Sweden (and a little bit of Norway) – August 2019 {Day 4: Liseberg}

[Hixee]

Time for me to get a bit less basic, I suppose. Never done Kolmarden or Liseberg – the shame…

Let’s get to it then. Hope the pictures make it worth a skim through.

Day 1 –Grona Lund

Grona Lund doesn’t open until 3pm, so it made it ideal to fly in in the morning (direct from Bristol, yay!) and head straight there. I picked up @Ben and Sam near the airport after a bit of car faff (first one they gave me had broken power outlets in the card, and needed those for the sat-nav), and we made our way into Stockholm.

We parked up at the Grona Lund car park and sorted out the parking (for what it’s worth, you ‘pre-book’ a number of hours at the pay-and-display machine, but when you leave you can record the time you actually leave and it only charges you for the hours you’ve used). Still had a couple of hours before the park opened and were getting peckish, so we wandered casually into the city for a bite to eat. Stockholm is very pretty, really. I’d spent a proper weekend here before, so wasn’t going for any particular sights and already had a load of pictures, so it was a nice carefree stroll.

Okay, time to head to the park now.

Got our tickets with our ECC cards and headed in. First stop was Insane. I absolutely hated this last time I rode it (in fact, I have hated all of these that I’ve done), but figured I’d give it another shot.

Yup, still vile.

@Ben and I were dreading Ikaros (Sam was annoyingly keen), so we figured we’d get that out of the way early. The restraints are very comfortable, and the views during the slow climb up the tower are very impressive. It all gets a bit foul as the seats rotate into the face down position, and the wait hanging in the restraint feels like an eternity, but when the drop actually comes it isn’t half bad. I think the air resistance of the ride vehicles means that they don’t plummet quite as fast as other drop towers, and generally make the whole thing quite enjoyable. It was so enjoyable (and the park was still very quiet), in fact, that we did it again without getting out of our seats. Excellent stuff.

Entrance is pretty nice.

Faces say it all, really.

We headed round to Twister for a couple of laps, which was brilliant as it has always been. The ride isn’t incredible, but it’s an awful lot of fun and a marvel of engineering. Quite how GG got this ride to fit is beyond me, but thank goodness they’d invented the Timberliners to negotiate all the corners!

Eclipse was a walk-on, so we decided to do that and boy… it was grim. There was a sizable wind at the top of the tower (which is absurdly big, I might add) which meant we ended up spinning an awful lot. It was awful. Absolutely awful.

We hit the wild mouse next, as we weren’t sure at what time it would close (when a band are playing in the concert venue they close a few of the rides early). Fantastic custom layout and we ended up getting lucky with the timing so had a lot of interaction with Jetline and Twister.

This has to be one of the best wild mouse coasters out there.

We hopped on the ghost train thing, which was a good laugh, and onto the suspended coaster and the proper drop tower (stand-up floorless side, of course). All good stuff. We mopped up the two kiddie creds at the front of the park (both Sam and I needed these) which were suitably shameful. At this point, Ben and Sam wanted to do the walkthrough and I wasn’t too fussed. I headed for a quick lap of the park taking some pictures. Sadly weather had turned a bit, so was stuck with dull grey skies. Time for a picture dump.

Yay for the silly ghost train.

Zoooom…

Brilliant ride coordination.

A big panorama featuring all three coasters.

Tiny first drop gives more speed that you’d think.

Airtime!

Another multi-train shot.

Hard to get a sense of scale of the giant shared support structure.

Jetline flying down its first drop!

We hit a load of re-rides of the major coasters and a few more goes on Ikaros, and did the fun-house (which was excellent), before Ben and Sam did Insane again. No way was I risking a second ride on this. They had a terrible ride, as you can see below.

Ouch.

Final ride on Ikaros, and it was time to call it a day.

Really enjoyed this, really did.

Short drive to the hotel that night outside Stockholm. Strange room with loads of space, strangely hot, mini-kitchenette, automated check-in, odd. Pleasant enough, though. Grabbed dinner nearby, which was good (good value and massive portions) and hit the sack. It’d be a long day, so was looking forward to catching up on sleep.

An RMC next, that’ll be good.

 

[Hixee]

Day 2 – Kolmarden

This is going to be picture heavy, brace yourselves.

In terms of roads and scenery, a very pleasant drive from the hotel to the park, but sadly it was raining pretty steadily and we were getting a little anxious that the RMC would be shut.

