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Thanks for always reading my updates, SharkTums! You're right, a Wacky Worm would work. As I said, it's the first non-upcharge slingshot I've seen!

Nice report, Chris. We're going to do the Syracuse-Erie-Pittsburgh run this week.

It seems like a million years since April, but I really need to finish this report! Major reason for delay was the move, yes you heard correctly, the move back from The Netherlands to New York. After 3 1/2 years of teaching in The Netherlands, I managed to snag another teaching job, this time on Long Island at the second best SUNY (State University of New York) on that piece of land. Wish me luck. Anywho, on to the most heavily covered (in these TPR pages) bits of Italy, starting with Mirabiliandia in Ravenna. Cheryl and I have a knack for visiting the park just before a major credit opens. Back in 2009 they were getting ready to open iSpeed so we're back to get the credit. This time, of course, they're getting ready to open Divertical, so we're going to have to come back again! It's Otto and Mike! Must be expecting a slow day, no VPass Q-Bots for sale. In case you didn't know, Eurowheel, built in 1999, is actually the largest existing Ferris wheel in mainland Europe. Only London Eye is larger in the Western Hemisphere. Singapore Flyer is nearly twice as tall! I really appreciate stuff like this. My first visit to Kings Island was with a girlfriend who was trained as a landscape architect, and she pointed out stuff at the then-Paramount-owned park that got me appreciating the landscaping part of the biz. These days, we don't often see super-great landscaping outside of the Disney parks, so this is a welcome sight. Not sure why Otto is not at the wheel. Flying Arturo The Crazy House (these are for Larry) The purpose of the trip. I liked iSpeed, but I prefer the Mega-Lites over the Blitz coasters. These things bang my head and neck. This wasn't as bad as Maverick, so it was more re-rideable. Definitely a fun layout. The top hat is always my favorite element. Then I spent some time getting photos of the Divertical construction beyond the fence. "Entertainment". The last time we visited, this show was just a High School Musical ripoff, note for note. Raratonga is a compact Splash Battle that was installed in 2007. Designer is 3DBA, builder is Italy's very own Preston & Barbieri. I like the theming here. Gorgeous spring day, light crowds. Learned how to say "line jumping" in Italian. Here's what happens when you life is so busy working and travelling that you can't stay on top of everything: Mirabilandia opens a new credit 2011 and you're completely unaware of it, but then you miraculously bump into it...accidentally? Or are the coaster counting gods at work? But seriously, with a hectic schedule, sometimes you don't have time to print out a list from rcdb at the start of every trip, especially when you have to book 7 separate hotel nights, etc. Max Adventures Master Thai was the longest queue of the day. It's a very cool Mobius loop. It loads on both sides, but you ride two times so you get the entire circuit in one ride, unlike Kennywood's Racer, where you have to disembark and ride again in order to ride the full track. Finally Katun, which I think is one of the best B&M inverteds in the world. Unfortunately, as the day got longer, the crowds grew bigger. The ops were incredibly slow as they were only running one train. This encouraged line jumping, so we gave up and headed out. Thanks for checking out our Mirabilandia report! Next update is Gardaland and I'll try to get the update finished sooner!

Awesome report, as always, Adam. Thank you!

I agree totally that they should keep building and build something cool. I did contact the reporter. I think he's just driving cross-country or something and just sending in interesting stories as he goes. You're right that it's not earth shattering, but I for one am glad for the heads up. Thanks for checking out the report.

