Early Season Mini-Scandi Tour

Last weekend was a four-day weekend in Europe so a bunch of parks were open during what is the very early season in Scandinavia. We flew to Copenhagen and then did the three open parks on the island of Zealand on the first day, namely BonBon Land, Bakken, and Tivoli Gardens.

Enjoy!

BonBon Land! This was the only park where we could have used our Club TPR cards but didn't because some nice people handed us a newspaper coupon that had an even bigger discount!

Vildsvinet (Wild Boar) is a Gerstlauer Euro Fighter.

Poor little rat! I admit that we tore through this park because we had to hit two others in the same day. I didn't see some stuff from the TPR video of the park (like the Butterfly), but we didn't really look that hard either.

Even without the scatalogical stuff, there is some great theming.

Yes, personal milestone on a Gerstlauer spinning coaster.

This giant custom Zierer Tivoli with an elevated platform was great.

The new thrill attraction this year is a spin and swing.

I liked this psycho beaver guy.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." - William Shakespeare

I'll always remember this place as the restaurant where we were introduced to Scandinavian food prices. Scarier than Balder.

Actually, the interior was pretty relaxing for a theme park restaurant.

After a fun BonBon morning, we jumped in the rental car and headed for Bakken. Pretty awesome to reserve a Toyota and get a Beemer, huh?

Bakken is arguably the oldest amusement park in the world, dating back to the late 16th Century.

Here's something you don't usually see right outside the main gate.

For your information, this park gives a discount to Club TPR members!

Pjerrot the clown is a fixture at Bakken.

VERY cool theming on Tornado, the Intamin spinning coaster. Unfortunately it was down when we got to it, but they got it up and running.

First Flitzer we've see outside of New Jersey!

Rutschebanen is a 1932 side friction woodie. Unfortunately they replaced the old trains (which had a brakeman) with new Kumbak trains.

As I said, we did get on Tornado eventually. It's an Intamin spinning coaster. The lift chain is super fast and it really flings the car over the hump, so I took a dig from the OTSRs. Ouch.

Indoor dry bumper boats.

At Bakken we discovered the Danish love for massive ice cream cones with multiple scoops and jelly and chocolate and cookies thrown in. It was like a $8 for one of these monstrosities and a miracle that we resisted the temptation.

Funhouse.

Splash battle type ride, but it was too cold.

Cute details on the Kumbak trains on Rutschebanen.

Third park of the day, the famous Tivoli Gardens, also one of world's oldest parks. Like several of the parks we hit in Scandinavia, the park began as a public gardens and became an amusement area, sort of like the way trolley parks evolved into amusement parks in the U.S.

Lots of stages with ongoing performances.

Uban oasis. Lots of places to stroll and relax. The whole place is covered with lights, but sundown is so late we really didn't get the full illumination effect.

This star flyer was awesome because you can see the whole city of Copenhagen.

Rutschebanen at Tivoli Gardens is the third oldest coaster, dating to 1914-15. As you can see, a brakeman rides along.

Or should I say brakewoman? The Danes are so progressive.

There are a *lot* of restaurants in the park.

Dæmonen is a compact B&M floorless.

Vertigo is a Technical Park Flying Fury (thanks for your post Steffen_Dk), a cross between one of those dark rides where you control rotation of the car and a skyscraper. Looks like a pretty extreme ride, but we took a pass.

This was a nice little dark ride based on the stories of Hans Christian Andersen.

Little Mermaid boob credit!

Gourmet licorice store. Europeans are way into licorice.

Well into the evening, it's still quite light out. Hope you've enjoyed. Coming up: Day 2 = The worst walkthrough EVER and Club TPR VIP treatment at Liseberg!

Nice TR! Brings all the memories flooding back from last summer. It's nice to see all the parks are looking great still, shame about the new trains at Bakken though. Had you ridden the coaster before? How does it compare now?

