Due to the size of the place, a common recommendation for visiting Europa Park is that you spend a minimum of three days there. It’s the second largest park in Europe following the Disneyland Paris resort and is owned and run by the Mack family, the very same Macks that are involved in manufacturing rides that I often speak highly of. The main concept of the park is showcasing various countries throughout Europe as themed areas with their own rides and attractions. Feeling like experts at this stage in our career, we felt that we could probably manage it in two days – let’s see how that turned out.
After parking directly underneath a B&M hyper coaster – a novel place to put the car, we headed in to appreciate the scenery around the entrance area before the ride sections were opened to the public.
In terms of rollercoasters, the most significant area in the park is Iceland, home to both a Mack launch coaster and a GCI woodie. It’s a particularly beautiful area of the park with great attention to detail in theming, scenery and ride interaction.
We began with the Mack, which in a way was a showcase prototype of the new and exciting hardware that the company were introducing to the world in 2009. The same technology that later went on to create my absolute favourite, Helix.
So I was excited to say the least, to see how it all began. It didn’t disappoint.
Following a smooth launch into a high turn, it’s a very well rounded layout taken mostly with a graceful feeling rather than one of intensity. The exception to this is the final inversion, which is taken at ridiculous speed and tries to spin you out of the train, making me instinctively hold onto my head every single time.
Other highlights include the exit to the mid course brake run, the twisted airtime hill that threads the loop and the close interaction with the rockwork which simply dares you to keep your hands up at all times. The ride also has a great soundtrack, with a 90 second piece that is actually tailored to fit the on-ride experience. Sadly this only played through the onboard speakers during just 1 of our many laps, but I was overly thrilled when it happened.
Blue Fire’s wooden neighbour has a brilliant queueline that gets more and more intricate as you progress. Inside the station, there are statues high up that creepily turn their heads in sequential creaky movements to monitor the trains as they arrive and depart. For further intimidation, there’s a signature GCI station flythrough which the train simply roars through while you wait in anticipation, shaking the whole building in the process.
The start of the ride feels particularly out of control and intense, plunging it’s way through the structure. From here I found that it lacked a little definition, there were no standout moments and it rattles around some rather high up sections for longer than feels necessary.
As with the other Iceland coaster, the interaction with the scenery greatly enhances the experience and towards the end of the layout Wodan begins to improve again, hitting some unusual transitions, strange track shaping in the corners and a couple of small hills that throw you all over the place. By the end of the ride I was simply laughing through sheer joy – high praise.
Continuing on through the creds, we find the first of two Mack water coasters in the park. Located in the Portugal area, this one uses larger boat vehicles, turntables and a backwards portion of track across the top section. Again the station scenery is a particular highlight.
Over in Greece, these smaller boat/cars navigate a more significant coaster portion of twists and turns before ending in the classic splashdown.
Behind Poseidon is Pegasus, a Mack youngstar coaster which is a great family ride – very thrilling for the size and flawlessly smooth. It was running a Virtual Reality headset add-on that we tried, having not attempted any previously (it seems to be popping up everywhere). This was based on a franchise called Monster Family/Happy Family and the visuals showed some of the characters riding alongside us through various fantasy antics, the most striking moment being when one of them jumped out of their seat in close proximity. I wouldn’t particularly recommend the experience as it doesn’t really add much, especially when considered against the extra amount of time it adds to the proceedings for everyone involved.
This Mack wild mouse has a special feature, showing off an elevator lift system at the beginning of the ride in place of a traditional chain lift hill. The cars tilt rather unnervingly to the side and back again as they travel upwards before exiting the building and then traversing a mostly standard layout that never quite lives up to the initial spectacle.
Disappointly this is a rather unexciting Mack bobsled coaster. The most interesting part of the ride experience for me was appreciating the efficiency of the staff and operations here – something Europa Park are potentially the best in the world at.
Another place that VR has appeared in this park is on their Mack powered coaster. This is unfortunate as the ride spends some time in a beautiful indoor area with crystals, caverns and dragons. For some reason we chose to don the headsets again, I was underwhelmed again and I’m told that the screens weren’t even working for Mega-Lite, forcing him to sit in stunned silence throughout the ride. We made up for this by spending a lot of time exploring this magical hidden section of the park on foot instead.
As well as having this more traditional powered coaster, Europa Park saw the debut of Mack’s inverted powered coaster – a ride system that suspends guests below the track with cars that can gently rotate, it lends itself well to dark ride sections and strong theming, with good control over both the pace of the trains and the direction in which they face. I don’t quite know why, but I never took photos of Arthur. To help with the seating arrangement, the area outside the queue has a free locker system to store loose articles but it was the most complicated and frustrating encounter of the whole park. A combination of tickets, coloured lights and German men shouting are supposed to indicate which locker you have been assigned to, while other guests attempt to steal it from you or block the way and end up timing you out. Once on the ride, which is themed around the film Arthur and the Invisibles, there are several scenes on screens, a short outdoor section and a much more impressive indoor section through which the trains suddenly go swooping across a vast open area full of immersive scenery and guests walking below. Other than this particular moment, I wasn’t overly taken with the whole system. The movement was a bit clunky and I failed to follow the storytelling or be left with any other significant impression (or a picture).
For an indoor coaster that satisfies on all levels, a visit to the France area is a must. Eurosat is another Mack coaster and is situated entirely within this sphere, with an amazing soundtrack and a space theme. It utilises a spiral lift hill which appears to take several minutes to get to the top, climbing and climbing forever while the music keeps you thoroughly entertained. When it finally reaches the summit, the train begins to wind its way down in total darkness, other than the sight of an occasional illuminated planet or asteroid. The movements are totally unpredictable and in many cases completely wild and it results in a rather intense but totally joyous experience from start to finish.
