Here comes the Vasa ...
Your hostel didn't happen to be a boat did it? Mine was because it's the only place I could afford to stay.
Don't recall any ship! My hostel was called Generator and had a very modernistic style to it.
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Lovingly referred to as "old ship" in my notes list, I spent the first half of my day at the Vasamuseet, a fascinating little place that pours its heart and soul into preserving the Vasa, which sunk and died around twenty minutes into its first ever voyage. The place, as you should expect of a museum that centers around one particular thing, covered essentially all bases and the whole thing was incredibly interesting. I'm pretty desensitised to yet more cannonballs and yet more pieces of armour, but this found ways to keep things fresh with real skeletons and whatnot. Especially taking in the way they keep the Vasa structurally sane, the fact I remember most is that having too many people in the building at one time causes the boat to deteriorate quicker than usual.
I would say it's one of my favourite museums I've been to, even with my admittedly limited experience.
This kept me occupied, but by around 2.30pm I had exhausted essentially everything there, and with the park not opening until 4, I found some ways to waste as much time as possible before the time had finally come. Having only six hours, I was seriously worried that I wouldn't get on everything, but I realised this was more than enough time.
The ride that gets the worst queues is
#436 Kvasten, so that was headed to first. This ran remarkably slower than the Southampton counterpart, though I imagine flying over the crowds during the live concerts must be sweet. That, however, would require willingly riding this again, which was too much of an ask for me.
Fairly early on, it was made clear that two rides were down for the count - the starflyer Eclipse, and the park's most traditional drop tower, Fritt Fall. Eclipse's inaction was met with indifference, but I would have liked to get on Fritt Fall - oh well.
But what was open was a ride that I'd heard nothing but good things about -
Bla Taget was in my notes as a "must-do" attraction. The naked alien lady was a good sign of things to come, I admire her confidence, as this instantly became one of my favourite dark rides of all time, dare I say entering my top ten. It's a simple example of every single joke landing to a point where I, completely alone, laugh out loud to myself at the sheer absurdity of it. You run over a guy to the sound of a hilarious scream, you walk in on a dude on the toilet, a train honks its horn at you, a big cow, a shelf of plates falls down on you. It may possibly be, fully unironically, the best execution of comedy in any theme park ride that I have experienced and I came back to it multiple times in the day to appreciate its achievements more. It is unmissable.
Next on the agenda is
#437 Twister, which possibly wins the award for the most compact wooden coaster, ever. Like its friends in Wood Express and Timber!, these mini Gravity Group woodies excel with doing the most it can out of a tiny plot of land. It has an unorthodox and entirely unpredictable layout to go with it, making wild turns out of seemingly nowhere before a drop that gives straight ejector airtime in the back row as it becomes less "roller coaster" and more "just trying to fit as much track as possible into this area". The capacity is pretty bad even on two trains due to the tiny sizes of them, but Twister is another winner to the park's lineup, and is a brilliant showcase of Gravity Group's capabilities with limited space.
Another unmissable ride in the park is
Ikaros, a near-300ft drop tower with the special addition of tilting you forwards ninety degrees to face directly downwards for the drop sequence - similar to Hansa Park's Highlander and Drayton Manor's dearly-missed Apocalypse, but going all the way and more. You may assume that Ikaros is more intense as a result, but by sheer shock this was by far the least scariest one of them all. For one, the vest restraint holds you in TIGHT. The operators allow absolutely zero room to breathe on this one, so good luck with getting any gap between you, and they hold you in so much that any fear of height is essentially evaporated due to how strapped in you are. In general the ride and the drop felt far more controlled than its Highlander and former Apocalypse buddies, leading the whole thing to be a little underwhelming in the scariness factor, but this is still a model that I would love to see pop up more often. I would highly recommend doing the "running man" on the drop!
Up next was
#438 Vilda Musen, the wild mouse coaster that weaves its way through and around Jetline, which permanently closed after suffering from an entirely avoidable fatal accident in 2023. There were serious rumblings on if the demolition of Jetline would have also killed this ride due to how much the supports intertwined, but Vilda Musen will ultimately survive without its interwoven counterpart.
The ride itself wasn't the strongest of its kind, suffering a little bit from "we have to build around it" and evidently not having the skilled engineers who built Twister's layout. There's a lot of sillying around involved, but a fun ride nonetheless. Feelings towards this aren't the strongest.
