CoasterCrazy
Giga Poster
Anyone who reads the Q&A forums will know that I, very recently, took a little trip to Italy to visit two of the most acclaimed parks in Italy...OK, I'll just cut to the chase.
Day one - Luna park and Smile park
Having seen countless reviews and videos of this park, I was so hyped for it....however, it didn't quite live up to my expectations, and I was especially angry that it didn't even open until late at night! Outrage! Shame, since it looked so good!
See?
Disappointments aside, I headed to the nearby 'Smile Park', which promised excellent customer service. However, quite frankly, it didn't. Because it was closed - and looked like it had been for a long while...it was dilapidated, disappointing, and downright creepy, reminiscent of a long-defunct Chinese financial disaster.With that, I sat down and cried.
Serious Day 1 - Mirabilanida
Scorecard
Katun x8 (now, that is a score..)
Ispeed x4
Autosplash x2
Eurowheel x2
Reset x1
Master Crap x1
Rexplorer x1
Leprotto Express x1
General thoughts on the park
Divertical and Ispeed aside, it's a very pleasant, well themed, and medium sized park (although majorly flawed in the sense that there is no full story (especially on Reset) to make sense of the theming), with possibly one of the most complete water ride line ups in the world, and two (possibly three, but I'll mention why later) of the best coasters in not just Europe, but in the world. However, aside from that, there's next to nothing, especially in the flat ride and dark ride department. Reset's a decent shooter, and the shot towers are good, but after they removed Ghostville, there's nearly nothing else to do. The park is desperately in need of flat rides and coasters to bridge the kiddie/family to extreme gap. Even a *coughcough* vekoma roller skater would be a much needed addition...just something else to reride really. Could also do with more dark rides too...
Another few things:
-I failed to see any Q-bots - seems like they've switched to the flash pass system which slows everything down.,
-Ride ops were on the whole very efficient - but they still need a single rider queue and flash pass had catastrophic effects! However, the ops were paranoid about people being in the station, making station shots almost impossible to acquire, Ispeed particuarly.
-I really like this queuing system: does anyone else know if this exists anywhere aside from Italy?
Anyway, once in the park, we headed straight to Ipseed once we'd sorted out the (wonderful) 2nd day free deal .
Ispeed - 9/10
Well, all I can say is, what a ride! Moments of extreme forces, both positive and negative, are in abundance. It's (quite literally), Stealth's layout, followed by a whole lot of fast-paced, additional awesomeness! Let me take you through the layout...
First, the launch - being an LSM, I wasn't anticipating it to be quite as forceful as a hydraulic, but was happily wrong! If anything, it was stronger...
A medium sized top hat, with decent airtime and a solid pullout precedes the airtime hill....
It's ridiculous frankly. You're quite literally nailed to the top of the seat, but I think I probably prefer the less harsh floater version, due to the unique 'butterflies in stomach' effect. It was simply too fast paced for that....
Forceful turn, followed by a little airtime...
Then this. I'll be brutally honest - Ispeed's inversions are stupidly forceful, but are just too uncomfortable on the neck to be enjoyable .
Quite forceful Immelman (ish) thing, and another in-line with a quite noticeable straight section...
A snap into the hill with deceivingly little airtime, before braking.
It's a very solid little coaster, and crams a great deal into a short space of time - it's fast, fun, and forceful, but whilst I loved the ride experience, every other aspects left a great deal to be desired.
-The queueline was dull, long and unimaginative. A fairly low capacity ride was exacerbated by flash pass, especially at the end of the day, when they no longer check the presence of the passes...at least a 45 minute wait was posted all day.
-Theming is minimal, if nonexistent.
-Breakdowns for a far too common occurence. OK, Katun broke down once, but only for a short while. When an Intamin goes down, it stays down, which was all too true for the next ride...
Divertical - 0/0
INTAMIN SPITE FOR THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS! For a ride that's 2 years old, and not Intamin's first attempt at a larger water ride, this must be quite embarrassing.
What made it even worse was the fact they were cycling empty boats throughout my last day, as if to quite frankly mock me - 'you can see me, but you can't ride me!'
