After a turbulent couple of years for the travel industry, 2022 was suitably huge to make up for it all. Things all kicked off with a first time trip to Florida in March, the most obvious of all theme park destinations and one I had been dreaming of since as far back as I can remember. Mere months later we were back in the USA once more, on the roadtrip of a lifetime, ticking off more major parks and coasters than ever before.
These two trips back to back did begin to stir an inevitable realisation into the foreground of the hobby. I am beginning to ‘run out’ of fresh experiences when it comes down to what’s widely considered the ‘world’s best’. It’s a thought that is equal parts humbling and terrifying. Having come so far feels like a tremendous achievement and there’s still plenty more I want to see and do, so will continue to make the best of it in whichever ways I can.
With such a strong first half of the year, there was a noticeable wind-down towards the end of 2022. A quick traditional weekend jaunt to France in the summer, followed by a few days to and from Denmark at the end of August saw out the remainder of the international travel. Closer to home there were still a couple of minor establishments to visit, but I almost feel obliged to keep a couple of these left in the tank for a (non-)rainy day at this stage.
And so, with all that going on, how do the figures stack up?
Rather well. A record 242 new rollercoasters beats out 2019s best efforts and puts the steady climb of a trajectory back on track for where it was in the pre-covid era. I’m honestly not sure that this figure can ever be reached again, but it’s certainly not impossible. Park-wise, there were 55 new establishments visited, a four year high that is still, somehow, yet to come anywhere close to the all-time high of 2018. The most important number for me remains the amount of days spent visiting parks and making this hobby happen in any way, in any given year. A total of 48 of these made up 2022, tied with 2019 and marking a significant step back into normality.
Now that quantifying everything has made me infinitely happier, let’s talk about some highlights.
By the slimmest of margins this year, God Damn Iron Gwazi reigns supreme. There were several very close contenders, some more surprising than others, along with a good many potential big names that simply fell by the wayside. Nothing else quite had the power and potency of this new for 2022 creation however and the style of ride experience is right up my street. The coaster developed a bit of a character for itself too, over our visits, which always helps. RMC back on top again and not a Gravity in sight, let’s save that particular discussion for another time though.
Favourite Dark Ride in 2022
Honourable mentions – Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (Disney’s Hollywood Studios), Volkanu (Lost Island) & Stalen Monsters (Nederlands Spoorwegmuseum)
With a visit to dark ride capital of the world Florida on the table, this list could have been endless amongst all the incredible experiences Disney and Universal have to offer. The honourable mentions instead chooses to name two of the big guns and two respective highlights of trips with other focuses that had small scale attractions punching well above their weight.
But the biggest gun of all is virtually untouchable. Rise of the Resistance was beyond anything I had ever dreamed of on a technical level. While I don’t think I had the opportunity to pay it as much attention as it deserved (due to the circumstances of the park in which it is situated) and therefore didn’t quite develop the emotional attachment to the attraction that I was also desiring, the sheer magnitude of achievement here cannot go unrecognised. It’s insane. Disney back on top again and not a Fantawild to be seen, we’ll blame a certain country for that.
Favourite Park in 2022
Honourable mentions – Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, Kennywood, Kings Island & Knoebels Amusement Resort
This pains me, I have a spreadsheet to tell me exactly this type of thing and yet I keep looking at the numbers to find something doesn’t add up. So, for the second year running, I’m awarding this one to a park that was a revisit. All the remaining contenders have caveats. While the attraction lineup at IoA is astounding, it’s a stressful place to simply get around. Whilst I adored Kennywood, we had our own personal issues going on that day and it doesn’t quite sit right. Though I fell in love with Knoebels, the visit was a little brief. Kings Island was pretty special too, but too intense.
Tivoli Gardens was just as magical as the first two times I visited and provided me with an inescapable homely vibe almost instantly. It has a bit of everything and everything about the place is just right. It’s fantastic to see how it’s continuously being rejuvenated throughout it’s long and rich history and I’d happily go back at any time, even with nothing to gain.
Speaking of gains, the fun one. The celebration of the ridiculous lengths I go to for this hobby. A lot of it went wrong this year to be fair, and some days were pretty grim. This particular day was completely chill though, cheap too, and everything went to plan, while still being silly. Eerily identical establishments sandwiched two other visits, one with a bit of bonus redemption and it was all just to break up a casual drive through four separate countries on the way to Denmark.
I seem to always be talking about how the UK failed to spark my interest in so many aspects and today is going to be no exception. I was never particularly enthralled with any of the wooden coaster offerings we have back home as they never showed me what made this seemingly antiquated construction material so special. It was old, it bounced around a lot, it wasn’t very good.
It fell to Great Coasters International to be the first company to introduce me to what highly enjoyable wooden rollercoasters are really all about and for a good couple of years they managed to establish themselves as my favourite wooden coaster manufacturer. Today I’d say that I potentially get more excited about riding a new woodie than I do a steelie and that’s not just because they’re outnumbered by about 25 to 1 in this modern age, substantial credit goes to this lot. The company built their first layout in 1996 and quickly developed into one of the key players in modern wooden rollercoaster design. It’s a very niche market these days dominated by only 3 or 4 names and as things currently stand, GCI have remained the most traditional of the bunch – building on their signature twister style layouts and relentless pacing. Traditional is all you need sometimes and they still top my list for all-time favourite woodie, though sadly as I have travelled further and experienced more, the consistency hasn’t quite always been there. As we near the end of 2022, I’ve ridden a total of 25 coasters from GCI, with only 4 left to go that are currently operating worldwide and a couple more under construction. Hopefully the full set will not elude me forever, but for now I’d say that’s more than enough to sink my teeth into for one of these lists.
