Canobie Coaster

I've seen some of the northeast parks lower the price of sky coasters on bitter cold days. I couldn't pass up riding the one at Great Adventure with temperatures in the teens when it was only $5.

They do the same thing for the Slingshot there too since neither ride is probably going to be anyone's first stop. Do they also lower the price in the evening as well or is it just cheap in the morning?

I felt the same way. If this thing doesn't have the record for track crossovers, it has to be up there.

^ Good to know!

Gardaland I know Merlin parks don’t have the best reputation. From my experience, my only gripes with Merlin parks have been ride closures and poor hours. Fortunately, Gardaland suffered from neither. Gardaland was a pleasant surprise. The rides were about what I expected, but the operations, landscaping, and theming were beyond what I had anticipated. What the heck kind of animal is that? I had an unhealthy obsession with floral clocks in Roller Coaster Tycoon. For example, Blue Tornado is the park’s SLC. This ride runs not one, not two, but three trains! And they do it with minimal stacking. It must be the magical power of the bonus helix. As for how Blue Tornado rode, ouch. While most SLCs have this soft padding by your ears, Blue Tornado has hard padding. That combined with the usual piss poor tracking makes this one of the worst SLCs out there. 1 out of 10 *Triggering SLC PTSD* If Blue Tornado was intended to simulate a plane crash, it succeeded. I was equally as apprehensive for the Vekoma mine train next door. Mammut looked incredible. It’s faux mountain wouldn’t be out-of-place at a Disney park. But I was still scarred from my painful ride on the version at Rainbow MagicLand. Thankfully Mammut was quite good. It tracked well and had countless near-misses. But the most surprising thing was the airtime. There were 3 lifts and each section had at least 1-2 quick pops of air. It was like a budget Big Thunder Mountain. 7 out of 10 Can you find the train? My most anticipated ride at the park was Raptor, the original B&M wing rider. This ride highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of the wing riders perfectly. On one hand, this one had near-misses out the wazoo. You narrowly duck through caves and military equipment. This one also had a ton of hangtime in the inversions. On the other hand, Raptor was tame. I know wing riders are often deemed forceless, but this was the weakest of the bunch. This one also had the original vest restraints that had zero give. Ultimately, I did really enjoy Raptor. It may be down there with X-Flight for my least favorite B&M wing rider, but those near-misses and floaty bits are still fun. Plus I love that straight first drop. I wish more B&M loopers had those. 8 out of 10 The near-misses on this ride are incredible. Since it was a bazillion degrees outside, I decided to take refuge on their Pirates of the Caribbean knockoff, Corsari: la Vendetta del Fantasma. However, there was a brief delay getting into the air conditioning. To enter the ride, you pass through this beautiful pirate ship. At the time I queued up, they were using that ship for a musical show. They staged us in an outdoor queuing area until the show concluded, but at least it was entertaining. Corsari emulated two of my favorite scenes from Pirates, the town scene and the battle scene. While the animatronics weren’t on the level of Disney, they were still a cut above your typical regional park and they were often complimented by some nice projection mapping. 8 out of 10 There are far worse operational delays than a show. Up next was the most baffling ride of the day, Sequoia Magic Loop. I always wondered why there weren’t more S&S screaming squirrels. Then I rode this thing and I totally get why there aren’t more. For one, the capacity is putrid. Plenty of rides can make do with 4 car trains (take a wild mouse), but at least those rides can have multiple cars on the circuit at once. Sequoia Magic Loop couldn’t dispatch the next train until the prior one returned to the station. But more importantly, the ride is just awkward. I didn’t find it painful; it just wasn’t enjoyable. This ride never gains any speed. Even on the transitions from upright to upside down, it simply feels like you’re moving down a conveyor belt. Considering I’m usually a big fan of hangtime, I was surprised I hated Sequoia Magic Loop. It was a boring and dysfunctional coaster. It just seemed like a gimmick gone wrong. 2 out of 10 WTF is this thing? I can't tell if they're smiles of joy or awkwardness. Next door was Shaman, the park’s Vekoma looper. I was surprised this one had zero air on the first drop; that’s usually a trademark on the Arrow and Vekoma loopers, but this one was quite smooth. This allowed me to enjoy the decently forceful loops, quick pop of air into the turnaround, the brief floaty feeling in the corkscrews, and the final helix which whizzed past fountains. 6 out of 10 I love how Shaman wraps around that S&S piece of trash. I then laid my eyes on the most WTF wacky worm in existence, Ortobruco Tour. I feel like this ride is what happens if you let someone who doesn’t know how to play Roller Coaster Tycoon design their own custom roller coaster. I think there were like 5-6 different booster lifts. In many ways, Ortobruco Tour felt more like a monorail on the back of a silly-looking worm. That being said, its oddness and sheer length makes it one of the better kids coasters out there. 3 out of 10 Kung Fu Panda Master was another coaster that I’d consider trash. I love the Kung Fu Panda area, but this ride hurts. The beginning starts innocently enough with some hairpin turns and a solid drop, but it all goes to hell on the first turnaround. The lap bars on this ride rest nowhere near your lap. So anytime the coaster brakes or goes through a sharp turn, you’re punched in the gut. 3 out of10 By this point, I realized Gardaland had some truly awful coasters. It’s sort of disturbing this painful thing wasn’t even in the park’s bottom two coasters. Thank Blue Tornado and Sequoia Magic Loop for that. Tell Six Flags this is the real Panda-monium. The park’s other dark ride, Ramses: II Risveglio, felt like a longer, more fleshed out version of the Lost Kingdom Adventure rides at Legoland. This one had grander sets, but it had the same theme, similar laser sights on the guns, and multiple colored targets. The ease of shooting combined with the long ride and large physical sets made Ramses a real winner. 8 out of 10 I then journeyed from Egypt into space. My vessel was Space Vertigo, the adorable little Intamin drop tower. It’s sort of funny to call a drop tower adorable, but just take a look at this thing. It’s dwarfed by the two rides next to it in Oblivion and Flying Island. And this thing also wears a hat. I know that hat is a spaceship, but the insides are as empty as a hat. So let me call it a hat. But despite its small stature and completely obstructed views, this one delivered one mighty drop. You drop like a rock. I had that wonderful floaty feeling in my stomach the whole way down. 8 out of 10 I love how this drop tower has a hat. I then rode Oblivion. I heard this ride had an awesome queue line, so I was a bit bummed the skip-the-line pass bypassed it. On the other hand, I really can’t complain about skipping a 45 minute line. Per usual, the highlight on this dive coaster was the signature first drop. The pull in the back row was fantastic and it was filled with floater air the whole way down. While the Immelmann was nothing per usual, the following camelback and zero-G roll had some nice airtime and hangtime respectively. While this isn’t as large as the North American dive coasters, it’s a really fun ride. I also need to note that the views are breathtaking. I haven’t touched on this yet, but Gardaland has an amazing setting on a lake surrounded by mountains. 8 out of 10 Does anyone else find it ironic a ride themed to black holes is white? For that reason, I made darn sure to ride their Flying Island. Unlike the one at Rainbow MagicLand, this one actually rotated. This allowed everyone to have an equal opportunity to admire the spectacular views of the park and natural landscape. The only bummer was how short the ride was. I think we only got one rotation once the ride reached its max height. 8 out of 10 You can either enjoy the scenic views. Or stare at the inverted Vekoma boomerang next door. Last but not least, I rode the park’s splash boat in Fuga de Atlantide. Usually I skip these rides, but this one was notable for two reasons. One, it had some excellent theming. Two, it was gratuitously over-engineered by Intamin. This thing has not one, but two cable lifts. Tell me another water ride with one of those. In addition, it has coaster track for the turns and drops. I could actually see some people calling this a roller coaster even though it doesn’t feel like one in any way. I was a bit disappointed by the drops. With the speed from the cable lifts and Intamin’s track record, I expected some air. But I got none. That being said, the drops were snappier than your usual shoot-the-shoots. And the splash doesn’t get you wet. But don’t worry, the water cannons will. 8 out of 10 Gardaland was a really pleasant park. It’s located in a scenic part of Italy and the park’s theming and landscaping compliments the surroundings nicely. Really the only fault I have with the park is the coaster lineup. Raptor and Oblivion are good rides, but neither are destination coasters. And I also didn’t think a park could create a worse bottom three than Canada’s Wonderland, but Blue Tornado, Sequoia Magic Loop, and Kung Fu Panda just may do it. If Gardaland added a signature coaster, I’d return in a heartbeat since this park has everything else in place- beauty, theming, good operations, dark rides, and water rides.

