Photo TR: Italy

[Hilltopper39]

Great Updates of some out of the way parks that I had no idea existed!

 

It's amazing how even the "crappy" parks in Italy seem to have better themeing than some of the better parks in America haha.

[anthoni_]

The Kamikaze ride is particularly famous here in Brazil. Every little park has one. Not so fun, though.

[milst1]

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!

[BeemerBoy]

The ratio of Schwarzkopf to toilet pics is 1:1. Someone will not be happy about this.

[RoCo]

It's always great to see more shots of Rainbow Magicland. I totally love that the designers of this park went for something unique, and that they spent some money on more than just ride hardware. Very, very cool.

 

Thanks again for these updates!

[SharkTums]

Did you happen to notice the height restriction for the Looping Star? I looked on the site a while back but couldn't find it listed.

[XII]

Great Photo TR. Rainbow Magicland looks great. I'm really looking foreword to visiting this park next month on the TPR Italy trip.

[milst1]

Did you happen to notice the height restriction for the Looping Star? I looked on the site a while back but couldn't find it listed.

 

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

[SharkTums]

^No worries at all! Just thought it was worth asking as I know sometimes you take photos of the ride signs or entrances.

[australianalex]

Rainbow Magicland really does look like a nice park, very well themed - especially that flume ride.

[cfc]

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.

 

So, it was the Italian version of Dinosaurs Alive ("Dinosauri Vivo")?

[beatle11]

 

Yay Anton! Nice pics Martin. Wish I was on the trip.

[milst1]

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!

[milst1]

Great Photo TR. Rainbow Magicland looks great. I'm really looking foreword to visiting this park next month on the TPR Italy trip.

 

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

[milst1]

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.

 

So, it was the Italian version of Dinosaurs Alive ("Dinosauri Vivo")?

 

At least it wasn't an upcharge! Does Dinosaurs Alive have guides?

[beatle11]

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.

So, it was the Italian version of Dinosaurs Alive ("Dinosauri Vivo")?

At least it wasn't an upcharge! Does Dinosaurs Alive have guides?

 

Not that I've seen.

 

Pretty bad timing for electrical problems, but what can you do. Nice to see the tower of Pisa though.

[milst1]

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!

[beatle11]

Nice little place.

[milst1]

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!

Edited June 2, 2012 by Hhappy

[beatle11]

That really is the best wacky worm ever!

[gisco]

Great report Martin. I fixed the link to your video, it is a cool wacky worm!

[milst1]

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!

[SharkTums]

We saw that Italy Miniature Park twice while going back and forth between parks in the Rimini area. I could totally see them picking up a Wacky Worm at some point.

[milst1]

We saw that Italy Miniature Park twice while going back and forth between parks in the Rimini area. I could totally see them picking up a Wacky Worm at some point.

 

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!