Energylandia | Choco Chip Creek | Vekoma Minetrain | 2024
- Thread starter CrashCoaster
- Start date
VonRolland
Giga Poster
Something like that, i do wonder how they will develop the park in the next 10 years as they've seemed to stop buying traveling coasters
Christian
Hyper Poster
I am sure they will pair together the mine train with some other family coaster just to get the record, in the same way they have done with Zadra and Abyssus. A lot of people like to talk down on Energylandia's line up. Cedar Point is in a different league to Energylandia but SFMM and EL are pretty similar. I have grouped some of the coasters together (with ELs 3 coasters under construction) and compared them in several battles. Tell me your opinion as well!
Battle 1: Zadra alone vs. Twisted Colossus + Apocalypse
This one is hard as Zadra is elite and neither TC or Apocalypse are elite coasters but I would still take them 2 over Zadra, regardless of Zadra being a beast.
Battle 2: Mayan vs. Batman
SFMM also wins this one. Mayan is the best SLC ever made but Batman still beats it. Both are extremely intense and high thrill rides. Personally Mayan is more intense than Batman but it still has it's SLC jolts which drag it down.
Battle 3: Hyperion vs. Goliath
This is probably the easiest win ever. Nothing needs to be explained. Goliath is a smooth monorail with one forceful helix and Hyperion is a not so smooth beast of a ride. I take the rattling beast any day!
Battle 4: Formula vs. Full Throttle
Formula takes this one. Full Throttle is a interesting ride but it's nothing I would bother lapping due to it being very short and not doing that much. The big loop is cool but in rest is doesn't really do anything and it has probably the worst drop on any coaster. I would even say that as a group Formula's consecutive sidewinder, tight turn and airtime hill easily take FT's loop.
Battle 5: Abyssus vs. West Coast Racers
This one is very speculative as I haven't yet ridden Abyssus but from the POV and layout I think it could take WCR. WCR is a good ride, don't get me wrong, but it's not really an extreme ride. WCR is a family thrill ride. I think Abyssus will be able to take it easily as that thing looks to be a beast.
Battle 6: EL's minetrain vs. Gold Rusher
This one is highly speculative as we don't know anything about EL's minetrain but the fact is that Gold Rusher is a pretty bad minetrain and with a 3 lift Vekoma minetrain EL could probably take cold rusher.
Battle 7: Boomerang + Light Explorer vs. New Revolution alone
You might say this battle is unfair because on EL's side there are only family coasters and New Revolution is a thrill coaster but except for that one small historic loop I think the 2 boomerangs can take on New Revolution easily. If not for anything else both of them have way better theming than New Revolution.
Battle 8: Dragon vs Ninja
Ninja is a cool and unique ride but Dragon is very thrilling (it really surprised me). Ninja has a better setting and length but I think there are some substantial problems in the layout. Dragon's layout is short but great. This is a tie for me.
Battle 9: EL's 5 kiddies vs SFMM's 4 kiddies
This one is a tie as I think they take each other out. EL's kiddies are more diverse and interesting but SFMM's kiddies are a bit bigger.
Speed, Viking, Energus and Frida have nothing similar at SFMM.
X2, Viper, Scream, Tatsu, Riddler and Superman have nothing similar at EL.
Of the battles I think that EL wins 5, SFMM wins 2 and 2 are tied. SFMM still pulls ahead overall with their remaining coasters. Speed is a fantastic ride which SFMM cant challenge. But Energylandia frankly has nothing to compare with elite rides such as X2, Tatsu and Riddler. If it wasn't for these 3 rides I would probably think EL was better. EL has some ways to go to become an elite park but if we look from everything they have built it seems to be of a high quality, just look at them winning most of the battles. In a couple of year they might be the better park.
Battle 1: Zadra alone vs. Twisted Colossus + Apocalypse
This one is hard as Zadra is elite and neither TC or Apocalypse are elite coasters but I would still take them 2 over Zadra, regardless of Zadra being a beast.
