Euro-fortnight

[Mark9]

So..Europa Park.

I think it's quite clear that you know the drill by know. Any review or trip report from Europa Park basically comes back that it is the best park in the world. From lovingly planted flowers in Spain to refurbished boats/trains on Euro-Sat and Poseidon and the new ride Wodan, Europa Park has reaffirmed itself in my affections after a long three year gap.

Monday 13th May

Instead of taking the dreaded Ryanair, we instead went for a train travel approach. Using Eurostar, TGV and local train services takes up a lot of the day but you don't have to fly Ryanair which is a positive in anyones book. Upon arrival at Bell Rock which was our choice of hotel this time around, we were offered with park entry for 9 euros from 4-6pm or free entry after 5. We went for the free entry so we could settle down but it is good the park offer you these perks.

Our room was gorgeous, there was some fantastic little touches in there and it felt so light and roomy compared to say, Disney hotel rooms. 4:50 hit and off to the park we left. The hotel area connects straight into the Spanish area of the park and what's near by? Yep, Blue Fire and Wodan were calling. Our first stop was Blue Fire and then to Wodan.

Blue Fire.

I have to admit to having a certain amount of fear that Blue Fire would not be as fantastic as I remembered. I don't know how I could have been so foolish as Blue Fire really is a class act all the way. The lap-bar itself is the rides dark horse. After years of Rita, Stealth, Furius Baco, iSpeed and Cheetah Hunt trying to decapitate me, it is a breath of fresh air to be able to enjoy a launched coaster of this calibre in this way. What astounds me is how wonderfully smooth it is. I always expect some kind of shakiness as the train plunges into its vertical loop but it never comes. It tackles each element superbly with grace, speed and a good amount of air time throughout. That final inversion is my favourite inversion of any ride. And it is all down to that lap-bar. I'm relieved that these types of coasters are selling like hot cakes, as it is fully deserved by Mack.

Wodan.

This is the newest wooden rollercoaster I have ever ridden. For some reason, I never make a plan based on a wooden roller coaster which seems odd when I actually quite like them. Even the roughest of the rough is enjoyable even if it is teeth chattering. Onto Wodan then and this really is a tour de force of throughput, theming and insanity. The theming is second to none. 2012 really was a bumper year of rides when you think of how much was added and how good it all was. Anyway Wodan. This thing generally runs three trains at a time and because the park has no form of fastrack the queue constantly moves. Wodan was our longest wait of the trip with a poultry half an hour queue which included them adding a train after a Blue Fire rollback/closure. Wodan itself is quite something. One thing for sure is is a pacey little thing, speeding through its circuit at full whack and never letting up. It's a pleasant kind of roughness as well, as the train jerks you from left to right and up and down and yet never feeling uncomfortable. It's interaction with Blue Fire and Atlantica isn't really there to be honest, but when you're flying through at such speed this is a tiny, irrelevant criticism.

What's even better then two high quality rollercoasters at the best park in Europe?

Only Olly Murs at Europa Park is what! Did anyone know he was big in Europe?

And with that hour done it was back to the hotel and for a meal in their restraunt. This was pricey (32 euros) but was very nice food. You certainly wouldn't see things like the below picture at Splash Landings..

Recommended by the chef.

And with that it was sleepy times, ready for a full day in the park.

[Mark9]

Tuesday 14th May 2013

Off into the park we ventured. For hotel guests Spain, Austria, Portgual, Scandinavia and occasionally Blue Fire are open. Not a bad effort although most people wait for Wodan to open. We never saw the point, it's not as if queues for Wodan spiral out of control from 9am opening. We had our rides on Blue Fire and Wodan before venturing into the rest of the park. Our first stop on our travels was Euro-Mir. Now, I never realised it had such a negative reputation in enthusiast circles. For once I disagree with common belief and will go on to say I really like Euro-Mir for its originality, its soundtrack and it is a really fun and sometimes thrilling ride. Sure it has problems such as its roughness and the way it slams into its final break run. But I am fond of it so there.

Before leaving the Russian area we had a go on the Russian sleigh ride, one of those small insignificant attractions that looks like it was put there for the sole reason that they could. It's okay and worth a go once on the trip. Our next stop was Greece, with one of my favourite attractions...

PEGASUS!

I love Pegasus, I mean sure it's a kiddy coaster and quite short but it has some wonderful moments such as its brilliant first drop, its little spot of air time half way though and the way it's throughput could make most UK coaster cry. I love it.

