Phantasialand | Amusement Park in Germany

This post is about our visit to Phantasialand amusement park in Germany in October 2019. The girls had their fall vacation (2 weeks) and we decided to take a couple of days to go visit the park.

Phantasialand – The Park

The park is about 2h from our house, and 30 minutes from Cologne. It opened in 1967 and attracts about 2 million visitors a year (source). It has 6 lands, with a total of 36 attractions. There are 6 roller coasters and 5 water rides.

One of the cool things about the park is that it is pet-friendly. Therefore we were able to take our dogs with us. And they were a success, with several people coming to see them. Actually, people were in general way more interested in the puppies than the kids…

The park itself was a pleasant surprise for us. Everything well organized, clean, and with very short queues for most attractions. Several places to get food with a large variety of options for all tastes.

The whole park is designed in a harmonic way, where the spaces are intertwining with the attractions and this gave me a very pleasant feeling (is it just an architect thing?).

There are 6 distinct thematic areas: Berlin, Mistery, China, Deep in Africa, Mexico and Fantasy. The attractions, buildings, restaurants and everything else are themed for each area.

There are several attractions for children, including for Arthur’s age. There are also playground areas with water. Diana is the radical one at the moment, and went on all the roller-coasters she could. The Colorado Adventure is similar to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad from Disney parks, although a bit more radical. And Diana went on that one 5 times.

We loved that the queues were very small and we had the fast-pass ticket for some of the attractions, because we were in the hotel of the complex. We used some of them (there were about 2 for each attraction that usually has longer queues), but not all were needed because the queues really weren’t that big (except for the park’s biggest roller coaster, which had about 45 min of queue at some point we’ve been there.).

The Hotel

There are two hotels inside the park complex, Matamba and Ling Bao. We ended up staying in the Matamba hotel, and we approved it.

One of the things we love about the hotel is because it’s part of the park and give some advantages, like fast line and stay a little longer after the park closes for the general public, besides of course, stay a few steps from the park entrance.

I loved the hotel inside too, super themed, even the room was one of the most well themed we’ve ever stayed. There is also kids space, with film, ball pool and activities, including with monitors at some times of the day. And the hallway to the buffet restaurant had an adventure course, which was a great way to utilize the space. Super simple, all in wood, but they loved it!

The Matamba hotel is so close to the park that some windows and rooms can be seen on the very close range. The internal garden also seemed super friendly, with suspension bridge and everything.

Conclusion

The Phantasialand amusement park in Germany definitely deserves a visit. But I’ll confess that it’s not easy with 3 kids + Dex and Eddie. As soon as our room became available, we took them back to the hotel, where they could rest after a few hours of exploring.

Anyway, a cute, visitable park in one day, that’s for sure. Close to Cologne (30min) and 2h30m from Frankfurt, then super easy to reach. As we stayed 2 days, we could repeat a lot and walk with a certain calm. Take advantage of the free things throughout the park, as balloon animals and face painting for children.

The visit was great, and we definitely want to go again. As always when travelling with kids, you just need a little bit of patience.

See you next time!