NemesisRider
Roller Poster
Intro
In July 2022, I visited Turkey with family - it was my first international trip for a long time, and I had a great time visiting Istanbul, Cappadocia and Antalya. Despite not primarily being a theme park excursion, of course I managed to squeeze a few visits in! I'm mainly writing this trip report as I felt that both of these parks had a slight dearth of information about them online, at least in English, aside from a very good trip report on here from pre-COVID. So, without further ado...
Vialand
Despite being somewhat close to the centre, the public transport routes from my hotel in Sultanahmet to Vialand looked a bit intimidating. I understand public transport in Istanbul is quite good, but with two changes I didn't fancy the risk. I happened to be visiting the city over Eid, which meant it was extremely busy; public transport was also free in the city during this time, and hence was predictably rammed. I chose to visit Vialand the day after Eid in the hope that crowd levels would be more manageable, using a local Hop On Hop Off bus company who provided a free shuttle bus to and from the park from nearby my hotel as long as we purchased our ticket through them. This did, however, mean my park hours were limited to around 11:30-17:30. Despite this limited time, I found it was ample to cover everything in the park I wanted to, even with the somewhat shoddy operations.
Another general note about Vialand is that admission is more expensive for foreigners than locals by a substantial margin. The park is just about worth the £40 admission for a die-hard nerd like myself, but more casual visitors may be reluctant to pay that for a handful of solid coasters plus some interesting flats.
You enter the park through a rather shiny shopping mall. The instantly striking thing about Vialand is it's location. The park is built on a hillside, with the Intamin LSM launch Nefeskesen being the clear icon perched at the top. I was pleasantly surprised also by the presence of and standard of theming throughout; it's not exactly fully immersive, but clearly there has been significant effort. This leads to a park that is incredibly fun to photograph.
Nefeskesen, the aforementioned Intamin, was the first ride of the day. I'd recommend getting in your rides on this early on in the day, as front row effectively became reserved for fastrack guests later in the day. I rode 4 times overall - 2 in the front and 1 in the back in the morning, then 1 in the back at the end of the day. The ride is comfortable and very rerideable. The initial launch has a reasonable kick, the top hat provides some solid airtime in the back, and the final inversion particularly has some cool sensations. That said, it lacks real intensity in both positives and airtime due to being a bit drawn out. Not exactly top 10 material, but a very fun ride with stunningly unique views.
I would note that Nefeskesen, alongside seemingly most rides in the park, ran only one train all day which lead to particularly frustrating queues in the later day. This is compounded by a fastrack system that is quite mismanaged, and left me as a regular guest feeling like somewhat of a second class citizen.
The other coasters in the park are an Intamin family coaster Macarapest and a kiddie +1 I skipped in the hope of squeezing in one last Nefeskesen ride. The family coaster was surprisingly intense towards the end, but mostly fun albeit forceless.
The park has two main dark rides. The Small World rip-off had no queue all day and, whilst of course being inferior to the original, was a good laugh. In the old Istanbul section, there is a Pirates style boat ride which focuses on Turkish history and has some scenes of an impressive scale. However, it also begins with a 15 minute only-in-Turkish film preshow of which I understood basically nothing; perhaps the previously present English language headphones have now been abandoned for this ride. The boat also moves at a hilariously slow pace.
The water rides at the park are, once again, fun. The Viking flume had some lovely theming, and is surprisingly dry. The Rapids were tucked away in a somewhat hidden area of the park but are well worth a ride, even if there were some missing opportunities for waterfalls and other elements.
Finally, the flat rides. The drop tower has beautiful theming on the outside... but is a black box on the inside. Hmf. The brand new 360+ was honestly one of the most nauseating rides I have ever been on, and I'd strongly suggest to avoid it if spinny flats often make you feel ill. There is more beyond these big tickets - a slightly dumb but amusing King Kong ride, a Squid Surfer style Zamperla Jet Ski, and two more new for 2022 thrill rides which I skipped because 360+ made me feel so ill.
Regarding food, we ate at Burger King (which is ubiquitous in Istanbul). Food was decent, and pretty cheap, but nothing to write home about.
Vialand overall is well worth a visit if you're in the area, even for Nefeskesen alone - it's better located than its sister park Viasea and seems to have a far more substantial lineup, even if Red Fire looks to be a much better headliner. Sadly, I didn't have time to do both but it's to be expected when you're in a city bursting with culture and your family feel ambivalent about coasters. Now, moving swiftly to Antalya...
