"Safari Zone Prague - Experience summary and pictures (incl. Lugia Raid) from an Austrian Player"

#PokemonGO: Yesterday me and some friends attended the Safari Zone Event in Prague, at the Centrum Cerny Most, a Unibail Rodamco Mall in Czech Republic.It was a 4h drive from our town in Austria . We did not plan to stay overnight so we started the journey at 2am.After we arrived (~6am), we parked our car and checked out the location. It was still dark but the sun started to rise soon. We also met some Pokemon players already who checked out the location and looked for parking, entrance, sign-in etc.http://ift.tt/2yykqtV impressions of Cell Service:Since June 2017, all EU-countries have no roaming costs anymore, so we could use our mobile Internet without any thoughts or risk of high costs (something which was impossible before).My buddy had big problems with cell service at first. But it turned out that foreign cell service was deactivated by his provider (he used drei). One call to customer service and it was resolved soon. I myself had medium-good cell service (I have bob).In Prague, it seems we used Vodafone CZ. This was pretty good. Some used O2 which was not soo good. Overall, most of the time i had 3G and H+ reception. Sometimes it dropped to EDGE, then playing was not possible because it's too slow.Sign-in:After a short walking and looking around, we found the registration tent with security guys watching it. Some guys were already waiting, and we queued ourself in line. We had to wait 45min until it finally opened (8am), but we were lucky that we were one of the first in line. The queue was several 100m long by 8am.Pics: http://ift.tt/2g4rbvD http://ift.tt/2y4hEcw the tent, they checked ID (some guys told me it has to be passport, driving license is not enough but i don't know). However, i showed my Passport and showed them the printed out QR code which was given after sucessful registration. They handed over a nice bag with some goodies inside.Pic of the bag: http://ift.tt/2yyNj93 the bag, there was a mall map, the sign in QR code, a foldable Pikachu paper hat, and a Valor Sticker. Sadly, there was no Rubber band, which was given to the Safarizone goers in Germany. After scanning this new QR code (by turning the special pokestops in the mall), all stops turned to lured Pokestops, and the Event spawns popped up. Also, the Event Medal showed up. Pic of the medal: http://ift.tt/2y5NIgm WIFI and GPS inside the mall:Inside the mall there was a Pokemon GO-dedicated WIFI. While it was working fine, it's distribution was very spotty. While walking circles around the mall, the WIFI often disconnects, leaving us in short no-service hole (until mobile Internet hits again or WIFI reconnects). This was especially frustrating when encountering a rare mon and attempting to catch. We ended up only using the mobile internet, for me it was stable enough. GPS was pretty fine throughout the mall. Only in a few spots, the Error 11 appeared. But overall it was good. My buddy experienced a lot of GPS Drift which helped with hatching his eggs.Inside the Mall: Pokemon Spawns and farming route:Event Spawns were incredible. Magikarp, Pikachu, Machop, Mareep, Larvitar, all Starters (plus Evolutions), Chansey and Unown spawned like crazy. It was impossible to catch all of them, since the more you catch, more will pop up. Since i had no Shinies until this day, my main goal was catching a shiny. So i clicked on every possible Karp and Pikachu, while Go+ did the rest. That said, a Go+ is definitly recommended and almost necessary since there were so many spawns.Here is an ingame screenshot: http://ift.tt/2yzTaet Centrum Cerny Most featured a nice farming route, basically running circles around the mall. It was perfect, since you won't miss a stop or have to wait for it to be spinnable again (like on a linear route).On our route there were Team-Lounges in the team's colors (basically a photo wall, and some seat-bags on the floor). http://ift.tt/2y5NINo mall was very crowded, with >95% of all people looking at their phones. But it wasn't too full, everyone could walk normally, even with sight mostly inside the phone, and we never had any trouble with any other people or non-players. Only one time (i think it was an announcement for a lottery or something like that, on the Mystic Lounge), there was a mass crowd so we had to choose a slightly alternative route for our walk.Here is a photo of the mall: http://ift.tt/2yyNjWB caught/Candies earned - Summary:I don't know how many pokemon in particular i had caught by end of the day, but here is a short summary:450+ Pokemon caught. (had 400 space, but 1-2h before event ended it was full, did transfer some low-IV karps then). It is no farming record performance but we also took a 2h "break" by driving into the city center. It wasn't comparable (but Prague is a very nice city).Got 90487 dust (sadly, no double-dust event)158290 XP made (no lucky egg used)23km walked178 Larvitar Candies (best IV: 93%)175 Pikachu Candies (best IV: 96%, 3 shinies)627 Magicarp Candies (best IV: 93%, 3 shinies)54 Mareep Candies (best IV: 89)370 Machop Candies (best IV: 82%)103 Chansey Candies (best IV: 84%)158 Unown Candies (Unown forms S A F R I - 2x 89% as best IV)I was lucky enough to get 6 shinies total (3 Karps, 3 Pikas).I also heard several people hatched the elusive Shiny Pichu.The 73% Magikarp which evolved to a 1000CP Gyarados was my personal Highlight. I powered him up straight to exactly 3000 CP (the passed 2000 and 2500 as straight numbers)http://ift.tt/2y4L4XS memorable Raid-experience:Around 9am, we noticed a Legendary egg is hatching soon. Raids and gyms were disabled inside the mall, but it was a nearby gym on the outside. My buddy insisted to go there, since he wanted a Prague-Suicune by all means. So we went there. It hatched at 9:30am.We were all baffled when we saw what actually hatched. No Suicuine. It was Lugia!! We ran to the raid, where already many people were already there. We beat it. My friends also caught it, mine ran sadly -.-What we noticed: After the raid, the gym was normally acessible and mon's inside could be fed etc. The raid was gone (~20min after hatch)!!This was confirmed since some other guys arrived some minutes later and there was no Lugia or Raid anymore. We think it was an oversight from Niantic to spawn a Lugia Raid, and they shut it down once they noticed.My buddy has now the most rare Lugia in the world, a Lugia from 7.October 2017!Knowing mine ran still makes me sad, but oh well, i have 6 Shinies to comfort me :DHere are some pics of the Lugia raid:http://ift.tt/2yzTb21, we also saw a Legendary egg on a nearby gym. But this time it was a Suicune, and my buddy could finally get his Prague-Suicune he originally wanted. http://ift.tt/2g4rkzb (mine again flew..)Overall, it was an awesome event!Officially, the event goes until 7pm, but the spawns lasted longer (until 8:30pm) On the way to the car, i even caught my sixth shiny!With hurting feet and happy faces, we left Prague for another 4 hours driving home.Thanks for reading!I hope you all got your tickets for Amstelveen or Stockholm. It is definitly worth it, it was Pokemon Eldorado! And i really hope Niantic includes more countries in the world to also have similar events.TL;DR:Here is the whole album, for those who don't want to read: http://ift.tt/2y7mYhu via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2g22UGM