Mark9

A clear example of... Intamin face

Thanks Spider, for me Djurs Sommerland was the best park. it's not all based on the top rollercoasters, it felt like a park that a lot of care and love has gone into and for me that counts for a lot. My next European parks are Disneyland Paris in September and then PortAventura, also in September. My next real aim for countries to hit is Sweden, Holland, Norway and Belgium as despite being so close, are all relatively ignored by UK enthusiasts and there is nothing better then arriving at a park and having no idea how its going to go. As for country trips, I've only done South Germany, Italy and Denmark and the easiest by far was Denmark. It's a relatively small country and the parks are all very close to the two largest cities so trips are relatively easy if you are able to drive. Italy was a challenge due to the way Italian drivers are and the huge distances between Rainbow Magicland, Miribilandia and Gardaland. With that being said, it's worth the effort when you get on things like Katun and Raptor and discover absolutely fantastic rides that really raise the bar.

I'd love to know why the Incredible Hulk is your favourite rollercoaster in the world.

Well impressed that I've been on the worlds first 7 looping, 8 looping, 10 looping and 14 looping roller coasters. Take that Alvey and your "I've been to China" rubbish.

It's valleyed again.. https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1001636_10151732412883185_1288651133_n.jpg Thanks to Ash3 from TTF

Hats off to Thorpe staff yesterday they were running the park like it was a capacity day. Every single rollercoaster was running at the fastest speed possible. For example, the Colossus team were exemplary, the train barely stopped in the break before rolling into the station, The Swarm staff were sending out trains out as the other train was heading through the barrel roll above the station and Inferno had zero stacking. Despite all this, no downtime or problems. Adding to that, Inferno and Colossus are also running better then they ever have done. I shocked myself by declaring Inferno's ride this week, better then Nemesis on Monday. It just felt so good and enjoyable to ride. Colossus for me, luckily has not one jolt of roughness. Sublime job.

I think its testament to the ride that people are willing to wait 2 and a half hours for the ride.. for a second time. That was certainly the case for when I went and a lot of Towers forums are doing exactly the same. I think part of its success is the length of the ride. You do feel like you are getting your monies worth for every minute spent queuing so when getting off, the quality of the ride makes it all the more satisfying. With Thirteen I wasn't in a rush to get back, but thanks to the Smiler, I am as eager as ever to get back to ride it. Alton deserve a lot of credit for Smiler and finally, after 15 long years they've built a ride that can stand up to Oblivion and Nemesis.

Lets just get a Mack mega coaster instead and be done with it. I've no idea why Merlin continually ignore Mack rides as a ride similar to Storm or Blue Fire would suit our parks so well.

Interesting. I noticed on Monday that Nemesis is starting to take the zero g roll quite awkwardly. I swear before it used to be a smooth continuous feeling but on Monday it felt like the train was jerking from side to side through the inversion, particularly on the front row. It's something that the newer inverters such as Inferno and Oz'Iris don't do so maybe its just an example of how a 19 year old inverter ages. That said, I'm actually really fond of the Swarm's zero g, especially when as you say it almost grinds to a halt at the top and you then see the fire coming out of the fire engine. Shame it doesn't happen on every cycle because the fire really helps that inversion become a memorable moment. I think what you say about the wing rider in general is true. As Swarm is one of the earlier models, it clearly hasn't been enhanced or the ride position taken advantage of yet. Look at Air's relatively simple layout compared to Tatsu and Starry Eyed Ripper. At some point, a park will really go for it and put the wing rider through its paces. Raptor came close.

Great idea for Thorpe to do this. Instead of trying to push people out the door, let them chill out with a meal and a drink. Good move by the park here.

Ah sorry. I can't believe you called Euro-Sat rough.

Can't believe you called Wodan rough.

Wasn't a lot of those pictures actually the staff doing it themselves and nothing to do with budget from Merlin?

Now the thing is... At this point only Oblivion and The Smiler are closed. Considering that over the last four days, Oblivion has been largely ignored by the public (We queued five minutes yesterday at 3pm whilst the Smiler was advertised at 3 hours), the only reason these people can be complaining is because of The Smiler. Does it not seem ludicrous to anyone that people are willing to wait in that long a queue outside guest services to have a moan. To have a moan when everything else is going, when there is beautiful sunshine all around them. The queues are displaced of course because of the Smiler valleying but even so it just seems beyond me that people travel across the country for the sole purpose of wanting to ride one attraction.

