JoshC.'s 2025 - The Little Italy Job - Gardaland

[JoshC.]

Another year, another set of trip reports!

I revisited Efteling for the first time in 7 years back in January, but now was the first time this year I went to a new park.

As has become a tradition for me, I hit up 2 parks for my birthday. My original plan was to fly into Stuttgart, and go to Legoland Deutschland and Tripsdrill. Why only those two? Well, Holiday Park are planning a couple of new coasters and Schwaben Park wasn't open for another week.

In somewhat typical fashion for me though, the plan changed quite late on - with Holiday Park delaying the new major coaster until at least 2028, and with some nasty-looking roadworks and potential diversions between Legoland and Tripsdrill, I decided to do switch out Legoland for Holiday Park.

I flew to Stuttgart Saturday morning, picked up my hire car, and did the just-over-an-hour drive to Holiday Park, soon to be called Plopsaland Deutschland. As an aside, the drive was the first time I drove on parts of the Autobahn which have no speed limit, which was great fun. It also did include some roadworks (on some very steep hills), which was less fun.

Holiday Park
First thing to say, the Plopsaland Deutschland rename doesn't official start until June. But there's still some PD branding that's come into effect.


The entrance gate isn't quite de Panne sized. Will the park be a similarly shrunken quality?

I arrived just after 1pm, park was open till 6pm, and it was their first day of the season. Glorious sun and 20 degree heat was being served, and the park was pretty quiet to boot.

Naturally, I had to head to the park's headliner first: Expedition GeForce. This is a ride which is very mixed in reaction these days: go back 20 years and I think this was universally claimed to be one of the best coasters out there. These days, it divides opinion a lot more.

I got a back row ride for my first ride, and...it's a ride which is a testament to its time. The first drop does chuck you out your seat. The first airtime hill is glorious. The last airtime hills are fab. But the middle chunk of the ride simply exists. You turn around, zig zag and meander until you hit those last hills. Yes, you go at a decent speed, but you don't notice any force, and it's...boring.

I've found this with a couple of these early 00s Intamins. Great first drop. Great finale. But they don't know what to do with the middle. A more modern ride might do some quirky outerbanks, some stalls or some weird inversion-that's-not-an-inversion with an incredulously bad name (I'm sure a 2020s Expedition GeForce would feature an XpEdition Twirl). Things which simply were not / could not be done 20+ years ago.

Now don't get me wrong, the start and finish more than make this a good ride. But that middle third stops me rating it so highly. I can see why this was rated so highly back in the day though; I'm sure if I was who I am now 20 years ago and I rode it, I'd be throwing this in my Top 5%. Now though, it's a bit of a relic, and that's not a bad thing, it's just a thing.

I got plenty of rides on it, including front and back row. Back row is better, which is something I find myself saying less about coasters these days, so there's that. But the experience is pretty consistent wherever you are.

Next up was the other big thing, Sky Scream, the Premier Sky Rocket II. Haven't done one of these, and in fact until I was updating my Cred Sheet, I thought this was made by Maurer. I guess because the top twist is similar to the Maurer SkyLoops. Also turns out this is my first Premier Rides coaster!
Anyways, this feels somewhat out of place at what will be "Plopsaland Deutschland" due to it have a strong horror theme, with signs saying the queue line isn't suitable for those under the ages of 14.


I like how the smashed windows resemble a skull

That queue is well themed and done nicely tbf. Feels like it was designed to have actors in there all the time, but it works with all the effects too.

The station has an odd quirk with the airgate design. Due to the ride having a swing launch through the station, the airgates are positioned far enough away from the train/track for safety - sensible enough. But then, guests have to stand another foot or two behind the physical gates themselves, behind a line painted on the floor. Why? Seems unnecessary.

Anyways, the ride. I quite liked it. It's nothing special, but the launches are punchy, the hangtime is nice, and the drop after the inversion is great fun. The twist up to the high point of the ride is a bit too jerky, but the rest of the ride, good enough.



The design here felt slightly Walibi Holland / Movie Park Germany esque (said as a compliment!)

In terms of thrill rides, the only other one of note to me is their drop tower, Free Fall Tower. It is "themed" to the Studio 100 show House of Anubis (a la Anubis at Plopsaland de Panne). But that theming extends to some photos of the characters from the show stuck on the tin shed walls. Pop music plays in the queue, but that suits this as a ride.

The ride though is the absolute highlight of Holiday Park Plopsaland. The ride's height (about 70m) makes it the perfect length for a drop tower; giving enough intensity to be worthwhile, but not too long you adjust / get bored of it. And the climb up, which goes quick then seemingly gets slower and slower to the point you can't tell if you're still moving up or not, is perfect. Just brilliant all round.



