davidm
Strata Poster
Spurred by the need to do something over the August bank holiday, I gave into my FOMOOF (Fear of missing out on Fønix) and nipped over to
Denmark for a few days.
Not going to do a super long TR, just a few photos to space out some random waffling...
Reasonable afternoon flight into Billund, but every hotel in Billund was stupid expensive so I drove 1/2 hour to the nearest town I could
see on a map for a much more reasonable budget hotel and an opportunity to wander the streets in the evening in search of local libations.
So the town (Vejle) was quite pleasant - had a nice pedestrianised centre with lots of shops and the like, but it was very dead of a
Wednesday evening, lots of shut bars (even the ubiquitous Irish pub was closed) and not many people about.
I did find a food court where I could get beer and Tacos though, which was pretty much what I wanted
About the only other place open was a vast place called Megalounge, which turned out to be a hotel-lobby / Italian restaurant place with very
pricey beer
Anyway next morning, after a frankly rubbish hotel breakfast (budget hotel, what do you expect Dave!) I went back to Billund to try out a
totally-new-for-me-thing.
New because I'd never been to any Lego-park, despite driving past a few of the often enough.
In truth I had not really wanted to go here, it was just that the opening hours of the places I did want to visit meant I was killing time so
I figured I'd see what was going on ad pick up a +4.
Unusually, they did not open the gates until right on the advertised opening time (i.e. they weren't letting people in to the front area
to spend money in shops/cafes before opening the park) and it was a bit of a mess of people all charging through the gates at opening. Not a
great first impression then.
I did not really have a plan for the park so I just wandered towards the first coaster I could see on the map which turned out to be their
newest, Flying Eagle. It seemed pretty popular with the people who had got through the gates before me as I had to queue 20 mins or so for
it - took me a while to notice that they were giving everyone 2 laps which explained the slow moving line.
Nearby was Dragen and I was now expecting more burdenous queues, but seems like only the Eagle generated those as that was walk-on. Yay.
A bit more interesting this as it had a reasonable "dark ride" section full of lego-stuff before the (powered) coaster got going. The coaster
itself whizzed around a fairly pleasant bunch of trees and other green stuff, so that was nice.
Moving on, there's a mouse ride, X-treme Racers but a large park model rather than the more compact mice, and that was good (for a
mouse)
Was also walk-on (15m sign is lying to you)
Favourite of the coasters was the last one, Polar X-plorer - I did know about the "trick" to this one so that was no surprise, but due
to that "trick" probably the most interesting of the rides here, so much so I had another ride.
OK creds done, wander around the park for a looksee - its all quite pleasant but clearly not "for me". I do have a go on a couple of the
dark rides just to see what was going on really. "Emmet’s Flying Adventure – Masters of Flight" is a (fairly new) flying theatre and was OK,
quite a lot more "budget" than any of the other flying theatres I've been on (not many to be fair) and I got the end seat too so my visual
experience was not great either. But it was OK, would not object to Alton getting one of these (with a better film).
Did the Ninjago ride too, I had no idea what to expect with this, but it was very poor. Some screens were not working (so just sat there
looking at a black wall while stuff went on on adjacent screens) and the shooting mechanism just did not seem to work either - perhaps I got
a dud vehicle? anyway it was very poor.
And there was was a Haunted House thing - which I quite liked. Spooky walkthrough (all lego-ghosts and ghouls of course) and then a mini
drop tower/glorified frog-hopper thing at the end which was only running one of its two sides so that caused a big queue back into the
walk-through bit which was not great.
They have a small observation tower thing too, and I like them, so did that.
But that was about it for any amusement I was going to get from the place!
We've all seen better days...
But I was not done with Billund after my couple of hours at the park, I'd spotted that there was advertised sculpture park nearby so wandered
around the back of the Legoland hotels to find it.
To be honest, it was not great. A wander down a pleasant enough walk through the woods, with the odd lump of sculpture to walk past. Some of
them more successful than others.
When you get to the other end of the walk, you are towards downtown-central Billund, which is all quite pleasant and twee as company-towns go.
But being as that company in the company-town is Lego, there's also a Lego-visitor centre place here - its got a bunch of (charged)
"experiences" that you can do (I didn't) but also a reasonable amount of free public space (mostly up on the roof space of the place) that
you can wander around and that was quite cool.
After that almost-culture diversion, I headed up to Aalborg for the night in another city-centre budget hotel.
The previous time I'd been to Aalborg, it had been mostly shut (really) so this time I had scoped out some places that should have been open
(and were) for some beer-based culture.
But they were a bit "touristy" for me, either like the above (where I did have a food and beer) or Tuborg-based party bars
And there was something off with that burger too, as I did not feel too well afterwards (nor for a couple of days to be honest)
I persevered though and after a bit of wandering did find a couple of bars much more to my liking so all was good in the end.
