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The Great Honeymoon Trip Recap Part One! All About Our Italian Parks Roadtrip
77 Plays2 days ago
This week it's just the newlyweds Allison and Mike, recapping the Italian roadtrip portion of the honeymoon! We hit nine parks around Italy, plus plenty of time for sightseeing, as it was both of our first visits to the country. We go through our entire itinerary and share how everything went for us!
A BIG shoutout to our Patreon subscribers! Much love to Chris, Jeff, Chad, Adam, and Alexander for the support! Check out https://www.patreon.com/c/InvertedCreative if you want to learn more!
Mike's Instagram where he has a tonight of story highlights of the trip: https://www.instagram.com/coaster_mullet/
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Transcript
Introduction and Return of Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
You are listening to the Inverted Creative Podcast. I'm Allison. I'm Brian. And I'm Jen.
00:00:16
Speaker
We're back.
00:00:21
Speaker
And then you say nothing. I say nothing. i thought you i thought you had more to say. No, that was all I had to start it. Um...
Honeymoon Adventures and Park Visits
00:00:30
Speaker
We are ah back from our honeymoon. Today it is just me and Mike recording. We have a nice recap plan for, at least for this one, most of the parks that we hit.
00:00:42
Speaker
What, 10 out of 14 parks or something like that? Something like that. we We were a little ourselves on our trip. And I know I think in the wedding mini-sode thing, we kind of went through everything that we were planning on doing.
00:00:59
Speaker
And we hit absolutely everything we were planning on doing. Yes, we did. And then some.
00:01:08
Speaker
But before we get too much into that, um we got back very late Wednesday, very early Thursday. We walked in the door at 1 a.m. Thursday morning. And then woke up a few hours later to go to work.
00:01:24
Speaker
And we have already done another trip since then.
00:01:30
Speaker
Because we we do not sit still for very long. Nope.
Holiday World Visit and Unexpected Encounters
00:01:35
Speaker
um we We did not get Hollywood Nights tickets this year very intentionally because we weren't sure how we would be feeling after the honeymoon. You know, being 36 hours after we landed or something like that.
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, we didn't even try to get tickets for it. But what we did decide to do is show up at Holiday World for the day and see all of our friends. Yep. And get an accidental trimless. We told very few of them that we were even coming down. And then, yeah, like you were just saying, we get there and get a text from one of our friends.
00:02:09
Speaker
Oh, hey, did you know that Voyage is still running trimless? Them not knowing that we're in the park. In line like what three or four people from getting on.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah something like that. So still got a nice trimless ride without going to Hollywood Nights. Yep. Still got like four or five voyage rides. I think you got four I got five.
00:02:31
Speaker
Something like that. And we did Legend, Raven, Thunderbird.
00:02:39
Speaker
Gobbler Getaway twice. Yeah we did Gobbler Getaway twice. With two different groups of people. Yep. And then right after we got off Gobbler Getaway, we got invited to ride Gobbler Getaway again. And I'm like, I'm good for now. Yeah, we already did it.
00:02:56
Speaker
Again. um Got to see a lot of um previous guests on the podcast. um let's see chris from recently um alex who was rides and bites he was one of the earliest episodes that we did um nessa um i fangirled over riley from that summit a little bit he also told very few people who was going to be there yeah we get we get home from dinner friday and i'm just flipping through instagram and
00:03:29
Speaker
And um I start seeing people post pictures where I'm like, I run upstairs and like, Allison, did you know Riley's at Hollywood Nights? She's like, wait, what? I'm like, yeah, look at all these pictures.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, so that was an unexpected a little surprise. We got to hang out with him for a little while. Yeah. Awesome guy.
00:03:52
Speaker
ah People kept asking if they were going to see us at ART and we're like, nope, we out of here. Yep. We had more important things to go do. Like get a plus one in Owensboro? Yeah, like drive 45 minutes to the newly opened Maui's FEC in Owensboro to ride yet another sbf Visa spinner. Because we didn't do enough of those recently.
00:04:17
Speaker
Of course not. We'll get into can never get enough of them. And then we stayed in what, Corridon, whatever. Yeah, Corridon. and went to Kentucky. You'll know, you'll know Corey did for the now may it rest rest in peace, but drugs.
00:04:37
Speaker
I never got to go. Same. John Mike talked very highly of it, but I never did get to visit but drugs before it closed. Yeah. Well, at least we still have a, I forget what it's called Uranus. Uranus. Uranus Fudge Factory. Yeah. Thank you for visiting Uranus.
00:04:56
Speaker
Can we pack your fudge in Uranus? What a wild place. It it really is. But yeah, we went to a Kentucky Kingdom this year. We both have ah season passes now for there. Yeah, we literally got home from there as of recording about.
00:05:15
Speaker
Hour ago. Half hour ago. Yeah. So we got a nice nice little ride on the new Flying Fox. Very fun ride. Yeah. it's very i think the It's very forceful for what it is. Yeah. I think it's very similar ride-wise to Dragonflyer.
00:05:37
Speaker
Different layout, but it's it's a great ride. Yeah, I enjoyed it. ah hung out with Chris and Alex a little more, and got a quick got quick rides on most rides there.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah, I forgot how good Storm Chaser, now Wind Chaser, Yeah, it was very aggressive. Yeah, that thing was running very well, and that the airtime is just so aggressive.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah. Especially for the size. it's very what We didn't ride it, but it's very similar to a Lightning Run. Yeah. Where that thing's not very big, but that's it's very aggressive.
00:06:17
Speaker
We tried twice to ride Lightning Run. Yeah, first time it was down, second time it just had a line. and were We were just kind of ready to get home. None of the coasters that have two trains were running two trains.
00:06:30
Speaker
So, figured it was a good time to just get out and go back another day. Yeah. You know, we're hour and a half away whatever. Half season passes.
00:06:41
Speaker
yeah Have someone who lives eight minutes from there. yes So we will be back.
Honeymoon Travel Itinerary
00:06:50
Speaker
But now we get to talk about a lot of parks all at once. We had a very us itinerary for the honeymoon and involved, what, nine flights? Two, three...
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah, nine flights. Yep. Three over, three back, and three while in Europe. Yep. um No delays or no major delays or anything.
00:07:21
Speaker
only flight that really had a delay was the one from leaving Helsinki, coming home, that we sat on the sat on the plane for like 35, 40 minutes waiting for to load bags. Yeah, that's true.
00:07:36
Speaker
Like that was about it. um We were worried about a rail strike in Rome, too, but that ended up happening like two days after we were there. Yeah. All in all, it went very smoothly.
00:07:52
Speaker
um So first thing is we landed, well, we did our transatlantic and then went from Helsinki to Stockholm and we had an evening in Stockholm. So naturally, what do we do but go to Groniland? Yeah.
00:08:04
Speaker
And you're you're leaving out the the wonderful chilies we had in Chicago before our transatlantic? Yeah, we housed some chilies. We had like a six-hour layover in Chicago. Yeah.
00:08:16
Speaker
It was one of those where we probably could have gone to Great America for like an hour. and but do we really want to go out and get all sweaty and yeah then get on a plane for eight and a half hours?
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah. ah No EES issues. I know that was a concern too before going. Yeah, they questioned me a little bit, but then knowing that you were traveling with me, you just walked up. They basically did the fingerprints, checked your passport, and you were gone.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yep. So thank you for taking the brunt of that for me. It helps to have all the flight info and all that. Yeah. All the hotels and yeah was a lot of quote It was a lot of questioning.
00:09:00
Speaker
They didn't even ask for the hotels. They just asked for all our flight info to see that we were flying to Stockholm and that we were leaving Stockholm. Yep. And then we're flying back to Stockholm and then leaving Stockholm.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah. Nice and confusing with all the flights that we had.
00:09:18
Speaker
But Gronoland.
00:09:22
Speaker
Gronoland reminded me very much of Indiana Beach. Yeah. With how just all the rides are built on top of each other. And it's right on the water. Except for it's actually a ah much better park.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah. We took a whole lot of public transportation there. Which was kind of stressful. Trying to figure out what the right ones were. We did trains and buses. I guess was buses. Which if you've ever flown to Stockholm...
00:09:55
Speaker
You will have heard of our Lord and Savior, Arlanda Express. It is literally advertised everywhere. But it was a nice, quick, easy train ride.
00:10:07
Speaker
was a little frightening. Yeah, was a little expensive, but it was a direct a direct line versus a local line. Yeah. So you took it straight into the city center.
00:10:20
Speaker
missed one coming back and ran for the train, and then it left as we were about to get there yeah yeah so we took the arlanda express and then got on a tram which literally it dropped us off in front of the abba museum which is right next to grunland yep got our tickets thanks to our ace membership Yeah, that was is nice and easy. We walked up to the front gate because we didn't know where to go.
00:10:49
Speaker
and as soon as we mentioned Ace, they knew ah exactly where to send people. So it's nice that they were very knowledgeable about it. Yeah. um And yeah, when we went up to the ticket booth, they knew exactly what they were looking at and made it nice and easy for us.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:08
Speaker
don't even remember the exact order. We don't got to go through everything. So we, when we got to... Groniland, we started with the most terrifying, the most
Sightseeing in Rome
00:11:21
Speaker
thrilling roller coaster that park has.
00:11:28
Speaker
It is their Fiesta Express called Tough Tough Taggett. I forgot that's what we started on. Yes. Yeah, we got the kids out of the way first.
00:11:41
Speaker
I know exactly what order we went. Yeah, i'm mean I mean, have it all written down, but we also don't want to record for two and a half hours today. um We did have to... I was trying to get a milestone on a very specific coaster at Gruneland.
00:11:55
Speaker
So I had Yeah, I heard that coaster was... I heard your milestone was pretty insane. It was pretty insane at Gruneland, actually. Yes. Had to do it for the meme.
00:12:08
Speaker
um And then after we rode insane, we went and rode Twister. Oh, we got to actually talk about insane for a second. Do we? Yeah. Because the best way to describe that ride is a car crash in the best of ways.
00:12:22
Speaker
Like, I've never felt so much ejector into my waist. Yeah, the way it throws you into the vests on that is, to be honest, insane.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yeah. and I mean, you literally you come into the brake run upside down. Yeah. Yeah. Very quickly. Yes. It was honestly very fun.
00:12:50
Speaker
was an insane milestone. That was number 750 for me. Very early in the trip.
00:12:59
Speaker
Then we rode Twister. Which is, think a little bit older Gravity Group. think like 2010, 2011.
00:13:12
Speaker
That is like the most compact gravity group I've seen. It's not very tall. But because of using the Timberliners, it has some very sharp corners.
00:13:26
Speaker
It's very similar to like if you combined. i can't remember the name of it now. The shuttle coaster. Yeah.
00:13:43
Speaker
Why can't I remember that now? ZDTs. ZDTs. I'm looking it up right now. As I said it already, switchback. That's it. It's very much like if you combine switchback with boardwalk bullet.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, and I kept thinking boardwalk bullet. It's just such a tight, tight layout that goes over itself many times. Yeah, and they say, like, don't put your hands up, and they mean it. Yeah, but it's very much like switchback, whereas it has the very tight turns and uses the timber liners.
00:14:18
Speaker
So it was a lot of fun. It was very fun. It was definitely a ah surprise. Yeah. um And then we rode the final coaster there, Monster.
00:14:29
Speaker
I loved Monster. Yeah, Monster was a lot of fun. Once again, very compact. lot of foot shoppers. It was one of the better like of the smaller B&Ms.
00:14:43
Speaker
Which there aren't many.
00:14:47
Speaker
But I'd put it, I mean, like it's better than Great Bear. I'm sure that'll be a hot take for some people. But I really enjoyed it.
