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Hansa and Denmark July 2018

peep

CF Legend
Friday 6th July

The trip started with most of us meeting up at Stansted airport. Trains from London were having signal fun times, JayJay and I managed to still get our pre-arranged time with only a slight delay. Sue got caught up in the worst of it so once we met up with Richard and Jordan at the airport we went through security and grabbed a standard 'Spoons. While having said meal some waiter caught wind of us discussing whether or not we count butterflies - it led to much amusement. This also led to us counting every actual butterfly over the next four days.

Food eaten and still no sign of the mysterious one. Our gate had been called so we headed over in the hope she'll be able to join us by the time the gate closes. I'm very glad to say that she did! Exhausted after running through the airport after a disastrous journey there it was great she had time to spare. Flight to Hamburg was standard and we were greeted at the other end by an Owain holding a great sign...

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We then went to grab our hire car for the trip. We got some Citroen thingymabile and it was a bit of a fun tetris game trying to find a way to get us all in the car sensibly with our bags. The car was also not Richard friendly which caused quite a lot of interesting moments. We then checked into our hotel down the road from the airport.


Saturday 7th July

A slightly early start was had so we could grab some breakfast and tick of a Unesco site (this is now a thing) in the old city of Lübeck. This is where you'll find the city gate that inspired the entrance to Hansa Park.

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It's quite a nice little place with some cool old architecture. I think we all wished we could have spent just a bit longer taking a stroll round.

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It was then back into the car and over to Hansa Park. I only visited the other year for the first time and was very happy to already return. The park were lovely and arranged some special things for us CFers. We each got a bag of tat (omg!) and the park representative took us over to their new family flat ride for ERT (closed to general public until we had as many goes as we'd like). It was actually a fun little flat ride and some of the swings had some proper forces which was nice. We had 3 goes though which was a little bit too much, getting a little sickly. I think some of the group were willing to continue but Rich and I noped out and everyone joined us.

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Owain wanted to make Karnan his 500th so we went off to tick off all the smaller coasters first. The sheer scale of is it is still daunting.

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Crazy Mine was up first. It had a much smaller queue than on my previous visit which was nice. Pretty standard wild mouse with some decent theming. Next was Die Schlange von Midgard which is the fab Gerst family coaster with a proper storyline and some pretty good theming. Some of the effects weren't really working which was a shame but it's still a fun little ride. It was then over to Nessie which is still in the process of being re-themed. There is a castle-like structure going around the final building and part of the queueline. It's also getting a new dark paint scheme which is interesting. There's a photo towards the end.

It was then time for the epic Karnan. It had quite a queue which was fine as apparently I was the only one who had previously experienced the many rooms of things happening. My fav bit in the queue is the animatronic legs on the ladder representing the lower half of the dude on the TV screen next to it. I think that's a really simple but neat touch. The bag drop is also a thing of genius, as is the room of choices. The staff as we were dropping bags off were not at all pleased by Sue's lack of normal footwear (she was wearing flip flops like a loon). There was a lot of commotion and several staff peeps bickering about how to proceed.

In the end the solution was to get some proper tape and tape her feet to the flip flops which had everyone in the room in hysterics. I think we found peak Sue. I think some of the others in the group have a photo of the moment.

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Karnan is still absolutely incredible. That first drop is just terrifying and the rest of it is just relentless speed with the odd moment of airtime. I felt exhausted by the end, it's just a beast of a machine and I love it so much.

Before heading round to Novgorod the rest of the group went through the water maze thing where half of it didn't seem to react as expected.

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It was then time for creepy scarecrows at Fluch von Novgorod. I forgot how intense the launch on this is, love it. A lot of the outside track felt quite bumpy and rough, maybe a retrack wouldn't go amiss.

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The gang found a slide

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We then ticked off the rest of the coasters before grabbing lunch. I love the theming on the little kids coaster, Der Kleine Zar. The mine train is fun but I was sad it didn't duel on our ride (goes through the loop of Nessie).

For food we faffed around a bit and then decided on this pizza/pasta place. It was quite tasty and was very reasonably priced. To relax before going back on Karnan we headed over to Space Race. An indoor dodgems where you can hit panels on the side to tick off all the planets. There's a large scoreboard to show which driver has completed ticking them all off first. I think it's a very cool idea. Some of the group then caused chaos in the kids soft play zone thing in the same building.

It was then time for more Karnan.

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SOOOOO GOOD.

We then took a nice little ride on the little family boat ride. Very relaxing.

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We then spent the whole of the Novgorod queueline watching England not fail at football in the World Cup. Then it was obviously back for one last ride on Karnan.

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As soon as Nessie had closed the park were back to painting it more...