Sharing a lot of features with the above, Euromir is a Mack spinning coaster with a space theme, a great soundtrack and an endless indoor spiral lift hill. The coaster portion is outdoors this time, beginning with a series of teasing turns, high up between the striking structures, before dropping into a much more intense sequence of banked corners with occasional strong spinning. It isn’t as good as Eurosat, but still rather enjoyable.
I believe that only leaves one more coaster – the big boy, the B&M hyper. In a slightly unusual change from the rest of the park, this ride is sponsored by Mercedes, has nothing in the way of scenery (admittedly hard for a ride of this scale) other than some cars in the queue and an amusing song that encourages Silver Star itself to ‘ride on.’
We tried the comfy B&M trains with their minimalistic clam shell restraints in various positions and learnt that the ride offers vastly differing experiences. The front row simply wasn’t worth our time for the unobstructed view, providing an underwhelming set of forces throughout the layout.
The back row however was a completely different beast with powerful airtime through many of the hills and a really strong and unexpected kick out of the mid course brake run that violently tried to remove me from the train.
As well as an extensive coaster selection, there are many dark rides at Europa Park.
Cassandra’s Curse was one of the stand outs for me, being Mack’s own version of a Vekoma mad house, with a bonus physical surprise in the seating that was rather fun. It lacked the ambience of my inevitable comparison for these types of rides – Hex, which I feel will put most of the ones I find in future at a disadvantage, but I thoroughly enjoyed it regardless.
The other highlight was Piraten in Batavia, a boat ride with a strong resemblance to the Disney attraction Pirates of the Caribbean. It held it’s own rather well, with several impressive sets and a strong atmosphere throughout.
There are several tracked attractions including a ghost train and a shooting ride, but none of these particularly stood out to me on the day – the sheer number of attractions we got through in a single day (actually everything we wanted) was quite overwhelming at times.
Having successfully completed the park in a single hit, we were left with the whole of the second day to take a much more relaxed pace, enjoy many re-rides and then embark on a surprise side quest (stay tuned).
I was very taken with Europa Park overall, you couldn’t hope to find a more competent park in the way that attractions are presented and operated. One thing that was missing for me was a real standout ride, something that makes me desperately want to return other than just for the park itself. I couldn’t even name a favourite coaster upon leaving and that’s not to say that more than a few aren’t really, really good, I just feel that one especially killer ride would tip the scales for me and make it something truly special, perhaps almost unbeatable.
The following morning we arrived bright and early at the home of the multi award winning Expedition GeForce – billed to be the standout coaster of the trip and a source of major excitement for us. The bright part might be a lie, it was a particularly grey and miserable day.
At the back of the park, the other major coaster was up and running so we began with that. A striking looking Premier triple launch coaster, something in particular seems to stand out – no corners. It’s very tall, high in thrills but fits into a tiny space. Sadly that means it’s going to be cloned everywhere.
With an age restriction of minimum 14 out front, the queueline for this ride contains a number of horror elements like you would find in a scare maze at a halloween event. Nervously dodging our way through that with no other guests to use as shields, we reached the station amongst the very first riders of the day.
As soon as the restraint was pushed down on me by the member of staff, I wanted to leave the ride. This wasn’t through fear, just pure pain. For some reason these restraints have what’s described as a shin bar, a particularly stiff and pointy one in this instance and it was digging right into my shin bones in the most uncomfortable manner and not wanting to cause a scene there was nothing I could do about it.
On with the ride then, teeth clenched. The shuttle launch – forwards, backwards and forwards again is surprisingly powerful, taking place over such a short space of track. With enough momentum from the last to reach the highest point of the layout, the train is rather unceremoniously thrust over the crest of the hill in what could have been quite a good moment of airtime had I not been so badly pinned in place.
The inversion across the top slowly rolls you over while I’m once again starting to wish it would just end. A trim brake teases it back into the vertical spike at the other side, resulting in the non-inverting loop being taken at a reasonable pace and with a final twist you’re racing back through the station for some braking action that could not have come soon enough for me. Please let me off now. It’s a shame as I think I would have quite liked the ride, but I have never been so negatively impacted by a train design before and I really don’t see how it’s a necessary feature. (Future note: it isn’t. Clones of the ride exist perfectly fine without it, I can only assume that it’s part of the horror theme now – planned torture). Hopefully never again.
Somewhere else in the trees hides this standard Maurer wild mouse coaster. It had a particularly brutal set of brakes at the end that stopped the car almost instantaneoulsy from high speed, but I was already immune to pain at this point in the day.
We wandered back past Expedition GeForce to see if it had sprung into life. There was activity from staff around the area and noises from the winch house that runs the cable lift hill. No luck yet though, so we found a few other attractions to tide us over.
In the family area of the park is a well themed boat ride based around the adventures of Tabaluga, a green dragon who also has a TV show. A relaxing little sit down.
Burg Falkenstein was the complete opposite of relaxing. A ghost train that bordered on the edge of disturbing in some parts, we both ended up at the exit thinking ‘nah… that wasn’t quite for me.’
Expedition GeForce was still down and we had now run out of things to do. A man at the entrance to the queue gave a shrug and couldn’t tell us any useful information.
A tasty sandwich outside Sky Scream tided us over until a show that the park was putting on in this lake arena.
Jet skis, speed boats, that water jetpack device and a slapstick plot that seemed to openly mock the French – it was entertaining enough. Would rather have been riding the ‘greatest rollercoaster in the world’ though.
So we sat outside that for an age, wishing for something to change. No further hints were given other than perhaps it was a little too cold to run ~8°C for most of the day I believe.
So we sat in the car watching it in relative comfort for an age, wishing for a train to crest the lift hill visible through the trees. It never did. This was a major spite, my first major spite (from inside a park). One of the main reasons we planned this trip and we simply couldn’t ride it. Is this what the hobby is going to be like?
2016 marked the beginning of a significant change in my theme park visiting habits. Rather than just fitting them around general travel plans with the other half, this trip with cred buddy Mega-Lite was my very first that was entirely dedicated to visiting multiple parks abroad – nothing else was on the agenda.
