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Gardaland

I feel that The Swarm generally went down with ambivalence amongst the enthusiast community.

Certainly not 'bad' but not exactly amazing either.

I think everyone had hoped for the theme/landscaping of Raptor.

:)
 
AstroDan said:
I feel that The Swarm generally went down with ambivalence amongst the enthusiast community.

Certainly not 'bad' but not exactly amazing either.

I think everyone had hoped for the theme/landscaping of Raptor.

:)
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But according to this thread they shouldn't have.

Edit: TheMaus beat me to it... :)
 
The quality of Raptor's theming and landscaping is tonnes better than what Swarm acheived, hence the desperate add for the billboard near miss (which of course, didn't solve the problem of the bleak empty area by the brake run)...

Raptor just worked well, Swarm kinda missed the mark on a few points (although, it's better than Flug at Heide that's for certain)...
 
I’ve just been digging into Gardaland’s finances for a blog I’m in the process of setting up. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for several years and never quite got round to doing.

Has anyone noticed how cheap Gardaland’s annual passes are these days? 52 euros for a standard annual pass or 72 euros for a VIP annual pass with unlimited queue jumping all season. According to Google currency converter a standard annual pass costs £40 and a VIP pass costs £56. Imagine if for £56 you could buy a VIP pass to Alton Towers with unlimited queue jumping. To put it another way a standard Gardaland pass is barely a third the cost of an Alton Towers annual pass (No renewal discount) or a little over half the cost of an annual pass to Lightwater Valley or Pleasurewood Hills.
https://abbonamenti.gardaland.it/gardaland/b2c/index.cfm/

Edit: Looking again it’s a ‘season pass’ so it expires at the end of the 2015 season rather than running for 12 months like the UK parks, but it still seems remarkably cheap to me.
 
How much does it cost for a regular day ticket? Reminds me of the less than £50 annual passes for Thorpe throughout last season.
 
A Thorpe Park annual pass is currently only £59.99 and last year you could get a season pass for £48 so they are comparable to Gardalands pricing. I can't see how unlimited fasttrack would work without making huge queues.

Also I think VAT is only 10% in Italy for entertainment venues (not sure if Gardaland counts under that) but if VAT is lower then the actual price of the AP is about the same as Thorpes.
 
VAT may well be lower for theme parks in Italy, but even if you add on 10% to mitigate this, an annual pass would only cost £44 with an extra 10% added on. There are going to be other regional differences in costs relating to things like labour costs and energy costs, and you also have to take into account the fact it expires at the end of the season rather than after 12 months. Mirabilandia haven't released their 2015 prices yet to provide a comparison.
 
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Don't forget the Euro exchange rate is very much in our favour at the moment at 1.28, a year ago it was more like 1.15. This means that a year ago prices would have been similar to Thorpes season pass.

I agree though it seems to be quite cheap, does this mean Gardaland is in a fairly remote area where people don't visit more than once a year?

Similarly Thorpe Park & Legoland push single park annual passes as there are a lot of people living nearby. Whereas Alton Towers push the Merlin Annual pass as people are more likely to have travelled further and thereofre second visits are likely to be Blackpool, Birmingham, Manchester etc.
 
The strength of the pound is a valid point. A Heide Park annual pass costs 72 euros, so a euro more than Gardaland's VIP pass, although it could be argued that they inflate the cost of the individual annual passes in the UK and Germany to encourage people to buy a Merlin Annual Pass. Granted, German tax is probably more similar to tax in the UK.

I don't have statistics for how frequently guests typically visit Gardaland, and I'm sure Merlin did their research when setting the prices. Being on the edge of a Italy's largest lake does potentially limit the number of people living within a 'reasonable' travel time and that may partly explain it.
 
Rupert said:
Now I think about it - The Smiler works because at least the rest of the area was slightly adjusted with relatively simple means to tie it all together - the same signage around the area highlighting the Ministry of Joy for example.
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To a certain extent, but I still think that the merging of the X-Sector/Ministry of Joy 'theme' was rather lazily implemented by Merlin. Apart from the use of concrete, The Smiler is at complete odds with the physical theme and architectural style of the original X-Sector. The Smiler theme with the use of a strong singular primary colour and heavy use of the logo is almost a wholesale rip-off of the concept of the Oblivion theme whilst not actually being as creative or interesting.

As for Gardaland, I wholeheartedly agree it's lazy and is clearly a result of a creative department with no interesting ideas and a lack of budget, but personally as it's in Italy it won't bother me that much as I can just ignore it.
 
CoasterCrazyChris said:
To a certain extent, but I still think that the merging of the X-Sector/Ministry of Joy 'theme' was rather lazily implemented by Merlin. Apart from the use of concrete, The Smiler is at complete odds with the physical theme and architectural style of the original X-Sector. The Smiler theme with the use of a strong singular primary colour and heavy use of the logo is almost a wholesale rip-off of the concept of the Oblivion theme whilst not actually being as creative or interesting.
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I would disagree with this, whilst the manner in which Merlin refused to fully back the project, I think the idea itself was very creative, and the more I've gone the less I have felt The Smiler has been at odds with X-Sector.

I was one of the main protagonists of the "it clashes, they're ruining X-Sector" view etc, but when I came face to face with it, that mess of incredible tangled steel in such a small place was exactly in keeping with the idea of X-Sector. It was dark, domineering, and intimidating.

Of course, the entrance is an UTTER disgrace, the concrete hell pit an abomination, and the concrete shed it's housed in with those ridiculous letters that you need to be in a specific place to notice or they just look like bits of vinyl stuck onto concrete are extremely poor!

Somehow though, and in truth, given their themes I am not quite sure how, they work together.

They REALLY shouldn't, but they do.
 
CoasterCrazyChris said:
To a certain extent, but I still think that the merging of the X-Sector/Ministry of Joy 'theme' was rather lazily implemented by Merlin. Apart from the use of concrete, The Smiler is at complete odds with the physical theme and architectural style of the original X-Sector. The Smiler theme with the use of a strong singular primary colour and heavy use of the logo is almost a wholesale rip-off of the concept of the Oblivion theme whilst not actually being as creative or interesting.
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The Smiler fits better into the X Sector theme than Black Hole ever did......
 
Or you could link to the actual source instead of re-uploading it for whatever reason. Seriously, why do people do that? These people have gone out of their way to get this footage and should be properly compensated, but instead 500-odd views have been diverted away from their page.

 
Dar said:
Or you could link to the actual source instead of re-uploading it for whatever reason. Seriously, why do people do that? These people have gone out of their way to get this footage and should be properly compensated, but instead 500-odd views have been diverted away from their page.

Click to expand...

It's greed, sheer greed, that's all it is.

Anyway I like the slow climb and the straight track at the top of the ride before the drop! Personally I think that's more intimidating that Blivvy's curve post lift hill. Just a shame the whole track is white. :/
 
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So the back row is still horizontal when it pauses at the top of the drop? Well that sucks. Although it might give a bit more airtime?
 
Overall it looks far better than Krake, as it does more.

I am sure it'll be a perfectly passable rollercoaster.
 
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