Battle 2: Mayan vs. Batman
SFMM also wins this one. Mayan is the best SLC ever made but Batman still beats it. Both are extremely intense and high thrill rides. Personally Mayan is more intense than Batman but it still has it's SLC jolts which drag it down.
Battle 3: Hyperion vs. Goliath
This is probably the easiest win ever. Nothing needs to be explained. Goliath is a smooth monorail with one forceful helix and Hyperion is a not so smooth beast of a ride. I take the rattling beast any day!
Battle 4: Formula vs. Full Throttle
Formula takes this one. Full Throttle is a interesting ride but it's nothing I would bother lapping due to it being very short and not doing that much. The big loop is cool but in rest is doesn't really do anything and it has probably the worst drop on any coaster. I would even say that as a group Formula's consecutive sidewinder, tight turn and airtime hill easily take FT's loop.
Battle 5: Abyssus vs. West Coast Racers
This one is very speculative as I haven't yet ridden Abyssus but from the POV and layout I think it could take WCR. WCR is a good ride, don't get me wrong, but it's not really an extreme ride. WCR is a family thrill ride. I think Abyssus will be able to take it easily as that thing looks to be a beast.
Battle 6: EL's minetrain vs. Gold Rusher
This one is highly speculative as we don't know anything about EL's minetrain but the fact is that Gold Rusher is a pretty bad minetrain and with a 3 lift Vekoma minetrain EL could probably take cold rusher.
Battle 7: Boomerang + Light Explorer vs. New Revolution alone
You might say this battle is unfair because on EL's side there are only family coasters and New Revolution is a thrill coaster but except for that one small historic loop I think the 2 boomerangs can take on New Revolution easily. If not for anything else both of them have way better theming than New Revolution.
Battle 8: Dragon vs Ninja
Ninja is a cool and unique ride but Dragon is very thrilling (it really surprised me). Ninja has a better setting and length but I think there are some substantial problems in the layout. Dragon's layout is short but great. This is a tie for me.
Battle 9: EL's 5 kiddies vs SFMM's 4 kiddies
This one is a tie as I think they take each other out. EL's kiddies are more diverse and interesting but SFMM's kiddies are a bit bigger.
Speed, Viking, Energus and Frida have nothing similar at SFMM.
X2, Viper, Scream, Tatsu, Riddler and Superman have nothing similar at EL.
Of the battles I think that EL wins 5, SFMM wins 2 and 2 are tied. SFMM still pulls ahead overall with their remaining coasters. Speed is a fantastic ride which SFMM cant challenge. But Energylandia frankly has nothing to compare with elite rides such as X2, Tatsu and Riddler. If it wasn't for these 3 rides I would probably think EL was better. EL has some ways to go to become an elite park but if we look from everything they have built it seems to be of a high quality, just look at them winning most of the battles. In a couple of year they might be the better park.
VonRolland
Giga Poster
Interesting comparison, with 1 or 2 more major coasters I think they'll start edging ahead
Christian
Hyper Poster
I think it all depends on 2 things. First of all is how long it will take SFMM to open their raptor. As they haven't even started construction I think it will be at least a year. The second thing is how EL will proceed to get the record. They could just open their 3 coasters under construction and add 2 kiddies as well and they will have the record. In a similar way that they did with Zadra or they could actually go for quality and build more serious rides. I am still pretty sure that EL will open their Tilt coaster and probably one more family coaster by season start 2022. I don't think that SFMM will have their raptor complete until at least May 2022. Therefore I predict Energylandia will win!
It could also depend on if EL finally get rid of their awful wild mouse. Anyways it will be very close.
It could also depend on if EL finally get rid of their awful wild mouse. Anyways it will be very close.
