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Dusting off Denmark (again) - Part 5: Not Denmark

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Feels like there’s a noticeable trend in where everyone’s visiting in 2022 and I apologise that I can’t bring you something a little more obscure just yet. Hopefully we can put a unique spin on this.

It’s been many a year since I last dusted off Denmark and they’ve certainly been pretty busy since then. In the absence of any real need for yet more Eurodemption, along with the fact that it feels like I’ve pretty much cleaned the continent out, it was time to head out to one of my favourite European nations before Sommer came to a close. But first we need to get there.

Our morning chunnel came and went without a hitch, besides the hideously early start, so it turns out you can go somewhere, sometimes. With several countries to pass through and a reasonably significant distance to drive, the first day of the long weekender was filled with a sporadic selection of creddities.

Day 1 – Plopsa Indoor Hasselt

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With just a week left on our ol’ Plopsa pass it felt like as good a moment as any to mop up the remaining offerings at no additional cost. Hasselt was the initial stop on the journey and the family entertainment centre is located in what very much felt like an industrial estate, which was very unassuming and slightly confusing to navigate.

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They do have a nice vibe these places, especially when they’re quiet, even though we’re clearly not the target audience.

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In fact we were in and out in easily under 10 minutes. Wickie Coaster was a solid stock Zierer and had disturbingly similar visuals to the one in Poland. As is the intention.

DippieDoe Attractiepark

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Next up was one of the many parks in the Netherlands that has often been considered, but never committed to, while planning various escapades throughout the region. Thanks to geography and a deal on Belgian website Tripper.be (do check it out if you ever have plans in Europe, it's pretty solid), today was the day to make it happen.

The place begins as an indoor play area, again one in which the average adult would feel vastly out of place.
Luckily there’s a welcoming sight just outside.

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it’s not often you get a Wacky Worm with a mine train aesthetic, but I’m all for diversity. A Loch Ness Monster in the middle is also an added bonus.

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Tyfoon is slightly more substantial and rides rather unusually for its type. It’s the only Zierer ‘Comet’ to have existed. It’s full of relatively aggressive turns and block sections banked at 30° angles which wouldn’t feel out of place on a Pax coaster. Not sure what they were up to when making this for Tivoli Gardens in 1989, but I’m all for uniqueness.

Avonturenpark Hellendoorn

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2021, Hellendoorn:
It was in our first queue that we noticed a significant presence of school trips on park. Children in various hi-vis colours were persistently attempting to queue jump everyone and everything, clambering over railings and some rather grim temporary covid barriers that had been erected. It fell to one hero in the queue, a man trying to enjoy a day out with his son, to stand his ground and put a stop to this as the lone operator was simply unable to.

In complete contrast to the vague attempt at covid control on the last ride, this one auto batches you through a revolving metal gate to then leave you standing in an extremely cramped corridor and then narrow set of stairs, packed wall to wall with loud, screaming children, running up and down.
There was a member of school staff here, though all they managed to do was actively encourage them to be as loud as possible by initiating various chants and rhythms through banging on the walls. This went on for at least 20 minutes, the line barely moving, while we were barely able to hear ourselves think, let alone have a conversation. Once again, a single member of staff on ride obviously had no time to intervene.

The covid barriers were back, though falling apart and interestingly held together by graffiti, driftwood and chewing gum. Yet more children were out in full force, literally shaking the barriers to pieces, banging on them, causing them to collapse onto other guests and frankly being quite dangerous.

We were so done with the park by this point. Just one more cred to bear, a stupid Vekoma looper, and then we can leave, never to return.
Walked over to it. It was closed.
Goodbye.

I know school trips aren’t a park specific or specific park problem, but I feel an establishment like this should at least be prepared for the situation by having a little more staff presence at critical points such as the queue lines of their two major operating attractions.
Failing that, there is a practice within the industry to publicly advertise on your website calendar as to which days are due to have school trips (2022 update - DippieDoe DippieDoes this), allowing guests to factor this into their decision on when to visit. We certainly weren’t alone in feeling unable to even enjoy the day here, every other family or group of adults were clearly not having a good day out and I feel more sorry for them – park visits are two a penny to me, but can obviously mean a lot to others.