Admittedly, it was quite neat to see mechanics 'riding' the elevator lift, and this switch track replacement (remarkably like a real boathouse).
However, the next coaster more than made up for it....
Katun - 10/10 and my new #1 (although that wasn't hard)
Having ridden Montu and Nemesis already, this is hands down the best of the three. It's simply larger, and more intense, with some sort of extreme force on every single element. Some of my favourite elements were the most unorthodox ones, especially the drop and the final, angled helix ; quite seriously, there is NOTHING I would change if given this ride to play with. Then there are the night rides...which take it to a whole new level of forcefulness. Having had the Italian heat and all day to warm up (where Nemesis fails), walking onto Katun at 10:30 was the best coaster experience of my life....
Here's my video of it:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9FVW7iIjwc[/youtube]
(Btw, more videos of Mirabilandia and Gardaland to come on the same channel)
Again, an element by element analysis is required here:
The drop is so good, there's even floater on it at the front, and ejector at the back! Why other inverts don't utilise the same drop, I do not know...
Forceful pullout and massive loop, followed by...I'll just cut to the chase, and state everything has either positive or negative G, even the brake run. The helix at the conclusion is, however, the most forceful part of the ride, and completely addictive.
Also, Katun's the only coaster I've ever experienced grey-outs on.
Anyway, rant over - onto the rest of the park...
But before that, let's appreciate some things, some unique at Mirabilanida, which you cannot find at any park in the UK....
1.Freely roaming tortoises! -Honestly, you could probably have reached out to touch them. Evokes something about Mediterranean health and safety...
Aren't they cute? :wink:
2. A delicious pizza! Ate at the reasonably well priced and pleasant El Sombrero restaurant...
3.A beautiful sunset! By which time, your UK park has been closed for the day for several hours...
Enough of that... now back to the rides!
Reset - 7/10
A fairly solid dark ride, with decent theming...although the problem was, none of it made any sense whatsoever and it seemed quite misplaced. It was a walk on, and the cars did spin though...
Autosplash - 8/10
A solid little log flume with two fun drops, a little airtime, and quite 'unique theming' (that doesn't mean it's good...). However, it is quite lucidly aging and with its larger footprint, could most certainly be replaced with something ( a la chiapas) which would be a great improvement.
Music Express - 7/10
Look! Look - it's a flat ride, but it's by far most misplaced of all the rides at Mirabilandia (yes, even more so than Master Thai). A decent ride, but whilst it ran a very unique and long ride cycle, the lateral G-forces made it more of an endurance test than anything else.
Rio Bravo Rapids- 7/10
Well...it's a fairly average river rapids. What do I say? The only unique part is the waterfalls, which usually are more of a feature designed to be intimidating, without actually getting you wet. With these though, it was quite different....
Didn't do Niagara, but I've heard its everything you expect from a spillwater flume...big splash- the works.
Master Crap - 3/10
One of the only rides I've ever been on which was actually much worse than the ride which it, effectively, replaced. I'd take the roller skater any day! The dual airtime hills are the only real highlight of the ride, but the rest is just painful, rough, tight, and quite dull to be honest. Bulldoze it and bring back the roller skater!
Leprotto Express - 8/10
Yes, I am that pathetic. With Divertical down, I wasn't going to be 2 creds down :wink: Problems with knees fitting in, and weird looks aside, it was actually quite good, with moments of airtime. I actually wanted to go round the second time on this :wink:
Pakal - 6/10
So it's the only (decent) moderately sized 'family' coaster at the park, but it certainly doesn't redeem the gaping hole in Mirabilandia's attraction lineup. It's not particularly long, it's a bit rough, and the uncomfortable experience detracts from some decent drops and some extremely forceful turns.
Discovery and Columbia - 7.5/10
It's a pair of S&S shot towers...good, solid rides, but to redeem for the lack of other flat rides, they needed to be bigger and more unique.
Rexplorer - 7/10
It's not bad, but it's not particularly good either. They made a very successful theming attempt with Jurrassic Park..oh sorry, 'Dinoland' (it's practically a rip off anyway), and have a few decent rides too.
