Benin

The area music sounds fab

The dismissals have been literally down to the fact Gerstlauer built Saw... A real shame that some people are that narrow minded not to look at more than just one ride to prove how 'crap' a company are...

Day 4b – Bakken After a morning of alcohol we returned to the car and ventured off to Bakken, the world’s oldest amusement park. Set within an old hunting ground the woodland setting is quite nice, although the layout of the car park is little to be desired. We went in, purchased our wristbands and found a place to eat whilst we waited for Tornado to open at 2. It did, and we were ready to experience the World’s first (and only) Intamin Spinning Coaster. Tornado is a very fast spinning coaster, mainly as a result of the launched lift hill, which really throws you into the first corner. It is also one of the few entirely free spinning coasters, so when you get kicked out of the station by the ride staff (a literal fact I’m afraid) you’re already spinning madly. However, I wish I could continue this charade of it being a good coaster, the simple fact is that Tornado is one of the worst coasters I have experienced, comparing that to Goudrix, Sequoia Adventure and Mean Streak, and it’s an impressive feat for all the wrong reasons. And as with most Intamins, one of the major flaws are the shoulder restraints, which follow in design as the Accelerators, but use a different style of material. This does not improve matters, and in my case, actually physically cut me due to the aforementioned launching lift. As a result you spend the ride cursing at Intamin for not thinking yet another design through properly, and attempting to brace yourself against the restraints digging into your arms. I would think that without the launch it might be a decent ride, but it’s impossible to judge because of it. I can never enjoy a ride I have to brace myself for throughout it, and as such, Tornado gets thrown to the bottom of the pile, and makes me fear for Baco later this year. 1/10 After that catastrophe of a ride, we had another Rusty Banana to look forward to, especially after Tivoli’s fabulous one. But what’s this? Bakken decided to get new trains and systems in? Well I guess it might save them money on training and wages… Who did they get to redesign it? Kumbak? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU… Yep, just when things couldn’t get worse, Kumbak, those perennial rapers of coasters appeared. And naturally, they managed to absolutely ruin another coaster through the train designs (and leg crushing lapbars) and braking the train at every… single… chance… they… got… Every time there was momentum it was killed completely, the train slowing to speeds where it could just about finish the corner. Diabolical doesn’t cover it, especially after Tivoli, where we found a brilliantly smooth and fun coaster. This was just rough, slow and pathetic. Still, better than Tornado. 2/10 [/img] After possibly the worst double header of major coasters in any park anywhere, there was another Intamin in sight, Mine Train Ulven, which is the same type of ride as Thirteen without the drop. Maybe it was the low expectations we had obtained, but this was actually a good solid coaster, and what the outside section of Thirteen SHOULD have been. A good first drop, solid airtime and forces. Enjoyable to say the least and was a welcome return to a decent ride after the horridness. 6/10 Opposite Ulven was Racingbahn, a weird oval racing car attraction which worked similar to Dodgems and Go-Karts. It was good fun but doesn’t have a real race feel to it due to the lack of starting cars at the same point. We followed this up with the imaginatively named Racing, a Zierer (apparently), which looked like a death trap but was actually a very fun attraction, with good speed and forces building throughout the ride. No restraints as well which was a change. Next door was Vilde Mus a Mack coaster pretending to be a Maurer Sohne. It was not very wild or very fun. We then encountered the Spin Zone a weird Horror/Space theme set of Dodgems which were more like Daleks. Controlled by joysticks to spin on the spot and move forward, we spent most of our time spinning on the spot as it was generally more fun. We followed this with the Fun House, typical one really with lots of levels and moving things themed to a ship/harbour. Wasn’t bad but wasn’t great either. Heading back towards the park entrance we did the Ladybird, another baby Zierer but with added crazy attendant who stopped the car on the lift on the last circuit. The final attraction of this block were the original African themed Teacups. The Fun House CANNOT be unseen! WHY are we at Bakken? Smug clowny git We then elected to give Tornado another go, and it was still bad; then Rusty Banana, which again, was still bad. We noticed a show nearby and had time to kill, so we rode the Swanorail, which was another pedal one taking place over the nearby Log Flume. I spent most of my time trying to cause crashes as that was more enjoyable than spending time in the park. We did Ulven again and upon our return to the station the ride op was texting and smoking at the same time, if the park’s image could drop ANY lower. It was time for the scary clown show which ended up being a magic show. Which was decent enough for the kids, especially when one got owned by one of the tricks after he had declared he knew the answer. Poor lad. The racing cars were done again before we did the Crazy Theatre, which was the same thing at Bon Bon Land but a rejigged video. Another Dillon attraction was found but this was a WaveSurfer instead of Huss spinning thing. Polyp we found to be the same ride as Hydra at Asterix, which made us so happy we did it twice, and was clearly the best ride on the park. Wall of dummies… We did Racing again before Double Shot, a teeny S&S tower which had some airtime to it, always think the shorter tower rides are better than those 200ft plus jobs. The Spin Zone was repeated as was the Fun House, before one last go on Rusty confirmed our fears and we ran out in a hurry at 5:30. Meaning we had spent 3 and a half hours. I spend longer days at a busy Thorpe, which tells how crap this place was. Full of utter tat rides and awful headliners, no charm and was essentially a more permanent fair. All 4 of us were glad to get out as soon as we felt possible.