00:14:58
Speaker
So I think we got two rides on Monster because there was just no line. So we're like, all right, we'll just do a front row and a back row ride. Yep. Yep. And then we... Took the Orlando Express back up to Stockholm.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yep. um Stayed in the terminal. It's very... ah Super convenient. We stayed there on our way back, too. Mm-hmm. Very specifically stayed in the terminal because the next morning we had a 7 a.m. flight to Rome.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah. Which... That was probably the best flight of the trip on... Was it Norwegian? Yeah. We were supposed to be in the road directly behind the exit.
00:15:38
Speaker
And we get on. They're like, oh, we have an ex empty exit row. Would you like to move up? Oh, don't mind if I do. Yeah. And then there was nobody between us.
00:15:48
Speaker
Got to spread out a little bit. That's where Frontier would have been. Hey, we have this empty exit row. For $100, we'll let you move up here. Yeah. Very comfortable flight.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, it was very, very nice. I think, what, two-hour flight or so? Yeah, it was like two and a half, maybe. Yeah. that's everything Wasn't anything too crazy. Yeah.
00:16:13
Speaker
I actually slept on that flight. That never happens. Yeah. I think we both slept a little bit just because was such an early wake-up call.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah. ah So we had a sightseeing day in Rome. We took the Leonardo da Vinci express, not the Orlando express, yeah um, into Rome.
00:16:36
Speaker
Uh, we had a hotel right by the train station. So we were able to drop our bags off and then proceed to walk 13 and a half miles around the city.
00:16:47
Speaker
We, uh, we didn't book anything in advance cause like any tours or anything, we didn't know where we were going to be when we didn't really want to like limit ourselves. so we just kind of hit lot the sites um so we just kind of hit a lot of the sites Trevi Fountain, Pantheon. so let's see. off Off the top of my head, we started... Well, we went and saw the beautiful McDonald's in the the piazza in Despaña. The one that has statues on the inside of it. and
00:17:22
Speaker
Yeah. It was very busy too. Then we went and saw the... Spanish steps. Yeah, the Spanish steps. I was trying to think of what they were if they were called something special. No, they're just the Spanish steps. Yeah. um Went over, saw the Trevi Fountain.
00:17:39
Speaker
That was neat. Yeah, we did not like pay the extra two euro or whatever to go to the front. and tos You were able to get close enough and didn't really need to do the extra.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah. It was very busy over there. Yeah. This is Saturday in Rome. yeah um then we walked over got a rain ride on pantheon yeah it's the only rain like of the entire trip it started just pouring as we're walking over there yeah but didn't last long no so that was that was nice um let's see we went and saw i don't remember what that one castle was we saw yeah i don't remember it was right by the vatican
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, going towards the Vatican. Yeah, we went to Vatican City.
00:18:29
Speaker
Briefly considered getting a tour of, you know, Sistine Chapel and Peter's. Then we saw how much it was and how long the line was. Yeah. I came prepared with a dress to put on over my clothes. It's the castle of Sant'Angelo.
00:18:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
00:18:49
Speaker
Um...
00:18:51
Speaker
Basically, when when we were walking around, we knew like the big landmarks to see. But also, you know on Google Maps, there's the little symbol that pops up over different landmarks.
00:19:06
Speaker
I was basically just picking those as I saw them and just walking towards them. Yeah, a lot of basilicas with a lot of steps. Yeah.
00:19:18
Speaker
God, what was, we went, after we went to the Vatican, we walked, where were we walking towards? I think the forum. I think we're kind of vaguely making our way over to the forum. Yeah. And we passed this just massive, don't remember what it was.
00:19:42
Speaker
don't even, it's,
00:19:48
Speaker
Trying to figure out what that building was called. Yeah. you're You're talking about this one? Yeah. Yeah. Once again, we considered going up into it, but then we saw the line to get just up there.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah. But directly behind it, there was a another basilica. I don't even know how many steps we had to go up to get there. Yeah. Took a breather halfway up.
00:20:17
Speaker
yeah that was that was a trek yeah and then went back down those and then went back up another set of stairs right next to it to go the other set was at least more of a ramp yeah um but that i did find out later on that church was built or that basilica was built like sometime in the 1200s yeah so that was very cool to see um yeah forum was next Yeah, because we walked through the ah Piazza del Campadolio. I don't even know how you say that.
00:20:55
Speaker
We don't speak enough Italian. I'm just tracking it on ah on Google Maps as we kind of talk about it. Yeah, so we walked through really cool little piazza.
00:21:08
Speaker
Some very cool buildings around it. Yeah, then that led us to the forum. Yeah, that was very cool.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yep. And then from there, I went to the Coliseum. Yes, we did. Again, looked at getting tickets while we were there. was kind of pointless.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah. It looked like when I looked, tickets for the Coliseum were sold out for like the next three weeks. Yeah. So there was no chance of us actually getting tickets for that day of. Yeah.
00:21:44
Speaker
um so from the coliseum we had not had an actual meal yet at that point um and it was like four o'clock and we were desperate for food
00:21:55
Speaker
i don't remember where we ended up but it was kind of a hole in the wall place served pasta on paper plates and it was absolutely delicious uh pomodorium or pomodorum yeah that sounds right on the via cavour I got a lemon pasta that was amazing.
00:22:17
Speaker
Devoured it. Yeah, I got a cacao pepe. Yeah. and it was quite delicious. The only one of that I got on the trip. We did very good for like the first most, like probably the first like two thirds of Italy trying just different things.
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah. Like we were in Rome, we made sure to have something different every time. Yeah. um after the After that, we were making our way back to check into the hotel.
00:22:50
Speaker
um
00:22:54
Speaker
Walked through some random protest by the train station. Yeah. I don't even remember what that was.
00:23:03
Speaker
don't even remember. it was It was very interesting to see the police presence there. Yeah, the police were just... It wasn't like they were arguing with anybody that was part of it. They just kind of... They were there almost more as security.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah. Make sure that they weren't doing anything stupid to anybody else and make sure nobody else was doing anything stupid to mess with them. Yeah. So... Got our first gelato shortly after that.
00:23:34
Speaker
Yeah. Delicious. Delicious. Yeah, very good. very We did not have nearly enough tilato on the trip. um And then we went out for two dinners.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, we went to this little looks like a little family owned restaurant. You got the just like the Pomodoro.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah, spaghetti Pomodoro. yeah I got the first of many Carbonaras. He quickly worked quickly learned what his favorite is. I noticed a lot more of the sit-down Italian like restaurants in Italy.
00:24:14
Speaker
They will bring you all kinds of free stuff. it's like bread Bread and desserts. Yeah. they brought First, they brought bruschetta, which you ate both of them.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yes. um And then we finished our meal. The meal was delicious. Go pay. And they're like, oh, here, we have ah some lemon sorbetto for you.
00:24:37
Speaker
like oh So good. Okay. I won't say no to that. It just like ah almost like a little shot glass just with a little bit in it and a little spoon. Yep. um And then we went back, hung out at the hotel for a little bit.
00:24:54
Speaker
um And then had second dinner. And then right down the street, there's just like a little just a little hole in the wall. place it was open Place was open until like two in the morning. Yeah.
00:25:07
Speaker
So we went over there I think I got Tagliatelle Bolognese and you got the four cheese gnocchi, I think. Yep.
00:25:19
Speaker
So that was delicious. It's like there is really very little chance of getting a bad meal in Italy. We will get to the one that I have.
00:25:31
Speaker
um um Oh, and we met another ah American who was there by herself and kind of chatted for a little while about seeing italy like it was literally our first day in italy believe um she was very nice got a slice of pizza to go yep there's more of the uh i can't even think of what style that is it's more like a square slice it was very similar to like that thick thicker crust there's a i remember what kind it was but can't think of the name right now it was good um
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, we walked 30,000 steps that day, by the way. We went out for a little bit more of a walk after that dinner, but didn't really see anything too notable.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah. Next day, we took the train back to the airport where we picked up our rental car the next week. We had a Peugeot 2008. Very nice car. Great car.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that was our ride, like you said, for the next week. Yep. Our Italian stallion. seven We left there, headed on to Zoo Marine, which... One of three for the day. First impressions were not great. Yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
Just pulling up into the parking lot. It really felt like we were about to walk back into Marineland. Yeah. There's just like a faded banner at the entrance. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:05
Speaker
But once we walked in the park, it had a lot of nice theming. um Our first coaster of the day was was a Visa Spinner.
00:27:17
Speaker
No, it was a Wacky Worm, wasn't it or was it? That's right. It was a Wacky Worm. Our first of many Wacky Worms. Yeah, first of many Wacky Worms.
00:27:28
Speaker
now i think I don't know why I thought of Visa Spinner because we didn't ride any Visa Spinners that day. Yeah. But yeah, it was a wacky worm that was formerly themed to a shark.
00:27:38
Speaker
I was so looking forward to the shark theming. I was disappointed. Yeah. It's themed to a dragon. It was fine. Very slow. They did something with it. It was crawling through the top.
00:27:50
Speaker
Yeah. But we almost valleyed it, I think. but I think so. um But this is also where we came across our first spite of the trip.
00:28:02
Speaker
We were very... Not sure if we should go to Zoom Marine because the main draw was the Schwarzkopf. um It had been SBNO last year, but what it was it? Coaster count or log ride? near the Near the end of the year, you started seeing people on coaster count pop up as marking it as ridden.
00:28:19
Speaker
So in there, I did see pictures. It had run at the end of the season. But we get back there. Train's in the station. The train was on the track in the station.
00:28:32
Speaker
But yeah, no sign of life. Like weeds growing through the the track that clearly would have been killed already if it had been running. And the track just looked in like not great shape.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah. But so that was our first first bite of the trip. Yeah. So we paid 25 euro for a wacky worm. Pretty much.
00:28:58
Speaker
um But the next park nearby, and we still don't know if we're ever pronouncing this correctly. I believe it's Shinishita.
00:29:10
Speaker
There's no H in it, but everybody I've heard pronounce it says it with an H. Yeah. um There were like two entrances, and the first one looked very bland, but big. But then we get through to like this gigantic statue entrance or something.
00:29:30
Speaker
don't even know what exactly, but... Something... a trend you will learn as we talk about these parks. A lot of them, when they do theming, it is on a very grand scale.
00:29:43
Speaker
Yeah. Like... A scale that is very hard, like, for pictures and video to really do it justice. Yeah. Um...
00:29:54
Speaker
We essentially got held hostage at the, in the, like their little main street area as they did their, yeah, they did a big opening show.
00:30:06
Speaker
think the park was supposed to open at 11. eleven
00:30:12
Speaker
believe. some I forget. And all the entrance times are bit. show was still going at like 10 after. yeah They did find, and then they finally let everybody out.
00:30:24
Speaker
I will say there ah the park theme song is kind of a banger. It was very, very catchy. It is. Still, I don't remember it now, but I need to listen to it again.
00:30:36
Speaker
The park in general, it very clean, very nice looking. You don't really hear many people talk about it. Yeah. um
00:30:47
Speaker
First coaster we did, it was a mock water coaster. Very well themed. Or Mox Super Splash, I think. Yeah. The little bit bigger version. Yeah.
00:30:58
Speaker
Octium. It was themed to Ancient Rome. Very fitting theme for the area. Yes. So, it was fun. You got a little wet, but not too wet, so... Yeah. um Next, we went back into...
00:31:20
Speaker
It's almost like a little bit of a space-themed area. Yeah, that's the best way to describe it. And road Altair, an Intamin 10 Inversion coaster.
00:31:33
Speaker
But unlike the terrible one at Thorpe Park, this one actually has lap bar only. Yep. And a cable lift.
