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Happy 40th Birthday to a park like no other! It might not be my top park right now, but the place has a strong array of history and one of the first theme parks I ever visited. It’s crazy how much has changed and developed over the years! Had a lovely visit, hosted by the wonderful Memories Of Thorpe Park team, which also featured a tour from British Theme Park Archive, delivering an intruiging insight into the park’s history.

Regardless of the delays, the progress they are doing to rebuild this area and Batavia is honestly astonishing. Especially when there are parks that leave abandoned rides rotting there for years!

Fastrack for a bouncy castle? Thats a world’s first right there!

Time to beefed things up a little: 1/ Parc Asterix is underrated 2/ Oziris is the best invert I have ridden 3/ Infusion is better than Gouderix 4/ Port Aventura and Parc Asterix have the worst theme park food 5/ Monster Party is the most re-rideable (but not necessary the best) madhouse 6/ Wodan is better than Tonnerre De Zeus 7/ Room On The Broom is actually enjoyable (besides the terrible BBQ queue) 8/ Menhir 4D at Asterix is my favourite 4D cinema 9/ The best vintage cars Ride is at Parc Asterix

Many years ago a man visited a smallish yet popular Danish amusement park. That place was Tivoli Gardens. He was inspired by the charm and character of the place which lead him on to creating his own park. That man was Walt Disney. Tivoli Gardens has been somewhere I have always wanted to visit, whether that be it’s significant history, interesting pallet of attractions, or to say I have visited the fourth most visited European park? These were just some of the reasons, not to mention ‘’technically’’ following Walt’s footsteps. Opening in 1843, Tivoli is the second oldest amusement park in the world (after Bakken). The park is literally in the City centre of Copenhagen (Denmark) putting it firmly into the category of city parks. Like Liseberg, Grona Lund and Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The park features no fewer than three entrances, including the iconic main entrance. We decided to take this one. Upon entering, you are greeted upon some pretty picturesque gardens and open spaces, which make for an ideal first impression and one contrasting the busy street outside. One of the first attractions we visited was the iconic Ruschterbahn (Roller Coaster). This attraction dates back to 1914, making it one of the oldest attractions in the park and maybe the world. Despite being nestled into one of the park’s corners, it was definitely one of the most popular attractions. And for a great reason! The ride is so simple yet perfect, a brake-person rides on the train with you and controls the speed as you go through numerous drops and turns. I can safely say the Ruscteebahn is my favourite attraction in the park. It’s effectiveness of completing simple tasks so perfectly is satisfying. It is easily my favourite of the three Scenic Railway attractions I have done too. Tivoli’s second headline coaster is The Demon (Daemonen),a B&M floorless which opened in 2004. This must be one of the smallest B&M’s in the world, with it’s compact layout. There seemed to be some rows dedicated to VR in the station, however we didn’t see anyone use it whilst we were there. Another VR failure? It definitely isn’t my favourite B&M out there, however it’s impressive what the park have managed to fit into what is a very small footprint (for B&M standards). Better than Dragon Khan though. The park did have a Mack powered coaster, however this was in the process of being replaced whilst we were out there. “Adds another to the list of spited creds”. Our final coaster was Kamelen (Camel), an adorable Zierer . This replaced their older junior coaster. The attraction features an Arabian style theme (like other rides in the area). Six laps too? Woo! There are two dark rides inside Tivoli, one of these is The Flying Trunk. This Mack ominmover attraction depicts numerous scenes based on the books from renowned Danish author Hans Christian Anderson. The attraction was sweet and relaxing. It is certainly impressive how much they have managed to fit into what is a relatively small building. The ride is built partially below ground level. The Mine is the park’s second dark ride and is just totally bizarre. You go around in small boats shooting targets, although the scoring system is not particularly clear. The guns are either similar to Wands, or things one will say is less appropriate! The ride is essentially a tiny flume dark ride with lasers. The scenes are charming despite the potential lack of context. Tomb surprisingly disliked most of the attraction. Tivoli packs a large selection of flat rides, some of which have to be the craziest out there, Vertigo is no exception. This crazy contraption flings you 360 whilst turning at rapid speeds to the point of almost making the former Slammer look tame. I enjoyed it, but literally experienced my limit for thrill rides! Some of their other flat rides include a pretty Steampunk themed Air Race, an S&S drop tower (least this one launches down) and a Crazy inverted Magic Carpet. I found this one the most nauseating, it probably didn’t help that girl opposite me looked like she was going to vomit any moment tbh. Amongst this, they also had a highly impressive Fun House, which was free flowing and located underneath the Ruschterbahn. They also had an adorable Vintage Cars attraction which is amazing, because fountains and a vintage Ferris Wheel. We ran out of time for the Dodgems, Carousels, Land-Train and Sea Storm (style) attractions. Annoyingly some attractions were unavailable on our day of visit, including the Fata Morgana which was an iron condor style ride, a crazy mutated breakdance attraction (which replaced their old breakdance) and the sky flier. Tomb was particularly disappointed by the later, especially when it was actually operating the next day too. Just like Efteling! The park also plays hosts to their Illuminations show every evening/night. Essentially a smaller scale Aquanura , the performance features fountains, lights, fire and other effects. Whilst Aquanura is more impressive and contextual, Illuminations still makes for a cherishing and worthwhile watching. The rides shut at 21:45 on the day we were visiting, due to their Friday Rock event, where their centre stage hosts notable Music artists performing. We watched some of the music even though it wasn’t really our cup of tea. We left just before the end, grabbing a McDonald’s on the way. Final Thoughts and Reflections: Tivoli Gardens is undoubtably a charming and lovely park to visit and something of a national treasure to Denmark. Despite it’s relatively small size it hosts a very reasonable diversity of attractions which suit the park. The grounds, landscaping and architecture are lavishing. Whilst not themed as such, the park are definitely trying to allocate different stylings to each area of the park. whether that be Space/Steampunk, Asian or Middle Eastern sections, which are reasonably distinguishable. The park was generally charming and the majority of staff friendly and helpful. It is probably also one of the better parks for food quantity and quality. Smorrebrod, a cultural delight. My only major criticism I can really give was the lack of audio in most of the park. Whilst the dark rides and toilets featured audio, there were very few other areas of the park (especially main areas) where there was nothing. Whilst I don’t expect audio blaring out left right and centre, it would be pleasant if a few more areas featured audio to enhance further atmosphere to the place. Just something ambient and reflective here and there would do the job. I would recommend a visit here to anyone, whether your after a park with charm, class, thrilling attractions or all three! Tivoli Gardens is worth seeing at least once in everyone’s lifetime theme park lover for not! Join me soon in part two as I cover some of the other things to see in Copenhagen outside of Tivoli Gardens, where I witness this City of modern fairytales by Land, air and sea to see what treasures and cultural gems are discovered. Thanks For Reading!

