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I was in India for 10 days at the start of December for a wedding, so took the opportunity to visit Adlabs Imagica, a park around 70km southeast of Mumbai, near the town of Khopoli. A full gallery is to come, but these are just pics I uploaded from my phone without editing or straightening. Adlabs is the only true “Western Standard” theme park in India, with rides built by well known European and American manufacturers, and notably, having a B&M coaster in the mix. That said, some aspects of the construction/maintenance/operations weren’t quite there, so kind of felt like Six Flags America (Or below) in parts, whilst in others, the theming was really high quality. You could sum it up by saying that the southern end of the park had good theming, but the northern end felt a bit amusement park-ish. The park had a well rounded line up of attractions, so didn’t really feel like it was ‘missing’ anything. In fact, it was notable that the place hadn’t been spammed with mini Zamperla flat rides. All of the kiddy stuff was substantial. Allow around 3 hours or so for the journey from Mumbai to the park. I took a train from the famous Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to Khopoli. Because you have to do a big loop to get off the peninsula and around Thane Creek to Khopoli its a lengthy trip, though only costs 250 Rs (5 AUD). When you arrive at Khopoli its a fixed 200 Rs fare for a tuk-tuk to the park. The roads are bumpy, and it feels like such an odd spot to put a park, but eventually the park clinging to the hillside and the Novotel appear. I opted for the fast pass...It wasn’t that busy, but the rides run on a roster system which borders on ridiculous, and I wanted time for the water park, so having the fast pass gives a bit of flexibility. To give an example, the park was open from 10 till 8, but rides only run from 11-7, and within that, some attractions only operate 2:30-5. Notably, Deep Space was like that, which is an absolute shame. Why operate your best coaster for only 2.5 hours out of an 8 hour day? But, to the trip report. I started with Gold Rush Express, a Zamperla mine train. It was actually pretty good. It went fast, but wasn’t too forceful because the drops and helices were drawn out, so probably the right formula for a good family coaster. Starts of with a lift hill, elevated turn, then a drop and a continous helix that wraps around an s&s tower. From there is another drop, under the entrance bridge, a couple more turns and into the brakes. The theming was passable with a western town around part of the ride, but a bit crappy looking. They get bonus points for using the buildings to hide the park substation. Next was the big one, Nitro, a B&M floorless coaster, and also my #400th coaster, yay. The ride is basically a clone of Batman at Six Flags New England, but they have added a helix at the end, and made the first drop steeper. It also only runs a 6 car train. That all said, it’s actually the perfect little ride in terms of showing off B&Ms signature floorless coaster elements. The main entrance had a racing theme, but beyond that the queue line, station, and shop were a bit ghetto...The shop in particular was one of those sandwich panel buildings they use for railways electrical cabins. But we only care about the coaster itself right? Really good, the first drop is one of B&Ms best, with real kick. From there its a loop followed by a dive loop, overbanked turn, a tight zero g roll, a couple of interlocking corkscrews and finally a helix. The ride packs a lot in, and doesn’t let up. After that I did Alibaba Aur Challis Chorr, which is a shooting dark ride. It has a great Arabian palace exterior, which continues through to the station. The quality of sets was quite good, well kept and ornate. The cars you ride in resemble these sort of magic carpet sleigh type things, and the cars would rotate during the ride to face scenes. The guns were quite generous, with the dot of your laser pointer actually being a good 10cm wide, with big targets. The ride passes through an Arabian city, with the targets being bandits. It was like something out of Alladin, with scenes of marketplaces overrun by baddies wielding swords. Eventually you’d chase the baddies out of the city, into the desert, where there were even more of them, until finally you’d reach a cave with their stash of treasure. All of the figures only had basic arm movements or were on turntables, so there was a bit of an old school Disney dark ride vibe to it too. Salimgarh is another dark ride, this one in the form of a haunted house type ride set in an old Indian fort. Again, pretty good set design, and some of the animatronics had some clever moment (Despite being basic), like a chained slave on the floor. Other effects included projection mapping onto the faces of talking busts, spiked walls that would swing in and threaten to squash you, and an entire room that was built as if you were sideways (Eg chandliers mounted sideways on the wall),with the track banking a bit to throw your balance off even more. Major spoiler, but at the end of the ride you reached a dead end, and there was a section of drop track . It didn’t really fall that fast, but you ended up in the unload area, and had to climb a set of stairs to get back up from basement level to exit the ride. I for India is a Flying Theater/Soarin type simulator, and was the only ride that was built locally. The ride lifts into position much slower and doesn’t move foward, and the screen is a rectangular one with a slight curve (It was