Associated parks:
None
On TV, billboards, and many metro stops, you can see advertisements for the park, the very common “¿estas echando de menos el parque?”
Beautiful Park, Nice Thrills
As the metro is a more common mode of transportation in Spain, there are two entrances to the park, one parking lot, and one specially made metro stop, where once you get off, you can go left to the zoo, or right to the park. I went on the metro. As we were walking in, my other friend from America asked my friend if she was sure we were going the right way, because all you see is a beautiful forest as you’re walking in, and a relatively small crowd. All the rides are well hidden. We went on a Monday hoping that the lines weren’t gonna be long, and we were lucky. The park doesn’t open until 12 noon, so gives guests plenty of time to get up.
Continue walking and you’ll walk through the gates to Parque de Atracciones de Madrid, and you can buy your tickets and so on.
It cost us 2800 pesetas to enter, but that’s because we had a coupon, that’s about $15 US. The park is divided into La Gran Avenida, Zona de Maquinismo, Zona de Tranquilidad, Zona Infantil, and Zona de Naturaleza. Of course my favorite was Maquinismo.
Unfortunately I don’t know what I did with my park map so everything I’m writing is basically from memory and a couple of notes I jotted down, and I can’t remember some of the names of some of the rides..
As you walk in, on the right is a junior flume ride that’s about 12 feet high I guessed, and you can only ride it if you’re accompanying a child (sucks doesn’t it? :) )
Los Fiordos
Continue walking on the main way and you come across on your left Los Fiordos, a Tidal Wave type ride that’s just about normal as they come. Has a cool entrance, but we walked right in, and I don’t think they unchained 9/10 of the queue. I sat in front seat hoping to get wet wet because I wanted to wake myself up because I was tired. A sharp turn to the left, and you go through a bit of scenery, then turn to the right and up the lift. At the top of the lift, you seem pretty high, and you have a beautiful view of the park. You can see La Lanzadera and El Tornado which are hidden by the trees. They take your picture of course, as they do on many rides at the park, even some flat ones. Overall, you can’t really expect much thrills from these rides, but it’s cool and I think worth a stop if the line’s not long.
For Coasterphobes, there’s nothing to fear, the ride’s a nice little thrill and so not intense.
After that I don’t remember which direction we went but we came upon some bumper cars. We rode it but what can I say, they’re bumper cars. After that we went on a Wild Water Raft ride (I can’t remember the name) but anyways, it’s a fun way to get wet, and has an awesome geyser that shoots up toward the end of the ride, and if the wind is blowing your way, it’s cool. (unfortunately for us it wasn’t :) ) Then we stumbled upon La Maquina
La Maquina
I think this was my favorite ride there. Is just a carnival type ride, a huge wheel that seats about 25 people, that swings and spins, and when it’s timed just right, you get thrown to the maximum height of like 60 ft, you really get that tingle in your stomach as you fall face first, while other times you get thrown up backwards, or to the side. All in all it lasts about 4 minutes which I thought was cool, ‘cuz I didn’t want it to end, and it literally didn’t.
For Coasterphobes, skip this one.. :)
To the left of La Maquina is a Ride called Top-Spin that was closed for inspection. I don’t remember or in fact don’t know the correct name for these but they are termed Gravitron in RCT, so I’m just gonna say it was a Gravitron type ride. After that we walked pass La Lanzadera, a free-fall type ride, but the line looked kinda long so we said we’d stop there a little later. So we continued onto The Ol’ Mine.
The Ol’ Mine
I’ve been on pointless stupid flat rides before, but this one is way down there. Go ahead and skip this if you’re ever here..
7 Picos
A small Wildcat type coaster that’s anything but thrilling, but fun if you’re on it with friends. It seats four people per car. Like many other Wildcats clones, it has the B&M pre-drop after the lift, and then goes into the first drop of about 50 ft or so. At the bottom of the drop.. “Ouch!” I donno which hurt more my back or my neck, then it was up, down, around, up down around, up down around, around, around, and so on and back to the station. Pretty fun like I said if you’re on it to have fun, but if you’re on it expecting thrills, you’ll be disappointed.