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah. It is one of the weirdest sensations going through those heartline rolls at the end. With just no restraint over your shoulder. I was riding that thing like a bull, holding on to the side, trying to not fold over sideways through the rolls. Yeah, you kept getting folded over. That was yeah that was funny. Because we ended up doing it twice. We did a front row and a back row. They made you take your glasses off for it. Yeah, that was one of the few times they did make me take my glasses off.
00:32:13
Speaker
Even with the straps. Actually, I think that might be the only ride that we did the whole trip that I had to take my glasses off. I feel like that's right. um Very fun ride. Love the color. there's a little We found a little viewing platform that you can go onto and see a lot of the ride.
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah, it would it lines right up with the loop and the one of the corkscrews. yeah So you kind of got the down-the-barrel corkscrew shot like you can on Kumba.
00:32:44
Speaker
Yeah. Very cool. It's very fun ride. That park is also just like copyright infringement at the park. They were playing Star Wars music. Like dual states. Italy in general. Europe in general feels like copyright infringement at the park. Yeah. and we noticed that it didn't all but We noticed that at Energylandia too. Which we can talk about that later. Yeah. ah Their third coaster that they had. it was very interesting.
00:33:15
Speaker
We knew was zero about it. Yeah, it was an Intamin multi-dimension coaster. was an indoor coaster in the dark. um I won't spoil the ending, but basically it was called Inferno.
00:33:34
Speaker
And from what I gathered off of, there were newspaper articles like as theming in the queue. And it talked about somebody dying in a car crash.
00:33:46
Speaker
And I assume that the theme was like you died and you were on your way to hell. That's about as much as figure. That's kind of what I gathered. I don't know what the actual, if that's the real theme or not, but that's how it came across.
00:34:06
Speaker
So it was a fun ride. it was very well done for the use the space that they had. Yeah. We were going to do their drop tower, which is themed to Indiana Jones, but it was just called Indiana.
00:34:21
Speaker
There's no Jones on there. ah But that was, ah it was down when we went by there. Yeah. They kind of, I think the park opened at 11. That side of the park started opening at like 1230.
00:34:35
Speaker
So
00:34:38
Speaker
it kind of, they staggered it a little bit and we just, we were trying to get out of there early because we then headed on to Magic Land or as Jen would call it, Gay Cat Park.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yep. And it was it was a ah fun park. One of the very first things that we did was stop in the store and make sure that they had plushies to pick up for Jen.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yes, we did. That was acquired along with multiple other purchases of the mascot. And of course, like a lot of, uh, or couple of the parks we did on the trip, we had fast pass.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yep. it very Yeah. We did that three parks in Italy. It was very, it was very useful. Yeah. Mostly for shock. Yeah. We went and we literally walked right on to shock pretty much.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah. We were on the the first train after we walked up there. Yep. Which shock was a lot of fun. it was It was very good. Very punchy launch.
00:35:42
Speaker
Great airtime. Great airtime. I'm not a huge fan of the malware restraints. And they're not. They're comfortable. But they're just so bulky.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah, I was like hugging it the whole time. Yeah, I think as Marcus would say, as how he refers to the Superman ah restraints in New England, the restraints are up to your tits.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yep. Because they're just, they stick so far up, they cover so much of your body. Yeah. But they don't seem to detract from the ride. But that ride is 100% what Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket wishes it was.
00:36:24
Speaker
Whip Wide Walk It. There's a walk it in my pocket. But that is 100% the ride that Rip Ride Rocket wishes it was. Yeah.
00:36:36
Speaker
it It rides so much better than than that thing did. And was so much more fun. Yeah.
00:36:46
Speaker
think the next thing we did was a Vekoma family coaster. Yeah. Dune. Fun. Yeah. Dune. We did a wacky worm. Yeah. There's a wacky worm.
00:36:57
Speaker
We did. That one was. Oh, owen something. Volante. i don't even remember. Octavolante or something. lot of Volante.
00:37:09
Speaker
There were are a lot of Volantes. That was a, ah that Explorer Bruco. Well, that was the Wacky Worm, but the one we did right after that. The one we did right after that was, ah yeah.
00:37:22
Speaker
It was Olendis Volante or something. They seemed to Pirates. It was like a Pirate Oh, the Mine Train. come Yeah, the Mine Train. Yeah, that was the next one we did. um We missed out on one cred there. Yeah. Not for lack of them trying to get it open. It had been open.
00:37:41
Speaker
We walked by, they were testing it, but it we just, we had to get out of there by a certain time to try and get down to our Airbnb on the Amalfi Coast.
00:37:53
Speaker
Yeah. And we just didn't have enough time to ride it. They're getting a new coaster here in the near future, so it'll make it worthwhile to go back. Yeah.
00:38:04
Speaker
Yeah. Before we get into our drive south, um we had a question from one of our Patreon members, Jeff. We love Jeff. Said, is Magic Land worth the hour drive out of Rome?
00:38:19
Speaker
I think you i'd say more like out it'll be more worth it next year. Yeah, when they get another bigger coaster, I think it will. I think right now it probably is. The theming is pretty well done.
00:38:32
Speaker
i was very impressed by the theming there. that They have a They have like a, they called it a 5D dark ride. I don't know what that means. yeah But um unfortunately, it was not open.
00:38:43
Speaker
We did the ah one the cinema thing there, didn't we? No, that was at Cardinal. Okay. This was the one that had like the giant like Egyptian statues.
00:38:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which again, the scale of that part. They're probably 35 feet tall. Yeah. But had great cur interview with them. Yeah, that's the only way you could really give a good scale is by having somebody stand in front of them.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah. But, ah
00:39:14
Speaker
yeah, I'd say it's it's borderline worth it now. In the near future, I think it will be worth it more. Yeah, it just it kind of worked out for us. It was kind of on our route south anyway.
00:39:29
Speaker
i mean, it was more or less on our route south, but adding the other two were just kind of in the area. Yeah. But yeah, that i like people I would recommend that park to anybody. yeah Maybe consider getting the um Magic Pass if it's a busy yeah
00:39:50
Speaker
We definitely would have used that Magic Pass for the ah spinning coaster had it been open. Yeah, we tried to. we got in line and it We got in line and they're like, oh, no, no, no. We're closed.
00:40:02
Speaker
Dang it.
00:40:08
Speaker
So yeah, then we started the, I think it was about a three hour drive okay down to the Amalfi Coast. We stayed in Praiano. Drove through Naples and you were fascinated by Vesuvius.
00:40:22
Speaker
Yeah, I took quite a few pictures when I could. Yeah. We're stuck in toll traffic. It's just not very often that you see something like that where it's a volcano that literally leveled a city.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah, and if we had had more time, we would stopped at Pompeii. Yeah, Pompeii would been... talk about trying work it in. Yeah. It would have been cool to see, but yeah, just not not enough time.
00:40:49
Speaker
Oh, darn. We have to go back. Oh, no. to Twist my arm. Got to go through some wild tunnels on the way down to... had to drive through Positano to get to Priano.
00:41:03
Speaker
um If you don't know Positano, you've probably seen pictures of it. If you've looked at anything about Italy. It's literally just a a city built into the side of a ca cliff, essentially. Yeah.
00:41:16
Speaker
With a beach at the bottom. most windy, narrow roads. Basically, it's like a lane and a half road that you're trying to put two cars through that also has cars parked on one side in some places.
00:41:33
Speaker
Um, you have Italy. The roads of Italy are a lawless place. Yeah. If you have a, very quickly if you have a scooter, you go wherever the hell you want.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yep. Whenever the hell you want, you will get how, how you want. Yeah. They will honk at you to make sure that you give them room to get over. That is, that is the one nice thing they do as like, they come up behind, as they came up along the side of you, they kind of honk to let you know you, they were there.
00:42:03
Speaker
And then as they passed you, like once they got past you, they kind of, they gave it a little beep beep, little toop to honk, just kind of, thank you. Thanks for not hitting me. little toop toop.
00:42:14
Speaker
Yeah, so at least they are, for the most part, they are somewhat courteous. Yes. So it's not like here where you have some of these lane splitters that just fly right through.
00:42:29
Speaker
no they still do that too, to be fair. yeah But, uh, And then you also have buses on those same roads. Yeah. Oh my God. Unnervingly close to the buses. Yeah.
00:42:40
Speaker
But got we survived. Parking was very tight at our Airbnb, but we, we made it happen. and Park against the mountain. And we're like, there's no room. We're literally like, I could barely fit my hand between our car and the car next to us.
00:42:58
Speaker
I squeezed that sucker in there. Yeah, and somehow that other car got out in the morning and we were able to actually like get the car into the spot there. Adjust. Yeah. Had a gorgeous view of the water from our Airbnb.
00:43:13
Speaker
I was obsessed with that balcony. Yeah. um Walked down the street to get some dinner that night to a Soul Cafe, I think it was that one. Bar Soul or something like that. Something like that.
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah, it was delicious. I had lemon ravioli. I think I had carbonara. I wouldn't be so That's where the trend began. Yeah. Had a couple of drinks. I got some tiramisu.
00:43:39
Speaker
and think I had some chocolate ice cream. Oh, so, so nice out.
00:43:46
Speaker
Um, next day we had a boat cruise. Yep. Um, it almost didn't happen. I got a text first thing in the morning from them saying that they were having trouble with the boat.
00:43:58
Speaker
Um, And he kept updating me and he's like, you know, would you like to just be refunded for this and get, you know, day passes to whatever beach that we got picked up from? I'm like, no, we'll just wait and see how the fixing of the boat goes. So got on it like an hour later after, you know, going cliff. Yeah, it little bit late, but yeah, the walk down to the water there was ridiculous.
00:44:27
Speaker
And the whole time we walked down, we're like, we have to go back up all of this. Yeah. Yeah. Got onto the boat, had a ah private two-hour tour, essentially, of the Amalfi Coast. We went slowly on the way down, and our guide pointed out a bunch of different things. Went into a few grottos.
00:44:47
Speaker
um Had some drinks on there. Went down from Prajano through... um even remember the city. Something Del Fuego, Amalfi, Rivaldo. Yeah, there were a bunch of... Basically, he kind of pointed out all the little cities in between Preano and Amalfi. There's so many of them.
00:45:08
Speaker
Yeah. um We got to go swimming very, very briefly. It was very cold. Very cold. were not the water It was very salty. I jumped in. He got a little bit of water in my mouth. I'm like, jeez. Yeah.
00:45:25
Speaker
It was nice. Got a lot of good pictures. Yeah, got a lot of cool pictures. There was like one point where he um offered to take our picture too, so it wasn't just selfies. The language barrier was definitely there to some degree. He did not speak much English. But one thing noticed, not just in not just in ah Italy, but also when we're in Poland, if they didn't speak English, for the most part, they at least understood enough to get by.
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah. Like, I'll bring up our... ah For one of the spots we went in Poland, we parked and ah had to pay for parking when we left. Pull up, the guy the guy speak starts streaking speaking straight Polish to us. I'm like, um English?
00:46:17
Speaker
It's a call ticket. So I give my ticket. Tap. Tell me to tap my card. And just in the most like dry, no emotion, just says one moment waiting for it to process receipt.
00:46:34
Speaker
No, I don't need a receipt. OK, bye bye. Just the most straight, like no emotion, like But hey, you know what? The guy knows enough. He knows enough English to do his job.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yes. And that's kind of how it seems for most of Europe. If they don't speak a lot of it, they at least know keywords or can kind of understand enough to put things together.
00:47:05
Speaker
Or we just don't say anything. Right. That there are a few transactions with basically no talking or just, you know, the minimal Italian that we knew. Learned the word carta very quickly.
00:47:17
Speaker
Yes. God always asks that a lot. um Yeah, after the boat, we got brought brought back up to the same place, and then we had to go back up five million flights of stairs.