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The new building at the entrance is a great addition to their really unique entry street. Unfortunately I only took one blurry pic...

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Hansa, you wonderful park, I really enjoyed my day here. Land of epic Gersts and fun things. Makes me very excited to hear what these posters were all about...

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We then had a very long drive up to Kolding in Denmark. We stopped several hours into our drive for an evening meal in Aabenraa. The place was like a ghost town (it was after 9pm I suppose? But a Saturday?). We found a restaurant that was barely open and managed to have a decent meal. Another 40 mins up the motorway and we were at our lovely old school hotel. It felt quite grand but also a bit worn down. Still, we were happy with it.

It was a tiring but excellent start to our little trip. I'll add day two soon where we visit Djurs Sommarland!


Thanks for reading.
 

Jordanovichy

Credit Whore 2016
Hansa <3
Karnan <3

A park I'd heard so much about, a coaster I had deliberately avoided (almost) everything about. The park is so beautiful, and with the sun beating down through the trees which provided a beautiful shade, it just made it feel almost magical and it has taken the place of 5th favourite park. I knew 'something' happened in that tower on Karnan...I just didn't know what, and my goodness what a surprise. I also knew the drop was supposed to be pretty good...I just didn't know how good. SO GOOD, the whole coaster is madness, I definitely get what @peep means by feeling 'exhausted'. I knew it was top 10, I just didn't quite know where, and after 2 (3?) more rides I decided on 4th, behind Helix and Taron (Europe-wise), just because I think with just how 'exhausting' it is does detract from that rerideability.
 

peep

CF Legend
Is it wrong that I can imagine Sue having flip-flops taped to her feet for the rest of the trip? Perhaps even now? ;)

Not at all wrong, totally sounds like something she would do.


Sunday 8th July

The day started with an average hotel breakfast where the rest of us learned that Sue left her bag back at the restaurant. Poor Sue, things were not going her way so far. It was then into the car to drive up to Farup Sommarland. I was excited to finally be at this park after failing to get involved in the previous CF trips there. The walk from the car park to the park entrance was quite long winded but pleasant - very foresty.

Obviously the first thing we went to was Piraten. This was my third Intamin mega-lite and I enjoyed it just as much as the other two. They really pack in a decent amount of forces into such a compact layout - I even started whiting out on the first corner. I liked that the staff in the station were putting on Pirate style accents and playing with toy swords.

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We then went straight round to Skatteøen, the park's Mack water coaster. Yet again the staff were acting like Pirates and were hitting people with toy swords. It was quite amusing and nice to see staff really getting into the spirit of things. The ride was nothing to really write about, a fairly standard water coaster.

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We then popped into the farmyard themed area for the next coaster, Vilde Hønsejagt. I loved the theming on this coaster but the queue was burdenous. Out in the sun and was one of the longest waits of the day.

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It was then over to Juvelen. The theming in the queue and station is excellent. The ride started off ok but the second launch was great and the second half was much more exciting. It's weird sitting in the quad bike seats and being launched. Overall it's a fun family coaster.

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We then made our way round to Thors Hammer, a fab little Gerst Bob.

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It was hot and we were quite hungry by this point. We split into two groups because Sue, Richard and Jordan were playing Pokemon Go due to the community day event. Owain, JayJay and I went to a BBQ buffet place and it was quite good. Lots of salad options and sauces.

The monster hunters were running late to our pre-organised meet time so we went on the new jungle bus ride and the Jungle Rally cred while we were waiting. The new area is actually quite nice, I like the way Dragekongen just towers over it all.

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Now we had everyone and we all got our little plus one with the Jungle rally cred it was time for Dragekongen. Off ride it looked pretty fun so we were quite excited to give it a go. I like the theming effort in the queue and station again. There's a neat lighting sequence when a train comes into the station which I thought was cool.

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The ride starts off really well with an indoor section that is just fun and much longer than I was expecting. However the rest of the ride was bumpy/rattly and it was distracting. There are some decent moments but it was just a bit disappointing, especially as the track still looks shiny and new.

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We then took the slide down the hill to get to the log flume. I noticed people at the back of the logs were coming off much wetter than those at the front so when it was decided by others I was sitting at the front I was pretty happy. I don't know how but I got barely a spray compared to Jordan who was sitting at the back. Not sure I've experience this on a log flume with only forward facing drops. We had fun.

Some of us then opted to do the topple tower because how often do you see a working topple tower? Watching it go round was slightly sickly but it was fine when it was our go, just a bit tedious.

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We then went on the Jungle Safari ride which had a pretty big queue. Despite being in the shade it was boiling in the queue. I swear the heat was really getting to me by this point. It also got to this monkey...