Aktur Park
Aktur Park was a bit of a mess. There’s a cool new ferris wheel that can be seen throughout the city, a few plus ones, and some decent flats. I made the mistake of visiting at 5pm just after the park had opened, when queues were effectively non-existent but seemingly half of the rides weren’t operating. Furthermore, some of the most exciting looking attractions like the Rocket required 4 people for them to bother running it – sadly, I’m yet to learn how to mitosis myself into 3 extra people, so this was off the table. The ferris wheel is the definite highlight for the lovely views, though you could find most of the other rides at any other park in the world.
Aktur Park did teach me some valuable lessons. First and foremost, as a Brit with a predictably poor tolerance for extreme weather, I found Antalya in Summer was oppressively hot to the extent where spending a whole day outside was exhausting. At night, it does not relent either, regularly being 30+ degrees C. If you can’t hack the heat, visit at a cooler time of the year than July – you’ll thank yourself for it. Secondly, the extreme heat and any slight dehydration (in Istanbul the tap water is perfectly good, but Antalya’s water receives more mixed reviews) turns nausea up to 11. Accordingly, I’d suggest to avoid the spinniest flats with long cycles if you don’t fancy being sick in a slightly dingy amusement park bathroom. And, finally, douse yourself head to toe in Factor 50 (including your feet if wearing sandals!) so you don’t realise you’re badly sunburnt after being sick in said amusement park bathroom. Yeah, this was not my day.
Land of Legends
Equipped with my knowledge of how to not to feel like death at an Antalyan theme park, I headed to Land of Legends. LoL was about 50 minutes drive (without traffic) from my hotel near Konyaalti beach – the taxi cost about 600 lira (call it £30) each way for 3 people, which gave us some much needed flexibility to stay until the park closed. Tickets are again very expensive for what you get at around £64, though this time there isn’t a cheaper local rate hidden from foreigners – due to this, LoL’s primary demographic seems to be fairly affluent Russian tourists visiting Antalya. LoL has three main areas – a shopping village, the water park and the theme park. The shopping village is free, but your ticket covers both parks. I’ll focus mostly on the latter, as it’s where I spent most time.
The Land of Legends theme park is surprisingly small for the entry price. However, it feels very clean, modern and has several standout rides.
The park’s icon is the Mack Rides Hyper Coaster – it’s a clone of Lewa World’s Flash and is probably the reason why you’re bothering to read this section of the article. You enter through the gift shop, into a shady cattlepen which was never required in my visit, then outside to a railway station themed queue including a life-sized train and some mildly jank animatronics. Sadly, this level of theming disappears in the station itself. The trains are the standard Mack Mega ones (minus the slightly unnecessary seatbelt found on ICON and more), which are comfy and give plenty of freedom. After a quick lift hill, the ride starts with a showstopping first drop which provides some great whip and a pop of ejector in the back row. The loop is a spectacle offride and great fun onride, providing intensity on the pull-in and great hangtime at the top. The following sequence of three hills is fun, providing varied, sustained airtime that leans more towards floater. Next, the turnaround sadly lacks force and is probably the weakest element. Luckily, this is compensated for by the zero-g roll, a whippy element with provides some great sensations. The airtime continues for a couple more good hills before a twister ending with a surprising amount of momentum. In essence, Hyper Coaster is incredibly smooth and rerideable, with plenty of solid airtime that I loved. If you don’t go in expecting insane intensity, you will have a fantastic time with this ride.
LoL isn’t just one fantastic Mack, though. Their coaster collection also includes a nice Gerstlauer family coaster imaginatively named “Family Coaster”. It provides great views of Hyper Coaster, but I much preferred Macarapest. “Water Coaster” is an Intamin water coaster a smidge shorter than it’s more well known sister at Energylandia. The surprisingly forceful helix and ample splash (great for a climate like Antalya’s) solidified this as my second favourite in the park. There’s also a very jank kiddie cred in the “Masha and the Bear Land of Fun” section.
The park has a decent selection of water and flat rides. I did skip a lot of the more nauseous flat rides, including the top spin and Skyfly, which both admittedly looked pretty fun. That said, I wasn’t taking any risks after my nightmare at Atkur Park. The 4D cinema at the park is well worth a go for how hilariously stupid it is – they were showing an abridged version of the recent-ish Aquaman film, which was cut together in such a way that it was nearly utterly incomprehensible. The audio was also barely audible, putting it even more firmly in the “so bad it’s brilliant” category.
