Today was a highlight day in my India visit as my brother, with his two children Shabbir and Umme-Salma, and I, with my daughters Inas and Hannah, went to Adlabs Imagica - a full-scale adventure park located near Khopoli off the Mumbai-Pune expressway. We were all excited, and the reason I was excited was the fact that I had never been to this park despite my knowing about it since nearly a decade. The great thing about this visit was that I was being allowed in totally free, as I had just had my birthday a few days before.
We drove to it in my car, reaching there at about nine o'clock. The younger kids of Murtuza were too excited to be there, and no sooner had we entered the park than they had run to the first of the many rides that are available here. When we had entered the park, we were all given some or the other things to wear on our bodies. I got a "Birthday Boy" wristband; my family members, including the brother and all the 4 offspring received "Team member" badges. Over the course of the next few hours, we took one ride after another, until, at about 1 p.m., we sat down near one of the restaurants to have lunch.
As we did the rides, one thing struck me immediately: this park has everything on the same scale as international adventure parks like the Universal Studios park that my kids and I had visited in January 2014 in Sentosa Island in Singapore! Additionally, the creators of this park had changed the themes to fit them to the Indian culture and Indian stories. A simple show based on a montage of movies shot from a helicopter at different majestic locations in India literally took our breaths away! There were roller-coasters - three in number. I did not have the guts to sit in any of the open ones, but I did sit in one that was inside a dome and in complete darkness. I could feel my insides taking a toss, but I never realised that I had gone through 2, or maybe 3, 360 degree turns inside the space of about 55 seconds! One was supposed to keep one's eyes open to view celestial images (the ride was called a Journey into Space - or something similar, but I did not see anything as I kept my eyes firmly shut in an effort to stay calm under pressure. This ride began with our train moving slowly to a "gate into space", and then the train suddenly zoomed ahead - so fast, in fact, that I felt like screaming. What an experience!
There were fun rides too, such as revolving around a hub seated on what seemed to be cuddly flying elephants, going up and down in a tower (that was scary!), shooting each other with water cannons in a sort of pirate adventure, and a virtual ride in a car that rides and flies across different landscapes of the Imagica ground in an effort to save innocent children from a villain. We, the riders, are in cars that shake and grind to give us a virtual experience while the screen shows us the visuals of what we might have been actually experiencing had our cars been real. The hero we are helping is a cartoonised version of Anil Kapoor as Mr. India, while the villain is Mogambo - played by a cartoonised version of Amrish Puri. This was a very enjoyable ride indeed.
We finished all the rides (barring one, which closed before we could reach it) at around sunset. Our trip back home was uneventful, and the hectic day ended when we finally reached home around ten p.m.
There are so many memories we have of this day, but I am sharing some here with you. Enjoy.
We drove to it in my car, reaching there at about nine o'clock. The younger kids of Murtuza were too excited to be there, and no sooner had we entered the park than they had run to the first of the many rides that are available here. When we had entered the park, we were all given some or the other things to wear on our bodies. I got a "Birthday Boy" wristband; my family members, including the brother and all the 4 offspring received "Team member" badges. Over the course of the next few hours, we took one ride after another, until, at about 1 p.m., we sat down near one of the restaurants to have lunch.
As we did the rides, one thing struck me immediately: this park has everything on the same scale as international adventure parks like the Universal Studios park that my kids and I had visited in January 2014 in Sentosa Island in Singapore! Additionally, the creators of this park had changed the themes to fit them to the Indian culture and Indian stories. A simple show based on a montage of movies shot from a helicopter at different majestic locations in India literally took our breaths away! There were roller-coasters - three in number. I did not have the guts to sit in any of the open ones, but I did sit in one that was inside a dome and in complete darkness. I could feel my insides taking a toss, but I never realised that I had gone through 2, or maybe 3, 360 degree turns inside the space of about 55 seconds! One was supposed to keep one's eyes open to view celestial images (the ride was called a Journey into Space - or something similar, but I did not see anything as I kept my eyes firmly shut in an effort to stay calm under pressure. This ride began with our train moving slowly to a "gate into space", and then the train suddenly zoomed ahead - so fast, in fact, that I felt like screaming. What an experience!
There were fun rides too, such as revolving around a hub seated on what seemed to be cuddly flying elephants, going up and down in a tower (that was scary!), shooting each other with water cannons in a sort of pirate adventure, and a virtual ride in a car that rides and flies across different landscapes of the Imagica ground in an effort to save innocent children from a villain. We, the riders, are in cars that shake and grind to give us a virtual experience while the screen shows us the visuals of what we might have been actually experiencing had our cars been real. The hero we are helping is a cartoonised version of Anil Kapoor as Mr. India, while the villain is Mogambo - played by a cartoonised version of Amrish Puri. This was a very enjoyable ride indeed.
We finished all the rides (barring one, which closed before we could reach it) at around sunset. Our trip back home was uneventful, and the hectic day ended when we finally reached home around ten p.m.
There are so many memories we have of this day, but I am sharing some here with you. Enjoy.
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