park.
The park opened with some animal exhibits and just a half dozen rides. Heide Park started
adding bigger and bolder attractions in the 1980s and 1990s, but the park grew at a steady
rate. The park’s ascension into a major thrill park has occurred over the past two decades.
The park added Colossos in 2001. This record-setting wood coaster has served as
the park’s signature attraction ever since. Just a year later, the park was purchased by the Tussauds
Group and then in 2007, Merlin Entertainment took over ownership of the park and they’ve continued
to invest in the park. They’ve added new rides, refurbished others, and introduced some IPs to
compliment the traditional European theming. Heide Park is located in Soltau. This is
roughly 40 miles or 70 kilometers south of Hamburg. There’s a train station roughly a
1 mile from the park or you can arrive by car. I’ve done both and had no trouble.
As of 2022, tickets cost 45 Euros, which is very reasonable given what this park offers.
My biggest gripe with this park is its opening hours. Many days, the park is open from 10 am
until just 6 pm. 8 hours is enough time to hit all the coasters at least once,
but it can be tricky to get rerides and experience the non-coasters as well if the park is busy.
This is frequently the case in the summer months when you’ll encounter the highest
crowds. It’s not uncommon to see the all the major coasters with 30-60 minute waits.
Unlike many European parks, Heide thankfully doesn’t have staggered openings or closures.
Rides are open for the entirety of the park’s published opening times, which is helpful. So
it makes sense to hit the big coasters in that first and last hour when they’re least busy.
I especially recommend finishing with Colossos since the crew has given double rides in
both my visits if you’re on the last train. I would recommend starting with Desert Race,
especially if inclement weather is in the forecast later in the day. Not only is it a popular ride,
but it is the only major coaster in the park that will close for rain.
I would then head back to Colossos. This is the park’s most popular ride by far. There
is a single rider line that can save you a ton of time, but you can’t choose your row. I recommend
waiting standby at least once so you can choose the back car, which offers the best rides by far.
I would then head to the other side of the park and try to knockout any
coaster that still has a short wait. Krake is another one that offers a single rider
line that can save a ton of time on a busy day. I’ve sprung for the Express Butler skip-the-line
pass in all my visits. You have a few options with this system. You can purchase single shots
for up to 10 Euros. You can purchase one good for the major rides once that’ll cost up to 39 Euros.
But I recommend either the Gold or Platinum tiers. Gold costs 49 Euros. It cuts your wait
in half and is unlimited for most rides. The problem is that it’s one time only on Colossos,
which is the park’s busiest ride. It is unlimited on Platinum. For that reason, I’ve gotten
the platinum option which costs 89 Euros, but you can board the included rides almost immediately.
This has allowed me to maximize my day, especially with those limited hours.
If you want to use this system, make sure it is offered the day you’re visiting. You can look
online to see if it’s available. Heide Park only offers it on what they anticipate to be busy days.
I know people who have gone on days when it wasn’t offered and still encountered 30-45 minute waits.
Operations have been quite good in my visits to Heide. All the major coasters had multiple
trains in use and stacking was minimized. I want to specifically call out two crews.
The one at Bobbahn was averaging 20-30 second dispatches, allowing them to effectively run
4 trains at once. Then the crew at Colossos was routinely rolling trains, which is what
you want to see on a ride as popular as that. Now let’s talk about this park’s appearance. I
think Heide doesn’t get enough credit in this department. I really like how this park looks.
In general, the park forms a giant loop around the lake. It serves as a nice centerpiece.
The part around the water is easy to navigate, but there are a few narrow and windy pathways
by the kid’s areas that can be a bit confusing if you’re unfamiliar with the park’s layout.
The park is very well landscaped. The midways have quite a bit of greenery
and gardens adjacent to them and they work well with that lagoon. And you get some nice views
of the coasters looking over the water. It’s especially cool looking towards Transylvania
since all 4 major coasters over there feature white track. It can be a bit tricky to tell
which ride is which and reminds me of the thrill parks I used to make in Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Heide Park’s signature rides are thoughtfully placed into their respective areas. They interact
with pathways and often have custom on-board soundtracks from IMAScore. I again want to
callout Bobbahn and Colossos. The latter has that iconic wooden statue that shoots flames
out its head and swallows the train. It’s a spectacle. Then Bobbahn has a series of
pathways running underneath the attraction. In a similar fashion, the Mountain-Rafting river
rapids ride has a series of pathways running all around it. And Krake is theatric with the
near-vertical drop into the shipwreck. Oh and be careful walking past that ride’s Immelmann. The
ride’s splashdown sends a massive wall of water onto the midway that will absolutely drench you!