basically like if you turned an old Saab windscreen upside down) , rather than the dome screens used on the others. Unfortunately also, the roll/pitch movements of the seats was not working, so more or less it was an exercise in watching a 10 min film with your legs dangling, with the view of the floor with everyone’s loose belongings scattered in rows. The film itself was well shot and went for a while, but jumped around from scene to scene to lot, though I acknowledge with a country as diverse as India it would be difficult to cut stuff out. Killing time till other stuff opened, I went on the Motion Box Theatre.... A simulator. The film was a wild pedal rickshaw ride along the great wall of China. If you have ever played the level in Crash Bandicoot 3 where you ride a tiger along the great wall, you can imagine what it was like. Next I intended to go into the dome theatre, but turns out I had gone into the queue for the Inspector Bow Wow show, which shares part of the same building. This show was like the Donkey Live one at Universal Singapore, or Turtle Talk at Disney, where a comedian voices a 3D animated character in real time, interacting with the crowd. The crowd loved it, but it was all in Hindi so I quietly excused myself after a few minutes. Finally, the indoor Deep Space coaster was open, and it was gold. This layout should be one that Premier Rides clones, because it was the perfect compact mix of force, hills and inversions, and butter smooth to boot. The ride is in a giant dome structure made of membrane. Definitely gives a nice voluminous dark space, but I dunno how such a structure would go in the event of a fire. The queue and station was rather short, and had a bit of a crappy space station vibe to it, like when you go to a laser tag centre, but it’s all made out of painted plywood. The premier trains are an interesting one, and require a ridiculous contortive effort to get into. How did they design this? At least the lap bars are comfortable. From the station, you follow a few low speed turns through the space station, with dummies slumped at computer workstations, computer screens showing gibberish, lasers scanning your car etc...Sort of like how superman has it’s dark ride section at the start. Eventually you line up to the launch track, which is surrounded by a series illuminated rings which light up in sequence, getting faster and faster as a count down approaches zero. A bit of a push, then wham, the car accelerates very rapidly into a right turn, and up into a zero g roll. It’s excellent, you go from being pinned in your seat, to weighless, to a good sideways flick due to the high centre of gravity of the car relative to the banking of track. You drop down, do a forceful ground turn, and then into an airtime hill. There is a trim on the way up, but even so on the other side the airtime is ridiculous before dropping down again. A quick left turn and there is a corkscrew (Again a great kick) then a really tight and forceful 540 degree helix that orbits around a planet sphere piece of theming. Theres one last bunny hop and turn before you hit the brakes. This ride is a gem, and much more enjoyable than Premiers early Flight of Fear coasters. Again, I’ll reiterate my disappointment the park chooses only to run this ride for a fraction of the operating day. I’d missed the session time for the dome theatre, so did Mr India: The Ride instead. Another simulator. They didn’t really need to have motion box if they had this. A bit of background reseach lead me to discover that Mr India is a cult bollywood classic about a hero with an invisibility belt who fights against a villain named Mogambo. The queue had a bit of memorabilia like costumes and props from the film. I think DWs rumoured simulator could be like this. It was a tiered, 3 level room, with a big screen, and 3 simulators per level, which were themed as whimisical yellow flying cars. You might draw parallels with Back to the Future/Simpsons at Universal, but the simulators didn’t rise up, so it really was just like being in a big room all looking at a big screen, so you could see the handrails in front of you, and the highest tier simulators were a fair way back from the screen. The story of the ride is that Mogamgo has invaded Imagica and taken some kids hostage, so you jump in Mr Indias flying car to save the day. It starts off with an 2D animated preshow before you head off into the main room. The setting of the battle within the theme park gives rise to plenty of gimmicks (In many ways similar to the Simpsons come to think of it) Eg the car being hit by the pendulum flat ride, being attacked by a dinosaur when you land in the boat ride, being flung around the roller coaster track etc etc. Overall, it was “okay”, went for a while, but the synchronisation and animation were a bit off. They do get credit for a reasonable, fun, coherent story line....I was able to understand it despite not knowing any Hindi. Wrath of the Gods is a walkthrough attraction with a main chamber with SFX. If you’ve done stuff like Backdraft, Posiedons Fury at IOA, Lights/Camera/Action at Universal Singapore, you’ll have an idea. You are led into a temple, where an explorer appears and runs through a bit of a preshow, eventually discovering a magic disc which unlocks a hidden chamber. This is where the fun happens. The room is circular chamber, and you are standing on a platform surrounded by water. Around you are giant statues. Things get hectic...wind blows through, the platform shakes, fire erupts from the walls and from the surface of the water, projected walls