00:47:30
Speaker
It was very time-to-day. Yeah, that was fun. Sell a cat on the way up. Got to play with the cat. um
00:47:40
Speaker
Went shopping very briefly. I know I needed a bag for Going to Positano later that day. um think, did we go to the pizza place before going back to the Airbnb? Yeah, the pizza place was lunch that day.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah, because we got back up all the stairs and we're like, what's up? So we had phenomenal pizza. Yeah. um Yeah, we'd just gotten back up all the stairs. We were dying of hunger or looking for places to go. We're like, what about this like Chabonta place? That looks cool. So we go there and then proceed to have the best pizza of our lives.
00:48:12
Speaker
Again, sat outside, view of the water and scooters. um I had a margarita pizza. You had Diavolo. Essentially a pepperoni pizza. Yeah, man mine was essentially a cheese pizza. yeah It's spicy salami instead of yeah pepperoni.
00:48:33
Speaker
Same difference. I will forever compare every single pizza I have to that one I ate right there. Here's ah's a damn good pizza. Yeah. And that was probably my favorite meal I had of the whole trip.
00:48:49
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. Went back, hung out at the Airbnb for a bit. I think I took a nap. think I think I think we showered.
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah. Showered a little laundry, took a nap. um And then went and caught a bus to go over to Positano. And that was an experience in itself.
00:49:13
Speaker
Those buses are terrifying and busy and we weren't sure how it worked. Yeah. it was It was a bit of a hassle just because we had full cell data, which worked almost everywhere else.
00:49:28
Speaker
It did not like, I'm assuming it's probably something to do with the hills. Yeah. It did not like working over in the the Amalfi Coast. Yeah. Which I did buy an eSIM and it ended up working a lot better. So it might just be there wasn't much signal for the original yeah carrier, which is T-Mobile.
00:49:52
Speaker
um May not be a lot of towers that reach over there. Yeah. We rely on a Wi-Fi a lot. Yeah. but But yeah, I know kind of explored the city a little bit.
00:50:05
Speaker
Walked down to the beach. Yep. Walked down to the beach, which had some sorbetto and a lemon. Yep. One weird thing about the beaches, at least in that area. They're actually most of Italy that we saw. They're mostly just gravel.
00:50:19
Speaker
They really aren't very sandy.
00:50:23
Speaker
but Very cool little beach till there for a little while. Um, A lot of it we were just killing time because we had dinner reservations for our nice our one fancy dinner of the trip.
00:50:36
Speaker
Yep. um I still don't know how to pronounce the place. D'Elia or something. It was like D'Aello had a lot of vowels in it. But we had a nice view of Positano from there.
00:50:53
Speaker
I very quickly changed in the bathroom to um an outfit that was more appropriate for dinner. um yep you threw on a a top thrill two button down shirt that i got um and then proceeded to have the most expensive meal of the entire trip yeah um i had a lobster linguine and a glass of wine i did not feel bad getting the glass of wine because had on yours I had a kilogram of steak as a one kilo T-bone steak.
00:51:31
Speaker
It's pretty delicious. He ordered it and um the guy was like, to share, yes? I'm like, no. He laid it on his
00:51:44
Speaker
own. Yeah, that was a solid 100 euro for your dinner. Yeah. Yeah, you... bad you lean We killed that meal. It was so good.
00:51:55
Speaker
All of it was good. But once again, they started with they brought us bread, which was delicious. was all locally locally made. This is definitely one of the places they came around and like would scrape the breadcrumbs off the table.
00:52:09
Speaker
Yeah. wow We made a mess. And then at the end, they brought us a shot, which I know you're still feeling the burn from it. They brought us a shot.
00:52:21
Speaker
They brought us a little a little cookie that had like a little something like marmalade or something with a little bit of chocolate. Just delicious. It was almost like little shortbread cookie.
00:52:32
Speaker
yeah um And then a shot of limoncello. Yeah. I had not had limoncello before. And I also don't do shots well. um It wasn't that bad. but It was for me.
00:52:50
Speaker
You were feeling it. i Oh yeah, I burned.
00:52:55
Speaker
And then, yeah. kind of had to rush a little bit at the end of dinner to make sure we caught the bus because it was the last bus back to Prajano. Which we made it. We had plenty of time, but yeah it's better to get up there early versus have to figure something else out. Yeah, and also make sure we had room to fit on the bus because we almost didn't on the way there.
00:53:18
Speaker
Yeah. Buses were nice and cheap. I think it was three, two 50 or three euro each way per person. You could, you could buy the tickets online or we when we bought our return tickets, you bought them at a little tobacco convenience store. Yeah.
00:53:38
Speaker
Right there in the city. So nice and easy. Yep. um Yeah. Went back. we had made We had a little balcony that we sat out on.
00:53:52
Speaker
i'd i had a beer. We were sitting out there drinking and you were just out there chilling with me. Went inside, watched watch some Zatso Mid, like you said.
00:54:03
Speaker
Called it an early night. We did 56 flights of stairs that day, according to watch. That's right. I wanted to die. was so bad. called it Called it a little bit of an early night because the next morning we got up to go to one of Allison's most anticipated parks.
00:54:27
Speaker
Oh, am I supposed to say that? I thought you might. Zoo Safari for Sonolandia. And it was very out of the way. Yeah. More so than I expected.
00:54:40
Speaker
um so this park was a bucket list for me if you've listened to the podcast enough i know i've talked about it um it is the home of the typo coaster and by that i mean they have a euro fighter coaster but the sign says euro figther and we got there and we did everything else first because um you also were hitting a milestone Yep, so we got there, did a terrible... This wasn't too bad, but Fabry Wild Mouse.
00:55:13
Speaker
um We did a few of those on the trip.
00:55:17
Speaker
They're very unique as you go... The lift hill is broken into two portions to help kind of make it a smaller footprint. So you go up, you take a left, you go up the rest of the way.
00:55:31
Speaker
wasn't too bad. Just a little... wonky um we then did a wacky worm surprise surprise which set me up for number 700 on a ride that I didn't even know existed it was was that Mirage Rosso yep
00:56:03
Speaker
It is Fabry suspended coaster. I'm pretty sure it is the only one in existence right now. um
00:56:17
Speaker
It is three seats wide. Three cars to a train. And honestly, it was not as bad of a ride as I expected.
00:56:31
Speaker
There is one more.
00:56:35
Speaker
in kazakhistan oh kazakhstan however you pronounce it uh called anaconda i see that now um yeah there's no side friction wheels i definitely slammed my head against the restraint once i had no problem with it but yeah the wheels have like a weird lip on the the outer edge that basically acts as the side friction wheel um It's got some very janky transitions.
00:57:06
Speaker
Not a ton, but they weren't the best. and it's got a weird... It almost reminded me of The Beast. Where you come off this mid-course and it's got a helix, but the entire... Like, it's got a nice, long, straight setup to it that the entire straight section is angled down and tilted. Mm-hmm.
00:57:31
Speaker
It's like banked into this helix. So that was fun. It wasn't like the park was not very busy at all. Like there were very few people there. um And when we got up to the ride, there was a sign on there that said four person minimums. We're like, well, crap, we're going have to like sit here and wait for people before we can ride this.
00:57:51
Speaker
Yeah. yeah The op was like, I'll just sit on down. And it just kind of motion for us to sit down and told us to put the bars down. He like stood there for a couple minutes, almost like he was waiting for more people and then walked over and dispatched it. Like, okay.
00:58:08
Speaker
So certainly not the worst, certainly not the worst coaster I've ever been on. was better than my six 50, which was a wacky worm. So, um, yeah, then we did.
00:58:22
Speaker
was think it was another, uh, Zyklon. Yeah. And then that led us to Eurofigther.
00:58:32
Speaker
Yep. um Walked up to the little entrance plaza with the typo in all of its glory and got some pictures with the sign. um Which there was also another sign right below my feet in that same picture with Eurofighter spelled correctly.
00:58:48
Speaker
The sign is in absolutely terrible condition and letters are half missing and falling over. I'm worried that they're to replace that sign soon. But I got my picture with it for now before they fix it and probably fix the typo.
00:59:07
Speaker
But I was very happy. um Had to ride an escalator to get up to the ah station. And that escalator made some horrendous noises. Yeah, that thing was that thing had definitely seen some better days. But yeah.
00:59:22
Speaker
And so after the trip, everyone kept asking me, like, so you got to ride your ah your bucket list typo coaster. Was it good? And I'm like, No. I'm pretty sure the ah the suspended fabric was smoother.
00:59:35
Speaker
Yeah. There are so many kids screaming outside right now. Holy crap. the yes It was a neat little park. There were a lot more people coming in as we left.
00:59:47
Speaker
Yeah. But. um so One of the questions on here from Solar Coaster. Did the typo coaster live up to the hype? Seeing the sign, yes.
01:00:00
Speaker
Actual ride experience. No. It's about what I expected. Yeah. If you've ridden one Eurofighter with OTSRs, you've ridden them all.
01:00:11
Speaker
Yeah. There were some good moments of hang time, but. Yeah. it was It's certainly a ride that exists, and I wrote it just for the sake of the ah typo, because I love typos.
01:00:23
Speaker
um So we slowly, after that, started making our way up to Phosia, which is where we stayed for the night. um that was where We stopped at that beach. Yeah. is it Was that Pognano Amare?
01:00:36
Speaker
Yeah. Which, very interesting space interesting place to visit. we We just kind of picked a place on the map.
01:00:50
Speaker
and park near it and walked over to it i kind of like i'd been looking for things to do like between the park and our airbnb and we left the park earlier than we thought we would anyway so we had some time to kill um say i found this found this kind of area and randomly picked a place on google maps that i saw the name of and went parked there and walked over and it was incredible and Yeah, the city, it's literally built on the edge of a cliff.
01:01:20
Speaker
ah You can see all the rock underneath it. and It's very pretty. And there's another area we're just walking through. Kind of a trend throughout our trip.
01:01:32
Speaker
Yeah. And we're just, I wonder where this goes. Start walking, we find a staircase that goes down onto this area that I can see now. It's called Flat Rock. Oh, that makes sense. And it's just a bunch of It wasn't so much flat. It's a bunch of jagged like rocks all over.
01:01:51
Speaker
But you could walk right down to the edge of it and look down on the water. was very neat.
01:01:59
Speaker
It was gorgeous blue water. Yeah. It went past one of like the cliff areas and you can see all the rock underneath everything. was very cool. Yeah, it was a beautiful, beautiful spot to stop. We just paid like an hour of parking or something and walked over.
01:02:14
Speaker
yeah
01:02:18
Speaker
Got more gelato while we were there. Yeah, we got a little more. Then we drove up to Foggia. Yep. Knew nothing about the city. Yeah. i was just on the way.
01:02:30
Speaker
Found a parking spot literally right outside our Airbnb. Yeah. Very, very cheap is why we... and Well, yeah. It was very inexpensive. It was like 60 bucks for the night.
01:02:41
Speaker
um And it just... It looked very Italian. It was just a very different kind of room. Yeah. It was nice. It worked well.
01:02:52
Speaker
Some weird steps leading up to it that smelled like burnt wood. Doors that went everywhere in the Airbnb. There was a hot tub that wasn't working, but... Yeah. um so This is where we did run into one issue finding dinner. Yeah. A lot of, and we notice this as a trend, a lot of restaurants will be open until, you know, two, three o'clock.
01:03:19
Speaker
And then they'll close for two, three hours, maybe longer. And won't open until at least like 6.30, 7.00. Yeah, and like we kept trying to find places. The first place we went to just didn't seem to exist anymore.
01:03:33
Speaker
um Second one was listed that open at seven and we got there and everything was closed up, but they saw us and like open a little window and said they should be open by around like 730 maybe.