Arrived and the park and got our tickets and headed in – had to try, didn’t we?

Wet.

We made a beeline straight for Wildfire, of course, but that’s a sizable beeline across the park. Eventually made it though!

The one and only.

It was heaving, as you can tell.

Somehow this was my first time on Wildfire (which is painfully basic, but not the worst bit of this trip so you’ll have to wait for that), but I was very impressed. Views are to die for, zero-g stall is magical and the ride was running very fast. @Ben said it was markedly faster than it’s been before (we suspected thanks to all that rain), and it was great. We rode four or five times swapping rows and only a couple of times had real rain daggers to contend with, so on the whole a pretty great start to the day.

Satisfied with that, all of the anxiety was done and we wandered down the hill for the first of the small creds (no pictures of this one) and a few pictures of the RMC. Here’s a load.

First drop.

Impressive looking structure – I quite like the contrast of wood and steel, works well.

This is a “you can see the airtime” shot. Check out that wheel gap!

The fast final roll.

Epic first drop.

The high dive over the hill.

Diving back down the hill.

Views of the wave turn aren’t plentiful from the ground, but this is just about as good as you get.

They were only running one train (no need for more), so this is a trick one. Well, of course it is, it’s one big block…

With that bottom area of the park finished with, the next most notable thing on that side of the park is the Safari cable car ride. I hadn’t really realised quite how immense this, starting with an incredible view of Wildfire. Timing of trains wasn’t favourable for us today, but I bet you get some cracking shots from up there. Pictures we’ve all seen before, of course.

Off we go!

That’s what I’m talking about!

Crikey.

That’s some crazy shaping right there.

And what a setting, eh?

The views over the water are brilliant. Shame it wasn’t a sunnier day!

As much as the views of the RMC are great, the cable car is actually a brilliant ride in its own right. The views it affords of the different animal enclosures is really good, and it gives lots of opportunities to see the animals. The animal enclosures are also massive, which really adds to the sense of freedom that they have. Definitely one of the best zoo places I’ve been to in a long time.

Giraffes.

Heading towards the bears.

Bears!

And a lion.

Another wide shot of the scenery.

And a final one of the coaster from up high.

We stopped back past Wildfire for another quick lap (again a walk-on) before heading back over the hill past a few more animal enclosures and up to the final cred (again no more pictures of the little family thing).

The way this corner holds the rock face is a masterpiece.

Llama (or relation thereof).

Cute Red Pandas.

Awwww.

We stopped for lunch up at the buffet place overlooking the lake. Initially felt reasonably uninspiring selection, but the food was actually pretty good and really good value (and not just for Sweden), so would definitely recommend.

Not a bad view for lunch, I’d say.

It was back down the hill, past the tiger area this time, for some closing laps on Wildfire.

I thought this was one of the best enclosures in terms of its theming, but the others we saw from the cable car were significantly bigger. Wouldn’t surprise me if the tigers have more space ‘out back’ actually.

There they are!

Nice.

Final three or four laps on Wildfire now – same drill as before really. Walk-ons, staff running the ride quickly and more than willing to let us lap it if no-one else had showed up in the station. Really good fun just gooning around.

The hidden ejector hill.

What’s that coming over the hill?

Down the massive first drop.

Some more airtime literally visible here if you look closely.

Another go at capturing the wave turn.

The zero-g stall isn’t very easy to get pictures of (in part thanks to its position heading away from the paths, and in part thanks to all the supports), but as an element it’s one of the key bits of the ride.

The ride also buzzes past the station quickly too.

We’d had our fill of the coaster now, and the damp was starting to get us a bit cold, so we decided we’d get on the road. We had a long drive to do that evening – no point hanging around any longer. We walked the ‘other’ way out, past the other big animals. These were brilliant.

Some scary looking chimps in this place.

Best of the lot. <3

And a close second.

Very cool.

Time to go, then. What to make of Kolmarden? I liked it. Wildfire is obviously excellent, but the setting of the park and cable car are highlights too. I’d love to know what their longer term plans are – are any more coasters on the cards or not? To be honest, they don’t really need it as it’s not their main draw. It’s just so odd to have a zoo with a couple of family coasters and then a giant RMC.

Also a pretty good zoo, I reckon. Definitely one I’ll be going back to when the B&M Invert opens up the road.