This particular area of Germany seemed like a good starting point for the two of us. Home to one of the most highly regarded and major theme parks in Europe as well as 9000-time winner of various greatest steel coaster in the world polls.
Today being a flight day, things began a little more low key. We started in Stuttgart and made our debut on the fabulous Autobahn.
This brightly coloured Zierer has very comfortable trains and is the most significant ride I have encounted by the manufacturer, being more used to their common Tivoli models that are nothing more than filler.
The coaster packs a surprising punch with some decent twists and turns, some particularly low to the ground and almost scraping the grass in a rather thrilling fashion. Because the park is so tiny and there was almost no one else around, we took the opportunity for plenty of laps. It’s a solid entry and justifies a visit to the park a little more than the simple transaction of €20 for a +2.
Talking of Zierer Tivolis, this appears to be one. The track is a slightly newer style but it follows the layout of a Tivoli Small. Still relatively new to the slightly more questionable side of cred hunting, this would have been an opportunity for testing our embarassment as we boarded this childrens coaster, but with still virtually no one around it was all too easy.
Took a wander to see if there was anything else worth our attention.
I really enjoyed my last Bobkart so jumped at the opportunity to try another. The rate of acceleration, all controlled by your own two hands still catches me off guard and no one has yet confirmed to me whether these tracks are intelligently built to handle full speed at all times. There’s always that slight apprehension that if you give it max from start to finish, you could just come out of the tube and die and some point. I like it that way.
Great way to kill a couple of hours before the hotel. From all that land and digging I think the park is on the up, will be interesting to see where they go from here.
How does one go about building the greatest rollercoaster in the world? Look no further than this hillside in Gothenburg for inspiration.
When talking about my hobby to anyone I am probably most frequently asked the question – ‘so what’s your favourite then?’ The reply of course is ‘Helix, it’s in Sweden’, but when it comes to explaining why that is, I find it rather difficult to do in a sentence or two. The simplest answer is that ‘it has everything’, but what does that mean to someone with no real context?
Let’s start with the ingredients.
The Layout
Having an inspirational layout is probably the most important thing I look for in a ride. It’s the core of rollercoaster design and, for me, every experience can only really be judged as a sum of its parts, rather than defined by singular moments. Simply put, the layout of Helix is a sheer masterpiece in my eyes. It does everything I love and I cannot fault it.
I already mentioned the hillside and that will be coming up a lot because it contributes to several of the factors that make this ride special. In this case, it makes the layout of the track completely unique as it is entirely built around the physical landscape found here.
The station for the ride is situated at the top of the hill, meaning that unlike most other rides, gravity is already at your disposal. There’s no need to build up that potential energy and you can start as you mean to go on – which Helix does all too well. As early as the point of dispatch, the train surges out of the station into the first drop which then immediately throws you out of your seat. Airtime already?
A wonderfully floaty inversion follows, flopping you down into the restraint and giving your first of many surreal upside down views out over the park. From here it heads round a sweeping corner, through the trees at the northern most point of the ride, above Liseberg’s quaint garden area.
That section was just a taster and now the first launch accelerates you into a larger and more spectacular inversion above the height of the starting point. We’ve got even more to play with now.
With another sweeping turn into a twisted airtime moment, the train begins to build momentum and work its way further down the hillside. The height differential of the landscape comes into play more and jutting out over the edge is a Norwegian loop.
This is a rare element, currently only found on three coasters in the world and it’s essentially a sitdown version of the Pretzel loop on flying coasters – often considered to be the most intense inversions in the world. Another way of considering it would be a standard vertical loop stood on it’s head – the heart of the element is the lowest point and therefore the fastest part.
It flips you onto your head before diving down into the base of the loop with a ton of force and then pulling out the other side with a second flip, pointing you back in the original direction of travel.
Following this element the ride just wants get as far away from the station as quickly as possible. After diving under the lift hill of neighbouring coaster Lisebergbanan, the first traditional airtime hill follows, taking you over the station of that same ride.
Contrary to the name, the snappiest and most out of control inversion on the ride is the subsequent Zero-G roll and this part really is Helix at its wildest. Another surprisingly snappy transition takes you into the closest thing the ride has to having an actual helix, a tight 360° banked corner at the lowest and fastest point of the layout. You’re almost at the ground now.
Rather than thinking about losing any speed at this point, the track quickly twists the other way and turns you into the second launch. A rolling launch is often one of my favourite elements purely from the utterly joyous sensation it provides just in knowing that the ride is far from done – instead of running out of steam, it’s giving you the opportunity to do it all again.
This launch sets you up for what I’d consider to be the two most signature moments of the ride. The largest of the inversions and the highest point in the ride, this inside top hat towers over the surrounding pathway.
The unusual shaping of this element provides a strange mix of sensations, along with the most sustained sensation of hangtime and an inverted view back out towards the ride station and city beyond.
The train plunges out of there and into what I consider to be the greatest airtime hill in the world – no mean feat.
All this new found momentum is more than enough to carry you all the way back up to the height of the station with significant speed and this is done through what I like to call ‘the slither’ – a fun series of twisted transitions in alternating directions up the hillside.
Just when you think you’re safe, a brutal final roll pitches you onto your head one last time before the brake run. Not a single moment is wasted in this layout and that can’t be emphasised enough.
The Forces
We saw a lot of different elements in the layout there and when earlier I said that Helix has everything, this also holds true for the forces it provides.
A contender for strongest airtime on the planet, the execution of the negative Gs on this ride are truly spectacular – from leaving the station out of your seat to the more subtle twisted pops there’s a huge variety.
The two major hills toe the line perfectly between brutally ejecting you out of your seat and sustaining you there for a significant period of time, often a hard balance to encounter. Normally this sort of force is over before they can catch up, but it literally drags your limbs up into the air, taking total control of your body.