A couple of weeks ago, a colleague slipped a newspaper article under my office door. It was about a roller coaster set on a mountain top 2 km high. I looked at the photo and wondered where the heck was this from? Was this about Ghost Town in the Sky? No, it was about a completely different park, Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, in Colorado, where they'd just opened a new coaster on top of a mountain. By chance, Cheryl and I were flying to Denver for a family affair, so we added it to the itinerary. Here's the original article shared by a colleague. It says (in Dutch, I work in the Netherlands): "Roller coaster 2 kilometers up" and "It's crazy to see a canyon coming at you". We had to see this for ourselves. We drive about 3 hours west of Denver to Glenwood Canyon. It's in the town of Glenwood Springs. Unfortunately, they tell us, it's too windy for the cable car to bring us to the top. Here's one of the tram cars. Normally they run every five minutes. We were a bit disappointed. The tram ride plus park entry is $12, and you can add the cave tour for an extra $10. Of course we went with the full day pass, which was $42, but doesn't include the cave tour, an extra $5 in that case. You're not allowed to drive up yourself, so the park provides these buses when the tram is down. I didn't take any pictures of the bus ride because my knuckles were white from holding on. When you get to the top, the first thing you see is a bungee tower plus the first credit, a Zierer Tivoli Small. Wild West Express. Credit! Nice little coaster. Now check this out! Alpine slide! We were advised not to use brakes unless facing a sled in front of us! It was awesome. I would love to work for Wiegand. There was a climbing wall (left) and some goofy audio animatronics in the outhouses telling jokes. Nature trail to Cliffhanger There's a maze. And finally Cliffhanger. It's a Hurricane layout. This one came from Celebration City in Branson. The coaster is standard, but the setting is not. With the operator's permission, I was allowed to take a fully secured camera on board, but it's a violent ride so I didn't get much. Just this one... And this is the closest thing I got to a money shot. It's breathtaking. This is riding the uphill lift after the Alpine Coaster. Some of you may remember Lauren from past TPR trips. She'll be joining us in China too. Lauren and I decided to try the upcharge ($10) bungee jumping. It was definitely fun, but not very organized. We had to wait a long time for our jump after harnessing up. Of course it didn't help that some lady chickened out after 20 minutes on the ledge. Here's proof of Lauren's jump. ...and mine. A few kiddie flats. Unfortunately we didn't have time for the cave tour. The yellow flag is where the cave was first discovered. A very nice park official, Bob, explained to me that the park started with the tours, which became so popular that the tramway was built. This year was a major expansion, and they've purchased additional land for further expansion. Here's a real highlight: An S&S Power Screamin' Swing right on the edge of a cliff! It only has 4 seats, but the side that Cheryl's on beats out anything I've ever seen. Liseberg's is pretty dramatic, but this blows it away. Alpine slide track. Another fun attraction: one of those crazy automatic ziplines that are popping up now, like the one at Dixieland in Georgia. This one's on a mountainside. Fun. They have laser tag for the winter months. Sharp looking logo. Here's that nice park official Bob and a staffer named Melinda. Big gift shop with helpful staff. There's also a big restaurant with a huge outdoor deck looking out and then another deck above for vistas. Tramway back down. We had a great day at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park! Hopefully this report will put this neat little park on people's radar and we'll see more great things in the future. Thanks for checking it out!

What an amazing report! Love it. Thanks so much.

Rimini is home to yet another park worth visiting, Fiabilandia. We didn't know anything about it beforehand and were pleased to discover the best. wacky work. ever. You must watch the video below to do it justice. The park has a big themed gate with a giant sign, but a bridged connection from the parking area across the street from the park means that the big original signed gate is essentially inaccessible by foot. So no good front of park photo. First the credits, of course. I'm practically getting used to these double-lift Fabbri spinning mouses. Before Italy we'd only ever seen one...in Taiwan. After tolerating a leader like Berlusconi, who would have thought that the Italians would be so uptight. We didn't bring *all* of our clothes, but the clothes we were wearing seemed to suffice. Second credit. I kid you not, this was the best wacky worm ever. In case you missed it above, here's the link to my video: I just love coasters that are also dark rides, or sort of dark rides. I would not want to fall from the sky onto this building. Yay, more Valley of the Gnomes! Charles Addams' work lives on, but his estate receives no royalties. No European theme park is complete without an American West-themed eatery. "Steamboat" ride The park has a Pinfari mine train called Gold Mine. You can see that the wheels are basically what you'd find on a Wacky Worm. This was fun. Hit the shutter at just the right moment during the Zorro show. Little did we know that this would not be our last Zorro show in Italy. Huge lagoon at this park. Needs some dress up or something. Driving ride One of those jumper things. Poor man's zip line There was a walk-through called Peter Pan Bay which we did not check out, but it covered a corner of the lagoon. You seem to end up at that pirate ship. We were having lunch near the lagoon and I had to get up to take a picture through the window. These things are massive. Picture doesn't show how big this creature really is. Towards the end of our visit, we came across the really nice looking boat ride. Nice! Now this great face is visible. Great theming. Real steam engine for the choo-choo ride, but they weren't running it that day. Thanks for visiting Fiabilandia with us!