We had a drive for a few hours that evening, which was rather pleasant really as the weather cleared up and the roads were quiet. Piece of cake driving in Sweden, I tell ya. Got to the hotel and checked in, but quickly headed back out for dinner. Found a local pizzeria that did a full gluten-free menu, so that was an excellent bonus for me! Headed back to the hotel, had a quick session in the sauna and hot-tub (really good after a long, cold, damp day coastering) and called it a night.

An early start the next day for a tragically disappointing park and one of the best parks in Europe. I wonder if you can guess which two are coming next.

 

[davidm]

Best park of the trip next I assume!

 

[Pokemaniac]

Will be nice to see your take on the fourth best park in Norway! Fourth best I've been to, at any rate. There could be others above it.

 

[MouseAT]

I’d love to know what their longer term plans are – are any more coasters on the cards or not?

Mushroom and I actually had a workshop tour of Wildfire last month, and we asked something along those lines. The response we got was very light on specifics, and gave no indication as to whether they would be adding another coaster, but it does sound like there are plans to add some more rides in the medium term.

Apparently, the kids area in the middle of the park, with the roller skater cred was really successful when it first opened (leading to queues of cars all the way up the sea inlet to the motorway), so it sounds like they are interested in adding more family friendly attractions in years to come. Apparently Grona Lund's new B&M is the main focus for the park group at the moment, so I wouldn't expect a major ride investment at Kolmarden until after Grona's new invert opens.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Came for the RMC, stayed for the red pandas.
Gorgeous pics as always, you need to teach me one day.

 

[MouseAT]

Came for the RMC, stayed for the red pandas.

Yeah, the zoo at Kolmarden is amazing, and that statement is so true, at least when extended to all the awesome animals they have there. I'd never recommend that anyone try to cred run the park. Sure, the RMC is what draws people in, but Kolmarden is such a great place that, even on a return visit, I'd always want to spend a big chunk of the day seeing everything else the park has to offer.

 

[Hixee]

Day 3 – TusenFryd & Liseberg

Nice big breakfast at the hotel and we were on the road. Another three-ish hours to do this morning along mostly deserted Swedish motorways. All pretty pleasant going, and the weather was looking fabulous.

During the day before, we’d mentioned on the CF social media feeds that we were heading to Norway, and as it happens our resident Lordship @davidm was headed that way too. We made arrangements to meet him at the park entrance, and we were soon in the queue for to get through the entrance turnstiles.

Good sign location, that.

I was looking forward to this most of all, such an iconic coaster.

Every park should enter with an escalator through an Intamin Accelerator.

Speed Monster was first order of business, so headed straight for that. Queue gives some pretty good views of the ride, but there was some major level queue faff going on here. First issue of the day, then.

There was a group of braindead teenagers trying to get on the coaster together. They hadn’t worked out (having watched three or four trains before them) that there was an air gate per row. All four of them wanted to ride together and so were standing in one air gate, only to be surprised when the two people in the adjacent air gate (who were doing it ‘properly’) got into their seat. Lot of stupid boisterous yelling and the ride op just pushed all of them back into the air gate and filled the empty row with another pair of riders – they could try again on the next train.

Next train arrives. Same thing happens again.

Third train arrives. Same. ****ing. Thing. Happens. Again.

It was beyond a joke. The rest of the seats are full, people have lowered their restraints and are waiting for these four morons to stop yelling and whooping at each other (and at their mates waiting by the viewing platform of the launch). Eventually they got the message, and finally had boarded.

Okay, so not the park’s fault there are idiots in the world, I accept that. However, it took the ride op THREE ****ing trains to actually stop and explain to them why it kept going wrong. She could have handled it the first time, in one go, instead of delaying everything. The rest of the queue was getting visibly frustrated too, so not just us goons.

At least it looks halfway decent.

The shot we’ve seen a thousand times before.

The Norwegian Loop was quite fab though, to be fair.

The coaster itself was… okay? The launch is comically underpowered compared to its bigger brothers and sisters around the world, but the Norwegian Loop has some half-decent forces going for it and a couple of the hills on the way back weren’t bad either.

We had planned to get the Vekoma next, and made our way up the hill towards it, only to find out the path didn’t lead to the coaster, but to some arcade thing. Hmm… that’s a pain. We’ll try the woodie, then…

Only shot you’re getting of this.