#25 Wildcat – Hersheypark, USA
The aforementioned first build in 1996 was here in home state Pennsylvania and as this is the one that started it all I feel I can’t judge Wildcat too harshly. Plus, it’s now deceased, shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. It’s reasonably tall, fast and long, but mostly uneventful – they had to learn from something. Big swooping curves form the majority of the layout and sadly I have no recollection of any interesting transitions or airtime.
#24 Roar – Six Flags America, USA
Still in the early days, this ride hasn’t yet been treated to the manufacturer’s signature rolling stock (the Millenium Flyer) and that fact, combined with style of the layout, makes Roar almost unrecognisable as one of their creations. Aside from the big swooping curves, there’s big traditional airtime hills in here, though again they don’t really do anything. I can’t think of any other GCI that’s been made since to have a hill shaped anywhere close to that, probably with good reason. Shallow and powerful is much more their forte.
#23 Wicker Man– Alton Towers, England
I was initially very excited that after over 20 years we were going to get a modern woodie so close to home, from a manufacturer that I believed I could count on to deliver a quality experience. As the construction developed it began to look a little underwhelming and when the day finally came to ride it, I was left with nothing but mild disappointment. Most people love the Wicker Man and I wish it every success, but I’ve seen and felt what GCI can do and this does none of it. Though it certainly looks the part, there’s just no energy in this tiny layout and I stand by what I said in the introduction. Nothing wooden in this country excites me. Hopefully by the time we reach the end of the list you’ll see why. It has been improving steadily over the last couple of years as the tracking deteriorates ever so slightly, so that’s a good thing.
#22 Great Desert-Rally – Happy Valley Chengdu, China
With the bottom 3 out of the way we now enter a large cluster of almost inseparable experiences. I will say that everything from here on is at least a decent ride worth multiple laps so try not to focus on the negatives too much, I’m just better at talking about them. Great Desert-Rally began with the promise of much greater things, taking a fast and powerful first drop similar to a certain European cousin. It then spends far too long in this bit, up high, sapping all the momentum from the ride and the remainder is a little underwhelming.
#21 Thunderhead – Dollywood, USA
As easily one of my favourite parks in the world, oh how I wish Dollywood had even a mid tier GCI. Sadly the ride clings in desperation to a pointless claim, something along the lines of ‘most corners in the world’ and that’s about as interesting as it sounds. There really isn’t a whole lot else going on here.
#20 Thunderbird – Powerland, Finland
Two thunders in a row and it takes a significantly powerful memory to be able to tell these apart. It took 10 years for GCI to go continental, bringing Thunderbird to Europe and I’m sure that was an amazing moment. The layout tries, tries to do more than corners. There’s that hill in the picture that acts like a second drop and a little section of straight bunny hills that don’t really deliver.
#19 Gold Striker – California’s Great America, USA
Gold Striker was aggressive, almost in the wrong sense. It gave me a headache on my first lap but I persisted and grew to respect it, to a degree. Offride I love the design of this one (Santa not included), the way the queue sits inside the intimidatingly loud starting sequence. Later on you climb some stairs towards the station where once again the train comes roaring past in very close proximity at a defeaning pace. The signature station flythrough is subverted with these moments and you get a lot more time to appreciate it while you wait. Onride it’s more of the above. I just found myself willing it to do a little more.
#18 Invadr – Busch Gardens Williamsburg, USA
The ingredients of what makes GCI special are beginning to fall into place and I believe I can pinpoint this as the first ride in the list with notable kinks in the corners, something I assumed would always be a part of the manufacturers recipe. These unusual track shapings provide a satisfying moment of unexpected airtime as you either enter or exit a turn and would serve to elevate all of the aforementioned big swoopers by giving them a moment of significance. After all, that’s what you need to stand out in a list like this. Invadr was small, fun and punchy. Things are starting to get exciting.
#17 Troy – Toverland, Netherlands
Most notable to me for being my 200th coaster, I’ve always found this one a little underwhelming in the grand scheme of things. Take that first drop for instance – it doesn’t really go anywhere. Just a big swooping turn (here we go again) into some more swooping turns. The transitions start to liven up a little at this point in the list and Troy does have a good bit of kick to it. I just can’t tell you where or when. I find it’s a particularly good ride at providing the illusion of being more aggressive than it actually is.
Wildcat clearly wasn’t enough for Hersheypark and only 4 years later they ended up with not one, but two more GCIs. This time it was a racing coaster with two tracks intertwined in a spectacular tangle of timber. The racing element certainly enhances things for me, though I still found the layouts lacked a little definition. One side was running slightly better than the other (I couldn’t say which, but it was winning every time without fail) and my favourite moment was the surprise airtime hill in a shed. More of that please.
#14 White Lightning – Fun Spot America #13 Heidi The Ride – Plopsaland de Panne, Belgium #12 Wilkołak – Majaland Kownaty, Poland
I can only really separate these three on theming. The two in Europe are owned by the same park chain, share the same layout (albeit mirrored) and they both rode exactly the same – a welcome change to the standard GCI styling with a lot more straights, a lot less corners and a lot more airtime hills. The one in America is the original of the design and has nothing going for it on a visual level whatsoever. They’re very good for the size, but with so little speed to play with there’s a distinct lack of aggression. Which is fine, for a family coaster. For what it’s worth I preferred the look of the one with the werewolves.