And now, here is the main issue with Plopsaland Holiday Deutschland. They're in such a big identity crisis. They've focused heavily on the younger audience, with their indoor area (which featured a +1 cred I got). They've got outdoor Maya and Wickie Lands. And they've got the older thrill rides. But they seem to struggle in the mid-range line up. They've got a Gerstlauer Sky Fly, a Disko, a log flume (which was closed, annoyingly), a Rapids and a Splash Battle. That's good in fairness, but it didn't feel enough. And the rapids are a bit rubbish. And WickieLand felt very carbon copied from de Panne; admittedly a me-issue more than anything else.

The log flume was regularly testing, but the engineers who were kicking parts on the small lift hill were obviously not satisfied that they could open it

But yeah, the park needs more mid-range, family-thrill stuff. They've got a huge number of younger kid rides. But their 'legacy rides' appeal to a much more thrill-seeking audience. It's such a big divide, and they need some things to merge the two groups together. Their new Gerst coaster, 100% Wolf, will help with that. But they could really do with another family-thrill coaster (something like Heidi at de Panne), a dark ride and another one or two flats.

On top of this, the park feels like it's gearing up to it's rebrand a bit more, with a few shops / restaurants closed and opening later in spring, or in summer. Plus 100% Wolf opening in the autumn. So it's a weird phase to visit Holiday Plopsa right now. And what's more, I'm not totally sure what direction they want to go, given they're planning to also throw in a Mack Xtreme Spinner - at least de Panne felt significantly more established and set up when they introduced Ride to Happiness.


One thing I hope Plopsaland Haßloch doesn't inherit from Plopsaland de Panne is their ridiculous food prices and terrible food quality. This cone of chips and currywurst was pretty reasonably priced by European theme park standards (about £6.50), and also tasty. Please keep it that way.

In any case, I had a nice few hours at the park. It did get a bit busier, but the longest queue I saw was 30 minutes for the Splash Battle. GeForce never went above 15mins, and I never waited that long for my 5 rides, even for the front row. I'm not itching to return any time soon, and even the Xtreme Spinner (if it does happen) might not be enough to drag me back in 3 years' time.

Coming soon - a trip to Tripsdrill!

 

[James F]

Nice report. I really need to get on Expedition Geforce. I was waiting for the Xtreme Spinner, but considering that's not going to be built for a while now I will probably visit a lot sooner.

 

[JoshC.]

I stayed in a nice little hotel about an hour's drive away from Tripsdrill. That worked quite nicely as the parked opened at 9am, and given there's little open in Germany on a Sunday, it worked out nicely.

Tripsdrill's location gave me slight Alton Towers vibes, in that it's around this hilly, green space and the park does eventually just creep up on you. Very nice.

Tripsdrill
There weren't many people at the park for opening. I liked how they did a small opening ceremony to get people hyped up and excited; it's such a cute vibe, which is a running theme for the park.

It was significantly colder for this visit; 5 degrees to start the day off, and despite some gorgeous sun, it only peaked at around 10 degrees.

Anyways, the park doesn't open half their coasters and their water rides until after 10am, so that meant I turned left towards the newest major additions of the park, heading first for Hals-über-Kopf, the Vekoma STC. I rode Emerald Park's one last year, and I liked it, but didn't love it, so expected the same here.



And, well, I was right. It's good, but not great. It's a well designed layout, which swoops around the area, intertwined with the Junior Boomerang, and looks really cool. And it has some cool height changes, with some turns low to the ground. There's tiny pops of what one could call airtime. And the final inversion is fab. But despite all that, it doesn't really do much for me. As I say, it's good, I like it. But it just doesn't do much for me.



Also. The vibrations. My days. It's not rough in any sense of the word. But there is a notable vibration for basically the whole second half of the ride. It doesn't make the ride uncomfortable or anything. But I fear that it may do. It was there all day, front, back and middle. So a tad of a concern.

The birds clearly do not like these two supports

For Tripsdrill, this is a fab investment, but yeah, it doesn't do it for me. And that's the set of Vekoma STCs done for me (if you can call 2 a set), and I wouldn't lose much sleep if they don't sell another one.

To complete the one-two hit, I did Volldampf. It's a Vekoma Junior Boomerang, and that's about all you can say about it. I like the smoke that comes from the train front on dispatch though.

I did the new thing, Wilde Gautsche, which next to the Vekoma duo, and is best described as a family friendly Top Spin. I don't like Top Spins, but this was okay; you get some fun swinging motions, but it's not nauseating. Capacity would be an issue for bigger parks, but fine here.



