So to Gardaland. As I alluded to in the Movieland review, Gardaland’s crowds were going to be much worse than the ones at Movieland. The bus was standing room only, like yesterday, delivering guests to the world’s biggest bottleneck at the park entrance.

Oh no, no VR on Shaman… tragic.

First stop: Mammut, the mine train. It’s fun but meandering, like most other mine train coasters. The helix after lift hill number 3 is my highlight, and the whole mountain structure looks great.

30 minute queue - 6.5/10

Oblivion: The Black Hole. Tbh, Oblivion tbh is decent. The tbh part of Oblivion tbh doesn’t work for me visually tbh, but has a great punch on the drop and strong forces in other places. Draggy inversions but some fun forces. Overall, I’d rank it below Krake for my favourite Dive Machines.

45 minute queue - 7.5/10

Also, here’s where the operations started to bug me. Most other Dive Machines could manage a decent throughput, but Oblivion tbh was putting out only one train every two minutes. Italy also has a weird obsession with turnstiles on their rides, which served mostly to highglight how many of your queue spots were being sold to fast-trackers.

Sequoi… oh god no.

It had to happen. I had to ride a Screamin’ Squirrel. I got a lengthy half hour wait to watch the faces of people who probably didn’t want this.

These are the faces of people having a great time!

Oddly enough, not as bad as I feared. The headrush is gross, but it’s only hanging for two seconds at a time. The worst parts are the uncomfortable righting manoeuvres. I’m intrigued by the separate track systems at work on this ride too.

Sequoia Adventure - 4/10

As briefly mentioned, the Vekoma looper, Shaman (formerly Magic Mountain) was running without VR today. As much as I was looking forward to being allowed an opinion on VR, I’m happy to get the +1 and not bother having to reride for the vanilla experience.

As a coaster, it’s jerky but smoother than most of its kind, and very picturesque.

At the back of the park is one of the more impressive wacky worms (Brucomela), which has a lengthy circuit and lots of foliage. Italy just do a good job in kiddie creds, I guess.

Vintage memes

Still just a kiddie cred though

I took a walk back to the main park (after seeing the hideous queue for Kung Fu Panda) and did Raptor. Now I understand why people say this demonstrates the strengths of Wing Riders best. It’s not hugely fast or thrilling, but it feels like an adventurous journey through landscapes with various footchoppers and interactions.

7.5/10

Lunch was had in the dining hall by Blue Tornado. Some kind of chicken and chips, I think. But this was distracting from actually doing Blue Tornado, because I just love SLCs.

<3 <3 <3

I spent the twenty minute queue standing behind a teenage couple sucking each other’s face off. Lovely. Blue Tornado… Jesus. I think I braced myself for El Condor, the supposed worst SLC, but I found this just as bad. Just awful from start to end.

</3 </3 </3

The next ride should have been the borderline cred (which I will maintain is not a cred), Fuga de Atlantide, but I was kind of spited. It’s the first European ride I’ve come across with a “no bags whatsoever” policy, and the row of unguarded bags outside the entrance didn’t give me much hope. Not wanting to pay for a locker or leave my passport and interrail pass unattended, I skipped it.

SPITE

Cool dolphins though

Here are some rapids I didn’t bother with

On the way back to the final coaster, I dropped in to look at Ramses, the dark ride shooter. It suffered similar problems to the shooter at Legoland. Not enough immersion or interesting set pieces, I never felt there was good continuity of a theme and fails the “can be enjoyed without shooting” test.

Finally, the Kung-fu Panda spinning mouse coaster. Dear God, it holds a queue. Even by 5pm, I was queueing 75 minutes for it, in blazing sun with no shade. The ride itself was nothing to write home about but smooth at least.

This might be the worst thing I’ve done for a cred

Overall, the park is well kept and mostly scenic. Operations leave something to be desired, with some rides running desperately under capacity.

And with that, Italy came to an end. The next part of the report has no creds, but lots of gorgeous general sightseeing through Switzerland and southern Germany.