In all fairness to the park, they have since admitted fault and invited us back next year. They had the cheek (or at least their automated system did) to send us a survey asking ‘how was your visit? 🙃’ the very next day. We responded of course in an honest and constructive (as per the above), but sometimes brutal manner. Fast forward a few weeks and the eventual reply stated that they completely agreed with absolutely everything we said, it was a massive issue for them and they were making plans to do something about it.
2022, Hellendoorn:
Acquiring our complimentary tickets was straight forward and immediately the park atmosphere was off to a better start. Damn kids.

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Most importantly though, Balagos – Flying Flame was open, so a courtesy visit brought the fruits of a +1.
Soon to be the only one of two Vekoma ‘Tornados’ in the world, it rides pretty damn good with the new Sunkid rolling stock. For what it is anyway.
There’s some unnerving laterals in the first drop while the unforgiving metal lap bar digs into your skin and I even caught some air on the big turnaround between inversions. Better than Loopen, though the memories of guests faces on that one still make me laugh.

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Can’t have it all though, a delay in parts has left this relocated Mexican spinner out of action for the season. Don’t think we can get away with coming back a third time.

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Something else that was unfortunately missed before, due to crowd related reasons, was Jungle Expedition. A quaint little boat ride with an interactive puzzle, some animal action and a surprise cave scene to finish.

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We also gave Discovery Club another courtesy lap and it fared much better when experienced in a lighter mood. The simple act of walking down the queueline stairs uninhibited was incredibly cathartic and we had great fun setting off the many effects on this quirky dark ride.

Satisfied with the park’s redemption arc, there was time for one more freebie before the day was out.

Plopsa Indoor Coevorden

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It all looked somewhat familiar on the outside, though this one is located in a field on the outskirts of town.

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And then it was just plain creepy on the inside. You’d barely know we had travelled several hundred miles since the morning at all, save for this being called a baan instead of a coaster.

All in all a highly successful +5 for the count. Onwards!

Up next – vests.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I had naively believed that our hotel woes were behind us, but on arrival at our stop off in Germany for the night we found that I had received an email saying my credit card details were out of date... not this again.

I've no idea what's going on at this point, this particular trip was booked several months after the previous card had expired. The hotel for the following night had already confirmed that they had taken the money up front on that day, straight off of the same card details I provided. There's no trace of the old details still on my account and yet still the system is out to spite me.

The staff decided to make a huge deal out of this matter for some reason, with two different people repeating at least 6 times between them that my card details had expired, why didn't I check my emails?! (in the last few hours, while driving, and on holiday) and that 6pm was the cut-off point so they had cancelled our rooms.

That was all well and good, but I'm standing here right now with the credit card in hand, what are we going to do about this? The point just didn't seem to sink in.

Eventually they just checked us in anyway, with no issue at all, so the completely unjustified berating was a total waste of life. Guess you still can't go anywhere any more.


An early morning run on the autobahn had us making good time into Denmark the next day. We had successfully completed the 2sommer run before and of course were confident that we could do it again with just a +2 to pick up from each this time. For fun, and the sake of the relative significance of the new coasters, the order was switched up this time.

Day 2 - Djurs Sommerland

I've always got on really well with this park before. It's such a lovely place to be and they've had a cracking lineup for a good while now. Slight technical hitch upon arrival this time (again), we had booked our tickets online but never received a confirmation email. It transpires that they 'hadn't turned the machine [computer] on' though strangely the guest services and ticket counter were unable to do much about the problem. Instead they asked us to buy another set of tickets up front and send an email asking for a refund at a later date, which seemed a less than ideal solution.

Faff out of the way, we stood ready for the rope drop at the now slightly more signficant looking entrance to Wild Asia (insert Chessington joke here) and then, once let in, hopped straight onto Jungle Rally.

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It's a cute little Zierer (there's a lot of those on this trip) and really nicely presented. They've definitely fleshed this area out a lot since it was just Drage Kongen, mud and concrete and I'm very impressed.

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We took a token lap on the signature attraction to see if much had changed over the years. Wasn't too bothered about it before, though I believe it was a victim of hype at the time - I can still recall the bold statements bouncing about from 'could be as good as Nemesis Inferno' to 'might ride like an inverted Megalite'. No.

The ride still rattles around and is essentially a weaker version of the larger Vekoma model, which makes little financial sense at the very least. It's not a bad attraction by any means, it looks really nice, the little trick at the start is a good spectacle from the air gates and the layout goes on for a surprisingly long time. What had improved on this occasion for me was the atmosphere in the station, with some good music and lightning effects that I don't particular remember from opening year.