You'd get worked up if you were going and got spited by the Smiler because a train stalled. You'd understand but it is still frustrating for those that go up there. Just saying

My UK top ten. 1. Nemesis 2. Oblivion 3. Grand National 4. The Smiler 5. The Swarm 6. Speed: No Limits 7. Dragons Fury 8. Nemesis Inferno 9. Megafobia 10. Stealth

A guest yesterday said "They'll have to rename it as I'm certainly not smiling" I was surprised to find out it wasn't Marc actually :angel:

It was time for the final park of the trip, Fàrup Sommerland which featured delights such as Lynet and Falken. Unlike the rest of the parks on the trip, here you pay for entry as soon as you drive into the car park. Thank god we had money with us in the car. The front gates have no turnstiles so you just stroll into the park. Interesting system. Naturally our first target was Lynet, a Gerstlauer launching roller coaster featuring six seater cars, a cool launch and two inversions. Whilst this had the odd shoulder bashing moments this is a top ride. The launch for example is very good as is some of the ejector airtime featured throughout. The inversions are taken quite slowly meaning there is a good level of hand time at the top of the inversion and the ride is long enough to not make you feel disappointed. Love the green We then headed off for our next roller coaster, the fantastically named Flagermusen. A spinning reverchon which was closed due to someone seeing their dinner making a return. So instead we headed to the vekoma junior skater which was diabolically rubbish. Just so bad. We took a moment out to play on some climbing frames before decided to ride the log flume with the stupidly aggressive last drop which literally halts the boat in its tracks and sends everyone flying forward. Good ride though and suitably wet. It was time for Ice Age 4D, Danish style featuring an insane Danish woman who decided to spray us with misters at every opportunity. This version features seats that move with the film. This gets tiresome very quickly as everytime a larger character touches the floor, the seats move like they are on acid and they try and throw you off at every opportunity. It was becoming apparent that the rides are not the main appeal of Fårup. Instead its the large adventure areas which wouldn't get past Health and Safety in the UK such is the nature of the attraction. I do admit these aren't my kinds of things to do but nevertheless I joined the group in running through tunnels, using boats to cross streams and jumping over stepping stones. The final rollercoaster of the trip was Falken, an S&S wooden rollercoaster built by Gerstlauer. This had some excellent air time throughout but it was pretty rough and ready and felt like riding a milk van on steroids everytime it attempted to turn a corner. The others seemed to enjoyed its merriness in any respect so maybe it was just me. So with 6 new parks and nearly 30 new rollercoasters completed it was time to say goodbye to the Danish way of dreaming up rides. It is worth doing at least once in a coaster enthusiasts lifetime because some of the rides such as Piraten, Juvelen and Ruschtebanan are truly excellent quality. It's a land where Intamin and Gerstlauer rule the roost and this sometimes come up with some pretty crappy rides (Tornado, I'm looking at you). But for a country which is forward thinking and logical, I recommend a trip to Denmark full heatedly Danish top ten 1. Juvelen 2. Piraten 3. Ruschtebanen (Tivoli) 4. Ice Pilots 5. Dæmonen 6. Thors Hammer 7. Lynet 8. Polar X-Plorer 9.Laser Raiders 10. Svend Svingarm For those that have read any of my Danish endeavours, thanks for taking the time to read. This topic will self destruct in 5....4.....3...2....1 =@

It was up and at them onto the fire academy thing where Holly and I got bored of trying to save the Lego men and decided to let them burn instead. Then onto Laser Raiders which is far better then the UK version. The Billund one is more like an omnimover then ours and features a Terror Tomb tribute as its finale. Everyone loves Egyptian rock music. Next was the Mack wild mouse which was pretty rubbish. Legoland seem obsessed with trimming these rides down to ridiculous levels which is fine if the ride didn't start with a fantastic first drop. If you don't want speed why add that in the first place. I don't have any photos of some of these rides because.. I didn't We made our way onto the Mack Powered dragon coaster. Good ride this although it really needs a second train as the queue spirals pretty quickly. I do think this is one ride where the UK equivalent is better. More rides were undertaken such as the rapids with its huge drop, a Pirate cruise ride which was pretty standard dark fare and we saw a show where one of the characters was referred to as Danish Mark9. I disagree. As the day wore on, we had a look through their version of Atlantis which had some cool props in the tanks which did things at the push of a button, had a ganger at model world, watched a terrible show featuring idiotic animals being powered up by cheese and then had a few goes on Polar X-Polar, Dragen, Laser Raiders and Ice Pilots before descending on the shops and home. This is a great park really and puts ours to shame. Even though it felt busy, the queue-times were minimal. Considering some rides were on lower capacity.. this was welcomed.