I know that any publicity can be termed as good publicity, but why would they use Watchdog to announce an opening date? Unless they plan to try and divert any negative attention that will no doubt be the major focus of the show to have the host say afterwards "Now we have a statement from the park who have apologised for the delays and have since announced that the ride will open on X day"... Surely there are better (and bigger) audiences to reach?

*Express Pass... Mark's point stands, and I'm interested to test the notion out in September...

To be fair to them, if an issue wasn't discovered until the day before opening, then it's impossible for them to be pro-active...

We interrupt this Trip Report to give you a new look at the brand new show, 'MARK REVIEWS'! Today as a very special treat, here's the first video, a review of Bakken! Enjoy!

Shades of Thorpe in 2001 then...

Day 4a – Carlsberg Brewery Today was a day split between culture (or as cultured as you can get when visiting a Brewery) and coasters. As Bakken didn’t open until 2pm (closing at 11pm), during my research of things to do in Copenhagen I came across the Carlsberg Brewery Tour, and needless to say it didn’t take much convincing of people to partake in the 70DKK tour. In order to get there however, we had to brave the local transport. As we right by the train station this was simple, and we walked over, grabbed our tickets to the next station (a massive TWO stops from Copenhagen central) and we were off. A short 10/15 minute walk from the station was next, and it doesn’t look great as you go along, due to massive construction and then walking through an industrial park to get there. However, shortly before 10am, we arrived. We each paid our entrance fee (N.B. the 70DKK also gets you two drinks of alcoholic or non-alcoholic tastes) and we set on our quick tour of the old brewery. It was relatively interesting, mostly focusing on how Carlsberg grew up into the internationally recognised brand it is today, and had some statues, vehicles and the world’s largest collection of beer to look at. So… Much… Beer… We ventured into the new brewery building which unfortunately wasn’t in operation when we were there, but there were some smell testers and Table Football, which Mark and Holly eventually won after a very tense and nervy finish of next goal wins. Another drink followed and that was that. It’s a small place granted, but easy to get to and for Denmark, cheap, especially when you consider how much a pint of something costs in general. I would recommend it as a visit if you have time and a vested interest in alcohol.

*Insert generic Merlin don't fix things lol quote here*

Shopping at Asda isn't THAT bad Having to queue an hour+ to get on the Underground, better than Tornado...

We broke for lunch into the Western area specifically. Why? Because Pulled Pork sandwiches! <3 Whilst we waited for them to be cooked we played Coaster Top Trumps, where it appears Jimmy Neutron is more thrilling than Diamondback… At least Merlin’s make some semblance of sense and balance. Anyways, Pulled Pork is made of joy, on we go. On our way out we popped into the Office Block/Western themed Hestorado, which was an Alterface thing of shooting at a screen for 10 minutes. It was made of WHY. Walking back into the main section of the park we did Viktor again, which was still crap, but doing the amusingly named Disko, AlbaTossen, which was quite intense. The pedal Monorail Mageklatterne was next, which involved plenty of collisions and other pointlessness. We were all starting to get a bit bored of the park and since Han-Katten didn’t look like opening, we headed back to the entrance. Bored, Mark and Holly decide to act out Star Wars On our way out, we suggested to venture into the massive Fantasy World building, certainly worth it. Inside is the most random array of animatronics and other things ever. There’s even a ball pit to which we spent some time in because it was the most fun thing we had seen at the park all day. After spending some time in there, we were done and headed home. It annoys me that I have to return to this place for the missing coaster, because I don’t really want to. An incredibly over-rated park that we didn’t really enjoy because of the sheer lack of anything really. Lots of empty space and we just didn’t connect with it, especially after a wonderful day at Tivoli before.