01:03:44
Speaker
Yeah. So we we just wandered around, found another place like when we were in Rome that was just a little slice shop. Got some all right pizza. Yeah. Just to kind of hold us over.
01:03:56
Speaker
Yeah. Just to. Pizzeria Romano or something. Yeah. Something just to kind of hold us over until we actually found where we were going for dinner. We had a very hard time actually deciding anything. Yeah.
01:04:08
Speaker
So we ended up going to a restaurant called Memento. Which is very polarizing between Allison and Yeah. yeah Because I had what I think was the best pasta of my of the trip.
01:04:21
Speaker
And you had what you said was, and I i did try it. It was not good. It was, I think it was called pinza or something. It's like a pizza flatbread. I thought, you know, it's it's Italy. It's a type of pizza that should be fine, right?
01:04:35
Speaker
Oh, the cheese had zero taste. And I felt like I was just chewing on rubber. And I ordered bruschetta. And I never got my bruschetta. Yeah. And then we tried to get our check and the guy just would not look over at us to get his attention to get the check.
01:04:49
Speaker
Yeah. But I had some very good carbonara there. Yeah. You had your favorite carbonara you've had. Yeah. That was the best carbonara of the trip. I think just pasta in general, the trip.
01:05:02
Speaker
Yeah. um Walk around a little bit. It walked around. we got some more gelato. Yeah. um observe the many very interesting vending machines that you'll just randomly find yeah you'll just find a little cutout where there's just a bank of two or three vending machines just kind of nice in the area especially if places aren't open overnight still be able to find a drink or a snack or something yeah um among other things
01:05:35
Speaker
Yes. um Yeah, just walked around, chilled. It was nice. Yeah. Went back, went to bed because the next morning we had a a day, no coasters.
01:05:50
Speaker
So we thought. So we thought, yeah. um We were making our way up to Bologna and our primary stop on that trip was San Marino.
01:06:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So we took the gondola. I knew most about this place from ah Gary, Coasting with Culture. he had He'd done it in Italy trip, and I watched it once we ah decided we were doing Italy.
01:06:15
Speaker
And I saw this video on San Marino. I'm like, this is gorgeous, and it's on our drive. And it's a new country for us. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a city-state that is just surrounded by the rest of Italy.
01:06:29
Speaker
So took a got it basically the majority... Or a good chunk of the city is on top of a mountain. Which you can hike. You can get up there other ways.
01:06:42
Speaker
But we chose to take the cable car. Which very neat. Very quick. Easy. um Found parking right by it.
01:06:52
Speaker
Yep. And then go up and there's this whole old town area. um i think it's so I think it was called Old Town. But they have some like towers up there. Castles, essentially.
01:07:04
Speaker
um i think there's three of them. and we think we only went up to the first one. Yeah, we went to the first one, started towards the second one. We were like, yeah, that's ah that's a long way to go.
01:07:17
Speaker
yeah but gorgeous views of just the surrounding area and the castles kind of overlooking everything. um Stopped and got lunch when we were there.
01:07:28
Speaker
Like on the edge of a cliff, basically. Yeah, one of our, surprisingly, one of our cheaper meals. And it had one of the best views. who um Yeah, we both got and a pizza. It was pretty tasty. Yeah, it better than Memento for me.
01:07:50
Speaker
Yeah. But, you know, that bar is not very high. Yeah, the bar was very low for it. But, ah
01:08:02
Speaker
yeah. Walk around a little bit. Walk around and explore. Yep. And then we continued our drive on to Bologna. And we're getting, we're probably, what, 15, 20 minutes from the Airbnb. We're driving and I look over to the right.
01:08:21
Speaker
like, oh, hey. Cred. I see a coaster.
01:08:27
Speaker
So we're already past the exit. We turn around. We come back. and Go over and start doing some digging once we get over by it. Turns out it's a fair that opens in about two and a half hours.
01:08:42
Speaker
Maybe three hours. Like, okay, cool. Noted. We'll come back to that. So we continue on. Go get checked into the Airbnb. Airbnb. uh airbnb was right around the corner from the train station super convenient um but first we walked over to little did a nice little shopping a nice little shopping trip got some ah shampoo and conditioner since most of the airbnb seemed to be lacking those ah mainly just lacking the conditioner yeah but it was good to have the shampoo too yeah
01:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, so did little first exploration of the area. um Then walked over, hopped on a train, took it into the main city center of Bologna. Mike asked me where I wanted to go, and I'm like, I don't know, wherever the old stuff is. Yeah.
01:09:38
Speaker
So we just, again, i used kind of use the I used the roam method and just found the first thing I saw that had the little symbol. Happened to be this big basilica in a big square in the middle of town.
01:09:52
Speaker
So we walked up there, looked around, saw a lot of things. ah Walked a bunch of little side areas just to explore.
01:10:02
Speaker
Yeah. um
01:10:07
Speaker
Finally. find him biner Yeah. Finally found a place called Ragu. Yeah.
01:10:14
Speaker
It's tiny little place. Yeah, it's just a little ah a little restaurant. It was pretty tasty, though. i got good i got butter sage tortellini or something like that.
01:10:30
Speaker
ah think so. and then I just got like ah some with pasta with ragu sauce on it Or with ragu on it. And it was delicious.
01:10:41
Speaker
So I actually. They had something very unique on their menu. It was called ragu bun. So ended up getting one of those to go.
01:10:53
Speaker
And literally all it was. It was just their. Their ragu. That they put. They put on like burger bun.
01:11:06
Speaker
With a little bit of cheese on top and wrapped it up. Basically a sloppy Joe. Yeah, that's it was very similar kind of texture, but absolutely delicious.
01:11:19
Speaker
um
01:11:21
Speaker
There's just a little hole in the wall kind of spot that I stumbled across when I was looking. I'm like, OK, neither of us can decide what we wanted for dinner. so I'm like, OK, cool. This works.
01:11:32
Speaker
I think we're both just like pasta. we We haven't had pasta in a couple days. We wanted pasta, but we couldn't figure out. We didn't want something crazy expensive. Bologna is kind of, as you pointed out to me, the food capital of Italy. So a lot of the places that have good food are very expensive.
01:11:52
Speaker
Or there were lines. Yeah, or there were lines. or they just yeah So we're like, all right, let's give this a shot. Great decision. Yeah, it worked well. I made a great decision.
01:12:05
Speaker
um And then from there, we kind of, we meandered on. I ate my ragu bun on the road as we walked down to catch a bus to go get a cred.
01:12:21
Speaker
Yep. It was a long, so while we're waiting, the first bus that we're supposed to take never shows up. So that was the start of the fun.
01:12:37
Speaker
Bus finally shows up. We get on. We take it all the way out there. It's probably about 20, 25 minute ride. Yeah. And then like a maybe 10 minute walk over to where the fair was. Yeah.
01:12:49
Speaker
um Go get the cred. It was basic Zyklon. It was fun. It was a plus one. it was like nothing else at that fair though.
01:13:00
Speaker
Yeah. Nothing and nobody. Yeah, it was There were very few people. this is on what? Thursday? no Wednesday. Yeah, this is Wednesday night.
01:13:11
Speaker
So makes sense. um So then we walk back. We looked at walking all the way back to the train station.
01:13:24
Speaker
And then decide, we'll just take the bus. So I buy the bus tickets. Once again, sitting at the bus station. First bus that we're waiting on never shows up.
01:13:38
Speaker
Wait for the second bus. Doesn't show up. Doesn't show up. So we start, once once we get to a minute or so after the time it was supposed to be there. All right, screw this. We're going to walk.
01:13:51
Speaker
So we start walking. And wouldn't you know, as we walk away bus and get just out of sight, the bus 25 shows up and then proceeds to drive right past us.
01:14:07
Speaker
So looking at this now, i look, well, the last train back to the station we're staying by is gone. It's like, well, all right. About 45 euro later,
01:14:24
Speaker
We made it home in a taxi. Yep. so A lot quicker, at least. Yeah, we got Deutsche Bahn by the Italian trains. And buses. And buses.
01:14:38
Speaker
I guess that was the only like really not smooth trip, or part of the trip. Yeah. all the game All in all, Bologna was a good time.
01:14:50
Speaker
um And then that's where our schedule kind of got a little... Like, if you look at our itinerary, we had to double back a lot. um In a perfect world, we would have done Mirabilandia the next day.
01:15:05
Speaker
And then Gardaland and then Milan. um Instead, i was looking at schedules for last year and saw at this time of year, Mirabilandia was only open Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
01:15:16
Speaker
Sure enough, they released their schedule for this year and Mirabilandia would not be open the next day. So we went up to Gardaland the next morning and then we were going to do And then we came back down in the direction of Mirabilandia and stayed there. and We'll get into that too. But we had to like really kind of double back a lot to make Gardaland. we went up, we went north. Then we had to go back south to Mirabilandia. And then back north. then back up north towards Milan.
01:15:45
Speaker
So it was good times. Not ideal. was just a little extra driving though. So next morning we get up, we get on the road right on time. Actually, ah probably a little bit early.
01:15:56
Speaker
um So we're able to make an extra stop. We go and take in the sights of Lake Garda. Gorgeous lake. Yeah, absolutely beautiful.
01:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, like kind of a boardwalk area pretty far down. Got some nice pictures in the mountains. Yeah. It was awesome. Yeah. And drove the net the other five minutes we had remaining to get down to Gardaland.
01:16:23
Speaker
Yep. Which believe gar was Gardaland the one that had free parking. I don't remember. it Yeah, I think I think we're supposed to pay for parking and then just had sign that. Yeah, I think that's the one that we pulled up. Yeah.
01:16:37
Speaker
Enjoy free parking today. Don't mind if I do. Yeah. um but Yeah, we walk it We park.
01:16:49
Speaker
Start walking in The immediate presentation is great. They're doing another entrance show. Oh, even before that. So the the the shop is right by the parking lot.
01:17:02
Speaker
And then you kind of go down a little hill and through a tunnel yeah that goes under the main road. The parking lot and the park are on opposite sides of the road. Kind of like the Southern Tampa in a way.
01:17:16
Speaker
Kind of. But the main like the entry to this tunnel... They have the big G for Gardaland that is kind of holding the bridge up.
01:17:28
Speaker
Yeah. So it's kind of cute. But so you walk under and they have a really nice entryway with a big fountain and a statue in the middle. And kind of to the side, there's a big waterfall with a Gardaland sign.
01:17:41
Speaker
Yeah. We had to go to guest services to get our tickets first. Yeah. So we had an issue buying our tickets. If you try to buy tickets with a U.S. phone number, you'll probably have the same issue.
01:17:54
Speaker
It tries to verify your account and you never actually get the message. So we emailed them, explained the problem. And I said, okay, we'll ah honor the online price.
01:18:06
Speaker
Just bring this email to guest services and you can buy it there. Literally had to forward them the email while standing there and then they printed it and highlighted. Yeah. Interesting system. So, but Got the tickets at the the online rate.
01:18:26
Speaker
Yeah. Then we made our way inside the park. They had the little performers from the little entry show standing inside the park welcoming everybody. um Very good first impressions of that park. Yeah. Great.
01:18:41
Speaker
As soon as we walked up, that that was kind of my first thing I think I put on Instagram. I'm like, This park is already killing it with the first impressions. um So we walked in bought our FastPass for the day, which is super easy to use. They have their own app for the FastPass itself.
01:19:04
Speaker
We just did the one-time use for each ride. Yep, one time each. you just go on, you book it on the app, come up, it uses the NFC to, you just tap it on the turn, the, uh, turnstile. When you go to go through registers, everything. So super nice, super easy. Um,
01:19:23
Speaker
um A lot of the parks in Italy use the turnstiles where they will only let so many people through. So basically they'll put the train the number of people they need for the train up on it, and it'll unlock for that many rotations, and then it locks.
