Parque da Monica
17th January 2013
This park was known as O Mundo da Xuxa at the time of this report. Original ride names have been left in place.
Our final day in São Paulo was spent at O Mundo da Xuxa, found within the SP Market shopping mall. The park felt very similar to the Plopsa Indoor parks in Europe, with elaborate theming and decoration, as well as several unique rides. The target audience was younger children rather than coaster enthusiasts, but the rides were substantial enough to be well worth the effort of visiting, a nice change from the other shopping mall parks on this trip.
The biggest attraction in the park is a large family coaster from Intamin. Montanha Russa (#1888) never picks up a lot of speed, but that's not a criticism in this case, as the pacing was absolutely perfect as a first roller coaster for a young child. We also tried the Bosque dos Duendes flume after Maria told us that it didn't get passengers too wet. This wasn't entirely accurate, but the ride was worth getting soaked for.
I also enjoyed the Fabrica de Chocolates dark ride, a guided tour of a chocolate factory complete with a soundtrack explaining the various exhibits in Brazilian Portuguese. It was fairly obvious that the motors on the cars were not designed to move two adults at the same time, but they managed, albeit slowly! We concluded our visit with the X-Simulator, which showed the same roller coaster movie that we saw at Walter World, albeit on a much larger screen.