This was a bit odd, you know? It’s recently (last few seasons) been tracked and has the Timberliner trains, but it was absurdly bouncy. It was hard to work out what was airtime and what was bouncing. It wasn’t particularly rough, but wasn’t particularly good either. Lame…

Figured we’d head down the hill and knock out the SuperSplash, rapids and dark ride. Area shut until midday. Rubbish.

Kiddie cred? Midday. Rubbish.

Family cred? Also midday. Bloody hell.

By this point we’d made it to the top of the hill and were near Spin Spider, the huge Zamperla Discovery. The model is called ‘Giant’ and it sure it. Really impressive ride, and an awful lot of fun. Particularly liked the huge inverted swings facing down – brilliant!

Quite picturesque too.

Sense of scale is a bit lost here, but it truly is massive. Exacerbated by the hilltop location.

It was nearly midday now, so time to get down to the lower area. Initially this was just standing in a small-ish group of people waiting for the gate to open, but the small-ish group grew into a larger crowd (obviously the popular area of the park), Very jobsworth employee holds the gate until the exact second it hits midday and swings the gate open. We were towards the front of the hoard, but as we began walking down the hill there were suddenly dozens of kids sprinting past everyone pushing and shoving all over the place. They were charging down this narrow twisty path down to the lower area. It was awful, really. Why they don’t hold people at the bottom is beyond me. Frankly, why they don’t just open that area of the park (with their two newest attractions) when the park opens is beyond me. ****ing farce, the whole lot of it. Patience wearing thin now.

No queue for the SuperSplash, so hopped on that quickly. Pleasant enough, and slightly wetter than we were expecting.

Only decent picture I got from down the bottom.

Did the rapids next (Sam sat this one out, so just me, @Ben and @davidm). Really quite a good rapids this one. Particualrly enjoyed the waterfall that cuts off just before you get to it and the secret drop (which is smack bang in front of the ride entrance, we’d just missed it altogether). I got spited in the face, and then again later all over, but it was pretty good. Probably the third best ride in the park after Spin Spider and Speed Monster.

Dark ride thing was next, which was a bit naff. Don’t particularly like these 3D-glasses-mostly-screen-based dark ride things. Not my cup of tea. Meh. Next.

Trekked back up the hill (had vowed not to return to the bottom, too), and grabbed the miniscule kiddie cred. +1. Yes. Then up the final set of the hill for the family coaster.

Now you might have gathered so far that I’m less than impressed by the park at this point. Well, sadly, this coaster was the final nail in the coffin. What a ****ing **** show.

Firstly, they’re running the coaster with two trains – one VR, one normal. We got in line for the normal, of course. Once you factor in the faff associated with the headsets, you’re looking at 5-10 minutes per dispatch for one of those trains. At least the normal trains would be better though, right? We might just be able to get the average dispatch under 5 minutes.

Not. A. Chance. In. Hell.

The staff were the slowest, laziest, most disinterested people I’ve ever seen working a coaster. Every single aspect of the procedure was done at a glacial pace, with staff sauntering up and down the platform. When we hit the brake run, we sat there for over 3 minutes (THREE!) before they were ready to dispatch the train ahead of us.

And to make things worse, the queue was totally exposed in direct sunlight, so it was hot too.

I’d be interested to see if Ben of David can summarise this is any better way.

By the end of this ordeal, we were done with the place. We walked down the hill to the Vekoma, which wasn’t running too badly (and was actually much less unpleasant than we expected), and then left.

Meh…

Grabbed a few more pictures on the way out.

Glad I finally got to ride this, at least.

David was sticking around for a few more hours (I’m sorry David…), but we called it a day. We had much, much, MUCH, better places to be.

View from the top of the hill.

At least it frames itself.

Back down the escalators.

I went in to TusenFryd not expecting a world beater of a park, but I was looking forward to getting the ‘famuous’ Speed Monster, Thundercoaster and to finally tick off a park in Norway. Sadly, the whole time at this park was just miserable. If it wasn’t for the company, of course. Very disappointed and, frankly, the park should be embarrassed by how amateur it felt. They’d have to build something pretty significant to entice me back. They won’t though, so that’s okay.

Another few hours on the road with Sam asleep and Ben and I chatting all the way passed seamlessly, and soon we were checked into our cool room at the Liseberg hotel. We had a ‘loft’ type room, with two beds on the main level and another two on a little mezzanine. It was spacious, comfortable and a couple of blocks from the park. Ideal! We’d made such good time on the journey (helped by getting out of TusenFryd earlier than we expected) that we would end up having nearly six hours in the park (like a normal day at Alton, then).

