Prater Amusement Park

One evening of excitement!

If you enjoy amusement parks that are even open late in the night, you like that adrenaline that rushes through your body on those roller-coasters and you wanna have a wonderful time with your friends, then Prater is the place for you.

Opening hours

In the high season (March – October) most of the attractions open from 10:00 AM to 12:00 midnight. That usually happens when there is a high flow of visitors, as some attraction can close earlier.

Prices

Depending on the attraction, the prices vary from 1 euro to 8 euro, most of them being around 4 -5 euros. The prices are not that high but there are so many attractions that if you are not careful you might end up without money!

! You can only pay with cash there.

What can you find?

The whole park is incredibly big, not like Disney, but not your average amusement park either. You have roller coasters, haunted houses, ferry wheels, shooting games, water attractions and all sorts of interesting and fun thing to try. It’s a great place for any agers. You can spend a whole day there. There are also restaurants and museums (including a Planetarium which I want to visit soon) and at night, there is the Prater Dome club as well.

Some of the attractions

Inside Prater you have the famous Vienna Giant Ferry Wheel that offers you a great city view both in the day and at night. Personally I like it better at night since you can also see the whole park illuminated by the colorful attractions. This is a bit more expensive, around 10 euros per person and it takes around 15 minutes, since you move really slow. The cabin is big and can encompass 10 people and you slowly rise in the air then stop and then continue and then stop again until one round has finished and the journey ends. It might seem boring but it gives you time to take nice pictures and enjoy the view.

They also offer romantic dinners, where you can rent a cabin and have a meal there (I suppose the number of spins are more). When I went there we saw a couple leaving and waiters were cleaning everything swiftly. But if you want this type of experience you can expect to pay the price…around 300 euros.

! If you are in Vienna in May, especially the 1st, you can expect fireworks at around 10 in the evening and other festival like activities during the day. The best place to see the fireworks are from the ferry wheel and if your journey finishes beforehand you can quickly get out and see them from the ground as well.

Flower wheel is smaller than the previous one and a bit faster. You have about two or three spins and you can still enjoy a nice view of the city, at half the price.

Another attractions is Extasy…and no, I am not promoting any drug here. I admit I was too scared to get into this, but my friend was braver than me and let me film her also. As seen in the pictures you are practically turning in a sack of sand that is thrown around in any possible way and they spin you as fast as they can while sometimes tricking you that they are going slower. The funniest moment was that most of the time I could only recognize my friend among other just when I saw her carrot like hair hanging down and spinning.

My friend enjoyed it a lot and wanted to go again (which lead me to question her sanity), but just to be on the safe side, when you get out of the attraction, all dizzy and walking on 7 roads, if you are feeling sick they are quite considerate and have prepared a box with bags in case you want liberate your body of anything you had for meal all day.

On a slightly more comfortable note, the water ride attraction is also nice. You can expect to get wet as soon as you get on the boat, since they usually come right after a ride, one after another so there is always water inside. The person standing in the front is always the one that gets most of the water on him or her, but don’t be worried that you will be drenched, since they do not fully submerge you in water and you usually get splashed on your sleeves. It is refreshing and if the weather is warm and hot you will dry very fast. You can even go on it in the evening.

What is an amusement park without a haunted house attraction? Prater has 3 from what I saw and I can only talk about one of them (Hotel Psycho) since I dared to open my eyes from time to time and look through my eyelashes.

As I am quite the scaredy – cat, my friends had a tough time convincing me to go and unfortunately I couldn’t take pictures but here is what you can expect:

• very nice visual effects, most of the “monsters” in the frame pictures are digitally made so it is quite grotesquely detailed;

• there are some props here and there but most of them are further away;

• you will always expect something to come right of the corner since you are turned around quite often and it feel like there are many corners;

• at some point you arrive at the second floor and you will go outside on the "balcony" where you can see the park (at that time I was constantly expecting something to come out from my right side), then you re-enter the house;

• spoiler: finally nothing scares you at the exit.

Of course there are many more attractions and it is up to you to pick and have fun. You can see more in the picture gallery and please tell me what you have experienced and how was it?

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Photo gallery