Once 10am hit, I headed for Karacho, the Gerst infinity coaster, even bagging the first train of the day, on the front. And damn, what a ride this in. From the indoor surprise, to the punchy launch, it starts off strong. Then sequence of elements up to the MCBR are brilliantly paced. And then the MCBR trims the speed a lot. And it neuters the ride experience somewhat from here. The layout is still good (dive loop into a tunnel is fab!), and the ride is smooth. Combined with the incredible Gerst clamshell restraints (which are much better than B&M's), it's such a comfortable ride experience.



And so here's the thing with Karacho. If the MCBR didn't slow the car down quite so much, and the second half of the ride was just a bit punchier, this thing would easily be knocking on the door of my Top 5%. As it is, I still really rate it, but the calmer second half - likely a necessity for the target market - drops it to just outside my Top 10%. But damn, it's good.

I rode it several times throughout the day, although the queue did get longer and longer. Perhaps a slightly hot take, but I prefer to back row to the front row. Also, in my head, I like to pronounce this like Lightning McQueen's catchphrase: Kara-CHOWWWWWW.

In terms of other coasters, Mammut is an odd one. It features a fun on-ride pre show section, of which the quality was surprisingly good. And the ride is...almost good. It's a decently paced woodie, but it constantly teases you by making you think it will give you some good airtime, or good laterals, but then just gives you mediocrity. It's by no means bad, but yeah, it just exists.



G'sengte Sau was Gerstlauer's first ever coaster, a bobsled coaster. It interacts well with its surroundings, and I really like how the airtime hills are literally built on hills. I've ridden this ride's clone (Thor's Hammer at Djurs) and it's near-clone (Cobra at Paultons), so knew what to expect when riding. It's a difficult one; I like these bobsled coasters, but this layout doesn't quite do it for me. I guess that can at least partially come down to the fact it was Gerst's first design. But yeah, I think some of the more modern designs are a bit better.

Creds ticked off, time to tick off the water rides. The log flume, featuring bath tubs and an indoor scene featuring old naked ladies, is pretty fun, and I like how it is slightly connected with the bobsled. The rapids look good but are a bit of a let down.

One thing which really stood out for me with Tripsdrill though is the quality of their queue lines. Most are well themed and really do seem to tell a story, They clearly take a lot of care, effort and energy into the design of them, although I wonder if that is sometimes lost on guests?

Another thing I love - who needs fences to ride areas? Ahh Europe, I love you.

The other big thing for me is how rich with things to do Tripsdrill is. They advertise having over 100 attractions. Now, their definition of an attraction is very loose (it includes shops / eateries, but also just random stuff). But there is plenty to do, from the bigger rides and lots of quirky family attractions to play equipment for kids, the slide in the windmill (which was decent!) and random animatronic shows. This also neglects to mention to wildlife / nature resort section which is a bit away from the theme park. It's a real complete and varied park.


Love the huge grass patches on the right side of the park too

As previously alluded to, the park started off quiet, but did steadily and continually get busier and busier. That was no bother to me; I got multiple rides on my favourites and got to explore everything. The weather slowly improved too, which was an added bonus.

It's easy to see why Tripsdrill is so well loved. It has great variety, in a gorgeous setting and is run pretty damn well too. At the same time, it's not a park I'd rush back to any time soon, but it's definitely one I'm glad to have ticked off!

And that wraps up my lil jaunt to Stuttgart. And the way my 2025 is shaping up, it'll be quite a while before I end up going to a new park, but Tripsdrill was definitely one that was worth it!

 

[JoshC.]

2025 is shaping up to be a quiet year for me travel-wise, and this trip is likely my last to new theme parks this year. But it was nice to finally get my butt over to Italy and do the Lake Garda duo, after a couple of years of it being on the 'Maybe' list, and being cancelled last-minute last year.

I flew out to Verona Monday morning, the first proper day of UK summer holidays as that's when flights were surprisingly at their cheapest. I went to pick up my car from Sicily by Car, and this was my biggest regret of this trip. I usually go for the bigger-name companies when hiring a car, but they were all expensive and had prohibitively large security deposits. Sicily by Car, meanwhile, was reasonably priced and had a sensible security deposit in-line with other deposits I've paid.

The car I booked was listed as a "small" manual car, but still would have 4 doors, etc. When I went to the rental desk, I was greeted by a rather rude host who (despite sitting there looking like she was doing nothing) bluntly said "I'm dealing with someone else, wait". 5-10 minutes went by and eventually another customer came along, they did 30 seconds of paperwork and then I was up.