I find the the best way to experience positive forces is not so much the common crushing head sensation but the tingling and numbing in your feet, something the B&M invert perfected first with the dangling legs of the seating position. Although Mack mega trains do have a floor, the seats are raised above it so your legs are still hanging in a similar fashion. Helix is the only sitdown coaster in the world that puts pins and needles in my feet and it’s mostly found here in the Norwegian loop due to the speed and sustained force at bottom of the dip.
Somewhere between the extremes of negative and positive force, each of the other inversions on Helix provides an interesting sensation of floating or snapping, all being taken at different angles, height and speeds. There was a time in ride design when going upside down was purely for the scare, the spectacle or a more basal thrill. The earliest inversions like vertical loops and corkscrews are generally quite boring these days. Helix is part of a new generation of rides where the inversion has been revolutionised, all seven in this layout are enjoyable in their own way and contribute to the ride experience. None of them feel like they are just there for the sake of it – they all have purpose.
I can’t even describe what this one does, but it feels like at least 5 different things are going on at once with the sharp upwards entry, sudden twist and more drawn out exit. It’s very unique.
The Interaction
Among my most favourite experiences on attractions are those moments when there is an interaction with another nearby, especially when there’s another train or car involved, full of other riders. It’s a bit of a weird human trait, like waving to people on a gentle train ride at a level crossing – a moment of shared joy. In better cases of this you aren’t an innocent bystander, you’re all sharing high thrill experiences together – duelling and racing coasters are particularly good at this. In the best version, they’re different thrill rides altogether.
You can see the majority of the Helix layout in the image above. The coaster it shares a lot of moments with is Lisebergbanan in white. A log flume crosses twice at the bottom right of the layout, near the second launch. AtmosFear the drop tower sits within the upper left corner at the top of the hill. There’s also Uppswinget towards the centre of the picture, an S&S Screamin’ Swing which sits both above the spiralling turns of Lisebergbanan and below the highest inversion of Helix, perilously swinging back and forth between the two. I commonly refer to this location as my favourite place on earth. I could stand there all day watching it all go by and with the operational efficiency of a park like Liseberg, it’s particularly satisfying how frequently something special happens.
The highlights of this ride interaction include chasing or being chased by a Lisebergbanan train across the hillside.
And in the moment between what I described as the two most significant parts of Helix, an Uppswinget swing is likely to come hurtling towards you from the right. These both always cause me to simply shout in amazement.
The Location
Besides being situated amongst these other attractions, even just the scenery is particularly attractive for this city park. The view from the station while sitting in the train, looking out across the valley past the first inversion is always a magical moment.
There’s always something different to look at with a unique perspective during each of the slower inversions, enhanced by such a high vantage point.
The defining moment of the final airtime hill that coins the phrase ‘being ejected into Gothenburg’ is truly spectacular. It feels like you can just leave the train and fly over the Gothia Towers into the heart of the city and a ride at night with everything lit up never fails to take my breath away.
Other than pure physical location, the ride happens to be in my favourite park in the world – Liseberg, and I can admit that the two actually influence each other in the definition of this. Though there may be other technically better parks out there, I can’t deny the appeal of one containing both the best ride ever and my happy place. In 3 visits over 6 days I have never found a single fault with the place from the atmosphere, attraction lineup, operational efficiency (5 trains on Lisebergbanan), food (now MAX), staff, opening hours (regular 11pm nights). You simply cannot fail to have a good time here and, like Helix, it has it all.
The Hardware
Though this ride has likely played a part in defining this as well, The Mack mega trains are my favourite rolling stock on a coaster. I often declare that I want one of the bucket seats as my office chair and they really are that comfy.
Comfort is one part of the story, but freedom of movement is also extremely important to me on a rollercoaster as it ensures there are no restrictions on the forces the ride has to offer you. With minimum points of contact, nothing gets in the way of your body moving where physics wants it to and there’s no threat of being punched in the head by a lumpy restraint. The way the bucket seats have such wide (and airy) backs, the lap bar coming in from above rather than between your legs and the raised position from the train floor that I mentioned earlier all play a significant part in making sure you get the best of Helix. There were concerns amongst enthusiasts (myself included) when seatbelts were added to the ride after a few years but from personal experience and with careful use these have made no impact whatsoever.
The trains also have headlights and strip lights down the side that looks great at night, particularly if you take a late ride on the ferris wheel – you can see them zipping about all over the hillside in a wondrous fashion.
Mack themselves are an extremely competent ride manufacturer. Everything about their recent creations exudes professionalism but there’s also that slightly twisted darker side to them – the willingness to push boundaries and do things out of the ordinary. It’s a perfect combination of what the industry has to offer right now and I think it sets them apart nicely. The track is smooth, the launches are intelligent, the ride is extremely forceful and none of it feels clinical. I will likely touch on the subject in other reviews but it has what I would call character.
The Verdict
When I first rode Helix in 2015 I had been on less than 100 rollercoasters. Both the amount that it did and the way in which it did it completely redefined what I thought I knew about rides. I sat on the brakerun with my mind spinning. I loved rollercoasters but I had never considered the possibility that they could be THAT good.
I returned the following year with double the count to my name and it quickly reaffirmed everything I thought the first time around. Nothing comes close to touching this brilliance.
Over what felt like a long 2 years I was constantly looking for an excuse to return. It’s truthfully the only ride and park in the world that I am constantly, constantly thinking I would like to pop back to for no other reason than sheer enjoyment. When what I get the most out of this hobby relies so heavily on finding new experiences and travellings to new places, given the choice I will always go somewhere I haven’t been yet. Or here. That’s it. The moment finally came towards the end of the 2018 season. I was well over 600 creds now, having seen and done a hell of a lot more and a little nagging doubt had crept in as it often does when you look back on ride experiences – will it stil hold up? We arrived at the park in the evening and it was already dark. We headed straight to the ride and it me took as far as the zero-G (head over heels, can’t see, mind racing) on our first lap for the single loudest thought to pop into my head. ‘Yes, this is still by far the best thing I’ve ever done.’ I stand by that to this day.
