Ferrari Land, located in Salou, is Europe’s first theme park dedicated to motor sports. The theme park is located right next to the theme park Port Aventura Park and the water park Port Aventura Caribe Aquatic Park and is therefore part of the holiday resort Port Aventura World on the Costa Dorada near Salou. Ferrari Land is home to Europe’s tallest coaster: Red Force.
In recent years, Legoland Germany, like no other Merlin Entertainments park, has seen some great additions to its offering. The park finally became a full day destination. Since my last visit in October 2015, the park added the themed area Lego Ninjago World, two new rides to the Land der Pharaonen area and added a new B&M wing coaster to its line-up, as part of the Lego Mythica themed area.
Lego Ninjago World
Lego Ninjago World is so far the biggest extension Legoland Deutschland ever experienced. The themed area is based on the popular Lego Ninjago brand, famous for its well made TV show Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu. Back in 2017, it was the most expensive expansion of the park to date. The area offered a unique interactive dark ride experience that you could only experience at Legoland parks.
Lego Ninjago The Ride
Lego Ninjago The Ride is the first interactive dark ride where the passengers are using their hands only to target. The ride system is using an array of sensors to catch the movement of the hand. Depending mainly on the height of your hands and the angle to the sensor, your hand movement input is interpreted and a colour dot appears on the sensor so that you know where you are actually aiming. The whole process is not that intuitive and so confused hand waving actually is a good way to score quite a lot of points. The movements can be refined on the many screens the riders pass-by or stop right in front for a longer film sequence.
Overall, Lego Ninjago The ride is a very solid dark ride. Sure, the technology is not as sophisticated as the Web Slingers at Disneyland Paris, but for a worlds first, this ride system is actually quite alright.
Lloyd’s Spinjitsu Spinner
The newest addition to the Lego Ninjago World is Lloyd’s Spinjitsu Spinner, a Sunkid Loopster. This ride basically takes the old Luna Loop concept by Heege to a new level and is one of the hidden gems at the park. As you control the rotation of your ride vehicle, you can have a rather gentle ride, a ride full of backflips or you could try to take the whole ride in an upside-down position; albeit this is not that easy, as the ride vehicle will rotate back into its starting position after a while and you have to adjust the rotation quite often.
Land der Pharaonen
The Land der Pharaonen themed area was once created to house the interactive dark ride The Temple as its standalone attraction right next to the entrance to the Legoland Feriendorf resort. In 2019, the area was expanded with the interactive rides Pyramiden Rallye and Wüsten X-kursion.
Pyramiden Rallye
The Pyramiden Rallye is one of the classic rides from Metallbau Emmeln that you would like to see more often in family theme parks around the globe. The interactive ride is a nice work out for the whole family trying to extinguish fire in a pyramid located in the middle of the desert. While the story of this ride does not make a lot of sense, it still is one of the nicest additions we saw in Legoland Deutschland in recent years.
Wüsten X-kursion
The Wüsten X-kursion by RES is an interesting tower ride: the passengers can control the rotation of the gondolas, as well as their ride height by pulling a rope inside the gondola. Overall, rides can have a nice gentle observation ride towering the Land der Pharaonen section of the park and get a nice view onto the new themed area Lego Mythica right next door.
Lego Mythica
Lego Mythica is the newest area at Legoland Deutschland. It is based on the Legoland own IP. Its centrepiece is the Maximus roller coaster by B&M. The two family drop tower Fire & Ice Tower by Zierer and a small playground supplement the area. Lego Mythica is the most expensive expansion so far for the theme park.
Maximus – Der Flug des Wächters
When thinking about a roller coaster at Legoland, nobody ever would come up with the idea of creating a B&M wing coaster featuring two inversions, but somehow this project came true with Maximus – Der Flug des Wächters. The statics of the ride speak for a very family friendly ride, which we now want to have a closer look onto.