Even if this park makes a comeback, the town at the base of the mountain looked really sad and abandoned.

We'll have to see if it was rider misbehavior (ex. standing up like on Rye Playland's Mind Scrambler) or mechanical failure. There was a Sizzler accident in Massachusetts back in 2014 where the seat fell apart. Link Prayers for the victim's family.

Glad to hear Hakugai is awesome! And that shirt looks more like a Vineyard Vines t-shirt more than a theme park shirt.

Great report! I agree Untamed is incredible. The pacing and relentless airtime are truly breathtaking. The whole look of the park was definitely unique and I give the park credit, they went all in on the bizarreness.

Check if it's available online before you visit. I bought mine in advance. It basically got me right onto every ride so I thought it was worth every penny. I was there on a cold and miserable summer day and the park was still busy since that doesn't deter Europeans like us Americans.

That's a lot of ears! I have one set plus character hats.

^ I got the preshow on my first time waiting. The line was backed up to the entrance. When I rerode it after it broke down, the queue started after the preshow so they just sent us through. It's surprising how far back that preshow is from the loading platform.

I love the explosion effects on Big Thunder. They were sorely missed when I rode the Orlando version. Great reports!

I like how all the coffin challenges this year have their unique twists. SFNE is taking that literally with the Wheel of Fright. Per WWLP- Link