They knew it before I did and the poster says it all. Helix is the next level of rollercoasters. I can’t wait for one to join it.
Djurs was billed to be the final park of the trip, with the last day being a casual trundle back down to Hamburg to drop off the car and head to the airport. I couldn’t stop thinking about the previous mishap with Heide Park though, it was eating away at me – the fact that I had missed out on 3 of their creds and hadn’t really had enough time as I would have liked with the major coasters. They’ve given us those rainy day tickets to return, I don’t really want to have to come back another time for those more minor details just mentioned. How early would we have to get up to do it now… 4am? Easy.
The trundle became a hurtle and we were soon back for revenge.
The Mack bobsled is the best of the three, featuring an unusual layout and quite a hefty pace for the hardware at certain moments. More than one lift hill takes the bobsleigh train, which runs within an open tube of track as opposed to on rails, to where it needs to be. Only it doesn’t seem to know where it wants to be, opting for meandering upwards slopes and scary trips underground in the process.
This Vekoma looper has a certain endearing quality, but it’s not very good. Two loops, two corkscrews and a corner don’t provide much in the way of entertainment, particularly under the duress of uncomfortable trains and shoulder restraints. Nice to see it interacting with the pathways though.
With the mission complete I could spend more time getting acquainted with the good(ish) stuff. Had a slightly better time with the woodie knowing where to sit now. Still doesn’t help that helix of doom though.
I have to praise Heide Park for the efficient German operations. They don’t seem to be bound by any oppressive rules of the wider chain (scrimp and save, operate everything at a minimum) and though I was worried about coming back for less rides with more waits, this sunny Saturday found every major attraction running at full capacity, with no queues being more than 15 minutes.
Fair play to the customer service team too. This email was found upon my return home and I even received a pair of tickets in the post for the following season. Frame it on the wall.
Here ends a quality trip with a quality park lineup. I’d recommend them all to a greater (Hansa) or lesser (Legoland) extent.
The operating season of parks on this side of Denmark are surprisingly short. Even by the end of April, only one other had opened its gates for the year and fortunately for me it was the place that I was most interested in.
It seems I neglected to get a park entrance shot, but you see this beast on the way in anyway and that can only encourage me to head straight to the main event.
The Intamin megalite is often heralded as the best clone on earth. If a park is going to be lazy and not get a custom ride, ‘please let it be a megalite’ will be the first words on many enthusiasts lips. Piraten exists as the only version in Europe and stands as the perfect demonstration as to why this is.
From the intense first drop (taken at unusually swift speeds thanks to the cable lift hill) to the brake run, the layout has no deadspots at all. Every single element is designed to hit you with airtime, hard, no matter where you are seated in the baby Intamin mega trains.
Aside from sheer efficiency, it offers moments that are almost difficult to deal with. The two twisted hills throw you from side to side in a brutal manner, I often found myself shifting positions in the seat and getting put out of my comfort zone. Before you have time to readjust, the final straight of consecutive hills comes so fast that there’s no time to process any of them in turn, sometimes resulting in minor neck injuries (in a good way of course) from the rapid shift in negative to positive to negative force.
Piraten is a physically challenging coaster to ride repeatedly, but the amazing experience it provides will always demand that I do just that anyway, no matter the cost. And that’s the perfect combination.
Djurs’ other Intamin coaster is also a winner. The train design mimics that of a quadbike, with each rider getting their own seat and handlebars. This is a vastly superior seating position to any of those motorbike ones. Upon leaving the station, the train remains indoors for a slight dark ride section in which the I assume the temple guardians are shaking their sticks at you for trying to steal the jewel. The door opens, light floods in and the launch fires up. Away we go.
The first portion of the ride is good fun, with some light twists and turns, but where Juvelen really shines is through the second, rolling launch. For a more family orientated coaster this element really wrenches you through it at a wild pace, feeling particularly out of control if you are seated toward the back as it snaps into significantly heavier cornering with sharper transitions and some good near misses with the surrounding rockwork and water features.
The pace dies out a little towards the end as the train traverses a couple of drawn out hills that don’t deliver particularly well, but overall it’s a fantastic attraction.
The ride is decent enough for the size, but the main highlight is the front of the train decorated with a fox chasing a chicken. Will he ever catch it?
As the largest of the standard Gerstlauer Bobsled models, this ride delivers a reasonable amount of force with a particularly stand-out bunny hill through a shed. The cars have me seated in a very relaxed position, almost lying down in some instances with the how low to the floor it is and this enhances it slightly for making me feel less in control of my movements.
The final cred in the park is a Mack water coaster. The weather hadn’t improved at all today so it wasn’t receiving much love. The themed portion before the lift hill is rather attractive and beyond that it’s a simple experience, with the final moments taking you through some tight rockwork, an airtime hump and signature splashdown .
That concludes the coaster package here at Djurs Sommerland and it’s a strong lineup. There isn’t a huge amount in the way of other rides to compliment it though, I believe the highlight on nicer days is to sit in the ample green space, cook some bread on an open fire and relax. Instead we tried another water ride which was fairly forgettable other than containing a large King Kong statue towards the end.
Piraten kept me going until closing time with some especially violent laps in the rain and I left the park very happy. It’s a fantastic place.
In terms of an attraction lineup it has received a bit more love than most of the other parks across the globe, the most interesting being their Zierer family coaster, which we headed to first.
This is no ordinary Zierer, it has the nicest trains they have to offer with elevated open seating and comfy lap restraints. The first half of the layout isn’t exactly thrilling, but it contains a couple of good moments.
There’s also a surprise feature in the form of a drop track section. The train enters a cave and stops in front of a screen. Two mountaineering lego figures are hacking away at some ice and suddenly the track drops from beneath you, taking you down with it with a fantastic lurch. There aren’t many of these elements in the world and they’ve never failed to delight me.