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They've been so busy at this park, the new and massive Tigeren has replaced the old Topple Tower that we were lucky enough to catch operating once. This ride had me at 'bigger Loke' and it's rather spectacular in the forces that it pulls. Lap bar freedom, massive beyond vertical swing, big amounts of weightlessness and crushing positives. I'm no flat ride connoisseur but these are totally my bag.

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Headed into the new, new area next to see some dinosaurs. I don't really remember what was here before, if anything, but it's quite the transformation. Dino Xpedition is a fun little jeep ride along the lines of many others of this ilk. I've since been led to believe that not everything was working properly inside the cave, the projections were broken and even technology like the queue signs were out of action, which is unfortunate on something so recent.

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T-Rex Family Coaster was rather great. I've now been given more hope for this rebirth of modern Mack & Moritz powered coasters as this one provides so much more of a 'ride' experience. The layout has some pretty funky moments and the build up of speed into a significantly faster second lap is particularly satisfying, making it a much more well rounded experience.

Having finished with everything on the hit list we jumped on Juvelen for a back row ride. It still kicks a surprising amount of ass when it wrenches you through that second launch and into a very potent set of twists, turns and near miss interaction. Love it.

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Cheat shot.

Last up was the old favourite Piraten. It actually had a queue, which I've never really seen before, so we weren't quite able to get as reacquainted with it as we had hoped. I think this hurt the reputation of the ride somewhat, it's definitely something you want to marathon to get the most out of. It remains a fantastic ride, with a near grey-out inducing first turn, several moments of powerful airtime and the satisfaction of those violently twisty hills. Half hour waits for such a short, cloned layout just didn't quite hit the spot this time and I'm far less confident about the whole 'Piraten is better than the other Megalites' thing now than I used to be. It may be much more circumstantial than I previously believed. Still, we'll always have 2017.

On that note it was time to hit the road to the main event and inspiration for the whole trip, though there was even time for a leisurely lunch on route because we wanted to be cheeky and take advantage of the reduced rate afternoon tickets.

Fårup Sommerland

We arrived 5 minutes early and enquired about the deal at the signature drive-thru ticket booths. Sadly it's entirely down to the whims of a computer system so there's no opportunity for the admissions staff to be lenient in this case. They recommended we back up and park for a couple of minutes until the time ticket over and then we were waved through once again to seal the deal.

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The park was much busier and, more surprisingly, much larger than I remember from before. We of course wanted to get to Fønix first and the walk through the pleasant greenery seemed to take forever, it just kept going and going along the very long and thin layout that spreads either side of the main entrance.

At last we were greeted with the sight of fresh Vekoma track and stumbled into a 20 minute queue not knowing what to expect.

God damn Iron Gwazi, they've finally done it.

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This is the Vekoma we've all been banging on about for years, the new generation has finally arrived and is ready to play with the big boys. I absolutely adored this thing and we couldn't get enough of it. Essentially to the point where all notions of courtesy rerides on the other coasters went out the window rather quickly.

No more underwhelming profiling, no more bland forces, no more pointless inversions. Almost every single moment hits hard and fast and, under the guise of what has already become their established style, it's unbelievably refreshing.

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The first drop was punching harder than Piraten and leads into a forceful pullout of positives. Instead of dwelling on this for too long you're immediately up into the weirdly floaty stall and flopping out of your seat in a gorgeous moment of contrast.

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I love the insanely tight and twisted exit of this element, it doesn't even look real from off-ride and I guess totally justifies why the trains are a little shorter.

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Perhaps the one piece of the puzzle that doesn't quite land is the subsequent big hill. It feels just a little too high, there's no significant airtime or even sustain on it and then it rides like it has to turn into that turnaround slightly prematurely. Basically the single thing Lech and Abyssus do better.

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All is immediately forgiven as it throws you into an outrageous second inversion that tries to hurl you outwards - up there with the classic Blue Fire and the more recent Mosasaurus. A double down follows into a twisted hill, this is definitely riffing off of some other greats as well.

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Of course next is the point dance, the station inversion. It's currently a little obnoxious offride as everyone has taken it upon themselves to scream really loudly through it, though this was a bonus contrast with the Lech equivalent not even letting you in the station and not having people on it. Onride however it's another powerful snap of an element, perhaps only faltering in not being as good as the one before it.

