Parque de Atracciones, Tibidabo, and Parc Asterix

[Antinos]

It´s been quite a hectic day and a half from me. When we arrived in Amsterdam at five thirty this morning, it was so foggy, it was unreal. Four hours later, we landed in Madrid. After getting settled in the hotel, my dad and I headed off for our first park.

We arrived around 1:00 and I went straight to Abismo.

Abismo
3 rides
9/10

This ride is awesome. The sky loop is an awesome element and the ride is pretty smooth. The hill produces major ejector airtime and the overbanked turn ends the ride with some nice forces. The trains are also very comfortable as well. It would be a ten, but it´s just too short. Next up was La Lanzadera

La Lanzadera
3 rides
9/10

Drop towers are such a rush, and this is no exception. One guy was operating the ride and he was doing a great job, keeping the line next to nothing.

Tarantula was closed, so I went to Tornado next.

Tornado
2 rides
8/10

This ride starts off fantastic with it´s drop, two vertical loops, and two quick turns. After the corkscrew, the pacing starts to go, but the ride is silky smooth, so there´s a plus. I would´ve ridden it more, but I didn´t want to wait for people to load so full trains could be dispatched.

El Tifon
1 ride
6/10

I pretty much rode this Disk-o to ride a ride. It wasn´t anything special.

Tarantula
1 ride
7.5/10

The ride finally opened up so I took it for a spin, pun intended. Although we didn´t get spun very much, this was very enjoyable. The ride was smooth and had some nice forces. My favorite part was after the second horseshoe turn where you dive down into a quick, forceful turnaround in a tunnel.

Top Spin
1 ride
6/10

For whatever reason, the top spin made me feel a bit nausious, which surprised me. The cycle was still very fun.

Ferris Wheel
1 ride
5/10

We went on this on the way out because my dad hurt his tailbone before the trip and couldn´t ride the rides. At least he got to go on something. I got some nice pictures of Abismo as well as of the construction on the new wild mouse they´re building. Bonus points for a long cycle.

We left around 4:00. There wasn´t much else to do and I didn´t feel like whoring. Overall, I liked the feel of the park. It reminded me of Canada´s Wonderland where you can walk onto the grass and sit down and relax. They had a nice collection of rides, and had the thrilling rides in one area and the kiddie rides in another area. Hopefully I make it back here again some day.

I´ll post pics when I get back. Hopefully our hotels in Barcelona and Paris have internet service as well.

 

[Antinos]

Well that trip went by fast. Now that I’m back in the states, I can finish this report, with pictures this time.

Here are the pictures from Parque de Atracciones:

The first view you get of Abismo

Through the trees

From the queue. Very twisty

Very nice looking ride

Major airtime right about here

Wonderful way to finish the ride

Now PdA’s other rides

Tornado is a very sleek looking coaster

Great pacing through this turn

Neat shot of the corkscrew that goes over the midway

Tarantula, the park’s spinning coaster

My car didn’t get spun much, but it was still fun

Best picture I could get of it

On Top Spin, everybody starts cheering and chanting right about now

Atmosphere shot of the main entrance

Here’s where they’re building the new wild mouse at

One last overview of the thrilling section of the park

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Tibidabo:
This was a pain to get to. The funicular conductor was also the cashier, so there was one man doing everything, creating a very long wait. While I was up there, I had a great time. The park was lovely and had a great atmosphere. Anyway…

Earlier in the day, we were at the Sagrada Familia basilica which is still under construction. It’s quite a beautiful structure so far. I can’t wait to see it completed. Here’s a photo from the top:

Once we paid at the ticket booth and entered, we walked down the stairs to Muntanya Russa. I got in line and waited five minutes.

The trains are pretty comfy, and in my opinion look nice.

The ride is on the side of the hill which the park sits on. It offers an outstanding view of the city and ocean:

The ride has many twists and turns which give great positive Gs

And even a helix of death, which did not disappoint!

Because of the hill, the first drop is larger than the lift, and makes you feel like you’re dropping all the way down the mountain

Another view of the ride’s wonderful location:

Next up was the plane. While I was in line, four characters, two flight attendants and two pilots, dressed in old fashioned costumes came into the queue and made us put on oxygen masks and vests. Then they came on the ride with us. Too bad they were speaking so fast because I couldn’t understand a thing they were saying. They made the ride more enjoyable than it would normally be.

While it doesn’t look very high (and it isn’t), when you’re on, it seems so much higher because of the hill. It actually looks like you’re in a real plane flying over the city, just because of the location of the ride. The ride is also self-propelled by the propeller in front.

I would really love to come back to this park and explore it more. The view alone is enough to get me to go back up. Maybe my Spanish will improve a lot more by next year and I’ll be able to understand the characters as they’re speaking.


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Parc Asterix
Dear lord. Getting here was a disaster. Our hotel was on the Left Bank. Asterix is north of the airport. After taking two metros, we get to the nearest RER station to go to the airport. Everything’s fine until we get to Gare du Nord. After much confusion, we find out that there is an electrical problem. Luckily they had some workers helping people get to where they need to, so we were directed to the main platforms upstairs. Because of this, the trains are more spread out, and to add to it, our train was a short one. We’re crammed in like sardines, and everybody smelled terrible. After a half hour or so, we got to the airport. We bought our bus tickets and got in line. The bus didn’t come for a whole forty five minutes. We left our hotel at 9:00 AM. We got to the park at Noon.

Anyway, we got inside. I headed straight for Tonnerre de Zeus.

