andrus
Giga Poster
Talking to the Brits during the US-live made me realise that almost everyone had already been to Gröna Lund! I felt very ashamed as both a Swede and a coaster enthusiast that I had never been 
So the first thing I did when I got home was to book train tickets to Stockholm to fulfill my duty!
So why haven't I been to Gröna Lund before? Well, Liseberg is "the big" park in Sweden and it's a lot closer to me. Hell even Heide Park is closer to me! To get to Gröna Lund I have to go by train or preferably take a flight. And since it's cheaper to take a flight to Spain than it is to Stockholm I've simply never bothered.. But now with the new additions of Twister and Insane the park looked a lot more appealing to me so I was actually rather excited for my visit :--D On with the trip report!
Me and my girlfriend decided to hit up a couple of friends and then we took the ferry from the "old town" part of Stockholm. This is a pretty cool feature, don't know of any other park in the world where you can do that? And you get a beautiful view of the park from the sea
Gröna Lund is one compact mess of coasters!
For those of you how don't know Gröna Lund is a city park located in the very center of Stockholm. Beside getting there by ferry you can take a bus, subway (I think) or even walk. Stockholm is situated in the middle of an archipelago consisting of islands, rivers and such. This means that the park is visible from a lot of the central parts of town. The park it'self is rather small, or tbh tiny is a better word to describe it! Even Tivoli Gardens seem big in comparison Still the park houses 7 different roller coasters!
You arrive with the ferry by the ticket office. The park is one price for entry (11€) and then you have to buy separate tickets to each ride or a wrist band for unlimited rides (another 35€). Rather expensive for what the park has to offer, but it's probably due to it's location.
Once inside the park we headed straight for the "new for 2011" woodie Twister! Ok "woodie" might not be a totally correct term since all of the supports are made of steel. But I tried to convince a friend of mine that the track is made out of wood hence it's a woodie! But then he just stared in a mysterious way at me...
Twister is located right next to the sea along a boardwalk. The coaster has a very appropriate name since it twists and tangle it's way in and out of itself and around the other coasters the park. I was very excited since it's my first Gravity Group coaster and since it utilizes the new timberliner trains
Entrance area along the boardwalk.
They really managed to squeeze in the ride! Here's a tight headchopper while crossing beneath the Schwarzkopf coaster.
So what was it like? It's certainly incredible in regards to the small footprint and how they managed to squeeze it in over/under/next to existing roller coasters! I would say it's definitely more of a family ride than a thrill coaster though. The first drop gives some nice air as does the first aitime hill, nothing to intense but nice enough. The coaster keeps turning and twisting for the rest of the layout with a couple of small hills along the way. I have to make a complain about the pacing though. At several times during the layout the coaster almost comes to a complete stop, then pics up speed again. I found those "stalling" points a bit anoying tbh. Overall it's a solid family attraction and I rate it 7/10. Twister has turned out to be a huge success for the park too with a massive boost of visitors last year (12.1%). Swedes sure love their woodies!
I have to make a comment about the timberliner trains since people probably are interested! I would say that they're very comfortable but **** ugly The side of the cars are rather high and you feel a bit "shut-in", that's the only complaint I have (beside the aesthetics of course). I noticed that the wheels where all metal and didn't have any rubber at all, is this the case with all woodies? I've never noticed that before but did look for it because you can hear a clear metallic noice as the coasters travels through the layout. Yes it is smooth but you can feel the track. It's not like newer GCI's (Troy & Joris) which is steel coaster smooth..
Station and train pic.
Next up was Insane. This ride had the longest queline of the park, fortunately it was almost empty. Still the queue took a hefty 30 mins! The loading procedure is very slow on this one. They loaded two trains at the time but did only let one train run on the track at once. They had 4 (or maybe 5) trains, yet they could've managed the same throughput with only 2 :?
Inside the station.