Sorry for the long period between updates, I've just been too busy! I hope everyone is getting their Memorial Day coaster on! After Pisa, we drove back to the eastern coast of Italy to Rimini, a beach and resort town. I think Rimini is interesting partly because the filmmaker Federico Fellini was from there. His film 8 1/2 is one of my all-time favorites. We found a park in Rimini that had no coasters, but it was surprisingly entertaining, so I'm making a mini-report of it. After driving back to the Adriatic coast, we hit a park without any coasters, but it was worth it: Italia in Miniatura! Now we could tell my parents that we had been to the Vatican! The heart of the park is, of course, a huge layout of all of the famous and not-so-famous sights of Italy laid out in miniature. Cheryl saves the Leaning Tower once again! Credit under construction! You could also visit some other great sites of Europe. Fly from Holland to visit...Holland! A nice monorail circumnavigates the miniature areas. You get nice views of the miniatures from the monorail. Moving to the outer circle of the park, you find some more traditional amusement fare, like this carousel. A non-upcharge slingshot! But you have to wait 2 hours to ride it for a second time. And the sign forbids those with cataracts from riding. There's a flume! Kiddie auto ride. Cannon Acqua, a play fort with a dozen mounted water guns. An aviary. Here are some of the guns on Cannon Acqua. Zamperla balloon kiddie flat. Popcorn vending machine. But the highlight, or lowlight, of Italia in Miniatura is their "gondola" ride through Venice. Traveling through the watery streets of Venice, you hear the music and voices that make up the soundtrack of this beautiful city. Unfortunately the ride was slow and endless and gave Universe of Energy at EPCOT a run for its money in terms of sheer boredom. Ironically, seeing this ride on the park map online was one of the reasons I put this park on the itinerary. But for a park with no coasters, we couldn't complain. It's a good park credit. Thanks for visiting Italia in Miniatura!

Looks truly awesome. Might have to jump over there weekend after next.

So, it was the Italian version of Dinosaurs Alive ("Dinosauri Vivo")? At least it wasn't an upcharge! Does Dinosaurs Alive have guides?

I'm totally jealous and wish I could have done this with TPR, not that Cheryl's bad company!

Thanks again to everyone going through Italy with us! This will be a fairly short update, as Day 5 was a bit of a disappointment: our single park was unexpectedly CLOSED! We arrived at Cavallino Matto at about opening time. We sorta kept walking back and forth between the parking area and the front park gate. Here's the front gate. And here's the calendar at the front gate. The date was April 24, and the hours are supposed to be from 10-6. We're not exactly amateurs at this game; we'd checked in advance. They have mini-golf, apparently. At first we figured that they were just playing fast and loose with the opening time, but no one was answering the phone. Eventualy someone did pick up and explained that they had an electrical problem and would be open the next day. FAIL. Four lost credits. At least put a note up on the gate! We moved on to *this*. That's correct, it would have fallen if Cheryl had not been there to catch it. If you go, I do recommend walking up to the top. Tickets are available online in advance. It gives new meaning to the expression "tippy top". This was built as Pisa's bell tower. We milked it for all we could because this was our only other real culture credit! One more "arty" shot. And now it's another long drive, but now we're heading back to the other coast again! Next stop: the parks of Rimini and Ravenna!

I'm sorry Elissa, totally missed that information. I should pay more attention to that stuff, but we rush a lot. Apologies.

