milst1 Posted April 17, 2009 Posted April 17, 2009 We flew to Bologna from Amsterdam and rented a car. First stop: Gardaland in Castelnuovo di Garda in Veneto. Enjoy the pix! Arrivederci! Next stop, Acropark in Roana! Themed out the wazoo. If there had been animatronics, it could have been Disney. Suspiciously coasterlike. That Neptune figure was like 60 feet tall, and you go right under his loincloth! I thought this was awesome. Now the Shoot-the-Chutes ride was themed to the lost continent of Atlantis, and this was really elaborate theming. Mammut next to Intamin Flying Island. Fun ride, well-themed, a bit tame. Oh, but bonus points for the 3 lift hills. Three lift hills gets me every time. Mammut was last year's new coaster, a family coaster themed to a hunt for the wooly mammoth built by Vekoma. Gardaland sits next to Lake Garda. Prezzemolo was pretty friendly! Gelato! Great dining experience! We loved the log flume through the forest. Nice. Magic Mountain is a park in California, and also a Vekoma double-loop double corkscrew sit-down steelie in Italy. I thought it would fly through the course, but it's braked and the speeds are moderate. Family-friendly. None in the U.S. yet but maybe some potential because of the small footprint. Sequoia Adventure is an S&S Screaming Squirrel. Next was Sequoia Adventure and Magic Mountain. As I said, tip-top landscaping at this place. We love going up to guys in suits at amusement parks and getting our picture taken with them! It's like managment-character meet-and-greet! I'm not a big Vekoma fan, but this was pretty good in the front seat. First credit: Blue Tornado, a 1998 Vekoma SLC. This did actually generate a few fantasies for me and Cheryl! It's a good idea to spring for the Express Passes! This will go in my collection of drooling heads at amusement parks. This park gets some charm awards. It's beautifully landscaped. Yes, I have pre-printed tickets! This guy is named Prezzemolo! Merlin owns Sea Life too. That's the Gardaland Hotel. I really wanted to stay there but it was like 330 euro/night! Here's the Fiat we rented. The speed limit in Italy is about 81 mph on the highway! Here's another! Cool shops in the Bologna airport.
netdvn Posted April 17, 2009 Posted April 17, 2009 Excellent pics... Gardaland looks like a great place to visit.
DBru Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Wow, that looks like a great park! How was the Vekoma looper with its new trains?
Electerik Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 That Shoot-The-Chutes looks awesome. Are there any enclosed parts to it? Thanks for the photos!
milst1 Posted April 18, 2009 Author Posted April 18, 2009 I didn't realize that the Vekoma steelies had new trains. Both or just one? Both actually rode fairly smoothly. I don't remember feeling any pain, but I didn't repeat ride. Wait, now that I think about it, there were flying coaster-ish stretchy restraints on the sit-down, which were much more comfortable. As for the shoot-the-chutes, I don't remember being indoors. Maybe there was one short tunnel, but unthemed. I was just getting into the massive outdoor stuff, which was just beautiful. Also, there were two lifthills and two drops...it was a long ride! -Martin
matteocrepaldi Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Only the sit down got new trains this year. Did you ride the pirate dark ride? Fuga Da Atlantide has a small tunnel with fog in it and it also has an animatronic but it never works. It's always good to see trip reports from italian parks. I can't wait to read more.
Quicksilver04440 Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Interesting, Ive heard nothing but good things from this park tbh. Nice PTR of the park, thanks
gisco Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Nice pictures Martin. I hope to get to Italy next year. I love your caption about the meet and great with the guys in suits.
Volt Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Nice PTR. Was the Neptune figure actually 60ft? Or approximately? The Screaming Squirrel looks so compact, that even Knott's could add it in somewhere.
Crazy_Behemoth_Lady_Jess Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Wow, that looks like a great park! How was the Vekoma looper with its new trains? Which new trains? I thought Carolina Cobra was the first for the new trains. How was the screamin' squirrel? Especially that hangtime!
milst1 Posted April 18, 2009 Author Posted April 18, 2009 Next Stop: Acropark Roana, which I found on www.parksmania.it. It was a standard adventure Tree-Go type park, and this starts off with a video of Cheryl on the super zip line. But the ride to get there was pretty damn thrilling! I looked at the route on Google, and what I saw is below the video: superzip.MPG Let's watch Cheryl do her thing! Next installment: Mirabilandia! I got twisted around on the super-long zip line. It was huge: over a parking lot and a lake! Whee! Oh man, Cheryl dropped her camera! Can we rest now?!!? Cheryl and I both managed to pull muscles getting to the top of that thing. Getting to the more difficult high level course was really hard! Cheryl negotiates tricky obstacle. We went to an excellent park of this kind right near Lake George, NY called Adirondack Extreme. We bought gloves there and were glad we had brought them to Italy because they didn't have them and they make a big difference! You can see I wore my TPR hoodie! Cheryl enjoys the Italian alpine air! The zip line to nowhere! This place was great. They didn't charge us after the first course! Here's a typical obstacle. You have to climb across the logs, but they swing around a lot, so it's tough. You're always clipped in to a safety line, so it's perfectly safe to lose it and fall. You've probably seen one of these parks, but if you haven't, it's a network of cables and platforms and obstacles set up in a forest. You bascially have to get from tree to tree. Sometimes it's tricky, like just a slack line to cross, sometimes easy, like a zip line. What a relief to be done with that drive. Finally we arrive at Acropark Roana, pay the 30 Euros for the first course and get harnessed up. Motorcyclists in full leather are flying by at top speed up and down the mountain. It was crazy! We actually saw several places where flowers and gravestones had been placed at the sites of accidents! I know, it doesn't look that bad, but there are 10 of these hairpin turns, and the dropoffs are quite steep and high. Plus... Then we see signs like this... Let's just say that mountain driving is not my strong point.
