Dusting off Denmark - Part 3: Not Denmark

[HeartlineCoaster]

Due to the crazy operating season of the region, I failed to hit all the parks in this area before. Still needed Farup, Friheden and Drage Kongen has appeared... lets check things out.

Might find a couple of recycled pics of the cool stuff from previous visits thrown in here because I was lazy this time. Spot the difference in the weather.

Day 1 - Legoland Billund

Landed in Billund with the sight of Polar Xplorer greeting us from the plane window. Unfortunately had to suffer some Legoland so that the friend I was with could get the creds.
Ended up in an overflow car park at the back of the park which meant a good 15 minute walk around the perimeter to the entrance. Cost a stupid amount for the privilige as well, it's Alton all over again.

Park was so packed full of people that it was a struggle to get around and I wasn't looking forward to dealing with that, but as we would discover everywhere on this trip, Denmark seems unable to get big queues.

Went for a couple of laps on Polar Xplorer, 10 minute queue and then walk on after a short and well handled breakdown.
Still a great family ride that gives you a little something to think about. Stop building wild mice.

15 minutes for the wild mouse, which had also had a well handled breakdown. It was trimming itself to death after the big drop for some reason, not that it mattered.

I didn't realise the dragon could run 2 trains, must be some sorcery going on there. The dark ride section remains well kept and the outside section remains pointless.

Reminded myself how short and pathetic The Temple is, no wonder they went for a second shooter. Took a few confused seconds to pinpoint that it was playing the Tomb Blaster theme.

Still don't like Ghost. Glorified frog hopper in a park with 3 perfectly suitable frog hoppers.

Still like Ninjago, even though it seems impossible to get a hang of the shooting. It's a fun little sit down and a change of pace.
In true Merlin style, the effects seem to have toned down from last year.
Job done.

Tivoli Friheden

Was expecting a crappy Bakken atmosphere for some reason, but this was a really nice place. Just not so good on the cred front.
Didn't take many photos here because after the nice looking entrance area it quickly becomes the exterior of all the rides looking like the Battlebots arena.

Had a moment of realisation that I've ridden too much crap, as our conversation continued unhindered throughout the Pinfari looper that is Orkanens Øje. Completely zoned it out.

Was quite intrigued by the uniqueness of Cobra, but didn't expect much. Rode about as well as a middle of the road SLC, layout was mildly interesting, eh.

Bee themed SBF spinner was a thing.

Not quite a wacky worm was a thing.

Zamperla spinner didn't spin. Thought it was just Japan that had weird ideas like that.

Did the ghost train, which had several pauses at screens to shoot zombies in a completely non-immersive fashion. Enjoyed the sections in between a little more.

Had to try the SCAD tower. The staff were extremely nice and fantastic at leading people through the experience. While dangling over nothingness I was asked if I was 'much of a screamer'. I replied that I wasn't.
The guy said: "I'll scream for you then. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Splat.
Glad I did it, though I wouldn't say it was a good experience.
In my head there was very little fear going on, but the instinctive physical reaction of '*uck, f*ck, fu*k, fuc*, I'm about to die' wasn't particularly pleasant.

Sat down on a bench and looked at some pictures to calm down, then had a round of crazy crazy golf before calling it a day.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Day 2 - Farup Sommerland

Arrived bright and early at 'Denmark's best Sommerland'. Entrance tickets are bought from the window of your car at a hut which was quite a novel experience. Massive turnout again, but they're all here for a picnic or something.

Walked straight onto Falken, intrigued by what S&S could bring to the woodie table.
They did alright for themselves, found it to be a fun little ride with some good hills and a decent feel to it.
Highlight: Interesting start to the layout with the curvy double down.
Lowlight: Uninteresting end to the layout with the helix of doom.

Orkanen looks and rides great. It's nice to have a bit more of a layout to an SFC to make it less of a non-event.
Highlight: Nothing under your feet on the lift is a rare sensation.
Lowlight: This is as big as they make them for now.

Pindsnivet
Highlight: +1
Lowlight: Take your pick

Lynet was a fun and punchy little thing. Don't like these trains at all from previous experience, so didn't expect to like it as much as I did.
Highlight: Gerstlauer's smoothest thrill creation yet.
Lowlight: Could have been fantastic without OTSRs.

Flagermusen
Highlight: Reverchon > Zamperla.
Lowlight: These things are starting to plague me now.

Mine Expressen
Highlight: No view of Harry Potter.
Lowlight: No view of Wildfire.

Had allowed a whole day for this place but, as nice as it was, we were done with everything including rerides in just a couple of hours.
Decided to jump back in the car and risk Denmark's best Sommerland a day early.