#10 & #11 Joris en der Draak – Efteling, Netherlands
The ones that started it all for me remain a relative highlight. During my first two visits this was a real standout experience although the most recent lap we had was far from ideal. Fire breathing dragon aside (RIP), these exhilarating racing coasters throw so much at you in a short space of time and simply deliver bags of fun. The soundtrack is addictive and should be sung on any racing attraction in the world because it perfectly sums up the experience, as does the theming in the station with the cheers and jeers. A proper package.
#9 El Toro – Freizeitpark Plohn, Germany
While still comparatively a baby, this little GCI has that extra spice that defines the manufacturer for me. A relentless feel from start to finish, with a good mixture of twisty bits and bumpy hills. It’s amazing how such seemingly minor changes can make a huge difference to the overall experience.
#8 Renegade – Valleyfair, USA
A well above average woodie experience from GCI, again with a relentless feel, a good mixture of elements and just a little bigger than the above. The signature twisted s-bend drop was a bit of a let down, looking far better visually than it actually rode. It faced some very stiff competition in the week that it was experienced, but can’t really complain about the rest of the layout.
#7 Prowler – Worlds of Fun, USA
And here’s just one example of that competition. It was unhealthily hot on the day that we happened to experience Prowler and I could barely tell what was going on. From sticking to the seat in a semi-comatose state to the ride breaking down under the stress a few minutes later, I have fleeting memories of surprisingly intense laterals, an interesting layout and a solid all round package propping this ride up amongst the greats.
#6 Wodan – Europa Park, Germany
The sinister statues in the station alone should put this ride in the top half, but it’s the aggressive start and unpredictable ending that really did it for me. While the middle section loses pace for a short while, I always found myself laughing uncontrollably with joy by the time the train hit the brakes.
#5 Kentucky Rumbler – Beech Bend, USA
What a curveball, I expected very little out of this ride and it delivered on every count. It was declared a ‘top 5 GCI’ at the time of riding and that just about holds, even after the rest of the trip was done. Relentless rumbling, with a design that’s much more killer than filler, even the double-cornered first drop is unpredictably wild and puts Renegade’s attempt to shame
#4 Jungle Dragon – Happy Valley Chongqing, China
I went in to this one expecting something on par with the #1 in this list and subsequently left disappointed. Fortunately I have come to appreciate it a lot more looking back on the experience, it was still a monster. It had all the ingredients to be truly special – the sheer size and the location on the hillside, the queueline even has a lift to take you up to the station, so there was plenty to play with. It ended up a mixed bag though. As though paying homage to the days of Wildcat, a lot of the terrain was used for large swooping corners off the side of the hill and they didn’t really deliver. What made the ride was the straight airtime sequences, which were amongst GCIs very finest for getting me out of that seat again and again.
#3 Mystic Timbers
I went into this one thinking my better days with GCI were well behind me. Instead it was like a warm welcome home, exactly the type of stuff I enjoy most out of this type of ride. A low to the ground, wild romp through the forest with airtime all over the place. By the end of the day the train was tearing itself apart from the track and making noises not heard before, which is of course a good thing. On top of all that, the theming package gives this attraction bags of character and the shed shall forever remain a legend of the industry.
#2 Wood Coaster – Knight Valley, China
Now we enter the God tier. Stupidly huge, overgrown and built into the side of a mountain, ride location simply doesn’t get better than this. Wood Coaster goes on forever, never stops being aggressive and is just about perfect in every way. I can’t believe this ride exists, I can’t believe how much I went through to experience it and I still can’t believe how much it gave me in return.
#1 Python in Bamboo Forest – Wanda Nanchang, China
But if there’s one ride to beat that, it has to be the snake, just. While the views might not be as spectacular, the experience is even longer and contains more airtime moments than there are grains of sand in the universe. GCI must have thrown absolutely everything they have at these marvellous creations and it really couldn’t be more apparent. I can’t wait for the day when another park attempts something of this magnitude again.
The Yorkshire coaster scene ain’t what it used to be since the death of the Ultimate. Someone went and got a Colossus clone though, so…
Day 2 – Flamingo Land
And what a clone. Due to the fact that it’s still fairly substantial and I had no immediate plans to go somewhere better for a while, #1 Sik earned a nice round #1400 from me.
They have presented it slightly better than I had expected them to, in parts. Being able to look down on the layout from certain spots is pretty rare, there’s some solid plaza type interaction and that little fountain effect in the turnaround at the end.
The mist is a bit much though, I’d rather it was fog like on the very end brakes. Smells better, less like a wet slap in the face. The theme? Not for me. Words on a screen in the station to the effect of ‘a modern twist on urban clothing’ amused me. Tracksuits. Having the shop as both the ride entrance and exit was also a step too far, along with everything from there feeling rather ‘discount Icon’. The one thing I can kinda get into was the station rave. Bring back X.
I’ve already done the lap bar ‘Rev. B’ of this model as well, so didn’t have much of interest to take away from the actual ride experience. There’s a hilariously prominent rattle already going on, which was thankfully comedic rather than jarring. The re-profiling of the airtime hill is worse than the original because it’s more pronounced.
Without having to worry about head banging and all that you can appreciate a bit more just how relentless the pacing of the ride is at least. It’s very anti-B&M when it comes to that early multi-looper style – no faff, just keeps on hitting. The endless heartlines feel more dominating as well, which is a good thing this time with the lap bar. It changes the effect from slow, disorientating hangtime into trying to hurl you outwards from your seat multiple times. S’alright.