After a few rerides, it was time for lunch. In regard to food in LoL, do not eat within the theme park if you can avoid it. Prices are astronomical for Antalya standards and the food is fine at best. We ate at a pizza place near Hyper Coaster, which did the job despite the expense. If I’d known I would have either brought food or more realistically eaten in the food court of the Shopping area, which has a good range of much more fairly priced options including big-name fast-food brands.
After lunch we headed to the shopping area to cool off and explore. It was almost eerie with how empty it was at midday, especially contrasted with the huge scale. I found it reminiscent of how I envision Dubai – huge and opulent (with the luxury brands to back it) but no clear target market. The >100m tall castle is a highlight, if anything for its sheer scale. Primarily, I’d recommend the shops as a good way to beat the heat at the middle of the day when the parks are busiest. My group mainly restocked on waters and chilled in Starbucks for a while, which was relatively inexpensive.
Returning to the park, we headed to the water park to do some rides and slides. My first recommendation about the water park is to bring sandals! A lot of the surfaces are a bit unpleasant barefoot. Next, a locker cost 130 lira during my visit, so ensure you have this loaded onto your wristband before you go in – it should fit two sizable bags at least. Finally, the water park was substantially busier than the theme park over my visit, so be prepared to queue accordingly. I’d recommend the Tower Falls water coaster, which was great fun and a real hit amongst my group. The water park is reasonably substantial so if you have a lot you want to ride make sure to leave time!
The park nearly emptied towards closing time, so I used this as an excuse to get in several warmed up rerides on Hyper Coaster.
LoL is an oddity well worth visiting. Though I doubt major expansion of the theme park is on the agenda, though I’d love to see another headline attraction. A new age Intamin or Mack launch (potentially something along the lines of Beyond The Cloud in China) would be perfect for the park and would probably make Antalya a big destination for enthusiasts.
END
So there we are - a couple of Turkey’s best parks, plus one slightly jank one, in brief. Hope you enjoyed the report!
In July 2022, I visited Turkey with family - it was my first international trip for a long time, and I had a great time visiting Istanbul, Cappadocia and Antalya. Despite not primarily being a theme park excursion, of course I managed to squeeze a few visits in! I'm mainly writing this trip report as I felt that both of these parks had a slight dearth of information about them online, at least in English, aside from a very good trip report on here from pre-COVID. So, without further ado...
Vialand
Despite being somewhat close to the centre, the public transport routes from my hotel in Sultanahmet to Vialand looked a bit intimidating. I understand public transport in Istanbul is quite good, but with two changes I didn't fancy the risk. I happened to be visiting the city over Eid, which meant it was extremely busy; public transport was also free in the city during this time, and hence was predictably rammed. I chose to visit Vialand the day after Eid in the hope that crowd levels would be more manageable, using a local Hop On Hop Off bus company who provided a free shuttle bus to and from the park from nearby my hotel as long as we purchased our ticket through them. This did, however, mean my park hours were limited to around 11:30-17:30. Despite this limited time, I found it was ample to cover everything in the park I wanted to, even with the somewhat shoddy operations.
Another general note about Vialand is that admission is more expensive for foreigners than locals by a substantial margin. The park is just about worth the £40 admission for a die-hard nerd like myself, but more casual visitors may be reluctant to pay that for a handful of solid coasters plus some interesting flats.
You enter the park through a rather shiny shopping mall. The instantly striking thing about Vialand is it's location. The park is built on a hillside, with the Intamin LSM launch Nefeskesen being the clear icon perched at the top. I was pleasantly surprised also by the presence of and standard of theming throughout; it's not exactly fully immersive, but clearly there has been significant effort. This leads to a park that is incredibly fun to photograph.
Nefeskesen, the aforementioned Intamin, was the first ride of the day. I'd recommend getting in your rides on this early on in the day, as front row effectively became reserved for fastrack guests later in the day. I rode 4 times overall - 2 in the front and 1 in the back in the morning, then 1 in the back at the end of the day. The ride is comfortable and very rerideable. The initial launch has a reasonable kick, the top hat provides some solid airtime in the back, and the final inversion particularly has some cool sensations. That said, it lacks real intensity in both positives and airtime due to being a bit drawn out. Not exactly top 10 material, but a very fun ride with stunningly unique views.
