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A Little Liseberg - Part 2: Liseberg

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Is everybody in?

Day 1 – TusenFryd

Been thinking how to fit this place in for a long time – dedicated trip? Nah, not worth it. Ferry from Denmark? Nah, bit mad. One way car hire from Sweden? £400… You what?
Hang on, it’s only a 3 hour drive from Gothenburg. Easy.
Arrived in the car park to confused teenage staff staring and not talking or directing. It wasn’t until the end of our visit that we discovered we were supposed to show them our parking ticket on arrival.

With no clear instruction, we had parked up and put the ticket on the dash instead, narrowly avoiding reversing off a cliff. Parking sensors won’t save you now.

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Bit of a queue formed at the entrance. I like the framing of Speed Monster, plain escalators must have looked pretty bad before that. Discussed how cool an entrance it would be if they announced opening as a train launched. Wishful thinking.

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Headed to Thundercoaster first, with a rough idea that it got the bigger queues, due to only having one train.
Didn’t know they were Timberliners though, so that got me excited again. What hurt Loup Garou most for me was the dumb trains (Robin Hood just sucks regardless).

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Well there we go, set complete.
It didn’t do much on the first go. Had an amusing shake throughout that drowned out any other feeling.

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Gave it a second chance later on and things had greatly improved. Some proper out of the seat moments, occasional rather than constant, but much more in line what I’ve come to expect sitting in one of those trains. It’s the unsuspecting hills that do it. Ones that don’t look much as you approach, they hide under the structure, but then they get much steeper than they should. Great stuff.

Walked back over to Speed Monster. Worryingly hadn’t seen it move since our arrival, even though there were people in the station. Joined the queue. Engineer standing on the track, staring at the brakes. Staff clearing out the queue.
It’s Intamin, what can you do?

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Here comes the Loopen. The Norwegian coaster scene was perfectly summed up by the expressions on the faces of guests returning to the station on this beast. I’ve never done this ‘travelling’ layout before, so that was a novelty at least.

The gate to the Western Expressen area was closed while they faffed with VR headsets. A crowd was gathered, clearly excited.
For some strange reason they weren’t riding this while they waited, even though it was right next to them.

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One of those ones you look at online and think you might not even get in it, but there was room to spare with 2 adults in the car.

Wanted to head down to the Viking area for the next cred, the dark ride and the Hafema rapids that I was really looking forward to. But it was all closed, cheers for that.
It’s Parque Reunidos, what can you do?

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At least the other cred had now opened. Standard Vekoma junior, not much to look at.
They’ve split the queue in two and run one train with VR as Steampunk Hunters and one without as Western Expressen.

Did both for the hell of it. VR was quite hilarious. It includes an interactive part on the lift at the start and on the brake run where you can shoot some robot bugs by aiming your face at them, which I thought was brilliant. The headset itself was probably the most user friendly I’ve come across, particularly with headphones involved. The movement synced terribly with the ride until the end of the lift, but then it was fine and tons of crazy stuff was going on – some woman on a hover board, mine shafts and volcanos. Losing the plot as always.

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Did Nightmare, which was great. Who remembers the short lived Vengeance at the London Dungeons? It’s that, but much more mental. Themed to zombies and filming? in a very confusing and comedic fashion.
It might just be a really self aware ride, but not understanding it I don’t know if it’s a joke or not. You can’t tell if you’re meant to be shooting half the time and whether it’s actually doing anything. Several of the scenes have the ‘shootees’ just standing there looking at you for a good 15 seconds before deciding to come at you. It does the thing of bringing up scores halfway through, but all the pictures are unrecognisable and you’re losing to characters that aren’t real. Some other great effects in there too. Loved it.

Back over to camp out Speed Monster. Oh good, it’s fixed.

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It looked cool, but I wasn’t expecting much from it. Intamin, restraints, all that business.

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Really surprised me how good it was, so there is still hope for these sorts of things.

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You can feel the launch end abruptly before the end of the track, which added a bit of character.

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Norway’s Norwegian Loop is a fun start, Sweden did it better though.

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Got a good air time hill and two more twisty ones in there as it winds its way back down the station, one of which seems to overcompensate itself in banking and then adjusts afterwards, with a rather amusing sensation.

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Most importantly the restraints didn’t really hurt it at all. More great stuff.

Went to have a pizza at this point and ended up waiting 2 hours for it. Everyone was kicking off about how slow they were being and they all had a fancy app to tell them when things were ready, while we were the only people on the day given the old fashioned lump of plastic that buzzes, not knowing if it was even going to work.
It’s Parque Reunidos, what can you do?

Bugs me to no end that we didn’t manage to finish the place, but that’s become a tradition for us at every park this lot own now. It does have some quality rides, but can’t see myself busting to go back there and finish it for a long time.
Never know, they might get something new one day…

So that monumental waste of time cut down on our re-ride opportunities, also pissed me off massively because I could physically feel each second eating into our time at Liseberg. And that’s just not acceptable. Got a couple of laps in and hit the road.


Liseberg

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Only park in the world I get giddy with excitement to return to and it really showed here. Was my third visit and it just gets better every time. Went straight to the bae and it’s still the best thing ever by a significant margin, 600 creds later. Oh, what a wonderful night it was.

I’ll do Valkyria reviews and stuff on the next day. For now I can reassure you that it’s good with the words of another man: “Certainly a very impressive ride.”
 