On our way in.

Now the embarrassing bit. I’d never done Liseberg prior to this trip. Unbelievable, I know. This was a great ‘coming of age’ goon moment for me finally seeing Helix on the hillside. How exciting! This is how parks should make you feel.

Wow yes, okay I can see why people might like this thing.

The park was absolutely heaving (Saturday night, concert in the park that evening, great weather and ‘pay-day weekend’ all combined), but none of the queues were particularly bad. A little faffy in places, but definitely not as bad as earlier in the day!

First order of the day was Balder – my third pre-fab. This is truly an airtime machine, packing a staggering nine sustained ejector moments (not counting the first drop or the hop onto the brakes) into its small layout. It was fantastic, and probably the best of the three I’ve done (although has been nearly a decade since I rode El Toro). The buzz/screech of the upstops is always a joy to hear!

Nice entrance too.

Right next door is the newest addition to the park – Valkyria. The golden coloured track looked great against a setting sky, and once we’d stowed our bags in the [free] lockers we got in line. Fast pass was proving to be a bit burdenous chewing up the queue, but it wasn’t too long until we got our ride.

View into the sun.

It’s all about the drop.

Looks good, eh?

Oh Golden Hour how good are thee.

The ride is ace! The best one of these ‘smaller’ Dive Coasters for sure, and probably up there with one of the better ones in the world. The drop is great, the overbank is powerful and the last sequence of turns and inversions is both fun and forceful (including some nifty pops of airtime). Great choice by the park!

We headed over towards Lisebergbanan (at this point with the plan to at least get through the major once coasters by the end of the day). Not got any good pictures of the coaster, but the queue offers some good angles of the other coasters. Ride is damn awesome too. Old school Schwarzkopf power all the way through. Ballistic. An absolute joy to ride!

Helix flying by overhead.

The top of the top-hat still just catching the sun.

We wanted to have a go at their permanent scare attraction, so we went quickly over to that. Apart from some annoying kids at the front of our group basically RUNNING through the attraction (so much so that we got stalled by the actors a couple of times), it was very impressive. More on that tomorrow, though.

Last picture of the night.

Of course, it was suitably dark to head up the hill to Helix now. The ride was down as we made our way up the escalators, but as we got to the top they had just reopened it. We were in the first group of people into the queue, and so got lucky with a complete walk-on!

Goodness me that’s a great roller coaster! Launches themselves are a bit lame (they’re Mack, lol), but everything else is superb. I love the variations in airtime, positive Gs and laterals, as well as the massive range of height it effortlessly covers. It’s rides like this that make it worth all the fuss of parks. Fantastic.

Quick second lap (just as good <3), and then the final ride on AtmosFear. Ben got spooked going up (to be fair, it is very high and they really play up the effects at night) and it somehow got to me too. By the top we were both freaking out! Drop is alright (these big ones are never quite as intense – which I prefer to be honest), definitely not worth all that nerves!

We were shattered, and Liseberg had totally redeemed an otherwise grim day (apart from David, of course), so we headed back to the hotel and crashed.

Last day tomorrow, but that could end up being a long one…

 

[davidm]

IT ME!! IT ME!!

Yeah an hour or so Q-ing for the slowest-ever operated Vekoma junior coaster in the blazing sun was not a particular highlight of my weekend.

After you left I had another couple of goes on Speed Monster and Thundercoaster ; both are decent rides I think but nothing super-special ; overall a highly missable park in the grand scheme of things. - would not plan to go back (and the Oslo beer prices do make it all a very expensive use of time).

Anyway I CBA with a TR of one park (and tales of expensive beer) so here's a couple of silly pics to mess up your thread...

 

[Ben]

The EIGHT MINUTE DISPATCHES on the kiddie!

EIGHT. MINUTES.

A dispatch took. eight. minutes.

That was the peak issue for that park. Honestly it was worse than China.

My favourite part of the day was that girl faceplanting during the midday running of the bulls. That’ll teach her.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Sounds like you had the best of times TusenFryd is able to offer! Or willing, I guess. Perhaps "Arsed" might be the proper term for it, but I'm not British so I wouldn't know for sure.

Operations isn't really TusenFryd's strongest suit, but it actually isn't the weakest either. That would be the food, which it luckily seems like you were able to avoid. Dodged a slow-moving, greasy, bland and ridiculously expensive bullet there.

