The summer chunnel officially became a tradition this year, but we’re having to delve deeper into the country each time to get something notable out of it. Fortunately France seems to be on the up when it comes to good investments recently, so lets check a couple of them out.
Day 1 – Parc Le Pal
For some reason the main road to this park from Calais takes you directly through the middle of Paris, which was less than ideal given the length of the drive. There were wild plans of a more ambitious cred run on the cards, but we arrived already overtired and stupidly hot in the middle of the afternoon and only just about managed to drag our feet into this place.
In anticipation of greater plans (or not wanting to suffer queues in the heat, as previously experienced on July weekends in France) we had also picked up a fastrack deal online as it was only 6 euros on top of entry to skip 6 of the major ride queues. The system was unusual, using a pink plastic wristband that had tear-off tokens – one for each ride. It was a little tricky to do from your own arm, particularly while expectant ride staff are watching you struggle and operations are being held up.
#1 Tigre de Sibérie
Did you know that Reverchon made something other than a spinner? Well here’s one of them. Look at that beautiful B&M inspiring drop entry.
It’s a respectable enough family coaster. More interesting than your standard Vekoma Junior entry.
Good face on the train, asian themed station, what more could you want?
From there we skipped the queue for Azteka, which broke down in front of us. Don’t be spitey Soquet.
Talking of spitey, thought we’d better get the Intamin out of the way. It’s a French clone of Juvelen – Sascha Czibulka’s favourite ride.
#2 Yukon Quad
I like Juvelen a lot. It packs a real punch for the size and target audience. The turns can get really forceful, there’s a couple of whippy transitions and the second launch really grabs and drags you hard.
Yukon Quad doesn’t quite meet the theming standards of the original. The preshow contains only revving noises and smoke rather than statues jiggling their spears.
The outside area looks to be nicer, but doesn’t really manage it on ride. There’s a bit more consistent landscaping throughout with the rockwork and it’s all a lot more accessible for pictures – you can get around the outside of most of the layout. But the rocks are just there, where Juvelen has the archways/pillars and water features that give significant interaction to riders before it becomes a field at the end.
#3 Azteka
We then stumbled back on Azteka the very second it happened to reopen. This park has a good train face game – love this one even more.
It might be my new favourite Soquet (sorry Gaz Express). It moves with a real sense of purpose, it has character and it kicks some ass. The ride starts off bigger than I expected, helixing then hurtling down that first drop. Some forceful and shaky turns follow before a Shambhala style zero-F (Force) hill, rounded off by another helix with square corners. Quality.
#4 Twist
Talking of quality, it time to get the final coaster in the park, a Mack Spinning coaster. I was going to say French Dwervelwind, but this version was built first first, so French Dutch Twist.
It lacks the on-board sound of its twin and we only gave it one opportunity (where Dwervy was only really good in 1 out of 3 attempts), but this one grabbed that single chance and rode very well for us.
Forceful spinning, twisty layout. There’s a fun little lurch in a sharp downwards transition that I haven’t noticed before. It is a bit too short though, ending with a underwhelming sense of abruptness just as you really get into it.
Creds complete, we considered the Disko purely for the sake of fully utilising our wristbands but it had no queue to skip anyway and they aren’t particularly pleasant rides.
Did this instead because it amuses. Didn’t know there were so many of them, my King Kong flat ride count is up to 3!
The water rides were also included in the big 6 rides, so took a courtesy lap on them, skipping the most significant queues of the park due to the weather. It all paid off nicely.
Log flume was short and mostly pointless. Potentially the same as Walygator’s, realising as it sets off that it’s just a bit of meandering before a single drop.
The Rapids was alright. A bit on the tame side and not wet enough for a hot day. The manufacturer, Soquet, didn’t try and channel the spirit of Hafema here sadly.
As it was too hot for more rides, impressed a staff lady with my French and had some ice cream instead.
Then checked out the animals. For normal people, this place is actually more zoo than amusement park.
Too hot for snow leopards. Poor thing.
Too hot for elephants? Probably, they were covering themselves in dust and then trying to topple this tree.
Too hot for more.
And that was Le Pal. Liked it more than I had anticipated from when I only knew it as the park that irked me by getting a Juvelen clone. Nice little place to spend half a day.
The second day was much more chilled out and I (temporarily) rediscovered my appreciation for taking it easy on parks. I had some vague plans of picking up a few +1s in the area but the previous day had temporarily put me off that sort of thing. That and it was raining heavily all day.
Day 2 – Toverland
So this place suddenly got lovely. I wasn’t particularly into the park last time, entering through a warehouse and not being overly enthralled by any of the rides.
The new entrance area looks great (not that these wet pictures taken from under an umbrella will do it justice) and the first few minutes of walking down the path with the new land on the left felt 100 times more like a theme park and shows they’re putting a lot of effort in.
I only really needed the new land so headed straight there first, to be told that both Fenix and Merlin’s Quest were temporarily unavailable. Oh. Then they looked a bit ashamed and said Dwervelwind was also down. “We recommend you start indoors.”
And that we did. Starting on the world’s nicest looking Bobkart vehicles. I had forgotten how well decorated the queueline was on this thing. The ride itself also seemed to be holding back less on the speed than last time, which had bothered me a bit. Perhaps because it was much quieter.
Took a token lap of Toos Express, foolishly sitting in the front row where the on-ride bell deafens you on every janky corner.
Don’t remember this attraction existing before. There’s a little house and garden to explore, for which you borrow a magic wand that you can point at sensors and set off effects. Great idea for a low key park.
Had a bit more of a mooch round the inside area until I noticed Fenix cresting the lift through a window. Don’t let that bird spite me.
I’ve got to start with praising the queue for this attraction. It’s absolutely gorgeous. I hadn’t really looked into anything about this ride so it completely caught me off guard, particularly for this park. They clearly mean serious business now. It begins with a dimly lit corridor that gives you that wonderful atmospheric change as soon as you step foot inside it. Dangerously narrow stairs take you down to a room with talking portraits on the walls, telling tales and setting the scene.
I really liked these other magical paintings that had very subtle screen effects bringing them to life.
The park was absolutely dead because of the weather so I had the entire queueline to myself and quite easily got lost in there for a long time exploring every detail. There’s a passing preshow section with projections and an animatronic before you come to the usual left or right split for a B&M Wing Coaster.
#1 Fenix
There is actually a rollercoaster at the end of all that and again the little pre-lift hill scene once you’re on the ride caught me off guard. ‘Come closer. You will not escape.’
