Saturday 15th
Just a travel day where I met up with Mike and we got a flight from Stansted to Hamburg. Pretty non-eventful. The hotel was right near the train station and we struggled to sleep due to a loud bar/club that was blasting music till 3am. Urgh.
Sunday 16th
After getting something to eat at the station we got the short train out to Hansa Park (like a 10-15 minute walk between station and the park). The weather was a little overcast and miserable and throughout the day it occasionally rained which was disappointing. Didn't ruin our day though. Heads up about an awesome train and park ticket offer. On the ticket machines just put in hansa park and you'll get a return train ticket plus a voucher for park entry for like the same price as the train journey. Crazy awesome deal.
I thought everyone would head straight to Karnan (and boy was that tempting) but thought it might be better to go straight to Fluch von Novgorod. Only been waiting since like 2009 to ride it. We pretty much walked on which was fab. The queue line was well themed, the steepness going up into the station is bit random though. I loved the ride, that rolling launch is amazing and the indoor bit after the lift hill is disorientating and fun. The animatronics in the ride were a bit weird though, one of them had a terrifying face, maybe the projection was messed up?
Loved the subtle movements from these scarecrows
It was then round to their latest Gerstlauer beast, Karnan. Photos just don't do justice to this insane tower. I think the theming looks a little better than in photos but just the scale of it just blows my mind. Yet again the queue is really well themed, lots of screens showing a documentary on the history of the castle tower (with some hilariously bad re-enactments - Mike even spotted a modern football goal in the background of a medieval sequence). There's even several pre-shows during the queue - which magically moves in time with the shows (which also slightly highlights the atrocious throughput of this ride). The first room with the projection mapping works really well but I was more impressed with the very subtle effect in another room of having animatronic legs slightly moving on this ladder to give the impression the guy on the screen next to us was really there looking at stuff above us.
I nearly lost it after we were batched. There's a library room and the documentary video continues where the man "discovers" that the library shelves open to reveal a fantastic place to store loose items. Just the effort to somehow tie in the place for your bags just makes my day. After sorting that out we then enter the next room where I proceeded to loose it. Without any ride attendants guests fill up 4 rows, each row has 4 symbols on the floor, once everyone stands on a symbol and epic soundtrack and light sequence begins and it has me HYPED. It then stops and a row of floor symbols light up, then a door opens with a lit symbol above it. This amazed me on so many levels, mainly that people were following what was going on with ease and later I realised that this seat selection process was completely random. Want the front row? Better cross those fingers because it's completely down to chance! Sometimes I'm easily amused, this is probably one of those times but I absolutely love this entire concept. I think it's hilarious but also amazing because it really added to the experience, similar to how the Oblivion queue videos really hype up the ride.
So, the ride has lap bars which is nice but this totally suffers in the same way that Skyrush does. So much pressure on the thighs that it can be quite painful by the time you get back to the station. It also makes the vertical lift hill bloody terrifying. Going 200+ ft high, vertically, with just a lap bar is just insane. I felt like I was ever so slowly slipping further back and that was just unnerving. So the indoor lift hill area contains a secret so I'm going to discuss that in a spoiler box...
The first drop is then absolutely incredible, probably the best in Europe? (although Lost Gravity and GeForce are pretty great). The speed and forces as you're at the bottom and going into the first non-inverting element is intense and just awesome. That whole crazy looking structure is actually really fun and the speed it takes it at is perfect. The rest of the ride is just really fun, I had a massive smile on my face the whole way round. There's a moment of intense and short ejector air time about a third way through which is surprising and awesome. I also love that you hit the brake run and then these huge doors open to reveal a huge heartline roll. It takes it really slowly which creates more hangtime than I'm happy with (similar to the jojo roll on Hydra) but it's still a brilliant and ridiculous way to end such a ludicrous coaster. If you can't tell already, I love Karnan.
Next up was the wild mouse, it started to rain a bit when we were in the long queue for it. I was amused that the theming and way it was all set up was very similar to how Chessington's Rattlesnake was set up. Even has an animatronic band. The ride was as bland as you'd expect from a wild mouse.
It was then time for Midgard, the family Gerst. I love the theming on this and yet again the park's love of storytelling has provided the ride with a terrible throughput. We certainly queued for this a lot longer than we expected to. Even got spited by the evil (animatronic) kids in the queueline.
The theming on this ride is really fab though, the effect at the top of the lift hill works extremely well. The ride is quite fun and very smooth, just a solid family coaster.