What were the dispatch times of SpinSpider like? Whenever I've visited, that one always felt like the slowest one, with 12-15 minutes between dispatches because TusenFryd staffs a 40-seat ride with one single operator. Seems like they managed to outdo themselves with Western-Expressen, though. A little under half a minute per seat for a coaster staffed with multiple operators? That's pretty dang impressive.

Also, opening the lower area of the park at midday when that's where all the newest rides are (all the rides in the park built after 2012, actually!) is a whole new level of stupid. I guess the entire park has fallen badly into complacency, since it's pretty the only amusement park that serves the greater Oslo area.

As I said earlier, don't be fooled into thinking this is Norway's best park, though. Kongeparken near Stavanger is worth a visit for the hungry cred hunter, as is Hunderfossen. There actually is a pretty good waterpark hidden somewhere in the forest a couple hours west of Oslo too (next to precisely nothing except copious amounts of trees for miles and miles around), and finally the zoo in Kristiansand is run pretty decent and it even has a few rides, although no proper coasters yet. Maybe they'll pull a Kolmården some day, though, I wouldn't rule that out completely.

Anyway, when I move back to Oslo in a couple years I'd be glad to join you on another trip! Or I guess maybe not, seeing as it sounds like you won't be eager to return any time soon. But I'd be happy to go with the next batch of naïve optimists!

 

[Hixee]

What were the dispatch times of SpinSpider like? Whenever I've visited, that one always felt like the slowest one, with 12-15 minutes between dispatches because TusenFryd staffs a 40-seat ride with one single operator.

Yeah, one staff member running it, but actually not doing a terrible job. Once the ride is in motion, the queue doesn't seem so bad, and the 40-person cycles at least mean the queue moves pretty well in between.

As I said earlier, don't be fooled into thinking this is Norway's best park, though. Kongeparken near Stavanger is worth a visit for the hungry cred hunter, as is Hunderfossen. There actually is a pretty good waterpark hidden somewhere in the forest a couple hours west of Oslo too (next to precisely nothing except copious amounts of trees for miles and miles around), and finally the zoo in Kristiansand is run pretty decent and it even has a few rides, although no proper coasters yet.

We discussed (at length) the fact that in reality the draw of Norway isn't really the parks. Much of the 'northern' areas are high up on the to-do list for entirely non-cred reasons! We hated the park, but don't hate your country, don't worry!

(next to precisely nothing except copious amounts of trees for miles and miles around),

Funny you say that, Ben and I regularly wished we'd seen MORE trees on this trip. That drive from Kolmarden to TusenFryd was something else...

Anyway, when I move back to Oslo in a couple years I'd be glad to join you on another trip! Or I guess maybe not, seeing as it sounds like you won't be eager to return any time soon. But I'd be happy to go with the next batch of naïve optimists!

You could always make the trip down to Liseberg, that'd be alright.

 

[Slamming Coastercore]

Glad you got a much better time out of Liseberg than I did. Really surprised to hear so much praise for Balder and Valkyria as I thought both were on the weaker side. I honestly get more satisfying airtime from Twister than Balder (but maybe I just expected more from it and was in a ****ty mood from the helix spite). I did consider Tusenfryd on my Sweden trip purely for Speed Monster, but after reading your report I feel like I made the right decision haha.

 

[zazobo]

Love hearing first time reactions to Liseberg. Gorgeous little park. I was there the weekend before (judging from your 'pay day' comment) and it was pretty rammed too. The Sunday was muuuuuuch more civilised.

 

[Hixee]

Day 4 – Liseberg

Right, this is going to be a long one.

We started the day by dropping the hire car off at the railway station and walking over to the park. Was good to know we wouldn’t have any faff with it the next day. Got into the park and went straight for a ride on Valkyria which was a very short wait at this point. Pretty good, even first thing in the morning.

Soon after, it was time to meet our guide for the day – Pontus! Acting as CF representatives for the day, the park had offered us a little tour with Liseberg’s Attractions Guide. I will start by saying that we are currently writing a proper article for the main site which will cover a lot of the more interesting titbits we learnt during the day, so the report here will be slightly more of a chronology. I’ll post a link to that article in this thread once it’s live.

We started with a quick tour of the kids area of the park where their new dark ride will be located. More on this in the upcoming article, but suffice to say it’s all looking very impressive!

