Schizophrenica (Terra Mitica)

Member Name: apuskiduski

Product:	Terra Mitica
Date:	19/04/09 (431 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to find, some good rides, a couple of brilliant rides

Disadvantages: Expensive, No food or drink allowed inside, not enough adrenaline rides, you'd fry in the summer

~~~SO, WHAT WE DOING TODAY THEN?~~~

While I was at my parents' place in Benidorm this Easter we took a family trip to Terra Mitica, a theme park situated up in the mountains behind the busy resort.

I visited six years ago and wanted to revisit for the thrills and to let my youngest daughter finally have a go on the rides she'd been too small for in 2003.

~~~GET THE MAP OUT~~~

It's fairly easy to get to by car, taxi or bus. We travelled from Albir on the N332 onto the CV70. The park is very well signed up.

Cars cost 5 Euros for parking and there's a drop off point for taxis and buses.
I believe there's a free bus from Benidorm centre but as we travelled by car you would have to research this. Buses 21 and 22 take you there from the centre of Benidorm too but pay the driver - there might be a Spanish Inquisition if you don't.

~~~HOW MUCH?~~~

I was shocked to find that I was going to have to pay 34 Euros per adult to get into the park. And, even more shocked to find that adults were over 12 for this park! Aargh! So, for us four over 12s, I'd have a grand total of 136 Euros to pay. Seemed a lot of money to me.

My parents are pensioners though and know where to go for the best deals in Benidorm and told me that we had to take a trip to Round Town News - a little tourist information office, with holidaymakers and expats in mind, down the road into Benidorm from Benidorm Palace, on the Avda. Doctor Severo Ochoa.

My parents often book their bargain airport transfers at Round Town News and we found another bargain here for Terra Mitica. Booking in advance got us a discount to cheer about. Adults were now 26 Euros and children (the helpful customer advisor told me my youngest daughter was definitely still 11) were 17.50. So, four of us paid 95.50. My parents bought tickets as pensioners as they're both over 60 (17.50 again) and didn't have to try to prove their age - because they do look like spring chickens I've got to say - as they would have had to at the gate. Carrying passports around a theme park is not a good idea!

It was very simple. I paid up by credit card and a receipt was printed which acted as our entrance ticket. All the details were written in Spanish and this was accepted readily when we arrived at the park.

There is currently an offer at McDonalds in Benidorm that enables you to get two for one on the price of tickets if you spend more than 6 Euros on your food. This was never offered to us while we were there and we hadn't the energy to ask to be honest just having driven 1500 or so miles from Barnsley. Pursue it though if you want to save a considerable amount of Euros.


~~~INITIAL IMPRESSIONS~~~
The car park offers shaded areas for cars in hotter weather, but these are at a premium.

It was Easter Sunday when we went (hope this doesn't offend any devout types out there) and it seemed to pay off because the park was virtually empty when we arrived shortly after 10 am - everyone at Church, see. We also had a full ten hours of adrenaline rush to look forward to - giving us plenty of time for all that queueing that you do in theme parks like this.

As we walked through the main entrance gates, into the Egyptian area of the park, we were all astounded by the attention to detail that had been given to the pillars, pyramids and obelisks around us. The painting, carvings and decoration was superb. I could almost be in Ancient Egypt with a miniature lighthouse of Alexandria and Egyptian barges on a mock-up of the Nile. Quite amazing. Certainly nothing like Blackpool Pleasure Beach - way more cultured.

But we hadn't paid almost a hundred Euros to look at the paintings and admire the scenery. Oh no. It was time to get on a ride and put the knuckles to the test. Whose would be the whitest we wondered?

~~~MOAN NUMBER ONE~~~

Two of the party were a bit miffed as soon as they walked through the gates, however, because they knew there was going to be nothing there for them. My dad, with his bad back, couldn't face going on anything that would shake him about and my sister-in-law who goes an unpleasant shade of green at the sight of contorted metal had already lost her very slight tan!

I know you could say what are they going for then? But, they felt that a Blackpool wristband system would have been fairer to them. You know the system. Get on the ride if you're wearing a band; sit with the bags if you're not!

Still, the other eight of us were happy and once we had found our maps from the information centre, near the entrance, we were all set.

Look out for this information point as you go through the first entrance as there are no other map points and you'll end up coming back later.

Strangely, you think you've gone through the entrance where we would have paid, but there's another entrance further inside the park, to the right, as you climb the hill towards the rides. I'm not sure what the point of this is as we were just waved through after handing over our green ticket.

~~~~MOAN NUMBER TWO~~~~~
Poor old dad had to go back to the car though with the cool bag as no food or drink is allowed into the park. Yes you read right. NO FOOD OR DRINK is allowed into the park!! We thought this was tremendously mean spirited as there were several cosy little picnic areas in the shade with tables and chairs set out for family gatherings.
But never mind, we had a few bottles of water snaffled away in handbags and they would suffice.

~~~MOAN NUMBER THREE~~~~
We decided to get a hand stamp out and go and have our picnic by the car. This saved us a packet as the cost of food was astronomical. There were plenty of fast food outlets and restaurants -both self service and full waiter service but the price was beyond our budget, 'specially with a bag of Carrefour stuff in the boot!!

So, three moans and I'm back on track. Let's get on a ride and scream a bit, eh??

~~~SCREAM IF YOU WANNA GO FASTER~~~

The park is arranged in six zones: Egypt, Greece, Rome, Iberia and The Islands as well as the new area to me, Ocionia. (I wondered if they meant Oceania but that's how it's spelt on the map)

In each of the areas there are rides on that theme. Apparently. So, in Greece you have Kinetos' Temple, Triton's Fury and The Icaruses for example.