Speaking of which, Europa have now added proper queue boards to the majority of the main attractions. very useful, although for our particularly trip, they rarely ventured above 10 minutes.

Our next stop was the rough and ready Poseidon, then the quirky but unsatisfying Cassandras Curse and to round off Greece, Atlantis Adventure with its amazing soundtrack.

Gloomy weather.

Switzerland was next, an area that I never found any interest in but this time, I really loved both Schweizzer Bobbahn and Matterhorn Blitz. The throughput on Matterhorn was astounding. We worked out that a car was heading by every 15 seconds. By the power of math we worked out that during an hour the throughput of this ride was 960 people per hour. This, one of the lower throughput rides at the park. As a comparison, Rattlesnake at Chessington has a target of 350pph. This is why I love Europa Park. Built to power through people. No faffing, no pointless guest interaction that hampers targets and the best part is how the parks guests know the score too. Germans have this uncanny ability to help the staff reach their throughput targets. Single riders will throw themselves forwards, groups of two's are naturally called forward by people ahead. We were not queue-jumped at any point during our four day visit. I just love this park.

And so onto Silver Star which had a lot to do for me. Shambhala had sent it flying across the water so I wasn't expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised. Thankfully, new magnetic trim breaks have been added to the ride replacing the clunk mechanical ones. This does a lot as you cannot feel the effects of the trims as strongly. Secondly, I don't know what the ride was on but it had heaps of air time, particularly towards the end of the ride. Hills which did little before, are now sending you flying upwards in ejector air time. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to work out the throughput but lets put it this way.. It was running three trains and the trains never stacked outside the station (or even stopped, they just went straight in). According to RCDB its throughput is 1750 an hour. I'd put my life on it that it was higher.

[Matt 236]

Great trip report, I think one of these day sim going to have to get a plane flight over to Europa for 2/3 days in the future.

[Ryan]

Making me excited for next Wednesday

[Smidget]

Talks about a potential Europa trip around this time next year - this trip report just makes me want it to become a 'definite' rather than a 'maybe'.

[Dan9]

If the possibility is there, Europa is a must for any fan of theme parks. Even if you aren't a seasoned keen-bean world-travelling enthusiast, I'd dare you to go there and not fall in love with the place. Everything about it emits charm and class.

[Benin]

If the possibility is there, Europa is a must for any fan of theme parks. Even if you aren't a seasoned keen-bean world-travelling enthusiast, I'd dare you to go there and not fall in love with the place. Everything about it emits charm and class.

Mack

Also has one of the best coasters in the world... And even the worst coaster (Bobsleigh) is the best of it's kind... There are very few (if any) bad aspects to it...

Truly, the perfect park...

[Deleted Users]

^Bench The Ride is great.

Euromir is a bit deathly if you are in the last car and are backwards for the last section but otherwise I love it. Great report as ever Mark.

[EC!]

I really want to go to Europa Park, it looks awesome and it looks like you had a really good time.

[Mark9]

Before I get to the next ride I wanted to share some general area photos for you.

I've seen it argued that Europa Park is only so amazing because the money they save on rides they build can make better theming for those rides. Completely wrong. Europa Park is the best theme park in Europe because the managers, the staff care about their park. Every day we saw the bins around the park being washed by staff. Signs and windows of shops being sparkled up. Euro-sat trains have been refurbished so that the cars now have individual lap-bars and the same is happening on Poseidon. We saw engineers repainting Poseidon boats backstage and a broken down piece of theming on Atlantis Adventure was being fixed whilst the ride was running. Landscapers painting dozens of new flowers around Fairy ride and Spain. You can build lots of theming everywhere but its the care that matters the most. And Europa shows their passion through every scenic element. Which brings me onto Historama, a Mack showroom, detailing every year of the park and some of the design elements and models for some attractions.

A show occurs underneath food-loop and whilst the language barrier is quite strong, the message is unquestionable. Mack have a lot of pride and love for their park. Deservedly so too.

Eurosat is one of the parks most intense ride and not one to be trifled with. It's queue for example moves like lightening. The ride itself is similar to Space Mountain in Florida. Without giving too much away, its one you need to brace yourself on because some of those turns are lethal on the knees. All said and done, this is up there with Blue Fire, Wodan and Silver Star and shouldn't be missed.

