France Road Trip: Le Pal

Sunday 19th August 2012

Our first park on our second day in France proved to be a real gem. Le Pal is a superb theme park located in central France. It has the right balance of rides to keep the whole family happy. Le Pal's newest roller coaster is the Mack spinning coaster Le Twist. This red tracked coaster looks and rides well. It's well paced throughout the whole ride. Some spin coasters under-spin and some over-spin to the point that some riders wish they'd never bothered to ride it. Le Twist has got it just right. The perfect amount of spinning makes this a very re-ridable coaster. The first drop is fantastic! At the bottom of the drop, the car passes at great speed through some themed wooden spikes.

The second coaster is Azteka, a Soquet coaster. This has one of the nicest themed trains I've ever seen. The ride itself is fun as it slides through Mayan temple-themed ruins. A small thing that slightly hinders the ride is a bulge that sticks out of the seat and pushes into the rider's back. If the park solves this minor problem, they'll have a fantastic coaster.

The third and oldest coaster in the park is a Reverchon custom-built figure-eight coaster called Tigre de Sibérie. Now this is a coaster that's having an identity crises. Its quite tall, which frightens the younger riders but too slow and boring for the older children to be enthralled by it.

Besides the coasters, the park's standout attraction is the King Kong ride. This is one of those rides that look better than they actually are. The spectators, of which there was a large gathering, were more enthralled than the actual riders. The riders are gently lifted up, slightly shaken and brought back down.

The 4D cinema was a nice surprise, not like any I had seen before. It had a simple but very effective story. Some of the other rides include Rapids, Log Flume, Giant Slide and Disco. The park also has a zoo, but due to time constraints, we couldn't check it out. In short, Le Pal is a great park to which I would love to return.