The park looks sweet, like strawberries. Shame the Little Big Cities aren’t being too successful, I wonder how one might work in London?

Was a very enjoyable meet up. These meets are tonnes of fun to go to,

Having visited two new European parks, I think it is time to update a few fields. Top 10 Coasters: 1/ Steel Vengeance 2/ Helix 3/ Taron 4/ Maverick 5/ Millenium Force 6/ Shambala 7/ Oziris 8/ Wodan 9/ Nemesis 10/ Icon And now onto the parks: 1/ Europa Park 2/ Cedar Point 3/ Phantasialand 3/ Efteling 5/ Disneyland Paris 6/ Liseberg 7/ Parc Asterix 8/ Alton Towers 9/ Tivoli Gardens 10/ Blackpool Pleasure Beach P.A and Thorpe are now off the top 10 list. Last but not least, everyone needs a park bucket list. Here’s my one for European parks: 1/ Gardaland 2/ Tover Land 3/ Energylandia 4/ Heide Park 5/ Grona Lund 6/ Parque Warner Madrid 7/ Linnanmaki 8/ Hansa Park 9/ Futuroscope 10/ Legoland Billund Some parks are very much the same whilst some have re-entered (Heide notably). Energylandia and Linnanmaki have leap frogged onto the list for numerous reasons. More changes could be afoot in the near future.

BounceZilla be like. Nailed it!

