Europa Park - Disney/Six Flags Combined

In mid-June, just before the kids left for 6 glorious weeks in the States, we took Katie and 7 of her friends to Europa Park. Now I know you're thinking, "the mean parents of Katie Lee, who never do anything nice for her?" Yep, we loaded up 8 (eight) 14 year old kids in two cars, left at 7 a.m. and drove 3.5 hours through two countries to go to an amusement park for no apparent reason. But boy did we have fun! The kids were great and the park was not too crowded. There were 5 or 6 major roller coasters and dozens of minor ones setup like Disney with different lands, but with powerful coasters like a Six Flags. Fun! And the park is huge...we didn't even see it all.

Here's the gang at the entrance. Katie is far right with her black hair.

Is that Epcot Center you say? Nope. This is Jeff and Jena (self portrait) on the MIR Space Station ride in the Russia area of Europa Park.

This was the daddy of all the rides, a mean coaster 240 feet tall and very fast. Several children needed underpants changing.

Here, the girls regroup after the MIR.

Jeff rode every ride the kids rode. Consequently, he has about a 69% hearing loss due to high pitch screaming that 14 year old girls seem to use as a weapon of mass destruction, see below:

No matter how old you get, your dad has a way of looking like a dork in front of your friends just to embarrass you.

This gives a perspective of the park in the background, from the top of a water ride. The children look nervous, I wonder why.

We waited in the longest line of the day for "Blue Fire," a steel coaster with loops and twists. It was worth the wait.

The park stayed open until 8 p.m., then we stopped at McDonald's on the way home, for a little slice of Americana. By the time we rolled into the house at midnight, we were spent, but had a great trip. The weather held (it drizzled on us in line for Blue Fire) and we all got more sun that we planned. It's not too often you have that problem here, so we were not complaining. We've learned of a closer place to here, but don't know if we have time to get-r-done before the fall season overcomes us.