Friday 26th
The last day of the Live was upon us and it was to be my first ever visit to Movieland Park (previous visits to Italy it was being spiteful). I was excited and scared of what lay ahead. Our day started with a healthy McDonalds breakfast. It was then onwards to the park. There weren't that many people around and it was obvious that those that were present were mainly going to be in the water park. We went over to the entrance of the park where we proceeded to have special ticket faff.
After some tickets were sorted out and some wine passed on to the lovely staff for sorting out discounted tickets for us we made our way in, just as the morning show was finishing.
As soon as we entered the park we knew the Intamin drop tower had to be experienced first. This would be my third one and I still absolutely cack myself on them. The noises it makes as you go up the tower create this feeling that it's unsafe and that you're about to die. Then all of it's loud horrible noises as it drops from the lift into the pre-drop zone, it's terrifying! I really liked that it played the Twilight music and the sign moves and some smoke goes off, icing on top of the already terrifying cake. The drop is then really intense and ridiculous, the forces as you go on to your back are almost as immense as the forces in a B&M flyer pretzel loop. The sudden stop is horrible though, as it the several movements after that. They're amazing, never fail to get my heart rate jumping, such a rare feeling these days - well, this day would prove to be quite the exception!
It was then time for the interactive shooty Terminator 2 show. I didn't really know what to expect, Nic was quite excited about doing it again and that either meant it was turdio or actually incredible. I was shocked to discover it was actually incredible. It had all the ingredients of a fab indoor experience, interactive game with 3D screen AND physical theming! FIRE! And other special secret ingredients. I absolutely loved it, I would love Universal to find it so they can do it on a proper ridiculous budget.
It was then time for some Magma 2.1. I was really looking forward to finally experiencing this attraction, I had heard so many great things. Usually hyped up attractions don't go so well for me so to say that my expectations were still blown out of the water is quite some achievement. I have never been so scared, laughed so hard and generally loved every minute of a single attraction. It's utter chaos from the moment you start and it just gets more ridiculous as time goes on. Poor Dan getting absolutely drenched at every opportunity was something that will forever be remembered.
Dan didn't care about getting wet any more...
As we were faffing around due to a large portion of the group being rather moist we caught the beginning of the Freddie Mercury tribute act which was, awful, but I felt sorry for him when everyone starting laughing. It was then time for yet another attraction I was terrified of, U-571. Unlike the u-boat attraction at Cinecitta World, this one had a reputation, one that made me contemplate not bothering. So glad I did though because there's nothing quite like it. Essentially you sit in a submarine which is being attacked leading to lots of water leaking in while you sit on these tiny benches which lean forwards and backwards. I basically just had a hose on my back for most of the time which was unpleasant and yet hilarious. Poor Peter got a second mass of water from another direction which led him to be drenched from head to toe. This park is actually mental.
Some of us then decided to do the Knight Rider themed speedboat attraction. This one came complete with life jackets! They basically just jet you around the stunt show lake, couple of spins here and there. It was fun but it was all over way too quickly.
We'd been in the park for a fair while now and we still hadn't ridden any creds! Madness. This was to soon be rectified when we did the go gator, the ride op was amused that a bunch of adult Brits wanted to ride it. He sent us around quite a lot and we didn't make it over the final hill a couple of times too for added amusement/embarrassment.
We then ended up going on the log flume of woe for some reason. I think we got more wet from the dripping of the troughs when you went under one.
It was then time for cred two, Brontojet....
It was really good fun actually. The first drop is really good. The only issue I had with it was the silly unbanked corner at the end before it hit the brakes. In that seating position it just ends up throwing you into metal, not fun.
Some of the group then rode the fluffy spinny flat ride. It looked a little dull afterwards, ride cycle was way too long.
It was then time for the group to split between doing the shows and the waterpark. Some of us decided to ride the Tomb Raider top spin before we did split ways. I stupidly decided I wanted in on the crazy action without watching the previous cycle. Oh GAWD. Well I'm glad I made everyone shift up a bit so Peter and I were out of the wet zone but jeez that did not save us from the hang time... so much hang time. When the ride was moving it was quite fun, if a bit too intense at times. It would then just hang us there upside down for
AGES! I do not approve of hang time at the best of times but oh gawd, this was ridiculous and relentless.