The ride experience on this one more resembles the one of the Mondial top scan in the same park than any coaster I've ever ridden! You're being thrown up and down, spinning round and experience some insanely high spikes of G's. It's a crazy ride indeed and it's probably down to personal preference whether you like this type of ride or not. I would have loved it if the OTSR had been a bit more spacious, as of now the high spikes of G's was uncomfortable since the restraints pushed down my shoulders with such a force.. If they extended the layout to at least twice the size and fixed the restraints it would've definitely been a top 10 ride for me! But now I settle with 7/10.
Insane look very impressive as you enter the park with the ferry.
Now as we had done the two big rides we came for we decided to take a stroll through the park, have some beers and just chill out The park is of a very typical Scandinavian type, meaning that it's generally beautiful, lush and clean, but the majority of rides got no theme what so ever.
Next we decided to hit up Jetline, the Schwarzkopf classic! I wasn't too excited for this one since I've already been on Lisebergsbanan at Liseberg which essentially is a longer, bigger terrain version of the same ride. And while Lisebergsbanan is a good family ride I'm not especially fond of it. But wow! What a surprice Jetline was :--D It definitely surpriced me with it's speed, force and smoothness! The ride is 24 years old yet still butter smooth. The ride is actually faster than Lisbergsbanan although it's smaller (probably due to the vast amount of mcbr's on Lisebergsbanan) and it pulls a lot more G's than it's cousin down south Jetline is a family attraction of course, but a bloody good such a one! 8/10
Three trains at once! It's hard to see which attraction is which, but the small one at the left is Vilda Musen (wild mouse), the big one in the middle is Jetline and the white to the right is Twister. But it's a really just a big tangled mess of tracks and supports!
Vilda Musen is located adjacent to Jetline. It's supposed to be a Wild Mouse coaster but when I looked into things it turned out that it's actually a Gerstlauer bobsled coaster disguised as a mouse. And, if still considered a wild mouse coaster, this has to be the best one in the world! Beside the regular hairpin turns this ride got a lot of twisted turns, drops, s-bend hills and even airtime hills! Highlight moments of the ride is one of the hairpin turns that almost crashes into the S&S tower, the ridicoulus tight banked turn in to one of the mcbr's and the final airtime hill that provides some nice floater. It doesn't look like much from the ground but I promise you it's one fierce mouse! 8/10
Out of the 7 creds at Gröna Lund 2 are kiddie coasters. We decided to do them next for me and my girlfriend to boost our coastercount. But unfortunately one of them, Tuff-Tuff Tåget (Chu-Chu Train) was closed for the day The other one was an old Zierer dating all the way back to 1976! It's called Nyckelpigan which is Ladybug in swedish. Nothing to exciting.
We decided to be a bit cultural so next we hit up the classic dark ride Blå Tåget (the Blue Train). It's a haunt attraction with a mix of classic horror and a subway theme.. A bit odd indeed but it's a very nice attraction that shouldn't be missed! We actually screamed a couple of times and there was several small kids coming out of the ride crying Classic cheesy horror, but effective non the less!
A cool dragon/lizard by the entrance.
Some bizarre theming. I especially like the screming guy up the right corner!
The only big ride left was of course Fritt Fall; the Intamin drop tower. It's a standard version with three cars whereof one tilts. I don't see why there's only three cars, there's plenty of room for another one and I've never seen a drop tower with less then 4 cars before! Still the queue was fast and we were on the ride before we knew it The tower is fairly high at 80 meters and you get a stunning view over Stockholm at the top, until you drop that is! It's a powerful drop and the brakes doesn't hit until the very last second. This is probably my favourite regular drop tower I still rate both gyro drops I've been on a bit higher (Scream at Heide Park and Drop Zone at Kings Dominion).
Tall Intamin drop tower!
Last coaster for the day was Kvasten (the Broom), a Vekoma junior suspended coaster. This coaster was actually themed :shock: The first themed coaster in Sweden, yeah! :lol: Kvasten is themed to a witches house and as the coaster name suggest you are riding her broom. The coaster station and some of the queue are situated inside the witche's house, whereas you pass through at one point, and inside the station there's some chandeliers and stuff
Passing through the house.
