With the basic itinerary in place I did a sweep of the country using Google Earth . There were at least a dozen parks with no coasters, and I was just about to give up when I spotted a suspicious shadow at Palooza Land . Further research revealed my find to be a figure eight spinning coaster, and I duly forwarded the data to RCDB so the rest of the community could benefit. I also found a travelling fair operated by an Italian company in Agadir, but sadly it was too far off route to fit in to the itinerary. Perhaps next time.

In the last week of January I was randomly poking around flight search engines (as one does) when I came across a direct routing from Dublin to Marrakech for just €49 one way. The city was an ideal launching point for the roller coasters in Morocco, and the low price gave me all the incentive I needed to flesh out a long weekend trip. Rather than fly back from the same city (what fun is that?) I worked through a number of permutations before settling on a connecting flight from Tangier with an overnight stop in Madrid that was almost as cheap as the outbound journey had been.

Palooza Land 10th February 2017

Palooza Land is located behind a shopping mall in the outskirts of Marrakech right next to the local branch of Fuddruckers. There is no designated parking area, a somewhat bizarre omission even for a city park, but we were able to find an on-street spot no more than fifty metres from the main entrance. Out of an abundance of caution we placed all luggage out of sight and removed the Hertz decal from our rental car, though this was probably unnecessary as there was a security guard in a high visibility jacket roaming the area.

The park has been heavily advertised as the first theme park in Morocco, with five distinct sections: Dino World, Fantastic World, Play World, Water World, and Show World. Each area has its own design touches that have been carefully thought out. The majority of attractions are geared towards a younger audience, though there's plenty to do for older visitors too; we ended up staying almost two hours, which was quite a bit longer than I'd have expected given that the park is relatively small. Enthusiasts retracing our steps would be advised to plan accordingly.

There is no pay-one-price deal available, though there are two designated formules which give access to six or eight specified attractions at a fixed price. We never managed to figure out what these were, deciding instead to go with a rechargeable smart card, which we could share and top up as needed. Even with this approach the overall cost was relatively inexpensive in comparison to parks elsewhere in the world; the three of us went through just two hundred Moroccan dirhams (~€18) between us.

It looked at first glance like Coco Piloto (#2326) was under maintenance, as one of the twelve motors was in pieces on the ground and the cover on a second had been removed. However, a staff member confirmed that it was operational, and moments later we were clambering into our seats. It was quickly apparent that the ride was a copy of the SBF Rides design that we encountered seven times last year rather than an authentic model. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the restraint design, which just screamed China; individual ratcheting lap bars locked at least six inches away from our bodies, and the supplemental seat belts had to be adjusted manually. For all that, though, the experience was comparable to the original machines, with a modest amount of spinning delivered over an interminable number of laps. The presence of a knock-off coaster was surprising to us given that several machines in the park had visible SBF branding, including the Sky Glider and Wai Kiki; one imagines that it would feel somewhat strange for a manufacturer to commission rides next to a copy of their own product.

Our next stop was in Fantastic World, which Megan described as resembling something from Alice in Wonderland; the six hundred square metre area had a collection of oddities including brightly painted trees, an oversized animatronic butterfly, a two metre high rose with a smiling face at its centre, a boot the size of a small house, giant spiders, and an anatomically complete homo erectus that provided considerable amusement for the local children who kept grabbing on to his parts. There was a track ride around the outside of the area with target shooting elements but this turned out to require a separate ticket, and given that, we decided to give it a miss. Later on I wondered whether we'd missed another opportunity to hear Under the Sea in an unsuitable environment; perhaps another enthusiast can determine that for us at some stage.

The highlight of the morning by some margin was the magnificent Monster Tower, a combination haunted walkthrough and observation tower with live actors. We were lucky to be able to experience this as it generally doesn't open until 1:00pm, an hour after our planned cut off time, but today they began their start up procedures two hours early. There were no photos allowed inside, but I can say that the presentation was of international standard with some top quality effects that worked very well indeed. It took us almost fifteen minutes to move through the whole route, which alternated between outdoor viewing areas and well-themed dark sections.

Our last stop was in Dino World, which once again was well presented. Those who wanted to could pay an up-charge to shoot the animatronics, and while this facility was not available today we did notice a variety of targets which would presumably trigger effects when hit. The area also featured an aerial assault course with uneven bridges that looked like a lot of fun. The best feature for me was the presumably inadvertent presence of a lawnmower in front of the Velociraptor sign; I was still laughing about it hours later, proving once again that I've never bothered to grow up.