Can you fill me in with ELs plans for a Tilt Coaster? I've never heard about that
Christian
Hyper Poster
They submitted a plan a couple of years ago (to the EU or polish government?) regarding 4 coasters that they wanted to build. One of them was a hybrid (Zadra), a dual launch coaster (Abyssus), a minetrain with 3 lift hills and also a tilt coaster. Therefore we are pretty certain that they will sometime in the future get a tilt coaster. After this plan is done we really have no clue what they will be getting. You can go through the Abyssus and "Energylandia future additions" threads and learn all about it.
saltedpeanuts
Roller Poster
Are we happy to see EL carry on building coasters or do you think they are at a point now where they need to focus on Flat/Dark rides to make it a complete all rounder?
IMO they should start to focus on dark rides and more immersive theming in the park. The coasters itself draw in the coaster enthusiasts, but won't draw the families staying on vacation in Poland.
I've never been at EL but it seems like the "themed" areas (Dragon Zone, Aqualantis, etc.) lack a smooth transition to the next themed area. All of those areas are connected by wide concrete paths with some green, but no theming. I'd love to see that changed. But maybe I'm just spoiled with Phantasialand being my home park and I should curb my expectations.
roomraider
Best Topic Starter
Just playing devil's advocate here, but is it possible that they don't need to do that to draw families? This is the first big theme park in Poland and it perhaps gets to set the paradigm for what a family theme park is in Poland.
Now I'm assuming to a certain extent that a lot of their local guests won't have visited large parks around Europe and the US but when the only park you had before EL was Legendias previous incarnation then EL must seem incredible.
Is it just from our point of view as seasoned theme park nerds that we think the park needs dark rides and the local clientèle literally doesn't know what they're missing.
Or am I selling the Polish GP short?
Christian
Hyper Poster
Energylandia is a big family theme park. They have scattered around kiddie rides in between their large coasters. For example that hideous firefighter kiddie ride in Aqualantis, kiddie coaster right next to Hyperion, kiddie coaster right next to Zadra, etc. EL are already catering way more to families then they do to thrill seekers. Because of the huge amount of kiddie and family rides that they have scattered everywhere they are way better covered in this category than any Six Flags or Cedar Fair park.
I think overall that the park needs a makeover and all the kiddie rides need to be collected in one place and make the rest of the park grow up.
I think overall that the park needs a makeover and all the kiddie rides need to be collected in one place and make the rest of the park grow up.
Good point. I was focussing my point more on families from abroad staying in Poland for vacation, or families from abroad looking where to book their vacation. Here in Germany a lot of families go to Disneyland or Europa Park in their summer vacation. EL could position themselves as another resort option in Europe, not just for thrill seekers but also for families. To achieve this they first would have to build hotels and up their theming-game a bit.
I agree that EL can easily snatch the local polish families, but they should also focus on western European customers, as they are probably more interesting from a revenue perspective.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the revenue from a theme park (or is it amusement park? I always mix up these two) is made up from national and international customers.
Okay then guys, what I will post now, I believe, it has never been posted to an international public, ever. It's a really, really controversial park, so I'll give you a brief history of the park, including the prelude.
It started in late 2000s. There's a 2 + 2, Goczał family. Mr. Marek Goczał owns two "Energy 2000" clubs (biggest night clubs in southern Poland), a shoe sole factory delivering soles all across the Europe, energy drink factory and few smaller businesses. Sounds like a dream already, right? Not really, for a family. Actually, his wife with his kids complained about father being on business trips all the time. Around 2008-2010 (I don't really remember), he had to go on a business trip to Italy, connected with his shoe soles business. He took his family with him. It was, I believe, somewhere nearby lake Garda. As it was also a family trip, his client recommended them to visit Gardaland. Right there, his son, Eryk Goczał, asked him "Dad, why isn't there anything like this in Poland?" And this is the point, where the whole idea starts...
Marek Goczał, who didn't want to ruin his family life sold his shoe sole factory along with the smaller businesses. They started planning, travelling around Eurpean theme parks, talking to the owners and so on. They started a great relations with Europa Park. In the early projects, all they wanted to get (roller coasters) was meant to be from Mack Rides. Though, in European Union, if you have an innovative idea, you can apply for European Union funds. They spent A LOT of time writing applications (they used some technical tricks in it, so I won't talk much about it), and finally they received some good feedback. They got their first European Union's dotation. "Investment under a high innovation potential in years 2014-2020". There was a 1 problem though - deadlines. They wanted to start the park with Mack Rides, but they couldn't deliver their coaster projects in time. They received a dotation, so they had to seek for manufacturers, which could deliver ASAP.