I really liked it overall. The 90 degree turn at the top isn’t as ugly as I’d imagined once you see it in person and it gives you a bit of steam with which to enter the inverted drop, that then feels less sluggish than usual, particularly in the back when you get dragged into it. The bigger hill that follows works very well. I was in defensive mode from the rain and wearing my hood up but it would get ripped off every single time as I went flying over this element. Something about the shape of the track here and the landscape around it as well, makes it feel like you’re taking a huge jump feet first. The helices are forceful and bouncy, which I’ve grown to appreciate more on these as it just means there’s more momentum involved. I love the track layout doing a double crossing of the water and the whole aesthetic of it. My only real complaint is that it feels a bit short on ride time. I definitely bonded with Fenix while it tried to destroy me with the weather over many laps.
Over in the boathouse on the far side is the start of Merlin’s Quest. It has a little scene up above it’s own station that contains a good audio statement – ‘Never trust a water dwarf’. It’s a bit of a slow drag in the boat across the water to get itself underneath Fenix for the main part of the experience, though admittedly amongst nice surroundings. The indoor section is very well done with some good visuals and potentially the best smell on any ride in the forest section. Again that ends a bit too soon and you spend a lot more of your time drifting all the way back again.
The rest of the day was spent nabbing a few laps of the bigger coasters and dodging the heavier downpours by relaxing in the nice indoor area of the park.
Troy is mostly as I remember. A lot of fun, just doesn’t have a huge amount of significant sensations going on. Even though I had the added bonus of being waterboarded and completely unable to see, it didn’t chuck me around a lot or do anything particularly unexpected. It was running weirdly smoothly and quietly too.
Dutch Twist (Dwervelwind) was also an experience if only for not being able to see. I finally know what it’s like to ride like the Chinese do with your head awkwardly bowed at all times. The result – not comfortable. On board sound is a plus of course, but I think French Dwervelwind (Twist) rides better.
Didn’t do Booster Bike again as I don’t really like Vekoma Motorbike Coasters and it would have been deeply unpleasant.
A great day overall, much more enjoyable than the previous. Toverland took a massive leap in my books, I completed the legendary set of all B&Ms in Europe and had some great ride experiences too. I look forward to their future.
Not much to report on the way back home. The Chunnel seems to run all too smoothly these days. Feels like it’s building to something terrible one day.
The opening of Untamed at Walibi Holland was very exciting news for Europe and a perfect reason to put together another quick jaunt across the channel. The continent hasn’t had many RMCs yet and seeing a couple more start to appear feels almost overdue now. Of course I had to make the itinerary a little more hectic, cos that’s how I roll. Results may vary.
Did another stupidly early start for the chunnel (<03:00) in order to get to the first park of the day at opening time. Which worked perfectly. And that was the end of the success.
Bobbejaanland: The Revenge
I had beef with Bobbejaanland. I came here a few years ago on a busy summers day, on which they decided to reduce their opening hours on the spot and then close queues up to an hour sooner than those newly stated opening hours, leaving it to be one of the few parks, perhaps only, that I simply didn’t complete in time. The rides that I did do, sucked, hard.
#1 Fury
But this new one looks quite nice.
So I was with the masses heading to Fury as the gates opened, got to the entrance in amongst the first 10 people. To then stand there for an hour, as for some unadvertised reason they didn’t open this ride or Typhoon until 11, so it felt like a bit of a waste of an early start. Queuing an hour to beat the queue.
They’ve changed the quirky voting system on whether the ride goes forwards or backwards from how it was originally set up so that there’s now a split in the station for ‘I definitely want forwards’ or ‘I want to vote’. I was dead set on getting a backwards ride on my first lap, as I believed it would offer the best experience when totally unexpected, not knowing the layout or what it had to offer. It didn’t look like it was going to work out as I was the only one in my row to push the button to vote backwards, but the train hit the turntable and turned left. Yes! I punched the air. There was no reaction at all from anyone else sadly.
That launch is pretty punchy isn’t it. Have to say the ride wasn’t quite what I wanted out of it. I’m on a bit of a high with my Infinities at the moment and this just wasn’t delivering on the same level of interesting sensations. Backwards was a lot of fun, quite disorientating, but lacked anything really standout or substantial. It just feels like even a single strong kick of airtime somewhere would have given it the edge to go from good to great. Failing that, the final spike could have done something crazy like Mystic to end the ride on a high instead of just being a bit of a vibe killer.
I do like what they’ve done with the new area themed to legends. Typhoon doesn’t deserve to be a legend even with a fresh lick of blue paint, but at least it doesn’t look like a fairground ride any more and it’s a nice idea to have a circular hub of pathway with several ride entrances coming off of it.
While I was waiting away the first hour for that to open, the park had had a chance to fill up a bit, meaning Naga Bay had a bit of a queue. I did it when it was called Dizz and it was weak, so skipped it this time.
#2 Revolution
We got as far as the stairs in the queueline of Revolution on the previous visit before a ton of guests came spilling back down the queue towards us saying it was closed and making Xs with their arms. This time we walked straight on, past all the Virtual Reality faff and got to admire what appears to be the world’s longest roller coaster train. It’s a silly ride but quite funny. A massive indoor spiral lift leaves you thinking where’s the actual ride section? Then it slithers through a gap in the wall at the top and you do several drops and ~100 left hand turns through a narrow outer shell of the building while strobes go off and make it seem like you’re travelling really fast.
#3 Speedy Bob
Speedy Bob was another ride that got closed in our face half an hour early last visit. They were running it alright today and the ride itself rode butter smooth, almost unnervingly so. The park was now complete. Only took me 3 years.
Walked past Dreamcatcher. Don’t need that in my life again, let alone with VR added.
Gave Oki Doki (formerly Belgium’s best rollercoaster) a token lap. It has a good little first drop and a refreshing layout.
Did El Paso Special/Bench the Ride(?) There’s several bench rides I’ve done now and I don’t know one is the notorious one. The guns were potentially the most responsive of their type I had ever come across, which was impressive. The scenery was dated but amusing. Lots of donkeys, no hats.
Also gave Bob Express a token lap. It had a couple more weirdly shaped bits of track and random kicks to it than I remember. It could have done alright in my extensive rank the mine train list, if only it tried a bit harder to be a mine train.
So dogs are allowed on?
Did a forwards facing ride on Fury and pretty much felt the same about it. Tried for another backwards on the last go, but the system screwed me over. I had a whole row of people pushing backwards this time, then it turned right. Aww. I think it’s a bit of a cop out that they changed it to be honest, though I am personally glad I didn’t have to stay in the park any longer than planned just to beat the odds and get a taste of each direction if other guests were being particularly fussy about it.