I would note that Nefeskesen, alongside seemingly most rides in the park, ran only one train all day which lead to particularly frustrating queues in the later day. This is compounded by a fastrack system that is quite mismanaged, and left me as a regular guest feeling like somewhat of a second class citizen.
The other coasters in the park are an Intamin family coaster Macarapest and a kiddie +1 I skipped in the hope of squeezing in one last Nefeskesen ride. The family coaster was surprisingly intense towards the end, but mostly fun albeit forceless.
The park has two main dark rides. The Small World rip-off had no queue all day and, whilst of course being inferior to the original, was a good laugh. In the old Istanbul section, there is a Pirates style boat ride which focuses on Turkish history and has some scenes of an impressive scale. However, it also begins with a 15 minute only-in-Turkish film preshow of which I understood basically nothing; perhaps the previously present English language headphones have now been abandoned for this ride. The boat also moves at a hilariously slow pace.
The water rides at the park are, once again, fun. The Viking flume had some lovely theming, and is surprisingly dry. The Rapids were tucked away in a somewhat hidden area of the park but are well worth a ride, even if there were some missing opportunities for waterfalls and other elements.
Finally, the flat rides. The drop tower has beautiful theming on the outside... but is a black box on the inside. Hmf. The brand new 360+ was honestly one of the most nauseating rides I have ever been on, and I'd strongly suggest to avoid it if spinny flats often make you feel ill. There is more beyond these big tickets - a slightly dumb but amusing King Kong ride, a Squid Surfer style Zamperla Jet Ski, and two more new for 2022 thrill rides which I skipped because 360+ made me feel so ill.
Regarding food, we ate at Burger King (which is ubiquitous in Istanbul). Food was decent, and pretty cheap, but nothing to write home about.
Vialand overall is well worth a visit if you're in the area, even for Nefeskesen alone - it's better located than its sister park Viasea and seems to have a far more substantial lineup, even if Red Fire looks to be a much better headliner. Sadly, I didn't have time to do both but it's to be expected when you're in a city bursting with culture and your family feel ambivalent about coasters. Now, moving swiftly to Antalya...
Aktur Park
Aktur Park was a bit of a mess. There’s a cool new ferris wheel that can be seen throughout the city, a few plus ones, and some decent flats. I made the mistake of visiting at 5pm just after the park had opened, when queues were effectively non-existent but seemingly half of the rides weren’t operating. Furthermore, some of the most exciting looking attractions like the Rocket required 4 people for them to bother running it – sadly, I’m yet to learn how to mitosis myself into 3 extra people, so this was off the table. The ferris wheel is the definite highlight for the lovely views, though you could find most of the other rides at any other park in the world.
Aktur Park did teach me some valuable lessons. First and foremost, as a Brit with a predictably poor tolerance for extreme weather, I found Antalya in Summer was oppressively hot to the extent where spending a whole day outside was exhausting. At night, it does not relent either, regularly being 30+ degrees C. If you can’t hack the heat, visit at a cooler time of the year than July – you’ll thank yourself for it. Secondly, the extreme heat and any slight dehydration (in Istanbul the tap water is perfectly good, but Antalya’s water receives more mixed reviews) turns nausea up to 11. Accordingly, I’d suggest to avoid the spinniest flats with long cycles if you don’t fancy being sick in a slightly dingy amusement park bathroom. And, finally, douse yourself head to toe in Factor 50 (including your feet if wearing sandals!) so you don’t realise you’re badly sunburnt after being sick in said amusement park bathroom. Yeah, this was not my day.
Land of Legends
Equipped with my knowledge of how to not to feel like death at an Antalyan theme park, I headed to Land of Legends. LoL was about 50 minutes drive (without traffic) from my hotel near Konyaalti beach – the taxi cost about 600 lira (call it £30) each way for 3 people, which gave us some much needed flexibility to stay until the park closed. Tickets are again very expensive for what you get at around £64, though this time there isn’t a cheaper local rate hidden from foreigners – due to this, LoL’s primary demographic seems to be fairly affluent Russian tourists visiting Antalya. LoL has three main areas – a shopping village, the water park and the theme park. The shopping village is free, but your ticket covers both parks. I’ll focus mostly on the latter, as it’s where I spent most time.
