jayjay
Giga Poster
Day 8 - "Starting the Proper Theme Parks" (Mirabilandia)
We left the last day's report on the platform at Padua station, 5.30am. It's not the plan I originally had, but I'm good at leaving booking far too late, so the sensibly timed train to Florence was fully booked.
The Italian guy on the night train warned that Italy's trains were on the whole less punctual than Germany, which was true (though nothing managed to beat the Cologne-Vienna 145 minute delay). But Christ, Italy's trains are all over the place in quality. There's your standard super-comfortable 180 mph intercity services, but for the stopping services, you may not be in luck. Here's the one that carried me to Mirabilandia (shuttle bus from Lido di Classe/Lido di Savio)
If you see a train that looks like this, run far away
Anyways, Mirabilandia. Being a day where I had all my luggage with me, there was faff involved. The security guards didn't speak English, so had to show me a box of confiscated knives to ask "do you have any" (if I did, wouldn't I just answer 'no' anyway?). Dumped all the bags in a locker, then first stop, iSpeed.
Favourite new coaster of the trip, wish I'd taken some better pictures than this
It occured to me now that I'd filled the first half of this trip with consistently mediocre stuff, and iSpeed hit me with a strong reminder of what coasters could do. The launch and the top-hat are like Stealth but less so, but the highlight is the following burst of speed: the sudden flick under the launch track, the airtime hill and violent twists afterwards. It's pure adrenaline and I love it! The layout gets a little weaker towards the end, but holds up very well indeed.
The one major thing that stops it breaking the top 3 ranks is its restraints. Hanging from an old intamin lap bar is painful, and even with a little bracing, it still kills the mood in the second half. Still, number four is about right for me.
Kiddie cred: it had a cute vegetable garden.
I made my way around the back of the park for Master Thai, the strange dueling coaster. At some point, this will have VR, but not today.
Gee, this doesn't remind me of any animated feature film, especially not one by Dreamworks
It's a strange one. It doesn't ever build up a huge amount of speed, but it is incredibly jerky. You do get two laps though - one on each half of the track. It also seemed to be running alternate empty trains, so I didn't get to duel with anyone. Isn't that the point? And won't that be removed with VR? Answers on a postcard.
Have you remembered to paint your elephant today?
And so to big coaster number 2! Got to admit, I didn't expect to be a huge fan of Katun. It's got its forces but I've never hugely warmed to the "big positive Gs" style. It offers buckets of that. It's a fantastic by-the-numbers B&M force machine. Just that sort of thing doesn't do it for me.
It's not you, it's me
A Wild Mine ride is there because why be original. I mainly spent the ride trying to stop my bag from escaping and bracing for the very sharp brakes.
BROMS!
The area for the mine ride had this totally-not-Italian country band
Divertical, the water coaster, lies dominant at the back of the park. This being Italy, it felt warm enough to have a go, which is good because this thing is wet.
The lift is so weird
Apparently I didn't write any opinions of Divertical, which must mean the coaster section was forgettable. The splash was almost Tidal Wave levels though. I mean, it's Italy, it's allowed.
For a chance to dry off, I thought, best to just get high. So I got high.
I know a guy that can hook you up with some good Ferris wheels
iSpeed <3
One roller coaster left to go, and it's one of the worst. Rexplorer was Mirabilandia's powered mine train and it doesn't distinguish itself in any particular way except leaving you hanging in weird angles on the long, long roll back to the station.
A few other rides were done during the day. The cadillac flume was unique and kinda fab, but the splash was disappointing
Pictured: nobody getting wet
Car flume
It was still mid afternoon, so more rerides were in order. Katun first, and I still couldn't get into it as much as I wanted, even in the front row.
We can still be friends
iSpeed was still Godlike, though my thighs were not having the best of times.
But my brain was having the best of times
As a whole, Mirabilandia's a decent park. It's got some quite barren areas (the iSpeed theming felt particularly cheap) but some well made scenery, especially in the area around Katun and the Dinosaur themed area. Being a very quiet day didn't help, since crowds usually help liven the atmosphere. It's somewhere I'd like to go back to in the future with others.
Ride-wise, it doesn't have much of quality outside the two main stars, which is a shame. Operations were hard to judge: seemed sluggish, but the park wasn't busy enough to warrant more than one train operation on most things (even then, Katun and iSpeed were walk-on by mid-afternoon).
Today, my overnight stop was in the Italian seaside town of Rimini, which seems to be their version of Blackpool.
*Establishing shot*
When I was originally looking for cheap hotels, the comparison website showed me a Best Western for £40. Not sure why, whether it was cheap last minute or just off-season because this place was worth far more.
Here is my balcony, that almost has a sea view
Turned on the TV to see what Italians watch and, look who it is!