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Matt N

CF Legend
Great report! I have to say the thread title made me laugh!

Also, I'm surprised to hear you rate Speed Monster so highly; is it less painful/better than Rita, in your opinion?
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 2 - Liseberg

So this trip wasn't consciously planned around the opening of Valkyria. It was more of a case of I'm always looking for an excuse to come here (have I mentioned how much I like the place), and oh look the new ride is here too.

I'm firmly in that mindset of 'oh, how uninteresting', when these dive coasters get announced and this one was no exception. It'll be better than Kanonen, but not excited at all.

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So here we are. Nice looking station there. The area has changed quite a bit, particularly during this halloween time as there was a scare zone directly in front that doesn't quite tie in - a crashed bus and some zombies.

Bags aren't allowed in the queue here, so they've got a free locker system in the shop below. It's a quick and easy system.
These things always make me think of Arthur and how much of a farce that was.

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Clearly they missed out by not investing in one of these though.

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We had our free fastracks from booking online for this on both days so didn't spend much time in the main queue. It's got a little shop and some household objects. There's a dedicated front row queue towards the end, splitting off from row 2 & 3. Seemed pretty popular in this quiet period, being the same length as the main queue but obviously moving half the speed.

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A few features in the station, some nice looking fiery pots and shield on the wall. There's also a shadow projection of wings flapping on the far wall, which looks pretty neat.
A final check for loose items is carried out while you're at the air gates, they can take a tray of your smaller stuff to the other side for you, so you dont really have to bother with lockers if you're bagless.

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On to the ride then. Is it good? Yes. I was pleasantly surprised in a number of ways.

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It's got pace and purpose to it. The bigger dives have that slow lumbering feel to them, spending an age in each dull inversion and mincing around giant corners.

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As soon as the drop is over on this, it hauls arse through everything else at a noticeably different rate and that makes a big difference to me. Even the lift is weirdly quick.
It reminded me most of Krake. The punchiness of that, but with a more significant and superior layout.

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The vests don't hurt it at all. No restriction on the air time of the drop.
No weird tightening halfway through. No uncomfortable hanging in the inversions.
There's hope for this lot as well.

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The view from the top is pretty unrivalled and the interaction of the drop is insane. It's a busy area, with pathing between the two cleverly shaped holes and if you're sitting on an outside seat, it feels like they're standing directly under you as you fall. I said Draken was the first time I'd felt so up close and personal with the drop on one of these, but this took it another stage further.

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Really liked it then. My new favourite dive. Well done Liseberg.

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Loke was also new to me, they sure have been busy since last time.

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It's really good of course. Lap bar effect on a stupidly massive swinging arm, great views all round, both upside down and otherwise. Well done again.

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Balder has a new sign and a new entrance through a different part of the structure. The old queue has turned into express pass. It still has the old TVs playing the instructional videos, but now that it's trying to blend in with its new friends, there isn't the interesting mix of music in the station and barely any horn action on dispatch.

Think this ride has suffered in my eyes from this visit. It's still a lot of fun, but the formulaic Intamin layout bugs me a little too much now. 90% waiting for air time to happen, 10% air time happening. If that's all you're into, then it's perfect.
I find myself sitting there with way too much time to think about how laughable the corners are and how the design process went down:
"How many hills can we fit in this between this corner and this corner? 2?"
"Nah just 1 here mate, stick an extra bit of straight in, that'll do."

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Aerospin was new to me as well. Another great flat with incredible views.

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Lisebergbanan hasn't suffered. Still a stupidly good ride with stupidly good throughput. Watching one of the 5 trains going past every 20 seconds is a great way to spend a mealtime.

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Got one of those perfect runs where you race a Helix train along the hillside as well. That hill bit with Uppswinget... pretty much my favourite area of any park ever.

Some other random thoughts:

- Didn't know the dark ride had gone, went round the corner looking for it only to be confronted with grass and more Valkyria. Then laughed.

- Already being a fan of Max in Sweden, them replacing Burger King is a vast improvement.

- I've never really got into Halloween at parks, but damn they make it look amazing. Easily a million pumpkins distributed, but plenty of subtle touches as well.

- Everything was pretty much walk on all weekend so, you know, awesome as always. Can't not have a good time here.


I'll leave you with some Helix porn. Still the next level.

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bob_3_

Giga Poster
Great report! I went recently too for the same reason you did "Oh Liseberg has a new coaster..... I must go (and ride Helix)" But Valkyria took me by surprise, really really really enjoyed it. It feels so different from Baron1898 and seems to haul all day long. I might post my report soon.
 

vaugc002

Mega Poster
Yesss the Helix/ Lisebergbanan interaction when you get to race is just perfect. Glad that Valkyria is as good as it looks.
Will definitely have to head back soon!
 

Howie

Donkey in a hat
Wot no stress or trauma? No cred anxiety? No unexpected monsoons or hurricanes? Pfft - screw this, I'm going back to your Asia reports.
;)
 

Howie

Donkey in a hat
Got spited by TusenFryd didn't I. That not good enough for you any more? :(

No. You've set the bar too high. Nothing short of earthquakes, locusts, fire and brimstone will keep me satisfied now.
"And the theme parks were razed and sulphur did rain upon rollercoaster..."
That's what we want! ;)
 
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