Day 4 was our day to see one of the the most talked about developments in the Italian amusement industry in recent memory, Rainbow Magicland. As you and I know, new amusement parks don't open up every day, so it's important to go out and support the ones that come online. If it survives, you helped make it so. If it fails, you may not get another chance (think Hard Rock Park). I know a lot of people have reported on Rainbow Magicland so you've seen some of the photos. They definitely spent some euros on the theming. It's gorgeous. I'm driving, so photo credit goes to Cheryl. It's not the nicest day, but the park entrance is pretty cool. Yay, Rainbow Magicland! Cheryl's got her Six Flags poncho on. Like Miragica, the themed architecture is great. The overpass and tower reminded me a bit of Universal IOA. It's good when theme park designers have work to do. Unfortunately the rain threatened most of our morning but the park still looked pretty dramatic. Shock hadn't opened yet so we first hit Bomborun, the Vekoma Junior. We actually heard a few American voices on our train. By this time Shock had opened. I really liked this coaster. I like the LSM launch better than the vertical lifts on the Maurer Söhn models and there's something to be said for their giant lap bar restraint. This was fun and re-rideable. They had a flying island which was a different model from the ones I've seen at Legoland FL, Gardaland, and Efteling. I know that both Vekoma and Intamin make them. Again, theming. Nice kiddie area. We did the Wacky Worm. There's a Vekoma mine train in there somewhere. It's called Olandese Volante (Flying Dutchman). Here's a view of the train. I just don't understand these. I guess some people actually prefer them. Incredibly elaborate theming at the shooting dark ride, Huntik 5D. Shoot the Chutes Yucatan, also incredible. Animatronics spitting water too. Finally some sun. Yucatan Shock Cagliostro is the Maurer Söhn Indoor Spinning Xtended SC 3000. It's not Winjas but it's fun. There's the mine train in the center. It's a very nice park, and truth to tell, we did not explore it fully. After snagging the credits, it's time to eat. Thank you, Rainbow Magicland! I know TPR will have a blast there! We then drove to the Lazio coast to find Zoomarine. Lots of school groups at Zoomarine. Here's another Wacky Worm. As you might expect, the place specializes in marine life and aquatic shows. There are some random flats. Stuffed moose from the Ice Age. The real Mammut. Welcome to Vertigo, a looping star. We went into what we thought might be a dinosaur themed dark ride a la Jurassic Jungle Boat Boat Ride, but it was a walkthrough narrated in Italian. We literally walked out, having to go by the 1,000 or so school kids who had come in behind us. Our plan was to hit three one credit parks in the city of Roma, but we kinda just bailed. We had a lot of driving to do and we didn't feel like fighting city traffic that day. So we had a nice early night with dinner by the sea. See you for the next segment!

^^^^ Ooops, I thought it was six but only five, and really only four because one was closed. I know, lame.

I get it. My dad despises our hobby, because we cut out culture due to time constraints.