Rainbow MagicLand Until a few years ago, the theme park scene around Rome was lacking. It was nothing more than a goldmine of wacky worms. Then Rainbow MagicLand came along and raised the bar. I visited Rainbow MagicLand on the same day as Zoomarine and Cinecitta World. While the other two parks were deserted, Rainbow MagicLand was packed for a 90s Dance Party. For that reason, I'm thankful they offered a skip-the-line pass. It's worth noting the pass available online only lets you skip each ride once, but they offer an unlimited option at the park. Rainbow MagicLand was my first experience with a parking procedure quite common for Europe. As opposed to paying when you enter the lot, you grab a ticket and pay at a machine on the way out. It wasn’t hard; it was just confusing at first since I had never seen it done that way for a theme park. The entirety of my visit took place in the evening. Usually I love visiting parks at night. There’s something magical about a well-lit midway. However, that isn’t a thing at Rainbow MagicLand. The park was so dark, myself and many others used our phone’s flashlights to navigate the pathways. Because of this, I have no doubt I missed a lot of details visible in daylight hours. That being said, the areas with sufficient lighting looked fantastic! The dark was ridiculously dark. Note the guests using their phone's flashlights. It was 100% necessary! But what I could see looked fantastic. I started with Shock, the launched Maurer. To start, it's honestly shocking (pun intended) how smooth this ride is. Maybe it's the single cars, but if only Rip Ride Rockit was this smooth. The initial launch is quite good. It takes a bit to reach it's top speed, but you really feel it when it does. And that's followed by the highlight of the ride, a massive camelback with some serious sustained airtime. The rest of the first half is equally as intense. You have this funky hybrid turnaround/top hat that offers two distinct pops of air and lats as you enter and exit. That's followed by this ridiculous low-to-the-ground overbank that pulls some serious Gs. After a pop of air into the MCBR, Shock loses something. The second half is really slow. But the ride does have one saving grace left, an awesome zero-G roll. This is one element I think is better with less speed. I wouldn't mind to see Maurer bring something like Shock to the US. It may be short, but the first half in particular packs a serious punch. 8 out of 10 Shock is a blur. Another casualty of my night visit was Isola Volante, the flying island. I believe the park has a beautiful mountain backdrop. At night, these mountains were as invisible as a second train at Mt. Olympus. One other issue with this flying island is that it didn’t rotate. Because the ride is located in the far corner of the park, only the side facing the park had any sort of view at night. 6 out of 10 I had a prime spot at the start, but figured I should switch with others. As expected, someone jumped on my spot. What I wasn’t expecting was for them to sit down with their back against the railing and whip out their phone. Why enjoy a view from 200 feet in the air when you can play Angry Birds? It's fascinating how these flying islands work. Enjoy the view of the park because there's nothing else to see. One of my sister’s favorite shows growing up was Winx Club. I never watched it, but I was familiar with it. I never realized the show was all that popular, so I was stunned the IP had a whole ride themed to it. The ride is essentially the Peter Pan ride system past a series of miniatures straight out of the Storybook Land Cruise. Every once and a while, this was broken up by a giant statue of a Winx girl. I’m guessing this ride opened as something entirely different and was overlaid with the Winx Club later? 6 out of 10 I guess Winx Club was more popular overseas? Across the way was Dune, the extended roller skater. Call me crazy, but I honestly prefer the smaller roller skaters. I find the original restraints more comfy and the ride to hold its speed better. 3 out of 10 Considering how hot Rome gets in the summer, it’s not surprising Rainbow MagicLand boasts a full collection of water rides. Arguably the most visually stunning is Nui Lua, their log flume. The flume is built around a volcano. Heck it even erupts like the one at DisneySea! However, there is one major drawback to this visual spectacle. When the mountain is going to erupt, they cycle empty logs. The flume itself was a bit of a letdown. The drops weren’t very good and the splashdowns were very abrupt. Speaking of the splashdowns, those won’t get you wet. But the turns sure will. 7 out of 10 Tokyo DisneySea isn't the only park with an erupting volcano now. In the span of a few hours, I realized Rome has a fetish for wacky worms. I’d say it was the adorable face on the lead car, but this was the first of the day actually themed to a worm. Everything after the lift was business as usual, but this one had a gratuitous pre-lift. It added zero value to the ride, but at least I can say I rode a “custom” wacky worm. 2 out of 10 Look at that extra long pre-lift in all its glory. Outside of Shock, the park’s most notable coaster was the indoor spinner, Cagliostro. I figured this would be your usual Maurer clone (like the one at Lagoon or Seabreeze) just inside a box. I was wrong. I’d estimate the building is ~60 feet tall, so it was the right size for that off-the-shelf layout. But after a short lift, we went around a quick hairpin turn outside and dropped into a pit. What an awesome start! The rest of the ride was a minimally braked coaster in complete darkness. Combined with the spinning, I had zero clue where I was going. I’m still confused why they erected this ride in a pit when it very easily could have fit in building, but it was a great fakeout for an enthusiast. 