Shows!
There are a solid selection of shows at the park, although none of them are indoors...
Scuola Di Polizia - 9.5/10
What a fun little show. Completely insane, and even if you were Italian, you probably wouldn't have been able to comprehend what was going on. Plenty of tire shredding as if budget was no object (hey, maybe this accounts for Master Thai's lack of theming?), some crazy Italian antics, explosions and plenty of crazy jumping on motorbikes. There's no coherent plot line, but who cares? Fun all round.
Night water and light show - 6/10
Not much really happened to be fair. Some music and random voiceover, repetitive water jets, plus a few dancers at the back who nobody could see. Gardaland's was much better....
The return Of Peter Pan - 7.5/10
The diving in the diving show was good too, but lacked any coherent plot line, and was a little short. What a surprise
Thoughts on the park's future (WARNING: Contains hopeless fan specualtion)
Mirabilandia's one of those parks which I'd love to manage, as it's got a tonne of unexploited potential. Firstly, they need to fix Divertical
As I said, Mirablandia is in dire need of 3 aspects...
-Flat rides. Even if it's bog standard and off the shelf, just buy one or two! A themed Zamperla discovery would do very well here. Just something to ease the queues off the coasters.
-Medium sized coasters/dark rides - this category, in my opinion, would be best solved by a dark spinner a la winjas. Consider it done. A medium-large inverting coaster would be another solid addition (hell, even a boomerang would be a good idea)
-A woodie. Whilst a woodie would be a wonderful addition and easily marketable, judging by the state MK1 ended up in, I doubt it could be sustainably maintained in the harsh Italian climate. Something more durable would be needed...possibly involving steel too? I'm sure there's some crazy American company who can build 200ft +hybrids somewhere A steel supported GCI could work too. There are acres of unused land at the back of the park for expansion, just behind the wheel (although I'd save a little for the waterpark)
Thanks for reading guys! Hope you enjoyed it - and please, feel free to leave plenty of questions below.
Next time - Mirabeach
I'll give you a spoiler by stating it'll be brief...
Day one - Luna park and Smile park
Having seen countless reviews and videos of this park, I was so hyped for it....however, it didn't quite live up to my expectations, and I was especially angry that it didn't even open until late at night! Outrage! Shame, since it looked so good!
See?
Disappointments aside, I headed to the nearby 'Smile Park', which promised excellent customer service. However, quite frankly, it didn't. Because it was closed - and looked like it had been for a long while...it was dilapidated, disappointing, and downright creepy, reminiscent of a long-defunct Chinese financial disaster.With that, I sat down and cried.
Serious Day 1 - Mirabilanida
Scorecard
Katun x8 (now, that is a score..)
Ispeed x4
Autosplash x2
Eurowheel x2
Reset x1
Master Crap x1
Rexplorer x1
Leprotto Express x1
General thoughts on the park
Divertical and Ispeed aside, it's a very pleasant, well themed, and medium sized park (although majorly flawed in the sense that there is no full story (especially on Reset) to make sense of the theming), with possibly one of the most complete water ride line ups in the world, and two (possibly three, but I'll mention why later) of the best coasters in not just Europe, but in the world. However, aside from that, there's next to nothing, especially in the flat ride and dark ride department. Reset's a decent shooter, and the shot towers are good, but after they removed Ghostville, there's nearly nothing else to do. The park is desperately in need of flat rides and coasters to bridge the kiddie/family to extreme gap. Even a *coughcough* vekoma roller skater would be a much needed addition...just something else to reride really. Could also do with more dark rides too...
Another few things:
-I failed to see any Q-bots - seems like they've switched to the flash pass system which slows everything down.,
-Ride ops were on the whole very efficient - but they still need a single rider queue and flash pass had catastrophic effects! However, the ops were paranoid about people being in the station, making station shots almost impossible to acquire, Ispeed particuarly.
-I really like this queuing system: does anyone else know if this exists anywhere aside from Italy?