For Coasterphobes, not intense at all, besides breaking your back and giving you whiplash, this is a fun, un-intense ride
After that it was back down to La Lanzadera
La Lanzadera
A 200 ft tower with three cars on three sides that seat four people each. When we first passed it, all three cars were running, but by the time we got in line, only one of the cars was running, I asked the guy why and he told me because they didn’t need the other two. (though we waited about 25 minutes to get on, which was by far the longest wait for any of the rides in the park). My friend was nervous about going on so she watched each car and timed it and told me that it was up, wait for 5 seconds, then the drop. The climb was surprisingly fast, and the view was beautiful, and I actually got a bit nervous, but it was all fun. After reaching the top, we were held for about 15 seconds, I laughed at my friend and told her they did that because they knew she was afraid. Anyways, we reached the bottom in about a second and waited for my other friends to ride afterwards.
Coasterphobes, skip this one.
It was a quick drink and candy stop, and we continued on to La Turbina
La Turbina
Expresso type ride that my friend felt too sick to go on (I think she ate too many M&Ms :) ) We loaded immediately, and had to wait about 20 minutes so more people could come on and make the ride worth it I guess. It was still pretty early in the morning and I guessed that others hadn’t reached this area of the park yet. While waiting I found a park map :) I couldn’t find them at the entrance. Anyways the ride got under way and lasted very long like La Maquina which I thought was awesome.
Coasterphobes, this ride looks intimidating, but isn’t intense at all, doesn’t even make you feel queasy or anything, you’re just sitting normal, stuck to your seat, while spinning vertically.
After that we had a quick lunch, pizza. It was pizza, not good, nor bad, just something good enough to prevent us from fainting later in the day.
After that we wanted to relax a bit so we went on some Swings.
(Swings)
I don’t remember the name, or don’t know what the proper name is, but I’m pretty sure you know the Swings I’m talking about. Not counting the fact that we got yelled at by the ride operator on this ride for sitting too close to everyone else (I think something was wrong with him :) ), the ride was very relaxing. Like others, I kept saying to myself I hope this doesn’t end, and it didn’t. The swings lasted about 6 minutes. It’s placed in the middle of a clearing and is extremely beautiful, with plenty of near misses with the trees. A must stop for relaxing if the line’s not long.
Then it was over to La Aserradora.
La Aserradora
Basic flume ride with two drops, but they’re not thrilling at all. The first one is about 20 ft (if that high) and the takes you right beside the Tornado. Then you run for a little while, go up another lift, and this time fall again for about 30 ft where your picture is taken. You turn around again and go through a tunnel and turn around back to the station. Was fun enough, but not worth waiting more than 10 minutes for.
Coasterphobes, no intensity at all.
El Condor
Again I don’t know the correct name for this carnival type ride, but all I can resemble it to is the “Scrambled Eggs” in RCT, except this one raises you a good 40 or so feet in the air then starts the ride. It’s very relaxing and gives you a beautiful and dizzying view of the park, and it’s right next to Tornado, so you can pretty much see the whole ride after 5 or 6 turns :) Again, because of the low attendance, the ride lasted pretty long and it was great.
We finally decided to head over to El Tornado after seeing it on El Condor. It was quite a walk because you have to walk around everything else to get to it.
El Tornado.