7 out of 10 This spinner is 99% indoors. Here's the 1% that isn't. After a laughably bad haunted walkthrough at Zoomarine, I found a very good one at Rainbow MagicLand in the Haunted Hotel. Part of it may have been the group I was with since they were terrified! The detail on this haunt was top notch. While you got lost in the theming, a scare actor was ready to startle you from behind. It was the perfect use of misdirection. The other neat thing about this haunt was the number of animatronics that got extremely close to guests. This is something that would never fly in America. 8 out of 10 For some reason, I didn't find this hotel on TripAdvisor. Like the flying island, I imagine their drop tower (Mystika) would have been better in the daytime. Instead of seeing Italy’s natural beauty, I was treated to a bubble rave in the distance to the Numa Numa song. The drop on this one started off very promising. The drop happened after a long hold with zero warning. And the moment of descent gave a great stomach drop sensation. However, it was all downhill from there (literally). You know how Larson towers smoothly brake in a short distance? Mystika tried to do the same. Mystika braked in a short distance. Except you stop about 1/3 up the tower and the landing isn’t what I’d call smooth. 6 out of 10 I was stunned to see stars this close to a major city like Rome. I’d say that landing was the roughest ride of the day, but I still had the mine train to ride, Olandese Volante. It turns out this is a Vekoma mine train, but you could have convinced me it was from Golden Horse. This thing tracked poorly. It had a horrid rattle throughout and it was one rough turn after another. I think it would have been ok if the vehicles were padded, but they weren’t. It was a shame since the theming around the ride looked fantastic. 2 out of 10 My back still hurts. A ride with theming and no pain was the indoor shooter, Huntik 5D. The ride mixed physical sets with screens. The latter would have been excellent if they didn’t have some lag and frame rate issues. The ride also threw in some motion simulator bits towards the end, which was a neat touch and something I wasn’t expecting. Ultimately, Huntik is an ambitious, but the execution is a bit flawed. 7 out of 10 Saving the two soaking water rides for the night probably wasn't the smartest decision. But since I toured the park clockwise, it just happened to work out that way. Their splash boat, Yucatan, looked incredible. The lifts take place in this beautiful Mayan temple. While there isn't anything to look at inside the temple, the outside is so stunning that I can look past that. The first drop on this one didn't do anything, but the second drop was good. It had some yank and dished out a little air. And the resulting splash got me soaked in the manner I enjoy, everywhere but my shoes. 8 out of 10 This ride looked too nice to be ancient ruins. Rapide was a terrifying river rapids ride. Picture this. You're floating down a pitch black river. You hear a waterfall. But you can't see it until it's on top of you. That's essentially what happened on Rapide. And it happened a lot since this ride had 7-8 waterfalls! While none of them are total soakers on their own, the cumulative sum sure is. Ironically, Rapide was pretty light on the rapids but the waterfalls more than compensated. I also want to note I’ve heard this rapids ride was well-themed, but I couldn’t see anything at night. 7 out of 10 It was too dark to get any photos of the river rapids, so here's a picture of the park's fountains instead. Shock is great, but it has one issue- capacity. For a park trying to attract big crowds, it's odd they'd have their star coaster only seat 6 people. Worried they’d close the queue, I got there an hour before close. Fortunately, the standby queue shrunk significantly so I was able to get two more rides, waiting about a half hour each time. It appeared they kept the queue open until 15 minutes before closing. There are definitely better parks in Europe, but those parks have been around considerably longer. That's why I'm really excited to see what this park does in the coming years. Rainbow MagicLand already has some great ride pieces already- a star coaster, an awesome water ride collection, and some decent dark rides. So if they continue the same level of theming on future expansions, the park will only improve.