Most of the group then waltzed over to the water park while Ian, Nic, Dan and I made our way back down to the bottom of the park for the BBQ restaurant. I had meat. It was really good quality actually and was cooked as we ordered which meant it wasn't just sat somewhere chilling out in the hope someone ordered one.
Sign does not lie, it is very unique
Nic's chips came in a box shaped to the Kitt superjet which we thought was awesome...
We then kicked off our afternoon of park shows with a small Flashdance performance. Literally got some blokes up on stage, dressed them up as builders and then the dancer did the famous routine and then that was it. Random, short and sweet.
We made our way over to Diabolik as the others informed us that it had opened! I loved all the random cut outs dotted around the area with button activated sound effects. The ride did look a bit plonked in an odd area though, from the massive metal bridges over the ditch to it being underneath the queueline for some of the waterslides.
THE bridge
I found the ride to be pretty standard, it was added to by watching Ian wince the whole way round. Its really fun that the seats face each other and the on board audio was a surprise and it also really added to the ride experience. Overall I think it's a decent addition to the park.
Some faff was occurring so Dan and I went to ride the very dull car ride. It was a bit sparse and unexciting.
I think the Powerpuff girls have had enough tanning time
We had some ice cream, chilled out and then went to see the magic show, The Illusionist. For some reason it wasn't until a clip of Michael Caine appeared from the movie, the Illusionist, that I clicked it was going to be a show based off the film rather than just a generic magic show. Did kinda mean I knew how it would end, however no one could have predicted one of the tricks to be given away by a broken hidden door on a box. There were some tesla coils going off which was a bonus. The stupidly loud music was a deterrent, now I love loud music but this was just loud to the point I was concerned for my hearing. Overall it got a meh.
We then caught the show, the Artist, yet again being just a small homage to the film of the same name. This meant that unless you've seen the film you would have absolutely no idea what was going on, overall it was random. It was then time for the big show, Rambow stunt show. It was pretty standard fare for a stunt show, starts off with lots of talking and picking out random people from the audience (urgh) before a generic stunt show. It was ok, there were some nice stunts scattered throughout the show.
We then caught the end of day show which was yet again, random. The park felt a little bit like Terra Mitica where you ride the rides in the morning and then spend the afternoon going from show to show, I kinda like that. Just a shame the shows are pants. Oh well, it was time for us to say goodbye to Movieland park and meet up with the rest of the group outside the waterpark. We then all sat around chatting about our week of crazy awesome times. It was unusual to be gearing up to say goodbye to the rest of the group knowing that I still had two days of Italy left. Still, we all got back into the hire cars and drove off to the airport where most of the group caught their flight home. Peter and Rach stayed in Lake Garda while Nic and I headed onwards to Venice.
I'll quickly sum up my thoughts on Movieland. I really liked the park, it's kinda awful but it has such stand out attractions that are so unique that it definitely places it on my list of places to go back to. I also really enjoyed our last day of the CF Live, it was full of so much laughter, puts a smile on my face just thinking about it.
Giggle
So, Nic and I dropped our hire car off at Venice airport and then we caught a coach into Venice. Coaches seemed to be every 20-30 minutes with several operators covering the 20 minute journey. Once we got off at the coach station we had to navigate for the first time around this crazy city. About 10-15 minutes later we managed to find our hotel. The hotel manager was waiting outside for us, he was casually talking to some other tourists though. He then talked to us for ages about how things at the hotel work etc before letting us catch a moment and check the room out.
After a quick freshen up we went back downstairs where he provided us with a map, marked up lots of tips about getting around etc (which was so ridiculously helpful as we had done zero prep for Venice) and informed us of worthwhile museums. He then locked up his office (he literally waited around for us, I felt a little bad) and gave us a small tour on his way home. He was fab. He was clearly so in love with Venice and just loved to talk to new people about it and show them his favourite places. We even came across a church (one of about a billion in Venice) which had a lovely classical music performance going on so we stopped briefly to appreciate that. He then went home and we went in search of a restaurant in one of the main piazzas near the university. It was all a bit of a whirlwind so it was nice to finally sit down, relax and reflect. After a nice meal we went back to the hotel and crashed after such an exhausting week.
Thanks for reading! I'll write up both of days of Venice in one go hopefully later this week.
It looked like they still had a fair amount of work left to do on it, but people were working on it so it can't be too long until it opens (or has already). I had rode it back at Canada's Wonderland in 2013 and thought it to be reasonable, shame we couldn't ride it, but nevermind. The paint job on it however, looked very smart! 