Well that’s £37.50 spent. Are we leaving?
It honestly feels like that with Flamingo Land. I just don’t care at all for anything they have, which is rather impressive considering how much they have of it now. Let’s remind ourselves at least.
Mischief Mansion dark ride for the courtesy. It ain’t very good and even the operator tells you that before it begins. Spot the Bubbleworks ‘inspired’ scene.
They have donkeys, no hats. It should be a fulfilling day out, but it manages not to be.
Halloween, get excited.
Didn’t ride Kumali.
Did ride Cliffhanger. Better than Fantasy Island’s.
Didn’t ride Hero.
Did just wanna ride the motorbikes on Velocity. Regretted it.
Did ride Mumbo Jumbo, no regrets.
Think that just about covers admission, what’s next?
Our legend of a contact at Gulliver’s Milton Keynes had set us up with a couple more visits in the vicinity.
Gulliver’s Valley Resort
First up was their newest park. For the third time in a row, having been told to meet someone and be escorted around the park, we arrived to just be let in and roam free. They had on a piece of paper that ‘the roller coaster club’ was coming. Not quite, but we’ll take it.
Never done one of these from SBF before. Don’t worry, they’ve managed to shift nine of them in under 5 years, I’m sure we’ll all find one somewhere. #2 Grand Prix Racers builds up a bit of speed for a nasty crunch in that one valley, so top quality as always.
Have done a few of these from Zamperla before. One of the bigger stretches in the coaster counting world, but just sit back and admire those subtle undulations on #3 Rocky Ridge Railway.
Token dark ride in Tombstone Mine. Same as one of the other parks but with no guns. Had a bit of a Halloween overlay, pretty scary for a kids park, but could well take the record for world’s shortest.
Done.
Gulliver’s Matlock Bath
With their previous parks all being in fields, it was a surprise to find that this one has all the terrain and views of the delightful Derbyshire Dales. Bit of a hidden gem in the chain.
The streak was broken on arrival, as the admissions staff picked up the phone to someone who was going to come and take us to the #4 Log Coaster.
And take us he did, with the VIP privileges of going up the exit path to skip the queue. Except there was no queue and we had the ride to ourselves anyway.
The guy had obviously dealt with some dirties before as he expected us to want to also ride a piece of children’s play equipment, in the guise of a zipline, in the guise of a ‘rollercoaster’. We declined and had a brief discussion about the silly nuances of this hobby before I asked if we could try their dark ride instead. I do count those. In a different way.
And thus he became the second legend of the Gulliver’s universe. The (yet another) Silver Mine had already closed for the day but although he wasn’t working on rides that particular week, baby-sitting and operating were amongst his many talents. He even had the keys to just open the thing up for us and run it himself. This one does have guns again, not for points, for effects.
As one final bonus, because it had been one hell of an uphill climb through the whole park until that point, we were invited to take the chairlifts back down to the entrance.
The scary ski type ones that come in behind you at great speed. Cracking views though. Definitely the nicest of the Gulliver’s. Set complete, but there’s already a new cred at Milton Keynes now, so the circle of life continues.
We bade several farewells both to the staff and the lightweights of our group at this point, who wanted to head home because ‘work tomorrow’.
I had my eye on more creds for the journey back, however. Work can wait.
Nottingham Goose Fair
And what an adventure it was. No on-site parking because, to put it lightly, it’s a right mess. We used a nearby park and ride and hopped on a tram for a few stops which was a novel experience in itself. Never knew Nottingham had them.
Coaster Count was so useful at this point, but also such a tease. They had 6, six! creds on-site in a jumbled maze of fairground nightmares. I only needed two though and the above pictured wasn’t one of them. That’s Ice Mountain in disguise, owned by that Mellors lot. Skip.
Fear not though, at the other end of it all, after much searching, we found the other identical #5 Wild Mouse that was needed. Cheaper than the other, too, the cheek. I don’t think it’s a Reverchon because it was even more jank and was one of those that’s missing the double up and the final speed bump.
And they had two identical ones of these, again one of which I had ridden and one I hadn’t. You can tell this was the right #6 Runaway Train for me because it has Mario on it. It did about 50 laps too many and then we got the hell out of the place.
What I didn’t preface any of that with is that this was by far the worst fairground I’ve ever been to. If you’ve ever seen Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park at capacity, picture that, but 10x busier, 10x louder and 10x narrower.
Maybe it’s my inner old man kicking in but I couldn’t understand how anyone seemed to be having a genuine good time here. I was on a mission, I had reason to put up with it all and that’s fine, but stand between any two rides or stalls for a single moment and get two ear-splitting, out of sync dance tracks battling your brains out.
To make the crowd flow even worse, what must have been nearing 50% of all visiting groups had toddlers in pushchairs, unable to move, constantly bashing ankles and moving at 0.1Mph in all directions. Why anyone would want to bring children of that age to such a hostile environment eludes me.
There were police everywhere, people sitting on the floor crying, guests being accosted by other guests on drugs, at least two fights and it wasn’t even dark yet. Barry Island eat your heart out.
Been a while since we’ve had one of these. With all the big, glamourous trips going on, there’s been nothing else to report on in the gaps, aside from a fun first time visit to IAAPA with DRdb and getting to watch Coaster Hipster ask Intamin about Juvelen just one more time. Sadly no one brought a big apple there though.