In total I managed to have 21 rides, some were multiple rides. The only reason for this being there didn't seem to be that many people willing to shell out 34 Euros for a day in a theme park. Mind you it was the first decent day of sun for a while, so everyone might have been on the beach.

Here are my top five rides:

1 Inferno - weird metal coaster
This is a new ride opened last year I think and is one of the best I've ever been on. Imagine a letter C in parallel bubble writing with plenty of space in the bubble and a dip in the top - draw one in fact to help you. A spinning carriage with four passengers- pairs sit back to back - on each side of the track, starts at the bottom of the letter C, it rises up the left hand side and then free falls around the rest of the ride, the carriages turning as they go.

If you and a very light person sit on a carriage with two heavy people behind you, it's a very weird ride as they tip you up and you spin like mad! I've never spun vertically around a roller coaster before and the fact that it only lasted about 40 seconds meant I had to go on again, again and again. 6 times actually. Then I thought something else needed a try.

2. Rapids of Argos - best rapid ride ever!
This was in The Islands section of the park even though the Argonauts were Greek. Weird. Anyway a totally hilarious ride especially when eight of you are effectively trapped in a tyre. There's just nowhere to move to when you meet the wall of water that tumbles down half way through, soaking two of you to the skin. Poncho or not; nothing's keeping that lot out. Needless to say, you spend the next hour or so drying off in the Benidorm sunshine. Hopefully! Or get on number 3 for a quick dry.

3. Flight of the Phoenix - more like Icarus!
This is the equivalent of dropping ten storeys from a Benidorm hotel window after a drunken night, but in a seat with a safety harness. Thank goodness! Brilliant though it was I was a teeny weeny bit scared and in the words of Julia Roberts at the opera on Pretty Women "I almost peed my pants!"

4. Synkope
This is a giant spinning pendulum, similar to one I've been on at Drayton Manor. A great belly-tickler. Not for the easily queasied if that's a word.

5.Two water rides take joint fifth - the log flume style Falls of the Nile and a boat ride (holding 16) named Triton's Fury. Both of these were soakers and brilliant in hot summer weather I would imagine.

The giant wooden roller coaster, Magnus Colossus, was awful in my opinion. I tried it twice, just to see if the second ride would be better than the first. Nope. Shook my brains round in my head so much I thought I'd end up with some sort of damage!

I was horrified to see a family of Spanish people leave their too-small-to-go-on boy with the attendant here, while they got shook to death. Some folk have no shame!

Apart from these seven rides there are a few mild rides- a mini coaster and a pirate ship effort as well as some traditional swings like I've seen at Alton Towers, but there's nothing here that's remotely in AT's league in terms of white knuckle, adrenaline junkie rides. Nothing compares to Stealth, Nemesis Inferno or Colossus at Thorpe Park either. In short this is a theme park with a few good rides. Not worth the 34 Euros that we might have paid. We only had good value on this particular day because it was quiet.

There are some indoor rides - a simulator presentation all in Spanish, so not brilliant for me, which shook you about a bit and wasn't worth the unusually long queue and a shootout/ghost train style ride where there are horrendous queues in the summer apparently - often more than an hour.


~~~"DID YOU ENJOY THAT?'~~~

This might be something you could be asking your little nippers when they get off the 15 or so kids' rides that are all miniature versions of the adult ones. The mini log flume is great fun and there were little ones just riding this continuously because they could that day. The others are perfect for under 7s I'd say although my 7 year old went on quite a lot of the bigger water rides 6 years ago.

~~~FACILITIES AROUND THE PARK~~~
@ Wheelchairs and mobility scooters for hire
@ Stroller pushchairs available too
@ Vending machines for the drinks you can't take in with you - 1 Euro so not too bad
@ Lockers
@ Lost and found
@Plenty of clean, spacious toilets with disabled and baby facilities - some of the best I've seen in a theme park.
@ Retail therapy opportunities and shopping collection points so shop, leave your stuff and collect on your way out
@Afternoon tickets available at reduced rates after 2pm (check on the website for the rates for these)
@ Children under 4 are free; 5-10s are 17.50

There are some extra activities that they've introduced into the park which have a cost attached and these are Atalaya which is a Go Ape style of activity where you're attached to trees, zip wires and tarzan netting - all shout with me Aaaarhahaaaaahahahaaaa like Johnny Weissmuller!

And there's The Battle of the Pyramids which is an indoor paintballing experience. Not my idea of fun really.

There are plenty of attractions that I have not talked about. We didn't see any shows as we were probably in the wrong place at the wrong time - despite the park being a lot smaller than somewhere like Alton Towers.

~~~WAS IT GOOD VALUE?~~~

By the way, my dad and sister in law managed three rides between them so they had the worst value day out of the ten of us. Between us we had 155 rides. We paid 226 Euros, so that's 1.46 Euros a ride. Good value? Maybe. The two non- riders wished they'd taken earplugs or ipods though as the music - think constant Zorba in the Greek area, was a trifle annoying to say the least.

~~~SCHIZOPHRENICA~~~

I have a feeling that Terra Mitica is suffering an identity crisis. It's a schizophrenic I think. Too many regions and periods of history and not enough cohesion to pull off the real feel of a theme park. Someone needs to give the place an overhaul before it goes bust. There was a rumour that the Spanish Government had to bail it out over the Easter period to keep it open and after its turbulent financial history, I might believe it.

If you want to go to a theme park in the sun, Terra Mitica might not be there for too long considering the global financial crisis. So, get a ticket while you can to say that you've been there, seen it, and got the tee shirt. But take sun cream when you go!

More information to do that on: http://www.terramiticapark.com/


Ironically enough the tagline for the park on all the publicity material is Disconnecta (Switch Off). It soon might be.

Summary: Could have been a terra for mi ticker, but it failed miserably!