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THE FERIA HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY CLOSED DUE TO THE DEATH OF TWO PARK VISITORS IN SEPTEMBER OF 2019 – YIKES
The Chapultepec rollercoaster has been something of a mythical creature for the past five years. On many occasions, heading out of the city towards Queretaro, I has seen it in the distance and wondered exactly how to get to it. A golden Dorado just out of reach. So, in honor of a friend’s birthday, I finally made it to La Feria in Chapultepec park. Here are some notes for those with a lust for adrenaline and a hankering for junk food.
Logistics
La Feria (The Fair) is not the easiest place to get to via public transporation or walking. It’s located in the second section of the Chapultepec park and is easiest to reach driving into that section of the park and parking in one of the various lots nearby. If you don’t have a vehicle, the closest metro is Constituyentes and you have to cross two major highways (on pedestrian bridges, but a bit of convoluted walking nonetheless).
At the entrance you are presented with three tickets options, each that afford different levels of which games you can play and which rides you can ride. My suggestion, unless you have tiny kids you know won’t be able to ride most rollercoasters, is just go for the top level 200p ticket, that way you can ride the majestic and scary-because-it’s-old-as-shit MontaƱa Rusa.
There are lockers inside and outside the park.Ā You have to buy a token to use them (30p). You might think lockers inside are more convienent because you can get your stuff if you need to to, but once you open the locker you have to buy another ticket, so just make sure you get out what you need for the day or you will have to keep running back to the gift shop to purchase more tokens. Mexico City is hot during the day out under the sun, but as soon as it starts to dwindle you will find yourself shivering, dress appropriately.
Food is everywhere. Your basic fair food like nachos with fake cheese and ground beef from a bag, chicken nuggets, hamburgers. Certain stands do have tortas and taco al pastor, probably the most real of all the options. Pepsi
products and no beer.
The Rides
The rickety MontaƱa Rusa is the most famous Feria ride. It was built in the 1964 when the park opened and wooden rollercoasters were still a thing. You can feel its age as you creak and shimmy over the 1,240 meters of track. This rollercoaster is among the 20 most classic wooden rollercoasters in the Americas and to be honest, it’s the most fun of all the rides in the park. You don’t do wild upside down loops, but there are some intense drops and sheer idea that it could fall apart at any moment adds to the anxious exhiliration. The record for rides in a single day is 1,333 — which sounds like an invitation to vomit to me.
The Quimera is the most intense rollercoaster with a triple loop and the feeling that you are going to die about every 2 seconds. The thing I didn’t like about this coaster was that it bangs you around a bit (and I’m becoming an old lady apparently), bad backs and necks be forewarned. It was the first ride we rode and we didn’t go back.
The Cascabel is painted the colors of the cascabel snake and unlike every other ride we went on, there is no slow, steady climb to the top while your stomach turns in knots waiting for the moment of descendent. You shoot out of the station so fast your vision blurs, immediately loop upside and head up the “tail” of the snake that extends kilometers above the ground curled into nothingness, then you do it all again backwards going the other direction. It’s over in about 30 seconds, so we had to do it twice.
The Troncos ride is a tad ridiculous, but enough time in the sun and you find yourself longing for a water ride. You ride for about a minute (slowly) through a series of canals that if you don’t provide your own fun, you don’t get wet. The grand finale is a climb to a 3 or 4 meters high and a drop in a giant pool of water. You won’t get that wet, but the drenched factor is definitely better in the front seat.
The Nao de China an enclosed “ship” that swings back and forth, back and forth, until you are flipped upside down and start to wind in circles. There are million warnings about leaving all your loose belongings on the ground and hundreds of items below you that let you know most people ignore the warnings. How exactly do you walk out of the park with only one shoe?
Skip the Cola de Chester, what a rip-off. There are bumper cars (with a lot of little kids, not too rowdy), that circular ride where the music blasts the whole time and you spin in circles while going in a circle on a slant, the classic carousel ride for kiddies, teenagers that want to pretend their kiddies, and parents that need a minute to check their phone. Go-karts didn’t look that popular so we opted not to go. There was also the giant drop ride but it wasn’t running the day we were there because of some kind of mechanical issue, and honestly, that’s a ride I don’t want to be on if it’s broken.
There areĀ also dozens of slow, safe and steady rides for kids of all ages — mini flying airplanes, a tiny wild teacups ride, a baby Nao de China that doesn’t flip you all the way upside down.
Other Stuff
Classic games of chance, where you toss balls into a rigged basketball rim or try to toss a marble in a fish tank are in a single section with about half a dozen options for those out to impress whomever they are with with a giant teddy bear or new goldfish.
The Casona de Terror (The Huanted House) is scary if you can keep yourself from laughing about how ridiculous it is. There is also a House of Mirrors and the La Casa del Tio Chueco (the House of Uncle Crooked? – That’s a bit of a tricky translation) where everything is tilted for your walking pleasure.
The Vibe
We went on a Saturday in March that was nice and sunny and the vibe was pretty mellow. I don’t think we ever waited over 15 minutes for a ride except when they told us one would be out of service for 10 minutes and we stayed in line. (Bad move, as watching the “repair man” come out and bang on the ride with a giant metal tube didn’t make for relaxed riding when our turn came).
In asking the long-time Mexico City residents that were there with us (who used to come with their moms when they were kids, isn’t that cute?), the place is always a crap shoot — somedays overrun with people, somedays almost no one. I would imagine that during school summer breaks and national holidays the place is packed. It’s most definitely not like a Six Flags Great America or other such monster theme park. Walking the entire park will take you about an hour tops.
Hardcore theme parkers would have been dissappointed by the number of big rollercoasters and also longed for one of those rides where your feet dangle below you (think The Batman), but for moderate enthusiasts like myself, the park was the perfect size —Ā three hours and I was happy and ready to go home.
Regardless of where you fall on the rollercoaster Kinsey scale, it’s pretty amazing to have a theme park smack dab in the middle of Mexico City’s sprawling Chapultepec park and that, unlike Six Flags Mexico City, doesn’t take a hour to get to from the city’s central neighborhoods.Ā If you’ve been to the city a lot and are looking for something novel to do for the day, think about La Feria.
What else can you do in a day in Mexico City? Check out our guide to Colonia San Rafael, Everything you need know about the Xochimilco canals and Day Trips to Teotihuacan.
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