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Another moment of strong positives breaks the flow in the next turnaround and then we hit a finale of no less than six bouncy, twisty, joyous airtime moments. Some wonky, others straight, one popping out sideways like an RMC, it does it all and it does it well. Well done.

Best Vekoma in the world by an almost immeasurable margin for me and, somehow, the new best coaster in Denmark. I'm excited for these again now and can't wait to see what they do next. That's dangerous.

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Of course there's one other Vekoma to tick off round the corner. Saven looks great in it's natural habitat, not to say they didn't do a nice job with the clone at Energylandia but this one fits in the space for a reason. I really like the water splash effect, it's very convincing from around the middle of the train.

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The outbound trip is solid with it's satisfying sequence of hills, just it loses a bit of oomph on the return run from being purely gravity driven. Couldn't help but think a little boost on the spike would help spice it up a bit.

As stated, we never got round to revisiting the rest of the park, save for after the queuelines had closed for a quick photo lap. 2017 me was very lazy and basically missed pictures of half the rides so at least that's solved now. In terms of lineup, things are looking pretty great for Farup now.

Orkanen wasn't needed, I've lost count of how many others I've ridden since, but is still a remarkably good piece of hardware for what it is.

We found Falken to be solid, if unremarkable in the past and that was with far less experience. Having just come off the back of what, 60 mostly unremarkable woodies in the last couple of months I'm not sure a reride would have done anything but harm it slightly, though it's undoubtably good at filling it's niche here.

Lynet was smooth before, offensively smooth. The clear standout of the type and surprisingly good given the hardware. I worry that it isn't any more, so leave the memories alone. Still, solid launcher for the park.

Fønix is an obviously massive step up though, and I bet the park is even seeing that themselves. Everyone was just lapping it again and again, with the queue remaining a consistent and popular length all the way up until close, with guests desperate for that one last ride. I can't imagine that this level of attention is anything but new ground here given the attractions that preceded it. Our final lap was treated to a rendition from the entire train of "EKSTRA TUR, EKSTRA TUR, EKSTRA TUR" on the brake run. Sadly we weren't going to get our Steel Vengeance moment as I could still see a queue snaking down the station stairs. A sly shake of the head from the operator confirmed this as we pulled back into the station, but I admire them for trying.

It was a little depressing to walk away from something with such strong emotion and yet at the same time thinking it'll struggle to even crack a personal top 50, but this is the fate I've chosen for myself.
Fønix is nothing short of incredible though, and I don't say that lightly.

Up next - more sommer
 

davidm

Strata Poster
I was at Djurs I think the same day as you (Sat 27th)? I'd been to Farup the day before so wasn't quite rushing it as much as you. Had a good day tho'. :)
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I was at Djurs I think the same day as you (Sat 27th)? I'd been to Farup the day before so wasn't quite rushing it as much as you. Had a good day tho'. :)
I'm gonna have to assume we're being stalked at this point ;) glad you enjoyed!


I’ve always treated the two sides of Denmark as separate entities when visiting in the past so crossing between them the next morning was quite a novel experience.

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Our weapon of choice was the Storebæltsbroen, I do admire a good bridge and this one is absolutely massive. Love how it was inside the cloud, it’s even tall enough for the world’s biggest cruise ships to just pass under. A tad pricey though.

Day 3 - Sommerland Sjælland

Talking of pricey, the first park of the day definitely suffers from coast2coaster syndrome somewhat. One look at their uninteresting +3 lineup certainly had us exclaiming how can they justify charging more than Fårup? For tarmac and an SBF Visa. There is more to the place than it would appear though.

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Entry is the same procedure, with the admissions booths being a drive-thru. You can then head down the car park and stroll through the entrance uninhibited by the staff-less presence.

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It all began with said SBF Visa on tarmac, which shares both the name and look of the Beech Bend equivalent. Ignore those two in the back.

The major rides here can operate on time slots or rotation during the ‘low’ season which it already was by this point, so although we saw an engineer sign off the biggest coaster for the day, it was a case of come back later for it. Sommer is over.

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Heading off into more of the park, we stumbled across the amusingly named simulator, the entrance of which is shared with an eatery.

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Didn’t know what sort of hardware to expect, but this TV screen in the tiniest of queuelines gave it away. What’s unusual about this picture?

