Phantasialand
I've had this park recommended to me several times, and therefore, as a good theme-park fan, had to visit it. Even though it was quite the trip for me, it didn't disappoint.
The park is set up according to several themes, called Berlin, Deep in Africa, China Town, Fantasy, Mexico and Mystery. The different themed areas differ hugely in size. Also, some are mostly lots of atmosphere and a few rides, while others seem to consist of mostly rides and only a touch of atmosphere.
We entered trough the gate near the Asian themed part of the park, China Town. And I have to give it to the park designers and landscapers: they sure know how to create a beautiful atmosphere.
The area mostly consists of lots of atmosphere, several food and snack options and a small gift shop, sporting only two rides, a large haunted house ride and a martial arts story themed ride. The haunted house saw a cart slowly moving you pasts elaborate displays, reminiscent of the displays in haunted houses on carnivals, without the annoying moving scare effects of regular haunted houses.
The Deep in Africa part is mostly dominated by lots of music and an impressive floor-less rollercoaster, the Black Mamba.
Fantasy is by far the largest area of the park, with both a fair amount of rides, and lots of attention to atmosphere.
In parts of the area space is used almost overly efficiently, and I would recommend making sure you visit the top of the hill where the Hollywood Tour, a boat ride past several reproductions of iconic scenes, and the Temple of the Night Hawk, an indoor dark roller coaster, are located. Another part of the area, though, sports a lot of scenery and traces of what probably used to be rides, activities or or stores.
It was gorgeous to walk trough, but halfway through I got thirsty and there literally was not a single vendor point or bathroom for at least 20 more minutes of walking, which considering we were in a theme park, I thought was a lot.
After Fantasy we visited Berlin, which was a depiction of 19th century Berlin, dominated by cake shops, which I can heartily recommend, and a giant carousel. This area also sports the largest gift shop of the park, a haunted hotel, a laser-game ride where you get 3D glasses and get to shoot a 'whipped cream'-gun at mice, and an impressive swing ride.
The Mexico-themed area is where the wildest rides live. Trough an underground line, walking past waterfalls and decorated walls, you can enter a wild water ride, reminiscent of a log flume ride.
Besides this, there are free fall rides, spinning rides, basically, if you like extreme rides the part of the park where you'll be spending most time.
Finally, there is the tiny Mystery part of the park, with a water ride and a free fall ride. While there isn't much to this part of the park, it is dominated by the free fall ride, which looks like a castle. Yes, and actual castle.
All in all, it is a beautiful park to visit, with fun rides and a lot of atmosphere. I had only two major notes of criticism.
The first is that while they excel at atmosphere, generally they don't appear very good at storytelling. A lot of the rides could have been much better if there had been attention to the narrative of the ride. For instance, both the Hollywood ride and the haunted house ride depicted scenes, but there appeared to be little or no correlation between the different scenes, other then the general theme of the ride. No progression, no narrative.
The second point of criticism is that a fair amount of the rides are rocky, and sometimes uncomfortable to be in. When there is a warning notice: follow it, because they do not mess around.
On the other side, that they do not mess around also translates into a compliment, one I'd like to end with. Because they not only do they not mess around with warning notices, they also do not mess around with ride lengths. After spending a fair amount of time waiting to enter a ride, bang for you buck is nice. And more then once, I expected a fun ride to be over already, only to find that we were actually not even halfway trough. And yes, this definitely included the roller coasters.