Dave

I see that Bakken has "faniced" up it Flitzer a bit (that almost sounds dirty). Scandinavia has a great collection of parks.

You know, I think the brakewoman at Tivoli may have been the same one who gave us a backstage tour of the ride last summer.

This was my first visit to all of these parks, so I don't know how the Kumbak trains have affected the rides. Actually, both of the old Rutschebanens ran great.

I seem to recall photos of Robb actually doing the braking on one of these. Was it at Bakken or Tivoli?

Nice pictures, a boob credit and a nerd shot too! I can't wait until TPR does a return trip to Scandi.

Great TR! Once again, all of these great European TRs make me even more exited to be moving to Italy, because I'll be right in the middle of it all! The cool BMWs that aren't sold in the US (the old 1 Series being the coolest of them all, IMO), the rides, the theming, the boobs, the.... well..... everything!

Patrick "Boobs, Beemers, Intamins, oh my!" Carnahan

Day 2 started with a ferry ride to Sweden, a stop at the very bizarre Fun City, and concluded with great visit to Liseberg.

First you wake up early and park your car on a boat.

Set sail...

...land in Sweden, drive a couple of hours and end up at one of the weirdest parks we've ever been to, Fun City near Varberg.

We had seen the credit on the road driving in, now we just need to find it.

Upon entering the park, you find some small scale climbing course stuff.

...the odd stand...

Small funhouse. This is "Fun City" after all.

Na-chuh. But we don't touch so that we can fill out the U.S. customs form with a clear conscience.

Swinging pirate ship. Little did we know that the pirate walk-through beyond it would scar us for life. More on that a little later.

There's an assortment of flats, but the place is dead.

Ticket booth, or torture chamber for unruly guests?

After going through some woods, we come to this interesting looking water park area.

We can't find the damn coaster, but we've found reindeer, or caribou. Never could tell those apart.

After walking past more animal areas over a muddy road, we finally find where we think the coaster is.

Guess what? Cheryl's face says it all. I'm too embarrassed to tell you what we paid to get into..."Fun City".

The grease monkeys were apologetic about the coaster being down, and thought they could appease us with this Car Bungy thing, which looks 10 times better than what it actually is...a car connected to some rubber bands.

We start heading back out of the park, and again pass this pirate walk-through. We decide to check it out. This was a mistake.

There was no building behind the facade. There were only small shelters housing a number of long-neglected scenes of approximately this quality.

Look at this. I have to nominate this for "Worst Walkthrough...Ever".

This particularly unnerving scene should qualify for "Worst Set of Worst Walkthrough...Ever". We got the hell out of there fast.

An hour's drive brought us to the wonderful Liseberg! And it was turning into a beautiful day.

Pay the entrance admission, then skip the ride ticket booths, make a right at the bumper cars to get to Guest Services.

At this point lovely Swedish hotties, worthy of Big Mike's lineup, will favor you with...

VIP wristbands!!! But you've gotta be a Club TPR member!!!!!

Freaking Balder man!!!

More freaking Balder.

Two Intamins in one picture!

Some Liseberg offerings are not Intamin, but they are still good.

Final run before the station of the great Lisebergbanan Zierer Schwarzkopf coaster.

Great live music but dressed as a chilling reminder of the morning's traumatic experience at "Fun Shitty".

Liseberg is also the public gardens.

I sang the "Escalator Ride" song here.

Upswinget looks like an S&S Power Screamin' Swing. These are fun.

This was a great Spooky Hotel walkthrough, and it's normally an upcharge attraction, but it's free with your VIP wristband that you got by showing your Club TPR membership card!

We were getting pretty beat by evening (notice the sun is still high). We did another run on Balder.

Then we hit a fairy tale dark ride that had a Peter Pan-like roof ride system a la Disney, but was using the musical soundtrack from Droomvlucht at Efteling!!!

Thanks for visiting Sweden with us, everyone! Day 3 is back to Denmark and three more parks!!!