Revenge over. The car park is here dumb and has no way to flow out in the middle of the day so you have to do an amazing reverse while people are still trying to come in for the first time. Still don’t really like this place. Next?
Walibi was the next stop, and should have been a 2 hour drive. It actually took over 4 hours because they had decided to close an entire motorway between the two countries, terrible detours occurred, then there was an accident and more terrible detours occurred. It was horrible. I felt every second of it eating into my riding time.
Walibi Holland
The mood didn’t lighten as I hit the roundabout at the entrance to the park, Lost Gravity theme blaring from my speakers to try and get me in the mood. Temporary yellow signs were up directing everyone to park in a field opposite, rather than the usual car park. The detour to get to this field went on for far too long, across several unpleasant surfaces. I do resent when I’ve been charged by a park for the privilege of parking on grass/mud.
An ugly temporary bridge was set up over the road and all the entrance plaza was all funnelled by a long series of 8ft high crowd control barriers, which also looked terrible.
Things didn’t improve inside as cutting through the first indoor section of the park was like walking into a nightclub. This place used to have a certain charm to it, but they seem to have embraced the Thorpe Park youth vibe that in reality no one actually wants to experience.
I don’t remember that top spin looking that ugly, Merlin’s castle looks dumb now it’s covered in graffiti and what the hell is this new area?
#4 Untamed
Oh yeah, that. Here comes RMC number 10.
I was very happy to see it, but the mood still didn’t lighten as i joined the single rider queue. The water feature out of the middle of the station leaks all over the floor and you have to wade across to the stairs. As soon as I settled in for the wait, 3 blokes join behind me and instantly start smoking directly into my face. This was the trend in pretty much every queue, all night. Ugh.
This may end up sounding a bit negative (what, like the rest of the day so far?), but obviously it’s an RMC and it’s still easily one of best things out there. My top 25 will shortly be adjusted to acknowledge this. I don’t know whether I should do this one as a blow by blow description of elements or just some overall thoughts. Normally I save the former for something I really fall for and this one just didn’t quite resonate with me. So let’s put the picky hat on, because I expect perfection from these things nowadays.
It has noticeably weak moments and sections: The first drop and speed hill are weak, compared to others. I don’t really dig the first inversion thing. It’s different yes, but it doesn’t do much of anything to the rider. It simply happens around you. Each of the turnaround sections just aren’t particularly exciting, this inversion is meh and that sideways thing only really works if you’re in the front of the train to get a bit of a kick into it.
What I love is basically the whole second half: The triple humpy bit that just keeps on giving. The insane hill section through the structure where everything incoming is well disguised. The crazy sharp S-bend slither into my favourite of the inversions, which also somehow manages to give you airtime coming out of it.
A mixed bag overall then. Some stuff I love in there, but many bits that just don’t flow well or keep the standard at top level throughout. It never truly kicked my ass with intensity at any particular point and it never gave me that life-affirming moment of contemplation on the brakerun, though I can appreciate that it’s a mighty fine ride.
Talking of mighty fine rides. Ahhhhhhh. For some reason over the last few years I kept doubting myself on how good I thought Lost Gravity was when it opened. But no, I am right, it’s stupidly fun. The first drop and speed hill combo is miles better than Untamed, the middle section is really quirky and enjoyable and then there’s a couple more hills at the end that just shouldn’t be that strong in force. Also it has flamethrowers. Love it.
Goliath is the only other ride I did that night and it just doesn’t hold up any more. It’s like a refined version of that stupid Superman one – 90% corners but at least the airtime actually works consistently. Entertaining, but had its day.
I had to pass through 3 scare zones when bouncing between these rides. I’m no Halloween event expert, but here’s my thoughts anyway:
The tree one by Untamed – A combination of moss monsters with rattles and people dressed like Valka from How To Train Your Dragon 2. Mostly an inconvenience because everyone just stands still in the middle of it with their phones out filming. Villains(?) – Some villainous looking actors and a small stage where they could stand and creep on guests. Mostly an inconvenience because everyone just stands still in the middle of it with their phones out filming. The pirate one – I quite liked it. Some nice purple mood lighting, good spooky pirate music and lots of bubbles filled with smoke floating around the area. Actors dressed like pirates, walking like zombies.
But I wasn’t there for that stuff, I was there for Untamed – night rides in particular. That section through the structure is completely in the dark, disorientating and amazing. Had a few laps with a few painfully long queues. The single rider never worked very well even though they had broken 1 seat on the back of one of the trains which you would think would guarantee a spot every cycle. Some questionable operations occurred – a group of about 9 people in the main queue started kicking off because they had split up from 2 friends who were in the single rider queue and had actually beaten them to the station. The proper response to this should be ‘The system doesn’t guarantee a shorter queue mate.’ The actual response? “You make a good point, let ’em through lads.” When it came to closing the queue, a couple of people that had just managed to make it inside before the staff could chain off the entrance were actually chased down and kicked out – which seemed a bit off/Phantasialand-esque.
So I got what I wanted out of the day, just not in ideal circumstances and Walibi Holland as a park took a massive blow for me.
And that was before the car park happened. I was kinda expecting it, as getting in to the place was such a faff, but as I cleared the bridge on the way out, hell on earth came into view. A million cars in mud at all angles all trying to merge with each other and leave, completely unable to go anywhere. Horns were going off constantly like a New York traffic jam with everyone shouting and being aggressive.
Luckily, being a late arriver, I was in the left third of the field which is split by 2 routes coming out. The middle and right thirds were the ones converging, so getting as far as the tarmac was comparatively easy for me. From there it was a slow crawl of at least another hour along the winding back path and out onto the main road. There’s gotta be a better way to end the day.
We started with a nice relaxed morning, as in true Scandinavian style the next park didn’t open until 1pm. They’ve got a park and walk scheme recommended by their website which lets you park in this huge and amazing underground cave thing (Tornado station x100) and ‘avoid the traffic’. You validate the ticket at shops in the park and that makes it dirt cheap for the day (3 quid).
Day 2 – Linnanmäki
Headed in and grabbed some wristbands. All the Finnish parks are free entry with wristband options for the rides, which is cool. I like somewhere that acts like a place for people to chill as well as a theme park.
#1 Taiga
We then joined the queue for the main event. Weekend crowds were ok, it took about 15 minutes to get to the station. Peaked at 30. I didn’t take any pictures, but I like the queue. It has big bird footprints in the floor leading you round certain sections (and out of the shop, back towards the ride entrance). It starts off down some stairs where there’s some berries on branches just sticking out into the path. Fresh fruit in a queue. There’s some foresty stuff going on and some switchbacks, vending machines, a big screen with the bird’s face just ominously staring at you before you head back upstairs between modern looking metal fences with holes punched to form the outline of branches.