The ride has nice comfy seats, is butter smooth and is generally very un-Vekoma Great surprice! Too bad it's the most dull ride at the park, probably even the kiddie coaster was more exciting! There's no g-forces to talk of, neither possitive nor negative. I rate it 4/10 because it's smooth and comfortable, but this ride really just doesn't do anything..
Very nice trains, if just Vekoma would've come up with a slightly more interesting layout this would've been a great family ride!
The clock was half past nine by this time, ie only half an hour until closing. So we made a slight miscalculation, arriving at the park 5pm thinking we'll manage to do everything because it's such a small park Word of advice: this is a FULL DAY PARK! Even though it's small there's 7 roller coasters and a lot of other stuff to do. We had 15-30 mins queue on almost every ride making it impossible to do everything We missed Extreme (the top scan) the Haunted Mansion (horror walk through) and the S&S combo tower..
With only half an hour to go we decided to do, with a local word of advice, the fun house! This was a real surprice since it was huge inside At the end it finished with a cool, rather large, slide where you're sitting on carpets. This was a very popular atttraction and I can see why! Last but not least we did the love tunnel, a bit strange since it was themed to gnomes, but it was a nice and calm ending of a great visit
All in all I would say Gröna Lund is a great park! In my book a lot better than Liseberg. Yes Liseberg is the classic park in Sweden but they don't got any attractions that appeal to me (except the new drop tower of course!). Gröna Lund had a lot of fun and different rides! They're not the best rides in the world, but they're all (except for Kvasten) above average and guarantees a great day out.
We decided to walk home since all the busses were full. It's a nice walk through Djurgården and Östermalm, the fashionable districts of Stockholm. It's a beautiful walk with a lot of impressive old buildings and you even get some great views of Gröna Lund in the distance! I'm already planning a return visit for next year, I have to get back and do the rides we missed as well as re-rides on Jetline, Vilda Musen and Insane!
Hope you enjoyed the reading, cheers!
Gröna lund in the moonlight!
So the first thing I did when I got home was to book train tickets to Stockholm to fulfill my duty!So why haven't I been to Gröna Lund before? Well, Liseberg is "the big" park in Sweden and it's a lot closer to me. Hell even Heide Park is closer to me! To get to Gröna Lund I have to go by train or preferably take a flight. And since it's cheaper to take a flight to Spain than it is to Stockholm I've simply never bothered.. But now with the new additions of Twister and Insane the park looked a lot more appealing to me so I was actually rather excited for my visit :--D On with the trip report!
Me and my girlfriend decided to hit up a couple of friends and then we took the ferry from the "old town" part of Stockholm. This is a pretty cool feature, don't know of any other park in the world where you can do that? And you get a beautiful view of the park from the sea
Gröna Lund is one compact mess of coasters!
For those of you how don't know Gröna Lund is a city park located in the very center of Stockholm. Beside getting there by ferry you can take a bus, subway (I think) or even walk. Stockholm is situated in the middle of an archipelago consisting of islands, rivers and such. This means that the park is visible from a lot of the central parts of town. The park it'self is rather small, or tbh tiny is a better word to describe it! Even Tivoli Gardens seem big in comparison
Still the park houses 7 different roller coasters!You arrive with the ferry by the ticket office. The park is one price for entry (11€) and then you have to buy separate tickets to each ride or a wrist band for unlimited rides (another 35€). Rather expensive for what the park has to offer, but it's probably due to it's location.
Once inside the park we headed straight for the "new for 2011" woodie Twister! Ok "woodie" might not be a totally correct term since all of the supports are made of steel. But I tried to convince a friend of mine that the track is made out of wood hence it's a woodie! But then he just stared in a mysterious way at me...
Twister is located right next to the sea along a boardwalk. The coaster has a very appropriate name since it twists and tangle it's way in and out of itself and around the other coasters the park. I was very excited since it's my first Gravity Group coaster and since it utilizes the new timberliner trains
Entrance area along the boardwalk.