Another coaster, this time Atlantica Supersplash and admittedly it is not my favourite attraction and one of the parks weaker offerings. It lacks that certain something that other rides offer. Its theming is top notch so it's more the ride itself that the issues lie. Dare I say it, it's kind of boring. Compared to the novelty of Blitz's elevator lift hill or Poseidons narrative, spinning around on a turntable at Atlantica isn't that exciting. It doesn't help that the drop isn't much exciting and you don't get wet either. The long float back to the station to leave doesn't help matters. Shame really as on paper it looks exciting.

[pluk]

Clearly it is a travesty I have not been here... yet.

[JoshC.]

The more and more I look up Europa Park, read trip reports, etc., the more and more I want to go, and the sooner too. May just have to get saving for a trip next season...

Great report as ever Mark - thanks for doing it; really enjoying it and can't wait for the next part!

[Cernuschi]

Great report. I went last year during the summer period and even though it was busy, the park was so efficient that I managed to do all the coasters at least twice!

It really is a fantastically run, beautiful park!

[Mattgwise]

Nice report. I also went here for the first time last summer and am already eager to return, although will probably wait until next year now.

Fantastic park and run so well.

[Mark9]

So it was back to the UK Thursday night, a rest day on Friday and then back into Europe, more specifically Denmark. We landed in Copenhagen which is one of the most beautiful and cultural cities I've visited. It's a beautiful place and one thing that struck me was how good the city makes you feel. Denmark is quite a liberating place, having a monarchy that everyone likes, the first country in the world to accept civil partnerships and generally, the Danish being very happy and content people. There was an atmosphere in the city too, maybe because of the fact Eurovision was across the pond in Sweden and the Danish entry was hotly tipped to be the winner. Would it be? Who knows. So we all decided to take a little journey around the city finding Tivoli Gardens, slap back in the middle of the city. Take a little gander and who should peak out next to a cycle lane.

Yay, it's only Dæmonen, the smallest B&M ever made. We'd be trying that out the next day but for now it was time to grab some typically Danish food (MCDonalds) and to retire to the hotel room to watch Denmark take victory (with a little help of 12 points from the UK) at Eurovision.

The next day arrived, as did a typical Danish weather system, pouring rain. Undeterred, we set out to Tivoli Gardens where the park opens at 11, the rides open at 11:30 and the park stays open until 10pm on a Sunday night. If you don't know anything about the park, well here's a brief lesson. It is the fourth most visited theme park in Europe and is as famous for its fountains and gardens as it is for its rides and rollercoasters. We started the trip with a bang so to speak, a B&M right in the middle of Copenhagen and Rutschebanan, a 99 year old rollercoaster which features a break person who controls the speed of the train.

Dæmonen is one of the less ridden B&M's on UK forums due to the fact that many UK enthusiasts never bother with Denmark. It is the smallest B&M out there, with only six rows per train and a tiny layout packed into a very small space at the side of the park. It's theme is loosely Chinese however none of this is really evident on the ride. It is very difficult to really criticise the ride for its lack of substance. It was designed to pack three inversions into a thirty second ride and it does this with relative ease. It does have doses of intensity particularly in its first proper drop and the inline twist is very good. It really doesn't do enough to really compete with Superman de Acero or Kraken and I haven't the heart to call it a crap coaster on the basis that it doesn't really do enough to offend or make me fall in love with it.

The parks other main rollercoaster is Rustchebanan (Rusty Banana). Wooden rollercoasters have a reputation for roughness which is sometimes warranted if your only coasters are Stampida and the Grawzi twins. This wooden coaster in Denmark which completely reverse your view. For a 99 year old ride it is smooth as silk, gracefully gliding through its layout packing massive bouts of airtime throughout. Unlike the majority of modern wooden rollercoasters which just want to speed you through the layout as quickly as possible, Rusty Banana has those moments that lets you recover and be staggered that such an old ride can be so wonderful and well maintained. It is a gem of a ride and agreed by all on the trip to be the best ride at Tivoli.

The park features other rides such as a very odd Mack powered roller coaster, a breakdance ( ), dodgems with guns, a creepy chest dark ride that takes you through Hans Christien stories and masses of spinning flat rides that threatened to see lunch return. Benin and Nicky rode on Vertigo, an insane spinning ride. I opted out, it just wasn't for me.

Our final highlight was seeing the Danish Eurovision winner perform live at the park. For a moment, we all felt very patriotic towards Denmark and part of a moment.

To conclude, if you ever find yourself in Copenhagen, definitely give Tivoli Gardens a visit. It is a park of an incredibly high standard and well worth a visit.