After we have finally left the extremely trivial queue behind us, the ride can already begin. Following a left-hand bend, we immediately reach the lift of the ride. Having reached the top of the lift hill at 17 m, we immediately drop down towards the ground. In an upward helix we experience a little pressure before flying over a small hill. In the following valley we experience the highest forces of the ride, before going straight into the first inversion of the ride. After the corkscrew, we continue our way to the left, before we change direction in order to prepare for the grand finale of the ride: a roll above the entrance portal. Shortly thereafter, we find ourselves in the brake section of the ride.
Maximus – Der Flug des Wächters is a fine ride for what it is: a nice family ride and the first one to feature an inversion for many of the park guests. The ride on the left side of the tracks is the overall better ride experience, while the right side offers a more pronounce ride through the first helix.
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Disneyland Resort Paris is celebrating its 30th birthday and continues to be at its very consistent best. While the resort has been undergoing some changes lately and can look to the future with high expectations, changes in the main park are few and far between.
Apart from the ever-changing entertainment line-up, just three attractions have been upgraded to a new level since my last visit eight years ago – yet there have been no real novelties. All these new attractions are to be found in the Discoveryland theme area.
Star Tours: L‘Aventure Continue
The large-scale simulator Star Tours: L’Aventure Continue made the start in 2017. The fast-paced space journey in the Star Wars universe now shines with a variety of films, a generally very sharp image and great 3D effects. At the same time, C-3PO now welcomes us as the unwilling captain of our space flight.
Mickey’s Philharmagic
After Captain EO was sent into his well-deserved retirement at the end of 2015, the Discovery Theatre was only used irregularly; in addition to previews of new films, it also showed the Pixar Short Film Festival known from the Epcot theme park. In 2018, Mickey Mouse moved into the theatre and has been presenting Mickey’s Philharmagic there ever since, although he himself hardly appears in the story. In fact, Donald Duck accompanies us in a slightly clumsy manner on a musical journey through the worlds of numerous Disney classics.
Interestingly, Mickey’s Philarmagic is by no means new. The film itself originated in 2003, but due to the quality of the animation and the possibility of keeping it up-to-date with new sequences, it seems timeless compared to the two previous films Honey, I Shrunk the Audience! and Captain EO, which is a very welcome change.
Hyperspace Mountain
Hyperspace Mountain is the third incarnation of Dutch Space Flight, but instead of being shot into the Jules Vernean future on the Columbiad, the Baltimore Gun Club has been focusing on a trip back in time to a galaxy far, far away as of 2017. In the process, Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain shines with new trains and new video projections, while the old scenery has mostly disappeared from the ride.
The ride itself is still an extremely intense journey, which is now much more pleasant thanks to the soft waistcoats of the new trains. After the jump through hyperspace, the music in particular is reminiscent of Star Wars, while you occasionally speed past video projections that are a little too dark. At the same time, the media integration during the second inversion of the ride is extremely successful, staging the very surprising moment of the ride perfectly and putting a big grin on your face, while the grand finale with the destruction of the star destroyer is nowhere near as memorable as the eponymous supernova from Space Mountain Mission 2.
As a temporary solution or event overlay, as in other Disneyland parks around the world, Hyperspace Mountain is an exceedingly coherent overall package. As a permanent installation, Hyperspace Mountain lacks a bit of thematic richness; too much of the focus is on Baltimore Gun Club and its Columbiad. Apart from the music and the video projections, hardly anything is reminiscent of Star Wars.
Pictures Disneyland Park
Closing words
I was surprised to find that Disneyland Park had the far lower waiting times over my entire visit than the Walt Disney Studios Park right next door. It seems as if the novelties of the last few years are pointing in a clear direction. The solid overall concept continues to be convincing all along the line, but one or two new additions would also do the main park good.
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When thinking about a roller coaster at Legoland, nobody ever would come up with the idea of creating a B&M wing coaster featuring two inversions, but somehow this project came true with Maximus – Der Flug des Wächters. The statics of the ride speak for a very family friendly ride, which we now want to have a closer look onto. 