This is an awesome TR. I'm really jealous. I want to go back to Scandi NOW. However, why no Gröna Lund?

Gröna Lund > everything in Denmark.

I guess the long drive might have ruled it out for a weekend trip if you weren't doing a one-way car rental. I know there's a fast train (~3 hours) from Gothenburg to Stockholm.

Thanks Martin - I added "No Fun City" to the Park Index. How much was admission about $25-$30? Don't make me look it up.

I seem to recall photos of Robb actually doing the braking on one of these. Was it at Bakken or Tivoli?

Bakken--the double downs on that ride are insane.

Awesome TR, loving Liseberg, I really need to get there at some point soon!!!

BTW - I believe $25 dollars was the entry to No Fun Park........

Great TR! Man, Europe has some crazy ass compact coasters. I wish American parks had more stuff like that. I know they don't break records, but they seem so much more interesting. Look at Boardwalk Bullet at Kemah in TX! Super compact and fun..

And uh.. yeah... Daemon looks crazy ridiculous!

This is an awesome TR. I'm really jealous. I want to go back to Scandi NOW. However, why no Gröna Lund?

 

Gröna Lund > everything in Denmark.

 

I guess the long drive might have ruled it out for a weekend trip if you weren't doing a one-way car rental. I know there's a fast train (~3 hours) from Gothenburg to Stockholm.

Absolutely right, Ginzo, just no time to go to GL. Almost added Skara Sommerland to the trip, but they were not yet open.

Here's a map of the circle route we did, flying in and out of CPH. As you can see, either Stokholm or Oslo would have been a long way out of the way. I'm just happy that we were able to hit everything planned and still get a little sleep.

Larry, the price of "Fun" City was 200 Swedish Krona, and the day of our visit the exchage was 7.7 to the greenback, so about US$26 each. To ride a rubber band car!

Thanks for the nice comments, everyone! More to come!

^Definitely put it on your to-do list. Whenever their expansion is complete, they're going to give Liseberg a serious run for their money for best park in Scandi.

Day 3 had us heading to another 3 parks, Fårup Sommerland, Tivoli Karolinelund, and Tivoli Friheden. Unfortunately, there was rain in the forecast. We had to get up really early to catch...

...another ferry, this one from Gothenberg to Frederikshavn, Denmark. This wasn't our boat but another similar ferry. This was a longer trip, about 2 hours.

Our first stop was Fårup Sommerland, which we loved. We showed our Club TPR cards and the kid waved us through to the parking lot and we walked into the park. First stop was this S&S designed, Gerstlauer built woodie, Falken.

We really liked this nice family woodie with an out and back portion and then some helix-twister elements.

Does this constitute lift hill porn?

Nice attention to detail here...after the first drop and an air hill into a tunnel, this impression of a rider who didn't strap in properly appears at the tunnel mouth!

It's a beautiful park with a lot of rustic nature, but enough attractions that you don't feel that it's empty.

This was a cool attraction: Little motorboats!

Apparently the rides are also popular with the local wildlife, featured in the park's hilarious TV commercials. You can check 'em out on the park website.

Nice raft ride.

Reverchon spinning mouse. I love the Fårup logo, with the green on top and the water blue below.

See how thick the trees and foliage are? You can't see the swings.

Lynet (Lightning) is the second Gerstlauer launch coaster we've done.

Sure enough, just took video and no pics. Duh. Here's a still from one of the videos.

Another thing we liked: fresh fruit stand in the park.

Another look at Falken. Time to head to our next park.

Karolinelund is in the Danish city of Aalborg. It was founded by the Lind family after WWII and is now owned by the city.

Once again I failed to take many pictures and this Wacky Worm was the only coaster shot that I got. They also have a Zyklon and a surprisingly smooth Boomerang. I have figured out that I don't care about the headbanging in a Boomerang, but the boomerang element itself always makes me nauseous, forward or backward. Anyone else get this?

