I recently visited Adlabs Imagica with my family. I had pre booked the tickets for 29th Dec 2015 as it was Tuesday and Imagica has this "Happy Tuesdays" package under which all tickets are priced at Rs. 999. So i decided to grab this opportunity and bought tickets online for entire family. It felt like a dream come true. Entire family especially the children had high hopes from Imagica after seeing the advertisements on television and listening about it on radio now and then.
We started from Pune at around 9 in morning. It didn't take much time for us to be on Khopoli road left exit. Once you are on the Khopoli road, you start seeing big hoardings, banners of the theme park giving directions to the destination.
As we were very close to the park, i could see a huge rush of vehicles. The entire road was blocked with traffic. A single lane road soon turned into a 3 lane road as cars started forming parallel lines inorder to be the first to reach the park. As a result, the entire traffic flow coming from the opposite lane was blocked. And that's when we realized that the dream has just started to turn into a nightmare. It took us 1 hour 15 minutes just to cover 5 kms. distance to Imagica. We finally reached and still were on the road from where we could see the rides on our right side.
The parking was already full. Visitors were fighting with the staff for parking space. Few parked their vehicles in unguarded open areas opposite to the theme park and i just followed the herd. All heavy moving vehicles (buses, trucks) were moving through the same road as light moving vehicles. As a result there were few clashes between the owners when their vehicles collided. So you better be very careful driving upto Imagica and be in your lane. Do not try to overtake other vehicles. You may land yourself in trouble.
As we parked not too close to the park, So we had to walk a lot. Children were already very tired thanks to the traffic, heat and the commotion. It was a rush like never seen before. There were huge queues to get the tickets. Once you get the tickets, you need to go to another queue where they tie the band around your wrist. it was a stampede there literally.
Finally we were inside the theme park. I and my entire family especially the children were all tired and charged at the same time to take as many rides as possible. But we were unaware of the fact that we picked the wrong day to visit the theme park. Because of "Happy Tuesdays" it felt like entire Maharashtra had come here to enjoy. There were long queues, waiting lines against each ride. Adults accompanying us decided to ditch the rides and focus on kids rides for their enjoyment. So we started searching for kids rides with less waiting time. The first ride "Bump it Boats" we stood in the queue for 1:30 hours before our turn. It was very sunny that day and thanks to the commotion, crowd we not only felt frustrated but also started to feel the heat. In our entire day in park, we managed to give kids only 2 rides with loads of disappointment. I saw people were trespassing the queues to get their chance first. Families fighting over to maintain the queues.
We decided to just see around and eat and buy stuff for kids. To our surprise, there were big queues to buy food as well. Few who bought express tickets were fighting at the food counter that they have express tickets so they should get food first. I wonder if someone said the same in toilet queues as well.
All in all, we had a very bad experience at Imagica. We all felt it was a day wasted in sun and money wasted in drain. Here are a few take aways from my visit:
We started from Pune at around 9 in morning. It didn't take much time for us to be on Khopoli road left exit. Once you are on the Khopoli road, you start seeing big hoardings, banners of the theme park giving directions to the destination.
As we were very close to the park, i could see a huge rush of vehicles. The entire road was blocked with traffic. A single lane road soon turned into a 3 lane road as cars started forming parallel lines inorder to be the first to reach the park. As a result, the entire traffic flow coming from the opposite lane was blocked. And that's when we realized that the dream has just started to turn into a nightmare. It took us 1 hour 15 minutes just to cover 5 kms. distance to Imagica. We finally reached and still were on the road from where we could see the rides on our right side.
The parking was already full. Visitors were fighting with the staff for parking space. Few parked their vehicles in unguarded open areas opposite to the theme park and i just followed the herd. All heavy moving vehicles (buses, trucks) were moving through the same road as light moving vehicles. As a result there were few clashes between the owners when their vehicles collided. So you better be very careful driving upto Imagica and be in your lane. Do not try to overtake other vehicles. You may land yourself in trouble.
As we parked not too close to the park, So we had to walk a lot. Children were already very tired thanks to the traffic, heat and the commotion. It was a rush like never seen before. There were huge queues to get the tickets. Once you get the tickets, you need to go to another queue where they tie the band around your wrist. it was a stampede there literally.
Finally we were inside the theme park. I and my entire family especially the children were all tired and charged at the same time to take as many rides as possible. But we were unaware of the fact that we picked the wrong day to visit the theme park. Because of "Happy Tuesdays" it felt like entire Maharashtra had come here to enjoy. There were long queues, waiting lines against each ride. Adults accompanying us decided to ditch the rides and focus on kids rides for their enjoyment. So we started searching for kids rides with less waiting time. The first ride "Bump it Boats" we stood in the queue for 1:30 hours before our turn. It was very sunny that day and thanks to the commotion, crowd we not only felt frustrated but also started to feel the heat. In our entire day in park, we managed to give kids only 2 rides with loads of disappointment. I saw people were trespassing the queues to get their chance first. Families fighting over to maintain the queues.
We decided to just see around and eat and buy stuff for kids. To our surprise, there were big queues to buy food as well. Few who bought express tickets were fighting at the food counter that they have express tickets so they should get food first. I wonder if someone said the same in toilet queues as well.
All in all, we had a very bad experience at Imagica. We all felt it was a day wasted in sun and money wasted in drain. Here are a few take aways from my visit:
- Never buy "Happy Tuesdays" tickets just because they are cheap and you think its value for money. Your assumptions will be happily thrashed when you realize that entire planet has bought tickets for tuesday.
- Park wherever you get open space to park. if you are adamant to park only in Imagica's secured parking, you will end up spending most part of your day in parking area only.
- if you have bought regular tickets, the guy at the counter will tell you to buy express tickets. As per my experience, its not worth buying express tickets because those express tickets people still had to wait for around 30-45 minutes before their turn to take the ride. If you are a regular ticket owner, you wait for 1 hour 30 minutes for the ride. if you are an express ticket owner, you still wait for 45 minutes.
- if you are express ticket owner, do not assume that this ticket works in food stalls and toilet queues as well. it doesn't!!!
- Eateries at various food stalls are way too expensive. Even if you have to buy a burger, you need to cut loose 300 bucks just for 1 burger.
- Better go to Apu Ghar or Katraj Zoo or Wax Museum than going to Imagica. I bet kids will enjoy more there than in Imagica.
This was my experience. So i decided to review the theme park. We never went to the aqua park as i thought nobody would love to go in water in winters.