01:19:42
Speaker
yeah And it just it helps them. They don't have to have a grouper. They know that they're not just stacking rows on rows on rows. So it really is a nice system.
01:19:53
Speaker
Yeah. In the right uses. um
01:19:58
Speaker
So our first ride at that park was, and I can't remember for the life of me what the name of it was. was like Fuega de Atlantide or something.
01:20:11
Speaker
a on today Yeah, Fuega de Atlantide. this something It was a water coaster. Yeah. So it's an Intamin water coaster. lot of fun.
01:20:22
Speaker
Biggest surprise. It has two cable lifts. um But a lot of fun. No, you don't really get too wet. Very well. get a little splash. But yeah, very well themed.
01:20:36
Speaker
The scale of the theming, once again, was very good. Yeah, um a lot of fun. um Next, we headed over to Blue Tornado, isn't it? Yeah, the SLC, which in the ride area itself, not a ton of theming.
01:20:59
Speaker
But in within the ah kind of its plaza, had a lot of nice theming.
Theme Park Ride Experiences
01:21:06
Speaker
It was themed to, weirdly enough, I think the U.S. Air Force.
01:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. So, he had kind of like a fighter jet and just some some good theming with that. wasn't bad. had a bonus helix.
01:21:22
Speaker
um Then we went on Mamute, which is a Vekoma mine train. I was confusing it with the Mamute at Tripstrel, I think. Yeah, that John Mike and Nate literally just rode.
01:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, and I kept thinking it was going to be a wooden coaster, and then I was like, why is this a mine train? And then I realized the error of my ways. theme It's themed a woolly mammoth. So it's kind of like a big Thunder Mountain kind of vibe.
01:21:52
Speaker
Had three left hills. Pretty forceful, all things considered. Yeah, it was enjoyable. Yeah, it was a good time. um then we went on to the one of the the kind of key attractions of gardaland oblivion the black hole yep it was a fun ride this is a good dive coaster um nothing special but yeah it's a dive coaster
01:22:30
Speaker
um we did our first yeah we did our first i don't know what it's actually called what the model is but they called it uh flying island that might just be what it's called big intimate the weird big intimate observatory like observation tower um no i didn't even know we had it had one yeah i didn't either until we saw it operating Yeah, I just happened to look over, see the word flying island, and then it had just like dispatched, so I just saw it like going up in the background. So very, very unique, very cool thing to do.
01:23:08
Speaker
Gorgeous views. Holy crap. Yeah. ah You rode a very disappointing drop tower. Yeah. Do not recommend that drop tower.
01:23:18
Speaker
It has like a cap on the top that like I thought there would be theming in it, but no, it's just a box and it just hides your view. And then that was not even a good drop. um we did their 4d cinema which was very well done but we didn't understand a word they were saying because it was all in italian yeah but it was a good time um did the wild mouse next yeah the wild mouse was next well before the wild mouse you had your your fried apples
01:23:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Like, we hadn't really had much to eat, so we got a little snack. I saw some fried apples with gelato. You got... there I got just some churros with Nutella.
01:24:06
Speaker
That's right. ah it was all They were both very delicious. Sat under Shaman and ate those for a little bit. Yeah. So Dragon Rush, the spinner, was the only coaster not on our Fast Pass.
01:24:23
Speaker
But we were able to buy a single use. So we did end up buying one of those. Just because. was like 6 euro or something. yeah It wasn't bad. 6 euro. Who wants to wait in line for a very low capacity wild mouse.
01:24:37
Speaker
So. that was fun. I mean it was your your standard. Wild mouse. It was another Fabry. Yeah. um
01:24:48
Speaker
Next we did. Basically their equivalent. Of a wacky worm. was very long. Yeah. is A lot longer than i expected.
01:25:00
Speaker
But it was. The cars looked like the wacky worm. But it was not was not a wacky worm. It was very long ride. had like three lifts. um
01:25:13
Speaker
And then we did. the Probably the surprise of that park. Shaman.
01:25:24
Speaker
So Shaman is a Vekoma Looper. It's had some some retracking done just to help smooth it out. And it's got the newer style Vekoma trains.
01:25:36
Speaker
But it was.
01:25:40
Speaker
It was just way faster than most of the Vekoma Loopers we've been on. yeah Yeah, we did do front row of that one. Yeah, and you got some had some good forces through the loops.
01:25:51
Speaker
One random ejector hill in there. Yeah, there's a hill right after the second loop that just absolutely ejects you out of your seat. Yeah. At a nice little helix. It was a good time.
01:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, I shockingly enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. um And then we did the final coaster in the park, Raptor.
01:26:17
Speaker
Raptor was a good time. Yeah. Considering it's, I believe that was the first ever wing coaster. It rides pretty well. Yeah. And it's, I guess it makes sense that it was the first wing coaster because it doesn't, it's one of the few that doesn't do the wing over drop.
01:26:34
Speaker
It's just got a straight drop into like an overbank similar to Wild Eagle at Dollywood where it just does a straight drop but it was a lot of fun yeah nice it's very very well themed area like a lot of interaction with the ground and theming elements um so yeah that was a that was a surprise lot better than I expected yep oh we did their um Madhouse Yeah, Become a Madhouse. That was a good time. It's kind of themed to whatever the the character like the the mascot character of the park is.
01:27:16
Speaker
yeah i don't know what its name is, but. Yeah, could not follow along with the story at all. That's normal. But it was a good time.
01:27:27
Speaker
Yeah. Jumanji had not opened all day. Um, we kept watching it never open when we were there. Um, and we had plans to go down the road to movie land park, which is, yeah which is maybe a few minutes two, three miles down the road. If that.
01:27:44
Speaker
Yep. Um, and they have an invertigo clone there and, you know, we have and invertigo at Kings Island. They're like, well, let's try to get another one. Yep. Um, we did not know really anything about the park.
01:27:58
Speaker
Yeah. I get a message earlier in the day from our friend, Keith, um, that tells us or that tells me when you go back to Diabolic, which is the Invertigo model, make sure you do the Jurassic Park ride. I'm like, okay, cool. So we go in, we got there late enough that they gave us, it was like what, three, four euro discount for being.
01:28:25
Speaker
it was like a 15 minute discount. Was it? didn't think of that much. Yeah. So yeah, they gave us a pretty good discount for that. um So we go in, go ride Diabolic, which looks like it's very well taken care of.
01:28:41
Speaker
Trains looked practically brand new. Onboard audio. Yeah, it had onboard audio. it seemed The ride seemed to track pretty well. um And then we went and found the Jurassic Park ride.
01:28:58
Speaker
Pangaea, I think is what it was called. So basically imagine a like antique cars or like the cars that ah they have at Walt Disney World or Disneyland.
01:29:14
Speaker
But there's no track. There's rails kind of kind of like guardrails, but you're literally off-roading.
01:29:24
Speaker
And it was very unexpected. It could sense if you were too close to the side and it would like stop you and then tell you to put it in reverse correct yourself. It would auto reverse it. Like you would just push the gas and it would automatically back you up till it you were far enough back and then stop you.
01:29:39
Speaker
yeah it's very, very neat system. Cause they did very specifically tell you when you got in to like try to stay in the middle because it'll throw off the sensors if you get too close to the edge.
01:29:52
Speaker
Like cool. only happened once. Yeah. Yeah. He was a decent driver.
01:29:58
Speaker
So. But we went into this park. Expecting to just go get Diabolic. And leave. Yeah. Oh we had said. um We were going to like keep checking on Jumanji.
01:30:09
Speaker
Yeah we were going to go back to Jumanji. Yeah. um but We knew about two things I guess. Diabolic and the jet boat. Yep. So.
01:30:22
Speaker
After we did the dinosaur ride, we're like, okay, this park is crazy. Like, let's, I guess let's go try and ride everything else.
01:30:36
Speaker
So we go do, they have like a knockoff studio tour with all these knockoff movies. So we do it. um lot of fun, like very well done.
01:30:49
Speaker
All things considered. Mm-hmm. Um, we did, they have a first Intamin first gen free fall. Theme to not the Hollywood Tower Hotel, but the Hollywood Action Tower.
01:31:07
Speaker
Uh, Holmes Hotel or something. at Yeah, the Holmes Hotel. i school Non-compringed infringement. A lot of fun. Your standard first gen free fall. Good ride. Kyrie, it's not a cred. Mm.
01:31:23
Speaker
um it's a car crash more than cred yeah not that he listens to this no i know but uh then we started trying to make our way down more towards the back of the park yeah and uh walk by the jet yeah went to the jet boat and it was closed so we were kind of bummed we didn't think we were going to get it um
01:31:48
Speaker
Go back. I do. i did some kind of swing ride. Yeah. And like they're kind of looked around. Yeah. They just redid a whole area in the back of the park. And then we thought about doing their monorail.
01:32:01
Speaker
Yeah. Let's let's go do that. Another ride called Magma. Let's go do that. And then we'll get out of here. So as we're walking to Magma, I see people in the jet boat area putting on life fests.
01:32:14
Speaker
So we run up. It's like, oh, it's open. All right. Let's get in line.
01:32:21
Speaker
We did not know what we were necessarily... I knew about the ride, but I did not know everything. um So we got the front two seats right next to the driver.
01:32:36
Speaker
And you have to wear a life vest on this ride. No bags whatsoever. So basically, it's a it's a boat that's powered by two 600-horsepower motors.
01:32:49
Speaker
And it uses the water area from their stunt show. Which I found out all the drivers for the other rides in the park, Magma, the tram tour, and the jet boat are all the stuntmen and women that do the stunt show.
01:33:10
Speaker
So that's kind of fun. it's all the The park's literally kind of run by the stuntmen and women. So that's that's a very unique aspect. But so we go get on the boat and they basically tell you, sit down and hold on.
01:33:25
Speaker
Yep. There are no seat. There's no seatbelts. The boat literally goes airborne at one point. It is one of the wildest theme park experiences I think I've ever had.
01:33:37
Speaker
And it's I don't know. in park commission yeah like it it' not noted It's not an Like, you know, your or
01:33:44
Speaker
it's I don't know if anything will ever top that for just a non-coaster experience.
01:33:54
Speaker
I was very anxious riding it. Yeah, it was. I had the biggest smile on my face. I absolutely loved it. I mean, I loved it too. Sitting next to the driver was an experience too. You got nice and soaked on one side.
01:34:10
Speaker
yeah i got decently wet. which I expected to get a lot more wet than that, but it, yeah it was a good time. um And then we went and did magma, which very, very interesting. They do a lot.
01:34:29
Speaker
They did a lot of making their own stories for these rides. And a lot of it uses the same like areas, like, yeah, almost like a backlot area. Yeah. Some of me do the movie tour roads. Yeah.
01:34:42
Speaker
So, which is very interesting. Yeah, so it was a very, very neat ride. It uses like a big like Jeep kind of vehicle, big off-roading vehicle. um Yeah, it was a lot of fun um there was this In the road that we were in, there was a space next to me and then another two people. And at one point, they like moved over closer to me because we look over and see these just like giant pipes facing right towards us.
01:35:11
Speaker
we're like, oh, shoot. We know what's about to happen. Sure enough, wall of water comes out at us. um There was no escaping it whatsoever. ah My butt was soaked. My entire left side was soaked. And I was sitting almost to the right side. And my entire right side was soaked from the other ride. So we were we we were even.
01:35:31
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah, that was quite an experience, too. There was a cool like drop element on it. Yeah. um Wild time. The only ride that we found out after the fact we missed, I guess there's some kind of submarine ride that we did not know about. We walked right past it, but didn't realize it was a ride.
01:35:55
Speaker
I saw that it was like Kingsman themed. Yeah. But, you know not actually Kingsman.