Then you have some nicely themed areas. The older ones have a classic European feel.
I love the entry plaza with the traditional Bavarian architecture.
Transylvania is neat how its perched atop the hill.
You have Bobbahn’s castle and then some darker themes for the rides in this area.
You have a pirate area fittingly placed on and adjacent to the water.
You have a desert area over by Desert Race smartly accentuated by sand.
Then you have some themed kid’s areas. You have the obligatory old west themed area,
which is small but done well. Then you have two colorful lands based on IPs
with both Peppa Pig Land and another themed to How to Train Your Dragon.
I know not everyone likes how Merlin integrated these characters into a traditional theme park,
but I think it was a wise decision. They’re extremely popular with kids and the lands
were designed in such a way that they don’t bleed into the adjacent ones.
The only section that really needs an overhaul is the Mayan section next to Colossos. This
area used to informally be known as Huss Land for, you-guessed-it, a series of flat rides
from Huss. But many of them have been removed or are sitting SBNO. So this area looks and
feels sad. An updated package of flat rides would go a long way to fixing this section.
Moving onto the ride lineup, Heide Park has 9 different roller coasters.
Their coasters skew more towards thrills and they have a lot of key genres.
They haven’t gotten a new coaster in nearly a decade, which is quite the gap for this park,
but I think that may be related to how much the park spent to refurbish Colossos. It cost over 10
million Euros to give the coaster a complete retrack and add some new theming elements.
But it was well worth it to restore the park’s star attraction.
The original Intamin pre-fabricated woodie is the park’s tallest, fastest, and longest coaster and
it’s now smoother than most steel coasters. The first half is very similar to El Toro. The first
drop and first two camelbacks have some serious ejector airtime, particularly in the back car.
The middle section also has a bit of a lull, particularly during the pace-killing helix, but
the finale has some floater airtime on the final bunny hills with the awesome visual of that fire
monster. I have an entire review on this coaster, but those first few hills make the ride for me.
Flug der Damonen is the best Bolliger & Mabillard wing coaster I’ve experienced
and it isn’t even close. This ride does some of the stuff you’d expect from this model. It
has some near-misses. You have some great inversions, most notably the wingover drop
and the one-of-a-kind demonic knot that feels like two off-axis zero-G rolls back-to-back.
Then this ride has shockingly good pacing. None of the elements are filler,
as the elements around the inversions either offer airtime or good positives. I have an entire review
on this coaster, but it does everything I could possibly want from a wing coaster and then some.
On the other side of the coin, Krake is the worst B&M dive machine. It’s still a fun
ride, don’t get me wrong. But it just doesn’t have the height or length of the other dive coasters,
as I noted in my review. It still has a very satisfying drop with plenty of floater airtime.
Then there’s that amazing tunnel. You then have a solid Immelmann and a bunny hill with
some weak floater airtime, but that’s it. Desert Race is one of the smallest Intamin
accelerator coasters, but it still delivers a fast-paced and dynamic ride experience. The
hydraulic launch still packs a wallop as you’re yanked down the track. Then you have a series
of low turns and s-hills that alternate between good positive Gs and pops of ejector airtime.
Some may find the ride a bit repetitive, but the sustained speed and elements made the ride quite
enjoyable for me as I said in my review. Then the park has two older Vekoma loopers.
Big Loop is a quadruple looping coaster that’s a mirror image of Canada’s Wonderland’s Dragon Fyre.
This one feels a bit faster and smoother though. You get some nice airtime on the drop and then
the highlight is still the forceful vertical loops you take back-to-back.
Limit will push you to your limits. This Vekoma SLC is brutal. The ride
is littered with headbanging, which ruins an otherwise intense layout.
Bobbahn is the park’s best family coaster and what I think is the world’s best bobsled coaster as I
stated in my review. Built by Mack, this ride has the familiar turns and helixes,
but this one is neatly located on a hillside. You pick up some serious speed halfway through the
ride as you keep dropping further down the hill. Then the park has two smaller coasters.
Grottenblitz is a Mack powered coaster. No thrills, but it has some fun visuals
as you go through a cave and go past some trees and statues.
Indy-Blitz is the true kiddie coaster. Built by Zierer, this is a mirrored
clone of the famous Dog Fart Coaster at BonBon-Land. Adults are allowed to ride,
even without a child, and it’s smooth enough. On that note, let’s talk about the offerings for
kids. You have the 3 aforementioned kids areas and they’re placed right next to each other.