The active film was called Great Wall of China and began with an over-enthusiastic rickshaw driver taking us for a spin along said wall. Full marks for realism. Before long we look down to notice he’s attached a couple of fireworks to our transportation and, once lit, things get a little wild. Before long we’re mechanically separated from the driver.

It all boils down to that age old simulator styling of making every situation into a fantasy, physics-defying rollercoaster, but also not very good. It did go on for quite a significant amount of time, day turned to night, summer turned to winter and it ended on the big visuals of a massive fireworks festival, during which our lost driver makes another appearance by shooting over the moon and into the ocean. Full marks for continuity.

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I fully believe the entrance price is justified by this nightmare fuel alone. I do love a good custom Wacky Worm face, particularly when they aim for the more weird and grotesque, essentially mocking our very hobby.
Vildbassen was a standout in more than one way, by also not having any form of restraint for adults and just a seatbelt for the kids. This meant I was getting fully Skyrushed sideways out of the train on the turn after the station for 8 of the 9, 9 laps. Which had me wondering what the clearance envelope is.

We’d heard tales of a boat ride at the park that contained ‘indoor scenes’ and wanted to verify for ourselves whether it could obtain ‘dark ride status’ or not. Subsequently we got very lost in the park for a good while trying to find it, which is when we found out how many other things the place has to offer.

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Alright, let’s take a closer look at these spitey things. The blue one is ready to go as far as I can tell but this rain-soaked piece of paper says we have to wait for the grand opening next year. Construction, get excited.

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You can get scared by hanging out with goats and Black Phillip.

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You can feel like a giant, roaming freely amongst these miniatures.

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Better than Silver Dollar City. And Gold Rush. And Bakken.

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After much searching and time killing we found what we were looking for. Amazonas.

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It was very impressively themed, they clearly went all out on this thing. The ride lasts for over 7 minutes as well, with various jungle exploration escapades going on. Sadly, by definition of the database, it only goes into a cave once with just the one scene, so is decidedly not dark enough. Good though.

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All that wandering meant we arrived back at the Pinfari to see the SBF operator shut shop and head on over to run the Vildkatten. While hell on earth for us coaster folk, it’s a highly popular ride here. Everyone else on our train did a Rollercoaster Tycoon and jumped for joy at the exit before heading straight back round for another lap. We, on the other hand, nursed a couple of bruises and thought ‘I want to go home’, heading straight for the park exit.

BonBon Land

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The other park for the day was BonBon Land, a place that I’ve previously declared the largest park left in Europe that I hadn’t yet visited. I’m sure there’s various different ways of measuring it, but I’m not even sure who that title falls to now. Maybe that Italian place who can’t spell Eurofighter.

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Let’s talk about BonBon land though, or perhaps not, because I don’t think words can do this park justice. Pictures speak a thousand of them. Vildbassen was being outdone at every turn and the charm of this place was through the roof. I loved every second of it.

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Hundeprutten, the dog fart coaster, cracked me up. I usually like to consider myself above toilet humour but just the terror on the face of this train paints a picture of it being a serious medical condition and his desperate plea for us to stop taking advantage of it. Every lap, without fail, the non-descript speaker inside the dog house makes that sound and the comedic timing is nothing short of genius. Best Zierer Force One in the world.

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World’s first Eurofighter, the Vildsnivet. Wild Boar coaster. Why?

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Because he’s a racing driver, and straddling the back of the car like a madman. That’s why.

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I actually rather enjoyed the ride too. It’s a good little layout and rides surprisingly elegantly considering it’s the first and how bad some of the next few ones were. The whippy banked turn out of the first drop is done really well and the loop is solid.

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Han-Katten was a bit of a let-down (that brake run though). There’s some rather superlative reviews knocking around the internet from over a decade ago. Claims of this being the most intense spinner in existence, of some of the biggest names in our hobby being unable to stand after riding.
It was as decidedly meh as with all my early experiences with Gerstlauer spinners, don’t tell me it never gets better than Six Flags.

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Can never say no to a Fabbri tower, even with weird sketchy seating.

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I got excited here, thinking the ‘new for 2022’ attraction was another potential database entry. They used to have an old Alterface interactive theatre in this spot, have they gone and got a new one?

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Alas, no, no ride system. Just sitting on stumps (or standing) and shooting cowboys on a new film on the screen. Got the best score of the day though.

