Wiener Prater is one of the most unique amusement parks in the world.
Located in downtown Vienna, Austria, this park feels like a carnival on steroids.
The park has an ever evolving ride lineup, but they currently have 15 different roller
coasters as of the 2022 season.
And in total the park has nearly 100 different rides and attractions.
You’d probably run out of time to ride them all and you’d certainly go broke trying.
Find out why this may be the world’s most expensive amusement park in this review.
Wiener Prater is the name of a large public park in Vienna.
This park originally opened way back in 1766.
The most prominent section of this park is the Wurstelprater, which is the amusement
area.
This park is set up way different than other theme parks.
This is a free admission park and there are no entrance booths.
So people can come and go as they please, and there’s a seemingly infinite number
of ways to enter and exit this park.
This park has no fencing or boundaries.
It runs right up alongside the public park and streets.
It sort of feels like a city version of Knoebels in that regard.
The rides also aren’t owned by the park.
Rather each attraction is an individual business.
Think of Wiener Prater as a permanent carnival.
Some rides are there for the long-haul.
Some show up for just a year or two.
Others have come and gone multiple times.
For example, the famous Olympia Looping roller coaster is being assembled yet again for the
2022 season after previously running here for the 2016 and 2018 seasons.
This approach allows the ride lineup to constantly evolve and stay fresh.
On the downside, this park can be extremely expensive.
Since each ride is owned by a separate entity, there is no wristband.
Every single attraction is pay-per-ride.
This is great if you just want to ride a few attractions, but it’s a nightmare if you’re
a coaster enthusiast like me who wants to experience a lot of rides.
Each attraction here costs roughly 4-6 Euros.
Also make sure to bring physical cash.
Most rides and stands only accepted cash.
Almost nothing accepted credit cards.
I found out after my visit about a pre-loaded Prater Card you can purchase that sounds a
lot more convenient and you more easily budget how much you want to spend.
Since I didn’t know the next time I’d visit Wiener Prater, I saved up and spent
nearly 200 Euros here.
That’s more than it costs to visit Disneyland or Disney World with a park hopper and Genie
Plus on the busiest of days.
I guess it’s less than some parks plus their skip-the-line passes, but it was stupid expensive.
On the bright side, lines typically are not an issue here.
Wiener Prater’s midways are busy, but the pricing structure keeps lines to a minimum.
I visited on a summer Friday and the longest line I saw was roughly 15 minutes.
Most rides were walk-ons.
Rides are operated at their maximum capacities and are loaded at a breakneck pace.
Since each ride is its own independent business, the operators have every incentive to maximize
their throughputs.
Related to that, Wiener Prater’s hours are interesting.
Typically, the amusement area is open from 10 am to 1 am daily.
Some rides open later.
Some close sooner.
In the final hour, there were probably less than a dozen rides still operating at that
point.
One ride of interest with shorter hours is the historic Wiener Riesenrad Ferris Wheel.
The closing time for that ride can range from 8 pm – 12 am depending on the night, but
it closed by 10 pm the day I visited.
I was worried the lack of a single cohesive vision and the turnover of rides would cause
the park to suffer in the atmosphere department, but Wiener Prater was very lively.
Most rides had vibrant lighting packages and/or fancy facades.
Every ride was designed to look as good as possible to entice you to spend you cash.
It felt like a bustling European funfair in that regard.
It’s a much different feel than a traditional amusement park, but the energy is electric.
Then the park’s tallest attractions offer stunning vantage points of the surrounding
metropolis.
I love when parks can feed on their surroundings like this.
Now let’s talk about the ride lineup.
They may change year-to-year, but there is never a shortage of attractions.
In terms of quantity, Wiener Prater may have the most rides of any amusement park.
I’d estimate there to be over 100 different rides and attractions.
The coasters are more about quantity than quality.
There are 15 for the 2022 season.
Most of the coasters were more of the family variety, but there were a handful of kiddie
coaster and some major thrill coasters.
The lone standout for the upcoming season is the return of Olympia Looping.
I rode this Schwarzkopf at Oktoberfest back in 2017 and it features 5 very forceful vertical
loops.
I thought the rest of the ride’s drops and helixes were pretty uneventful, but those
inversions will satisfy anyone’s craving for positive Gs.
The park will finally get a true standout attraction in 2023 with Wiener Looping.
This will be a Mack Big Dipper coaster that’ll break the Austrian inversion record.
And most interestingly, the ride will feature backwards facing seats.
The best coaster I experienced during my visit was Megablitz, which I touch on in a separate
review.
This is a compact Vekoma coaster with modest stats, but it pulls nearly 5 Gs on the helixes.
