Piranha Plant Cove

Piranha Plant Cove is a race course from Mario Kart Tour. It debuts in the 2023 Exploration Tour as its featured course. It is set in an underwater ruin with Maw-Rays that has a Piranha Plant motif, which includes stone Petey Piranha heads near a staircase at the exit of the underwater section. Along the course are various hieroglyphs depicting 8-bit Piranha Plant sprites from Super Mario Bros., and various engravings on Falling Pillars are seen glowing bright turquoise. Thwomps appear as obstacles as well, while Bulbers appear as background elements. The underwater ruins and the architecture of this course bear similarities to the fictional island of.

Piranha Plant Cove is the first course in Mario Kart Tour and the second course in the Mario Kart series overall to start entirely underwater, after Mario Kart 8's Dolphin Shoals.

It has two confirmed routes, making it the second course in Mario Kart Tour to have numbered re-routes and not be set in a real life location, after N64 Kalimari Desert; it is the first new course with this distinction. Several unused routes indicate a third variant will release later, also akin to city courses. It is also the third Tour-original course to have a re-route with a different starting line placement, after Los Angeles Laps and Berlin Byways, although unlike said courses, the starting line has a completely different appearance between variants.

Course layout
Similar to Dolphin Shoals from Mario Kart 8, this course's starting line is located underwater. When the race begins, racers are immediately met with a brief fork in the road; here, there are pillars that, throughout the race, may fall on to the road, similar to Dry Dry Ruins from Mario Kart Wii and in Mario Kart 8. When the two branches are connected again, racers drive up a large staircase with currents, decorated with stone Petey Piranha heads, that takes them up to the surface. Afterwards, racers drive along the ruins, driving beneath many stone arch ways, taking 90-degree bends before diving back into the water, and driving down a straightaway and entering a cavern, avoiding Thwomps in the process. Racers take a few more turns before reaching the finishing line.

Trivia

 * The music for this course is the only music track in the Mario Kart series to be in a 6/4 time signature.