• This Tuesday, August 9, RMC Découverte is broadcasting the documentary

    Europa Park: At the heart of amusement park no. 1

    .

  • The channel's cameras landed in the German amusement park to discover the secrets of its roller coasters, but also those of the Rulantica water park.

  • The Mack family, who founded Europa Park, speaks through this report.

We bet you asked yourself the question at the beginning of the summer: “Hey honey, aren't we taking the kids to the amusement park this year?

» After a quick look at the budget, it's decided, the whole family will roar on a rollercoaster.

Yes, but which one?

Thanks to a remote control from RMC Découverte this Tuesday evening, perhaps it will come to your mind to cross the German border to discover Europa Park.

The channel is devoting a new issue of its

Méga loisirs magazine: Constructions XXL

, filmed for ten days last May, to this park created in 1975 which today represents nearly one hundred hectares of land divided into fifteen European districts, like Iceland, Portugal, Greece… Or even France if you don't want to be too out of place.

In total, a hundred attractions have been tested by the 120 million visitors who have walked the aisles since its opening.

Two million nails for a single attraction

However, initially, the one that was voted best leisure park for six consecutive years was intended to be a showroom to present the novelties of the Mack Rides company founded by… the Mack family.

Roland, 73, laid the first stones of the park in the 1970s with his father and looks back on this time when Europa Park did not display the same ambitions as today.

There were then only fifteen hectares of land in the countryside and a few rides far from the thrills that the Silver Star provides.

Thanks to archive footage, viewers will discover what the park looked like more than forty years ago.

We will observe, for example, the old trolleys of the Enzian Alps Express, now revitalized thanks to virtual reality, but also the construction of the districts.

The first to be inaugurated was dedicated to Italy and it took seven years for it to see the light of day in 1982. we couldn't afford it at first,” says Roland Mack in the report.

This documentary might as well reassure people who think they can be ejected mid-air during a loop.

Magnetic field, energy, magnets, the mechanical principles at work on attractions such as Blue Fire are explained.

Is it rather the wooden aspect of the Wodan that scares you?

Perhaps you will change your mind when you count the two million nails or see the workers at work in maintenance operations.

They take place twice a day, from six in the morning, with technicians who check each wheel of the trains.

Beneath the waves of Rulantica

The documentary also focuses on Rulantica, the latest project to emerge from the ground in 2019 with a hall twenty meters high, thirty slides and the largest wave pool in Germany in a universe inspired by Nordic mythology.

But what visitors don't see is the underground world that allows them to swim, jump and splash in this water kept at least at 30 degrees all year round.

Twenty experts ensure the maintenance of the site which can notably count on an underground water reservoir coming from the Rhine valley, an almost inexhaustible source.

“We have about 6,000 cubic meters of water, it may seem like a lot, but thanks to our water technology system, we can reuse 80% of it, which is the legal limit.

We could technically do more, but German law stipulates that we must bring in 20% new water”, testifies Michael Kreft Von Byern, director of Rulantica.

On the other hand, if you go to the water park, you may develop a new phobia: that of seeing a trapdoor open under your feet when you take your shower, like the Vildfål attraction.

Not practical on a daily basis.

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  • Amusement park

  • Rmc

  • Documentary

  • Television