Djurs Sommerland

Very happy to return to this place, loved it before and will love it again i'm sure.
There were cars as far as the eye could see in all directions in the car park, so foolishly started to think we had made a mistake...

Headed into the park.
Walked straight onto Piraten.
All about those picnics.

The megalite is such a finely tuned layout, with none of that dead spot crap you get on your wannabe hypers. Kicks your ass from beginning to end, leaving you no time to prepare in between any of the craziness and making marathons a real physical challenge. Love it.

Time for the new boy. (Or an annual pass).

DrageKongen looks great but isn't unfortunately. Rattles like a bitch and has no more force to it than Orkanen, making it a bit of an odd investment.

The 'unique feature' feels very pointless and it just about passes for a decent family coaster. With the lineup they were building before this, I'm sure this park could have done a lot better with the money. I hope it works out for them.

Just like this. Juvelen is fantastic. Good little launch anticipation with the temple things shaking their sticks at you, followed by a fun warm-up lap. I'm a sucker for a rolling launch and it provides a great burst of speed for such open trains, snappy turns and scenery interaction.

Very pleased to have been able to nab the Topple Tower this time around. Never managed to find one working before.

Had a couple more rides on Juvelen and Konge to further prove some points, then finished the day nearly killing ourselves with double figure rides on Piraten. There was plenty of joy to be found, with the pirate staff spraying people in the baking heat and some games of musical chairs. You know they're onto a winner when the GP whore a ride as much as you do.

Having knocked out both Sommerlands so smoothly, we were left with a day spare now. What to do...

 

[Coaster Hipster]

Djurs looks pretty nice! The zones around the Megalite and Juvelen have some solid theming. Too bad to hear about the Intamin SFC being rough, but I guess that's Intamin unconsistency for you

The end of your day with GP whoring Piraten sounds awesome though! Thanks for your report

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Kleine Zar looks like a mighty +1/I need more Karnan in my life.
I’ll leave it to the imagination as to what was the real motivation here.
This spare day was the perfect opportunity to head back over to Germany and tear up some Autobahn down to

Day 3 – Hansa Park

I am yet to experience Hansa Park without it being a ghost town, so there’s always a quaint atmosphere to walking around the place, with gardeners outnumbering the guests while they eternally tend to their impressive foliage displays. The quietness also enhances the incredible theming experiences they have on offer.

Grabbed a token lap on Nessie and Roland as they always open first. Love how often the effort is made on despatch time to create the interaction between the two rides.

I wasn’t a fan of Novgorod previously, but was willing to give it a second chance today. If anything, it had only gotten worse.
The queue and dark ride sections are really good, I love singing along to “Novgoroooooooooooooooooooood”, but it’s just such a poor piece of hardware that doesn’t do itself justice. Eurofighters don’t ride great at the best of times and the layout is so uninspired after the launch and hill, and again after the vertical lift, it simply judders around doing nothing.
I suppose I like to at least think it was a learning experience and necessary precursor to the ridiculous monster that is Karnan.

I didn’t particularly have an issue with the old look of the tower because it’s just so ridiculous and I can’t believe it exists. It now looks ridiculous and amazing.

This thing blew me away on my first visit. On my very first ride I had the queue, fancy loading sequence and train all to myself and I was shaking so bad from fear and anticipation throughout the entire tower section. I’ve never had that sort of reaction from a ride before.
What have they done since? Made it even more insane of course.

The outdoor queue has been beefed up with some castle theming.
There’s a whole new indoor preshow section to the queue with the King of Denmark shouting about stuff and effects going off before you get to the brilliant bag room.
The lift drop feels much more legit now. It was a very controlled feeling previously, like those drop towers that suck. The ride toys with you so much in that tower it almost becomes unbearable, in the best way.

From there onwards, it’s a fantastically violent machine with some very intense moments and all kinds of forces going on.
It’s a tad rough, particularly in the outside seats and the lap bars unavoidably clamp your legs so hard from the moment you leave the tower, but that’s all forgiven for what you get in return.
They've also added a little bit of ‘you’ve made your peace with the ride’ music (like the final note on Hex) with some fancy lighting on the exit path into the ride shop. Full soundtrack is now available in the main shop. So happy.

Kleine Zar is a cute thing. If you’re gonna get a cheap ride, you might as well put a little effort in around it, and they have. It also has most ridiculous enforcement of a no glasses rule ever. If I could tell tales of the things they have ridden…

Time passed quickly with many encounters with Karnan and a sit down with a cheap, tasty pizza (Italian place in the middle of the park, recommended).
Soon it was time to blast back up to Billund.

What a bonus. Loved being able to spontaneously enhance the trip like that. Seems more often than not that I’m rearranging things for spite.