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Photo TR: Divv's Italian Adventure


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The 2010 TPR Europe Trip visited Italy and well, I just happened to be there! This was very fortunate for me as I'd never been to Italy before and there's really no better way to visit a theme park than with TPR!

 

UPDATES:

Part 1: GARDALAND (Below)

Part 2: MIRABILANDIA

Part 3: MOVIELAND STUDIOS

 

The base of operations whilst in Italy was the fantastic Gardaland hotel. Really, this place was right up there with the good Disney hotels!

 

Onto Gardaland itself, on paper it doesn't look that amazing - an SLC, Vekoma looper, an S&S weird thing and a mine train being the coasters. But really, the park is really great. It looks fantastic and whilst the SLC and the S&S thing really aren't the best the other two coasters are actually quite good!

 

The park also has some great dark rides in Ramses and I Corsari. Ramses is the park's shooting dark ride which finally brings together those two closely linked movie franchises: The Mummy and The Terminator. Yep, it's weird but it works somehow. I think you can put a Robot Skeleton Army in pretty much any ride and I'll be impressed! I Corsari is the Pirates rip off which is actually done really well. They have a section where you go through this foresty area with loads of mist that's just plain brilliant.

 

Anyway, there's loads to do at Gardaland and it looks like next year there will be even more! I wonder what next year will bring!

 

Onto the photos...

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TPR are in Italy!

Gardaland welcomed our group with FREE BEER!!! Thanks Bruno!

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OMG, the TPMop has gotten completely out of control. I can't believe theItalians even let TPDave into the country with that!

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Scottish Steve likes his flakes frosted in the morning. They’re great!

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If only the car was moving right now.

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Does anyone know what park we’re at?

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Any ideas guys?

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What’s that I see through the trees? Oh dear.

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This SLC was pretty bad. Apart from the BONUS HELIX, which was inexplicably smooth (in comparison to the rest of the ride at least).

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Mammut is the newest coaster addition to Gardaland. It’s one of those very rare things you hardly ever hear about…

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A good Vekoma! Seriously, Mammut was excellent, especially at night. I wish Merlin had bought more than one of these for their parks!

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Hey, it’s the weird white Chewbacca dude. He kind of looks like me.

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Gardaland has one of these very cool “Flying Island” rides. I’d never done one before so I was quite intrigued by it.

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The island gives a fantastic view of not only the park but also Lake Garda itself.

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Everyone look at the cute little Intamin drop tower. Now reach out and touch it.

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Hmmm… That’s a very Big & Massive clearing of space over there!

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Ouch, I almost forgot about the SLC! Check out the BONUS HELIX in all its glory!!!

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Yay, for good Vekomas!

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Bet you just can’t wait for Larry’s TR for the other half of this photo, right?

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Look at me, I visited Lake Garda and even saw the lake. My mum will be so proud!

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ITALY HOT.

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How much for one of the gihugic jars of Nutella please?

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TPR, Gardaland and Bruno were able to help us out today with these fantastic Gardaland gift passes, they pretty much allowed us onto every coaster in the park without waiting!

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Sequoia Adventure, the park’s S&S Screamin’ Squirrel is certainly unique.

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But unique doesn’t always equal good!

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Could this be the most pointless rollercoaster ever built? Quite possibly!

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Oh dear lord, another Vekoma!

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This one wasn’t actually too bad. The new restraints on the trains made the ride far more tolerable! Almost good, but don't tell Erik I said that!

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This ride is absolutely Pinfari’s crowning achievement – the longest Wacky Worm in the world! Boy was this one wacky!!!

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ITALY HOT!

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Derek takes a second to confirm that he is in fact Jesus.

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Ramses! Or as it should be known – The Mummy: Rise of the Machines.

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Hey UK Apprentice fans – did you ever wonder what happened to Saira Khan? Well now you know – she’s doing the Ramses preshow!

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Random theming in the Ramses line. Ramses really was very good, even if I’m not a fan of shooting dark rides there was loads going on and the Robot Skeleton Army just kicked ass!

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Yo ho, yo ho, an Italian’s life for me!

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CAUTION: OVERLORD AT WORK.

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Yes Lou, we can see your Fantasy Bruise, it looks very painful.

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OMG, this could be the scariest thing I’ve seen since the TPMop!

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Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this before!

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Burning town at the end of the ride! Such a novel idea!

 

In all seriousness, this was one of the better Pirates clones. We even rode again the next night because we liked it so much!

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Somehow I don’t think my personal Fantasy Kingdom would feature Tony the Tiger.