Had my first go on The Smiler today, we queued for about two hours and twenty minutes including a twenty minute breakdown whilst we were in the station. It certainly is a very impressive ride and completely dominates X-Sector. The roaring of the trains is particularly loud and really catches your attention, particularly when two of the trains travel around together. A few noteworthy points - This ride is a massive hit with the public. Everyone was getting off completely blown away by the ride itself. I know it seems rather much of a contrivance, but the smiles were so big it almost was like people were being marmalised by the attraction. The last time I saw general public photoing a ride like this was Stealth back in 2006. It seems the GP have been rather taken by it. - The queueline effects are okay but not to important to the ride. A nice distraction from queuing if nothing else. - Despite the ride having 14 loops, it's the air time hills that are the most fun element of the ride. Particularly the second one which really makes you fly out of your seat. - The first half of the ride is the smoother and the sequence of inversions made me quite dizzy. The brief stop with the vertical lift hill is a welcome restbite from the craziness. There would be a lot more sick if the ride carried on with the last set of inversions. - The second half is far more gruelling in terms of roughness. There's a particularly point in the middle of the batwing that really jolted the car. That one jolt is worse then Saw's awful beyond vertical drop. I worry how bad that things gonna be in several months time. As it stands its not very welcome after four full days of operation. - The reliability doesn't seem to be anywhere near where it needs to be. We witnessed at least four lengthy breakdowns and the final one, with two trains stuck at the bottom of the second lift hill caused a queueline evacuation and free tickets to be given out. - Unfortunately the marmaliser spider doesn't add much to the ride due to the fact the cars travel just too fast past it all. I only noticed the water sprayers, the other arms didn't even seem apparent which is a shame. Despite this, it's an excellent visual element to the ride and absolutely towers over the area. - The music is fantastic, even after listening to it after nearly four collective hours. It's a worthy addition to the Towers and really adds something unique to the park. You can say what you like about all of Towers main roller coasters, but you can't deny they all have their roles to play in the park and each offer something totally different. My personal towers list goes Nemesis, Oblivion, The Smiler, Air, Thirteen and Rita.

Legoland Billund With the other parks, you expected some oddities. Here all bets were off and it was time for the Danes to really show us Brits how it's done. Our first surprise was seeing that the car parking charge is cheaper here then it was at Bon Bon land and Bakken. (Djurs doesn't count, it was free to park there ). One up for the Merlin heads then. Secondly, as this was the first Legoland park, it's quite clear that love and passion go into the whole park as a whole. The park looks fresh and painted and everything has a sparkle to it. But then the sun was out. Polar X-Plorer Our first stop was inevitably going to be this and as you would expect some comparisons with Thirteen are going to be in abundance. The two ride types are so similar and yet so differently. I have a clear favourite which should make itself apparent. The first thing that makes itself apparent is theme. Thirteen is dark and mysterious whilst it sits there in the Staffordshire sun whilst Polar is nice and frosty as it sits in the Billund sun. I prefer Polars on the basis that it suits my fun and comical tastes more then another dark and depression ride at Towers does. The trains on both rides are pretty similar, both feature a simple lap bar and both dispatch very quickly and without fuss. Thirteen may have the edge with its three train operation but then we did only see one train on Polar. Polar starts immediately with some fantastic speed, gliding smoothly over a hill, around the icy mountain, through the mountain and some very forceful pockets of force on its first part of the circuit. Thirteen on the meantime is tripping over itself on the very first drop, being trimmed to high heaven and awkardly taking hills at silly angles like it was designed by an alcoholic. So far, Polar is running away with it. But Thirteen has an ace up its sleeve. Polar loses steam the moment it enters the drop mechanism area. Unfortunately the screen above the train wasn't working so all we got was some sound effects of ice cracking. On our first ride we sat at the back and it all becomes way too obvious what is going to happen. Every part of the drop mechanism can be seen and there is no door closing off the sunlight so you are drenched in light. You know exactly what's going to happen the moment you enter. It doesn't help that once the small vertical drop has been achieved, it takes some time for the two tracks to line up to get you on your way again. For all of Thirteens faults, Intamin got the sudden drop in the dark absolutely perfectly as did Alton with the Wraith theming. The speed of Thirteens drop mechanism works incredibly well and is far more effective, particularly with the backwards section in the dark. Thirteens second half then is very good quality and the launch too the station is beautiful. Polar gets it wrong completely ambling stupidly too the station, heads between its knees, almost embarrassed that it used all its tricks on the first half of the ride and lacking anything else of substance. Viewing the penguins helps but not by much. What we have here is two decent family rollercoasters that if were fused together would be the ultimate ride for every member of the family too ride. The sharp and speedy and excellent start to Polar X-Plorer, mixed with Thirteens drop in the dark and backwards segment would have tongues wagging. Shame that one half lies in England and the other half lies in Denmark. Ice Pilots I think a lot of enthusiasts in their own heads would like to design their own ride cycles, to have the freedom to control riders through an attraction. Here you control your own destiny on a ride that is essentially the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey arms in a circle. For those that haven't ridden you sit in your seats which is attached to an arm and the arm takes you through the ride. At the start of the queue you are given a card where you choose the type of ride you wish to go up against. These go from one to five, one being kind and five being crazy. Holly and I chose four for our first go. Using a computer screen you choose several steps for the ride to take. These can range from going back and fourth sideways or going down before heading for the roof upside down and spinning. The amount of different sequences gives this ride an added sense of rerideability and it helps that you along with your other eleven riders feel like you're part of an experiment, of who can tackle the most fearsome and awesome settings. It's a laugh a minute attraction and well worth queuing for. And finally for 'Ice world'.. PENGUINS!