crumble behind the statues. But the worst thing is that full on fountains spray , soaking people in their path. If you ever visit, you can see that the chamber is divided into thirds, with sections themed around wind, fire and water. By luck I was near the fire section, so you don’t cop a soaking (despite the puddles of water on the floor suggesting you might there) It’s pretty full on, but some guests were panicking and trying to get away from the FX (For some context, there is a handrail on the edge of the circular platform, and then another one behind you (So observers were kept in a row around the edge). People were jumping that inner handrail to get away, and designers should have foreseen this and had some sort of more orderly way to seek refuge. Next was Rajasaurus River Adventure. The queue had a cool archaeological dig section, followed by an indoor part with a bit of a steam punk lab theme. Predictable stuff, you travel back in time to find a dino, travel through a dark ride building with lots of animatronic dinos, before heading up a lift hill, encountering a big bad dino, narrowly making it back into the time machine, and then dropping underneath the jaws of the dino, out of the building, to the splashdown. The indoor section had a bit too much lighting, so it was like being in a giant circus tent (For this ride building they have used a membrane structure) and it looked a bit odd with some of the fake palms being in pots. A fun attraction, and it has an interesting feature of the load and unload being on separate levels, with an inclined boat carrier conveying boats from the unload to the load, due to the ride being built on a hillside. I finally got back to the dome theatre, which was showing “Prince of the Dark Waters”, in Hindi. It’s a big circular room with rails to lean on, or you can just lie on the floor. I didn’t stay for the whole thing, just enough to appreciate the 360 projection and the ability to look around behind etc (Though in this case it did seem like they mostly had stuff happening at the “front” rather than fully utilising the panoramic nature of the format to spread out the characters and action. That was all the major rides done that I was immediately interested in, so I popped into the water park. The water park is further up the hill above the main park, and a skyride exists to convey people up there, but this was not functioning, so you ride an old bus up a winding road to the entrance. And yep, there are cows roaming along the way lol. The park has a Greek Island theme, with whitewashed building with blue roofs, columns along the wave pool and so on, and a nice village area around the entry/locker area. The rides were all from Polin or Whitewater West, however the construction of the park wasn’t the best...I encountered slippey smooth concrete, ground drains that were not really designed to be stood on in bare feet, rusty checkplate staircases etc etc, so you had to keep your wits about you. The main spine of the park was on a mid level, with some slides coming down from the higher bit of the hillside, and others starting at the mid and going further downhill (So those slides had a staircase back up from the bottom) First ride I did was Twisty Turvy a sort of hybrid slide from Polin, where it starts off with a master blaster section, then enters into a sphere type element, where the raft basically washes in and does a u turn on the wall by the force of the water jets inside, exiting out parallel to the entry. From there the tube gets steeper and ends up in a toilet bowl element. It was actually a really good slide, and the variety made it feel a well rounded and complete. Next up I did Screamer which is a whitewater west rattler slide, like Typhoon at Wet n Wild Sydney. I like these ones because they don’t artificially slow you too much, so in each of the barrel elements so swing and oscillate on the walls very smoothly. I prefer this style to the likes of Triple Vortex. Next was a Tornado style slide called Swirl Whirl. As far as I know this was built by Whitewater West, but cannot be sold in North America due to conflicting with the Proslide patent. Interestingly they were running Proslide cloverleafs. Overall, the experience was exactly the same, the only difference being to slow the rafts at the neck of the funnel they used a textured slide surface to create friction rather than pumping water in. Raaftastic is your generic Polin family raft slide, but was enclosed at the start and had those translucent lighting effects like bands and stars in the fibreglass. Was actually pretty speedy and had good wall time. The rest of the park was stuff we’ve all seen before, such as a lazy river, rain fortress, Whizzard (Octopus Racer), an single aqualoop, and an enclosed body slide that culminated in a drop at the end. I think I just spent maybe an hour or so looping around and having a go on anything (And a couple of goes on the interesting one) before heading back into the main park. As the sun set I did a few more laps on Nitro, and had a go at Dare 2 Drop, which is a 45m double shot tower. Fairly similar to batwing, but you got two full height bounces, and the directional changes were a bit more aggressive. I also tried Scream Machine was my first experience with a Zamperla Giant Discovery. Nothing really different here to the Frisbees and Gyro Swings I have ridden, except it had automatic restraints, and took a bit longer to reach full swing than the Intamin ones. The rides all stopped at 6:30, despite the website saying 7pm, so after a handful of night shots it was time to go.