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But it would feature Peena Puu! There were loads of members of the Puu family in Fantasy Kingdom!

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In here lives a Vekoma Mad House, or as Gardaland likes to call it, a Magic House! As with all Vekoma Mad Houses this one was a lot of fun! (Don't tell Erik!)

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Don’t forget to buy your milkshakes on the way out!

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I wonder what Gardaland will Build & Manufacture here?

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Italian Lasagne – in Italy! How cultural of me!

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If you need to take a dump at Gardaland be prepared to squat!

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Rapids are important rides here, because you know – ITALY HOT!

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This is nowhere near enough bad enough a photo of Larry to include. I’m sorry.

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If Predator had sex with The Little Mermaid this is exactly what you would end up with.

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This is the amazing Gardaland hotel! It was really nice, right up there with Disney and those other amazing resorts in Europe!

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Everyone buy Piers drinks to thank him for circumcising TPDave’s head!

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Back to the park for some World of Color!

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World of Color wherever you look!

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Pretty!

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How the hell did I end up in Holiday World?!

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Good Vekoma.

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This is in the park’s American section. I look forward to seeing these guys in the flesh on the Middle-America trip!

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This was some mighty tasty park food! Anything with copious amounts of melted cheese with ham usually works for me! (Beer is good too!)

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Why is it that nearly every European log flume or rapids is themed to Colorado? What happens in Colorado that everyone wants to get in a boat and plummet to their deaths?

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Hello TPR people!!!

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This was a fun log flume, but like most of Gardaland’s water rides it doesn’t get you very wet!

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Yay, we get to see World of Color again!

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I better not finish this TR without mentioning the new for 2010, Inferis. It’s a haunted walkthrough that was pretty good, though I don’t remember encountering many actors. But I do like the fact that more parks are adopting year round haunt mazes!

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Gardaland definitely exceeded my expectations. Whilst it does lack a world class ride to set it apart, it does look fantastic and there really is a lot to do!

 

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens here next year. Hopefully they’ll get that world class ride!

 

Speaking of world class rides, Mirabilandia is next!

Edited by Divv3k
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Oh, sad I can´t be with you. This is one of the parks I would like to visit again. And like you said, the best way is with TPR! Like your "hot" report

 

- Now I know, what happened to Dave, when I saw him at Phantasialand back again... Is the rest of his hairs a new attraction of Gardaland now?...

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Love your pictures, Gardaland has always been a gorgeous looking park, can't wait to see your update on "Mirabilandia"...

P.S. Mirabilandia's water-rides are not that dry..! Did you try Niagara or Raratonga? (Bit more like soaking..)

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Wow, awesome Photo TR! I love this park and even though it looks like its growing, I like what I see.

 

A question though, does this Vekoma have 3 lift hills? You said it was good though, so I wondered if it messed with the pace of the ride?

 

I have never seen anything like this before...albeit, I haven't been to Europe either! Very interesting, I guess they don't want you relaxing and taking your time in there!

 

Thanks again!

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I think my daughter may be a bit fucked up! She walked into the 'squat toilets' in Italy and got excited saying they were like the 'little potties in China'. Pretty sure it was her favorite thing in Italy other than the water park!

 

Wow, looking back at those pictures of TPMop makes me think he needs to send more wine to Piers for cleaning him up so nice.

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To save the European pride, only some places in Italy, Spain and southern France have such great... ehm, well... I don't want to call it toilets.

I personally like Gardaland very much, good to see you enjoyed it as well!

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Well, those toilets would certainly discourage anyone from lingering long enough to read People Magazine. I know that I'm going to experience a bit of "trip envy" as your TR continues, Divv.

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A question though, does this Vekoma have 3 lift hills? You said it was good though, so I wondered if it messed with the pace of the ride?

 

Yes it does. As I understand it, this was a standard Vekoma model with an extra section bolted onto it.

 

Wow, looking back at those pictures of TPMop makes me think he needs to send more wine to Piers for cleaning him up so nice.

 

We certainly do, it's currently only cost me a glass of wine which seems awfully cheap. If only Gardaland sold Jagerbombs Piers would have been paid in full!!

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Thanks for all the nice comments!

 

---

 

PART TWO:

MIRABILANDIA

 

The second park on the itinerary was Mirabilandia. I had been wanting to visit this park for a long time, mainly because of Katun they added iSpeed and the park just looked even more interesting! Thankfully the park lived up to my expectations! It might bot be as aesthetically pleasing as Gardaland but it sure does have better rides. And I'm not saying the park isn't aesthetically pleasing either because it really is a very nice looking park!