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It's funny how many of these Jungle Cruise rip offs are in Europe and they all seem to have so many similar things going on.

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We finished our time up in the park with bouncy pillow times (I was dead so sat out) and then mega ice cream with plenty of Guf was enjoyed.

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It was then back on the road to head over to Tivoli Friheden.

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The first cred to tick off was the Pinfari Zyklon which was dreadful. Richard was smug he didn't have to ride it as he'd been previously. We then ticked off the SBF spinner, Bisværmen. It had moments where it span far too much, mergh.

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The big apple called Dragon was next which was pretty standard. Richard then smugly watched on as we all braved Tornado. It looked hideous and we were all braced for the worst. In the end it was actually ok, aside from a really brutal knock in the track which resulted in some severe ear bashing.

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The spinner was the last cred to tick off in the park. It was spinny but not gross. We then decided to do the Haunted House ride. It was not what we were expecting at all, part traditional ghost train and part 3D shooter it was very ambitious for such a small park. I think it's easy to say it looks cheap but the interactive element worked quite well and some effort had clearly been put into it.

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We then hung around until some ride ops appeared at the SCAD tower. Owain and I went up to watch while JayJay and Jordan braved the drop. There was a random Dane up with us too and I think he was the most nervous. Jordan certainly looked more scared the closer it got to his turn. I thought it was pretty evil of the guy on the radio at the bottom saying over the radio before JayJay dropped that the net wasn't ready yet etc all in a panicked way just before they let him go.

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It's bloomin' high...

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But you don't just want pictures, you want video...

** WARNING: Loud wind noise destroyed the sound **



We then popped into Aarhus centre where we grabbed some dinner on the canal/river and had a little walk around. It seemed like a nice place, there was a fountain which we played in for quite some time.

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It was then to the hotel for the next two nights. It was football themed and part of a sports complex. It was weird. For some reason we were highly amused by the rooms all backing on to a little courtyard and Owain created some Scooby-Doo shenanigans which ended when Richard found a bouncy ball causing us to cause too much commotion. We clearly disturbed someone in another room (we thought no one else was around) and we SCARPERED like the kids we are.

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And that was the end of yet another tiring but excellent day. I really liked Djurs and I'd happily return, it had a really nice atmosphere and some decent rides.


Thanks for reading, the next part is Farup!
 

vaugc002

Mega Poster
Every time I see that SCAD tower it gives me sweaty palms. It just looks so un-health and safety.
Some beautiful parks... Hansa especially looks lovely - their attention to detail really comes through.
And Karnan really is impressive isn't it! Damn.

I hope Farup impresses :)
 

jayjay

Giga Poster
The SCAD tower's amazing and terrifying all at once. Would do again!

We mostly came to similar conclusions about Djurs. It's got lots of scenery, green spaces, a range of high quality attractions and enthusiastic staff, but somehow it doesn't feel like it has a character of its own. It's like a high quality generic park.
 

SilverArrow

Certified Ride Geek
The SCAD tower's amazing and terrifying all at once. Would do again!

We mostly came to similar conclusions about Djurs. It's got lots of scenery, green spaces, a range of high quality attractions and enthusiastic staff, but somehow it doesn't feel like it has a character of its own. It's like a high quality generic park.
Going to Denmark at the end of aug and have been looking at entry prices etc so I have some questions for the collective.

For Tivoli friheden, the visit Aarhus website says their card gets you free entry to the park but you still have to pay to get on the rides. Otherwise would you pay to get in AND do the rides?? Is this card helpful? Sounds confusing.

Also do you think farup and djurs could be done in a day? The choice is either do that or ditch farup completely and I'd rather not do that if poss.

P.S The Scad tower looks awful!!
 
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jayjay

Giga Poster
Also do you think farup and djurs could be done in a day?
Fårup's a pleasant park that you actually want to give a decent amount of time for all the little extra things (absolutely do not miss Skattejagten. Wear active clothing). Tivoli Friheden opens late and doesn't have much, so you can pair that with Djurs instead.

Not sure on cards for Tivoli Friheden. We just used wristbands.
 

SilverArrow

Certified Ride Geek
Fårup's a pleasant park that you actually want to give a decent amount of time for all the little extra things (absolutely do not miss Skattejagten. Wear active clothing). Tivoli Friheden opens late and doesn't have much, so you can pair that with Djurs instead.

Not sure on cards for Tivoli Friheden. We just used wristbands.
Ok, thanks. Farup and Djurs are only open at the weekend so not sure if that will work as Friheden is also open on the Friday night so was going to do it then. Will have a think about it. Good to know you don't need to pay separate entry then, thanks for the info!
 
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