Day 3 – Bon Bon Land A park that is relatively infamous and well known from a certain American coaster site, Bon Bon Land is essentially famous for being silly. With farting dogs, defecating seagulls and various other creatures doing random stuff; it’s a park I’ve been interested to visit to see what the hype is all about. So we hopped into the Nissan of Narcissism and directed by Cassandra the Sat-Nav and were taken off the motorway into the middle of nowhere, a theme certainly to be followed through most Danish parks. Needless to say, it was a rather underwhelming place. They’ve got a gimmick that’s for sure, but that’s it, there’s barely any substance behind it overall. And once you get over the fart and pee jokes around the park, there’s nothing really special about it. It’s no surprise the Americans seem to love this place, but for me, whilst the various models dotted around the park are nice with a home-made feel to it, there’s not much else going on for it. Either way our first port of call was Wild Hog, the first Eurofighter, but it was shut. As was the Gerstlauer Spinner Han-Katten (which didn’t open all day). We waited and noticed that the Zierer Viktor Vandorm had opened, so ran to that and it’s millions of stairs to the station. A weird coaster by anyone’s standards. A short lift hill lead into a decent drop into a long channel built into the lake, and then the designer clearly gave up with his life and proceeded to play RCT for so long he reached his dead-line and hence had to make up some random crap. It reminded me of the Dragon at Legoland Windsor’s outdoor section, but slow, burdenous and not very entertaining. We got two goes around and things didn’t improve much, especially when the bars refused to open on our return to the station, causing a self-evacuation of 90% of the train (the two remaining kids were too fat to escape). Not a great start to the day. 3/10 Wild Hog had opened so we went to that. This opened 10 years ago, which is astonishing to think about especially when you look at the newer Gerstlauers opening (and not opening) these days. Bi-Rail track through the entire course but still the same old Eurofighter cars, evolution does exist! The theme to racing pigs is quite good to be fair to the park, however you can clearly see that Gerst were in their infancy and not willing to take risks beyond the vertical lift system, meaning an extremely basic layout (but more fun/interesting than Vandorm’s) greeted us. Like the majority of Gersts, there is some rattle to it, however not enough to make you want to gouge out your head to get some peace inside. It’s another inoffensive ride that certainly helped catapult a young company a bit further, and was reasonably enjoyable. 6/10 NOT the actual entrance… After this we headed towards Sveng Swingarm a gigantic Frisbee ride off, someone… Actually an excellent ride to be honest, the height making it seem much more intense yet enjoyable (in comparison to the full intensity of Flamingoland’s Flip Flop), and the constant change of direction was a decent addition. Solid attraction and the first thing we all really liked at the park. Maybe things were going to look up as we found a Fabbri Drop Tower Cobra Tarnet, which wasn’t as good as Detonator unfortunately. In search of new attractions and the sun making an appearance we decided the Baever Rafting would be next. A decent themed rapids ride which had a weird hiking pathway queue. Didn’t get too wet but that wasn’t too much of an issue as the water looked dire as hell. Dillen (you son of a bitch!) was next, a Huss flat ride of some description themed to crocodiles and short queuelines and ended up being a decent enough ride to fill up some extra time. More meandering around empty pathways lead us to the final coaster of the park, and the most well-known, Dog Fart Coaster. Apparently the farting dog is a famous character in the Bon Bon world of sweets, so of course he was to have his own coaster. And with enthusiasts from that site again proclaiming it’s brilliance, surely we’ll hit a good coaster here? Well, no… It’s a mini Zierer with a helix that goes into a massive kennel… I thought it was going to be something of the length of Vandorm, but no, one drop, one helix, one turn, station. And we think Smiler is going to be overhyped? Dreadful ride, and the whole ‘fart’ gimmick wasn’t even working. 2/10 After that disappointment we headed to the Drunk Turtle Waveswinger, which was its usual boring dependable self. Then we did my first ever set of porn ponies, Hestepaererne which was long and well themed. This was followed by a boat tour around the world of dodgy stereotypes and rubbish animatronics on Soloven, which was pretty crap but it involved a sit down for some time at least. We headed towards the Crow Tower which are the same attraction as the infamous Tree Houses at Tripsdrill, of which Nicky and Holly had never seen before. As such, the secret was kept secret and the surprise that the ride gives was fully appreciated by them both. So much so we did it twice without moving off it.

A competition no-one would actually enter then?

Yeah I was informed about Brighton, but it's Brighton... So not too bothered (also riding one in New York, score)... There are more reasons to go to Denmark than you think... Indeed, coasters should not always be the only draw to a country, the culture in Denmark looks to be something great and I want to go back and explore more of it... But then again, there'll be theme park reasons to visit mentioned soon enough...

