Wiener Vienna Prater

Europe 2017 Blog Day 4

Hi everyone! Well the weather forecast for Vienna today wasn’t looking good for us with thunderstorms and rain predicted for the day, and sure enough when we woke up this morning it was raining ... DOH!

However, by the time we had finished breakfast the rain had stopped and just a few quiet rolls of thunder sounded in the distance and the storm appeared to have passed us, so we kept our fingers crossed it was going to stay dry for the day.

Our hotel was located fairly close to Vienna Prater so we took a leisurely 45 minute walk to the park, arriving just in time for park opening at 10am. The ride operators were still in the process of opening their rides and some were being hosed down ready for the guests to arrive.

The park is also home to the iconic Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel (1897) so we decided to take an early ride as we guessed it wouldn’t operate if the storms returned. There were only 5 of us in our carriage so had plenty of room to walk around and take advantage of the park views and Vienna itself.

In order to get our bearings we did a complete circuit of the park and decided which coasters we were going to ride, which are all independently run and are therefore pay per ride which saves the hassle of having to purchase tickets or a wristband.

Our first coaster of the day was the Hochschaubahn - their Scenic Railway. It’s nice to ride one of the last remaining Scenic Railways with a brake man on the train. Whilst it’s a small ride there is so much history and tradition wrapped up in the ride that you just can’t help but enjoy it. All the coasters that we rode today were running smooth and we enjoyed them all.

The park had filled up nicely with enough guests to keep all the rides running but without having the queue lines which was great. The park staff are really friendly and chilled out and the rides are very well maintained and all were running really smooth. Adrian was allowed to ride the front seat of the coasters with his camcorder to film the ride which not many parks allow these days.

Prater is bigger than we had imagined and is very clean, well run, has a great atmosphere. We ended up having really nice weather for the day, and we would love to visit again sometime to tick off the remainder of the rides that we didn’t do today.

We are currently on the motorway heading to our next hotel which is near to Salzburg. Scary day lined up for tomorrow!

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