Piratland is a free admission family park in Rochefort-du-Gard, a few kilometres west of Avignon. It was originally developed as an attachment to a themed restaurant called La Taverne des Pirates , though it has been run independently for the last few years following the demise of its parent company. As of 2019 it includes more than a dozen attractions all of which are geared at small children. My sole hit was the Train de la Mine (#2718), a single helix family coaster from SBF; I enjoyed a ten lap cycle in the back seat.

Parc Spirou Provence 20th July 2019

Spirou et Fantasio is a popular Franco-Belgian comic that was first published in 1938. It tells the story of two journalists who run into fantastic adventures, aided by Spirou's pet squirrel Spip and their inventor friend the Count of Champignac. The series has much in common with the Adventures of Tintin though there are also some significant differences, not least the fact that the characters have been developed by a wide variety of artists over the years. Recent strips have been written by Fabien Vehlmann and illustrated by Yoann Chivard, though rumour has it that they will be passing the torch in the near future.

In September 2013 a theme park based on the series was officially announced. The initial publicity suggested that the finished park would open in the second half of 2015, an exceptionally bullish estimate that soon began to slip. Building permits were obtained in March 2014 and a formal photo shoot took place, but there was no sign of any construction work. In January 2015, the official blog (since deleted) published a map with seventeen rides, including a custom roller coaster that looked like a hybrid of Impulse and Wicked. The opening date at this point had shifted to the second half of 2016, but once again this proved to be optimistic; it wasn't until the start of 2017 that construction work finally began, albeit on a greatly reduced scale; the signature coaster was one of a number of attractions to be quietly dropped from the plans.

The finished Parc Spirou opened to the general public in June 2018, a few short weeks after the eightieth anniversary of its eponymous character. The forty thousand square metre facility premiered with twelve attractions: three roller coasters, three simulators, and a selection of flat rides targeted at families. The theming was uniformly excellent, both from a distance and up close; one particularly nice touch was display boards in front of each ride with relevant cartoon strips. Enthusiast feedback from those who visited that year was broadly positive, though reports also flagged the fact that there really wasn't enough at the park to occupy more than an hour or two.

For the 2019 season the park has expanded significantly with the addition of a themed playground and five new rides: two additional roller coasters, a Zierer Star Shape, a Hafema Flume, and a ninety metre Funtime drop tower with tilting seats. The latter in particular represents an attempt to draw in thrill seekers, and while it falls short (!) of the one hundred metre installation at Nigloland it is nevertheless one of the tallest rides of its type in Europe. The new additions have come without any appreciable increase in the park's footprint, leaving a twenty thousand square metre land bank to the north of the current site free for future expansion.

My visit began with En avant Seccotine (#2719), the park's smallest roller coaster and one of four versions of the Zierer Force Zero in Europe. The seventy metre long layout features a tyre drive lift hill, a turnaround, a descending left turn, a climbing right turn, and a descending left turn back to the station. The pink-coloured track has been installed around a tiny model of Mont Ventoux with a layer of snow at its peak. There was no issue with adults riding unaccompanied; I took the back car for a three lap cycle. The ride was fine, though it'd be remiss of me not to point out the fact that the enormous figurehead on the lead car obscured the forward view for virtually the entire train.

My favourite coaster in the park today was Wanted Dalton (#2720), a Zierer Force Two. The ride is one of nineteen examples of the type globally and the third in France, though it is sufficiently remote from the other two that it can be thought of as a unique attraction. The entrance queue routes through a faux prison building with static models of four inmates in striped yellow uniforms chipping up stone, and a series of wanted posters on the outside quote rewards of between $400 and $2000 for named miscreants. The ride itself is a perfect family coaster, with smooth tracking and a satisfyingly lengthy three lap cycle. The only negative today was the lack of theming around the track, though perhaps that will come in future years.

The largest coaster in the park at present was also the most disappointing. Spirou Racing (#2721) is a Zierer ESC 535, a design that I really enjoyed two months ago at Wonderland Eurasia. The ride looked good; the two trains were themed to resemble classic race cars, and the queue was lined with appropriate theming, including oil cans, tyres, and toolboxes. Unfortunately the comfort level on board fell far short of where it should have been; numerous bumps along the route were accompanied by significant vibration, and a harsh trim brake prior to the final turn did the pacing no favours while also throwing passengers into their lap bars. A second lap for research purposes was if anything worse than the first had been, a real shame for what should have been a good ride.

I'd hoped to score my fourth hit on Boule & Bill Déboulent, the first park installation of the Preston & Barbieri Spinning coaster. Sadly it was closed today, as it apparently has been for much of its short life; just five people have it ticked on Coaster-Count as of this writing. While taking photographs I noticed that the four car train had over-the-shoulder restraints, a bizarre affliction on a brand new design, especially one with a minimal height differential and top speed; it seems that the manufacturer hasn't learned from the mistakes of competitors.

The last new tick of the morning became Nid des Marsupilamis (#2722), my first encounter with a so-called Roller Ball from Ride Engineers Switzerland. The design can be thought of as the top section of a Wild Mouse turned on its side, with seven short drops negotiated by a car that can rock gently from side to side. Long term enthusiasts may recognise the concept as being a close relative of the Frequent Faller, an Interactive Rides creation that was supposed to premiere at at Hersheypark in 2005. There are also some parallels with the Intamin ZacSpin and the S&S Free Spin, though the RES implementation has dampers and trim brakes to ensure that the experience remains family friendly.

The ride is best described as strange. The vehicles take just shy of a minute to ascend a twenty-eight metre high vertical lift, rocking gently as they go. The descent back to ground level takes around forty seconds, and while it is driven by gravity and momentum it feels too controlled for me to think of it as a roller coaster. Each descent is prefixed by a trim brake, and as a result riders never pick up much speed. The implementation seems a little rough around the edges, too; I was told to lift my legs on the last drop as the clearance between the car and the ground was perhaps a little less than it should have been. Though it's good to see a manufacturer trying something genuinely different I really can't see the Roller Ball becoming a bestseller.

My next stop was at Mesozoic Island, a Simworx Immersive Tunnel. Guests board a thirty seat vehicle in the vague shape of a truck, which moves slowly forward into the main showroom where it tilts and rocks in time with the action on screen. The footage in use today was probably best described as "generic dinosaur", and while the projection could have done with being a little brighter it was respectable enough. The only thing I didn't like was the ending, which was extremely abrupt; without any warning at all our vehicle apparently reversed into a shed, going from the middle of a thrilling chase to a dead stop in two seconds flat.

I repeated Nid des Marsupilamis and Wanted Dalton before concluding my visit at Marsu Aventures, a custom 4D movie with the usual complement of special effects.