Soon to home their new ‘underground’ dark ride.

Having Sam with us, our next order of business was to see behind the scenes of Spokehotellet Gaston. We were first treated to a full walk through the attraction with all the lights on. Hosted by two of the actors turned managers, we learnt a lot about how they build and run their attraction. It was truly fascinating to see up close like this. They then turned all of the lights and effects on (well, lights off, I suppose) and took us through again discussing how they use triggers and effects to help the actors hit their cues and to scare the guests even more. Finally, we were treated to a go through the maze with all of the actors primed that we were coming. They really took us for a ride, and it was great fun – albeit a little freaky at times. It was also good fun seeing the actors preparing, getting their make-up on and having a session in “the blood room”. They asked us not to take any pictures of this bit, so sorry this is a wall of text! We did get to see their other temporary attraction, the highlight of which was seeing the views of the park from staff canteen.

Not a bad spot for lunch, I don’t reckon.

Pontus was after a coaster next, so he took us round to Balder.

Airtime!

Next thing we know, he grabs a key out of his pocket and we’re let into the little goon area inside the Balder structure. You get a great perspective of the ride from in here, and we talked at length with Pontus about their concepts for the ride, maintenance strategies and plans for the future. It was great spending time with someone so knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Only problem was having to pause the conversation every time a train screamed by!

They’re quite fast up close. Seriously people, take ride safety seriously!

Next, Pontus whips a big marker pen out of his pocket and Ben and my eyes light up. He’s going to let us sign the cred!

Goon bucket list item – check!

There we go, on the coaster forever now.

We headed up to the control booth for a quick look around, before a no-queue back-row ride. Being with the guy who knows everyone at the park has it’s uses.

The vast number of people moving around the station in between trains is quite apparent up here. A perspective you don’t see from the platform level – fair play to the operators keeping an eye on all of this.

Sneaking round the side of Valkyria lead us into the backstage area underneath the B&M. Another good chat with Pontus about how the park settled on the B&M (you’ll have to read the article) and how they handled the difficult construction programme. We also got to see some of the retired trains from Lisebergbanan, currently waiting for the park to decide what to do with them next.

The overbank from the perspective rarely seen.

Over the zero-g into the sun.

The old trains stored here temporarily.

The long sweeping barrel roll works quite well – I’m often not a fan, but this one works.

Nice and close up to the trains.

Doesn’t the track look great?

See?!

One more from back here.

As we wandered up to the station, we quickly poked our heads into the maintenance shed. There is space for all of the trains in here, but the park regularly runs all of them and today was no exception.

Good to see the nitty-gritty stuff up close though.

Followed by a quick visit to the control booth before our front row ride!

Next up was a tour of Lisebergbanan’s massive maintenance shed. The crew here do a lot of their own part fabrication (historically because Schwarzkopf spares were hard to come by) so this was a more greasy, grubby, working shed than the clinical feel of the B&M’s.

The back entrance to the shed gives a good view of Helix. Most places give a good view of Helix – it’s a good looking ride.

The ‘tug’ that they use to pull the train back to the station if it valleys somewhere on the layout. Designed by Schwarzkopf himself.

Featuring Pontus.

Again a quick trip up into the control booth – much more old-school than the other ones we’d seen. At its peak capable of running five trains, there’s a lot to keep an eye on running this coaster.

Big control panel and lots of CCTV.

Takes a bit of time to be able to operate this, I bet.

Had to walk up the hill as the escalator was broken, but on the way up Pontus pops on the phone to the engineering team and someone is sent to fix it. Now that’s efficiency!

Helix from the control booth.

Final shed of the day (much to Sam’s relief, I think) was the fabulous Helix station. One of the trains is currently missing two seats (they’re on order from Mack, due soon), so we could get up close and personal with the trains. As you might have guessed, this appealed to me greatly.

The stylish zero-car.

Greasy wheels.

Apparently they can swap a set of wheels out in a matter of minutes in this arrangement. It takes them the best part of an hour on Lisebergbanan where they can’t get the trains off the track. Neat.

It was time for a late lunch/early dinner for both us and Pontus now, which gave us a good time to say our goodbyes to him. It had been an excellent day at the park, spending most of the day talking to and learning from Pontus. He’s an incredible charming man, and really made the day a lot of fun.

As I said before, keep your eyes peeled for our article which should be posted soon. We go into a little more of the interesting things we learnt.