[Mark9]

Bon Bon land

This is a fond favourite park of Theme Park Review. It is a park full of potty jokes such as ants weeing into pots and dogs farting on you. The only problem being that this is all surface level theming. Below the surface the atmosphere and theme of the park is vacuous and lacking massively. We arrived on time and walked over to the parks main attraction, Vild Svinet which was the worlds first Euro-fighter. For some reason it didn't open on time so we took a ride on a kiddy coaster named Venidorm which after a great start, trundled round aimlessly in a field for a bit. Definitely a rollercoaster designed on RCT2 and then bought to life at Bon Bon land.

Vild Svinet then opened and it was off we went. The theme of the ride is animals going for a race. The theme isn't too bad and for the parks main rollercoaster it hits some notes well. The only problem is that the ride itself is rather unremarkable. Like Dæmonen, it is too short and lacking in substance to be offensive. It's a tiny little ride for a start and features a solitary vertical loop. It's easy to see how rides like Mystery Mine and Speed were born from this tiny roller coaster but unfortunately they leave Vild Svinet for dust.

Unfortunately the Gerstlauer spinning coaster never opened for our trip so with heavy hearts we went and tackled the parks giant frisbee ride. This was a strange ride as the disc continually changed direction throughout the rides duration. It gave stacks of air time as the disc seemed to fight gravity at the top of every swing and stay at maximum height for what felt like an age. The parks first impressive ride on our visit.

Our next stop was a Fabbri drop tower, the same as Detonator. It provided the same ride experience with none of the atmosphere of Thorpe's red wonder. We wondered off to the parks rapids ride which wasn't particularly interesting. The water was brown for example but luckily we didn't get wet. We rode Dillen, a Huss invention which wasn't particularly thrilling. We rode on the dog fart rollercoaster (It's Danish name is way to long) which was shockingly bad so no wonder TPR love it, rode the parks drunk turtle wave swinger and then ended up something called pom pom horses. It's for kids but we were desperate for something a bit different. This wasn't great and hurts your legs after a while.

Our final ride before lunch was an awful boat ride which took you around the world. The animatronics were awful, they either didn't move or made a windscreen wiper look animated, it was slow and all the countries we visited were stereotypical and poor.

We indulged in a coleslaw with pulled pork burger and played Top trumps at lunch. I'm not sure why Jimmy Neutrons atomic rider is considered more intense then Diamondback but apparently it is so sorry B&M. With nothing we wanted to reride we had a go on a pedal attraction..

and then journeyed around an area known as Fantasyland.. hmm. It was warped and weird but featured a ball pit which we very much enjoyed.

I leave you with a farting hippo. Thanks for reading.

[Pickles]

The look on my face on the horses says it all XD...

[Mark9]

Bakken - 21st May

And now the review I've been looking forward to more then any other. Bakken is an amusement park near Copenhagen. According to the map it is the oldest amusement park in the world. It is a shame that there is nothing 'amusing' about this park in the slightest. Too the dry sick staining an exit platform to operators openly smoking and answering phones whilst operating their Intamin family coaster, the park has nothing in my mind but bad thoughts. So too start off...

Tornado.

There are very few amusement parks that have a permanent Intamin in them in the same way that Bakken does. For those that don't know, Tornado is the worlds first and only Intamin spinning roller coaster. Emphasis on the only here. Tornado is truly dire and makes Furius Baco look like absolute genius. It all begins with the car itself. The rides loading and exit platforms are too thin so the metal along the sides of the car could start to cut you up if you dawdle. The car has the horrific restraints which are more material then the plastic used on Stealth and Rita. This does not change the outcome in any way. So you get in your car and the first thing that becomes apparent is that the car doesn't ever actually lock the spinning, Unlike Fury or Spinball where the car locks straight on to enter the station, Tornado does not. This creates a nice surprise when you leave the station and the operator decides to kick start your ride. So you enter the lift hill. It's rather speedy you notice. So far so good.

And then it goes to the cobbles. For some reason Intamin decided a simple lift hill wasn't enough and decided at the last minute the chain should launch you straight into a corner without any warning or notice. This does two things.

1) Creates a lot of pain. We all had bruises somewhere and the restraint even cut into Benin.

2) Destroys any sense of enjoyment as you brace yourself at every minute without enjoying any aspect of the ride.