This ride is a positive G and greyout machine.
And it’s surprisingly smooth for an older Vekoma.
The others that stand out are the ones plussed by theming.
Even though the layouts may be ok at best, the rides look great and have some memorable
visuals.
Take Hochschaubahn for instance.
This is a small and slow scenic railway, but I love how the ride travels through a rocky
mountain and passes several cute miniature displays.
Gesengte Sau was probably my second favorite coaster.
This is the largest Gerstlauer bobsled.
This wild mouse on steroids features a diverse layout with some lateral-heavy hairpin turns,
a few sizable drops, and plenty of banked turns.
The ride wasn’t as satisfying as some of the other bobsleds, but the ride was still
fun between its mutli-layered layout and the quirky farm theming.
You also have a trio of spinning coasters.
Insider is the definition of sensory overload.
This Maurer spinning coaster has an off-the-shelf layout, but the booming music and gratuitous
use of lasers blew me away.
This indoor coaster was extremely disorienting, especially because I was sent alone so my
vehicle spun like a top.
There are some hard brakes since you can’t see them coming, but this ride was really
cool.
Oh and it also had a mirror maze in the queue line.
Maskerade is a super compact Gerstlauer spinner with a bizarre theme and a rare elevator lift.
Most of the layout is indoors with the exception of the first drop.
The coaster section is really short, but you do have a forceful helix and this was another
one where I spun pretty wildly throughout.
Dizzy Mouse is your standard Reverchon spinning coaster.
This one spun well and there was a cool tunnel into a cat’s mouth at the end.
You then have 5 adult clones that don’t get the most glowing reviews.
It has minimal braking, so there’s some good laterals in the first half and a few
weak pops of airtime in the second half.
Roller Ball is a rare RES 4D coaster.
The ride looks like it’ll be an intense experience, but this is arguably the most
overbraked roller coaster in the world.
You slowly rock back-and-forth as you descend the tower.
I have a separate review on this ride explaining how it’s fine for families if the appearance
doesn’t scare them away.
Many kids are too afraid to ride this since they think it’ll invert them.
You also have a Vekoma Boomerang.
This one has a fun tunnel after the cobra roll and this one also operates with just
lap bars, so there’s no headbanging as you go through the forceful inversions.
But you need to be careful since these restraints are made entirely of metal and have zero padding,
so they hurt if your legs smack into them.
Super 8er Bahn is a rough Pinfari creation.
Some of the pullouts have decent Gs, but this ride will shake you up.
Thankfully it doesn’t have over-the-shoulder restraints.
Otherwise this ride could be brutal.
Last but not least you have the most maligned coaster in Volare.
I find these Zamperla flying coasters moderately enjoyable, but I will admit this one was shakier
than the others I’ve ridden.
I still enjoyed the hangtime on the barrel rolls, but the turns rattled you good.
Then you have three kiddie coasters.
Two can be experienced by adults.
Zug des Manitu is the most interesting.
This indoor, western themed coaster starts by going backwards before traveling through
a fairly slow but scenic layout.
The visuals for a coaster of this scale really surprised me.
Race is a SBF kiddie coaster consisting of just a spiral.
This was arguably the most forgettable coaster in the park, but it’s fine for kids.
Auto BergBahn their oldest operating coaster and this is the one exclusive for kids.
It looked like a cute little wood coaster.
While on the topic, Wiener Prater had a large kiddie section filled with the usual roundabouts
plus some unique junior rides like a little go kart track.
This section was probably the least busy, but that’s good for families that want a
more relaxing experience.
Now the adult flat rides are where this park truly shines.
Wiener Prater may be the best park in the world for flat rides.
This lineup had a lot of unique attractions.
Not only that, but these flats were run at their highest speeds with super long cycles.
I definitely got my money’s worth on each of these.
The stars were the pendulum rides.
The best of the bunch and possibly my new favorite flat ride is Black Mamba.
This Funtime Chaos Pendle is downright insane.
It’s basically a booster arm attached to a secondary arm.
The gondola still rotates throughout the experience.
But instead of traveling in the same circular path, Black Mamba has an elliptical flight
pattern that varies with each rotation.
When the two arms synch up, you get very sustained and forceful airtime as you hurtle through
the air.
And you sometimes invert during this too.
The other rotations offered lesser airtime and/or hangtime.
This ride blew me away and I have its own review.
There are also two boosters here.
King Booster is the newer and taller of the two, standing nearly 200 feet or 60 meters
tall.
You also have extra axes of rotation since the seats can both flip and spin.
