Poland 2018 Solo trip report

So about a month ago I decided it was a good idea to take a little trip to Poland to go and take a look at Energylandia and Legendia. I booked a flight and a hostel and hired a car and last thursday I went off to Poland.

I booked a hostel at walking distance to Legendia, at the edge of Katowice's city center. I actually arrived to hours early and couldn't check in at the moment so I walked towards Legendia to take some foto's. I decided to follow the cable cart that goes alongside the park and take a ride back to the start. It ended up to be quite a walk at around 2.5 km long. The station at the other end is right next to Katowice's stadion, which looked quite impressive:



And I got great views over the surrounding park:



And ofcourse at the end I was able to get some nice shots of Lech Coaster and Tornado. The park was closed during the week though:



After that I checked in at the hostel. On Booking.com it was stated that they spoke English which really wasn't the case but after a while and a with a little help from Google translate I got everything arranged.

I planned to go to Energylandia the next day and I still had the whole afternoon so I went to check out the city which turned out to be really nice. It was quite modern actually. The center had mostly neo classic buildings but there were also these huge tenements which looked impressive:



Then there was the cultural center which holds museums, a concert hall and a sports venue. I especially liked the museum. It was built around this old industrial area with mining towers. I actually took some inspiration from this area for my coaster I'm currently working on:



The next day I drove to Energylandia. I decided to avoid the toll roads and see a bit of the countryside. It was about an hour's drive over 55 km.

I arrived at Energylandia just before 10 so I got to see their opening show. I thought it was really cheeky and geared more towards kids though.



I thought most people would run towards Hyperion when the gates opened so I cleverly decided to take a clockwise walk around the park and first went towards Speed. The first few rides I did were basically walk-on and it was not until Mayan Roller Coaster that I had to wait for a bit.

Anyway, Speed was a decent ride. The most impressive part of it is the drop. Because of its shallow angle you gradually take up speed and it takes quite long to get down. After that though, the ride I thought was a bit rattly. The splashdown was nice though.



Just up the path from the exit of Speed you get to Dragon Rollercoaster, the Vekoma inverted family coaster. To be honest, it is quite intense for a family ride. Especially after the first drop you get a good sustained part of positive g's. I'd classify this more as a transition between a family coaster and a thrill coaster tbh:



Then came one of my most anticipated rides of the trip: Formula. It did not disappoint. Some say it's a short ride but I didn't experience it that way. Maybe that's because in the Netherlands we have a lot of shorter coasters though.. It had a good mix of forces. Strong possitives in the curves and impressive ejector airtime on the hills. The corkscrews were quick and snappy. Overall a top class coaster imho.



And I got to take some nice shots from the storage shed:



After taking a ride on the flume ride between Formula and Mayan (which btw get's the people in the queue really wet but the people onride not so much) it was time for the SLC. Seeing this is the second to last SLC built I had quite high expectations. Unfortunatly it was still quite rough. Especially in the first inversions. I got to ride it front row. I rode Infusion at Blackpool in the middle. I'm not sure if the seat location has anything to do with it but I still think Infusion is a much better experience.



Boomerang was up next. It's nothing too special although it's really smooth:



Viking, I had learned from Shawn Sanbrooke's video on Themepark Worldwide was very rough. I took this knowledge and leaned forward into the restraints and that prevented any headbanging making the ride quite enjoyable.



Now it was finally time to take a ride on Hyperion. It had the longest queue for the day as expected though it was still only 30 minutes. It really is an awesome ride. The drop takes forever. The first camelback has really good sustained ejector airtime but besides a few pops on the smaller hills, the rest of the ride is mostly floater airtime. What I noticed most about the ride is how huge it actually is. Even the trains are huge, you could easily fit another row of seats between the current rows. It also lasts forever, it kinda feels like they untangled Taron next to a parking lot.







I also took a ride on the rest of the kiddy coasters to get the credits. There really are a lot of them, maybe a bit too much but I got them all done by 2:30pm. This left me some time to do some more of the water rides. Jungle Adventure, next to Speed, was a good Rapids, I got quite soaked on it and so was Atlantis, although that was quite tame.

Overall though, I thought the park was quite chaotic. I classify this as a theme park but there weren't any clearly themed areas. Everything was a bit mashed together. I also had trouble finding some of the entrances to the rides as they weren't on the main path. I think the park could improve on this.

There was also some construction going on in the fields behind Formula and Mayan. About 100m from the border of the current park. It looked like foundations of what could be a station and storage shed. Perhaps the RMC?

The next day it was time for Legendia. I arrived at the park at about 9am although it opens at 10. I took a walk around the 'main street' and settled for a coffee at the restaurant there. Actually the theming is very well done on the outside and on the inside:







Right before 10, like Energylandia, they had a little show. There were maybe around 15 people waiting to enter at this time. When the park finally opened, I took a walk counter clockwise around the lake and first ended up at the Scary Toys Factory. It's a Zyklon model and it actually was a really enjoyable ride. It was really smooth apart from the final brake which was really harsh:



Next up was gonna be my first Soquet credit Tornado. Unfortunatly though, it was closed..



The sign said something along the lines of "Closed for Modernisation". It's probably going to be themed as they are building something new for 2020 right next to it.






So I walked up to Lech Coaster instead. My expectations for this were really high and what an insane ride it is.. It is snappy, there's ejector air on every hill, the first drop is phenomenal! I rode it in the front and in the back a couple of times as there was no line at all. I even got a solo ride on it in the front seat . I must say the first drop is best in the back. Other than that I find it equall as good in the front as in the back.



I'm not sure if Lech Coaster is actually themed after a legendary King of Poland or after beer. I think it's the latter.



After Lech, I took a ride on Diamond River, a log flume. The operator told me to hold on the rubber railing on the front and for good reason. On the drops you nose dive into the water which is pretty jolty. You could tell it's an old ride but the theming was brand new.



After that I walked past some of the flat rides. I'm not a fan of flat rides so I didn't ride them and most of them weren't operating because no one was getting on them. So I walked to the final coaster, Dream Hunters Society. It's another Zyklon model although it's slightly different from Scary Toys Factory. The difference is that the lift hill on this one runs diagonal along the footprint and on Scary toys it runs along the edge. Other than that it was pretty much the same thing. This one was pretty smooth as well.



This foto was taken from the Ferris Wheel. You could actually see a lot of the city as well. The view was really nice.



After walking a few more rounds around the lake I doing some of the flats, including Dream Flight Airlines, a ride very similar to Flying Machines at Blackpool, and Bazyliszek, a trackless shooting darkride. Although I had no clue what the story was about but the ride was fun and I got a pretty good score, shooting with 2 guns





Lastly I took a couple more rides on Lech Coaster until it got dark. I think I got around 12 - 15 rides on it in total. It really is a top coaster.

Here's a link to all the photo's I took. I took quite a few photo's of the trains on Lech and Formula because I'm trying to recreate the new gen Vekoma trains for my project. Maybe they can come in handy for you guys too:

https://imgur.com/a/lhBUX3O

[mkingy]

Fantastic that you got to get out there! Looking forward to the rest of your trip report how did you find the driving in Poland? My polish friend said they wouldn't recommend it but i don't know if they were kidding lol

I uploaded the Legendia Trip report too. Actually driving in Poland was not bad at all. Quite similar to driving back home actually