This is my second attempt at this part of the trip report. I thought I'd let you know Thors Hammer An excellent ride this, Gerstlauer did wonders with the wild mouse concept for their own designs. This is more flexible and fun then your Mack/Maurer equivalent due to the different things it can do. No such thing as a helix on Rattlesnake, that's okay as your Gerstlauer ride can do tight helixes, hairpin turns, large and small dips, tightly banked corners with no trouble at all. Thors Hammer is a clone of G'Sengte Sau which itself is an excellent ride. It's no wonder G'Sengte Sau was an immediate success for the company. Skattøen A Mack water coaster, but better then its longer brothers at Europa Park and Seaworld Orlando. One of the main reasons is that on Skattøen there is no faffing about with the boat sailing to the next part of the ride. Skattøen gets on with the ride and on its way is smooth and wetter then others. This ride takes the coaster section and double dip finale of Poseidon, fuses them and somehow creates a better ride. Probably for the best as it was only running two boats on our trip. Weird bird topple tower I have always wanted to ride one of these, even though this particular ride created a huge legal battle between Dollywood and Huss. Clearly Huss thought this was the next generation of thrill ride following their successful attractions during the 80's and 90's. It doesn't quite work because the over-large restraint removes and fear of you falling to your doom from the tower. Whilst on it and moving around you feel like you are on the crest of a wave. It just isn't enough when newer rides are doing so much more with less. We had goes on other rides around the park including the better then normal rapids ride, the kiddy coaster and even had a play around in the parks fun areas. Particularly highlight was the trampolines and the giant bouncy cushion. Our final surprise was the Jungle Cruise rip off. At first its all very predictable with cute animatronic cats and gorillas attacking explorers. But out of nowhere King Kong appears and it gets a bit scary. To conclude on Djurs Sommerland, it is an excellent park with some proper good attractions. Juvelen is an obvious highlight but with rides like Piraten, Thors Hammer and Skattøen to try it is well worth a visit. I leave you with an adorable dog.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YOiG1zlXZoQ/Uaf3NWmOVZI/AAAAAAAAbuI/BvU4IGj8NNE/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-05-30+at+9.04.30+PM. All aboard the hype train. Dark green B&M supports at the plant in Ohio. Could it be Heide's rumoured B&M or is it travelling somewhere else??!

Sweet Jesus. Thanks Chessington for raping more of my theme park childhood memories. Much love, Mark9

I'm not sure whats worse, the people who haven't ridden it and calling it rubbish or the people who are dismissing it because its a Gerstlauer. Enthusiasts, for people who are supposed to love theme parks and rides are the most fickle and narrow minded people of the lot sometimes.