Burniel
Roller Poster
Intro
Earlier this year, I took my first coaster-centric trip to mainland Europe, featuring two days at Phantasialand. Realising I could see another part of the world and visit parks of a substantially higher quality for little more than the average weekend away by train in the UK unlocked something in me, and I've been chasing down opportunities to repeat this experience since. With Europe packed so full of culture and quality parks, it was hard to decide where to prioritise for the second trip, but in the end our group unanimously chose the region with a 200ft RMC in it - what a surprise.
Day 1 - Kraków
The start of our 5-day trip was a somewhat muted affair. Following an unfortunate last minute dropout due to illness, the remaining two of us spent a poor night (even by Luton's standards) in a local Airbnb, then caught the 6am bus to the airport only to find a 2.5 hour delay to our flight to Kraków. We were, however, generously compensated for this with a voucher of sufficient value to buy 1 glass of orange juice in the airport bar. It says a lot that we considered this good service from a budget airline.
All told, it was about 4pm local time once we'd landed in Kraków and found our accommodation. Luckily we didn't have much planned for this day, and still had the energy for around 2-3 hours of walking the city and grabbing some much-needed food. It's a fantastic place, not least given the unseasonably warm temperatures that evening (around 28C). The main town square, dominated by an indoor market in the centre, is a great space with no shortage of people about on a Saturday evening. Architecturally, many buildings around here either are or appear very old but very well maintained, which is an increasingly rare balance to find.
For me, the best views were along the river, particularly around Wawel Castle (which we ended up visiting later in the trip). On a sunny day, sightlines around here felt straight out of a postcard. I won't further pretend to be an expert on travel or culture, and I think the brief times we spent here at the start and end of the trip were enough, but Kraków is a great city which I'd recommend regardless of your interest in the local amusement parks.
Day 2 - Legendia Śląskie Wesołe Miasteczko
Much like pretty much any foreign rail experience, Kraków to Katowice made UK rail travel look pathetic. The 80km journey can be done in under an hour by intercity train which, when booked on the day, cost us roughly £6 each way for an assigned seat with about 3 acres of legroom. Legendia is a short tram ride from the city centre (about 80p if you can download the app and get it to work before the 10-minute journey finishes), on which a local gave us a taste of home by staggering about shouting while holding a can of something despite it being 9:20am. Overall, it's a really easy journey from central Kraków, though if you're not fussed about which city you stay in then Katowice is probably the more optimal place to stay for here and Energylandia.
I had expected the park to be at least moderately busy on a hot Sunday in local school holidays, and had mixed feelings when the opening show was being performed to about 25 of us - if this is it on a peak day, how dead is it midweek? Still, can't complain too much about an empty park, and being here with one main objective, we walked straight to the back of the park for by far its biggest and best attraction.
Lech Coaster (#101) opened at around 10:30, and despite park rules forcing us to walk back around the queue each lap we were on 5 of the first 7 trains of the day - 1 front, 1 middle, and 3 on the back row, which offered by far the best experience. The ride is all about the intensity and does its job well. The first drop, inversion through the building, and final turns are excellent highlights, and the presentation and theme is really top notch. I'd perhaps built it up a little too high in my head (in the sense that I'd prepared for a 10/10 and found it to be a really solid 9), but it alone makes the park worth popping into if you're in the area for EL anyway.
We paused at this point to go and check out the rest of the park, but with long opening hours and no crowds, I was looking forward to returning for some 20+ rides on Lech in the afternoon. Unfortunately this didn't happen, as within about an hour of opening the ride went down and did not return. This was clearly not for lack of trying by the park - it tested on several separate occasions and we spotted maintenance staff taking everything from a blunt axe to a spare wheel up to the station - but by mid-afternoon the train could be seen parked in an empty station with staff nowhere to be found.
At the time oblivious that we'd had our last rides on Lech, we wandered over to the other supposedly still operating cred, only to find it closed for the full day. Though this hardly looked to be a list topper, I did have a particular curiousity about it as it would've been my first Soquet. Still, 100 creds in and my worst spite is a janky-looking looper in a park I will inevitably return to (assuming it survives) given what's down the road. Could be worse.