The rotation on the seats was more gradual than expected, but the rotations delivered
hints of airtime and hangtime paired with stunning visuals of the city.
The older Booster was actually way more intense.
It was run faster than similar rides, so it offered forceful and sustained positive Gs
for the entire ride.
Because of how long the ride lasted, I thought it was going to rip my legs off.
And those forces were paired with a flip on each rotation.
Tornado is a one-of-a-kind swing ride from Funtime.
You rock back and forth getting good positive Gs and visuals, but the gondola can also flip
throughout the experience.
The rotations are controlled, but they’re slow and well-timed to maximize hangtime and
visuals.
Speed Wave is one of the best run Mondial top scans in the world.
This one is super fast, so it delivers insane and sustained laterals throughout.
And then the gondola wildly rocks and flips throughout the experience.
My body was thrown in so many different directions.
Sometimes the flips were rapid and forceful.
Other times they were slow, giving some terrifying hangtime.
I just love how varied the ride experience is on these attractions.
The other one to highlight is Discovery.
This Zamperla looping frisbee is taller than similar rides, so it offers stronger positive
Gs.
You get airtime building up to the inversions and hangtime when you finally flip over the
top.
Then while not a pendulum ride, I also need to highlight Extasy.
This crazy contraption is one of the most intense and disorienting rides in the world.
Enclosed with booming music and flashing lights, the arms rotate you very quickly, producing
strong positive Gs and sustained laterals.
But that’s not all, the arms also go upside down while still spinning.
Getting lats and Gs while suspended upside-down was unreal.
And this ride also lasted forever, so it’s a miracle no one came off puking.
Moving onto the tower rides, these attractions were some of the best in the park for views.
And they offered some thrills too.
Free Fall Tower Vienna was an incredible Funtime drop tower.
This was a 300 foot or 90 meter tall gyro tower.
Between the height and how long you’re held up there, this ride offers breathtaking visuals.
Then the drop is great too, offering a brief stomach drop at the start followed by sustained
floater airtime.
Prater Tower is one of the world’s largest star flyers standing 384 feet or 117 meters
tall, so the views of both the park and city are unreal.
If you want to take in the views at a more leisurely rate, you have a few different Ferris
Wheels.
Then you have plenty of spinning rides.
Do not underestimate any of these.
For example, I tried the Huss Break Dance and it was very well run.
The spinning was fast and forceful as I was whipped about the platform.
The can’t miss one is Tagada.
This ride is banned in America and it’s a riot.
You sit in this circle with no restraints as the ride spins around and bounces to music.
You can either sit down and hold on for dear life, or you can get up and jump around.
I was impressed what others were willing and able to do while the ride rapidly spun.
I was afraid of ending up in the hospital!
This park also has tons of dark rides.
They’re better than your average carnival dark ride, but they can’t rival the best
ones out there.
My favorite of the bunch was Iceberg, which was a weird interactive shooting dark ride.
You ride through the arctic and use your camera to shoot at animals.
And then you have an interesting selection of infamous pop songs.
The others were reliant on jump scares, but one
that stood out to me was Hotel Psycho because of the modern effects and use of multi-directional
sound.
Last but not least, let’s talk about the water rides.
Aqua Gaudi is a weird log flume.
You have 3 ok drops, but one of them features a speed hill afterwards.
Then Wildalpenbahn is a spinning rapids style ride you see more frequently in Europe.
The ride started slow and didn’t spin too much, but the final plunge into the water
delivered a little pop of airtime from its abruptness and lack of restraints.
And this one can soak you if you enter the pool backwards.
I think that covers most of the rides of interest, but I have little doubt this lineup will continue
to expand and change over time.
It’s the trademark of this place.
Two final things before my recommendation.
One, the food.
I didn’t eat much here, but it seemed like your usual carnival food.
Two, parking.
Wiener Prater doesn’t have its own parking lot.
Rather you need to use the nearby parking garages.
I stayed at a hotel just a 2 minute walk away that included parking since I knew I’d be
at Wiener Prater until close.
So do I recommend Wiener Prater?
Absolutely!
If you’re purely into coasters, this may not be a top priority for you.
There are tons if you’re chasing credits, but the overall quality is just ok.
Where this park shines is in the flat ride and atmosphere department.
If you love crazy flat rides and the energetic atmosphere of a European funfair, Wiener Prater
is a must.
Just know it may cost an arm and a leg to experience everything, but I ultimately had
a blast here.
It was just so different than any other theme park I’ve visited.
So those are my thoughts on Wiener Prater.
What are your thoughts on Austria’s most famous amusement park?
Do you think it may be the flat ride capital of the world?
Let me know your thoughts down in the comments.
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