As you approach the station, there’s a bit of music and announcements which helped us learn how to pronounce the name. ‘Ride the wings of Ty-ee-ga’. Hang on, is it the bird or the forest? Don’t trust you now RCDB. Still in the habit of calling it Tay-ga though. There’s a nice big mountainy painting on the wall that encompasses the baggage holders. Into the back seat we go.
Anyway, the ride. Wow. I knew very little about the layout other than Intamin doing a bit of a Helix. And it blew me away.
First launch is into this counter-intuitively shaped inversion which throws you outwards then hangs you upside down in the weirdest fashion.
It then enters some low corners which produced some crushing positive forces as the day went on, softening you up for the second launch.
The transition into the launch is slightly clunky and for some reason was the only part of the ride which made the back seats rattle a little bit, but only to the point of comedy. I’m sure some people will treat it like a football injury though. I do love me a rolling launch.
Which kicks you up into this thing, the newest of the oddly shaped tophats. Proper sideways ejector coming out of that one, it’s now stoking memories of my beloved Intamin wings and I’m excited.
Then this happens. Oh they’re doing stalls now? WTF amazing. We also affectionately named this Karnan’s tower in the background. Don’t know what it is, but it’s just chilling there.
Wicked contrast of forces into a speed hill from there, then up into the biggest inversion. And we’re only half done. It gets all vicious on you now, lots of fast and wild twisty and airtimey transitions that proper chuck you out of your seat in any direction it feels like. Scream-inducing airtime. You know, moments of proper significance, the stuff Taron supposedly does but actually doesn’t (time for everyone to get offended and leave).
The end of this slither thing just hurls you downwards and sideways by the side of the building. Another highlight.
And finally we get beautifully inverted into the brakes, Flying Aces style. Wow again. That was really long. And so much going on. Absolutely loved it.
#2 Tulireki
So there are other rides here, but they won’t get such affectionately detailed description. Taiga seems to keep photobombing as well.
This world exclusive Mack E-Motion coaster was grim. Don’t know how they managed to make a wild mouse rough in a straight drop, but they did. And it didn’t do anything. Good interaction though.
The powered coaster next door broke down on us, casually reversing itself through the station and valleying at the end of the ride. Later then.
#3 Salama
Salama the spinner was alright. Lots of block sections and not much spinning. I like how it sits atop the rapids. Good interaction.
Ended up on Taikasirkus next. Cute little suspended dark ride about a circus with a catchy song.
#4 Linnunrata eXtra
Indoor coaster with Virtual Reality. Declined the VR (to the locals surprise) and of course it was better for it. There’s still some spacey theming inside and it packs a bit of a punch for a little custom Zierer.
The Intamin Zacspin then broke down on us. We were dreading it so wouldn’t have been too unhappy if it didn’t reopen.
#5 Vuoristorata
Woodie then. Didn’t expect much as it’s a clone of Bakken’s, but it still has a brakeman and is run much better for it. Instead of sensors popping and stopping you before each drop, he gives it the beans so there is a little airtime to be found and in the case of the double down, a single moment of wild standing airtime. Respect.
#6 Ukko
No respect for this thing. Don’t like them anyway and this one was really rough when it tore through the station in both directions.
This little witchy dark ride, Kyöpelinvuoren hotelli (hi Taiga) was really good for what it was. It had vibrating seats, a back poke and a duel with Dumbledore. Significant improvement over the previous day.
Jumped on the ferris wheel for some views. What a pleasant afternoon.
#7 Kirnu
Sadly Kirnu was fixed by this stage, jeering at us while we were enjoying the views. Really, really not looking forward to this after Insane gave us nasty headaches a few years back. Loudly swearing in fear as it ascends the lift. Not in an abusive relationship kinda way with Arashi where you get something out of it. Just this is gonna suck, hard. Stupid hobby. Thankfully it did what weaker S&S Freespins do in the first half and didn’t manage to flip itself, just lurch around in an unusal fashion. Only that final bit tipped us onto our head and tombstoned everyone, but it was surprisingly manageable. Fear reduced, but damn you La Ronde.
Also fixed was.. .. .. .. Mr…. …. …. …. Powered……
#8 Pikajuna
Sorry, Mr. Powered Coaster. It was alright. Good interaction again. Coasters complete.
Did this drop tower as I don’t recall doing its type before. Good views and a decent freefall sensation. Not bad.
Jumped on the Monorail for some more views. What a pleasant evening.
I like this place. It lacks the ride lineup of Liseberg, but it’s got the charm.
The night was rounded off by more Taiga laps, before visiting the ticket office and getting cheap ‘bounceback’ wristbands as we were sufficiently hooked had nothing else lined up before a 4pm flight the next day.
Day 3 – Linnanmäki
We drove straight to the door of the park this time for maximum efficiency, parking as close as physically possible to the entrance. There wasn’t really any ‘traffic’ to avoid as hinted towards by the car park deal the previous day. Seemed to be a very quiet city that was pleasant to drive in.
We only had an hour to spend in the park before rushing back to the airport, but 10 laps of the bird. What more can I say. Beast.
From here flew directly to Italy. The natural progression from Finland for a Europe trip of course.
Finland has been on the back burner for a few years now. Had a little bit of interest, but nothing really worth pushing for. Then Taiga happened. And now here we are.
Powerland
The hilariously limited operating season of this place forced our hand on the order events for this leg of the trip, being open on Saturdays only by the end of August.
A bit more funfairy than I was expecting, but we’ll let the creds do the talking.
#1 Junker
Junker was first on the agenda. The look of the park has already improved with the walk under this ride, admiring the interactions. Based on previous experiences this cool looking Gerstlauer Infinity could have been a hit or a miss.
Luckily it’s a hit. Once again they exceed my expectations and knocked out a varied, forceful and fun layout. The launch on these is a lot better when they don’t awkwardly drop into it and you soon find yourself cresting a weirdly shaped top hat. They seem to be all the rage these days.
This is followed by some decent airtime into the Finnish loop, which I loved. The weird drawn out shape of the inverted section provides some great contrast. It powered through the mid course without hesitation, kicking ass into the second half which has another couple of great inversions and a twisty airtime hill.
#2 Neo’s Twister
Next was a Fabbri spinner with some anime looking characters on the cars. Used to think these were quite rare but the seem to be popping up on me everywhere now. They’re alright. Most unique feature is the RCT style right angle in the lift hill and the fact that they free spin on the lift as well. Strong stuff.
