Movieland Studios, Canevaworld, Lake Garda, Italy

[lil-bo-chic]

I went to Movieland Studios last week and it is fair to say that I was extremely disappointed with the place. I have been to MGM studios, and Univeral Studios, and I knew it wouldn’t reach those standards but hoped it would hold its own…

 

The park opened at 10:30, and everything seemed fine, although I was slightly concerned at the lack of people visiting. The first thing I saw was a snippet of Grease being performed, complete with a director sitting on a truck and a cameraman. Still fine. Next I went to the Terminator 2 show. Now that was strange. I have never seen movie, but I think it was part of the movie acted out with special effect etc. The only real action was when the platform the viewers were standing on jolted foward at the end. Wow.

 

After Terminator 2, I struggled to find something else to do, as nothing was open. One end of the park didn’t open until 11, many shows were running only once each day, at around 3 or 4, the Hollywood Action isn’t completed and there were no other rides to go on. I couldn’t even go on Terminator 2 again, (if I’d wanted to,) because that wasn’t operating again for a four or so hours. The park was dead. People were milling around trying to find something to do, and many employees seemed to be wandering around trying to look useful.

 

I did manage to watch the Blues Brothers show, was ok. It was more of a dancing show, with lots of clips from Blues Brothers 2000 movie, (the poor sequel to the original,) on a large projector. I was quite disappointed as I hoped for singing and music reminiscent of the Universal street show.

 

After an hour and a half in Movieland Studios, I headed nextdoor to Aqua Paradise as I had luckily bought a 2 days 2 parks ticket. I wouldn’t recommend MovieLand to anyone; it’s a waste of time and money.

 

One thing that summed it all up: the Powerpuff girl characters came out to dance and have pictures and autographs, and not one kid went up to them. They even waved at me taking a picture of them from across the park they were that desperate. It’s sad.

[viking86]

Movie World is a park that could be great, but unfortunately its not. I had the same experience when I visited the park with 75 others from the European Coaster Club. Very few attractions were open at the same time, it almost felt like they were trying to keep the guests together and make them do all the attractions at the same time. I only spent a few hours there before heading over to the waterpark, but most of the time was spent waiting for the rides to open. It was kinda funny when they opened up the crappy X-area about an hour after we got there, and everyone went down there to do the rides, but none of them opened before another 20-30 minutes later. They also kept delaying the opening of the Magma Truck Ride-thingy...

 

I feel kinda sorry for the park because I do think it has lots of potential. Most of the park looks pretty good, with some decent attractions (like the scariest walkthrough EVER), but they dont get enough visitors to keep all the rides and shows open all day. But with a park like Gardaland next door, they have to fight really hard to keep up with the competition. And it seems like they are trying, by adding 2 new rides this year. Oh, and hen we were at Gardaland we actually saw a small airplane with a Movie World banner flying directly above the park

[SharkTums]

See, we had a totally different experience!

 

We did their walkthrough which was on par or better than any Haunt/HHN maze! (complete with onride photo!)

 

The Magma attraction was definitely on the same level as Universal/MGM.

 

The Stunt Show has so much fire, and audience participation right on stage which was too cool.

 

The 'rides' section was obviously a kiddie area, but we spent a bit of time down there.

 

Weren't really into the other shows, but had a great lunch there complete with Zorro harassing Dan!

 

Can't wait to go back there and to Aqua Paradise next summer! I think we all had a better time there then at Gardaland!

[robbalvey]

Yeah, we had an amazing time there. While the park as a whole is not on the level of a Universal or Disney park, for what it was, it totally suprassed our expectations. Here's our Photo TR from the place:

http://www.themeparkreview.com/europe2005/studiospark/studiospark1.htm

 

Obviously everyone comes away with different experiences and opinions, which is fine, I just thought I'd post this to add some balance to the thread.

 

--Robb

[robbalvey]

Also, didn't the park only open in like 2003? So considering what they have and from the looks of it are making efforts to expand, I'd say they do have quite a bit of potential.

 

--Robb

[Ed]

I went there and the water park next door in 2003.

 

It was such fun. Granted I was with a great group or friends. I loved all the slides and things in the Aqua place. The huge one took me so long to go on cause I hate steep drops.

 

Offtopic slightly, I think you were unlucky with Gardaland on your Europe Trip! I went there in 2004 and had an amazing time!

[viking86]

Yes, Gardaland is an amazing park! Not because of the rollercoaster, but because of the fantastic theming and atmosphere. I spent 1 1/2 day at Gardaland on that trip and I was never bored. At the moment I just dont see how Movie World can compete with Gardaland. If the parks were further apart I think MW would have more visitors.

 

Movie World isnt really a bad park (except the X-area), it just has horrible operations due to lack of visitors....

[robbalvey]

I find it so funny how we had like "opposite day" in Italy. Seriously, our experience at Gardaland was one of the WORST park days we've had in YEARS. And seeing how unhelpful they were, even after we'd just spent 2 nights in their uber-expensive hotel, added to that hate.

 

But we're willing to give it another chance and that's why we're going back.

 

--Robb

[RCfanatic]

I've always been interested in visiting this park, especially since it's so close to Gardaland, until now i've never read bad reviews of this park, i know its small but it seemed to have a lot of potential and the rides seemed pretty good...

 

From what i read it seems that if they opened more of the rides and keeped them open longer you would've had a much better day, hopefully Movie World invests more in this and hopefully the people appreciate this so more guests will come, even though it will be hard to get guests to choose Movie World over the beautiful Gardaland...

[ECZenith]

Any park that has Daisy Duke AND fire is OK in my book. That log flume is so weird looking...

[Meteornotes]

I loved the Movie Studios park. Yeah, it's small, but the people running it seemed like they were totally dedicated to the place, and were working to make it even better. Yeah, the scheduling of shows is a bit odd, but you just sort of have to work around it. Plus many of their attractions feature stuff exploding, which is always a good thing! The water park looked pretty nice too.

 

Gardaland, though, was one of the worst parks I have ever visited. No "A" or "B" level rides, horrible operations (hey, the line for the coaster is waaaay out the entrance. Let's remove a train!), even worse food service (I have never, ever been in a restaurant anywhere else in the world where it was IMPOSSIBLE to purchase a second drink! And note that I did say "purchase"), and the place shut down faster than Knott's after a storm. Actually, I once called Gardaland the "Knotts Of Europe" which is a pretty accurate comparision based on the customer service levels, though at least Knott's has stuff you might actually want to ride. Yes, some areas were nicely themed, but you cannot ride theming, and no matter how nice it is, you'll get bored looking at it after awhile.

 

I really, really doubt I'll ever go back there...

 

dt