You mean like Swarm's backwards seats defeating the point of the near misses?

Like Blackpool maintain Valhalla's?

They're just a novelty, a novelty only originally used by Six Flags on unpopular coasters... Dunno why Swarm was chosen then... If they try and do it on Oblivion then there's no point bothering about the imagination of ride designers...

A quick meander around the gardens followed, it is a very nice park to be sure. We went searching for costumed characters who unfortunately weren't around, however timed it to see the Guards on Parade. The most random thing I've ever seen in a theme park environment quite simply, but when in Denmark. Another ride on Rusty followed on, before we rode The Mine another excessively random dark ride of random. This indoor boat ride decided that laser wands shooting coloured gems would be an idea, and it actually kinda worked in the end. Random, enjoyable and long, a hidden gem. We followed with a ride on the Breakdance, which made us all miss Rodeo. Back to Daemonen for two more goes, was still quite good before me and Nicky decided we would brave Vertigo, a Technical Park thing of WHY?! Two planes of 4 people attached to a massive arm are either controlled by the guests or put on a preset setting, either forwards, or backwards, with a potential for a turbo mode which sends you to 5G. We didn't opt for this one, going for the basic mode, which lead us to do some mental spinning as the ride got started, then lots of flat rotations before once again spinning as we began to slow down again. One word describes Vertigo, mental. I would dread to think what turbo would be like (as I saw it often from our hotel). In the end I enjoyed it up to the spinning at the end, which was just too much, but I survived it, and would have no doubt regretted not riding in the end. We rode Karavanen again for 7 more laps before Mark and Holly ventured back onto the S&S, upon returning to the floor, they proclaimed that they heard Only Teardrops playing at the main stage. So we ran to discover Emilie receiving an award from some bloke and looking like she was going to leave. But then, peer pressure won out and she performed the winning song again, everyone went mental and we joined in. Certainly an unique moment to have at any park, let alone on holiday. We had a quick go on Rusty again before heading back into the Fun House for the girls to let off some extra steam as me and Mark made use of the free WiFi available. Another ride on Rusty in the front followed before we headed to Wagamama for food (local Danish food ftw!). One more ride on Daemonen followed by Rusty again and we were done. We bid farewell to Tivoli and thanked it for being a lovely park. Blackpool with a sense of decorum and class I'd like to see it as, randomly plonked in the middle of a city with some old school and modern attractions in amongst each other. We didn't see much of the actual gardens but we already have the idea to return to here over a weekend at the least, I would recommend the park to all for its atmosphere, decent attractions and of course, Rusty Banana.