#439 Monster is the jewel in the park's crown, by far the largest ride in the park, and is the shining star example of how a new ride works best when it feels like it's always been there. Despite opening in 2021, Monster feels like it's been here since the 90's, in the biggest complimentary way possible. With most new coasters, they more often than not stick out like a sore thumb as "very obviously the new thing", but Monster weaves perfectly, feeling like a ride that has always been here since the very start, and I seriously cannot appreciate that enough.
Some may say that Monster suffers from its compact layout and being a repetitive ride that does a lot of the same thing, but I disagree, the ride stays strong the whole time, and if everything hits well, who cares if it's repetitive? I'm enjoying a part of the ride and I'm enjoying a part of the ride again, why do we love wooden coasters and traditional hyper coasters so much if they all do the same thing? Because they do it well.
In the back row, Monster's drop is sweet, proving that B&M still has it in them to build intense moments when they want to, and the rest of the layout is a great mix of zero-g rolls and fancy turnarounds that keep things fresh. A surprise moment of genuine airtime towards the front half of the train caught me unawares right near the end, and the general feel of constantly soaring over paths and buildings was an almost unmatched feeling, proving that parks still can do this if they wanted to. The brakes brings you underground back into the station (did I tell you the station is underground?), ending a fantastic ride.
I had been holding this off for a minute because I was worried that it was going to knock me out, but it was finally time for my first 4D coaster, #440 Insane. Captioning an image of it with "time to absolutely ruin the rest of my day" to a coaster WhatsApp group, Insane's lift hill instilled a level of fear into me that I hadn't felt on a coaster in a minute, with my only thought being "I'm going to absolutely hate this".
Its pushes and shoves were met with my sounds of survival.
And then I loved it.
Joining the camp with agreeing that this is possibly the most fitting name for any roller coaster in the world, because oh my good heavens is this thing crazy. Maybe one of the most unconventional theme park attractions in the world, Insane takes what you know about roller coasters and flips that on its head before throwing it into an industrial blender. Suited right on the water providing a spectacular view of either the sea or the rest of the park as you scale its daunting chain lift from either side, the first half aggressively tosses and throws you upwards downwards like you're its toy, a marionette on some steel strings. The finale comes not long after, sending you down a wild curve before flipping over a hilariously tight corner and flicking you head-over-heels into the brakes, which around half the time ends with you arriving back in the station upside down. It's a ride that most people absolutely hate, and it's a ride that I heavily anticipated hating ("time to absolutely ruin my day"), but I escaped the pit by becoming one of the few who thinks this thing is an addictive drug devised by deranged hooligans who weren't afraid to step outside of their comfort zone. Seven laps in one day still didn't feel like enough for me, this stupid mechanism has me constantly coming back for more.
And with that done, we almost saved best for last, and it was time for some clean-up.
#441 Nyckelpigan was a gleaming example of how even after all this time of riding massive machines, "tiny kiddie coaster that goes in circles" still brings light to my eyes. Genuinely one of my favourite kiddie coasters.
#442 Tuff-Tuff Taget had one of the most cheerful ride operators ever, with a grandma ecstatic to see someone riding her attraction.
And
Pumpen, the park's newest ride, which unfortunately did not hit the spot. Switzerland's take on the Wild Swing genre of attraction, this ride is far more bark than bite where it looked interesting off-ride but instead sacrificed thing-doing in exchange for extra height, so I spent a lot of my time sitting and waiting and then it ended.
Grona Lund is a lot more than just rides too, seemingly doubling as a music venue. There were ballrooms with hundreds of elderly dancing couples, there was a massive concert, the whole place had a generally unmatched vibe. It's an awesome park that I seriously enjoyed even with Jetline's remaining presence, but thankfully, as of 2026 it has now been removed, though with a solemn reason as to why.
The rest of my day was spent enjoying rerides on, well, most rides. Twister, Bla Taget, Insane, Ikaros and Monster all were checked out on multiple occasions as I soaked in the timeless vibes of the park. And when Ikaros did close early, my 21:45 virtual queue being denied, I almost ended things on a bad note but my mind was instantly changed after we negotiated getting on the second-to-last train of Insane which nullified any growing qualms.
So far both Liseberg and Grona Lund have been major wins for me, Sweden is looking to be a winner in terms of park lineup even if it doesn't have too many.
But tomorrow is Ascension Day, a public holiday, and what I know of "ascension" is "expect absolutely unholy amounts of queueing". Have I just made a fatal mistake in my plans, and will the high that I'm riding be extinguished as quickly as it was created?
Tomorrow - the answer to that question