With the distance dropped, there’s almost no height left to continue the momentum of the ride, so it crawls out of the cave past a few figures and into the other more unusual theming – a cave containing real live penguins that also houses the brake run. Polar X-plorer is a good all round attraction with a bit of something for everyone and very refreshing to see in a park like this.
The Temple is a shooting dark ride featuring a jarringly simplistic layout that consists of a single circle around various lego set pieces – you can almost see the whole ride from one position. When shot, the targets on the ride often trigger some animatronic effects to keep things a bit more entertaining and scoring often becomes secondary to me as I try to see what everything does.
A common theme for any Legoland is the castle decoration and Dragon rollercoaster. They mostly begin through a dark ride section with a few impressive scenes, smells and usually one big lego namesake as the star of the show. This version was no exception and looked noticeably more well maintained than what I was used to back in Windsor.
The ride itself is a Mack powered coaster that traverses a mostly uninteresting layout once outside in the trees. It is a crowd pleaser of course, but all about the decoration to me really.
I was a little disappointed by the rapids. They might have had it on safe mode for the wintry weather, but special features such as the elevator lift didn’t manage to make it crazy enough for my liking. I’ve had a lot more peril on the one back home.
Ghost excited me. Drop towers and dark rides have the ability to go extremely well together but this one didn’t really deliver sadly. The walkthrough section and batching area was novel, just when it came to the hardware there was very little force to be found and I didn’t really catch the plot – just some Lego bloke spinning around and shouting in front of us for the entire duration.
The latest dark ride is Ninjago the Ride and almost as if to counter The Temple, it’s another shooter, though this time with some newer technology. Instead of guns, the shooting is completely hands free, requiring riders to wave their arms about frantically over sensors in the front of the car, with the hope of channeling a ninja enough to taking down the bad guys. The scenery between screens was impressive and overall it was a lot of fun, if a little frustrating to get the hang of.
I thought that the park had the Atlantis submarine simulator found at others, as there was a Lego statue of one outside the entrance to the aquarium and even a seated preshow, but it turned out it was just that – an aquarium.
The following morning found us at Germany’s only theme park by the sea. Coming from a nation with a ton of coastline, much of it not very good, I hadn’t really considered how much this country was short of beaches per capita. I’d trade it all for what they have instead though:
The pair make for a pleasant start to the day. The Schwarzkopf looper is reasonably forceful and fun, enhanced by old school lap bars in an inversion – the two seldom met in the past. To add to the charm, there’s a speedometer in the station to tell you how fast the last lap was – can you beat it?
The highlight of the two attractions is the interaction though. If you’re lucky enough to get both trains passing through the loop at the same time (and they do actually try and make this happen), complete with excitable riders, you’re in for a real treat. I love moments like this. How to make a Vekoma junior special.
Schwur des Kärnan
So I already liked the place and I hadn’t even begin to consider the absurdity that was waiting for me around the corner. How is this a thing again?
Kärnan is a very special rollercoaster and I had a very special experience on my first ever lap – an empty train to myself. You can get a full taste of what I went through in a review here, but to summarise – I love this ride. It’s completely one of a kind in both theme and ride experience, it’s ridiculously intense and it hurts my legs.
The staff member at the entrance was impressed with my stamina as I limped round for countless laps during the day, except they weren’t countless – he was adding up for me each time with a cheery grin on his face. Proud of what he was representing, as he damn well should be.
Oh how I wish I could say any of the above for Kärnan’s predecessor. I really wanted to like this attraction but the hardware is just so shoddy. It does have another banging soundtrack – the highlight being 30 seconds of a Russian man singing the word Novgorod repeatedly, which is actually built into the awesome first dark ride section of the layout.
The Gerstlauer Eurofighter car, with it’s horrible restraints and clunky movements, drops awkwardly into the dark, pitching you forward in your seat before even more awkwardly snapping your head back again as you hit a rolling launch. It’s really powerful, but it’s just executed all wrong and ends up as something to endure, even more so when it ends with a sharp right hand snap of a corner.
A single moment of strong airtime follows over an impressive hill but, of course, the restraints just dig into your shoulders at this point and say “down boy, no fun for you.” The remainder of the layout is, to be frank, embarassing.
The car rattles around this extended corner sequence with absolutely no purpose before taking a slow inversion that drops your body onto each individual shoulder and leg, in turn, further increasing the discomfort and putting you out of kilter for what remains. What remains is a now uncomfortable indoor vertical lift hill with somewhat cool projections and effects, though I’ve usually lost the plot by this stage. How is the potential energy of this lift hill expended? By a single drop and corner into the final brakes. They ran out of things to do. It bothers me so much that it would have turned out better to just not try as hard – do the final dark ride sequence on a piece of flat track at the end.
That’s enough negativity for this park, there’s a laser show around the corner that played intense rave music in true German style and put me right back in good spirits. There was also a 4D theater with a POV film of an animated cat in a haunted house – it was decent and the seats dropped, better than Novgorod.
Two more creds to get. The standard wild mouse almost lets the side down a bit by being so generic, but there’s a band of animatronic hillbillies playing music to keep it entertaining.
And the other is the second Hansa & Gerstlauer masterpiece. Two laps of a cracking little family coaster with a lift hill intensely decorated by projections, smoke and plot and some great outdoor theming to dodge.
In case you couldn’t tell, I really liked this park. The visit presented me with a perfect blend of relaxed atmosphere and a strong lineup of attractions – a combination that is usually hard to come by due to inherent popularity. I get the impression that Hansa Park really care about what they’re doing and I can’t state enough how important I think that is for this industry.
Ever since I had been an owner of the Merlin Annual Pass, a certain park in Germany had been on my radar. Merlin acquired Heide Park in 2007 at the same time as the UK parks and often told passholders that if you ever managed to make it out there, you could get in for half price!
Of course several years after I stopped owning one, I went to check it out, amongst other things.