Denmark for a few days.
Not going to do a super long TR, just a few photos to space out some random waffling...
Reasonable afternoon flight into Billund, but every hotel in Billund was stupid expensive so I drove 1/2 hour to the nearest town I could
see on a map for a much more reasonable budget hotel and an opportunity to wander the streets in the evening in search of local libations.
So the town (Vejle) was quite pleasant - had a nice pedestrianised centre with lots of shops and the like, but it was very dead of a
Wednesday evening, lots of shut bars (even the ubiquitous Irish pub was closed) and not many people about.
I did find a food court where I could get beer and Tacos though, which was pretty much what I wanted
About the only other place open was a vast place called Megalounge, which turned out to be a hotel-lobby / Italian restaurant place with very
pricey beer
Anyway next morning, after a frankly rubbish hotel breakfast (budget hotel, what do you expect Dave!) I went back to Billund to try out a
totally-new-for-me-thing.
New because I'd never been to any Lego-park, despite driving past a few of the often enough.
In truth I had not really wanted to go here, it was just that the opening hours of the places I did want to visit meant I was killing time so
I figured I'd see what was going on ad pick up a +4.
Unusually, they did not open the gates until right on the advertised opening time (i.e. they weren't letting people in to the front area
to spend money in shops/cafes before opening the park) and it was a bit of a mess of people all charging through the gates at opening. Not a
great first impression then.
I did not really have a plan for the park so I just wandered towards the first coaster I could see on the map which turned out to be their
newest, Flying Eagle. It seemed pretty popular with the people who had got through the gates before me as I had to queue 20 mins or so for
it - took me a while to notice that they were giving everyone 2 laps which explained the slow moving line.
Nearby was Dragen and I was now expecting more burdenous queues, but seems like only the Eagle generated those as that was walk-on. Yay.
A bit more interesting this as it had a reasonable "dark ride" section full of lego-stuff before the (powered) coaster got going. The coaster
itself whizzed around a fairly pleasant bunch of trees and other green stuff, so that was nice.
Moving on, there's a mouse ride, X-treme Racers but a large park model rather than the more compact mice, and that was good (for a
mouse)
Was also walk-on (15m sign is lying to you)
Favourite of the coasters was the last one, Polar X-plorer - I did know about the "trick" to this one so that was no surprise, but due
to that "trick" probably the most interesting of the rides here, so much so I had another ride.
OK creds done, wander around the park for a looksee - its all quite pleasant but clearly not "for me". I do have a go on a couple of the
dark rides just to see what was going on really. "Emmet’s Flying Adventure – Masters of Flight" is a (fairly new) flying theatre and was OK,
quite a lot more "budget" than any of the other flying theatres I've been on (not many to be fair) and I got the end seat too so my visual
experience was not great either. But it was OK, would not object to Alton getting one of these (with a better film).
Did the Ninjago ride too, I had no idea what to expect with this, but it was very poor. Some screens were not working (so just sat there
looking at a black wall while stuff went on on adjacent screens) and the shooting mechanism just did not seem to work either - perhaps I got
a dud vehicle? anyway it was very poor.
And there was was a Haunted House thing - which I quite liked. Spooky walkthrough (all lego-ghosts and ghouls of course) and then a mini
drop tower/glorified frog-hopper thing at the end which was only running one of its two sides so that caused a big queue back into the
walk-through bit which was not great.
They have a small observation tower thing too, and I like them, so did that.
But that was about it for any amusement I was going to get from the place!
We've all seen better days...
But I was not done with Billund after my couple of hours at the park, I'd spotted that there was advertised sculpture park nearby so wandered
around the back of the Legoland hotels to find it.
To be honest, it was not great. A wander down a pleasant enough walk through the woods, with the odd lump of sculpture to walk past. Some of
them more successful than others.
When you get to the other end of the walk, you are towards downtown-central Billund, which is all quite pleasant and twee as company-towns go.
But being as that company in the company-town is Lego, there's also a Lego-visitor centre place here - its got a bunch of (charged)
"experiences" that you can do (I didn't) but also a reasonable amount of free public space (mostly up on the roof space of the place) that
you can wander around and that was quite cool.
After that almost-culture diversion, I headed up to Aalborg for the night in another city-centre budget hotel.
The previous time I'd been to Aalborg, it had been mostly shut (really) so this time I had scoped out some places that should have been open
(and were) for some beer-based culture.
But they were a bit "touristy" for me, either like the above (where I did have a food and beer) or Tuborg-based party bars
And there was something off with that burger too, as I did not feel too well afterwards (nor for a couple of days to be honest)
I persevered though and after a bit of wandering did find a couple of bars much more to my liking so all was good in the end.