The Land of Legends theme park is surprisingly small for the entry price. However, it feels very clean, modern and has several standout rides.
The park’s icon is the Mack Rides Hyper Coaster – it’s a clone of Lewa World’s Flash and is probably the reason why you’re bothering to read this section of the article. You enter through the gift shop, into a shady cattlepen which was never required in my visit, then outside to a railway station themed queue including a life-sized train and some mildly jank animatronics. Sadly, this level of theming disappears in the station itself. The trains are the standard Mack Mega ones (minus the slightly unnecessary seatbelt found on ICON and more), which are comfy and give plenty of freedom. After a quick lift hill, the ride starts with a showstopping first drop which provides some great whip and a pop of ejector in the back row. The loop is a spectacle offride and great fun onride, providing intensity on the pull-in and great hangtime at the top. The following sequence of three hills is fun, providing varied, sustained airtime that leans more towards floater. Next, the turnaround sadly lacks force and is probably the weakest element. Luckily, this is compensated for by the zero-g roll, a whippy element with provides some great sensations. The airtime continues for a couple more good hills before a twister ending with a surprising amount of momentum. In essence, Hyper Coaster is incredibly smooth and rerideable, with plenty of solid airtime that I loved. If you don’t go in expecting insane intensity, you will have a fantastic time with this ride.
LoL isn’t just one fantastic Mack, though. Their coaster collection also includes a nice Gerstlauer family coaster imaginatively named “Family Coaster”. It provides great views of Hyper Coaster, but I much preferred Macarapest. “Water Coaster” is an Intamin water coaster a smidge shorter than it’s more well known sister at Energylandia. The surprisingly forceful helix and ample splash (great for a climate like Antalya’s) solidified this as my second favourite in the park. There’s also a very jank kiddie cred in the “Masha and the Bear Land of Fun” section.
The park has a decent selection of water and flat rides. I did skip a lot of the more nauseous flat rides, including the top spin and Skyfly, which both admittedly looked pretty fun. That said, I wasn’t taking any risks after my nightmare at Atkur Park. The 4D cinema at the park is well worth a go for how hilariously stupid it is – they were showing an abridged version of the recent-ish Aquaman film, which was cut together in such a way that it was nearly utterly incomprehensible. The audio was also barely audible, putting it even more firmly in the “so bad it’s brilliant” category.
After a few rerides, it was time for lunch. In regard to food in LoL, do not eat within the theme park if you can avoid it. Prices are astronomical for Antalya standards and the food is fine at best. We ate at a pizza place near Hyper Coaster, which did the job despite the expense. If I’d known I would have either brought food or more realistically eaten in the food court of the Shopping area, which has a good range of much more fairly priced options including big-name fast-food brands.
After lunch we headed to the shopping area to cool off and explore. It was almost eerie with how empty it was at midday, especially contrasted with the huge scale. I found it reminiscent of how I envision Dubai – huge and opulent (with the luxury brands to back it) but no clear target market. The >100m tall castle is a highlight, if anything for its sheer scale. Primarily, I’d recommend the shops as a good way to beat the heat at the middle of the day when the parks are busiest. My group mainly restocked on waters and chilled in Starbucks for a while, which was relatively inexpensive.
Returning to the park, we headed to the water park to do some rides and slides. My first recommendation about the water park is to bring sandals! A lot of the surfaces are a bit unpleasant barefoot. Next, a locker cost 130 lira during my visit, so ensure you have this loaded onto your wristband before you go in – it should fit two sizable bags at least. Finally, the water park was substantially busier than the theme park over my visit, so be prepared to queue accordingly. I’d recommend the Tower Falls water coaster, which was great fun and a real hit amongst my group. The water park is reasonably substantial so if you have a lot you want to ride make sure to leave time!
The park nearly emptied towards closing time, so I used this as an excuse to get in several warmed up rerides on Hyper Coaster.
LoL is an oddity well worth visiting. Though I doubt major expansion of the theme park is on the agenda, though I’d love to see another headline attraction. A new age Intamin or Mack launch (potentially something along the lines of Beyond The Cloud in China) would be perfect for the park and would probably make Antalya a big destination for enthusiasts.
END
So there we are - a couple of Turkey’s best parks, plus one slightly jank one, in brief. Hope you enjoyed the report!