Always gratifying to make it to the front page. I wish this was my full time job, reporting for TPR. Thanks to Robb and Elissa and everyone who's checking out the report. Day 3 saw us taking on the theme parks of Napoli, starting with a really cool FEC called Liberty City Fun. After visiting the website for this place (http://www.libertycityfun.com/) I got so hooked on the website song (which repeats over and over) that I had to add the park to the itinerary. When we got there, I started running around taking pictures, which freaked out the management a bit, but once again, I managed to explain that I was an enthusiast, etc., etc. Being able to hum the website song did not seem to impress them, however. But thanks to Liberty City Fun for letting me snap away. Anyway, there was a lot to see. Here we are! The outer facade is fairly elaborate. It's pretty big inside. I think the biggest indoor FEC we've ever seen was Kinderstad Heerlen in the Netherlands, but then again, I've never been inside a Chuck E. Cheese or a Pizza Planet. I think this was both a little Indiana Jones ride and a Halloween train ride in this are. There's a climbing course above. Lots of coin-op rides (you buy tokens) and play areas. Games and inflatables, and dig the ceiling. Walk out the back to the large outdoor area, which is like a Zamperla kiddie flat showroom. Cheryl made a friend. We personally don't count powered coasters, but here's one if you want it. This is more like it, the well-themed Shark Trip. Shark Trip! Around the edge of the outdoor area are lots of coin-op rides and kiddie flats, such as kiddie bumper cars, Kiddie swings, Kiddie pirate ship! Kiddie ferris wheel, Frog hopper, Even more crazy coin-op, like they went to every supermarket storefront in the world to build this enormous collection! Nice looking slide. Looking back inside. Bumper boats. In the back you can see they had a "Fantasy Store" full of Disney and kids merchandise, plus themed party rooms for birthdays. Hard to pick photos because there was so much. F&B of course. There was a pool advertised but we didn't happen to see it. The property continues across the street where you'll find more F&B and bowling alleys. All in all, it's a huge FEC packed with rides and things to do. Our next park in Napoli was this one, Arcolandia Pacifico. This was near a giant church and there was a lot of Sunday morning traffic. In fact, we hit a lot of traffic all day in the Napoli area. It's a really small park. Wacky Worm Credit! Dark ride! Finally, after sitting in traffic on the tiny streets of Napoli for what seemed like hours, we made it to Girabilandia. Seems like a nice place. Unfortunately it was closed. But that's one of the big risks of this hobby. You fly or drive, and the credit is down. The park's website is down, and I wasn't getting an answer from the phone number. It was a Sunday, and some Italian parks just open late, and we couldn't hang around. The park didn't have that permanently closed look, but we couldn't be sure. We did find awesome food at a nearby mall. Great Napoli food, right? Oh, irony, it's a New Jersey-based chain. The Gelato Gods seem happy with the arrangement. Our second to last park of the day was Edenlandia. As far as we could tell, Edenlandia is the oldest park and was the biggest park in Napoli. We saw a sign that said it opened in the 60's and this was the 50th anniversary. I think. It's seen better days. According to rcdb, there was no credit here, but we wanted to check it out. But what the heck is this??!!!?? A credit!!!! This really made our day, an unknown credit! I was bouncing around the park and couldn't wait to email Duane at rcdb. It's there now! Cheryl is psyched we found the credit! Nice train. A round-up. This park had some rides owned by the park (you could buy a bracelet that worked for many rides) and other rides owned independently. You had to pay separately for those. Ropes course. Ropes course signage, for Larrygator. Flume and other various flats. Classic dark ride! Maniero: Casa degli Spiriti This ride was a bizarre ride through the Old West. Just weird. Last park of the day was Magic World, which Six Flags Enthuseast reviewed back in August of 2011. I liked the foil lid on my Pepsi Light. Ferris wheel! Wacky Worm. We were told that we needed kids to ride, and we just lied and said the kids were ours, even though the parents were riding too! We ran away afterwards! Stationary solo zorbing? Mouse was down. We waited an hour before leaving, watching the guys walk the track, but we had to move on. Nice flume theming. I'm not the flats expert, but this looks like something. Magic Mountain, a Zyklon Galaxi. Swings and a badly painted skate. Upcharge haunted walkthrough. We skipped, as we were faily exhausted. Upcharge ropes course. Note the dummies. We missed the dive show, which seemed a bit pathetic. Crazy bouncy couch ride. Can someone identify? I get exhausted researching flats. How long is this report segment? Finally, time to drive to Roma!!! Next stop: Rainbow Magicland! Thanks for visiting!

This trip report is highly amusing. Thank you for bringing this perspective!

This was still Day 2 so we move on to our next park, Miragica, which is owned by the same people who opened the new Rainbow Magicland in the Roma area. The parent company is Alfa Park, but they're owned by an even larger company that does mall developments and theater chains. In fact, Miragica is basically on the edge of the parking lot of a gigantic mall complex. I had some trouble with the online ticket purchase because the date of visit reverted back to the default when I incorrectly entered my credit card number, so our tickets had the wrong date, and I was getting no love online from Miragica's front office about getting a refund or exchange. I was sending all of my emails in Italian too, thanks to the fairly excellent Google Translate. An Italian friend of mine said that the meanings of my emails were clear. Finally, I went over someone's head and got some satisfaction. At least I think that's what happened. We brought Elisabetta here a bottle of wine to show that there were no hard feelings! Once again, we were lucky with the crowds, and we would be for the whole week. Take a look and you can see that they did put some a decent bit of €€€ into the theming. Those are Euros, for the the uninitiated. The themed architecture at both Miragica and Rainbow Magicland were awesome. "Buy your Speed Pass and Jump the Line!" Intamin! Senzafiato is a fun and mild Intamin launch. There's a small top hat and no inversions. Fun and re-rideable. Technically the park is called "Miragica: Land of the Giants". I loved the bathtub theme of this water play area. Here's his rubber ducky! Frog hopper Choo choo Nice theming. Spaccatempo is the other credit. Pretty nice theming for a Zamperla spinning mouse! Lift hill for the pervs. Drop tower "Per Bacco" theming reminds me of Furius Baco (awesome Intamin launch coaster in Spain), and for good reason: Both refer to Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. We popped our heads into this show where they were chopping this guy in two. Cheryl's looking at the big guy walking away. Lunch time! Overall, Italian park food was pretty good. Not too many parks offer a decent shrimp salad, am I right? Don't forget to visit the gift shop when you leave! A view of the themed elevator-lift raft ride on our way out. Then we steeled our hearts and drove into the port city of Bari. Rcdb lists a credit inside a public park. We found it, completely empty, but a guy was working on setting up some big inflatables, and eventually we found a sign that said they'd open in about 45 minutes. It's amazing, what we'll go through to get a crappy credit. The place is called Gomma Park. The owner (I presumed) even gave me a couple of Italian attractions industry magazines. They had a decent collection of inflatables. Gomma means "rubber" in Italian. I know these things are ubiquitous now, but they didn't have more than bouncy houses when I was small. I'd like to try one. And finally, about a 2 1/2 hour drive across southern Italy to Napoli. Thanks for checking out this report! Next segment: The parks of Napoli!