Day 2 - Tivoli Gardens After an afternoon of lovely sunshine and warmth, the Sunday morning was the complete opposite, with rain pelting down as we prepared to venture into our first park of the trip. As we waited outside the park, the Gumball 500 decided to venture forth, so we had some entertainment building up to the park opening. The park opened at 11, but the majority of rides opened at 11:30, so we hid under a building and awaited our first ride and coaster to open Daemonen. The smallest B&M and by definition the cutest, 6 rows of the tiny floorless cars flit about the tiny compact layout, squeezed into the back end of the park (the exit steps might as well be on the adjoining road). The area and station however are nicely themed to a Chinese back alley area. We followed the ride staff who had opened the ride and went for the front row, ending up to be the only people (stupid enough) to ride during the reasonable rain storm on-going. As such, I didn't see much of the ride, but the ride itself was decent, not the best B&M, but at the same time, not the worst. You can see how limited the park were in their design of the ride with the space and local area unlikely to it anything bigger than the existing layout. Upon repeat riding in the back due to no queue, it still set itself as a solid if unremarkable ride. It's flaws are to do with the limitations of the park's ability to build anything bigger or longer, and I cannot fault the ride for those limits set upon itself. It was still a fun and enjoyable ride at the end of the day, and that's what counts. 6/10 With the rain still lashing down, we seeked more shelter and hid in the nearby dark ride The Flying Trunk. This 'such a cred' dark ride takes us through the various tales of H.C. Andersen in a rather Small World style ride. Typical European dark ride that are always random anyway, and at least we were able to listen to the narration in English. We exited into, surprisingly, more rain, but it had slightly lessened so we went onwards to our next attraction Odin Expressen. A trip above one of the many buildings in the park is this powered Mack's forte, not particularly brilliant although the final helix into a tunnel is decent. Either way it's not the best Mack Powered I've ever been on. 5/10 We headed towards Rustchebahn (furthermore known as Rusty Banana) only to find it was closed due to the rain, so we elected to find the other coaster, discovering a live band playing Musical Statues at the main stage area. Onwards to Karavanen, one of those small Tivoli creds which proceeded to give us 7 laps of it. Usual affair with this type of ride, randomly decent airtime though. After this it was suggested we ride Monsoon the Inverted Magic Carpet which had an excessively long cycle but was good fun regardless. We missed out on the water fountains being used however, no doubt due to the spiteful rain. The Golden Tower was next, an S&S drop tower, for which we had an audience for since we were the only riders. The rain still pouring, we walked towards the Dodgems we had seen earlier, only to find that they had laser guns attached. Mentally fast Dodgems with targets and lasers, Takeshi's Castle called Tivoli, they want their attraction back! However they were awesome due to the ridiculous speed, however with tempermental guns and a lack of obvious scoring system meant it wasn't as good as it could have been. After this we elected for lunch at the Burger Kitchen, which was cooked to order and damn tasty once we had translated the menu. It was a trend to continue throughout the week with our surprise at the quality and the portions of the food at the parks. Upon our exit of the restaurant, the Pippi Longstocking show was starting at the main stage, so after seeing that we went into the Fun House located in the Rusty Banana mountain. I miss the one at Southport, and this was a decent substitute, with lots of levels and different obstacles up and down the building. After some time we heard a new rumbling noise in amongst the sound effects, and realised that they were testing Rusty Banana. We headed out and waited for a short time before it opened. Rusty being 99 years old is one of them old Scenic Railway style coasters, brakeman included and cable lift hill before Intamin made them cool. Having only done the one since Dreamland I was excited to ride another (and the others hadn't done one before at all). What we found was one of the most fun, smooth and brilliant coasters we had ever ridden. Glass smooth, great airtime, good laterals. Rusty has is all, ducking in and out of the mountain element all the while, with some portions in the pitch black to boot. Quite simply a brilliant attraction, and for something reaching 100 years old next year to be smoother than rides not even 5 years old says a lot about the quality of the ride (and it's renovations). They plan on redoing bits of it next year so it might even gain more thematic elements in the future, but regardless, a class ride that all should ride before it gets Bakken'd. 9/10 Time for some more flat rides, and we started with the Star Flyer, which was heavily affected by the high winds flowing through Copenhagen, making the experience better than usual. This was followed with a visit to the park's new area, with the Air Race and Spinny Tower thingy. The Air Race was certainly something different and quite intense at times, it required ice cream times to sort it out, but I wouldn't say no to one being built in the UK.

Shame it involves being in Blackpool late at night </3

A trip designed to visit one of the lesser countries in Europe known for its parks, even if it has 6 big parks, including one of the most visited in the continent, not much ever seems to come out of Denmark, so as such, this trip was created, organised and visited. Day 1 - Arrival and Copenhagen We arrived in the afternoon to a warm and humid Denmark, a certain surprise to the 4 of us who were travelling along, and it wasn't long until we realised the Danish way of life was completely different to our own. Very laid back, no expectations and a good versing in foreign languages, leading us to just speak English all week, such is the way of life. We picked up the car, found our hotel in central Copenhagen (near Tivoli and the central station) and began our adventures through a quick wander around the city. We headed to the main plaza where they were setting up a big screen for Eurovision later, whilst the Gumball derby was also taking place. We later learnt that this was a Bank Holiday Weekend for the Danes, so we had clearly timed our trip well to coincide with these events. We went down towards the Royal Palaces to have a quick look at them, before hunger struck us and we went back to the plaza in search for food. In the end, McDonalds was our port of call. Afterwards we decided to head back to the hotel via a small supermarket to stock up on drinks and snacks, and we had a mini-Eurovision night. Great fun, especially as Denmark took the honours, the atmosphere outside our hotel was bouncing around and it was great to be part of a country that won for a change. And with that, the first night ended on a high, and we hadn't even ridden a ride yet.

Decent find, explains a lot about the initial delays to the project... Just seems to make it seem less of Towers' direct fault really... Couldn't prevent the weather related issues which really was the next major delay... Right shame really then that it decides to crash as well, just to really complete the set... Dunno why people are shocked June is likely right now considering it's next week...

By one person... Cannot see how it's a valid comparison though... You can see on Juvelen, another ride new for 2013, it suffers a similar issue... What happens when new wheels are being run in, friction will take the paint off after some time of running on a constant basis... Fact of life, but to compare it to Colossus is slightly over-exaggerating the situation...