Going through the booking, she said "You're getting a Fiat 500 because you booked a small car". She kept emphasising this, saying "You ordered a small car so that's what you get", almost to the point she was chastising me for getting a small car. Hard to know whether it's just a tonal thing from someone speaking a foreign language, but did feel a bit rubbish. I've drive a Fiat 500 once before, I didn't like it, but equally I don't care that much...just would have been nice to mentally prepare a bit more.
Maybe I've just been lucky / spoilt with all the previous hire cars I've gotten?

On top of that, the car was dreadfully parked in pick up area, and it turned out it wasn't even a new-ish car...it had 100,000km on the clock, had an enforced speed limit of 85kmph (~53mph), and the car needed to be in 5th gear to even begin to hit 50kmph (~31mph). Needless to say I didn't enjoy the driving experience.

Anyways, that's enough moaning about the car. Here's what you're here to read about...

Gardaland
I arrived to the park around noon, with the park open until 11pm. With the park open from 10am, that's an incredible set of opening hours.

I wasn't sure how bust the park would be, and I'd heard some horror stories about how busy the park can be, and how necessary Fastrack is. I'd even considered purchasing Fastrack beforehand (as it's slightly cheaper online). But with the long opening hours, I decided to play it by ear. Fortunately, that was the right call, as the park was more than manageable crowd-wise.

Oblivion: The Black Hole
First up was Oblivio (said in a bad Italian accent with the corresponding hand gesture), with a 20 minute wait.



This is a weird one. Of the Dive Machines I've done (Oblivion, Krake, Baron), they all make the drop their focal point. Yes, some of the offer other stuff and a longer layout, but the drop is the focus which everyone is drawn to. Oblivion Inferno differs. The drop is there, but it doesn't feel like the focus. In fact, there's not really any key focal point: it all just exists there. That's not necessarily a bad thing - plenty of coasters don't have or need a key focal point - but it's an interesting style choice. It's also a shame when the theming around the drop is SO GOOD - the warped objects being sucked into a hole are really cool, with the van being my favourite. But because the drop isn't a focal point, and even tucked away from main pathways, all of that is underappreciated.



As for the ride itself, it's fun. The drop, interestingly, felt like the floatiest Dive Machine drop I've done. The airtime hill into the helix is surprisingly powerful for what it is. The rest of the ride exists as a way of just getting back to the station whilst doing things.

So yeah, Oblivion Reborn exists quite nicely at Gardaland. It's got a strong brand and is unique enough for the audience. The coaster is fun too and works for the audience I expect.

Raptor
One B&M done, let's do the other.



The one thing which stood out to me is how well landscaped Raptor is, and how well it interacts with the landscape. On top of being well themed, and in quite a small location. Everything fits together really well here, which I didn't really expect, but it certainly adds to the feel.

Swarm: Prequel had a single rider queue, which meant I got straight on (bypassing a 30 minute queue in a not-fun looking cattle pen), with a seat on the right hand side.



It's novel having a B&M wing coaster not do the dive drop (sorry, The Thorpe Park Inversion, as a certain park tried to call it many years ago...) off the lift. The ride works nice, with a simple flow to it and some nice interactions with the surrounding area. You can in some ways tell this was a first foray into wing coasters for B&M, and I'd argue that whilst it's not a bad ride, it is better to look at than ride.



I also felt that the elongated inline twist felt a bit forced with the theming. The near misses felt very chunked and clunky: it didn't feel like you were avoiding them, it felt like they were placed so you would avoid them? I know that sounds stupid to write...of course they were placed to avoid them. But it just felt a bit unnatural.

Also, very prototype-y with the fact the train can't stop on the transfer track. Not a critique, just a quirk.

Jumanji
There's two Jumanji attractions at Gardaland, the big dark ride, and the labyrinth. The Labyrinth is a mirror maze, pitch black corridor and outdoor walkway, and not interesting it the least.



The dark ride is a curious one. A tracked dark ride with car motions - including spinning and tilting - with a mix of screens and real sets. On the whole, it's not a bad experience, but it doesn't quite work for me.
Maybe part of it is just the fact that it doesn't quite work as well since I don't understand Italian (though that doesn't stop me enjoying other dark rides).
Maybe part of it is the fact that you end up facing loads of blank walls during the experience (maybe with one theming feature in front of it).
Maybe part of it is the pacing of the ride is just a little off.
Maybe part of it is the fact I didn't understand why we were queueing in a room with loads of Egyptian-style theming, and exited through a corridor with similar styling, and it really bothered me.