They really managed to squeeze in the ride! Here's a tight headchopper while crossing beneath the Schwarzkopf coaster.
So what was it like? It's certainly incredible in regards to the small footprint and how they managed to squeeze it in over/under/next to existing roller coasters! I would say it's definitely more of a family ride than a thrill coaster though. The first drop gives some nice air as does the first aitime hill, nothing to intense but nice enough. The coaster keeps turning and twisting for the rest of the layout with a couple of small hills along the way. I have to make a complain about the pacing though. At several times during the layout the coaster almost comes to a complete stop, then pics up speed again. I found those "stalling" points a bit anoying tbh. Overall it's a solid family attraction and I rate it 7/10. Twister has turned out to be a huge success for the park too with a massive boost of visitors last year (12.1%). Swedes sure love their woodies!
I have to make a comment about the timberliner trains since people probably are interested! I would say that they're very comfortable but **** ugly
The side of the cars are rather high and you feel a bit "shut-in", that's the only complaint I have (beside the aesthetics of course). I noticed that the wheels where all metal and didn't have any rubber at all, is this the case with all woodies? I've never noticed that before but did look for it because you can hear a clear metallic noice as the coasters travels through the layout. Yes it is smooth but you can feel the track. It's not like newer GCI's (Troy & Joris) which is steel coaster smooth..
Station and train pic.
Next up was Insane. This ride had the longest queline of the park, fortunately it was almost empty. Still the queue took a hefty 30 mins! The loading procedure is very slow on this one. They loaded two trains at the time but did only let one train run on the track at once. They had 4 (or maybe 5) trains, yet they could've managed the same throughput with only 2 :?
Inside the station.
The ride experience on this one more resembles the one of the Mondial top scan in the same park than any coaster I've ever ridden! You're being thrown up and down, spinning round and experience some insanely high spikes of G's. It's a crazy ride indeed and it's probably down to personal preference whether you like this type of ride or not. I would have loved it if the OTSR had been a bit more spacious, as of now the high spikes of G's was uncomfortable since the restraints pushed down my shoulders with such a force.. If they extended the layout to at least twice the size and fixed the restraints it would've definitely been a top 10 ride for me! But now I settle with 7/10.
Insane look very impressive as you enter the park with the ferry.
Now as we had done the two big rides we came for we decided to take a stroll through the park, have some beers and just chill out
The park is of a very typical Scandinavian type, meaning that it's generally beautiful, lush and clean, but the majority of rides got no theme what so ever. Next we decided to hit up Jetline, the Schwarzkopf classic! I wasn't too excited for this one since I've already been on Lisebergsbanan at Liseberg which essentially is a longer, bigger terrain version of the same ride. And while Lisebergsbanan is a good family ride I'm not especially fond of it. But wow! What a surprice Jetline was :--D It definitely surpriced me with it's speed, force and smoothness! The ride is 24 years old yet still butter smooth. The ride is actually faster than Lisbergsbanan although it's smaller (probably due to the vast amount of mcbr's on Lisebergsbanan) and it pulls a lot more G's than it's cousin down south
Jetline is a family attraction of course, but a bloody good such a one! 8/10
Three trains at once! It's hard to see which attraction is which, but the small one at the left is Vilda Musen (wild mouse), the big one in the middle is Jetline and the white to the right is Twister. But it's a really just a big tangled mess of tracks and supports!
Vilda Musen is located adjacent to Jetline. It's supposed to be a Wild Mouse coaster but when I looked into things it turned out that it's actually a Gerstlauer bobsled coaster disguised as a mouse. And, if still considered a wild mouse coaster, this has to be the best one in the world!