01:36:03
Speaker
But yeah, it was, it is the most wild ride. theme park i've ever been to yeah we stayed until close i had uh i had some european friends that literally described it as uh the petrol park because of all the the ride all the the vehicles that they use in that park which very accurate description yeah We're walking towards the exit and there's a guy in a Batman costume and a lot of random characters. Continuing the trend of copyright infringement. Yeah, there was a couple of Star Wars or like Jedi or something. Yeah, but it was it was a very... i think that was the most surprising park of the trip.
01:36:48
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. We expected to be incredibly... Yeah. Probably for me to answer Sarah's question, she it asked, what was your favorite what it What park in Italy was your favorite?
01:37:04
Speaker
I think that might have been my favorite park in Italy. It was for me too. That was definitely my favorite park day in Italy. Yeah. Because. who went to Gardaland and Movie Land was great. Yeah, Gardaland was a great time.
01:37:17
Speaker
I've heard a lot of people say, have issues with it, but I had, and it could be the Fast Pass helped a lot. Yeah. But i had a great time there. then combining that with Movie Land.
01:37:29
Speaker
I would go back to movie land in a heartbeat. Yeah. And we have already talked about going back to movie. Yeah. um And movie land, it almost had it its own little like city walk area.
01:37:43
Speaker
There's a very clear Margaritaville rip off right there and a very clear hard rock hotel or hard rock cafe rip off. They also had a medieval times there too.
01:37:55
Speaker
Not a ripoff, like just straight up medieval times. So it was a very unique little park area. um Yeah, it was a lot of it was a lot of fun.
01:38:08
Speaker
Yeah, very cool. So that night we drove down and we stayed in the town of Imola.
01:38:17
Speaker
um
01:38:21
Speaker
And one of the cool things we did In Imola, there's an F1 circuit.
Visit to Imola F1 Circuit and Ayrton Senna Tribute
01:38:27
Speaker
um It's literally Ferrari's home circuit.
01:38:32
Speaker
it's It's named after Enzo and Dino Ferrari at this point. But inside of the the track is literally just a public park.
01:38:47
Speaker
So... When we got down into town, it it was starting to get, it was mostly dark, but it was still a little bit light out. So we, we drove over and parked right near the track and kind of walked through and checked out part of the park.
01:39:07
Speaker
Actually, we checked out a good amount of the park. Yeah. But ah for anybody that is an F1 fan, they I'm sure they have heard the name of Ayrton Senna.
01:39:19
Speaker
He, I believe it was, i can't even remember what year it was. It was over, i think it was in the nineties. He passed away at that track. It was 1994. So over 30 years ago, he passed away while racing at that track.
01:39:40
Speaker
And in the infield, there's a nice memorial statue for him. And the one, the the catch fence around the track near where this memorial is, or the statue, has just turned into a giant memorial to him.
01:40:00
Speaker
Where people have brought... all kinds of ah Brazilian flags because he was from Brazil or just flags from all over the world and just hung them on this fence or little signs, hats, just all kinds of little mementos that people have brought just to leave as a kind of like a tribute to him.
01:40:27
Speaker
I know you knew you knew nothing about it going into it. So it's very, yeah. I'd seen some pictures. So it was very cool to see your reaction so just seeing this, just this wall of memorabilia yeah and just random stuff that people have just brought to bring to honor him.
01:40:49
Speaker
But like it was neat. You could see a lot of people had written dates of when they dropped things off there. And some of them were from just like a couple weeks earlier. So even 30-something years later, people are still coming out to visit it and bring things.
01:41:06
Speaker
So very cool spot. um It's very moving. Yeah. it' very is ah It's something you don't see very often.
01:41:19
Speaker
um But yeah, so then we continued walking on, got up by the the main stretch, kind of by the main paddock buildings and It was very neat to see.
01:41:32
Speaker
um We did come back the next morning, um which was cool. the They had some kind of on-track event the next day.
01:41:42
Speaker
So there was a marshal right by the starting line loading some of his stuff in and out of the track. So they had one of the big gates open. So we're standing there kind of walk looking. He kind of motions for us to tell us, yeah, if you want to walk out here, come on come on and walk out real quick.
01:42:00
Speaker
So we got to actually step out on pit lane and see the track from out there. So that was very cool. Yeah. It was very brief, but definitely cool. Yeah. We got to go out, step out there for a few, take a couple pictures.
01:42:12
Speaker
Um, something very few people get to do. Yeah. So just right place, right time. Cause when we walked by that a little bit later, that gate was it was closed up. Yeah.
01:42:23
Speaker
So, um, Yeah, we didn't do any kind of tour or anything at that track. But it was neat to just get to kind of walk around.
01:42:35
Speaker
Yeah. Other than areas actually on the track, you can pretty much walk around the entire outside of that track. Because it's all just public land. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
01:42:48
Speaker
Yeah. ah We stayed not too far away.
01:42:53
Speaker
I basically did their equivalent of DoorDash that night. got us We got into the room kind of late, so got us some pizza and some pasta.
01:43:05
Speaker
Was that the night that they needed us to be there by a certain time and we were trying to there? No, that was the next night. Okay. But yeah, I ordered...
01:43:18
Speaker
I got some... I remember which which one that was. That was a nice... It felt like a hotel room. yeah It was like air being era it was ah is an Airbnb, but it very much felt like a a hotel.
01:43:29
Speaker
Yeah.
Unique Accommodations and Theobalandia Visit
01:43:30
Speaker
It was a very cool space. I remember that pizza. I had that pizza. Yeah, that was good pizza. And then I had some Tagliotel Bolognese again. Delicious, as usual.
01:43:43
Speaker
um Yeah, got some sleep. Got up the next morning and made our way down to, was it Rimini? Yeah. I believe to go to Theobalandia.
01:43:59
Speaker
um Got in the park. It very much kind of had a feel like Dutch Wonderland, I feel like. Yeah, we both compared it to Dutch Wonderland. The main entryway had a very like castles and knights and dragons feel to it.
01:44:15
Speaker
So yeah, got a few, got a few creds there. Another weird creds. Yeah. ah Some weird mine train mouse. um But we also got to ride what is basically the predecessor to the wacky worm that we all know and love that travels around the world.
01:44:38
Speaker
um basically it was the very first like when you look at it the track style is even the exact same but got the worm train yeah but it very much longer layout actually has some theming to it and yep yeah it is the basically what inspired the traveling wacky worms yeah And like the name for it, I'm not going to try to pronounce it, but it's Italian for Valley of the Gnomes. So there were some like gnome figurines all over the place.
01:45:10
Speaker
It was very neat place to, very neat ride to go on.
Mirabilandia Park Experience
01:45:14
Speaker
Yep. We were in and out in about an hour, if that.
01:45:20
Speaker
But it was a cute little place. Yeah. um
01:45:26
Speaker
And then we made the probably 20 minute drive. Or was it longer? was like 45. Okay. Made the drive to what we considered our worst park of the trip.
01:45:39
Speaker
<unk> Mirabilandia. i had high expectations just because I'd heard so much about Mirabilandia. um Those expectations were not met at all. I was hopeful, but I had also heard a lot of complaints about that park.
01:45:59
Speaker
So I kind of went in with tempered expectations. I also had somebody in a the Seeking the Thrill WhatsApp chat the night before send me a novel with his thoughts on the park because he had not had great visits.
01:46:16
Speaker
um I waited to read it till after we went and I kind of agree with him on a lot of his points. okay
01:46:28
Speaker
but What did we start with there? The first ride we did. Master Tie. Was it Master Tie?
01:46:40
Speaker
Yeah. That's right. cause i Was that the Preston and Barbary? it was the Mobius one. Yeah.
01:46:49
Speaker
Wasn't terrible. Wasn't great. ah We got another fast pass for this park. Yeah. of Didn't necessarily have to have it. We probably could have gotten all the creds without it.
01:47:03
Speaker
We did the unlimited one because we knew there were a couple we wanted rerides on. Yeah. the The top two at that park are by and large, like by a mile, Ice Speed and Katoon.
01:47:17
Speaker
Yeah. The rest of the lineup leaves a lot to be desired. Yeah. They've got a very interesting wild mouse. That wild mouse hurt.
01:47:30
Speaker
Yeah. They've got a powered coaster. Master tie, which janky as all hell. Yeah. um ah They send you through both sides of it, so you get the full cred no matter what. that was nice.
01:47:47
Speaker
um Then they have two kids coasters. Yep. You almost got stuck in one. Yeah. One of them is themed to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which we all need to shame Allison for never seeing.
01:48:01
Speaker
Listen. Tell Nate to add it to our movie list. It's not even a movie. It's a TV show, too. It counts. There was a movie at one point, wasn't there? There was. There you go.
01:48:12
Speaker
But, ah yeah, it was a decent park. Oh, Paw Patrol is the one like they told us to sit together on Yeah, we had sat separate, and then they're like, no, you need to sit together. We're like, okay.
01:48:30
Speaker
Still not as tight of a fit as another park we went to. Yeah. We'll get to that one too early. But, ah yeah, so the three other coasters they have...
01:48:46
Speaker
One of them's a dueling coaster called Desmo race. It's themed Ducati like motorcycles. And it's you race on them. You race the two tracks.
01:48:59
Speaker
um Nowhere near ready to open for the year. Yeah, it was. They have they have a total of 12 cars between the two tracks and they had one on each side with no Like barely any of the plastic covers on them.
01:49:19
Speaker
Which I don't understand how you can have a park that's been open for almost two months at this point. And still be that far from opening one of your main attractions.
01:49:36
Speaker
That's one of the rides that that park is known very well for. And that entire ride is very visible on the park. Like you can go all the way around it. Um, the other ride in that park that was closed, I wasn't too worried about, um, it's Divertical, which is one of the larger Intamin boat water coasters.
01:50:02
Speaker
don't know what they actually call that. yeah.
01:50:07
Speaker
the We walk over there, the water's totally drained. There's not even a boat anywhere on it. But it's also kind of in the water park portion of the the park.
01:50:19
Speaker
So I'm assuming that ride just doesn't open until the water park does for the season. i think someone else kind of can find that after. Yeah, which opens in two weeks. So that's understandable. That one I'm not too mad about.
01:50:30
Speaker
But when one of your marquee attractions isn't even close to being ready for the season this far in, What are you doing? It felt like six. It felt like we were at Six Flags.
01:50:42
Speaker
A lot of that park felt like Six Flags. It was also just very overrun by teenagers. Yeah. Like we went and got food at some place and like I think I saw one other adult in the room.
01:50:54
Speaker
And like Katoon, as good as it is, I've had other people confirm like they will never run more than one train on that. Which is sad because they had one train on the track, one train ready to go in the maintenance bay or on the transfer track, and another train broken down on the maintenance track, like in pieces for re reassembly.
01:51:20
Speaker
So easily our worst part of the debt of the trip. Oh, like I was trying to get a video for the vlog of like the train coming in and I got told I couldn't take a video of that.
01:51:32
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was very weird. Our first ride, I had couple teenage girls next to me that screamed so loud the entire ride, and I could not focus on the ride itself.
01:51:44
Speaker
Yeah. Came back later for a re-ride. I think we sat towards the front for that next one. ah think so. And it was it was a much better ride. Yeah. It was a... Overall, it was a...
01:51:59
Speaker
It was a decent park, but just... talked about You haven't even talked about iSpeed. Yeah. We did not talk about iSpeed. iSpeed is like the saving grace of that park. yeah yeah ah Well, no. I don't know if much can save that park, but I did like iSpeed more than Katoon. Yeah.
01:52:19
Speaker
yeah I think I like Katoon better. Ice Speed was really good, but it has like those hard Intamin restraints. And I definitely slammed my head into it the first ride.