#3 Thunderbird
Wood Coaster had recently reignited my love for GCI, but sadly Thunderbird was another very run of the mill woodie experience. Though it tries to do some of the features of the better stuff, it lacked the size to make it effective. It had a nice little straight section of what should have been airtime hills, which they don’t seem to bother with on a lot of their layouts. This wasn’t taken at enough pace to be any good though.
#4 Cobra
Oh good, another Boomerang with weirdly modified trains, just not lap bars. This thing needs no attention.
#5 Mine Train
There was another Zamperla 80STD at the back of the park, but I don’t have a picture of it. So here’s a stock photo of another I’ve done this year, complete with stock name and stock font. There’s more to come too.
#6 Joyride
And rounding off the creds is this thing by L&T. It had upcharge Virtual Reality available. Nope.
The one other thing that was deemed worthy of doing before rerides was this shooting dark ride, Devil’s Mine Hotel. It’s ‘set off the effects by shooting them’-style, but in a way that you can’t really take any of it in. Bonus reference points for Yukon Mining though, along with having what looked like a demonised Gruffalo inside.
So there we go. A fairly insignificant park that’s a nice half a day out and well worth the visit on a Finland scale, if only for Junker.
After that success, the rest of the bright Scandinavian evening was now dedicated to:
Särkänniemi
Park expectations were twisted again, the lineup always made me think eww, no effort, but the place itself has a great little aesthetic with its location in the city by the lake.
#7 Tornado
Talking of lineups, Tornado was meant to be the best thing going. I didn’t have high hopes because the Spanish one sucked.
This one is a massive improvement though. It has presence. The station is underground in this big concrete cave. You enter the air gates and a bright orange train comes screaming through an inversion straight over the top of the station. I love a bit of intimidation framing.
It’s not like really good however, just a bit of fun and a bit of a change of pace. It doesn’t quite have the grace and force of better inverted stuff. The cobra is a bit lame and it barely moves through this overbank turn. The roll in the station and the overall interaction was the highlight for me.
We wanted to get the Volare out of the way, but it broke down in our face. Good.
Then we got lost on the way to the Sky Rocket and ended up at this.
#8 Vauhtimato
Angry Birds themed Zierer Tivoli. Better than Thorpe’s attempt at theming, but still very shoehorned. The train has the same old bug eyes and leaf.
#9 Hype
There it is. Second best one of these I’ve done just for not having comfort collars or shin crushers. They are… quite good for a basic clone. The launch always surprises me with how much kick it has and the trimmed drop out of the top section still packs a punch. Finland’s frenzy in getting every single compact coaster type with no corners starts off OK.
#10 Trombi
They fixed the Volare. Good. Never had a massive issue with these despite their reputation. They’re as dumb as they are brutal, but not to any damaging degree and it’s quite funny to endure. It was absolutely flying through the blocks at ridiculous speeds into those sharp corners, with hilarious consequences.
#11 MotoGee
Golden Horse do this layout better, so I’ll let that one speak for itself.
Hated my last one of these. This one was alright. Might depend on where you sit. Launching sideways with a shoulder restraint didn’t seem to be an issue any more.
With all that out of the way, headed up to the upcharge observation deck for some views.
The glass was pretty terrible up here and they’ve closed off the outdoor section due to anti-social behaviour… but here’s a nice overview of Tornado’s layout.
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.
#1 Brontojet
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.
#2 Diabolik
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.
#3 Leocoaster
Starting with yet another of these.
#4 Twister Mountain
And another of these.
Construction, get excited.
#5 Vroom
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.
#6 Mine Train
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%)
The next day was an interesting start, with extreme rain and lightning following us for the whole journey to the park.
For far too many places I’ve been to this would be a reason to not bother at all. But trust in Merlin, one thing they do have going for them is their willingness to put up with a bit of weather.
And the Italians know it. They were rocking up in nothing but shorts while we sat sheltered in the car, assessing the situation via the app and confirming that they had just opened a couple of rides. Eventually there was a lull in the rain and we headed in through the garish tunnel.
Got as far as the entrance before it started absolutely chucking it down again. We took shelter by the ticket scanners, getting stranded as the ground began to flood around us and sure enough all the rides were suspended again. Well we’ve got another 13 hour day here (12 by this stage), lets see how this pans out.
Day 7 – Gardaland
With another dip in the rain intensity, we navigated a couple of rivers that were pouring down the paths around the entrance area, up to higher ground and made it to Blue Tornado’s restaurant. The rides were still all closed, so this was to be our third camp out spot of the morning.
The very last of the weather had cleared by midday and our day could finally begin.
#1 Blue Tornado
And what a beginning. Bonus helix SLC. Running on three trains. 3! That was the best part.
Straight to #2 Mammut from there, not pictured yet because it was still damp and then I forgot. I might have one somewhere. Started off concerned. Could have sworn this was a custom mine train but it begins as yet another straight clone of the double lift jobs. Luckily there’s a whole bonus lift hill afterwards and a third section to spice things up. They clearly like their bonuses here.
Believe that was all I needed to make something more significant into my cred #900. The choice wasn’t great to me, between a couple of seemingly vanilla B&Ms while I’m on a big dose of B&M fatigue at the moment. So Raptor – world’s first wing rider. That’s something I guess.
#3 Raptor (#900 milestone)
The fatigue continues.
It’s nicely presented and all that, but the way I’ve interpreted it the layout positioning seems to be a bit backwards. It uses the terrain and heads outwards to the big straight drop, but that’s the lowest point of the ride and it has to then head back up a hill to the rest of the layout, over the pathing and everything and this just makes it sluggish as hell.
So it’s loses all momentum after the first corner and then bumbles around some stuff. Then ends exactly like Swarm with the slightly too uncomfortable inline, some brakes, a corner, then more brakes.
#4 Kung Fu Panda Master
Milestones brushed aside, we went back into business mode and hit Merlin’s greatest investment of the last decade before it had had too much of a chance to get an unbearable queue. It was still an unpleasant queue as it had flooded badly and required climbing over posts and fences so as to not go wading in some parts, but it was quiet. Done.
#5 Ortobruco Tour
The other huge custom Wacky Worm of the trip. It had a weird rock song playing about losing your soul that seemed to be speaking directly to our inner hobby brain. Great stuff.
It didn’t look like it was going to get busy at this stage, so we stopped for a bite to eat instead of needlessly ploughing on. Special mention to the member of staff here – my bag has been on it’s last legs for about 10 years now and has a very temperamental zip, which gave out as we went to leave the restaurant. She saw us struggling with it and decided to make it her mission to fix it for us. Of course her skills were far superior to ours and we were soon on our way with a renewed sense of appreciation for the park.
