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When in Madrid - Part 2: Parque di Atracciones

JamesB

Mega Poster
Hola! Its been a while since I've posted a TR but felt I should do one for this trip.

Transport was pretty straight forward, flew from Gatwick to Madrid (Madrid to Heathrow on the way home). I stayed in a cute hotel in the city centre. The metro and buses makes it easy to get pretty much anywhere you wish to in the city.

Lets crack on with the first park...

Parque Warner Madrid



I had planned to get a bus to the park but ended up missing it by literally a few minutes! So I forked out for a taxi which ended up not being too bad. The park is sort of located in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes outside of the city. The park was pretty quiet, there were quite a few school groups but not a lot else. It was also a scorcher of a day!



Shadows of Arkham

I think this had been recently re-themed due to BGCE opening. The queue was fine, some graffiti and objects here and there. The ride itself was fun, felt a little rougher than other B&M Inverts I've done. The ride kept a reasonably short queue for the whole day despite only running one train.





Superman

Superman has a very dated queue which takes you around the offices of Clark Kent before going into the ride building which resembles a tin shed. The ride and queue could definitely use some love. I found Superman fun if quite rattly in places. Its clearly showing its age. This being my second floorless, I preferred this over Hair Raiser. Only running one train all day which made the queue longer than it needed to be.



Tom y Jerry

Not much to say here, cute theme... shame it only does one circuit!



Correcaminos Bip, Bip

This was a lot taller than I expected! Again well themed and a fun family coaster. I ended up riding it alone as they had just dispatched a train and stuck me on the next one on my own!

Coaster Express

OK... hear me out. I actually really enjoyed this! I had seen the reviews before riding and was expecting a horrid ride. Yes its rattly and rough in places but compared to the ones at BPB its nothing. I found the drops and turns a lot of fun and would have re-rode it if I had had the time. A win for me!



Batman Gotham City Escape

Have posted my review in the construction thread... but I loved this! The launches, hang time and inversions are just sublime. Shot straight into my top 3 after 3 rides. Queue was reasonable all day, though I really think the main queue could use some shade. The pre-show is the thing that holds the queue up but once you are through that there is usually only a short wait to get on the coaster.





Stunt Fall

I feel like I both loved and hated this at the same time. This is super intense and the restraints weren't that comfortable. I went through most the ride bracing myself. I'd say the drops are fun and the rest of the ride felt like a blur!



I also saw the Stunt Show which was fine, nothing impressive. The usual car stunts and tricks. I was confused by the massive lake in the middle of the park, was this previously used for something? It seemed set up for a show but not in use.



Being a quiet day the only restaurant that was open was Fosters, an American chain. I had a decent lunch there. There were plenty of places to refill water bottles around which was good. I think one of my main complaints about the park is there are so many buildings and facades but nothing in them! The park is crying out for a decent dark ride. For some reason the Scooby Doo ride was closed on my visit.



Overall I really enjoyed the park. It being quiet helped with the queues but also made the place feel a bit empty and devoid of atmosphere a bit. Operations were pretty good even if most rides were only running one train. The hosts were pretty hot on filling empty seats.

Final Ride Count:
Shadows of Arkham x 2
Superman x 2
Tom y Jerry
Correcaminos Bip, Bip
Coaster Express
Batman Gotham City Escape x 3
Stunt Fall
Rio Bravo
Hotel Embrujado

Next time... Parque di atracciones
 
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Superman is one of the best floorless coasters (my personal favourite one) and Hair Raiser is one of the worst, so in that respect, you've ridden the whole range.
 
*Holly Willoughby voice* Firstly, are you OK?... Because I'm not, I had to spend a day at Parque di Atracciones!

Parque di Atracciones



It's Friday and there I am thinking it shouldn't be too bad. Its term term and a week day, it will be an enjoyable day for a theme park, right?

The journey to the park was straightforward on the metro. I got off on the stop before and walked around a nice lake before the park opened. I arrived at the nearest entrance to the Metro to find a reasonable crowd waiting for the park to open at 12.