This is great news!

Thanks for checking it out, Marcus. And nice drumming on youtube!

Adam, thanks for the great report.

Due to work scheduling issues, Cheryl and I are not able to join either the TPR Europe trip or the TPR Italy trip. We know traveling with TPR is way more fun, and a lot less expensive, but sometimes you just don't have a choice. So we ended up doing our own private Italy tour during my Spring Break. We planned to fly to the South, drive north, and just try to score as many parks and credits as we could along the way. We even planned a couple of culture credits. So, without meaning to steal any of TPR's Italy trip thunder (heh, as though that's possible), here's a preview of some of what you'll see on the TPR Italy trip and the TPR Italy add-on trip. A lot of our itinerary overlapped, but there's also a bunch of stuff that is unique. Enjoy the report. We rented a car at Brindisi airport. Did you know that your credit card car rental insurance is void in Italy? Yep. With the extra insurance cost, it's not a cheap rental, to say nothing of the price of fuel. I wish I could have let TPR do the driving. First stop was a culture credit, this ginormous cave, Grotte di Castellano. We did a two hour walking tour through underground caves. Unfortunately they only let you photograph in this area, but it's pretty awesome. The whole stalactite-stalagmite thing. I hope I spelled those correctly. Our first stop on Day 2 was Zoosafari e Fasanolandia. Well, just Fasanolandia. We didn't do the safari park. This park is on the TPR Italy add-on trip! As you can see, Fasano is very close to the Adriatic Sea, right on the heel of the Italy boot. The park had a nice set of miniatures from the Puglia region. This guy was an anthropomorphized version of the famous beehive houses in nearby Alberobello. Same theme used at park gate... ...and elsewhere in the park. There's a Fabbri spinning mouse. Yay, dark ride! The park was completely dead at first, but slowly came to life. No shortage of Wacky Worms in Italy. Drop tower! Ferris wheel! Rapid River, with U.S. Civil War theming! Sputnik is the drop tower. Might as well start learning a little Italian. Uscita is "Exit". Parcheggio is "Parking". A few words go a long way here. If you know some Spanish, you've got a leg up. A Zyklon Galaxi. There are a lot of these still out there, but most are out of the way and we haven't run into too many. Fun. Check this out: A Fabbri inverted coaster. Three seats across. According to rcdb, only one other is operating...in Kazakhstan. We were prepared for the worst, and were pleasantly surprised. It's clunky, but no inversions, so no headbanging. The park is on a hill, from which you can see the Adriatic. And there's this at the top of the hill! The park was installing this escalator up to the Eurofighter. I look forward to TPR's continuing "Escalator Ride" reports. Dig the color scheme and the layout. This was a big credit for me: Money shot. Actually, see our matching Phantasialand fleeces? Guests at three different parks approached us for information, thinking we were park employees! T-Rex attacks the nearly finished Freedom Tower. While we didn't do the safari, some zoo exhibits, like Mr. Gibbon here, are accessible via the amusement park. A quick shout out to this really nice operator, Cosimo B. He figured out that we were enthusiasts from abroad, and he was super nice and helpful, in spite of the language barrier, like you should expect from an amusement park employee. He even bought us a cup of coffee! Say hi if you see him. Thanks for checking out the first part of the report! Next up: Miragica!

Awesome Big Mike!