That could very quickly fade again. Which first?
#6 Shaman
Putting off the inevitable, Shaman. No Virtual Reality in action. It had the video they would have used playing on screens in the station though, so you could imagine the unpleasantness. Rode alright as it was.
#7 Sequoia Magic Loop
This was probably my most dreaded ride in the whole world. As you may well know by now, I can’t think of anything worse on a ride than being stranded upside down. I’ve come to the medical conclusion that I have powerful arteries, the blood flows to my head in under a second and it’s indescribably unpleasant. It’s definitely the closest I’ve come to just not riding something while we were standing in the station watching the cars mischievously bump into each other. I was continuously saying out loud that I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this.
But I did it anyway. Instantly regretting it as I adjusted the Slammer restraints down onto myself and reminisced about the way that thing used to torture me. Lots of nerves up the lift. How am i going to cope with this? Mostly by holding onto my head and repeatedly saying ‘stop it’ until it ends. Three times over. We thought the being thrown downwards beforehand would be the worst part, setting up the discomfort nice and early but it teases you over surprisingly smoothly. So it was manageable. Just. I’d ride the other one now without too much hesitation.
We headed towards the other B&M next, but got distracted along the way by Ramses the dark ride. Shoot those robot mummies. Sadly it didn’t have any music playing, so was rather lacking in atmosphere and it ended up being somewhat forgettable really.
I Corsari, the other dark ride around the corner was rather good though. Yet another ‘inspired by’ Pirates of the Caribbean style attraction and it had some impressive sets. The queueline in particular, climbing downstairs in to the boat was so well themed that it didn’t even feel like a theme park, just completely real and effortless. They seemed to have shoehorned in some projections of angry ghost pirates on top of whatever the original focus was though and this came off a little tacky. Not sure I’ve seen such a forced ride exit shop either – with lots of generic plastic swords sharing the same space as the actual exit platform.
There’s a couple of themed areas of the park between there and Oblivion – The Black Hole that literally have nothing in them, so that’s weird.
#8 Oblivion – The Black Hole
Oh good, here it is. There’s a really jarring queueline for this that starts off in a big tent separate to the ride. It shares a bit of the original Oblivion vibe but with an added Smiler feel in that it’s all in your face a bit too much rather than being subtle. I imagine queuing is deeply unpleasant (like Smiler) if it’s long and actually holds you in any of this first section with loud noises, flashing lights and vibrating floors. You then leave the tent, scale some unthemed stairs, over an unthemed bridge and enter an unthemed tin shed to be batched into the unthemed station. This was all roasting hot, with some metal walls that could actually burn flesh.
It hadn’t really clicked through all of that that it’s themed to black holes (seems obvious now) and this is probably the coolest effect of the whole thing, stuff being sucked into the bottom of the drop. You don’t really notice it on the ride though sadly. And why is it green?
The ride itself? Meh. Middle of the road for this kinda thing. Not quite big enough to give you the spectacle and not punchy enough to give you something to think about either. Yes it has forces and yes it’s fun, but it’s another one that doesn’t excel in anything. Not even sure if it was meant to.
Flying Island time. Really short cycle, it was dripping stuff on the seats and I could barely see. Pictures turned out alright thankfully.
There’s a rapids down there somewhere that we did. Not wet and no jeopardy. Another very forgettable attraction.
Mammut as promised.
#9 Fuga da Atlantide
Last ‘cred’ was another of those strangely contentious Italian ones. It features an Intamin cable lift, this track and I believe they call it a coaster on their website. That’ll do for me.
This is a very attractive ride, just not dynamic in any way. It seems to spend a lot of time meandering around static scenery which starts out impressive looking but it isn’t long before it gets very repetitive. Both lift and drop sequences are almost identical as well, which doesn’t help. Where’s the fuga? Clearly should have been an Aquatrax.
With the park complete, we had some logistics to deal with back at the car, namely dumping a load of rain related stuff we no longer needed so we could relax at the park for the evening.
As the evening drew near though, the main issue with Gardaland began to show. It’s all a bit underwhelming. Rerides on the main attractions just reconfirmed that they aren’t very standout or interesting and only really highlighted some operational niggles that began to wear us down far too quickly.
In Raptors case, there’s some emergency exit gates positioned throughout the outdoor queueline ‘cages’ and very large quantities of teenagers began using these to queue jump everyone who was walking the long way round repeatedly, usually more than doubling each wait time. Ride ain’t worth putting up with that.
For Oblivion, it broke down a couple of times (only Merlin can break B&Ms) and they moved us all back out of the station into the roasting shed in haphazard fashion. Then they took a train off and from then on staff just ground to a halt and started running it painfully slowly and being faffy about article storage. Ride ain’t worth putting up with that.
So we got bored and left a few hours early. It was a pleasant enough day and good to get it done, but left absolutely no desire to go back. Bit too one and done for a park of this scale.
It just dawned on me again as I was thinking about that park again. 7 attractions in 13 hours. What was that, Legoland Windsor?
I left you hanging in suspense about that last kiddy cred in the park from the previous day. Well don’t worry, being such a nice park and knowing their audience, they were running all standard tickets with a come back for free the next day thing.
Meaning we left stupidly early to be sure we were knocking on the door of opening this time. For rerides or the +1? You know which.
Day 6 – Mirabilandiaagain, sadly
Did iSpeed again just to make sure. It was alright.
#1 Leprotto Express
Walked on to Leprotto Express. Park complete (Desmo Race aside…)
Could have walked on to Master Thai. Hindsight.
Did Katun again just to make sure. It was alright.
Then left.
Caused a bit of a hilarious scene by powering out of the car park less than an hour after opening, while it was completely rammed full of foolish souls desperately queueing and trying to get into the place for the day.
What is it with the road system for the place? As we headed south away from the park, there was 5 whole miles of tailback, not moving. 5 miles. For Mirabilandia. No.
Places to be.
Fiabilandia
This place has those big shady things in the car park. Off to a good start.
#2 Red Mountain
First cred you’re likely to come across is this one. It looks very shiny and new, but a bit plonked compared to lots of their other stuff. Where’s the mountain?
As a bit of a bonus we got E-stopped in the station after the first lap as the operator saw a kid crying. She didn’t know how to reset it, but an engineer slithered out of the trees in under a minute, manually parked it and opened the bars to let the kid off. We followed. 1 lap is all we needed.
Giant map of Europe on the floor with a couple of oddly scaled landmarks chucked in. (Not my finest caption).