They also had this clown.

And this also old-school dark ride. I found the nameplate...

Sweet, I didn't know that Pinfari did dark rides.

We jumped in the car and headed to another large city with a park in its midst. The city is the second largest in Denmark, Aarhus, and the park is Tivoli Friheden (Freedom).

Unfortunately the forecast rain had started on the drive to Aarhus and was going strong by the time we arrived.

Alas, we were told that the Sartori inverted "Cobra" would not be running in the rain.

Too bad, it looked like fun.

We found another really good dark ride. This one was themed to haunted hotels like in The Shining and Psycho. Good stuff.

As you can see, they had a true free fall tower (like Terminal Velocity at Extreme World in the Dells). We wanted to do it but it was rainy and cold and we basically chickened out, which was too bad because it was a small upcharge from the all ride wristband. Hopefully we'll get to do it with a million people (when you can't wimp out!) on the Middle America Tour.

Extra sour! Can you believe this?

We scored the rest of the credits and headed to the hotel, which gave us this room with an awesome view. Coming Up: Final day at Djurs!

My reaction to Boomerangs is exactly the same. I always feel nausious after riding the boomerang element backwards. "Cobra" is interesting, but not all that good.

I thought there was a Scad tower at that park. Is the Scad tower still there?

My reaction to Boomerangs is exactly the same. I always feel nausious after riding the boomerang element backwards. "Cobra" is interesting, but not all that good.

 

I thought there was a Scad tower at that park. Is the Scad tower still there?

Yeah, just wanted the credit, really.

Scad Tower? Look up three pics from your post! Thanks for reminding me of the correct name!

SCAD TOWER SCAD TOWER SCAD TOWER!!! <>

You didn't miss ANYTHING not getting on Cobra...consider yourselves lucky!

There was a SCAD Tower at Tivoli Friheden?????

"CAMEL BALLS"?!?! Ugh... no matter wether they´re sour or not... I don´t like to suck balls... Are they shaved or not

I like your TR. I want to make a skandi Tour in the next years, too. Watching the TPR videos of their trips and those Photo TR it seems, that a skandi tour is a must have done tour. Sad for yout, that the weather wasn´t good.

After a Saturday that had completely devolved into rain and a visit to the tiny Aarhus casino that only had two blackjack tables, we woke up on Sunday morning ready for our 9th and final park of the weekend...

We're at Djurs Sommerland!

Wait a second, this looks like Tobu Zoo!?!?

Freakin' awesome, Djurs has Piraten, which is the only Intamin MegaLite outside of Asia. I don't understand why US parks haven't been gobbling these up...small foot print with...

...gobs of airtime!

These things are super fun. But damn the tight Intamin t-bar restraints! You have to lose all of your body fat and still suck in your gut to get the belt done.

Did I mention that one gets a discount when one shows their Club TPR card at Djurs Sommerland????

Isn't it funny that we have the Lake Compounce ponchos in Denmark?

Here's another look at Piraten and its theming.

They had a great Gerstlauer bobsled too, like the one at Tripsdrill.

Slides are fun

Kids area

Indoor play area

Another view of Thor's Hammer

I didn't get the boob credit.

...Um, theming police?

This was a bizarre jungle adventure cruise.

Can't get the animal screeching soundtrack out of my head.

Massive climbing/ropes/obstacle course installation. Quite challenging, actually, but low enough to not require safety lines.

They sold dough that you could roast over open flame.

Ornen, a Huss Topple Tower.

We were pretty tapped out at the end of our 4 day Scandi credit tour. It's on to one more ferry and then a race back to CPH airport for the return flight to Amsterdam. Thanks for looking at our report!!!

^The baking your own bread over an open flame was my second favorite attraction at Djurs!!!

I just love the whole 'never in America' vibe all of those Danish parks have. Including the policy of actually running rides in the rain!