M'nar Park 12th February 2017

M'nar Park is one of two parks with roller coasters along the north-east coast of Morocco. In its early years the place had a proper web site located at www.mnarparktanger.com, but the domain was allowed to expire and since mid-2015 has pointed to a site promoting prostitution in Japanese; you have been warned! Opening hours were never listed anyway, and thus we decided to show up on a weekend and hope for the best. It was shortly before 11:00am when we arrived, and a number of machines were undergoing testing. A few cursory inquiries revealed that the coaster would be opening at noon, and this gave us plenty of time to explore the place and take our photographs.

It was quickly apparent that the only section of the place open during the winter was the amusement ride area, which featured a good selection of equipment for both adults and children. Most of the attractions were standard enough, though we were intrigued and horrified in equal measure by Nube, a flying carpet ride retrofitted with stand-up cages. I would have liked to have ridden, but I'm not sure my stomach would have cooperated; before I became old it was my privilege to ride a pirate ship that had been upgraded in a similar fashion, and the memory of that experience stays with me today.

There was a security guard standing in front of a closed barrier that led to a series of residential blocks and a hotel. We were not able to get close, but a walk in a different direction led us towards a water park with a variety of slides and pools that had been completely drained. There was a pleasant view of Tangier from our vantage point, but after looking at that for a few minutes it became apparent that we'd seen all that there was to see, and we duly returned to a bench next to the coaster and waited while a series of test runs were completed.

Around 11:50am we were able to board Montaña Rusa, a Zyklon equivalent built by Spanish company Mundial Park and a duplicate of its namesake at Tivoli World. The ride was if anything even better than the Zyklon at at Crazy Park, thanks to some extremely low track clearances that would not meet today's construction standards. There was good airtime in the front of each car that became excellent in the back, and the fixed position lap bar allowed us to enjoy the sensations in full. The twenty dirham ticket cost seemed like an absolute bargain, and we'd probably have completed more than two laps if it hadn't started to rain.