Spin high above the Mall of Istanbul...
Spin high above the Mall of Istanbul...
| Theme Park | MOİPark |
|---|---|
| Type | Rollercoaster |
| Audience | Older Families and Thrillseekers |
| Opened | 2014 |
| Manufacturer | Zamperla |
| Model | Twister Coaster |
| Length | 1148 ft |
| Inversions | 0 |
| Duration | 1½ minutes |
One of Çilgin Mekik cars in the ride station
Many indoor mall coasters are a bit lacklustre, never quite matching up to their full sized outdoor theme park equivalents. MOİPark's Çilgin Mekik, in contrast, is a superb ride out-classing many other spinning coasters around the world.
The rollercoaster weaves around a large part of MOİPark's two floor 12000m2 area, spinning riders in groups of up to four per car the entire way around.
Çilgin Mekik is a custom layout Zamperla Twister Coaster, and has been in the Mall of Istanbul since MOİPark opened in 2014. The ride's name is "flexible": For a time it seems to have been known as Pir Döndü, and even now on the park's website it is sometimes referred to as Spinning Coaster as opposed to Çilgin Mekik (Turkish for Crazy Shuttle).
Regardless of the name, the coaster itself is superb. There are some great helixes, fantastic swooping drops and light headchopper moments as the cars navigate through the layout past various bits of rockwork theming. It's so nice to see a unique layout with something different to the usual generic track elements on a spinning coaster.
The track really accentuates the forces, and if there is more weight on one side of the car than the other the effect on the spinning is intense and ensures almost constant pirouettes all the way around. The cars themselves come complete with a nice lighting package which really makes them stand out as the whizz above the heads of park visitors.
Overall, Çilgin Mekik is a real star of the show at MOİPark and is a brilliant example of just how wonderful a mall coaster can be, given a little imagination and the selection of a decent ride model.
Çilgin Mekik station
Lift hill
Skimming the roof at the Mall of Istanbul
Spinning through the track layout