Had we known Lech wasn't going to reopen, our visit here may have been very short indeed, but as it kept occasionally testing, we ended up in a cycle of finding a couple of things to do, then running back to Lech for 15 minutes whenever we spotted a train. The trouble was, it felt very much like there's not much of interest left at Legendia. A decent-looking log flume was closed all day, and several rides were SBNO or gone with very obvious signs of what was once there. Highlights we did get to see included the Bazyliszek trackless dark ride, which I wasn't expecting to exist but was surprisingly good, and Dolina Jagi, my first Hafema rapids, which wasn't particularly wet or exciting, but was well presented.
A few other things we did, primarily to pass the time:
By 4, it was becoming increasingly clear that Lech wasn't returning and we'd very much exhausted everything else the park had to offer. We ended up mooching around Katowice for a bit (nice place, but without the tourism appeal of Kraków) and catching a relatively early train back.
Downtime isn't always a park's fault, and we did get several rides on the coaster we came for, but it was hard not to leave Legendia a bit disappointed and worried for its future. Including SBNO, the place has 3 sizable coasters, but not a single one operated for 5 out of the 6 hours we were there. Other rides closed or in pieces further pointed to financial difficulty and/or overwhelming maintenance issues. Even if more rides were open, who would have ridden them? Any successful theme park would have had a gate figure of several thousand on the day of our visit, but to quote my mate "you know it's a quiet one when you start recognising everyone you walk past".
All of this begs the question - what happened here? My assumption is the park drank from the same money tap as Energylandia in the late 2010s and just hasn't grown to a point where it's naturally sustainable. This makes for a really interesting case study, but is a worrying situation for a really strong coaster and a park with the potential to be genuinely charming if left to grow organically. Time will tell. As for myself, I would return here, but only as a stop-in on my way to/from visiting EL.
Earlier this year, I took my first coaster-centric trip to mainland Europe, featuring two days at Phantasialand. Realising I could see another part of the world and visit parks of a substantially higher quality for little more than the average weekend away by train in the UK unlocked something in me, and I've been chasing down opportunities to repeat this experience since. With Europe packed so full of culture and quality parks, it was hard to decide where to prioritise for the second trip, but in the end our group unanimously chose the region with a 200ft RMC in it - what a surprise.
Day 1 - Kraków
The start of our 5-day trip was a somewhat muted affair. Following an unfortunate last minute dropout due to illness, the remaining two of us spent a poor night (even by Luton's standards) in a local Airbnb, then caught the 6am bus to the airport only to find a 2.5 hour delay to our flight to Kraków. We were, however, generously compensated for this with a voucher of sufficient value to buy 1 glass of orange juice in the airport bar. It says a lot that we considered this good service from a budget airline.
All told, it was about 4pm local time once we'd landed in Kraków and found our accommodation. Luckily we didn't have much planned for this day, and still had the energy for around 2-3 hours of walking the city and grabbing some much-needed food. It's a fantastic place, not least given the unseasonably warm temperatures that evening (around 28C). The main town square, dominated by an indoor market in the centre, is a great space with no shortage of people about on a Saturday evening. Architecturally, many buildings around here either are or appear very old but very well maintained, which is an increasingly rare balance to find.
For me, the best views were along the river, particularly around Wawel Castle (which we ended up visiting later in the trip). On a sunny day, sightlines around here felt straight out of a postcard. I won't further pretend to be an expert on travel or culture, and I think the brief times we spent here at the start and end of the trip were enough, but Kraków is a great city which I'd recommend regardless of your interest in the local amusement parks.
Day 2 - Legendia Śląskie Wesołe Miasteczko
Much like pretty much any foreign rail experience, Kraków to Katowice made UK rail travel look pathetic. The 80km journey can be done in under an hour by intercity train which, when booked on the day, cost us roughly £6 each way for an assigned seat with about 3 acres of legroom. Legendia is a short tram ride from the city centre (about 80p if you can download the app and get it to work before the 10-minute journey finishes), on which a local gave us a taste of home by staggering about shouting while holding a can of something despite it being 9:20am. Overall, it's a really easy journey from central Kraków, though if you're not fussed about which city you stay in then Katowice is probably the more optimal place to stay for here and Energylandia.