Day 1
We landed in Hamburg and spent the first day in the city. Not straight to a park? Not quite yet, decided to visit Miniatur Wunderland first.
Very glad we did too, it was great. Not sure if the pictures will do it justice but this first area was a proper wow moment to me upon entering. The sheer scale of the spectacle and then the intricate detail beneath. I thought model villages would be a bit dull and I was dead wrong.
It has something for everyone, this fully operational airport with live arrival and departures board was mind blowing. The model planes just take off and land through a hole in the wall, all on schedule – pure magic.
Make that two. Las Vegas’ famous Togo coaster is hiding back there as well. The other cool feature about the place was the rolling day and night modes, with each scene lighting up in wondrous fashion a few times each hour.
Not often I suggest visiting something that doesn’t contain rides, but here you have it – highly recommended.
Day 2 – Heide Park
Our car was collected the following morning and we hit a relatively brief stint of autobahn before arriving in a nice empty car park.
One of the reasons it was so empty was that it was a little on the chilly side – no more than 2°C. After a slight interlude and welcoming announcement from the park, the flood gates were opened for not many people to head on in.
The Intamin launch coaster and clone of Rita at Alton Towers was the first open ride we encountered. Due to the poor weather they were starting things up in a very gradual and nervous fashion.
Desert Race rode a lot smoother and more comfortably than the original but that only really served to highlight the fact that it just isn’t a very interesting layout. There was the slightest sensation of airtime in the humps that change your direction between endless banked corners, but the most interesting part for me was the very ending, after the first set of brakes, where the track deviates slightly with a nifty little manouevre to avoid a taller building than Rita has to.
My most anticipated ride in the park was the Intamin pre-fab woodie. Only 4 of these exist in the world and they are often heralded for having the best wooden airtime money can buy. I had ridden the other one in Europe (Balder) and came off very impressed. How would the first installation fare?
Not well. It’s an intimidating structure with the massive lift hill and turnaround, but the first drop doesn’t quite disappear from under itself in the severe fashion that I had expected. Cresting the first two big hills provided decent ejector, but in between these the ride was marred by a terrible crunching roughness in the dips. The turnaround didn’t help this, the speed hill did almost nothing and then the train hits a mid course brake run. The worst part of the ride follows – a meandering helix that offers no thrill and only wastes energy. If the track was well looked after it would have been just boring, but at this moment it was quite jarringly uncomfortable the way it shuffled around all over the place, eventually becoming quite amusing as I observed everyone in the train rocking rythmically back and forth either looking fed up or saying ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! The final hills were good, but not in the same league as the equivalent steel versions on Intamin and I hit the brakes a little disappointed, having been let down by a legend of the industry. They haven’t treated it kindly.
Desperately wanting to like the ride, I learnt over the course of a few laps that the two seats in the middle of each 6-seater car provided a better experience for not being positioned directly over the wheels. Unfortunately German guests are too efficient at batching themselves and getting everyone to fill empty spaces on trains, so even though I would aim specifically for these seats, more often than not I would get enthusiasically waved through the lines into the wrong row, then regret it as soon I sat down.
The weather was quite grim again so we nabbed the slightly indoors Mack powered coaster Grottenblitz for a brief respite, followed by the smallest in the park – Indy-Blitz for less sensible reasons.
The 2 B&Ms were next priority but they were struggling to open Krake in such poor conditions. As we passed it, a test train was sent and probably came the closest I’ve ever seen a ride to stalling, hitting the splashdown and barely making it through the next element without rolling back. Running it on the edge.
They had managed to open up the wing coaster though. Flug is an impressive looking specimen, very nicely integrated into its area. The entrance pathways are up high and look down over the pit of the station with the track swooping around itself. A sinister theme plays throughout the vicinity, one I had already become accustomed to before my visit. I find it’s very gratifying to hear good ride music in person when you already know it.
The ride shares the same wing-over drop that I was used to from the Swarm, but amps things up immediately after with a blur of a speed hill under a near-miss bridge into another floaty inversion. The ride gets intense again from this moment onwards and remains so for the rest of the ride, alternating between tightly banked corners that cause the other seats to bounce with force and three more disorientating inversions. A very solid package.
Continuing up the hill it was time for a ride on Scream. This Intamin gyro drop tower provides amazing views of the park and surroundings with its rotation at the top, before packing one of the strongest punches I’ve ever encounted in a drop tower. Just look how horizontal those legs are. The other feature I have to praise Scream for is the way the queue winds around the ride in true spectator fashion. Around the outer perimeter of the structure there are barriers that quake with a thunderous boom every time the ride drops and forces large volumes of air into them. It makes for a fantastic scare to anyone nervous about riding, enhancing the whole atmosphere of the attraction.
After a spot of lunch, the weather warmed up a little and the B&M dive coaster was finally open for business. Like it’s neighbour, Krake has a strong and sinister soundtrack that I was famliar with and it had me buzzing with excitement as I stumbled through the queue. As with Colossos, the station immediately greets with many Germans waving frantically at me – fill those empty seats! Straight in the back row before I’m ready.
From this position, you get less of an opportunity to appreciate the beast beneath the drop but the force with which you are lifted out of your seat is enhanced and more sustained. The splashdown is an unusual feature for a ride of this scale, common instinct for every rider is to raise their legs as if they are going to get wet at this point. The scoops on the side of the train kick up two big plumes of water that make for a great off-ride visual and occasionally soak the outer most seats if you catch a bit of bad luck. A swift immelman follows (unless it’s too cold) before a satisfying surge of airtime over the next hill. Sadly it all ends too quickly, but at least there’s something to appreciate other than just a drop and the train moves with a lot more purpose than I had come to expect from the ride type. Krake immediately became my favourite of its kind.
Oh wait, no. We were about to board this little boat ride when the skies suddenly opened and pelted the park with a torrential hailstorm. With only ourselves and the lone operator in the station, we had a bit of a laugh together and watched it all unfold. All the rides had shut down very quickly and almost immediately after, the top of Krake was legitimately struck by lightning in front of my eyes. I had never seen anything like this before.