^ That's the point of opinions. Even if I think a random SLC is awful, someone has a right to like it more than Steel Vengeance. That being said, I also think Lightning Rod is better than Steel Vengeance. The relentless pacing that gets wilder as the ride progresses combined with the mountain setting makes the ride for me.

^ The biggest thing I noticed was that High Fall wasn't tilting. However, I've ridden the same ride at Acrophobia with the tilt and that wasn't painful for me either. I guess I'm numb to pain.

I have hope with this not being in the US that they can get this right. But it also is La Ronde.

The one at Movie Park Germany didn't bother me since it was a smooth stop. The one at Rainbow MagicLand meanwhile...

^ Interesting to know they sometimes ran a longer cycle on it. It definitely wasn't crowd driven since Oaks wasn't too crowded for me.

I have no clue where the merge for Derren Brown is though. The whole experience on that ride did seem to take a while (preshow plus multiple parts of ride).

I think I'll be there that same weekend to get use out of my season pass for this year.

Unless it has changed from 2017, FastTrack should get you on the coasters in 2-3 cycles as long as you don't queue for the front. I remember the front row queues at Colossus, Nemesis Inferno, and Stealth being quite long.

I really need to get back to Kolmarden to try that safari sky ride. I only had 1.5 hours between bus rides, so I pretty much just had time to ride Wildfire. Great report!

That would be a waste of a perfectly good structure to RMC someday.