#3 SpaceMouse
More Fabbri spinners in the world. Who knew? At least they put a rocket in this one.
#4 Valle degli Gnomi
Now we’re talking. The World’s first Wacky Worm. Custom layout. Terrain coaster. Dark ride sections. This represents so much to the hobby.
It was amazing. The indoor cave section especially is of much higher standard than I would have imagined. They present their Pinfaris with pride here. It has 2 trains. 2! And people were piling in 3 to a row. None of this 1 adult per car nonsense. Beast.
#5 Miniera d’Oro Del West
The last cred is the same technology again, but as a mine train. It has a bit of a darker theme and a more intense drop. Gotta build yourself up for this one.
Took a wander round the lake where we found a goose who trolled us. It seemed like it was stuck here and was visibly trembling in fear. What can we do to help the poor guy? I went in for a closer look and in its effort to run away from the nasty human, it comfortably backed out and waddled off.
This dark ride, Il Lago del Sogno was also amazing. It’s a train, of boats, that floats, with an external power rail thing like a Bobkart. Weird and cool.
Argh!
They did lunchtime ride closures here so we had to chill in the shade for a bit while waiting for the last one. Luckily it was a nice place in which to do that.
And that ride was Il Castello di Mago Merlino. It had some stuff going on, but spent too much time outdoors and lacked the ‘I’ve got a golden ticket’ song.
Better than Mirabilandia.
We had a bit of a stupidly long drive after that at which point we realised how much of a pain the toll road systems are when it’s a busy motorway. Queueing half an hour to pay a couple of quid for the upkeep/privilege of using a road seems counter-productive. And they’re clearly not flogging the electronic payment system enough as barely any locals use it. We were also avoiding the manned booths like the plague after some earlier encounters with them. The entry slot for giving money is in a really awkward and difficult place for a driver to reach, they treat you with disdain and refuse to even look you in the eye while making the transaction, then they the put change down with no effort to make it any easier for you to reach out and take it, slowing everything down even more and pissing people off.
Eventually found ourselves on the outskirts of Milan, near the smaller airport I forget the name of. As we drew near to where the sat nav thought we were going, I pulled into a place that had a brown sign and the name of what we were looking for. A confused man asked me if I wanted to park. The way the conversation went I assume it was some knock-off parking for the airport and not what we actually wanted. The actual parking was further down the road, by a McDonalds. And in a weird old place.
Europark Milano Idroscalo
Basically a permanent funfair.
And a tasteful one at that.
#6 Jamming
Scouted out the prices and worked our way through it. Starting with this. I hope you like Jamming too.
This ride type was on my bucket list for new ride types, cos the name amuses me. And now I’ve done it. It’s hilarious. Horrible restraints, stupidly rough and the spinning never really gets going when there’s people in it. But they’re all positives in this instance. Sadly M&Ds with their other one has even less appeal for me to visit now.
I’m not a football man, but I assume it’s amusing that the lowest scoring for this game is represented by the UK flag.
#7 Bruco Mela
Had a new found appreciation for this trusty +1 after riding the king of worms the same day.
#8 Funny Mouse
This was also amazing. Looked like Wild Maus XXL until you get up close. Then something looks off. I didn’t know Kingda Ka was a travelling ride either. It is according to that ticket booth at least.
It’s made by the legendary Interpark, known for their quality rides (interestingly enough I think the Wild Wind was the other thing on my bucket list for new ride types) and this is the only (permanent, I guess) Funny Mouse in the world. It had a bizarre layout, laced with beautiful violence and comedy. Loved it.
The walls of the ride were mostly covered with images of RMCs, but from before people knew they were cool, like concept art for Twisted Colossus – I said they were tasteful. But this was the exception to that rule.
I was particularly excited for this day. One of those places I’ve been meaning to get to for a very long time and what was always meant to be the ‘main event’ for Italy in my mind.
Day 5 – Mirabilandia
Things didn’t get off to a great start as what was meant to be an easy journey arriving for opening turned into a bit of a nightmare as soon as we got near the park. We slowed to a crawl for nearly an hour just to get into the place and therefore missed rope drop by miles. Everything all gets funneled into this one roundabout which has the car park entrance as well as a couple of other local attractions and then there’s a massive queue of cars for self-serve parking machines that don’t work very well and have to have some bloke running between them to help everyone out.
It seemed we had still managed to beat a good amount of people as the car park looked quite quiet and everyone was (sensibly) heading to the water park in the heat.
Went to iSpeed first as it’s an Intamin (could explode at any moment) and has the lower capacity of the big 2. Queued for 20 minutes. Doesn’t seem too bad. Then it broke down. Stuck it out and eventually got on it.
#1 iSpeed
Eh. My expectations weren’t huge, I’ve just come off the back of discovering that at least a couple of these Intamin accelerator coasters can be really world class (Storm Runner), but on the whole they don’t really do enough for me. Sadly this was the latter. If you’re being fussy you might say it’s an Intamin blitz coaster instead, but that’s worse really. This was the birth of Taron and Taiga?
You start with your bog standard top hat, which is alright. There’s an alright hill after that, but this then marks the end of airtime for the ride. The rest was corners that felt a bit uninspired and then the ‘mid’course happens stupidly late, kills the pace, puts you into a hill that does nothing and it ends (like Shambhala).
Sure it’s decent fun, but I thought this thing was regarded really highly. Is it just another European anomaly? (like Shambhala).
We then wandered in the direction of the legend that is Katun, a name I’ve been saying before I even did this hobby properly. It wasn’t as easy as you might imagine to find a massive invert, wandering round the what was now standard crowds of shirtless, sweating Italians. We passed the wild mouse/mine train on the way which had a queue stretching miles outside of what it could physically hold. Not a good sign.
#2 Katun
There it is.
Being the throughput machine it should be, the queue moved reasonably quick. We noticed for the first time that people in this park were happy to suck up extortionate waits for front row queues – often reaching a similar length to the main queues. Ouch. Back please.
The trains look really cool as they often do on these and I like the moving floor decoration. Through the stargate we go.
Eh. My expectations weren’t huge, I’ve recently had the realisation that as amazing as some B&M inverts are, they’re no longer going to be absolute game changers or threaten the best for me personally unless something radical is going on. I’m just sad to be let down by a legendary name. Never meet your heroes.
It didn’t really excel at any particular moment, and that’s important to me when you look at the fact that so many of these things do all the same stuff in pretty much the same order with a couple of different corners (or straights) in between. Loop, zero-g, cobra, mid course, couple of corkscrews. The formula is fine if it’s kicking your ass and it works, otherwise it may as well be ‘whatever lads, chuck a Batman in there.’