As soon as I got in, I dashed over to...

Abismo



I had done a similar version of this at Linnanmaki and remember it was rough but not awful. When I got to the ride, the queue was stated at 20 mins, by the time I had checked the app it had gone up to 40 minutes. I think it hit 90 minutes pretty soon after! The queue was horrendous as it was full of loud Spanish school kids, many who were queue jumping. Was it worth waiting for? If you enjoy hanging upside and then having your ribs crushed by restraints, then sure?

As has been noted on here before, I'm really surprised they don't check restraints at all. I get its probably checked on a computer but how do they know they are pushed down enough? The capacity of this ride is vile and they really should consider pulling it down and replacing it.

Next up was...

Tarantula



It was at this point that I gave in and brought an online fast pass. Queues across the pass were gross and it was a hot day. I must admit I do like the design of the pass and how you select each ride on your phone and it gives you an entry time.

Tarantula was pretty great, lots of spinning and both horseshoe elements are quite intense. The second time I rode it, I made the mistake of resting my leg against the side of the car and when it hurtled into the end brakes, lets say it was pretty painful! Lesson learnt. Have done Spinball Whizzer the next week, I would say Tarantula is far superior.

It's a real shame the Tarantula dark ride has been abandoned with no signs of reopening, I would love to try it out.

Tornado



Now, I loved Tornado at Sarkanniemi so was interested to see how this compared. Its a decent coaster but didn't wow me like its Scandinavian sibling. I had seen some comments about rattling and head bashing but didn't experience that much. I think the corkscrew was the element that was the closest it came to that. The loops are fun but the rest of the layout is a bit uninspiring. Of course, with usual operations here they were only running one train with an hour queue. Pleased to say I now have the set!

TNT Tren De La Mine

Another gross queue missed and another one train operation. This time, the staff were more focused on chatting than loading the trains. Blows my mind that park management find this acceptable with a 45 minute queue! The coaster is fine, nothing special.

Vertigo

Because I hadn't had enough torture for the day, I rode this! Again a huge queue skipped and poor train dispatching. Whats new? Typical painful wild mouse... next!



That's it for credits, sadly the Paw Patrol coaster was down with maintenance working on it all day and I couldn't face the shame of riding the other kiddie credit on my own! I rode a few flat rides which were fun, La Maquina was incredibly intense and highly recommend!

I didn't hate the park but I didn't love it either. I think had I not brought a fast pass I would have hated it intensely. So many poor operations and closed rides/no shows that could take the burden off queue times.

I feel (again) the park is crying out for a good dark ride. The 4D cinema was closed with no notices up on why this was. There were a lot of buildings that seemed empty/closed up and there were no shows running that day being a week day. A lot of the children's rides were closed too, I guess they only open on 'peak days'?

Ride Count:
Abismo x 2
Tarantula x 2
Tornado x 2
TNT Tren de la Mina
Vertigo
La Maquina
La Jungla
Rotor
Star Flyer
Zeppelin

That's all for my Madrid trip in terms of theme parks... but I will throw in a post bonus about Alton Towers here too as I went the week after! Look forward to that soon!
 
Hey, I’m thinking of visiting these two soon.

With flight times it’s looking like I will have around 5-6 hours on an October Saturday to visit de attractions park. Do you think this will be okay?

Also how was GCE in terms of down time. I’ve heard it’s pretty unreliable.

Cheers
 
Hey, I’m thinking of visiting these two soon.

With flight times it’s looking like I will have around 5-6 hours on an October Saturday to visit de attractions park. Do you think this will be okay?

Also how was GCE in terms of down time. I’ve heard it’s pretty unreliable.

Cheers

I would say 5-6 hours would be fine, you may want to invest in a fast pass depending on queues though. Not sure how busy it would be in October.

I didn't see GCE down at all when I was there so can't really comment on that.
 
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