Phantasialand This was the first theme park of the trip, and my first theme park outside of Australia. Since I visited during December, the park was in the middle of its Wintertraum event, which meant a very Christmas-y atmosphere around the park, and the short days resulted in plenty of night rides on some of their coasters. Upon opening I headed straight to Taron, which was unfortunately was suffering from technical difficulties (Intamin seal of quality ). My first ride of the day then became Colorado Adventure, the park's mine train. I was expecting a reasonably tame ride, but was very wrong as this coaster was mayhem from start to finish, throwing you around in the very open trains. Plenty of ejector airtime, and the loose lap bars made it even crazier. What's more, a large portion of this ride is in the dark, making the crazy turns and strong lateral Gs even more unexpected. My favourite part of the rid would definitely be the main drop after the second lift hill. Overall I'd rate this ride 9/10, this was definitely one of the most (pleasantly) surprising coasters of the trip. Next up was Talocan (the park's top spin). For me, this is the definition of a perfect flatride - incredibly forceful, fantastic theming and special effects, great to watch off-ride, and a killer soundtrack. It certainly wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea due to the repeated inversions, but this is definitely my new favourite flat ride. The only problem I have with this ride is that it makes Wipeout a lot more underwhelming now ). 10/10. Feng Ju Palace was my first Mad House, and overall I wasn't too impressed. The mad house concept is very cool but it needs a good storyline to make it a great ride, something this one didn't have. Definitely not the worst ride in the park, but I'd only rate it 4/10. Mystery Castle was my next ride. This is an enclosed shot/drop tower, with a very immersive theme. I would've been very happy to queue for a long time for this ride because of how fantastic the queue's theming was (however on the day I visited it was a walk-on). As a tower ride, I didn't find it as forceful as Batwing, but still thought it was a great ride. 9/10. Raik is one of the two coasters in the park's Klugheim area, and is a Vekoma family boomerang. Whilst the theming of this area is top-notch, I didn't really enjoy the coaster. The trains were very restrictive for a tall person like myself, and the ride didn't have too much force. That said it is a kiddie coaster - and does its job as one very well. 5/10. Finally got onto Taron... and initially I was quite disappointed. This ride has been hyped up so much and I was expecting to be blown away. Unfortunately I didn't get that on my first ride, and came off a little underwhelmed. However I found later in the day, this ride became the coaster I was expecting, especially in the front row, or at night. The ride starts with a turn out of the station while the ride's awesome dispatch music plays, before the first launch knocks your breath away. From there, it's a series of very snappy transitions, intense turns, and surprising headchoppers. The ride begins to lose its intensity towards the end of the first half, but then the second launch kicks in and you're thrusted to the ride's top speed. The second half of the ride is even more intense than the first. The sensation of speed passing through the buildings and rockwork is amazing. My only disappointment with this ride is the airtime isn't as strong as I was expecting - while the first airtime hill and one or two of the twists provide decent airtime, it's not nearly as intense as DC Rivals' airtime. Additionally, the airtime hill at the end of the ride is completely forceless due to the trims before it, which is really disappointing. Overall, it's truly a fantastic ride and I have certainly joined the Taron fanboys. Definitely something that needs to be ridden at night as it's by far the craziest night ride I've had on a coaster. Unfortunately, it does take some time each day for the ride to get warmed up. I'd rate this coaster 9.5/10 - DC Rivals is still my #1 coaster but this is not very far behind. I then did Das Verruckte Hotel Tartuffe, which is a very entertaining walkthrough/madhouse style of ride (I'd rate it 7/10). After that was Maus au Chocolat, a very well-themed shooting ride. I rode it twice but found it to be a little boring on the second run. Also rate this one 7/10. Next up was Winjas Fear and Force, a pair of Maurer spinners. Heads up - spoilers follow and if you haven't ridden this and are planning to do so sometime in the future, I'd recommend skipping this paragraph. These two coasters are very messed up due to several 'trick track' elements over the course of the two rides. Both use an elevator lift, which tilts you at the top, dropping you straight out of the lift. Additionally, towards the end of the ride the two coasters have a piece of track that tilts you (Fear tilts you forwards, while Force tilts you sideways). Finally, after the break-run, a section of track on each side bounces while you move over it. The main parts of both rides involve a mix of spinning sections and drops/airtime hills. I really enjoyed both sides, although ironically I found the Fear side more forceful, which is why it is my pick of the two. 7.5/10 for Force, and 8/10 for Fear. Temple of the Night Hawk is a very long and dark enclosed rollercoaster, and is known for being a very boring ride - something I can confirm. The entire ride is forceless with very little theming (and the theming that is there is a bit confusing). I didn't find it as bad as some of the reviews I've read made it out to be, but it's something I didn't need to ride again. 4/10. Black Mamba was my first B&M, and I was certainly not disappointed. Smooth, intense, and a really fun ride. The near misses with the rocks and trees makes this ride even more fun. The ride's drop is surprisingly forceful, as is the first loop. The 0-G rolls are a lot of fun. The second half of the ride is mostly made up of turns, helixes and tunnels and isn't as good as the first half, but is still very enjoyable. At night this ride is even better as there is very little lighting around the ride which means it is very hard to see where you are going. My only complaint about this ride is that there is a little bit of headbanging (but it's not too much). 9/10 for this ride, it would be 10/10 if it didn't have the headbanging. I thought I was a little crazy for doing Chiapas in the middle of Europe's freezing winter, but it wasn't actually too bad as you only get a light spray of water. This ride is fantastic - it's something that will make you feel so happy every time you ride (mostly due to the soundtrack). Here I was thinking Wild West Falls is a top notch log flume - but as I discovered it's possible to get a lot better! 10/10 for sure. The rest of the day was mostly re-rides, with Geister Riksca (I think that's how you spell it...) my last new ride of the day. I was the only person I saw on the ride, and I worked out why - this ride was just really, really weird with no storyline whatsoever. A couple of the scenes were quite cool, but I spent most of the ride wondering how long it would take so I could get back in the queue for Taron. 3/10. Overall, this park is beautiful, with so much quality of theming and detail everywhere you go (expect for maybe Temple of the Night Hawk). I was really impressed that the park had almost all of their rides running during winter (as far as I was aware the only rides that were closed were water rides). I didn't see any of the shows as I preferred to get re-rides on my favourite rides (in total I got 9 rides on Taron, 5 rides on Black Mamba, and 2 rides on most other rides I enjoyed). The crowds were very low when I visited, almost every ride was a walk-on except for Winjas (which were about 5 minutes each) and Taron (which was about 15 minutes - however the single rider was mostly empty which I made the most of). When F.L.Y. opens I'm sure this park will be even more amazing. Very jealous of people like @Coaster Hipster who are able to visit amazing parks like this fairly regularly.