Who knows. But yeah, it didn't do it for me. But the ride was garnering the most consistently long queue all day, so it's doing something right.

Also, I get that it would likely have been very expensive to get the original actors (or even use imagery of the original actors), but the replacement for The Rock just feels hilariously awkward...

Dwayne 'The Pebble' Johnson?

Animal Treasure Island
The new-for-2025 thing, a retheme of the old pirate ride (though beyond that I cannot make any comments or comparisons).

The whole area is dedicated to just getting to the entrance, and then there's a long exit path too, which felt a bit of a pain. The interior queue is simple but cool. This ride also never had a queue, likely in part down to its brilliant throughput.



The ride itself is...fine. It tells the story of...something. Some animals fighting against other animals on a quest for things. I think. Again, hard to know whether it's just a lost-in-translation thing for me, or bad story telling, but I'm not fully sure what was going on.

There's a lot of static figures, and the animated figures are very basic. For a new ride, I think that's what disappointed me the most - with technology advancing so much, surely we're at a point where a park like Gardaland, with the backing of a company like Merlin, can create a few more animatronics and run them?

Half way through, there's a terrible point in the immersion where when you're leaving a scene, the audio just seems to cut out, but you can't hear anything for the next scene (as you enter the 'bat cave'). On my first ride I thought this was a technical problem, but nope, happens every time.

I think I went in with too high expectations for this. It's a solid ride and probably very enjoyable for the masses. But it feels like a missed opportunity and they could have done so much more.


I know some will disagree, but I do like projections used in this way. A waterfall cascading down the centre of a spiral staircase.
Side note: Gardaland has a lot of waterfalls / water fountain effects dotted around. That was pretty neat.

Other Coasters
The remaining coaster selection is...average. Shaman is probably the best of the rest, which says a lot given it's 40 years old. Mammut looks and rides like a ride that's 10-15 years older than it actually is (seriously, how was this only built in 2008?). Blue Tornado is an SLC...annoyingly with quite a neat brand, but still an SLC. Then you've got Dragon Rush, the rethemed Kung Fu Panda Fabbri spinner and a family kiddie cred.


Water Rides
The variety of water rides is good - a rapids, log flume and a splash and dash ride. I was surprised by how little each ride got you wet given the typically warm climate the park is in. The rapids barely got a splash on me. The splash and dash is much more for show (and also seems completely over-engineered...why the need for coaster track and almost making a water coaster?). The log flume was gentle splash. Given the 30C + temperatures all day, I was hoping for a bit more...


Splash...with a long meander until you can dash

Should also be said, I noticed some rides - Mammut in particular - had their theming held together by a ton of scaffolding which looked particularly worse for wear (another reason I was surprised Mammut was only built in 2008..). I know it's not an uncommon thing to have happened, but I could envision that being a problem for them at some point.

Wreckage
The park currently have a year-round horror maze for a 4.90 euro upcharge. It's based in Oblivion's old indoor queue line tent (which, by the way, I was sad to have not experienced properly). They haven't really changed the theming in there, but they loosely use that as the story I guess. It's an okay experience, a little thin on actors, but it does the job.

Because the entrance is away from any pathways, they have two temporary booths set up advertising the experience, with staff selling tickets / offering information.



Other Bits
Food options didn't seem great, both looking not fabulous and being quite expensive. Merch was respectfully priced and varied though, as I've come to expect from Merlin.

The park never got as busy as I feared, so I managed a few re-rides and to just mooch round the park (not bothering with some of the bog standard rides, like Wolf Legend). The long day and heat meant I didn't stay till closing, missing out on potential dusk / night time rides. Not ideal, but equally I wasn't that fussed by riding Oblivio or Raptor at night.

Final Thoughts
Gardaland is a park. Obviously it does the job for the region and attracts people. And the wider resort (Sealife, Water park, etc) attracts people in appropriately. But viewing it as an international theme park, it doesn't offer anything new or different. It's just a theme park which happens to be by a lake. I guess you could argue it suffers from the Merlin copy and paste fate, but I didn't find myself disliking Heide Park, which arguably suffers the same issue.

I found myself thinking the park doesn't really have a headline attraction. There's obviously big rides, but none of them feel like the killer attraction. Jumanji probably comes closest right now.
The park could really do with a launch coaster, and I think that would hit the spot. It doesn't have to a big thrill one either, it could easily be a more family one. Whether something like MecaLodon, (a longer) Mahuka or an Intamin straddle coaster, that would really hit the spot.

But yeah, was nice to tick Gardaland off; probably the last 'major' European theme park I had to visit. But I'm in no way itching to return any time soon...


Coming soon...death-defying at MovieLand...