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This thing was unhinged.

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There’s a bizarre utilitarian shift inside, unlike anything else in the park.

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It was playing both Moby Dick and Aladdin back to back, but not as we know them, in films that were more than a little off in many aspects.

I can’t really do the situation justice but the language kept changing, which synced up parody-poorly with the characters mouth movements. A whale is captured by an evil scientist in a mechanical octopus contraption and we pursue in an attempt to save it. Various peril occurs but there’s this crab channelling One Punch Man who just, with no physical or audio effect, casually sends characters flying off the horizon with a single touch. Yet strangely he’s not the hero of our story as, entirely unrelated to what has been happening, the parent whales show up out of nowhere at the end and save the day. Damn you, Moby Dick, I’ll get you next time, hahahahahaha. Punch.

Before we had time to recover from that one, the developer logo played twice and Aladdin was on his smart phone, having a picnic. Jasmine video calls and is thoroughly pissed off. He wakes up the genie, who is also scared by this, they need to get home now. Various peril occurs but it makes even less sense. Random 3D slow-mo cuts happen in the wrong places with no impact, creatures behave in very strange ways, it’s like all of the developers were locked away in separate dungeons, and also have no concept of what actually makes things good. We finally get to, wherever his home is, and spend an age flying through and near-missing a ton of towers while (another) massive firework display is going off. He lands on his balcony, is dragged into the bedroom by the ear and the doors slam shut, while genie adopts a bodyguard outfit in front of it and shakes his head at us. End.

Enough waffle, don’t even know where to start on this one, or how to end this report.

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What a place.

Up next – something a bit more traditional.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
BonBon Sjælland... also known as Sommerland Land.
That would have been the true title, and I do like how cryptic it is.


2015, Copenhagen. It’s hard to imagine a time when I took this stuff way less seriously. Less than 50 coasters to my name, Helix wouldn’t be a part of my life for another few days yet. Sightseeing was at the forefront of the agenda and I remember it was a faff. So this time it was quite refreshing to have another crack at it, a city tour, early morning, in the comforts of your own vehicle. Great fun.

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One of the stops was the famous Nyhavn, or ‘that colourful street’. Colourful it was, also feat. boats.

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And seven years ago, almost to the day, this had been so crowded with tourists we could barely even see it. Now it was a case of rock up, basically touch it. Tick.

We were here for creds of course though, a certain lovely little place by the name of

Day 4 - Tivoli Gardens


Had a +1 to offer. It should have been a 2, but worldwide delays on parts meant the new powered coaster was listed as closed on the website up until the day of the visit. We wanted to park directly under Dæmonen for the day but someone beat us to it and we ended up a street behind. Still pretty surreal.

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Wait a second.
It’s back!

Mælkevejen was refreshing for a number of reasons. It was open when it shouldn’t have been. It rode way better than the old version it replaced. The theme was space.

You know when you just get a vibe from a park. You take a second to survey your surroundings. I’m in <insert park here>. Everything just feels right, it’s welcomed you home. There’s not many of them, but they’re out there. This is one for me and I was reminded of that as soon as our first ride was over.

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Next up was the replacement Kamelen, for the old Karavanen (which we rode just a few weeks ago again in France, accidentally). Look at that face. It’s so inviting, with the little lights on the hat and everything. Love it.

We came armed with plastic bottles, hoping to turn a profit at the recycling machines they have on park but sadly they’ve been modified to take only the cups that the stalls serve up now.

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Oh well, dark ride time. The Flying Trunk is always a classic, I love the parts when this omnimover passes over itself, it’s an odd sight. The thing I didn’t quite remember was all the stories they squeeze into this one being rather ‘rushed’ in the voiceover. The narrator basically admits it himself in one of the scenes, that tale is too long to tell today.

We also did Minen while in the mood. I stand by the fact that this didn’t need guns. The scenery is gorgeous and fine without it, plus the targets don’t even have anything to do with anything. Why would you want to shoot the moles that are cleaning a dragon? Damn kids.

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Dæmonen still kicks ass and I was proud to be wearing it’s shirt. It’s totally not me getting bored of B&Ms, just that those formulaic layouts do nothing for me.
I really enjoy the anticipation build in the first section, the big drop has a great kick with the gained momentum and the 3 choice inversions all hit in a single sequence in a satisfying way. They aren’t the focus of the ride. They complement it. It looks damn good too.