I took some more photos of Karnan. We even went up the massive mine tower which provided some excellent views of the ride.
After some wandering we stumbled across Space Race. Intrigued we headed inside to discover some excellent old school space theming. The queue was awesome, lots of random broken interactive things as well as a spinning tunnel. The ride was a dodgems and there was a game, on the walls were the planets and you had to "hit" them to gain points. At first most peeps seemed to be playing the game but we all soon realised it wasn't working. Oh well, neat idea.
We then queued up for the mine train with a silly name. Seeing as it goes through the loop of the Schwarzkopf I was praying we'd duel and it did! As we went through the middle of the loop the Nessie train inverted over our heads, it was a really great moment. The rest of the ride was very mediocre. It was then right round to Nessie, the queue and station area felt very 80s. Such a contrast to the newer heavily themed rides. Aside from the drop and loop it doesn't really do much, still fun and very smooth but it doesn't do much with all the speed it has.
We then decided to take a break and have some lunch. We had a bit of a tight schedule in the evening so we wanted to find a decent large meal and we managed to find one in the Western area. The food portions were huge and at a reasonable price (especially considering theme park prices).
We then went to tick off the brand new kiddy cred, Kleine Zar. It's really cute, it even has it's own IMAscore soundtrack.
We then took a little ride on the fairytale boat ride next to it. It wasn't very exciting, but it was good to let our food settle a bit longer before going back on the big coasters.
It was time to re-ride Novgorod. It was a bit busy this time, gah throughput on this is pretty terrible, being in that tight little corridor with a sharp incline with lots of people is rather frustrating. Still a great ride though.
Then back over to Karnan. The queue was super long but we managed a front row! That first drop is even more ridiculous in the front, urgh, wish I could just sit on this ride all day.
Annoyingly you can't see what's on the TV, I still love this really subtle effect
I was quite verbal on this ride and ended up with a bit of a sore throat like an idiot. Went to get a drink (side point - the park only sells non-bottled drinks which is slightly frustrating if you just want a bottle of water in your bag) which led to being a bad idea as our next ride was their brand new Gerst skyfly. Bad idea, bad idea. When we finally got on and I managed to get a spin I instantly regretted everything. That was one whole bag of nope, I had to really stop the spinning which is a shame because I quite enjoy these rides but it's my own fault.
We had another go on the amazing Karnan. As we got into the gift shop the heavens well and truly opened, we spent ages going from one under cover area to another. We then ended up seeing some "special effects" show. I think we were both expecting a stunt show. What we actually got was like 10 minutes of insane lasers and loud music. I mean, it was actually really good (well for someone like me who likes cool lighting tech) but it just was not what we were expecting. Very random. We then had to make our way to the train station (trains are not common on this train line).
I really liked Hansa park but mainly just for the stuff they'd added over the last 8 years. There were lots of randomly themed bits and bobs and then vast areas of generic 70s/80s buildings. We both quite liked the old school kids area (where Zar and the boat ride were). They really need to do something with the Spanish area though, it awkwardly sits between Karnan and Novgorod and only has a few random interactive bits and the laser theatre. There used to be one of those Schwarzkopf cred-but-not in the area but that was removed a few years back (building still there). The staff were nice enough (apart from grumpy bag man at Karnan - did not like me faffing with my camera) but the drinks thing got really annoying and the ride throughputs were atrocious, I'd hate to visit on a busy day. I'll still happily return at some point though, because I need more Karnan in my life.
We then had some minor travel woes that kept escalating and resulted in just a very tiring and not-fun evening. Our train from this remote train station was a little late but our connection in Hamburg was already quite tight. Luckily we weren't alone so once in Hamburg there were like 20-40 peeps running like madmen through the station. Only to get to the connecting train and being full of confusion. The train wasn't just a little bit delayed (I think we'd have been truly screwed if this was the case) but the nice ICE train was replaced with an old IC E train and had less seats. This resulted in utter chaos, lots of asking in mild panic wtf to do. In the end it was a case of somehow walking through each carriage until we found a space/seat. Luckily we did but it must have taken us like 15 minutes to do so. I hope I never have to do that again. We finally arrived in Essen like 15 minutes late (which was not bad considering) and checked into our nice hotel next to the station. That bed was much needed.
Thanks for reading, the next part will be up at some point this week.
Just a travel day where I met up with Mike and we got a flight from Stansted to Hamburg. Pretty non-eventful. The hotel was right near the train station and we struggled to sleep due to a loud bar/club that was blasting music till 3am. Urgh.