I don't actually remember much of the rest of the ride. Both times we rode, all I could do was try and hold the restraint away from my shoulders and hope I could stand the rest of the attraction. I just couldn't. Even the finale caused the car to vibrate horrifically. It doesn't do this for the rest of the ride so I have no idea what causes this vibration. Entering the station, we were just so thankful for it to be over. It is an absolute disaster of a ride and I can't think of anything positive to say about it.

Awful doesn't even cover it.

So with myself in a bad mood, we headed to the second wooden rollercoaster of the trip, Rustchebanan. This ride was originally run in the same way as Rustchebanan at Tivoli, Bakken in their infinite wisdom decided to get Kumbak in, that famous manufacturer who has destroyed several rides in their short careers. They do their greatest damage here. Any sort of momentum or speed that the train builds up is immediately crushed and neutered by the over the top magnetic breaks. Every corner, every drop, ever incline is tamed down completely. Tivoli's was smooth, Bakkens was rough as hard nails and any sense of personality has been thrown out in favour of saving money on a break man.

Two headline rollercoasters, two massive let downs. Hopefully it was too go up from here....

[Mark9]

I wish I could say that the rest of the parks offerings were going to impress me. It took a lot of effort but there are some positive things.

Mine Train Ulven

This is the same ride type as Thirteen at Towers and the difference between the two is staggering. Ulven has a fantastic first drop which just seems to get steeper and steeper. Throughout the ride are little pops of air time, the helixes throughout are pretty forceful, enough to give me a bit of black out and the ride cars themselves are comfy. It also is pretty well themed for Bakken, with rock work hiding the ride away from the parks pathways. Intamin prove here that they can build good roller coasters which are comfortable to ride and full of variation so why is it when they try and break the mould, it all ends in disaster. Credit to them, they try and do things differently but it is too hit and miss to work.

We made our way onto our next roller coaster, a simple one carried ride called Racing. I genuinely thought this attraction could have been the nail in the coffin. It looks cheap, it looked rough and it looks uncomfortable. It was anything but and was officially my favourite rollercoaster at Bakken. What works is that the ride builds up the ride well, starting slowly with little turns and then running into long drawn out, forceful helixes. We all decided to ride by ourselves but I wonder how the extra weight of another person in the car would affect the ride experience.

Our next stop was VILDE MAUS. This was no Rattlesnake I can tell you. With a layout almost exactly the same but built by Mack this should have been standard fair. Nothing remarkable but fun all the same. It wasn't. For some peculiar reason, at the top of every incline the car almost shunted its wheels along the track giving a very uncomfortable feeling throughout. It was fine on the bends at the top of the ride but once it got going it was torture. It makes no sense when so many other wild mouses such as Matterhorn Blitz and Rattlesnake get it right. It was for this reason that Vile Mouse got no rerides that day.

I must have been full of ride related rage as I have no other pictures from the day. So I'll leave it to Benin to visually show you what else was there to 'experience'. From me though, there was the funhouse which was fun until you got too the second level and realised nothing worked. There was the spinning dodgem cars which was fun when you just spun around in a circle but not really a dodgem ride. There was the S&S shot tower which was shorter then most and full of air time (and actually good). There was the staples such as the tea cup rides, themed to Africa no doubt. And there was an odd shoot em up hall where your seat moves like you're on a horse whilst you shoot a giant screen. The park opened at 2 and closed at 11pm. We stayed till 5:30. Enough said.

[Mark9]

Djors Sommerland - Day 6

And now my friends is a story about how an enthusiast can be wrong. We've all been there such as the sheer will power that refused to believe Swarm would go backwards. And here is my humility moment.

It's no secret that I don't enjoy Intamin rides as much as most. For me they are the most over-rated company in existence either directly copying their competitors with cheap knocks off like Tornado in Spain or creating abominable rides that shame the company like Tornado in Denmark and Furius Baco. Their rides see the most after construction changes (Colossus, Maverick, Intimidator 205) and some just want to downright kill or maim their riders (The mega's, the Supersplash rides, the launch coasters)

Well my friends.. I have found the park where for once all the planets align and the perfect Intamin attractions were born. No I'm not talking about coasters that launch you 400 feet into the air and barrel roll into the sun and I'm certainly not talking about the over-rated Expedition Ge Force.

I'm talking about Juvelen (hastily renamed Joyvelen), a family launch rollercoaster. This ride is absolutely fantastic and such pure unadulterated bliss to ride that I have no choice in renaming it the ride of the trip.