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Rutschebanen though, Is this even better than I thought before? Because I absolutely adored it before. The mood in the station, the brakemen operators are just so chill and good at what they do. It’s infectious. One of them is wearing a million sunglasses, they’ve kept some of the knuffelbeers from covid era in the trains and then placed the rest in various scenes throughout the ride. They’re riding polar bears, they’re up on a mountain, everyone’s having a good time.

They run it hard, that restraint does nothing, you fear for your life on those drops. The laterals are crazy, it’s dark, it’s light, you’re waving at people. Then we finally mustered up the courage to join in with the locals and exit the ride while it’s still moving. It’s such a fun feeling, pushing against that bar as you roll into the station, just waiting for it to pop and then leaping into action at several miles per hour. Don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Thoroughly back in love with the place we whiled away the afternoon on all the old fond memories it provided. Monsunen, the evil flat ride, tasty and offensively cheap pizza, the little rabbit lawnmower doing his thing out in front of the Nimb restaurant. I could spend all day here and not even need to ride. That’s the measure of a good park and I miss it already.

Up next – trains.
 

Lori Marie Loud

Giga Poster
Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!

Aw man, that Moby Dick/Aladdin experience! That's the funniest part of the whole report to me, closely followed by "Simulator-Inator" and the Great Wall of China film.

I'm struggling to understand what "trains" means. Does it mean "the journey home" or is it referring to something like Knuthenborg Safaripark?
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I'm struggling to understand what "trains" means. Does it mean "the journey home" or is it referring to something like Knuthenborg Safaripark?
Guess again.
No more creds today, I’m afraid we’ve peaked. There were far too many insignificant options on the table to pad out the return leg of the journey with, to the point that I was still making decisions the night before while I should have been sleeping. Tweestryd sounded like a good idea at the time, zoo, a +2 and 40% off with a Plopsa pass. Local knowledge led me to believe that they rarely, if ever, run both sides however due to a lack of popularity and the sheer China-ness of that fact took the wind out of the sails.

So, on further recommendation, it’s dark ride time.

Day 5 – Spoorwegmuseum

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Located near the heart of Utrecht in the Netherlands, this is more than just your average train museum. It’s home to a number of themed attractions and is simply one of those places that would always otherwise be skipped because they don’t have an rollercoaster. I found it to be well worth the time, reasonably priced and a refreshing experience. Think I need to vow to do at least one thing like this a year that isn’t a cred run. For health reasons.

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The star attraction, for me, is a dark ride by the name of Stalen Monsters. It’s a home-brew design that has you sitting in a little pair of railway carts on a powered track system (made by Kumbak no less, of other random train fame). It takes you around various varieties of the namesake Steel Monsters, a.k.a. big old trains, which doesn’t, on the surface, sound that great to anyone but a train buff.

It’s really well done however, very well paced, maintains a good level of intrigue and there’s something highly satisfying about having all the real life props forming the ‘theming’ of a dark ride system as opposed to just theming ‘theming’. On top of that the system itself is pretty special, with elevation, speed and directional changes all being woven into the journey and even managing to add a certain level of thrills where you might not expect.

Before the ride itself there’s a highly detailed queue of exhibits as well as a little preshow room with video that was entirely unmanned. With the place being basically empty on a weekday this added a good deal more to the adventure. Well worth the visit alone.

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In the outside section there’s a simulator by the name of Trial by Fire.

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Plenty going on in here too, before a preshow that starts off historic and ends by setting up something slightly more fantastical. An engineer character gives us briefing that can best be likened to Smuggler’s Run. Teams of 6 have different tasks to perform on one of the three simulators, though the catch here was that there was only the two of us in the entire room.

It’s slightly less evenly spread on the interactivity. The front row of 3 has a variety of levers and buttons to play with while those in the back only get to man the ‘dead man switch’. We were running up a million things at once like a ‘70s keyboardist although it doesn’t really appear to do anything to the sequence.

The sequence itself was a little bizarre, but entertaining. Once again things have to get a little ‘runaway rollercoaster’ down some ridiculous and unrealistic track but before long we’re doing Back to the Future 3 style jumps to different places in order to keep things interesting and/or perilous.
Again I loved the distinct lack of staff presence here, adds to the mystery a bit and the vehicles themselves looked pretty fantastic.

