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Parque de Atracciones de Madrid

Madrid, Spain

“No-frills amusement park near the city centre”

When travelling to Madrid, be sure to spend a few hours at Casa de Campo. This huge park is located west of Madrid and it’s a beloved day trip for both locals and tourists. It’s a place for hiking and sunbathing, but Casa de Campo is also home to the Madrid Zoo and Parque de Atracciones. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that visiting Parque de Atracciones usually is our main goal. Personal tip: the nicest way to get there, is by using the cable car. Teleférico de Madrid leaves at Madrid’s beautiful rose garden and it drops you off 2.5 kilometres further, right in the centre of Casa de Campo.

ROLLER COASTERS

Parque de Atracciones’ coaster highlight is definitely Abismo, a brightly coloured roller coaster that can be seen from afar. Abismo is a SkyLoop built by Maurer Rides and, because of its layout, it can only run one train. As a result, capacity is limited and queues move rather slowly. The ride itself is unusual, to say the least. Its biggest eye-catcher is the vertical lift hill, but this is also the least fun part of the ride. It’s uncomfortable and the first inversion, which is actually integrated into the lift hill, lasts too long to be considered pleasant. Still, as soon as the train starts gaining speed, Abismo becomes an excellent experience. It’s a smooth coaster with powerful curves and two amazing pops of airtime. Just try to forget those first 30 seconds as soon as possible…

Abismo can be found at Zona del Maquinismo, the home of the park’s most sensational roller coasters. This area also features Tarántula, a spinning roller coaster manufactured by Maurer. Decoration is very limited, but Tarántula is a great ride anyway. It isn’t filled with special effects like Winja’s Fear & Force at Phantasialand and there’s no brilliant onboard soundtrack like there is at Toverland, but damn… what a powerful ride. Tarántula is full of surprisingly deep drops and it’s incredibly fast. We encountered a 30-minute wait, but this Maurer creation was worth every second of it. Great roller coaster.

The third and last coaster in this area is Tornado. This inverted coaster used to be green from head to toe, but it’s a totally black affair nowadays. Due to this monotonous colour scheme and the very simple station, Tornado has a rather depressing look. Yet, it’s mainly the ride experience that counts and I’m moderately positive about that. This Intamin is not as smooth as a B&M, but it still runs a lot better than Vekoma’s classic SLCs. Tornado also offers a varied layout with three inversions and it’s placed in a dense forest. Not the best ride in the world (or in Spain…) but it isn’t bad either.

Nickelodeon Land is located in a quiet corner of the park and it looks fantastic. In fact, thanks to its natural environment, I like this Nickelodeon Land much better than its namesake at Movie Park Germany. This area is themed to SpongeBob, Dora The Explorer and The Ninja Turtles and it’s ideal for the youngest visitors. Besides, it’s also an interesting place for roller coaster enthusiasts aiming for a coaster bingo. Be prepared to queue between a bunch of toddlers and their parents if you really want the Paw Patrol and Padrinos Voladores credits.

I love counting credits, but I wouldn’t do anything to get a coaster bingo. So if there’s a 90-minute wait for the wild mouse, I don’t mind skipping it (luckily, we rode it early in the morning, with a considerably shorter queue). Besides, I’ve already ridden Vértigo at the time it could be found 1,500 kilometres closer to my front door. This was the left half of Bobbejaanland’s Speedy Bob, which used to be a dueling roller coaster. And although it can be found in a nicer climate nowadays, the actual experience remains identical.

Parque de Atracciones is in desperate need of a new roller coaster. I’m writing this article in 2025 and the park’s most recently added coaster is already 13 years old. I’m talking about TNT Tren de la Mina. It’s obvious that this family-style roller coaster was themed to a mine train, but don’t expect too much from it. The huge (and beautiful) entrance gate was already there, the loading station isn’t special and theming is rather limited. TNT is a great ride, nevertheless. Gerstlauer delivered a smooth coaster with a few powerful curves. Unfortunately, I mainly remember the ride’s poor operations. Restraint checks were slow and TNT’s staff made absolutely no effort to fill in empty seats. This resulted in a long, slowly moving queue.

WATER RIDES

A water ride a day, keeps overheating away. Parque de Atracciones has two great water rides in its Zona de la Naturaleza. These are Los Fiordos and Los Rápidos, a beautiful shoot-the-chute and a rapid river that winds through a forest. A third water attraction is El Aserradero at the opposite side of the park. This log flume provides the ideal way to cool down on a hot day and it’s nicely integrated between three spectacular roller coasters, but there are definitely better water rides in Europe.

OTHER EXPERIENCES

Zona del Maquinismo is the park’s thrill area. It’s home to Abismo and Tarántula, but it also features some classic flat rides. In desperate need of dizzying theme park fun? Then take a ride on the Frisbee, the Top Spin or the Disk’o. One of the area’s only attractions that wasn’t aimed at thrill seekers was Cueva de las Tarántulas. This interactive dark ride was pretty fun, but unfortunately it has been closed forever since 2019.

As a monorail enthusiast, I am pleasantly surprised by Parque de Atracciones. Their Zeppelin ride is unique, it traverses a large part of the park and it offers some unexpected views. These attractions always make my day more complete, so it’s nice to conclude our afternoon at Casa del Campo with this. Afterwards, we said goodbye to Parque de Atracciones. Although we still had time to get a second ride on Abismo, we actually preferred a cocktail in the city centre of Madrid. Cheers.

WORTH A VISIT?

Parque de Atracciones promises a no-frills amusement park experience and that’s exactly what we got here. The park has an extensive ride collection, the atmosphere is good and I was quite impressed by the park’s lush vegetation. Still, the park has its weaknesses. Operations aren’t great and it’s really time to add a big new attraction to the lineup. I would love to see a wooden coaster, water coaster or dark ride at Parque de Atracciones.

Would you wait 90 minutes for a standard wild mouse? Do you hate Abismo’s vertical lift hill as well? What’s the best water ride at Parque de Atracciones? Share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

This article reflects my personal experience at Parque de Atracciones during a visit in April 2025.