THIS is the real reason for the first area of the park being ****ty themed, with ****ty rides and so on. They just had to rush starting everything on the plain field. From what I know, they still have to expand the park with new areas, so they'll focus on refurbishment of the first area in future. It still works, so there's no need to focus on it right now. With a little help of our Polish SkyScraperCity community they realized, that it will be better for them to go for more theming. Now there's a moment, where the first good concept of the theme park starts. 2018, press conference - "We'll build 4 element modules: fire, water, earth and wind. Each module will contain few areas. The first area of the Fire module planned for 2019 will be called Dragon Zone".
So, we know where we are now with theming, areas and all this confusing planning. So what about the kiddie/family rides?
It's very, very simple. It started with smaller rides, because they couldn't afford (mostly because of the deadlines) a good thrill rides. So starting with it, they had a plenty of them already. Next up - why are they adding more of these? Also, it's very simple. Relations between park owners and manufacturers are really, really personal. It's a niche industry, so necessarily, after their first positive cooperation with Vekoma, Marek Goczał knew that Energylandia could rely on this manufacturer. They are cheap, they're efficient, and last but not least - they work very fast. Moreover, as they bought from them few rides at once - they are getting these kiddie/family rides even cheaper. Also, as they want to get feedback mostly from families - because of the huge variety of kiddie/family rides, families are feeling even more welcome than wherever in Europe.
Families are the target, as you have to pay for the food, drinks and other facilities like games. Little kids don't really see the difference in quality of parks. They only see what park has more to offer for them, and they received such feedback "kids prefer Energylandia over any European park, because they have rides for them wherever in the park they go".
What's the conclusion then? Well, you guys see this park having a RMC hyper hybrid, an Intamin hyper, so you automatically compare it to the 100-year-old parks. It's not the way. Energylandia is only 6 years old. It already reached something, that 97% of the theme parks will never reach in their existance. For now, end of December 2020, they officially own area of 200 ha. With Aqualantis it's only 41 ha yet in use! I believe they will keep adding a kiddie/family ride everywhere in the park, so thrillseekers can go around the park with their kids, and none of them will get bored. Will you really complain about 15 kiddie/family rides, when park offers 10-15 extreme/thrill rides? I don't think so. I keep my fingers crossed for the family and the park. They did a great job so far, I can't wait for what the future brings. Cheers!
It started in late 2000s. There's a 2 + 2, Goczał family. Mr. Marek Goczał owns two "Energy 2000" clubs (biggest night clubs in southern Poland), a shoe sole factory delivering soles all across the Europe, energy drink factory and few smaller businesses. Sounds like a dream already, right? Not really, for a family. Actually, his wife with his kids complained about father being on business trips all the time. Around 2008-2010 (I don't really remember), he had to go on a business trip to Italy, connected with his shoe soles business. He took his family with him. It was, I believe, somewhere nearby lake Garda. As it was also a family trip, his client recommended them to visit Gardaland. Right there, his son, Eryk Goczał, asked him "Dad, why isn't there anything like this in Poland?" And this is the point, where the whole idea starts...
Marek Goczał, who didn't want to ruin his family life sold his shoe sole factory along with the smaller businesses. They started planning, travelling around Eurpean theme parks, talking to the owners and so on. They started a great relations with Europa Park. In the early projects, all they wanted to get (roller coasters) was meant to be from Mack Rides. Though, in European Union, if you have an innovative idea, you can apply for European Union funds. They spent A LOT of time writing applications (they used some technical tricks in it, so I won't talk much about it), and finally they received some good feedback. They got their first European Union's dotation. "Investment under a high innovation potential in years 2014-2020". There was a 1 problem though - deadlines. They wanted to start the park with Mack Rides, but they couldn't deliver their coaster projects in time. They received a dotation, so they had to seek for manufacturers, which could deliver ASAP.