Okay, let’s finish off the day then. Lots of pictures coming now.

We ate in the Mattorget again – I had a kebab type dish and Ben and Sam went for Mexican. Quite good, and I’d recommend. It’s very close to Valkyria, so we had another go on that. It looked wonderful in the late afternoon light.

The station building is rather good too.

Just hanging out…

We took a trip up the hill to try a few of the rides up there. AeroSpin was alright (hard to keep spinning), and Ben and Sam reported that Upswinget was good. I’d gone off to get pictures of Helix – not too fussed for the swings.

The top hat towering above the park.

Lovely Mack trains doing their thing.

Here’s one for you @davidm – four biggest coasters in the park (and the log flume) in the shot. Using the ‘block violation’ technique, of course – I’m not that lucky.

Lisebergbanan crossing over and over the paths.

Oh how I love you Helix.

An oversized shot of the Norwegian Loop.

Final lap mopping last rides now. Grabbed the kiddie creds, rapids, log flume, and a bunch of the flats. Quite liked Loke, and Valkyria at dusk is pretty special. So is Balder. Not half bad looking either.

Some with the wide angle lens now.

I like the silhouette effect on this one.

More of that long golden hour goodness.

The whole place is really rather nice.

Colour looks good on Balder too.

Sam and Ben wanted one final go on the scare attraction, so I stuck around for a few more night pictures before the inevitable lapping of Helix began.

Ahhh, this is a nice place to be.

Sun is finally heading off now.

Helix with its light package working well.

Then it was up to Helix’s station for as many laps as they’d let us do before closing. We managed about four in the end, I think. Barely anyone in the queue or station, so nearly managing walk-ons each time. It really grew on me as the night went on. You know what, it’s bloody fantastic. I need to see where it sits in my top twenty (maybe even top ten), as it definitely deserves to be up there.

Bae. <3

So my closing thoughts on Liseberg.

The first day the park was very busy. It was still lovely, and the rides were excellent, but I didn’t quite feel the magic. Second day changed that a lot. Even the first hour or so we had to ourselves the charm started to come out. Our tour was wonderful, and a big thanks to Liseberg for laying that on for us, but it wouldn’t be fair to base my whole experience off that – that’s not ‘normal’. Where Liseberg really shone was that second evening. Some minor faff with them only running rides on one train at night, but that’s not the end of the world, and the charm of the place got to me. I think looking back on it too now, I appreciate how much of a good time we had. Liseberg has an amazing set of coasters, decent collection and flats and a beautiful setting. One of the best parks in Europe? Without a doubt. Best in the world? That might be a stretch, but they’re not far off.

We mooched back to the hotel revelling in how good our day had been, and crashed for the night. My flight was mid-morning the next day, so I said my goodbyes the night before and just slipped out in the morning. Huge breakfast to tide me through the day (whelp, there goes the diet) and a hassle-free journey home. What a cracking weekend!

I’ll do one of those stats posts later today with a little map. They’re always nice.

 

[davidm]

Some crackin' pics there!
Good work on the block-violation too - the advantage of different coasters is that you can pretend that one is really real.

 

[Hixee]

Summary

Time for some stats!

New creds: 17
Total creds: 21
New parks: 3
Total park: 4

Milestones:
None!

Best Park: Liseberg, duh.

Best Cred: Helix, but honourable mention to Balder and Wildfire.

And the route(s):

Green = Airport, Blue = Nights, Red = Parks/Activities

Cheers for reading.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Jealous now. Some great stuff for the Liseboner in there.

Shame about the Tusenfryd ops/clientele. Worst they did to me was spite some rides and take 2 hours to give us a pizza (alright, still pretty bad), but the place definitely suffers more from having the thought in the back of your mind at all times that 'I could leave at any moment and go somewhere better'.

 

[i.d.b]

Really enjoyable report. I’m currently in Gothenburg two thirds through my Gröna Lund, Kolmården, Liseberg trip.

 

[Antinos]

Another great report, @Hixee! You always do an excellent job at conveying your experiences, and your photography is second to none! Your photos really do a nice job at showcasing Grona Lund's quirkiness, Kolmarden's sheer beauty, and Liseberg's charm. You made Tusenfryd look pretty darn picturesque too, but it's a bummer to hear that the park fell way short of expectations. But it sounds like the trip was fantastic, as well as your tour from Pontus!