It doesn’t have any of those really forceful moments that inverts are renowned for. It doesn’t have the vicious snap in the inversions that I really enjoy. It doesn’t have any other quirks, unique features or character going for it. It’s just big, and there.
Sure it’s decent fun, but I thought this thing was regarded really highly. Is it just another European anomaly?
To add to the disappointment, I got rudely shoved by a member of staff just as I was climbing out of the train for no apparent reason. Wasn’t like they were hauling ass and trying to beat a throughput record or anything.
Next?
#3 Master Thai
Oh boy. Potentially the worst queue of my career here. I DESPISED this thing. It has Virtual Reality headsets. It’s run really badly. Everyone queues for it anyway. 2 short switchbacks took in excess of 90 minutes. In baking, sweating heat. With poxy shade tarpaulin things that were 50% transparent, had huge gaps in and therefore 0% effective. Of course I’ve queued longer for a few rides in my time, but I honestly can’t recall anything on this scale of unpleasantness that wasn’t at least for a ride of actual significance.
It’s not even two creds either. Damn these Mobius loops. Didn’t do the VR obviously. Stupidly rough for its size and generally a complete waste of my life.
Having the farce that is Desmo Race broken in your face isn’t the best solution when you’re starting to take issue with a park. We took a wander past that but they were sending endless tests round with pieces of the train missing. Not a quick fix.
The rest of the new area is ugly and dumb. I understand that it’s themed to motorbikes but there’s a total excess of cheap rides that all amount to the same thing. A flat spinning ride where you’re sat on a motorbike. A swinging spinning ride where you’re sat on a motorbike. A tracked ride where you’re sat on a motorbike – they managed to break this one later in the day and had to crane one of the bikes off. A low capacity coaster based off a prototype that didn’t work where you’re sat on a motorbike. All poorly themed and pointless.
Moving on from there, we found the smallest cred in the park. It had a reasonable queue, but nothing could top Master Thai at this stage and were committed to the long haul. Then it broke down. An engineer showed up holding a portable power supply and began having an animated Italian argument with the woman in the exit shop, then left. As did we.
#4 Divertical
Divertical then. This thing should have had an awful queue due to the weather but didn’t for some reason. It seemed perfectly manageable. Are these Skyrush’s old restraints? Literally a bar on your legs. Seems fun. I ended up leaving with a very basic opinion of this. The lift is cool to watch, but the ride doesn’t do a whole lot. It picks up a fair speed for what it is and got me wet to a welcome degree for the weather at the time.
Was somewhat depressed by this stage, sat down and had a sandwich. Food was alright at this place. That was something.
#5 Gold Digger
Sucked up the queue for another of these things. Credit where it’s due, it ran stupidly violently and consequently left us on the brake run in hysterics. Probably the highlight of the day.
#6 Rexplorer
Sucked up the queue for Flying Fish themed to dinosaurs without any dinsoaurs.
Didn’t suck up the queue for the cred that had broken. Decided to do the ferris wheel and prioritise a couple of rerides instead. This was a 13 hour operating day in a park with about 9 things to do and we were already running short on time. That’s not good.
Queued an age for the wheel which had terrible glass, giving terrible pictures.
Went back to Katun after that. A large number of the guests by this stage seemed to have covered themselves in an orange dusty powder. To soak up the sweat or because it looked cool? I don’t know. It was annoying as it just ended up on everything they touched (seats, bags) and even though the sun was going down, the queues remained as unpleasant as they had been all day. A night ride was no better.
Ended the night with another 90 minutes for iSpeed, which was a little better to be fair to it.
Then got lost trying to leave the park ahead of the rest of the population, eventually making it out by pushing directly through the centre of a large crowd that was having a rave in front of a stage and throwing orange powder everywhere.
It was quite funny when you stopped to think about it.
(Note from the future: In my haste to leave and general disgust with the overall experience of the day, I somehow ended up getting my first ever speeding ticket directly outside the park. A whole 9 months later, a letter arrived from the Italian police to break the bad news and this park has now indirectly cost me an extra €150, with the whole ordeal still ongoing as it’s a very poor system.I can now happily declare that this is the worst major theme park I have ever been to).
The next day took us to ol’ Crazy Horse. A more low-key affair on the way up through Italy but with a fair few creds on offer.
Day 4 – Cavallino Matto
Not often you see admissions staff in heels. Interesting start.
#1 Topo Zorro
First coaster in sight. I admire the cheese theming.
#2 Project 1
And then the other of that L&T ride from Powerpark in Finland a few days ago. 2 in the world, done in a week.
#3 Wild Mine
Another of these almost wild mouse rides. Exciting so far?
#4 Speedy Gonzales
Thought we’d just done a ride themed to him, but there’s a subtle difference.
#5 Jurassic River
This ride is a bit different and relatively new. The one and only Water Coaster to be made so far by Technical Park. It’s sort of a log flume, but it distinctively runs on coaster track for significant sections. There’s lots of drifting around animatronic dinosaurs, including big ones that dribble on you. Weirdly it ends to How to Train your Dragon music. I think they ripped the wrong CD. Not very wet, not very thrilling, it was alright.
#6 Freestyle
But this thing. This thing was amazing. Togo are the undisputed kings when it comes to Stand-Up Coasters and this one is just viciously fun. Huge too.
They always nail the actual sensation of standing up and that becomes pretty damn special with the stuff that this layout does:
Terrifying airtime hills.
This weird wonky straight thing.
And finally the deadly speed hills.
Our first go in the front was a little hairy. I got a little punched in the head by the restraint and was then worried before we even took the first drop, but by the end it was all worth it again. We went against the advisory rules in the station which said you shouldn’t ride it more than once every 50 minutes and got straight on again in the back row…
Standing airtime was a thing on Milky Way. It wasn’t significant, but it was there and it was cool. This time it was feet fully off the floor, arms flailing and then having to worry about how you landed yourself back on the train again in order to cope with whatever came next. A very rare sensation in this game which was simultaneously scary and amazing. Loved it. I’m more annoyed that one spited me earlier this year now. Highly recommend trying one of these before they die out.
Called it a day after that success. Another quirky little place worth a visit, with just the one standout attraction.
Guess what? Culture.
Pisa
Apparently it’s one of those towns where you’re not allowed to drive in the middle of, or you’ll end up doing a Top Gear/Grand Tour causing a scene and apologising to endless locals in many outdoor cafe’s. So there’s a park and ride thing in a stadium on the outside. Easy and cheap. Drops you off outside the walls.
Didn’t really know there was other stuff around the leaner, but here it is.