They were running one train, but crowds were light, so I got on just fine. My first ride was in the middle. After going up the lift, you make a right turn and plummet down into a tunnel.

Blasting out of the tunnel, you are sent into the first turnaround, which is loaded with lateral Gs(as well as the rest of the ride’s turns).

After this, you’re sent into a large turning hill under the lift that leads into the helix of death(full of laterals). Dropping out of this, you head into three hills, all ejector airtime, before turning around again. Two more hills with floater air follow before another turnaround into a wild run back to the station. This consists of many hills and turns next to the lifthill and around the queue which makes for a great finale.

Tonnerre de Zeus is a hard coaster to photograph, so here’s the best one from Goudurix’s lift.

Note the guys with the Santa hats and wigs in this train:

Overall, Zeus was a great ride. It landed in my top ten at number six. From what I gather, it sounds like a more compact version of Boulder Dash without the terrain. Here’s me during one of my rides:

Next up was Goudurix, which has a new paint job.

In my opinion, it looks great. This is a very photogenic coaster. It helps that they have a promenade right in the middle of the ride which is perfect for snapping photo after photo.

I, for one, actually enjoyed the ride. I don’t see how people think it can be as brutal as everybody says. Either the park has really worked on the ride, or these people preaching the ride’s brutality need to toughen up.

They have these pads on the headrests that wrap around your head and really do a good job at keeping your head from moving.

The pads worked well for me at least.

One more:

I walked over to Trace Du Hourra next. I got my dad on this and he loved it. This is a large Mack bobsled that was quite long and had some incredible theming to it as well.

After that, I headed to Vol d’Icare.

There isn’t much to say about it…

One thing I really liked about this park was their attention to detail. The scenery and theming was very well done, up there with Disney, in my opinion. Here are some atmosphere photos:

And here’s the log flume. The only log flume I’ve seen like this in the states is Ripsaw Falls at IoA.

You will only see something like this in Europe. If the US saw that, they would think that the carousel is vulgar because the kids have to sit in his butt.

Zeus and his panties will unleash their wrath upon you. Typical French.

One last photo of the main rides:

Thanks for reading.

 

[Emmett]

:shock: , what have they done to Goudurix. Just when I thought the colour scheme couldn't get any worse. Bring back the rust.

Nice report and photos, you picked a good selection of parks to visit on your tour.

 

[marc]

Some really good pictures there, glad you had a good time.

 

[Snoo]

I wish my dad would take me places.

 

[AeRo]

:shock: , what have they done to Goudurix. Just when I thought the colour scheme couldn't get any worse. Bring back the rust.

Seconded. Although it might just be the purist in us Emmett.

Zeus is top 6? They must have carried out some emergency surgery in close season then . *crosses fingers*

 

[Antinos]

Thanks for the replies.

^I don't know about the ride in the past, but I found it pretty smooth.

 

[Hixee]

Great trip report there.

I was going to do a Parc Asterix one, but I can't really see the point now!

I agree that Goudurix looks better in the yellow and red, and I also agree that it wasn't anywhere near as rough as it was made out to be.

Another thing I'd like to add about Parc Asterix is the terrible ride-ops. They're so slow. This isn't helped by the fact that they only run one train on everything, but the queues were so slow. Thankfully we didn't have a queue of more than 40mins, so that was good, but it would've been half that with speedier ride-ops.

Looks like you had a lot of fun.

So yeah, great PTR!

 

[Jake]

I had no idea Goudurix had been repainted. I think it looks awsome! How people can say it looks worse than before is beyond me, it looked rusty and worn out!

 

[nadroJ]

I want go go to Parc Asterix so bad! Maybe next year...

PdA looks really fun, they seem to have a lot of unique rides there, can't wait to visit.

I missed out on doing Tibidabo when I went to Barcelona last summer, but the new coaster wasn't built then so it's hardly like I missed anything.

Glad you had a good time, looks like you had a lot of fun navigating European public transport =]

 

[ryan462]

Great TPR

I hope to go to Parc Asterix eaither next year or the year after and I think Goudurix looks much nicer now

 

[Nic]

Hahahaha! That's just absolutely awesome!

 

[CedarPoint6]

Your pictures are nice.

Gouderix looks quite good, I think.

Also, I really like the way Tibidabo's coaster is nestled into the hill like that. Those pictures really make it look nice. Good report, was a fun read.

 

[Antinos]

Once again, thanks for all the replies. By the way, here's two offride videos I took:

[youtube]kioP_hh0-L8[/youtube]

[youtube]7Gz91cblJWk[/youtube]

 

[ECG]

Nice PTR bud! Glad you had such a good time. Really makes me want to go back to Spain & France (especially if I could have all those girls to keep me company :wink: ). You'll need to post the entire youtube address if you want those videos to show up in your post.

 

[AeRo]

Hahahaha! That's just absolutely awesome!

French humour <3

And he has changed them .....

 

[Hixee]

^I suspect they had some red and yellow paint left over form painting Goudurix.

Zeus and some nice new yellow and red spots on his panties, and the railings in the Tonnerre de Zeus has new coats of yellow and red paint!

By my bet is that they did it the other way round, repainted the railings and though; "hmm.. left over paint, let's repaint Goudurix".

 

[luke8]

Those PdA photos bring back memories of last year

It looks like they've done alot of cleaning up over the winter. I went in September and found that the place was dirty, awful operations and stuff, with things like fountains and affects on rides not working. Looks like they've spent alot of time and money making the park look beautiful again.

Having said that, the actual rides are pretty immense, pus Abysmo <3

I'm going to Asterix in 2 weeks.