Oh and I went to ride #1399Doggy Dog at Old Macdonald’s Farm out of nothing but tactical desperation.
It was time to get back to basics in October.
Fantasy Island
Always forget how grim the drive up here is. The reason for the visit (aside from one of the group needing the creds) – two new dark rides. One that nobody knows what it is and the other that I followed religiously on their website for months on end only for them to never actually update said website when it eventually opened late.
A.k.a. Harrington Flint’s Island Adventure. A second hand ride system from Dubai rehashed into an explorative romp of shooting screens with evil explorers and the tribal masses. It’s clever what they’ve done with the space and there’s some physicality to the interactive part, which is always nice. Most of it is already broken however and the graphics lag pretty badly in places. S’alright.
I now know what the other one is, The Guardian, but it wasn’t running so that’s no good at all. Instead the staff member that was sending people away all morning went for a lunch break (someone needs to be here) and we ended up joining a few other confused guests on a journey into a completely unmanned, but switched on ride.
The queue was massive and well decorated, for what is just a 4 person simulator arm. Clearly there’s some sort of pre-show going on here. Something wasn’t right though.
Didn’t need Family Roller Coaster, but I’m shameless enough to lap it again if someone else does and it is in the spirit of hunting after all. This one has picked up an injury.
I can talk about many things in this shot. Most strikingly the colour of that water splash.
Millennium has lost the title of smoothest major Vekoma coaster, it now has a bit of jostle to it. The wind was up and it was super slow through most of the inversions, providing a weird, crunchy bit of flop time and then nearly stalling into the last section.
Rhombus Rocket wasn’t hauling as much as previously, clearly a back row only ride for that evil twisted hill.
Did The Volcano (shot tower) because nothing better to do. It’s a thing.
After somehow re-convincing myself it was for scientific research, I did dare to re-ride Odyssey after hating it several years prior. We arrived to the station just as it closed down for wind however so we’ll never know how that would have gone down. Gives it a 1 out of 4 success rate on my visits.
Feel like I’ve been to this park too many times already. It’s not the greatest. Stuff like Seaquarium and Toucan Tours have charm but it’s really not a revisit kinda place. Too much faff.
Never too much faff if it’s something new though. We headed up over the Humber bridge (another new bridge cred) and into central York, through castle walls and all. Why?
Jorvik Viking Centre
Dark ride, that’s why. 10% museum and 90% ride, I had stories of this attraction from my parents riding it back in the ‘80s. It’s all changed since then, receiving a new ride system in 2001 and new scenery from 2015. It’s long, slow and all rather impressive.
The new(er) vehicles for Time Ride have on-board audio and screens to teach you all about what’s going on in each scene.
Scenes include this guy, a man selling a cabbage to a woman who doesn’t want one and someone on the toilet. York, 948 A.D. Would recommend.
Within a single decade, Rocky Mountain Construction have established themselves as the boys to beat when it comes to making the best rollercoasters money can buy. Their rides are seemingly tailored to what enthusiasts like myself enjoy the most – a blend of powerful airtime, interesting elements and minimal gimmicks. They began their days by converting and revitalising older wooden rollercoasters in certain parks – removing the track, leaving the structures intact and using their unique steel rails to create a brand new and vastly more experimental experience. Since then, several ‘ground up’ installations have been built, which tend to use the same system, though also having a layer of wood underneath the rails in order to replicate the classification of a wooden rollercoaster, just ones like you’ve never seen before. While they haven’t really branched out into specific ride types other than the recent single rail Raptor model, the label ‘RMC’ itself is by far the most consistently rewarding in the world right now. I believe they have also played an important role in demonstrating to more casual guests how the most fun coaster in the park doesn’t have to be the biggest and fastest. It should be something repeatedly enjoyable rather than just a scary experience to try once for a laugh, and I’ve already witnessed dedicated followings and numerous marathons first hand. As of this 2022 update I’ve now experienced 17 out of a total 23 operating RMCs, with half of the remainder being cloned layouts, so there’s only really three left out there for me now – a harrowing thought.
#17 Jersey Devil Coaster (Six Flags Great Adventure, USA) – We begin with the aforementioned Raptor model. Admittedly I’ve only done the two of these, but that does encompass both of the layouts that exist in the world right now, which is enough to know that I’m not a fan of sophomore design. The prototype was a marvel for the industry, I’d never seen anything quite like it before and it brought a completely fresh style to the table. Taking the hardware and then running with nothing but a remit of ‘taller, longer, faster’ led to a ride that lost the spirit of the single rail. There’s no reason this couldn’t just have been a regular two rail RMC other than for a bit of short term marketing. It also rode poorly and had restraint issues. It’s the worst RMC, but it’s still world class.
#16 Goliath (Six Flags Great America, USA) – More records were up for grabs here, with an early installation of the ground-up wooden coaster design. Goliath was huge, as the name suggests, but for all that height it doesn’t do a whole lot to back it up. It’s a compact and succinct layout that introduces a lot of RMCs early hits, most notably the stall element, and this makes it a quintessential experience that just doesn’t have enough going for it when stacked up against the rest.
