Benzin
TS Member
Day 1 – Parque de Attractiones
After a late evening flight and a taxi to a hotel, Madrid’s parks beckoned. This trip was mainly done as a “Benin wants to get all open European B&Ms this year” trip, and it also combined with a birthday. So it happened.
After a morning of searching for a McDonalds that became sadly fruitless (and McMuffin-less), we hopped upon the Metro (of which a 3 day unlimited pass on all transit options costs €35) towards Batan station, where Parque de Attractiones lives.
Or at least it’s second entrance, which surprised me. But we were greeted by long queues we simply walked past due to online tickets, and found ourselves in the Nickelodeon area.
As such, the first coaster was to be Padrinos Voladores, one of those random Zamperla suspended kiddie wild mouse jobbies that Mingoland got recently. Themed to Fairly Odd Parents too if you’re into that sorta stuff. Either way, it was meh and juddery. Stupid Zamperla.
After vacating the kids area as quickly as possible, we found TNT Train de la Mina, where stacking was the order of the day (and a reminder of why I find Spanish parks that extra bit frustrating). We didn’t know the manufacturer of this, but turns out Gerstlauer can make decent rides if they don’t invert/launch/etc. Was rather good fun, certainly as good as the Intamin counterparts, with mixtures of airtime and some decent laterals to boot.
Not an easy coaster to get pics of though
The heat and busyness of the park was clear to see, and the next coaster was Vertigo, a Wild Mouse. It had the worst operations I’ve ever seen on one as well, which is EXTREMELY impressive. As opposed to running it normally (as per, every other park in the world), here we have 4 cars (ew), all loaded at once in the station (ew), dispatched, and once they’re all back in the station we load it again. So the queue would move a maximum of 16 people at a time. For a Wild Mouse. In Spain.
Ew.
Plus a group that queue jumped right before the ride decided to have a moan about something and cause security/managers to be called down. Further delaying everyone else. Why is going to a park in Spain so much more burdenous?
Hooray for themed supports!
After the Vertigo issues we decided to look into the Express Pass stuff, cos we still had 4 creds to go, and 3 of those have no throughput. For an unlimited Gold level at €29 (there’s a Silver which allows one shots for slightly cheaper), there was a resounding YES to that. Although this cannot be used for either Vertigo or Tarantula. Which is strangely well thought out considering the operations of the park.
Onwards we went to Abismo then, a Maurer Sohne Skyloop of the extended variety. I was rather excited for it, not sure why, given G-Force exists. But regardless, we skipped the entire queue and onto the front row it was.
The lift is insanely quick, and the hang-time on the top is immense and intense, and the inversion/drop back down are both a lot of fun. Indeed, the ride as a whole was quite fab, which was very, very surprising it must be said. Tonnes of airtime in the hill as well, which given that these restraints don’t try and sever you in half makes it a lot more enjoyable.
[/I]
After a late evening flight and a taxi to a hotel, Madrid’s parks beckoned. This trip was mainly done as a “Benin wants to get all open European B&Ms this year” trip, and it also combined with a birthday. So it happened.
After a morning of searching for a McDonalds that became sadly fruitless (and McMuffin-less), we hopped upon the Metro (of which a 3 day unlimited pass on all transit options costs €35) towards Batan station, where Parque de Attractiones lives.
Or at least it’s second entrance, which surprised me. But we were greeted by long queues we simply walked past due to online tickets, and found ourselves in the Nickelodeon area.
As such, the first coaster was to be Padrinos Voladores, one of those random Zamperla suspended kiddie wild mouse jobbies that Mingoland got recently. Themed to Fairly Odd Parents too if you’re into that sorta stuff. Either way, it was meh and juddery. Stupid Zamperla.
After vacating the kids area as quickly as possible, we found TNT Train de la Mina, where stacking was the order of the day (and a reminder of why I find Spanish parks that extra bit frustrating). We didn’t know the manufacturer of this, but turns out Gerstlauer can make decent rides if they don’t invert/launch/etc. Was rather good fun, certainly as good as the Intamin counterparts, with mixtures of airtime and some decent laterals to boot.
Not an easy coaster to get pics of though
The heat and busyness of the park was clear to see, and the next coaster was Vertigo, a Wild Mouse. It had the worst operations I’ve ever seen on one as well, which is EXTREMELY impressive. As opposed to running it normally (as per, every other park in the world), here we have 4 cars (ew), all loaded at once in the station (ew), dispatched, and once they’re all back in the station we load it again. So the queue would move a maximum of 16 people at a time. For a Wild Mouse. In Spain.
Ew.
Plus a group that queue jumped right before the ride decided to have a moan about something and cause security/managers to be called down. Further delaying everyone else. Why is going to a park in Spain so much more burdenous?
Hooray for themed supports!
After the Vertigo issues we decided to look into the Express Pass stuff, cos we still had 4 creds to go, and 3 of those have no throughput. For an unlimited Gold level at €29 (there’s a Silver which allows one shots for slightly cheaper), there was a resounding YES to that. Although this cannot be used for either Vertigo or Tarantula. Which is strangely well thought out considering the operations of the park.
Onwards we went to Abismo then, a Maurer Sohne Skyloop of the extended variety. I was rather excited for it, not sure why, given G-Force exists. But regardless, we skipped the entire queue and onto the front row it was.
The lift is insanely quick, and the hang-time on the top is immense and intense, and the inversion/drop back down are both a lot of fun. Indeed, the ride as a whole was quite fab, which was very, very surprising it must be said. Tonnes of airtime in the hill as well, which given that these restraints don’t try and sever you in half makes it a lot more enjoyable.
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