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My trip to Finland: Part 1 (Särkänniemi)

ThomVD

Giga Poster
It's hard to write a report right after reading a really detailed report (in this case from CookieCoasters) who already put most of your thoughts into words, but I'll just give my opinions of the parks and rides here.

I went to Finland recently to visit a friend. We had quite a few plans for the week, which includes exploring the country, visiting lakes, walking through the forests, visiting a concert of three Finnish bands (Sonata Arctica, Children of Bodom and Nightwish), touristing in the two major cities (Tampere and Helsinki), and of course visiting the three main parks.

First park of the trip was Särkänniemi, which lies just outside of the city center of Tampere, on a peninsula surrounded by a massive lake called Näsiselkä. It's quite a picturesque location of a park, and a lot of the rides have been build in a circle so that everything is close to the lake, while there is a big kiddie area in the middle.

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This is the view from most of the park:

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We wanted to do the kiddie coaster first, but came across this unique flat called Hurricane and just wanted to ride something. It was fun enough, with a nice location next to the lake. It wasn't particularly intense though. My friend had never been to amusement parks, so it was a nice start for him.

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We rode the pirate ship next to get him even more used to the motion that rides make, and to that feeling in the stomach. The interesting thing about this swinging ship is that in every row, seats face each other. That, instead of one half of the ship facing the other half.

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Angry Birds Land was quite a nice place with plenty of stuff for kids, including........

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.....the first cred of the trip. This small Zierer Tivoli. I've ridden three of those now. +1.

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On our way back we decided to ride the Zamperla MotoCoaster. It didn't have a queue and it still ran two trains, which seems to be a standard in Finland. I had never ridden a Zamperla version before, and it felt quite different from the Vekoma ones. It was a lot more compact. Aside from the launch it never really picked up speed, but it had a nice flow to it. It wasn't anything special, but not bad either.

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Next thing we walked past was the log flume. This seemed to be the most popular ride in the park, with a 15-20 minute queue all day long. For good reason though, I really liked it. It had loads of small drops, a waterfall and a nice soaking big drop. I also liked how it fitted so nicely into the terrain, and it had interaction with Tornado.

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We got some ice cream in the kiddie area, went on the chairswing, and then decided to do one of the big coasters. With someone who has never ridden a major coaster, I had to decide whether I would take him on a Half Pipe (which is as un-coastery as creds get), a Zamperla Volare (god no!) or a big Intamin inverted coaster. I decided to take him for the latter.

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I quite liked the underground station for Tornado, especially with the heartline roll fly-through. We rode the front seat for our first ride. Again, two trains walk on <3 The ride overall was decent. The front seat lacked forces though, but the heartline roll was really fab. In the back seat it was quite a lot better overall, with a good first drop and solid forces in most elements. Fun ride.

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We moved on to the half pipe, but on the way we came across this. It reminded me of Efteling <3 It even said "Holland" on it!

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We also came across the rapids, so we rode that first as the weather was pretty warm. The rapids are nothing to write home about. It left us relatively dry. I did like the part towards the end where it gets so misty you don't see anything. It was suspenseful. The area around the rapids was nice and green, compared to the concrete parts of the other half of the park.

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The half pipe then. It felt very hidden away and hardly had a queue either. It was great fun. Nice sustained floater airtime and some gentle spinning. My biggest problem with it is that it lasted so extremely short. If it was longer it would be my fave coaster in the park, but right now Tornado slightly beats it. We immediately re-rode.

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Also near that area was the "Doghill", which is basically from a famous Finnish children book. They recreated areas and scenes from that book in the park. It was so lovely! Easily my fave area in the park. It really had that traditional Finnish feel to it.

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Getting back to the last cred then, Trombi. It was my first Volare, and I hated it. It's not the worst coaster I've ridden, at least it was very interesting and unlike anything I had ridden, but it was still vile. My friend described the look of the cars as "a torture device out of a horror film" and that sounds about right.

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They have a disk-o coaster at the most amazing location ever, on a peninsula of a peninsula <3 It is definitely up there with Plopsa's disk-o as my fave. Just the gentle breeze and the view over the lake all around you made it one of my favourite attractions in the park.

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We moved back to the other side for some re-rides on Tornado and Half Pipe, and then decided to watch the 5D horror film. I usually skip them, but we are both horror fans so we had to see it. It's easily one of the best 5D films I've seen. Lots of suspense, jump scares and good effects, with a nice atmosphere. It was actually worth watching for once. It was very much a 5D theater in a shed though. It looked very temporary and cheap. We also had a look in the aquarium.

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Back again to the other side of the park, because there were spinny flats to be done. The park is quite small so you can easily do the rides in any order. We rode the tri-star, Take-off (which was repetitive yet enjoyable) and lastly the Power Surge called High Voltage. I really liked that one, it was disorienting, fun and not too intense. Fab little flat.

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We got some last re-rides on the main coasters and then finished the day off by having dinner at the observatory tower. It was amazing! Such nice views of the lake, the park and Tampere. Great end to a nice day.

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I quite liked Särkänniemi. It isn't a major standout park, nor does it have many standout rides. But it was just a pleasant park to be in, with some lovely areas. It also had quite a few fun rides and attractions such as Tornado, Half Pipe, the Disk-o, the observatory tower and the log flume. Also appreciated the two-train operations, even if it wasn't that crowded. Thanks for reading the report, PowerPark is next.
 
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