While Italy may be far from an amusement park mecca, the country does boast of having at least a handful of major parks, including Gardaland and Mirabilandia. The newer of the two, Mirabilandia, opened up in 1992, and has already been home to 10 total coasters. One of the park’s two coasters to open with the park, and the only wooden coaster in its history, Sierra Tonante, was removed in 2007, but the powered Explorer coaster remains. Among Mirabilandia’s current lineup of coasters are the Intamin launched iSpeed, massive B&M invert Katun, and a handful of family coasters, including the recently added Max Adventures Master Thai coaster installed in 2011. But for 2012, Mirabilandia decided it wanted something more, something for the thrill seekers to enjoy as well.

Rumors started surfacing in early April 2011, with thoughts that the park might get a Mack Water Coaster, similar to Poseidon at Europa Park. Months later, it was thought to be a huge new coaster project featuring the highest coaster in the world, or at least in Italy or Europe. Another possibility that surfaced often was that it may be the world’s 4th S&S 4th Dimension coaster following X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain (2002), Eejanaika at Fuji-Q Highland (2006), and Dinoconda at China Dinosaurs Park (2012), and the first in Europe.

Finally, in late September, it became quite apparent that some of those rumors would be at least partly true; the park would be adding a new Intamin flume for 2012, the tallest water coaster in the world. It wasn’t until December though that the first teasers and details began leaking out to the public, at which point the name Divertical was revealed, as well as images of water, waves, and roller coaster track, confirming that the new ride would indeed be a water coaster. Divertical is a rather unique creation for Intamin, combining the massive elevator lift system first used on Pilgrim’s Plunge at Holiday World, the current tallest water attraction, and Mack’s well known roller coaster elements in its water attractions such as Journey to Atlantis at SeaWorld parks and Poseiden.

Divertical stands an imposing 197 feet tall at the apex of its elevator lift system, hits a top speed of 62 mph, and traverses several hundred feet of roller coaster-style track. Earlier this year, the $26 million water coaster, among the parks biggest investments to date, was revealed to have a speed/racing boat theme. Guests board their 10-passenger “speed” boats in a very modern-looking, “wavy” style station before going through a relatively short log flume-like section as they approach the lift. Once engaged, the elevator lift hauls the boats up vertically 197 feet, tilting slightly on the way up to allow the other loading platform to pass by as it goes down to load the next boat. Once released at the top, the boats plunge down a 180 foot drop at a 45-degree angle into a “mock water splash” section of track at 62 mph. The boat then rises over an elongated hill before dropping slightly, then rising and falling through a lefthanded U-turn which rises and twists into a mid-course brake run. From here, the train spirals down 360-degrees to the right, rises, and plunges into the soaking wet splashdown finale.