Sunday 16th
After getting something to eat at the station we got the short train out to Hansa Park (like a 10-15 minute walk between station and the park). The weather was a little overcast and miserable and throughout the day it occasionally rained which was disappointing. Didn't ruin our day though. Heads up about an awesome train and park ticket offer. On the ticket machines just put in hansa park and you'll get a return train ticket plus a voucher for park entry for like the same price as the train journey. Crazy awesome deal.
I thought everyone would head straight to Karnan (and boy was that tempting) but thought it might be better to go straight to Fluch von Novgorod. Only been waiting since like 2009 to ride it. We pretty much walked on which was fab. The queue line was well themed, the steepness going up into the station is bit random though. I loved the ride, that rolling launch is amazing and the indoor bit after the lift hill is disorientating and fun. The animatronics in the ride were a bit weird though, one of them had a terrifying face, maybe the projection was messed up?
Loved the subtle movements from these scarecrows
It was then round to their latest Gerstlauer beast, Karnan. Photos just don't do justice to this insane tower. I think the theming looks a little better than in photos but just the scale of it just blows my mind. Yet again the queue is really well themed, lots of screens showing a documentary on the history of the castle tower (with some hilariously bad re-enactments - Mike even spotted a modern football goal in the background of a medieval sequence). There's even several pre-shows during the queue - which magically moves in time with the shows (which also slightly highlights the atrocious throughput of this ride). The first room with the projection mapping works really well but I was more impressed with the very subtle effect in another room of having animatronic legs slightly moving on this ladder to give the impression the guy on the screen next to us was really there looking at stuff above us.
I nearly lost it after we were batched. There's a library room and the documentary video continues where the man "discovers" that the library shelves open to reveal a fantastic place to store loose items. Just the effort to somehow tie in the place for your bags just makes my day. After sorting that out we then enter the next room where I proceeded to loose it. Without any ride attendants guests fill up 4 rows, each row has 4 symbols on the floor, once everyone stands on a symbol and epic soundtrack and light sequence begins and it has me HYPED. It then stops and a row of floor symbols light up, then a door opens with a lit symbol above it. This amazed me on so many levels, mainly that people were following what was going on with ease and later I realised that this seat selection process was completely random. Want the front row? Better cross those fingers because it's completely down to chance! Sometimes I'm easily amused, this is probably one of those times but I absolutely love this entire concept. I think it's hilarious but also amazing because it really added to the experience, similar to how the Oblivion queue videos really hype up the ride.
So, the ride has lap bars which is nice but this totally suffers in the same way that Skyrush does. So much pressure on the thighs that it can be quite painful by the time you get back to the station. It also makes the vertical lift hill bloody terrifying. Going 200+ ft high, vertically, with just a lap bar is just insane. I felt like I was ever so slowly slipping further back and that was just unnerving. So the indoor lift hill area contains a secret so I'm going to discuss that in a spoiler box...
As you're rising to the top there's an incredible IMAscore soundtrack that is really good at getting the adrenaline going. It just keeps on building and building and then it stops and the train drops all the way back down to the bottom of the lift hill. It's insane and absolutely brilliant. I can't help but feel sorry for those already scared of rides breaking down though.
The first drop is then absolutely incredible, probably the best in Europe? (although Lost Gravity and GeForce are pretty great). The speed and forces as you're at the bottom and going into the first non-inverting element is intense and just awesome. That whole crazy looking structure is actually really fun and the speed it takes it at is perfect. The rest of the ride is just really fun, I had a massive smile on my face the whole way round. There's a moment of intense and short ejector air time about a third way through which is surprising and awesome. I also love that you hit the brake run and then these huge doors open to reveal a huge heartline roll. It takes it really slowly which creates more hangtime than I'm happy with (similar to the jojo roll on Hydra) but it's still a brilliant and ridiculous way to end such a ludicrous coaster. If you can't tell already, I love Karnan.
Next up was the wild mouse, it started to rain a bit when we were in the long queue for it. I was amused that the theming and way it was all set up was very similar to how Chessington's Rattlesnake was set up. Even has an animatronic band. The ride was as bland as you'd expect from a wild mouse.
It was then time for Midgard, the family Gerst. I love the theming on this and yet again the park's love of storytelling has provided the ride with a terrible throughput. We certainly queued for this a lot longer than we expected to. Even got spited by the evil (animatronic) kids in the queueline.