I had expected the park to be at least moderately busy on a hot Sunday in local school holidays, and had mixed feelings when the opening show was being performed to about 25 of us - if this is it on a peak day, how dead is it midweek? Still, can't complain too much about an empty park, and being here with one main objective, we walked straight to the back of the park for by far its biggest and best attraction.
Lech Coaster (#101) opened at around 10:30, and despite park rules forcing us to walk back around the queue each lap we were on 5 of the first 7 trains of the day - 1 front, 1 middle, and 3 on the back row, which offered by far the best experience. The ride is all about the intensity and does its job well. The first drop, inversion through the building, and final turns are excellent highlights, and the presentation and theme is really top notch. I'd perhaps built it up a little too high in my head (in the sense that I'd prepared for a 10/10 and found it to be a really solid 9), but it alone makes the park worth popping into if you're in the area for EL anyway.
We paused at this point to go and check out the rest of the park, but with long opening hours and no crowds, I was looking forward to returning for some 20+ rides on Lech in the afternoon. Unfortunately this didn't happen, as within about an hour of opening the ride went down and did not return. This was clearly not for lack of trying by the park - it tested on several separate occasions and we spotted maintenance staff taking everything from a blunt axe to a spare wheel up to the station - but by mid-afternoon the train could be seen parked in an empty station with staff nowhere to be found.
At the time oblivious that we'd had our last rides on Lech, we wandered over to the other supposedly still operating cred, only to find it closed for the full day. Though this hardly looked to be a list topper, I did have a particular curiousity about it as it would've been my first Soquet. Still, 100 creds in and my worst spite is a janky-looking looper in a park I will inevitably return to (assuming it survives) given what's down the road. Could be worse.
Had we known Lech wasn't going to reopen, our visit here may have been very short indeed, but as it kept occasionally testing, we ended up in a cycle of finding a couple of things to do, then running back to Lech for 15 minutes whenever we spotted a train. The trouble was, it felt very much like there's not much of interest left at Legendia. A decent-looking log flume was closed all day, and several rides were SBNO or gone with very obvious signs of what was once there. Highlights we did get to see included the Bazyliszek trackless dark ride, which I wasn't expecting to exist but was surprisingly good, and Dolina Jagi, my first Hafema rapids, which wasn't particularly wet or exciting, but was well presented.
A few other things we did, primarily to pass the time:
- A solid HUSS enterprise which actually went 90 degrees, unlike the one we have left in the UK.
- A double inverter ship which was every bit as uncomfortable as you'd expect.
- A ferris wheel with cute little buckets.
- A HUSS rainbow - I'd never done one of these before but it was absolutely wild. The seats are flat benches designed for two with a lap bar several inches above the thighs. Sitting in one of these alone results in being absolutely thrown about. This was definitely the most we laughed that day.
By 4, it was becoming increasingly clear that Lech wasn't returning and we'd very much exhausted everything else the park had to offer. We ended up mooching around Katowice for a bit (nice place, but without the tourism appeal of Kraków) and catching a relatively early train back.
Downtime isn't always a park's fault, and we did get several rides on the coaster we came for, but it was hard not to leave Legendia a bit disappointed and worried for its future. Including SBNO, the place has 3 sizable coasters, but not a single one operated for 5 out of the 6 hours we were there. Other rides closed or in pieces further pointed to financial difficulty and/or overwhelming maintenance issues. Even if more rides were open, who would have ridden them? Any successful theme park would have had a gate figure of several thousand on the day of our visit, but to quote my mate "you know it's a quiet one when you start recognising everyone you walk past".
All of this begs the question - what happened here? My assumption is the park drank from the same money tap as Energylandia in the late 2010s and just hasn't grown to a point where it's naturally sustainable. This makes for a really interesting case study, but is a worrying situation for a really strong coaster and a park with the potential to be genuinely charming if left to grow organically. Time will tell. As for myself, I would return here, but only as a stop-in on my way to/from visiting EL.
.
.