Anyway, once in the park, we headed straight to Ipseed once we'd sorted out the (wonderful) 2nd day free deal .
Ispeed - 9/10
Well, all I can say is, what a ride! Moments of extreme forces, both positive and negative, are in abundance. It's (quite literally), Stealth's layout, followed by a whole lot of fast-paced, additional awesomeness! Let me take you through the layout...
First, the launch - being an LSM, I wasn't anticipating it to be quite as forceful as a hydraulic, but was happily wrong! If anything, it was stronger...
A medium sized top hat, with decent airtime and a solid pullout precedes the airtime hill....
It's ridiculous frankly. You're quite literally nailed to the top of the seat, but I think I probably prefer the less harsh floater version, due to the unique 'butterflies in stomach' effect. It was simply too fast paced for that....
Forceful turn, followed by a little airtime...
Then this. I'll be brutally honest - Ispeed's inversions are stupidly forceful, but are just too uncomfortable on the neck to be enjoyable .
Quite forceful Immelman (ish) thing, and another in-line with a quite noticeable straight section...
A snap into the hill with deceivingly little airtime, before braking.
It's a very solid little coaster, and crams a great deal into a short space of time - it's fast, fun, and forceful, but whilst I loved the ride experience, every other aspects left a great deal to be desired.
-The queueline was dull, long and unimaginative. A fairly low capacity ride was exacerbated by flash pass, especially at the end of the day, when they no longer check the presence of the passes...at least a 45 minute wait was posted all day.
-Theming is minimal, if nonexistent.
-Breakdowns for a far too common occurence. OK, Katun broke down once, but only for a short while. When an Intamin goes down, it stays down, which was all too true for the next ride...
Divertical - 0/0
INTAMIN SPITE FOR THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS! For a ride that's 2 years old, and not Intamin's first attempt at a larger water ride, this must be quite embarrassing.
What made it even worse was the fact they were cycling empty boats throughout my last day, as if to quite frankly mock me - 'you can see me, but you can't ride me!'
Admittedly, it was quite neat to see mechanics 'riding' the elevator lift, and this switch track replacement (remarkably like a real boathouse).
However, the next coaster more than made up for it....
Katun - 10/10 and my new #1 (although that wasn't hard)
Having ridden Montu and Nemesis already, this is hands down the best of the three. It's simply larger, and more intense, with some sort of extreme force on every single element. Some of my favourite elements were the most unorthodox ones, especially the drop and the final, angled helix ; quite seriously, there is NOTHING I would change if given this ride to play with. Then there are the night rides...which take it to a whole new level of forcefulness. Having had the Italian heat and all day to warm up (where Nemesis fails), walking onto Katun at 10:30 was the best coaster experience of my life....
Here's my video of it:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9FVW7iIjwc[/youtube]
(Btw, more videos of Mirabilandia and Gardaland to come on the same channel)
Again, an element by element analysis is required here:
The drop is so good, there's even floater on it at the front, and ejector at the back! Why other inverts don't utilise the same drop, I do not know...
Forceful pullout and massive loop, followed by...I'll just cut to the chase, and state everything has either positive or negative G, even the brake run. The helix at the conclusion is, however, the most forceful part of the ride, and completely addictive.
Also, Katun's the only coaster I've ever experienced grey-outs on.
Anyway, rant over - onto the rest of the park...
But before that, let's appreciate some things, some unique at Mirabilanida, which you cannot find at any park in the UK....
1.Freely roaming tortoises! -Honestly, you could probably have reached out to touch them. Evokes something about Mediterranean health and safety...
Aren't they cute? :wink:
2. A delicious pizza! Ate at the reasonably well priced and pleasant El Sombrero restaurant...
3.A beautiful sunset! By which time, your UK park has been closed for the day for several hours...
Enough of that... now back to the rides!
Reset - 7/10
A fairly solid dark ride, with decent theming...although the problem was, none of it made any sense whatsoever and it seemed quite misplaced. It was a walk on, and the cars did spin though...