#15 Outlaw Run (Silver Dollar City, USA) – It was on this trip that I learnt that ‘wooden coasters like you’ve never seen before’ might not stand the test of time for RMC, in their current form. The most aggressive of the bunch has already received extensive re-tracking to the point at which it can no longer be classified as a wooden rollercoaster. Outlaw Run, the very first of these, is suffering from similar issues. The wheel seats were a dud for me, due some rather headache-inducing tracking and the front of each car was definitely the place to be. There are some amazing elements in this layout and the setting is to die for, but it’s once again very short and I don’t really rate any of the inversions, particularly the final two, which are a rare miss.
#14 Wildfire (Kolmården, Sweden) – Talking of wooden rollercoasters like you’ve never seen before, how about this monster? This was the first RMC in Europe and the first one I rode (eventually). I was already aware of the hype surrounding the manufacturer at the time and though an amazing ride in its own right, it didn’t quite live up to the exceedingly high reputation. At the time of riding, I couldn’t pinpoint the spark that was missing from Wildfire but having since ridden other RMCs it’s blantantly obvious – other than the first drop it lacks any of the characteristic airtime moments that punctuate the other special elements on offer. The combination of the two is the literal definition of these rides for me and if you only have one half of that, you’re going to come up short. The other nitpick I have is though it is marketed as the greatest wooden rollercoaster in the world (and it isn’t), I didn’t think it rode like a woodie at all and I have since confirmed (further down the list) that RMC are capable of generating this feeling in a good way, and (further up the list) a bad way.
#13 Joker (Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, USA) – I struggled to get the most out this comparatively baby RMC due to poor operations on the day. It has all the classic fun elements throughout along with airtime in greater quantities than Wildfire, but no definitive moments that stand out quite as much.
#12 Railblazer (California’s Great America, USA) – This (almost) unique looking attraction is nothing short of ridiculous. As we’ve already seen, the Raptor model uses just one rail and trains that straddle the track with single file seating. Railblazer takes the whole layout from start to finish at a ridiculous pace and contains several intense airtime moments. The downfall is that it’s just really short and it may have been slightly elevated for me by being both a completely fresh experience and only riding in the back row at night for every lap.
#11 Twisted Cyclone (Six Flags Over Georgia, USA) – This is where we hit RMC’s true mix of elements at its prime. What this ride does is as good as its wicked and timber brothers, only the layout feels half the length and leaves you wanting more. My favourite part is the immensely intense hill out of this magical element that you don’t even see coming from the back row.
#10 Untamed (Walibi Holland, Netherlands) – Europe’s 2nd RMC after what felt like a very long wait. I didn’t find it to be the most intense of their creations and it contains noticeably weaker sections than any of the below. Untamed still gives an amazing, lengthy ride that delivers a lot of incredible moments. My head says it’s objectively better than the next ride in the list, but my heart just won’t let that happen at this point in time. It lacked a little character.
#9 Lightning Rod(Dollywood, USA) – Aww. I wanted this ride to be the best thing ever, but it wasn’t. Expectations may have let me down slightly as I thought it was going to be one of the bigger RMCs feat. quad down, but it’s actually short and the legendary quad down is 50% of the ride. I have been led to believe that the initial launched lift has been toned down and that I may not have experienced the rod in all it’s glory. If true, I sincerely hope there comes a day where this can happen. As I found it, the first half is a little too underwhelming for what follows and then just when it gets absolutely amazing, it ends.
#8 Wicked Cyclone (Six Flags New England, USA) – This was another case of not getting as much time to appreciate the ride as I would have liked (thanks again Six Flags), so it’s harder to big it up. Contrary to the above, Wicked Cyclone feels like just the right amount of length and the way it flows and bounces between the mixture of inversions and airtime is simply beautiful. In particular, the surprise wonky hills hidden inside the structure are some of the best in the business.
#7 Storm Chaser (Kentucky Kingdom, USA) – Somehow Storm Chaser almost manages to be forgettable in such a lineup. By no means is it to be underestimated though, even with the understated grungy look, it has big bad airtime and a satisfying raw power to the other key moments of the layout. I found it to be the best of the weather related ones by the tiniest margin and that’s all down to personal preference really – more aggressive airtime.
#6 Zadra (Energylandia, Poland) – The first RMC in Europe to go over 200ft and earn classification as one of the ‘big boys’ that get rated the world over as the absolute best of the best. It’s not hard to see why, this monster has a piece of everything that makes these rides so special, is insanely fast paced and delivers amazingly throughout a satisfying length of layout.
#5 Steel Vengeance (Cedar Point, USA) – And here’s the OG ‘big boy’, literally regarded the best rollercoaster on the planet by an overwhelming majority. I agree that it’s just so damn good, but Steel Vengeance didn’t have that killer instinct I was hoping for, to tip it over the edge. Chuck in a handful of moments that try to hurt me, make the inversions more interesting and you’ve got the best in the business. For now, this is as far as it goes.
#4 Twisted Timbers (Kings Dominion, USA) – As we enter the top tier, things get truly intense. I had Twisted Timbers down as a variable performer after our first visit, but more recently it seemed to be out to prove a point and was holding absolutely nothing back. Mere days after the revelations on Steel Vengeance, this one definitively demonstrated to me that it’s just more my cup of tea. It’s insane, it hurts and it has all of that killer instinct. And that’s exactly what I’m looking for in my RMCs.
#3 Iron Gwazi (Busch Gardens Tampa, USA) – God Damn Iron Gwazi. The new American monster is so wild and full of extremities at every level. Unlike the above, and it’s biggest rival over at Cedar Point, it’s not the biggest airtime machine but it makes the best use of the fast paced approach by being packed full of killer manoeuvres. Several of these elements stepped up the manufacturer’s creativity and range of sensations another notch. As if that was even possible.