He was dubbed in Italian, so I didn't actually know what he was talking about, but he did visit Wiener Prater and went on the big wheel
We left the last day's report on the platform at Padua station, 5.30am. It's not the plan I originally had, but I'm good at leaving booking far too late, so the sensibly timed train to Florence was fully booked.
The Italian guy on the night train warned that Italy's trains were on the whole less punctual than Germany, which was true (though nothing managed to beat the Cologne-Vienna 145 minute delay). But Christ, Italy's trains are all over the place in quality. There's your standard super-comfortable 180 mph intercity services, but for the stopping services, you may not be in luck. Here's the one that carried me to Mirabilandia (shuttle bus from Lido di Classe/Lido di Savio)
If you see a train that looks like this, run far away
Anyways, Mirabilandia. Being a day where I had all my luggage with me, there was faff involved. The security guards didn't speak English, so had to show me a box of confiscated knives to ask "do you have any" (if I did, wouldn't I just answer 'no' anyway?). Dumped all the bags in a locker, then first stop, iSpeed.
Favourite new coaster of the trip, wish I'd taken some better pictures than this
It occured to me now that I'd filled the first half of this trip with consistently mediocre stuff, and iSpeed hit me with a strong reminder of what coasters could do. The launch and the top-hat are like Stealth but less so, but the highlight is the following burst of speed: the sudden flick under the launch track, the airtime hill and violent twists afterwards. It's pure adrenaline and I love it! The layout gets a little weaker towards the end, but holds up very well indeed.
The one major thing that stops it breaking the top 3 ranks is its restraints. Hanging from an old intamin lap bar is painful, and even with a little bracing, it still kills the mood in the second half. Still, number four is about right for me.
Kiddie cred: it had a cute vegetable garden.
I made my way around the back of the park for Master Thai, the strange dueling coaster. At some point, this will have VR, but not today.
Gee, this doesn't remind me of any animated feature film, especially not one by Dreamworks
It's a strange one. It doesn't ever build up a huge amount of speed, but it is incredibly jerky. You do get two laps though - one on each half of the track. It also seemed to be running alternate empty trains, so I didn't get to duel with anyone. Isn't that the point? And won't that be removed with VR? Answers on a postcard.
Have you remembered to paint your elephant today?
And so to big coaster number 2! Got to admit, I didn't expect to be a huge fan of Katun. It's got its forces but I've never hugely warmed to the "big positive Gs" style. It offers buckets of that. It's a fantastic by-the-numbers B&M force machine. Just that sort of thing doesn't do it for me.
It's not you, it's me
A Wild Mine ride is there because why be original. I mainly spent the ride trying to stop my bag from escaping and bracing for the very sharp brakes.
BROMS!
The area for the mine ride had this totally-not-Italian country band
Divertical, the water coaster, lies dominant at the back of the park. This being Italy, it felt warm enough to have a go, which is good because this thing is wet.
The lift is so weird
Apparently I didn't write any opinions of Divertical, which must mean the coaster section was forgettable. The splash was almost Tidal Wave levels though. I mean, it's Italy, it's allowed.
For a chance to dry off, I thought, best to just get high. So I got high.
I know a guy that can hook you up with some good Ferris wheels
iSpeed <3
One roller coaster left to go, and it's one of the worst. Rexplorer was Mirabilandia's powered mine train and it doesn't distinguish itself in any particular way except leaving you hanging in weird angles on the long, long roll back to the station.
A few other rides were done during the day. The cadillac flume was unique and kinda fab, but the splash was disappointing
Pictured: nobody getting wet
Car flume
It was still mid afternoon, so more rerides were in order. Katun first, and I still couldn't get into it as much as I wanted, even in the front row.
We can still be friends
iSpeed was still Godlike, though my thighs were not having the best of times.
But my brain was having the best of times
As a whole, Mirabilandia's a decent park. It's got some quite barren areas (the iSpeed theming felt particularly cheap) but some well made scenery, especially in the area around Katun and the Dinosaur themed area. Being a very quiet day didn't help, since crowds usually help liven the atmosphere. It's somewhere I'd like to go back to in the future with others.
Ride-wise, it doesn't have much of quality outside the two main stars, which is a shame. Operations were hard to judge: seemed sluggish, but the park wasn't busy enough to warrant more than one train operation on most things (even then, Katun and iSpeed were walk-on by mid-afternoon).
Today, my overnight stop was in the Italian seaside town of Rimini, which seems to be their version of Blackpool.
*Establishing shot*
When I was originally looking for cheap hotels, the comparison website showed me a Best Western for £40. Not sure why, whether it was cheap last minute or just off-season because this place was worth far more.
Here is my balcony, that almost has a sea view
Turned on the TV to see what Italians watch and, look who it is!
He was dubbed in Italian, so I didn't actually know what he was talking about, but he did visit Wiener Prater and went on the big wheel
