Water slide

Port Aventura Caribe Aquatic Park

During a stay in one of the hotels of the Port Aventura World you will have the possibility to visit the main park for an unlimited time during your visit, as well as the water park Port Aventura Caribe Aquatic Park. At least this was still the case in 2011, but nowadays the offer is focused on the new theme park Ferrari Land.

The Aquatic Park was created at the same time as the Hotel Caraibe, but is located right next to the main park. Because the temperatures were quite high and the whole coastal area had a rather unpleasantly warm climate, the urge of the visitors to go to the water park, despite the low season, was enormously high, so that the probability of catching a free lounger was very, very small.

Tifón

The offer of the water park Port Aventura Caribe Aquatic Park is not outstandingly large, but not too small either. The Proslide Tifón slides in the covered part of the park were, to everyone’s surprise, extremely fast and featured a really well-done layout.

Mambo, Limbo and the Barracudas

The bodyslides Mambo and Limbo both feature a nice ride with various jumps, tight curves and an overall good pacing. Unfortunately these slides share the same tower as the tube slides of Barracuda and access to the slides is often blocked by the sliders holding their tubes. The slide down Baracuda is a bit on the milder side, nevertheless it is a nice family adventure.

El Torrente

The park’s El Torrente rafting slide is really impressive, where several people in a boat can reach slopes of more than 90°, thus involuntarily approaching each other, as the boat is not stiff but very elastic. Those who are at least afraid of a bobsleigh run should definitely not get on here, but for everyone else this family raft slide is great family fun – as long as you hold on tightly.

Miscellaneous

The park also has WhiteWaterWest’s La Laguna de Woody water playground, where you can stand under a huge bucket, the beautiful and long Lazy River El Rio Loco, and the wave pool El Triangulo de las Bermudas, with rather leisurely waves and water cannons.

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Preface

After Tolk-Schau I moved on further north. Just behind the Danish border, there is the Sommerland Syd. As always in Denmark, the park is lacking a good signposting. If you didn’t know that the park existed, you would not even notice it. The first attraction you will see, is the Tornado when driving onto the parking lot. There is an afternoon ticket to the park, interestingly none of the pay offices were opened at my arrival.

A visit to Sommerland Syd

Family Star

When entering the park, and taking a tour to your right you quickly stand on the site of the former Interpark roller coaster Kaemperutschebanen. This site is occupied by the small Fabbri spinning coaster Family Star by the German showman Alberts. A year before the same place was used by Kinzler’s Wild Mouse. Wonder what will be next…

One of the great strengths of the park is to encase their rides, so that they look integrated into the landscape. The park’s entire botany looks just beautiful and the rides support this image. Playing a game of adventure golf never looked so appealing.

King Kong

For fans of bizarre amusement rides, a ride the Hula Hoop King Kong by the German manufacturer Klaus is a really good choice. The calypso-like ride surprises by its fast paced motion, which is somehow reduced when the main plate starts to lift. The ride is fun and definitely unique. Unluckily, only a few of these were build.

Afrikaland

If this unique ride is not special enough, you can have fun in Afrikaland – the dark ride next door. This rides features not only very narrow clearance gauges, it also offers a fun descent and lots of (somewhat) trashy scenery. For such a small footprint, this ride is very entertaining, even through it is not as good as the Ocean of Darkness of the Dutch amusement park Attractiepark Slagharen.

Amazonas

If all of this was still not bizarre enough, you can hop to the other side of the park for a ride on the Shoot the Chute Amazonas. To be honest, this ride needs a disclaimer before boarding as not everybody will understand the brilliant cannibalism jokes during the dark rides section of the ride; some kids might also start to cry. Apart from the Danish Humour, the rides features two drops which will get you wet.

Tornado

The most beautiful and largest gem of the park is the Vekoma Invertigo Tornado. It was once installed in the Swedish Tivoli Liseberg where it was removed – although very popular – due to noise issues. Before coming to Sommerland Syd, the ride was relocated to Greece, where it was never been rebuild due to missing permissions.

Back in Scandinavia, the ride offers the perfect occasion for those who always wanted to try ridding the first half of the popular Boomerang coasters backwards. This can even be spiced up a little when looking at your friends and family (or any other park guest) when sitting in the middle sections of the train. The ride itself is smooth and fun. Due to the suspended design of the train, it is also quite thrilling one.

Pictures Sommerland Syd

Conclusion Sommerland Syd

I was very pleased by my visit to Sommerland Syd. The park offers some good rides and even some gems. While the swimming pool of this sommerland is not the biggest, it is perfect enough to just spend some time over there and having fun on the water slides. For children the park is a pure play, climbing and hopping paradise, where you can be sure that they will fall asleep just a few minutes after leaving the parking lot at the end of the day. Although there are still some places in the park that should be better renewed, I’m in good hope with new owners of the park.

PS: Sommerland Syd closed just one year after my visit. Most of the rides could be sold to the Polish amusement park Legendia, where they support their incredible portfolio. The Invertigo coaster by the dutch manufacturer Vekoma can now be found in the French theme park Bagatelle in the region Hauts-de-France.

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An afternoon in the Aquatic Park