Beside the regular hairpin turns this ride got a lot of twisted turns, drops, s-bend hills and even airtime hills! Highlight moments of the ride is one of the hairpin turns that almost crashes into the S&S tower, the ridicoulus tight banked turn in to one of the mcbr's and the final airtime hill that provides some nice floater. It doesn't look like much from the ground but I promise you it's one fierce mouse! 8/10Out of the 7 creds at Gröna Lund 2 are kiddie coasters. We decided to do them next for me and my girlfriend to boost our coastercount. But unfortunately one of them, Tuff-Tuff Tåget (Chu-Chu Train) was closed for the day
The other one was an old Zierer dating all the way back to 1976! It's called Nyckelpigan which is Ladybug in swedish. Nothing to exciting.We decided to be a bit cultural so next we hit up the classic dark ride Blå Tåget (the Blue Train). It's a haunt attraction with a mix of classic horror and a subway theme.. A bit odd indeed but it's a very nice attraction that shouldn't be missed! We actually screamed a couple of times and there was several small kids coming out of the ride crying
Classic cheesy horror, but effective non the less!
A cool dragon/lizard by the entrance.
Some bizarre theming. I especially like the screming guy up the right corner!
The only big ride left was of course Fritt Fall; the Intamin drop tower. It's a standard version with three cars whereof one tilts. I don't see why there's only three cars, there's plenty of room for another one and I've never seen a drop tower with less then 4 cars before! Still the queue was fast and we were on the ride before we knew it
The tower is fairly high at 80 meters and you get a stunning view over Stockholm at the top, until you drop that is! It's a powerful drop and the brakes doesn't hit until the very last second. This is probably my favourite regular drop tower I still rate both gyro drops I've been on a bit higher (Scream at Heide Park and Drop Zone at Kings Dominion).
Tall Intamin drop tower!
Last coaster for the day was Kvasten (the Broom), a Vekoma junior suspended coaster. This coaster was actually themed :shock: The first themed coaster in Sweden, yeah! :lol: Kvasten is themed to a witches house and as the coaster name suggest you are riding her broom. The coaster station and some of the queue are situated inside the witche's house, whereas you pass through at one point, and inside the station there's some chandeliers and stuff
Passing through the house.
The ride has nice comfy seats, is butter smooth and is generally very un-Vekoma
Great surprice! Too bad it's the most dull ride at the park, probably even the kiddie coaster was more exciting! There's no g-forces to talk of, neither possitive nor negative. I rate it 4/10 because it's smooth and comfortable, but this ride really just doesn't do anything..
Very nice trains, if just Vekoma would've come up with a slightly more interesting layout this would've been a great family ride!
The clock was half past nine by this time, ie only half an hour until closing. So we made a slight miscalculation, arriving at the park 5pm thinking we'll manage to do everything because it's such a small park
Word of advice: this is a FULL DAY PARK! Even though it's small there's 7 roller coasters and a lot of other stuff to do. We had 15-30 mins queue on almost every ride making it impossible to do everything We missed Extreme (the top scan) the Haunted Mansion (horror walk through) and the S&S combo tower..With only half an hour to go we decided to do, with a local word of advice, the fun house! This was a real surprice since it was huge inside
At the end it finished with a cool, rather large, slide where you're sitting on carpets. This was a very popular atttraction and I can see why! Last but not least we did the love tunnel, a bit strange since it was themed to gnomes, but it was a nice and calm ending of a great visit All in all I would say Gröna Lund is a great park! In my book a lot better than Liseberg. Yes Liseberg is the classic park in Sweden but they don't got any attractions that appeal to me (except the new drop tower of course!). Gröna Lund had a lot of fun and different rides! They're not the best rides in the world, but they're all (except for Kvasten) above average and guarantees a great day out.
We decided to walk home since all the busses were full. It's a nice walk through Djurgården and Östermalm, the fashionable districts of Stockholm. It's a beautiful walk with a lot of impressive old buildings and you even get some great views of Gröna Lund in the distance! I'm already planning a return visit for next year, I have to get back and do the rides we missed as well as re-rides on Jetline, Vilda Musen and Insane!
Hope you enjoyed the reading, cheers!
Gröna lund in the moonlight!