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The last of the big things I was into was this themed walkthrough which involves time travel of the more subtle variety. You board a little elevator which takes you back to the days of Robert Stephenson, where you’re unleashed into this intricate world replicating the old town and his workshop.

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I’m led to believe you’re usually presented with an audio guide for this to explain the details but this wasn’t happening on this occasion so it was all taken in on visuals. Of which there are many great ones, but also fun little tricks like a mouse moving in the rafters.

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The second major area contains De Arend, one of the first two locomotives in the Netherlands, situated in a station from back in 1839. Trees and all. Pretty cool.

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Other stuff around the museum includes the usual displays, along with miniatures and the like.

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A mini game simulator that actually is responsive to what you’re doing.

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And plenty more real live locomotives in their natural habitat which you can mostly just freely wander around.

They also have a show, for kids, but it’s all in Dutch, and a set of the famed Dutch snack machines – but they were all empty! A real trip ruiner.

In all seriousness though, a great place to stop off for a few hours.


And then things went wrong. I had wanted to get to Plopsa Station in Antwerp next for some more dark ride action and to get one final, final use out of that pass, but the roads were having none of it. Catastrophic traffic on the attempt to escape the Netherlands. Catastrophic traffic on the attempt to get in/around Antwerp. Absolute carnage.

In the end it transpired that I couldn’t have arrived until 15 mins before close which, given it wasn’t just a Wickie Coaster and something I had a modicum of interest in, wouldn’t have really worked. Even at the point that this idea was bailed upon, my backup plan then ended up being cut very fine as well.

Plopsaland de Panne

Oh yes, one last hurrah on the new sensation for the season.

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Cheat shot.

To make matters worse in the massively faffy ending to the trip, they were only running one train on it and therefore I queued the longest I ever have for Happiness by a significant margin, picking up just a single lap in my hour on park.

Worth it though, gleaning perhaps one of the best rides, of many, experienced on it. It worked up one hell of a spin and I had that golden top hat exit moment in the back row, rotating from sideways to backwards as it takes the plunge in a literal heart in mouth, stomach wrenching terror of a drop. It was at least double the magnitude of the Time Traveller version and that one’s already beyond insane. Scary thoughts seeped their way into my brain on the brake run after all that wait. If it rode like that time, every time, it could well be a number 1.

Chunnel was trying to be a bit more spitey on the way back, tons of aggressive warnings all the way along the French motorway saying severe delays into the UK, expect to queue for several days. This didn’t happen, instead we got auto booked on a slot an hour earlier due to turning up in good time. Even inside the place all the signs were apologising for the devastating disruptions and yet, beyond a little slower than usual passport queue, nothing was actually wrong. I’ll take it.


Summary

Short and sweet, but quite the map. They’re always fun.

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Total countries - 5
New coasters - 18
Total coasters - 23
New dark rides - 5
Total dark rides - 8
New parks - 5
Total parks - 10
Zierers - 7
Best new coaster – Fønix of course
Distance travelled – 2000 Miles-ish
Spites – -1/17 (-5.88%)

Thanks for reading!
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Been a while catching up with this one, but usual good quality report, thanks!

I meant to ask in your USA thread - which is the booking site that has given you all this grief? Never something I've considered before (the card update causing havoc), but will do now every few years it pops up.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I meant to ask in your USA thread - which is the booking site that has given you all this grief? Never something I've considered before (the card update causing havoc), but will do now every few years it pops up.
In America it was predominantly Wyndham, their rewards scheme is usually quite good if you can constrain yourself the many, many chains they oversee over the course of a longer road trip. They were the ones that wouldn't help at all when it all went sideways though.

The other odd hotels and ones here in Europe were all through booking.com - pretty much who I use for the rest of the world, generally can't go wrong. Except for this phenomenon. It's probably something to consider for any of them really, can't guarantee anyone has thought it through until it happens.
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
The other odd hotels and ones here in Europe were all through booking.com - pretty much who I use for the rest of the world, generally can't go wrong. Except for this phenomenon. It's probably something to consider for any of them really, can't guarantee anyone has thought it through until it happens.
I've checked now with the two hotels I've used through Booking.com and everything appears to be in order. I'll take their email confirmations as ammunition should they contest on the day...otherwise it'll be my best broken Filipino! :D
 
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