Benin

Sub Terra shouldn't be judged as a 'scare' attraction, but that's just me... Better than Saw Alive isn't something to boast about though surely?

After that bundle of JOY, we searched high and low for food which led us to the Western area (stereotypical ride area themes ftw!), and after a quick bite we headed towards the Rapids. A very hidden and surprising rapids indeed, which is rather well themed and enjoys one of those surprise soaking moments that I was to play the victim of unfortunately. Either way though, a good set of rapids. Onwards we went and found the Topple Tower, which was boring to say the least. It sounded creaky and awful to boot and we all came off wondering why we had bothered in the end. At least the ones in Europe are open mind unlike Dollywood's. We found another playarea which had a massive bouncy pillow thing that are quite commonplace in a fair few European parks and we discovered how fun these things are. Would never make it over here mind. Next up was the African themed area, and another play area to conquer which was a long and arduous journey in the end. We then decided to experience the Jungle Cruise, in the good old traditional values of European Disney rip-offs it was full of tatty basic animatronics, tackily themed and tonnes of monkeys. Then a giant King Kong appears and the random Tunnel of DOOM and the ride just goes nuts. Europe <3 After that craziness we decided to re-ride things, and started with Thor's Hammer before another two goes on Joyvelen. More trampolines and another play area followed before a jaunt to Ben & Jerrys. As we were enjoying ourselves, Mark and Holly decided to re-enact their experience on Tornado. After that we went back for more Piraten, which as mentioned had become a beast since the morning, before another 3 goes on Joyvelen finished the day off. Overall Djurs is a lovely park and we all really enjoyed our day there. An excellent selection of coasters throughout and some decent theming, it's hard to find many faults with the park. After the misery of Bakken, it was an excellent change to have a quality park appear out of the unexpectedness of it all. If you don't visit Djurs, this puppy will be sad. Do you want a sad puppy on your conscience?

Day 6 - Djurs Sommerland After a long rainy drive to Aarhus the day after was nice and sunny for our next venture into the middle of nowhere for a theme park. Djurs seemed to be a 'true' theme park in comparison to the parks so far, so I was intrigued to see how they would go with it. We arrived into the rather empty car park and ventured to the gates. The park opened, and we ventured to the nearest coaster, and a highly rated one to boot, that of Piraten. Apparently the worst Mega-Lite in the world, but my first experience of one and that was an experience that had been quite hyped up to severe levels. Unsurprising then, that it didn't live up to such on the first ride of the day. Not to say that it was a bad ride, far from it, solid forces and pops of airtime abounded from it, cementing my opinion that all Intamins with deadly lapbars are better than their crappy OTSRs. But it seemed to have that old problem where the first drop was the best thing to it upon our first two rides. However later in the day the airtime machine within burst out into the sunlight, if only the throughputs could be improved by neglecting the seat-belts or actually giving them some length. A park in the UK would do well to buy one in the future. 8/10 Themed staff outfits <3 Next up was Skattoen a Mack Water Coaster which was essentially the first half of Europa's Poseidon with the final drop latched in for good measure. This meant that there was an immense improvement to the overall ride experience due to removing the dull trek between lift hills, and was a very smooth and fun ride to boot. Was nice to get a decent soaking on the warm morning as well. Next on the list was the weird Sword flat ride known as Sablen. I have no idea who made this, but this Frog Hopper esque ride has a small surprise hidden within, as the ride mid-way through tilts from side to side as you rise and fall during the sequence. Nothing too intense but certainly produced some excited reactions from the small crowd riding it. Further into the park we delved and found Karlo's Taxi, a Wacky Worm, which was a quick smash and grab credit before we moved on towards Juvelen. Which unfortunately had yet to open at the time (this was discovered to be due to the queue flooding rather than any ride based issues), so we moved onto the next coaster and a Gerstlauer that was open on the 23rd May, Thor's Hammer. A clone of Tripsdrill's Bobsled coaster, these are a fun evolution of the original Wild Mouse concept and certainly much more exciting things to experience. One thing Gerstlauer do well are tight helixes and airtime hills. We ventured back to Juvelen and with it still not open we elected to mess around in the playground opposite, which included trampolines, a climbing volcano thing and one of those massive spider web climbing frames. Mark is a fierce Viking according to the Cashier Eventually, we spotted that Juvelen had opened, so we headed into the massive temple themed queueline. This was extremely well themed it must be said, and although a short indoor queue, this quality of theme continued into the station and the surprise pre-show room. The ATV trains are also extremely comfortable, with a simple lap bar design from under the handlebars, as such there is a lot of space and you can freely move your entire body about. A quick dispatch sends us deeper into the temple, and the surprise pre-show which makes no sense (cos Danish) and eventually the doors open and we get a short and reasonable launch into the first half of Rita. This is actually enjoyable with just lapbars, and before long another curve leads us into the second launch of the ride, which instantly hits us, slams us back and forces us into a wild second half of the ride. The second half focuses on quick turns left to ride, evading a few thematic pieces throughout, the main factor of this is the sudden speed achieved by the second launch, creating a mental half of the ride which ends with a few large bunny hops and ends with one final helix. Overall, Juvelen was a massive surprise to us all, and easily the best coaster we had experience on the trip. It fulfils quite a fair few points that few coasters hit completely, creating a ride that is fun, forceful and extremely re-rideable, proving that not all rides need to throw you around or make you grey out to be any good. I would definitely say that more parks should get a variation of these, as they can be a well themed and cheaper variation of a launched coaster that can be accessible to the majority of guests whilst still producing a good fun ride. 9/10

That dog was the best thing on the park

Gotta be crap that, this isn't Chessie and 4 trains of 16 means that it should easily reach around 1000 pph...

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.