#2 Hakugei(Nagashima Spa Land, Japan) – This is nothing short of a beautiful creation. It was never quite as wild as some of those that came before, but it was a consistently incredible ride at all times of day in all parts of the train, even in the direst of situations. Hakugei has perhaps the most to offer, of all RMCs, in its combination of both length and power. The resultant layout probably has the closest to perfect mix of elements, from someone who over-analyses these things to the point of detraction. It did lack character for me and maybe has one zero-G too many so that, combined with not being the most intense, holds it back from the top spot.
#1 Twisted Colossus (Six Flags Magic Mountain, USA) – Still the king and I’m as much surprised as you probably are. Using pain as the measure for intensity (in a good way), no other RMC has come close to hurting my legs (and neck?!) with airtime as much as Twisted Colossus did. The out of control feeling exiting the high-five element hasnt been matched either, in a ride type that starts to feel a little calculated and clinical the more you delve into it. In a list where several coasters suffer from the feeling of hitting the brakes and wanting more, you hit the brakes on this ride, then you get more. The easy way. In a list where several coasters just didn’t quite hit the mark with everything they could throw at me, every single moment counts on this ride, to the point of physical duress. The simple knowledge that there’s more fun to come while creeping up the second lift hill is easily enough to keep me happy, but the interaction between the two trains during the layout adds an extra special layer to this mind blowing experience, truly setting it apart from the rest.
Bolliger & Mabillard are great at gifting me list topics. With a narrow portfolio of ride types that almost all happen to be large thrill coasters they become instantly relatable, comparable and it’s easy to know where you stand with them. I’d better pace myself before I run out of posts on such things.
Characterised in their own words by ‘the straight vertical drop with riders facing down’, the Dive Coaster has had an interesting presence in the industry over the years. It began life at Alton Towers in 1998 with the highly famous Oblivion and has since taken form in various different shapes and sizes, both larger and smaller. Within a couple of years a mirrored clone of the original was bizarrely built on the side of a cliff in Taiwan, but it took a full 7 years for the product to start shifting more seriously when the Busch Gardens parks decided to change the style somewhat – from intimidating and mysterious to imposing crowdpleasers with inversions, splashdowns and even bigger track and trains.
China, much as I love it, wasn’t one for setting any industry trends in those days and soon said “we’ll have a couple of those cloned as well”, but the 2010s found new ground in the birth of the mini version. Europe put fear and theming back on the agenda in conjunction with tighter manoeuvres and the smaller trains, suddenly the order book for Dive Coasters was more full than it had ever been. It felt like Cedar Point marked a turning point in how enthusiasts (or perhaps just me) viewed these creations, with Valravn making silly boasts about the tallest, fastest and longest (of a specific manufacturer and model), only breaking those statistics by miniscule amounts and clearly just for the sake of easy marketing, while not doing anything more interesting with the design or layout. Suddenly the attitude became “oh no, not another dive” and though the last 5 years has seen the population of these double, the spark of excitement for them seems to be fizzling out.
Again that could just be me, I’m up to 12 out of 16 on the checklist with only 3 unique layouts left to try and feel like I’ve already seen everything that they have to offer. Hopefully Cedar Fair can still surprise me, but in the meantime let’s have a look at how the rest stack up.
#12 Valravn – Cedar Point (USA)
And here we are, the turning point itself. Valravn was a massive let down in all regards. The cars being a narrower eight-across rather than the usual ten for a Dive coaster that’s well in excess of 200ft tall had me believing, for a brief moment, that it would be nippier than other North American brethren. It was not, combining all of the worst aspects of the relative sluggishness that comes with a coaster of such scale with a jarringly unpleasant rattle that also made it the roughest and least entertaining of it’s type.
#11 Oblivion – Alton Towers (UK)
Hmmm.. apologies to all the Oblivion fans still out there, the original just doesn’t do it for me any more. Part of the blame can be laid on the park, who have managed to strip the attraction of all its atmosphere over the years. We can’t play the audio any more, we can’t show the queueline videos any more and we can’t use the holding brake as much. All that’s left is a big drop, which is admittedly still one of the best for doing what it does, and then the brake run. I like it enough, but it’s almost at flat ride status.
#10 Western Regions Heaven – Happy Valley Chengdu (China)
While I admire the aesthetic here, the layout leaves a lot to be desired. It borrows nearly all the features from the bigger brothers including the mid-course brake run, but this in particular seems entirely unjustified against both the pacing and the reduction in height (plus Happy Valley one train operations) to then just enter some uninteresting corners, the not overly spectator friendly water feature and end.
Similar issues on a different scale. I absolutely love the theming, preshow and presentation package of this coaster and I would have thought the short layout would lend itself to being potent and pacy. It somehow doesn’t though (space saving helix?) and the actual ride just isn’t punchy enough to seal the deal for me.
#8 Oblivion: The Black Hole – Gardaland (Italy)
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (the predictability of the ride type is beginning to kick in), the forces weren’t strong enough on this mid-sized installation. The theming didn’t land very well with me either, but overall it looks great, the views were spectacular and I admire the attempted airtime hill.
#7 Diving Coaster – Happy Valley Shanghai (China)
The first of the giants in the list. Truth be told there’s very little separating these few, and even the ones that came before. If there’s one word I’d use for these Dive Coasters it’s ‘solid’. As a Happy Valley resident this one was again plagued with operational issues that bothered me. The big drop is serious business, but the mid-course brakes were biting a little too hard (on the only train on track) for the second half to deliver in equal measure. Hold that thought.