atem122 Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Wow that zipline course looks like lots of fun (just maybe not the drive getting there )
Crazy_Behemoth_Lady_Jess Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Wow that zipline course looks like lots of fun (just maybe not the drive getting there ) Yeah, rope courses always looked really neat to me (as I love nature), but I could never touch one as my fear of heights gets me every time. Why I can stand coasters? Because I know I'm not flyin' out of that train anytime soon at over 200ft in the air! Still looks like a nice lil park anyways.
DBru Posted April 18, 2009 Posted April 18, 2009 Wow, that looks like a great park! How was the Vekoma looper with its new trains? Which new trains? I thought Carolina Cobra was the first for the new trains. Both Carolina Cobra at Carowinds and Magic Mountain at Gardaland received the new Vekoma looper trains for the 2009 season.
milst1 Posted April 18, 2009 Author Posted April 18, 2009 Wow that zipline course looks like lots of fun (just maybe not the drive getting there ) Yeah, rope courses always looked really neat to me (as I love nature), but I could never touch one as my fear of heights gets me every time. Why I can stand coasters? Because I know I'm not flyin' out of that train anytime soon at over 200ft in the air! Still looks like a nice lil park anyways. The first time we did one of these, at Adirondack Extreme, I was truly terrified, so I can relate. I could only do the intermediate course, I was just too afraid of the height and falling. Now that I've done it once though, and know what to expect, I wasn't afraid anymore. That drive, though, was another thing!
Crazy_Behemoth_Lady_Jess Posted April 19, 2009 Posted April 19, 2009 We have afew zipline type attractions here where I live but I'd ever try... I usually just stood on the ground and watched. And walk around and see the nature of course. There's like kids younger than me who have the time of their life on those things while I just...well wimp out. I don't like my multiple phobias much... Ah, so Cobra was the first coaster in THE US to get the new trains then. I hope more any more parks start making the switch! And if anyone has pictures of the new trains on Magic Mountain, can I see?
milst1 Posted April 25, 2009 Author Posted April 25, 2009 Final segment of this report. I had Easter Monday off on this long weekend, so we drove down to the Adriatic shore and found ourselves at Mirabilandia. Unfortunately the new Intamin iSpeed wasn't open of course, but I snapped a few photos. We did a bunch of water rides too, including our first splash battle experience. Nothing like shooting water cannons at strangers! Hope you've enjoyed the photos! Cheryl left NYC and came to Italy, only to find that Mirabilandia had destroyed New York and then had imported its ruins to be used as theming for a shooting dark ride. Does this mean we can stop paying our rent? This was disconcerting. Cheryl had just come from NYC a few days earlier. Crazy School Musical had HSM tunes with Italian lyrics. I don't care that much, but it's just so dishonest. Hey, I'm a DIS shareholder! Yes, this is what it looks like: a blatant ripoff. So much for copyright. We might have to sneak back to Italy later this summer. This is supposed to open in June. I'm skipping some photos of a couple of minor credits to get to the good stuff. All of these parks, we noticed, allowed dogs, which is kinda cool. Pakal is a wild mouse themed like a mine train. Explorer is powered, but we rode it. And it was fun. I've always wanted to grab a shot like this. This, Katun, is my new favorite B&M inverted. Sweetness. What's this? If you don't use the q-bot, you end up looking like this and they use you for theming. Lo-Q! We actually met a company rep. He was based in Montreal at La Ronde and had also spent time at SFGAdv. La lengua di parking fees e universal!
Electerik Posted April 29, 2009 Posted April 29, 2009 Great TR! I have to admit that you had me scratching my head over this, at first: It was a standard adventure Tree-Go type park Anyway, it's always nice to see parks from off the beaten path!
milst1 Posted April 29, 2009 Author Posted April 29, 2009 Great TR! I have to admit that you had me scratching my head over this, at first: It was a standard adventure Tree-Go type park Anyway, it's always nice to see parks from off the beaten path! Sorry, Treego is the name of one of these companies that builds the cable-platform-obstacle systems. According to their website they have built 13 parks. The one in Italy was not built by them but it seemed very similar to the Treego park we visited near Lake George, NY. And I've learned that the generic name for these things is "aerial adventure park". I think they've really taken off in France and Belgium and they're now getting built all over. I'd be surprised if one didn't show up somewhere in the Smokies by you. And Go Vols! Cheers, Martin
Electerik Posted April 29, 2009 Posted April 29, 2009 ^ Well, there might be one already: www.wahooziplines.com. But I haven't been by there yet to check it out. And, of course, Dollywood is putting a little something like that together this year. Looks pretty fun. Thanks again for the report!
milst1 Posted April 29, 2009 Author Posted April 29, 2009 ^^^ Very cool. We're doing the TPR Deep South trip in July so maybe we'll swing by there. -martin
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