Magic
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Italy Birthday GetawayJust back from a week long tour in Italy where we hit a few quirky and top notch parks in Northern Italy.
We started off flying into Rimini on my birthday and as soon as we landed we made the long journey to Fiabilandia. I very small old fashioned park that was just a filler. Their star attraction was a Fabbri Spinning Mouse which was an upcharge. For me the best coaster was their Big Apple coaster, it was really long and had some cool dark ride moments, the ride op even got to control the ride via remote control.
Next day was Miribilandia. Not a bad park but equally not spectacular. The B&M inverter, Katun, was pretty forceful at times with a couple of pops of AIRtime but it was also a tad rough and not very re-rideable. The car wash themed log flume was pretty cool and not too wet. There was a strange Western/Amazon themed ghost train that we probably missed the point of. Their new for 2008 attraction was a heavily themed interactive dark ride themed to a terrorist attack on New York, the themeing was good and the ride had some cool moments with spinning cars.
The highlight of the park was their Stunt Show, it was far better than just about any stunt show I've seen in a park before, even Spy Girl. It's similar to Disney's Motors Action stunt show with lots of cars and motorbikes. The stunt drivers were among the best I've seen anywhere, the guys who had the cars up on 2 wheels at times were stationary, how on earth?!?! The show features exploding cars, motorcycle high jumps, Globe of Death and even a Tank.
Miribilandia did feel like it needed another decent coaster, hopefully that'll be the intamin launched coaster coming next year.
Next up was the drive North to Lake Garda where our first park was the Merlin owned Gardaland. and WOW!!!!!!!! A new top 10 park for me. Every ride is heavily themed on a par with Disney or Phantasialand. They don't have themed lands just themed rides. The park couldn't be faulted for cleanliness, staff, ride operations or selection of rides. The Intamin liquid coaster was my favourite in the park and could teach Sea World a thing or two on how to theme water based rides. The new Mammut Vekoma Mine Train looked fantastic but was already riding with hexagonal wheels. However the Vekoma SLC was shockingly smooth. The other rough coaster was Sequioa Adventure, an S&S Screaming Squirrel, OUCH!!!!!!! It was very unpleasant and never to be repeated.
All in all Gardaland was superb and I park I look forward to going back to. Hopefully Merlin will learn a lot from how this park runs and apply this to the likes of Alton and Thorpe. We can but dream.
Will add another update in a day or two with Movieland and Europark Indroscola.
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