A small, but beautiful coaster when you look at it. The line was only about 10-15 minutes, but they were only running one train. I quickly grabbed front seat since there wasn’t a separate line. While pulling out of the station, my leg hit some sort of support while turning to the right to go up the lift hill. I got a bit nervous because I had my feet casually dangling, and hoped there was nothing else that would potentially take off my leg during the rest of the ride. There’s a long straightway after the lift and then a dive to the left. Since I was in front seat, I honestly believe that I was about halfway down the drop by the time we started free falling. I think the drop is about 90 ft. At the top of the first vertical loop the train slows down a lot so you fall onto the shoulder harnesses, which is pretty cool. Then you go up about 30-40 ft and turn 180 degrees and go into another vertical loop, where again you come out of your seat. You turn again and go into a flat spin over the walkway which is cool, but there’s a LOT of head banging. You then turn left, then right into a downward helix, then the opposite direction into the brake run. It’s just “ow! Ow! OW!” all the way into the brakerun. I must say I’d never experienced headbanging on a coaster seeing how I’ve primarily been on B&Ms, and only a couple Arrows, and smaller looping coaster with no OTSRs, and woodies. Both my friend and I came out laughing at how much our heads went from side to side, but the rest wanted to go again, so we jumped the fence :) and climbed into the line again. This time I pushed a little kid out of the way to get the back seat. I must say the back seat was a much better ride, you actually felt the drop this time, and I was prepared so I laid my head against the headrest, and there was no head banging. After the first vertical loop I blacked out a little bit though, :)
Coasterphobes. This is one of those PERFECT rides for you to get over your fear, and after riding this, you’ll see how roller coaster and thrill rides aren’t bad at all. Sit closer to the front, and just scream your lungs out on the way down, and after that just enjoy the ride, you won’t feel a thing.
After Tornado there were about 2 hours to waste until the opening of El Viejo Caseron, so my other friends headed over to the children’s area of the park. We did all the stupid rides like It’s a Small World and so on, but I got tired and just sat with one of my friend’s while the other three did the stupid rides. There was a loud ringing while I was sitting, and looked around and saw a fire truck with two men spraying water on people with a hose, and they targeted my friend and I since we were sitting on a bench, easy targets. By the end of the day, I was sprayed five times by the same guys, and I think they even recognized us by that time because we started to jump in front of them and play along.
Finally the time came for El Viejo Caseron, I think the most anticipated attraction in the park. You have to pay extra to visit this house of terror, that’s supposedly “one of the scariest in the world” I like Haunted Houses but I’ve never been scared in one, so I was looking forward to this one.
El Viejo Caseron
“no toques nada ni a nadie, y nada ni nadie te tocara” (don’t touch anything or anyone, and nothing or no one will touch you) is what they tell you as you enter, but of course this isn’t true :) as you wait in line you see a door that says "exit for the scardy cats" hehe. my girlfriends were horrible people to walk through this house with. It wasn’t scary at all, I mean I could tell myself “ok someone’s gonna knock on that wall, someone’s gonna pop out of that crack” and so on, and though it wasn't scary, I thought it was fun. At the halfway point, there’s an exit for the scardy cats, and then you can go onto the rest of it. There are scenes from Friday the 13th, the Exorcist, and other classic horror movies in this, and it’s beautifully set up with all live actors
after that we headed back over to la Maquina for two more rides, and then it was home home home because we were all VERY tired.
Overall, the park isn’t that bad, but it isn’t that good either. I think it’s a great family park, or a great place to spend a day with friends. But if you’re a thrill seeker, I think it’s best visiting Terra Mitica, driving 6 hours east to Port Aventura, or waiting a year for WBMW Madrid. The rides all in all aren’t very thrilling, and there isn’t anything exemplary for the park to be recognized for, except maybe for having one of Intamin’s few Inverts. Though it is a very beautiful park, and when I went there the lines weren’t long at all, and I can basically say that we had the park to ourselves.
I visited the park over a month ago and just now decided to write a review, sorry if it’s too long, too boring, or not informative enough, I haven’t done many of these before, and I only did this because I figured that not many people have had the opportunity to visit here, and some probably never will, and there’s not much detail out there on the web.. so here you go
More photos & of the park; http://latincoasters.iespana.es/latincoasters/pam/julio2001/pam.html
Park map & info; http://usuarios.tripod.es/latincoasters/id76.htm
I don't like the Loop supports, they look like frameworks for houses! :)
Thought you would be interested in those links.
*** This post was edited by Taipan on 8/21/2001. ***
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