Right so @terrortomb and I had a little trip over to Parc Asterix. Oziris is a class coaster and probably my favourite B&M invert now Pegasus is fun, like really fun! Tonnere is good, it’s not my favourite Wooden coaster but is a decent well rounded ride. Park is pretty decent with some lavish styling and theming, atmosphere and ride selection. It’s not completely perfect but still an excellent and underrated park. I don’t like Goudrix. Might write a trip report if I have time and can be bothered. P.S Transdemonium is closed, although the area appears to be intact. Tomb spoke to several staff members and they believe it is undergoing a renovation and will reopen next year. Take this with a pinch of salt.

If Vampire goes the whole park is basically dead. Its the one ride the park needs to ensure it can function with it’s current operation.

Can’t make this one either sadly as I’m working.

More engineering delays than Network Rail! Least Towers are intending to reopen this flat ride in Summer! How the hell is that even an achievement in our park’s now?

Give it a few years and it’ll just be a zoo again. With a side themed area of Julia Donaldson if we are lucky!

Next year could be a trip year there, but I don’t have 2020 vision. The park’s newer investments are considerably better than the early year investments.

Because you can get an annual pass for £55. Or spend it on return flights to somewhere like Efteling, Liseberg or Phantasialand. I am am so pleased to see so many parks with increased attendance last year. Should probably visit Puy Du Fou one day!

Proof Varney is actually Thanos. Merlin will never reopen it unless it’s themed to a Donaldson I.P.

Nor can I, every single evidential part of Vulcan peak has certainly been removed!

Will hopefully be doing Kings Island’s ‘’Fastrack equivalent’’ when I’m hopefully out there again in a few weeks. I’ll let you all know what it’s like. From current experience, Port Aventura is the only park I’ve gone full out on ‘’Fastrack equivalent’’ only because of their diabolical batching ratios and that their clientele can’t seem to grasp the basic concept of queuing.

I’m a shaky maybe right now as it depends what’s happening with preparing for America the next day, but I’ll see what I can do. Tomb’s pass has run out though so maybe.

The work they have done to Madame Freudenreich is astonishing! They have transformed what was essentially one of their weaker dark rides into something far more special and memorable. Could go as far to say it may currently be their best. Hopefully the next few years at Europa shall be exciting and promising, whether that be Rutluntica and Kronosar, the rebuilding of Scandinavia and Pirates In Batavia or the other little things they do inbetween. Europa Park is class and they certainly show people how an attraction should be operated and progress throughout.

I honestly hope this isn’t the end for Black Buccaneer as it’s such a popular and classic attraction, but understand it is getting on with it being 33 years old. If the work on this attraction is that drastic the park should really replace it with a similar/updated model. It’s still popular and would warrant it for a park like Chessington. However given that isn’t largely marketable in a company that have to have continuous growth that will obviously never happen! Tivoli seem to have it spot on for replacing things!

Glad to see the 40th Anniversary merch is popular. It might be money spinner but definitely sends vibes of nostalgia from the park in the 90’s when it featured much charm and character. During the 90’s and noughties, the park was in a position to develop and progress into the thrill park it was however like most things, you can only have so much growth before you hit a glass ceiling. Something the park reached around 2011/2012 time. Most parks (unless they have noticeable expansion room) intend on maintaining visitor numbers rather than increasing them, however Thorpe and Merlin are still intent on riding them and if a major attraction doesn’t achieve this it is deemed a failure. Thorpe realistically won’t ever really surpass much higher than 2M visitors a year and should aim at continuing investment to maintain these figures. The stagnation during the last few years (combined with the failure of DBGT) has only lead to the park’s gate figures to drop noticeably over the recent years amongst other factors.

2016 was a year of far too many lies going on. The sad factor is the park could’ve saved the ride from closure if they had been willing to spend proper maintenance and safety upgrades, the ride could still be running today. It was still remarkably popular and one of the best family attractions in Thorpe and maybe the U.K., amongst still being iconic to the park in many ways. Unfortunately it is likely to take just as long (if not longer) for a replacement attraction to open than the time it has been rotting away. Not only in the hindsight of lack of planning, but the fact the park might not receive a major investment for at least three years due Merlin cutting the park’s budget capex.