01:52:32
Speaker
Corrected for i the yeah other rides we did. but I really liked Ice Speed. I think I like it more than Maverick. Personally, I think that's what Maverick that's what maverick wishes it was.
01:52:46
Speaker
Here's the thing. maverick like Maverick's a great ride. But when your biggest launch of the ride, you literally get to top speed to take a single turn and immediately trim 30 mile an hour off of it.
01:53:02
Speaker
What's the point of the launch? Just launch to the speed that you want the ride to go at through the rest of the course then. With high speed, you at least get to feel the full speed of that launch throughout the rest of the ride course.
01:53:21
Speaker
Which I thought the ride was great. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. It will probably be in my top 25. I don't remember where I put it. Yeah. We did iSpeed a few times. We waited for front row for one of them.
01:53:35
Speaker
Had to go through the main line to do that. Yeah. Yeah. It was was a good park. Or a good time. park Park's alright. The merch at that park and most of Italy is just not great. Yeah. Yeah.
01:53:49
Speaker
I think there was like one shirt that I liked at Mirabilandia, but by then I was so over that park. I didn't want to buy a shirt for it. Yeah. If I had to choose between movie land and Mirabilandia, I'm choosing movie land all day.
01:54:02
Speaker
Oh yeah. A hundred percent. um So we're staying that night up in the city of Monza, which is just outside of Milan.
01:54:14
Speaker
um So we started the drive up.
Europark Milano Discoveries
01:54:19
Speaker
And we made a stop on the way in Milan at a... I don't even know how you pronounce part of this name.
01:54:30
Speaker
But it's called Europark. It's like Idriscana or something. Yeah, something. Milano. Europark Milano. Yeah, that's probably the easiest way to describe it.
01:54:41
Speaker
It's like Idriscalo or something like that. um We originally wanted to go there... Because they had a Interpark Wild Wind.
01:54:55
Speaker
Which unfortunately closed and was removed last year. so So we had kind of written this park off for a little while. We had kind of planned on not going here. Until we found out that just a few weeks ago.
01:55:11
Speaker
They had a Penfari Looping Coaster show up and get set up and operating. ah A week before we were there or something like that. Like two or two or so weeks. So we like, all right, cool.
01:55:25
Speaker
That's plus three. Let's go. So it's a very interesting setup. It's almost in like a strip mall, which you don't see many of in Europe. It.
01:55:44
Speaker
It had this weird like giant canopy over the center of the park. And then on the left and the right, it had an open space or like an uncovered space, which is where two of the bigger, the two bigger coasters were.
01:55:59
Speaker
So I don't know for sure, but I almost wonder if it operates during the the winter some years and they keep that area that's undercover open.
01:56:11
Speaker
don't know.
01:56:13
Speaker
So RCDB says based on satellite imagery and visitor information as to when roller coasters were present at the park, this park may operate more like a summer fun fair with rides changing each season. Huh?
01:56:25
Speaker
Yeah. have Very much looked like it could open or operate summit some during the winter, just because with this giant canopy, well, no, it could just be so it operates when it rains, who knows?
01:56:40
Speaker
But, uh, Yeah, so we got the first ride we did was a ah Zyklon. And they very clearly say that you have to have at least three people.
01:56:56
Speaker
So there was a a couple that rode in the front. So that meant we had to squeeze in the back. um I am lovingly calling this ride ah tourniquet the ride because we were so wedged in.
01:57:11
Speaker
It was cutting off feeling in my legs and like my legs were going numb because of how wedged in we were. Yeah, it was it was not great. It was an all right ride, but yeah, the the space was not great. No. um And then...
01:57:33
Speaker
We did... we did the Wacky Worm next. Wacky Worm, yeah. um
01:57:40
Speaker
Basic Wacky Worm. i mean Thing to Lion King? Yeah, that's kind of what I gathered. With randomly Snow White and Seven Dwarves in there as well? Yeah.
01:57:51
Speaker
It was very odd. there's also like a rave going on that one too. Yeah, that one that one was interesting. Yeah. um But then we went out to the looping pinfari um called coaster loop there were not even pictures of it on rcdb yet yeah we both submitted some yeah like while standing in line took some pictures and submitted some that one is tourniquet the ride too yep because we were wedged in there almost as bad yeah air horns that they play like or they do as you're going through the loop yeah it was it was a an experience
01:58:29
Speaker
Yeah. um I was not even sure your restraint was locked because it pinned on the shoulders. Yeah, my restraint did not feel like it went down very far, but it was locked. It felt locked.
01:58:41
Speaker
But
01:58:45
Speaker
but yeah, it was ah it was a unique little park. Yeah. It had a lot of flats. Yeah, there were a lot of other things we wanted to ride that looked fun, but we had to get out of there.
01:58:56
Speaker
Yeah, we had to get out of there and get up to our Airbnb by 11. So we had to kind of get out of there and hurry. Yeah.
01:59:08
Speaker
Got lost trying to find the parking for our Airbnb. Yeah, it's very tricky finding some of the parking in these little
01:59:19
Speaker
these little villages. Yeah. Excuse me. But it was a cute little Airbnb. It's a nice little Airbnb. It it worked well.
01:59:31
Speaker
You ordered us some KFC? Yeah. It was kind of mid, but yeah it was food. We were not good at eating in a timely fashion on this trip because we just had so much going on.
01:59:45
Speaker
Yeah. It can be hard to eat when you're on the road, too, sometimes. Yeah. I mean, granted, like the service stations in Italy, so many toll roads in Italy, too. But like the service stations usually had a lot of good options. lot of decent options. Yeah.
02:00:06
Speaker
So.
02:00:08
Speaker
um Kind of early morning, the next morning. Yeah, the next morning we got up, headed over to Monza circuit for a track tour.
Monza Circuit Tour and Reflections on Italy Trip
02:00:25
Speaker
this is ice fan This was this was this was my my part of the trip. um I spent way too much money in the shop. Yeah, you did.
02:00:36
Speaker
And then you went back and spent more money in the shop. Yeah. But this neat tour, we got to go out on the old podium from...
02:00:49
Speaker
After they, where they would win, get the trophy after they won the race and top three. um Got to stand on the podium. Got to stand on the current podium. Got to kind of see, learn a little bit of the history of the track and see some behind the scenes views.
02:01:06
Speaker
Yeah. Went to like, or no, the press room was the one that was. Yeah. Press room was closed. We got to go down to race control. um That was very neat.
02:01:20
Speaker
but did not get to set foot on the track. Nope. So that still made Imola a little bit neater. But we still got to do something cool on the track. Yeah. But for, a believe it was an extra five euros a person, yeah were able to get on a tram that kind of took us for a lap around the track.
02:01:41
Speaker
So that was really neat, getting actually see a track that I've played many many, many, many, many times on video games in person.
02:01:52
Speaker
so Sent pictures from the track to Kyrie. Yeah.
02:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, it was a good time. Yeah, that was your morning. Yeah, that was something that I'd wanted to see for a while. And since we're going to be in the area, we were flying out of Milan to head to Poland, which we'll talk about in the next episode.
02:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, we decided to break this up. and it's um's because Just so much happened. But since we were flying out of Milan, it just made sense to do that on our last day before heading out.
02:02:32
Speaker
Yep. So yeah, I went and Dropped off our rental car at the airport. It was cute little airport. 2,324 kilometers later. Yep. For 1,444 miles.
02:02:46
Speaker
Yeah. We put a lot of mileage on that car.
02:02:52
Speaker
Yeah. it was It was a good car for what we needed, though. Yeah. I enjoyed that car. Yeah. Yeah. it's one of those if if they sold it in the U.S. We'd probably get it. I'd i'd look at one.
02:03:07
Speaker
so yeah
02:03:11
Speaker
well before we break into the next episode um did have a few questions from instagram that were kind of more focused on italy specifically um so i want to hit those before um we wrap up but uh sarah we already got hers uh lam said what were your coaster and non-coaster highlights in italy
02:03:41
Speaker
hmm so for me non-coaster was definitely the the monza tour yeah i think mine was a boat tour on a mall fee yeah That was kind of my splurge and something I really wanted to do. Yeah, that your splurge. The Monza tour was kind of my splurge.
02:04:02
Speaker
um
02:04:05
Speaker
Coasters? um
02:04:11
Speaker
There were definitely some good ones. As much as I did not enjoy the park, ah think Icepeed might be one of them. um And Katoon. Yeah.
02:04:23
Speaker
Altair was actually really high for me. Altair and Raptor were also very good. Yeah. Yeah, you got a shirt for Raptor. They didn't have the shirt in my size.
02:04:38
Speaker
Also, just that beach, the Polygnano Amare, just kind of stopping there and just being absolutely blown away by it. That was cool. Yeah, that was neat. Um, Ethan. So what was your favorite meal you had in Italy?
02:04:54
Speaker
know yours was Chez Bonta. Yep. And you actually kept, Mike kept a list of every pasta or every meal that we had in Italy and kept his rankings list.
02:05:06
Speaker
Yeah. and And that is that, that one is at the top of my list. The Chez Bonta. Yeah. That was still the very top of my list.
02:05:16
Speaker
I thought it was a carbonara. that was the best pasta of the trip okay so yeah all right i guess our recommendation is if you are in positano periano area go to shabanta yeah that's very very nice on a related note gary said will pizza at home ever be the same for you now that you've experienced in italy never no no um ah We were back at work on Thursday, and they had a we had a random client deliver Domino's to us, and I'm like, I miss Italy.
02:05:51
Speaker
Yeah, it was. um I've said a few times, i will forever be chasing the high that I felt while eating that pizza.
02:06:01
Speaker
Granted, and we were also probably just very hungry that day. but Yeah, we had just done like 30 flights of stairs. Yeah. So any food was going to be good, but no, and yeah something about that one just hit.
02:06:15
Speaker
And then books and roller coasters, which Italian park is most worth it and or easiest to get to? Most worth it is movie land. Yeah. um I don't know what the easiest one to get to would be.
02:06:33
Speaker
i'd have to Not Fasanalandia. That was very out of the Fasanalandia was very hard to get to.
02:06:42
Speaker
um
02:06:45
Speaker
probably maybe Gardaland and Moviland I feel like Gardaland is probably easy to get to from the airports yeah and then um just that one two punch of those two parks being right literally miles down the road from each other yeah
02:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, movie land, we definitely, i think, got the most value for our money. Yeah.
02:07:16
Speaker
And I think two hours later, that about covers our Italy portion of the trip.
02:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, I believe so. We did a lot. And we were very tired and then we still went to Poland right after and we will discuss that in the next one.
02:07:35
Speaker
um We're hoping to have a guest on with us for that recording who was with us in Poland.
02:07:47
Speaker
um And we'll talk about the ah surprise that happened to us in Krakow.
02:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, mean. Yeah, I think we'll get to that next time. Yeah. So I think that brings us to the end of our episode. Yeah, but you don't have Jen to say that this week. Yeah, I know. She's currently Europa Park.
02:08:14
Speaker
Shocker. Um, I do want to give a shout out to our unhinged here patrons on our Patreon. Um, so thank you to Chris who we got to see today and, uh, to our newest one, Jeff.
02:08:29
Speaker
He's a big supporter of the podcast. So very grateful for you guys and all of your support for us. I still need to post. I posted a few things in the unhinged here from the trip.
02:08:41
Speaker
Mostly Poland. <unk> Um, Yeah, we're about to go have dinner with some friends. And then I got to edit the episode and post it for the morning.
02:08:54
Speaker
We were supposed to record this a couple days ago, but I was way too tired and and went bed at 930. So.
02:09:02
Speaker
Yup. Yup. But until then, hashtag keep thinking inverted. And we'll see y'all. talk to you again very soon.
02:09:14
Speaker
Bye. Bye, bye. i believe