Italy 09/19 – Movieland Park + Leolandia

Let’s end this trip on a high then. The Italian coaster scene has been getting a bit depressing.

Day 8 – Movieland Park

Didn’t know what to expect from this place, all looks a bit dodgy and the cred lineup doesn’t do it any favours. The place did already have comedy on its side though in the fact that their monorail had collapsed a couple of days prior to our visit.

Quality is to be expected then.

The unassuming entrance. They also have a waterpark and some themed restaurants so they can use the word ‘resort’ everywhere.

The actual entrance.
We were going to get the major cred out of the way first, but it was down. So we settled for their newest attraction, Expedition Pangea.
And it’s a whole different level of themed experience.

You get to drive your own jeep, freestyle.

Just let loose into the wilderness with dinosaurs.

Cause as much damage as you want.

I was driving, but I’m told the airtime sitting up on the back seat is terrifying.

It’s got interactive screens and a guide as you go round.

I believe it’s a world exclusive, because who would be bold enough to put guests in this much danger?
I already love this park.

Looks like I didn’t need to go to Hollywood after all.

These things are scary at the best of times. This one has the added bonus of playing the Twilight Zone tune at the top while things are falling apart with smoke and explosions.
Making that drop a little extra special. Love it.

Magma 2.1 is what you’d call a studio tram tour, but it takes place in a racing truck driven by a maniac (and the maniacs all have plaques on the wall with hilarious code names).
The way they speed around the place in these things would make a good ride alone, but it also has loads of stuff going on with big scenes, water effects, explosions and one amazing trick that I can’t even begin to describe. Love it.

Android was a bit much. The preshows have some terrible footage of what looks like Italian people who have come to mime an English script and it’s their very first read through. And that’s the take they went for.
So you can visibly see them miss half the words that are being spoken and keep on bumbling through without caring for the effect.

It turns into a simulator thing on rows of seats and the footage far too Transformers. Same plot with you being in an escape vehicle.
Same machines bursting out of the ground to punch you.
Same being dragged through a building on a chain.
Same you want the allspark? you can have the allspark! moment.
Same falling over the edge and being caught by a machine at the end.
The one thing they did differently was it had a live actor sitting in front of you miming stuff, but I couldn’t really get behind it. Didn’t love it.

Construction, get excited.

This was different, don’t think I’ve done one before. RCTs legendary Spiral Roller Coaster. Bit of a Schwarzkopf snap to it and the cars dangerously scrape the grass at a certain point.

They have one of those XXL Go-Gators here that I was particularly looking forward to.
It was closed all day. Spite!

Never mind, speedboats.
Again I believe Kitt SuperJet is proudly world exclusive, for a theme park anyway. If you want watersports you have to go out and pay for it the hard way, but Movieland brings the danger to you. As well as the monorail collapsing, they had flipped one of these a few days prior to our visit. Good.
Aside from the sweaty life vests, this thing was incredible.
As with the trucks, it’s driven by a complete nutter (and the nutters all have plaques on the wall with hilarious code names). Before we began, he had a bit of banter with a nervous German woman behind us who was particularly scared of the outside seat.
“All is wet, all is wet. We go in. We swim.”
I was also on the outside seat. Good.
The 600HP is unleashed and you go bouncing around a big watery stage set, tightly gripping a metal bar while things pretend to shoot at you. The power is cut, the boat spins and you launch off the water with incredible, blister inducing, whiteknuckle force. As you land, a wall of water to the face. This happens many times and no mercy is shown.
There’s also a shed scene that you fly into with enough force to bring a tsunami crashing over the boat. Effects go off, more things shoot at you, water cannons shoot you in the face and then round 2 begins.
Love
it.

So while I’m soaked to the bone on one side, let’s hit the legendary submarine simulator, U-571.
I was rather nervous going into this, with images conjured in my mind that it was even wetter than the speedboats, that I’d be waste deep in water and the logistics of clothing and having a plane to catch the very same day.

It starts off in an incredibly immersive preshow room, with the submarine sitting in a dimly lit dockyard and an actor teasing people with buckets of water before oh no, people are shooting at us again. This time it’s planes and big geysers are going off everywhere, threatening to soak us while we run to the sub and clamber down a ladder.

What goes on inside was bizarre and cool, but a little underwhelming.
You sit sideways on a pipe in the dark while the actor bloke pretends to take you down into the depths. Stuff goes wrong, you start tilting at an enormous angle. Again this is quite a physically tough ride on the hands as you’re gripping onto sweaty metal bars on either side to stop yourself sliding onto the floor.
It’s mostly that, I think it sprung a few leaks somewhere and shot a few people, just it wasn’t the sadistic waterboarding experience I kinda hoped for.
A cool setup that should have gone all out on us to be something truly special.

With the insanity out of the way, it was time to tick off the Invertigo and leave.

Luckily it was up and running. Turns out Diabolik is a superhero/villain who steals stuff, so it has a theme and on-board sound making it slightly better than your average Vekoma Boomerang-fest.

Done. Easily my favourite park in Italy because it’s just so wild and different. The big boy parks were very run of the mill and this place just did things to me that I’d never experienced before. I value that a lot these days.

But we weren’t quite finished with Italy yet.

Leolandia

There was still a +4 to be had before we departed.

Starting with yet another of these.

And another of these.

Construction, get excited.

Then things suddenly got a lot more good looking.

This appears to be Preston & Barbieri’s finest creation. 2 lifts!

It’s all done very nicely. With rabbits flying planes.

Didn’t expect that level of theming at all. I like that some of these family parks are going all out these days, putting some of the big boys to shame.

They’ve got an animal-y bit on one side of the park.

Donkey, no hat.

Chickens on the loose.

Parrots on the loose.

Finally the powered coaster. Interesting decoration on the back of the train. All the focus is usually on the front.

Had some good log flume interaction.

Their centrepiece seems to be this Miniland area, like lego but not with lego. Looks slightly more impressive than Fiabilandia’s attempt.
Had a quick whirlwind glance, but then had a plane to catch.

And with that, we’re done.

Summary

New creds – 70
Total parks – 15
Volcanoes – 2
Best coaster (Finland) – Taiga
Best coaster (Italy) – Storm
Best park (Finland) – Linnanmäki
Best park (Italy) – Movieland
Miles driven – 2625
Spites – 3/73 (4.1%)