At first the signs looked bad. The ride had not opened in time with the park and we had to wait a little while to ride. We found out this was due to flooding in the queue line from the torrential rain we had driven through the previous day. The queueline is similar to Wodan's actually, intricately themed with lots of darkness and spot lighting. The ride was only running one train but it didn't need its second. We headed for the back of the train on our first goes. At first it would seem to suffer from a long Intamin problem, the lack of leg space. For taller riders this may be a problem but for all of us this wasn't too bad. The cars themselves are a nice bright red and themed to motorbikes. The position itself lends itself to you pretending to be a motorbike driver but it does something else. When holding onto the handlebars you make yourself more prone to the elements of the attraction. I'll explain this further later on but suffice to say, the ride truly benefits from not having a conventional lap-bar or over the shoulder restraint.

Ride loaded, the doors open and you are wheeled out into a pre show room. I've no idea what was being said because of it all being in Danish but I'd bet its some kind of curse and you've disturbed the ancient ruins and you shall now face the curse. Being on motorbikes we can escape I presume. I prefer the launch on this kind of attraction to one on say Stealth or iSpeed. The problem with the INSTANT launch is that you can never feel the momentum build. Joyvelen builds up the speed at a steady pace so you feel the full speed. Like Rita, you are thrown into a corner but here it is just so much fun. The ride heads into an air time hill which is felt at full force in the back. You head around another corner, back around another corner through a tree and then into the rides second launch. Now, I've been down this road before with Cheetah Hunt. There it was a means to an end in a ride that was clearly just treading water. Here the second launch is the part two of the story, the Return of the King to the rides Two Towers. And what a joy it is. The acceleration this time feels faster and more sustained as the ride sends near miss waterfalls (that truly feel like near misses), proper forceful corners, turnarounds, straight pieces of track, turns over water and small air time hills at you.

When writing this I've come to realise that this and Cheetan Hunt are similar rides in who they are trying to attract to the ride. There the inversion, the restraints, the endless launches kill what could have been an excellent ride. On Joyvelen, it's like Intamin have taken the small things that work on Cheetah Hunt, magnified them and bought them to a ride that really does excel at everything it does. Some say that they don't care for family attractions and prefer the blow your brains out of larger, taller, more inverting rides. It's rollercoasters like Joyvelen, Dragons Fury and Tonnerre de Zeus that continue to thrive and bring in the new generation of coaster enthusiasts.

JOYVELEN! - 10/10

The next roller coaster is the well known in the Mitch Hawker poll but relatively un-talked about in coaster circles, Piraten. Known as a mega-lite, it topples out at just over 105 feet and does its thing in a relatively small plot of land. Now the first thing I really need to get off my chest is that there is no way this and it's three brothers are better then Nemesis and Katun. It's a good enough, even excellent attraction but for sheer force of imagination, Nemesis wins everytime. Secondly the amount of faffing around on Piraten with seatbelts and restraints and its over to the top lift-hill really take the biscuit. A week before I'd been on Silver Star where you barely have the chance to sit down before the ride is off on its merry way. Here everything is checked to the nth-degree and I get bored when I know that it doesn't have to be this way. Secondly the amount of lee weight on the seatbelt is way too small. All of us are thin people but even we struggled to get the damn thing done up.

So with the ride finally off the lift hill is over and done with quickly and you drop into a very tight turn which caused us all to grey out momentarily. It provides a nice contrast to the B&M equivalents which nearly always send you into a massive camelback. Piraten throws you into a stengel turn and then narrowly into a shed (the only thing that differentiates this from its Chinese brothers) before turning back on itself and chucking you and your fellow riders into several small air time hills that are full to the brim with ejector air time. The aggressiveness of the air time is quite unexpected particularly when you see how small these hills are. Another Stengel turn follows and the ride heads into its finale of small camel back hills.

The key to enjoying Piraten is to ride it first thing and then return to it later on in the day. The ride morphs from what is a decent if disappointing ride, too a true tour de force of Intamin ejector air time goodness. Turns that in the morning were lacking, are now chucking you off your seat at every available opportunity. You get a lot of bang for your buck with an Intamin mega-lite and I definitely wouldn't say no to a version (albeit, a more original layout) appearing at a Surrey theme park near you.

Piraten - 9/10

[Mark9]

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.

[Benin]

That dog was the best thing on the park

[Mark9]

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!

[Mark9]

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.

[Mark9]

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 =@