It’s nice how each one has its own fully-fleshed out theme. Then you
have a large quantity of rides- many of which can be enjoyed by kids and parents together.
Most of the park’s current flats are designed for kids. The park used to have a more extensive
flat ride lineup, but they removed six of their better ones between 2016 and 2018.
Now it’s probably a weakness for the park since they don’t have many for
adults and I’d love to see some investment here. But there are two I want to highlight.
One is Magic, which is this weird suspended breakdance from Huss.
The other is Scream, which is unique Intamin gyro drop. Heide Park used to have 2 observation
towers. One was removed before the 2022 season and the other was converted into Scream. This
ride is 33 stories tall and it’s perched atop the hill, so you can see for miles in each direction.
And the spin on the ascent makes sure you get every possible vantage point.
Then the drop is exhilarating too. It occurs with no warning. You float the whole way down
and get a good stomach dropping sensation. Heide also has two dark rides. The better
of the two is Ghostbusters 5D. This IP is perfectly suited for a shooting dark ride. I
do wish the ride incorporated the film’s iconic ghosts and villains rather than generic ones,
but it does borrow the concept that you need to lock onto a ghoul for a few seconds to capture it.
It is a screen-based shooter, but they’re crisp and responsive.
The other one is Drachengrotte. Located in the How to Train Your Dragon area, this is
a slow-moving boat ride that starts outdoors past some miniature displays before going into a cave
with some larger dragons. I wish it had more dark ride elements, but it’s cool nonetheless.
Then you have a boatload of water rides. My favorite is Mountain-Rafting,
a lengthy Intamin rapids ride going through caves and past buildings. The ride has plenty
of rapids that’ll splash your boat plus two sections with waterfalls. Oh and there
are a bazillion rafts on the course at once, so it’s possible to bounce into and even pass them.
Wildwasserbahn is a Mack log flume. It’s a scenic one with
three drops. The first two are tiny, but the final one has some height and speed.
I just wish the seats were padded. They were rock hard and a bit uncomfortable.
The park used to have an even crazier log flume named Wildwasserbahn II…original name I know.
This was a rare Schwarzkopf flume and it featured a shockingly large 75 foot or 23 meter tall plunge
down a hill. It’s a bummer it left the park, but Flug der Damonen does look like an improvement.
But the water ride lineup keeps on going. You have a Mack Splash Battle and some scenic boat rides.
The latter are a refreshing change-of-pace from the hustle and bustle of the coasters.
And I would be doing everyone a disservice if I didn’t mention the crazy slide tower by the water.
The tower is at least 5 stories tall. It features a variety of metal slides. The spiral ones are
too tight to build up any real speed, but I like the ones with the extended straightaway. You can
fly down those ones! Then there’s also this odd one where you ride down on a series of rollers.
But the best thing about this tower may be the views it offers of the park’s coasters, especially
now that the observation tower has been removed. For shows, Heide Park has some street
entertainment and more notably, a pirate-themed stunt show. I only caught part of the latter,
but it seemed quite popular amongst guests. Moving onto the food, I personally haven’t had the
best meals here. The quick service locations I’ve tried by the main entrance weren’t all that great.
I believe there are better restaurants further into the park and I’d love to know which ones
to try next time down in the comments. In general, European parks don’t have as
much ride merchandise as the US theme parks, but I’m glad to say Heide Park differs in that
regard. They have an expansive gift shop with a dedicated section of gifts, trinkets, and apparel
for each of their major rides. Then you also have non-theme park merchandise related to their IPs.
Lastly, I want to mention the park does have on-site accommodations. I haven’t stayed there,
but they offer a nice hotel and campground with no shortage of amenities for families.
So do I recommend Heide Park? Absolutely! This is a great theme park. It really has something
for everyone. For me, I love the combination of large thrill coasters and nicely themed
areas. Between the rides and theming, this park reminded me of a Busch Gardens park.
Then there are some solid supporting rides and plenty for little ones at those 3 kid’s areas.
The biggest downsides with this park go hand-in-hand- the short hours and crowd levels.
This can make it tricky to experience everything that you want in a single day and have time for
rerides. So it may be worth investing in the Express Butler as I did if the park is busy,
and that’s usually the case in summer. I do prefer Phantasialand and Europa Park
over Heide, but I think this is firmly Germany’s third best theme park. I definitely prefer it
over the nearby Hansa Park. And I think this is a European park that doesn’t get as much
love from the coaster community as it should. So those are my thoughts on Heide Park, northern
Germany’s largest theme park. What are your thoughts on this park- whether it be the rides,
theming, or anything else? 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!