Autosplash - 8/10
A solid little log flume with two fun drops, a little airtime, and quite 'unique theming' (that doesn't mean it's good...). However, it is quite lucidly aging and with its larger footprint, could most certainly be replaced with something ( a la chiapas) which would be a great improvement.
Music Express - 7/10
Look! Look - it's a flat ride, but it's by far most misplaced of all the rides at Mirabilandia (yes, even more so than Master Thai). A decent ride, but whilst it ran a very unique and long ride cycle, the lateral G-forces made it more of an endurance test than anything else.
Rio Bravo Rapids- 7/10
Well...it's a fairly average river rapids. What do I say? The only unique part is the waterfalls, which usually are more of a feature designed to be intimidating, without actually getting you wet. With these though, it was quite different....
Didn't do Niagara, but I've heard its everything you expect from a spillwater flume...big splash- the works.
Master Crap - 3/10
One of the only rides I've ever been on which was actually much worse than the ride which it, effectively, replaced. I'd take the roller skater any day! The dual airtime hills are the only real highlight of the ride, but the rest is just painful, rough, tight, and quite dull to be honest. Bulldoze it and bring back the roller skater!
Leprotto Express - 8/10
Yes, I am that pathetic. With Divertical down, I wasn't going to be 2 creds down :wink: Problems with knees fitting in, and weird looks aside, it was actually quite good, with moments of airtime. I actually wanted to go round the second time on this :wink:
Pakal - 6/10
So it's the only (decent) moderately sized 'family' coaster at the park, but it certainly doesn't redeem the gaping hole in Mirabilandia's attraction lineup. It's not particularly long, it's a bit rough, and the uncomfortable experience detracts from some decent drops and some extremely forceful turns.
Discovery and Columbia - 7.5/10
It's a pair of S&S shot towers...good, solid rides, but to redeem for the lack of other flat rides, they needed to be bigger and more unique.
Rexplorer - 7/10
It's not bad, but it's not particularly good either. They made a very successful theming attempt with Jurrassic Park..oh sorry, 'Dinoland' (it's practically a rip off anyway), and have a few decent rides too.
Shows!
There are a solid selection of shows at the park, although none of them are indoors...
Scuola Di Polizia - 9.5/10
What a fun little show. Completely insane, and even if you were Italian, you probably wouldn't have been able to comprehend what was going on. Plenty of tire shredding as if budget was no object (hey, maybe this accounts for Master Thai's lack of theming?), some crazy Italian antics, explosions and plenty of crazy jumping on motorbikes. There's no coherent plot line, but who cares? Fun all round.
Night water and light show - 6/10
Not much really happened to be fair. Some music and random voiceover, repetitive water jets, plus a few dancers at the back who nobody could see. Gardaland's was much better....
The return Of Peter Pan - 7.5/10
The diving in the diving show was good too, but lacked any coherent plot line, and was a little short. What a surprise
Thoughts on the park's future (WARNING: Contains hopeless fan specualtion)
Mirabilandia's one of those parks which I'd love to manage, as it's got a tonne of unexploited potential. Firstly, they need to fix Divertical
As I said, Mirablandia is in dire need of 3 aspects...-Flat rides. Even if it's bog standard and off the shelf, just buy one or two! A themed Zamperla discovery would do very well here. Just something to ease the queues off the coasters.
-Medium sized coasters/dark rides - this category, in my opinion, would be best solved by a dark spinner a la winjas. Consider it done. A medium-large inverting coaster would be another solid addition (hell, even a boomerang would be a good idea)
-A woodie. Whilst a woodie would be a wonderful addition and easily marketable, judging by the state MK1 ended up in, I doubt it could be sustainably maintained in the harsh Italian climate. Something more durable would be needed...possibly involving steel too? I'm sure there's some crazy American company who can build 200ft +hybrids somewhere
A steel supported GCI could work too. There are acres of unused land at the back of the park for expansion, just behind the wheel (although I'd save a little for the waterpark)Thanks for reading guys! Hope you enjoyed it - and please, feel free to leave plenty of questions below.
Next time - Mirabeach
I'll give you a spoiler by stating it'll be brief...