It all disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving a trail of destruction behind. Announcements were now playing throughout the park – they had taken the decision to close everything down and asked everyone to go home several hours earlier than planned. This was bad news for me – I hadn’t got all the creds! I had been taking it easy all day, not expecting to encounter any issues and suddenly the opportunity had been snatched away from me.
They were handing out rainy day guarantee passes at the entrance, but I wasn’t certain that I could return within the designated time frame. I explained this through a quick chat with guest services – they were interested to know where I had travelled from and they took my details and said they would be in touch.
It’s a long drive from Gothenburg to Kolmården and it felt all the longer when what we called ‘the main road to Stockholm’ became single track lanes through dense forests. With no confirmation either way from the park about whether they had fixed the issues with thier new ride yet, we were continuing the trend of the trip and taking it easy, 50:50 on whether we might just be wasting our time at this point.
As we approached the particularly beautiful and scenic part of the country that houses a hidden zoo and RMC, we saw several signs which seemed to indicate there had been either low level protests or strong showings of support to the construction of the ride. Hay bales and paint on trees spelled out the name. This amused us.
What didn’t amuse us, after finally reaching the car park, paying for parking and walking to the entrance was hearing the staff break the bad news – Wildfire was not open yet and wouldn’t be for another week. As we now knew we would HAVE to come back another time, the obvious choice was to walk away, not use the pre-paid tickets already ordered online, get back in the car and drive to Stockholm to buy some cheese.
I’m certainly no stranger to spite in this hobby, but this was by far the biggest blow I had ever experienced. Don’t get me wrong, I was having a great time on this fantastic trip, but my primary goal of the whole week was to ride this thing and it didn’t happen. What hurt a little more was the conviction with which the park had advertised the opening of the ride and unusually for me (I rarely care about anything before it’s built) I had been hanging on their every word. During construction, Wildfire had a massively detailed documentary series put out by Kolmården every few days showing every step of the build. They released cinematic trailers of grizzly men battling hard against all odds to piece the wood together, covered in sweat, mud and rain. Fires raging through forests – Wildfire… is… free… One particular video that stood out was the park manager himself declaring ‘I’ve just walked the track of the completed ride and it WILL open on the 18th June. Steal a car, buy a boat, hire a plane – do what you MUST to come and ride the greatest wooden rollercoaster in the world.’ This quickly became a great source of parody for us as we had done exactly that, and it was closed.
Day 5 – Gröna Lund
We dropped the car off in the centre of Stockholm the following morning, at the smallest hire premises imaginable. They had a single space outside in which to park and no one was making it easy for me – road works on all sides, two men carrying a pane of glass like a comedy sketch and cyclists getting angry at me merely for existing. From there it was a short tram ride to the final park of the trip.
I started off the day really happy. All these coasters crammed together into such a tight space – it’s ride interaction heaven here, right up my street. Sweden have it so good. Or do they?
I loved the look of this ride, a classic Schwarzkopf diving in and out of the tracks of 3 other creds. Riding its big brother Lisebergbanan on the same trip made it seem rather underwhelming on the whole though. Moments that look strong from offride only do so from certain angles – you get up close and it all feels a bit tamed down. It was fun, but nothing special.
As was my first Gravity woodie. The restraints were slightly off on this, coming in almost over the chest meaning what airtime it had was mostly eliminated by having to brace my rib cage. Whether it’s the wheels or the steel supports, having to queue inside such a tight structure is loud to the point of obnoxiousness and it also gave me a headache both on and offride.
The positives – I really do admire how long this ride feels to go on for, given the size. With less than 50ft of drop to begin with it just keeps on finding things to do. It also has an exhibition of other wooden coasters from around the world throughout the queueline. If you could shut the noise out, recognising and reading about these was great fun.
The Gerstlauer bobsled is another of the intertwiners here, though my time on it never seemed to capitalise on any exciting interaction. As a model they have their odd moment of success, but most of the way it’s a glorified wild mouse.
No more than a few weeks prior, I had ridden the brand new installation of this same Vekoma SFC layout at Paultons Park. Being older and seemingly not that well looked after, this version paled in comparison.
Even if Twister hadn’t given me a headache, this abomination would have. The Intamin zacspin is an evil invention, the seats can flip freely as the cars negotiate the horribly lurchy layout. Pitching head over heels and being dropped onto your brain in sudden bursts of random force is unpleasant at best, damaging at worst. I dread the fact that more of these exist and that I need the creds.
Talking of creds, there were two more baby ones to tick off. Nyckelpigan – a small Zierer Tivoli with a fun name to say and Tuff-Tuff Tåget – a Zamperla that barely qualifies as a coaster. If you’re at all worried about the embarassment of riding children’s rides as an adult, it’s tough tough to get. Yeah, that one’s fun to say too.
BlåTåget is a traditional ghost train with some bonus modern features in the refurbished cars. I can appreciate that it was a good example of the genre, but the ride hasn’t left a lasting impression on me.
Gröna Lund has almost as many towers as it does coasters. We did both of these. Fritt Fall on the left is a huge Intamin drop tower that packed a massive punch over a long period of time – one of the best of its kind. Eclipse on the right is an even huger Wave Swinger, once the tallest in the world. If chairoplanes don’t scare you any more, getting on a 400ft version just might. I wasn’t nervous until I looked up and considered how thin the chains look. It sure is windy up there, buffeting all over the place.
I was a little disappointed with the park on the whole. That initial buzz of excitement I had was soon washed away in a sea of middling rides and noisy guests. It didn’t have the charm of the rest of the country – something just didn’t click with me and there’s nothing outstanding enough to make me want to return for another attempt. As it was only ever getting busier and louder as the day wore on, with a concert being set up for the evening, we didn’t feel like queueing longer for anything again so headed out a little earlier than anticipated for some food and a relaxed train to the airport.