THIS is the real reason for the first area of the park being ****ty themed, with ****ty rides and so on. They just had to rush starting everything on the plain field. From what I know, they still have to expand the park with new areas, so they'll focus on refurbishment of the first area in future. It still works, so there's no need to focus on it right now. With a little help of our Polish SkyScraperCity community they realized, that it will be better for them to go for more theming. Now there's a moment, where the first good concept of the theme park starts. 2018, press conference - "We'll build 4 element modules: fire, water, earth and wind. Each module will contain few areas. The first area of the Fire module planned for 2019 will be called Dragon Zone".
So, we know where we are now with theming, areas and all this confusing planning. So what about the kiddie/family rides?
It's very, very simple. It started with smaller rides, because they couldn't afford (mostly because of the deadlines) a good thrill rides. So starting with it, they had a plenty of them already. Next up - why are they adding more of these? Also, it's very simple. Relations between park owners and manufacturers are really, really personal. It's a niche industry, so necessarily, after their first positive cooperation with Vekoma, Marek Goczał knew that Energylandia could rely on this manufacturer. They are cheap, they're efficient, and last but not least - they work very fast. Moreover, as they bought from them few rides at once - they are getting these kiddie/family rides even cheaper. Also, as they want to get feedback mostly from families - because of the huge variety of kiddie/family rides, families are feeling even more welcome than wherever in Europe.
Families are the target, as you have to pay for the food, drinks and other facilities like games. Little kids don't really see the difference in quality of parks. They only see what park has more to offer for them, and they received such feedback "kids prefer Energylandia over any European park, because they have rides for them wherever in the park they go".
What's the conclusion then? Well, you guys see this park having a RMC hyper hybrid, an Intamin hyper, so you automatically compare it to the 100-year-old parks. It's not the way. Energylandia is only 6 years old. It already reached something, that 97% of the theme parks will never reach in their existance. For now, end of December 2020, they officially own area of 200 ha. With Aqualantis it's only 41 ha yet in use! I believe they will keep adding a kiddie/family ride everywhere in the park, so thrillseekers can go around the park with their kids, and none of them will get bored. Will you really complain about 15 kiddie/family rides, when park offers 10-15 extreme/thrill rides? I don't think so. I keep my fingers crossed for the family and the park. They did a great job so far, I can't wait for what the future brings. Cheers!
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Thank you for the super interesting writeup! Would you mind elaborating a bit further on the EU/Polish Government funding topic? There always seems to be a lot of confusion regarding this topic, with sides screaming "everything in there is funded by the EU" and sides screaming "He's a rich entrepreneur, only a few rides have had funding by the EU/Polish government".
I'd also be interested in the tricks they used in the EU funding application, if you're fine talking about that.
I'll do my best to make it clear then.
The "He's a rich entrepreneur, only a few rides have had funding by the EU/Polish government" side is correct, except Polish government hasn't funded anything to the park.
You'll have to understand how UE funding works. There are European Union funding programs being disposed between each EU country - it means EU gives each country's government money to dispose between the investors. How do they do that? They simply organize contests in which each investor has to convince the government, that his idea is innovative, will bring money and development and so on. As I said before, the name of the program they participated in was "Investment under a high innovation potential in years 2014-2020". Using tricks like registering patents for "anti-vibrating wheel system" used for each project, that participated in the contest, lead to winning the contest. So it's not really a help from government, as Energylandia still had to compete against other investors in Poland for this funding. So "help from Polish government to boost tourism in Poland" is not true at all. Funding is given from the EU, disposed by the Polish government strictly looking at the business model.
And it's right, that only parts of the park were partially funded by the EU. Once you're in the park you can notice the EU banner next to these rides, as it's one of the prerequisites. It informs about the total costs of the investments along with how much of it was funded by the European Union. Usually it sits between 30-50% of total.
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