The theming on this ride is really fab though, the effect at the top of the lift hill works extremely well. The ride is quite fun and very smooth, just a solid family coaster.
I took some more photos of Karnan. We even went up the massive mine tower which provided some excellent views of the ride.
After some wandering we stumbled across Space Race. Intrigued we headed inside to discover some excellent old school space theming. The queue was awesome, lots of random broken interactive things as well as a spinning tunnel. The ride was a dodgems and there was a game, on the walls were the planets and you had to "hit" them to gain points. At first most peeps seemed to be playing the game but we all soon realised it wasn't working. Oh well, neat idea.
We then queued up for the mine train with a silly name. Seeing as it goes through the loop of the Schwarzkopf I was praying we'd duel and it did! As we went through the middle of the loop the Nessie train inverted over our heads, it was a really great moment. The rest of the ride was very mediocre. It was then right round to Nessie, the queue and station area felt very 80s. Such a contrast to the newer heavily themed rides. Aside from the drop and loop it doesn't really do much, still fun and very smooth but it doesn't do much with all the speed it has.
We then decided to take a break and have some lunch. We had a bit of a tight schedule in the evening so we wanted to find a decent large meal and we managed to find one in the Western area. The food portions were huge and at a reasonable price (especially considering theme park prices).
We then went to tick off the brand new kiddy cred, Kleine Zar. It's really cute, it even has it's own IMAscore soundtrack.
We then took a little ride on the fairytale boat ride next to it. It wasn't very exciting, but it was good to let our food settle a bit longer before going back on the big coasters.
It was time to re-ride Novgorod. It was a bit busy this time, gah throughput on this is pretty terrible, being in that tight little corridor with a sharp incline with lots of people is rather frustrating. Still a great ride though.
Then back over to Karnan. The queue was super long but we managed a front row! That first drop is even more ridiculous in the front, urgh, wish I could just sit on this ride all day.
Annoyingly you can't see what's on the TV, I still love this really subtle effect
I was quite verbal on this ride and ended up with a bit of a sore throat like an idiot. Went to get a drink (side point - the park only sells non-bottled drinks which is slightly frustrating if you just want a bottle of water in your bag) which led to being a bad idea as our next ride was their brand new Gerst skyfly. Bad idea, bad idea. When we finally got on and I managed to get a spin I instantly regretted everything. That was one whole bag of nope, I had to really stop the spinning which is a shame because I quite enjoy these rides but it's my own fault.
We had another go on the amazing Karnan. As we got into the gift shop the heavens well and truly opened, we spent ages going from one under cover area to another. We then ended up seeing some "special effects" show. I think we were both expecting a stunt show. What we actually got was like 10 minutes of insane lasers and loud music. I mean, it was actually really good (well for someone like me who likes cool lighting tech) but it just was not what we were expecting. Very random. We then had to make our way to the train station (trains are not common on this train line).
I really liked Hansa park but mainly just for the stuff they'd added over the last 8 years. There were lots of randomly themed bits and bobs and then vast areas of generic 70s/80s buildings. We both quite liked the old school kids area (where Zar and the boat ride were). They really need to do something with the Spanish area though, it awkwardly sits between Karnan and Novgorod and only has a few random interactive bits and the laser theatre. There used to be one of those Schwarzkopf cred-but-not in the area but that was removed a few years back (building still there). The staff were nice enough (apart from grumpy bag man at Karnan - did not like me faffing with my camera) but the drinks thing got really annoying and the ride throughputs were atrocious, I'd hate to visit on a busy day. I'll still happily return at some point though, because I need more Karnan in my life.
We then had some minor travel woes that kept escalating and resulted in just a very tiring and not-fun evening. Our train from this remote train station was a little late but our connection in Hamburg was already quite tight. Luckily we weren't alone so once in Hamburg there were like 20-40 peeps running like madmen through the station. Only to get to the connecting train and being full of confusion. The train wasn't just a little bit delayed (I think we'd have been truly screwed if this was the case) but the nice ICE train was replaced with an old IC E train and had less seats. This resulted in utter chaos, lots of asking in mild panic wtf to do. In the end it was a case of somehow walking through each carriage until we found a space/seat. Luckily we did but it must have taken us like 15 minutes to do so. I hope I never have to do that again. We finally arrived in Essen like 15 minutes late (which was not bad considering) and checked into our nice hotel next to the station. That bed was much needed.
Thanks for reading, the next part will be up at some point this week.