 

Katun was the big attraction for me at this park, my expectations were high and wow, did it deliver! I'm not good at getting geeky and explaining in detail why I like certain coasters so much so let me just say that this is my favourite B&M invert after Nemesis. It's that good!

 

iSpeed isn't to be forgotten about either! The coaster it' most comparable to is Maverick at Cedar Point, it's just as good too, probably a little better in my view!

 

The rest of the park has a lot of cool attractions like a massive Ghost Train and a weird shooting dark ride themed to post-apocalyptic New York. This park also suffers from the Italian anomaly of water rides that don't get you wet! (Except for the Splash Battle, which was just awesome!)

 

Here's the photos!

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Woohoo, we’re at Mirabilandia!

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How about some ERT on Katun to wake us up? Yes please!

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Katun ERT rocks! Yes, yes it does.

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Now follows some geeky photos of the best coaster in Italy!

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It's like Montu, but better! They don’t make B&Ms quite like this any more!

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We all got many rides in this morning!

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Katun has one of those vertical loop things. It works pretty well.

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Yes, I do believe that is a Stargate that the ride goes through at the end…

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Steve liked Mirabilandia so much that he tried to make love to it.

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I think this photo more or less writes its own caption.

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Mirabilandia are awesome and offer the amazing Q-Bot system! They call it V-pass and they basically just herd you straight to the front of any line as soon as you show up with your Q-Bot. We hardly waited more than a few minutes for anything all day!

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Time for some Intamin sexiness…

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Take Maverick, add a hint of Stealth and you basically have iSpeed. The result is one really, really good ride!

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Erik gave the Intamin ride thumbs up. Don’t tell his boss!

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That’s right, we didn’t have to wait in any lines to ride iSpeed!

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Enjoy this photo, because unlike my usual self I really failed at getting many good iSpeed photos. Sorry!

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Leprotto Express is the park’s kiddie coaster, they really put a lot of effort into theming this!

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The park goes specifically out of their way to tell you that whisky is prohibited on this ride. This makes me sad.

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Yes, we’re all whores.

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For a kiddie coaster, this was pretty good!

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It’s 11am – also known in Italy as beer o’clock.

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CAUTION: OVERLORD AT WORK.

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Mirabilandia have taken a very creative approach with their log flume and themed it to a Colorado car wash.

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Although, in what seems to be in Italain log flume tradition this one doesn’t get you very wet! Was still pretty cool though!

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With the absolute sweltering heat of Italy I felt the time was finally right for me to pop my Splash Battle cherry. I’m glad I did – it was awesome!!! I’m looking forward to a few more Splash Battles on the US trips this summer!

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This is the crazy, crazy L&T Wild Mouse with pretty much zero height restriction! I think it was KidTums approved!

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Ghostville was a bit of a weird Ghost Train it was very long and had big open sections rather than little narrow corridors. It was a little different at least. Everybody rode it.

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Well, almost everybody.

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Lou asked me to take a photo of this tree for Jon. So Jon, here you go. Please tell Lou more about this tree. Thanks.

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Watch the low ceilings. This is seconds after Scottish Steve whacked his head right off the rock!

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Southern Steve and Brad. Father and Son reunited at last.

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Looks like these two are going undercover any second.

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We were running out of time but thanks to the awesome V-Pass we were able to just jump onto the rapids as we passed by.

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It was wetter than Gardaland’s but still was weirdly dry for such a hot country! I wasn’t complaining this time though as we had a bus ride coming up!

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The awesome V-Pass also meant we just had enough time to squeeze in a quick visit to post-apocalyptic New York.

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Yup, it’s a pretty nice area but it’s strangely stuck out on its own at the edge of the park. Reset itself was pretty cool, but I didn’t bother shooting. There was enough to look at without concentrating on hitting the targets.

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NOT the TPR bus.

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Mirabilandia really exceeded my expectations! I expected Katun and iSpeed to be good, but really they were both GREAT!

 

Add in an amazing Q-Bot system and its impossible not to have loads of fun at this place!

 

The final update, Movieland Studios is next!

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Lou asked me to take a photo of this tree for Jon. So Jon, here you go. Please tell Lou more about this tree. Thanks.

 

Um. Ok. Thanks Lou. It looks to be a deciduous tree, which would lose it's leaves in winter if there is a winter. It's pretty large which means it's probably fairly old. It's in an amusement park. That's pretty much all I got.

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