A mine blowing Experience

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Fun Spot America Kissimmee

The entrance to the park is free of charge, only the attractions must be paid. There are several options available, including a great late-entry offer, which we used during our visit.

If you enter the park through the main entrance, you immediately find yourself in front of a large lagoon, which is home to the Skycoaster. Alongside you can find two of the park’s major coasters and a very solid selection of flat rides.

Kiddie Coaster

If you follow the paths to the left, you immediately stumble across a large selection of kiddie rides. The most notable one of these is the Kiddie Coaster by E&F Miler Industries. The small coaster features an oval layout with a helix in the middle. The final curve back to the station features a bunch of waves, which overall enhance the wacky feeling of the coaster.

Mine Blower

Right next to the Kiddie Coaster is the almighty Mine Blower by the Gravity Group. This small-scale wooden coaster blew everybody’s minds when announced. The ride which became Florida’s third operational wooden coaster is famous for its barrel roll inversion over the loading station.

After a very tight turn to the left, we immediately enter the ride’s lift hill. Once at the top, another equally tight turn follows. Without mercy we then race over the crest of the First Drop. Pressurised, we cross the valley before dashing through the ride’s main element. A tight left-hander then leads us through the support structure and into a bunch of airtime hills. After a strongly inclined right-hander, we then rush towards the other side where we enter the first high to the ground turn around followed by a reasonable high s-bend hill. We then race through the support structure and experience another series of airtime hills before hitting the brakes.

Mine Blower is a very fun wooden coaster. Although the ride isn’t a particularly large one, the airtime, the inversion and the overall pacing of the ride speaks for itself. It’s also quite interesting how much track the Gravity Group was able to fit into such a small footprint.

Galaxy Spin

Passing the Vortex and Chaos go-kart tracks, we now continue our way along the lagoon. Close to the entrance, we then encounter the park’s Spinning Coaster: Galaxy Spin. This ride was once located at the nearby theme park Cypress Gardens – nowadays, Legoland Florida – and is made by Zamperla. For a ride of its kind, it features a reasonable spin.

Hurricane

As the park is split into two areas, we now visit the adjacent Old Town leisure centre. Once we reach the end of the main street, we encounter another open area with several rides. Here, we find next to a Tilt-a-Whirl and a Paratrooper the roller coaster Hurricane by E&F Miler Industries. This is one of the manufacturer’s rare large scale roller coasters and hence worth a try!

Once we leave the station, we immediately climb the lift to a height of 52ft. After enjoying the view for a while, we plunge down a strangely inclined left-hand bend that shakes all the riders. Back in lofty heights, we then enter a very tight hairpin turn. After the second drop, we rush through a right-hand curve close to the ground. Once we reach the other end of the ride, we climb a hill and once again enter a very tight hairpin turn. This is followed by a series of smaller drops, airtime hills and hairpin turns very similar to the second part of a classic wild mouse coaster.

The Hurricane is a very fun roller coaster. The ride is simply nuts. Especially the first two drops with their highly inclined valleys are an experience on its own. The rest of the layout is by far more harmless, yet still very fun.

Pictures Fun Spot America Kissimmee

Hurricane • E&F Miler Industries Hi-Miler

Kiddie Coaster • E&F Miler Industries Family Coaster

Mine Blower • Gravity Group Wooden Coaster

Conclusion Fun Spot America Kissimmee

Kissimmee’s Fun Spot America is a very solid amusement park, which is a nice change to the picture-perfect theme parks by Universal and Disney. You don’t need to spend a lot of time (or money) to have a good time at the park.

What is your opinion about the Fun Spot America in Kissimmee? Just write it in the comment field below the report or visit our social media channels:

TKathke November 13, 2021 August 28, 2023 Fun Spot America Kissimmee

Linnanmäki

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Theme Park:	Linnanmäki (since 1950)

Address:	Tivolikuja 1
	00510 Helsinki
	https://www.linnanmaki.fi/en/

Operated by:	Lasten Päivän Säätiö

Linnanmäki is the Tivoli amusement park of the Finnish capital Helsinki. The park has its origins in the Children’s Day events, that were organised across Finland to collect funds for child welfare. In 1950 six child welfare organisations joined forces in the Children’s Day Foundation and opened the amusement park. In this regard, a visit to Linnanmäki is not only fun, you also do something good when taking a ride or do any purchase within the park.

Highlights of the Tivoli

Kirnu

An intense marble track ride

Salama

A fun spinning coaster

Ukko

Hangtime: The ride

Taiga

One of Europe’s best roller coasters

Tulireki

The weird, but kind of special coaster

Vuoristorata

The literal roller coaster

TKathke October 28, 2021 January 29, 2023 Linnanmäki

Raging through the Helices

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Preface

It’s the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic and things are getting a bit back to normal as the numbers are currently dropping in Germany and more and more people are getting their vaccinations. Previously excisting restrictions are dropped and a visit to a theme park feels great once more – even though we are all wearing masks once we cannot avoid getting too close to people and of course on the rides.

Serengeti-Park and its Serengeti Safari

Since my last year’s visit was not the best, as Serengeti Park was crowded and the capacity of the rides was restricted to a minimum, I took a day off and visited the park on a very quiet Friday. This of course had the advantage of experiencing the awesome Serengeti Safari – one of the few drive-through safaris you can experience in an animal park – at my own pace and without being too restricted by the other cars. I was also right in time for the feeding of the lions, which led to some awesome pictures.

Splash Safari and the Black Mamba

After driving through the Serengeti Safari it was time to experience the theme park. Here, I mainly focused on the other “safari” experiences, which are mainly rather unique attractions and for the most part don’t feature any animals. I especially enjoyed the Splash Safari and Black Mamba Jetboat experiences, as both of them were extraordinary good in keeping you cool on a very hot summers day. While the Splash Safari offers a nice RIB speedboat ride on the park’s central lake, the Black Mamba jetboat safari just got you drenched the second the ride started – not to any surprise: It was the most popular ride on the day of visit.

Batukai Racer

The most recent addition to Serengeti Park is the roller coaster Batukai Racer by Technical Park which replaced the aging Chura Racer – a large Tivoli coaster made by Zierer. The layout of the 13m high family coaster basically only consists of a steep drop followed by three helices one after the other. The first of them is of special interest, as its curvature gets smaller when approaching the ground, which results in some very high G-forces and a rather awkward inclination. The second one acts like a small break in between as you get some more altitude before the final helix hits the ground. The ride itself is a bit jerky, yet not uncomfortable and a rather thrilling experience.

A story of a lost phone

So thrilling, that shortly after my first round, I wanted to do a second. I was a bit distracted taking photos with my camera so that I did not realised that I let my phone on one of the benches nearby before queuing up for the second ride. After the ride, my phone was gone and I started to panic a bit. I asked the ride operator if he saw anything, but that did not help. He gave me the information that it might end up at the service centre nearby the park’s main ticket booths at the end of the day. I waited some time and decided to give it a try and walked all the way to service centre, but they did not yet got anything. They asked me to come back shortly before their closure or write an email after my visit. So I went back around 5pm and to my own surprise they actually found it!

Even though I had to worry a bit about the phone, I had an extraordinary day at the park and enjoyed it quite a lot. The drive through the empty Serengeti Safari, the rides on the park’s roller coaster Safari Blitz and Batukai Racer, as well as the refreshing and drenching boat experiences on the Splash Safari and Black Mamba made my day.