Adding seat belts is quite a common affair in the industry. Adding complicated harnesses, adding cages and fundamentally changing rides from the original spec is a whole other thing IMO.

"Look out below!"

Utterly mystifying addition if true. The only reason I can invent for them adding it is to allow them to paint the picture that 'The future is bright and we're still investing in the park for the future'. On the other hand though getting the families with small kids through the door seems to be what they're banking on for their recovery, and any thrill ride they added would just be OBLITERATED this year anyway.

^it depends on what redundancy systems the restraint has in place as to whether seatbelts or other restraint devices are implemented - and sometimes retrofitted. the fact that one ride doesn't have a seatbelt doesn't demonstrate that they aren't necessary on another, as the mechanics and redundancies behind the restraint can be completely different.

Surprised Black Widow didn't have this done earlier, Joylands travelling Power Surge has had seat belts for quite some time now.

Arkham queue was no longer than 30 minutes for most of today, DC Rivals about 15, Superman and Green Lantern were walk on most of the day as was Doomsday (which usually is though). Scooby Doo was 15 - 20 mins. Definitely hit Arkham first and then head to DC Rivals, Green Lantern, Superman then head over to Doomsday. Superman and DC Rivals have been running 2 trains this week being in holidays and since the park seems rather quiet it makes for fast operations. DC Rivals has been running with a greeter, grouper, 2 load/unload and a super and they are grouping one lot against the fence while another is at the gates waiting to load onto the train so the whole process is really smooth. Have also seen on each attendance (3 this week) them letting a couple of guests through from the single rider queue.

Or you could always ride your bike I suppose. 7 hours, 29 minutes according to google maps.

So some of you may remember around a year ago I was asking on tips for a Europe trip - a trip which has now been completed. While this trip wasn't a theme-park-focused trip, I did manage to hit up Phantasialand and the two Disneyland Paris parks. So this thread will be used to give my trip reports for each of these parks. I do apologise in advance for the text-heaviness of these trip reports, as I took minimal photos using only my phone's camera.