#6 SheiKra – Busch Gardens Tampa (USA)
It’s fine, absolutely fine. Nothing more than that though. I think the only thing that puts this one above the previous clone in the list is the presentation of the splashdown area, which is particularly gorgeous. It’s amazing how much the Chinese park missed the mark on that feature when plonking it down in their own space and a true testament to how lazy cloning attractions can be.
#5 Griffon – Busch Gardens Williamsburg (USA)
It’s fine, absolutely fine. Nothing more than that though. I think the only thing that puts this one below the following clone in the list is the fact that the restraint put grease on my jeans. A mark that still remains today as a memory of better times.
#4 Draken – Gyeongju World (South Korea)
Oh, and the queue. This Korean cousin had a really nice exterior buliding, queueline and even a bit of storyline. It was also an absolute mission to get a ride on this one at all, making the reward feel all the greater.
#3 Dive Coaster – Chimelong Paradise (China)
Still holding that thought? Good. My original experience with the big boy edition remains my favourite. It didn’t stop at all on the mid course brakes and therefore had a much more powerful second drop, which was further enhanced by a tunnel and misters. Chimelong did a really good job of integrating this layout into the surroundings and operate it surprisingly well, two things I can’t say for that other Chinese one with the lazy name.
#2 Krake – Heide Park (Germany)
This sea monster taught me that these rides could have pace. While the larger versions have an impressive sustain in their drops, that’s the only real trick up their sleeve and they spend the rest of the time wandering around in a cumbersome fashion. Even with the risky use of an early splashdown, this one still delivers effectively in each subsequent element (however few there may be) and that airtime hill is the best of the bunch. Even though it’s amongst the smallest, Krake was also another long overdue masterclass in intimidation factor – just look at it (granted, that sky helps). Heide Park surpassed all my expections with this one and raised the standard by which I measured the genre. Oh, and it has a great soundtrack too.
#1 Valkyria – Liseberg (Sweden)
This marked the second time the Dive Coaster game changed for me. With a much more significant layout (and no pause for thought on any brake runs) Valkyria absolutely blasts its way through the course, providing several forces along the way that I previously believed these rides weren’t even capable of producing. Construction began at the aforementioned time when I thought I was over them and foolishly I didn’t even have faith in my own favourite park to pull off anything special with the hardware. They did of course, in spectacular fashion. I now love Liseberg even more for it. And no, I won’t hear a word against the vests. We can save that discussion for the Wing Coasters.
No more new coasters today, I’m afraid we’ve peaked. There were far too many insignificant options on the table to pad out the return leg of the journey with, to the point that I was still making decisions the night before while I should have been sleeping. Tweestryd sounded like a good idea at the time, zoo, a +2 and 40% off with a Plopsa pass. Local knowledge led me to believe that they rarely, if ever, run both sides however due to a lack of popularity and the sheer China-ness of that fact took the wind out of the sails.
Located near the heart of Utrecht in the Netherlands, this is more than just your average train museum. It’s home to a number of themed attractions and is simply one of those places that would always otherwise be skipped because they don’t have an rollercoaster. I found it to be well worth the time, reasonably priced and a refreshing experience. Think I need to vow to do at least one thing like this a year that isn’t based on upping the coaster count. For health reasons.
The star attraction, for me, is a dark ride by the name of Stalen Monsters. It’s a home-brew design that has you sitting in a little pair of railway carts on a powered track system (made by Kumbak no less, of other random train fame). It takes you around various varieties of the namesake Steel Monsters, a.k.a. big old trains, which doesn’t, on the surface, sound that great to anyone but a train buff.
It’s really well done however, very well paced, maintains a good level of intrigue and there’s something highly satisfying about having all the real life props forming the ‘theming’ of a dark ride system as opposed to just theming ‘theming’. On top of that the system itself is pretty special, with elevation, speed and directional changes all being woven into the journey and even managing to add a certain level of thrills where you might not expect.
Before the ride itself there’s a highly detailed queue of exhibits as well as a little preshow room with video that was entirely unmanned. With the place being basically empty on a weekday this added a good deal more to the adventure. Well worth the visit alone.
In the outside section there’s a simulator by the name of Trial by Fire.
Plenty going on in here too, before a preshow that starts off historic and ends by setting up something slightly more fantastical. An engineer character gives us briefing that can best be likened to Smuggler’s Run. Teams of 6 have different tasks to perform on one of the three simulators, though the catch here was that there was only the two of us in the entire room.
It’s slightly less evenly spread on the interactivity. The front row of 3 has a variety of levers and buttons to play with while those in the back only get to man the ‘dead man switch’. We were running up a million things at once like a ‘70s keyboardist although it doesn’t really appear to do anything to the sequence.
The sequence itself was a little bizarre, but entertaining. Once again things have to get a little ‘runaway rollercoaster’ down some ridiculous and unrealistic track but before long we’re doing Back to the Future 3 style jumps to different places in order to keep things interesting and/or perilous. Again I loved the distinct lack of staff presence here, adds to the mystery a bit and the vehicles themselves looked pretty fantastic.
The last of the big things I was into was this themed walkthrough, The Great Discovery, which involves time travel of the more subtle variety. You board a little elevator which takes you back to the days of Robert Stephenson, where you’re unleashed into this intricate world replicating the old town and his workshop.
I’m led to believe you’re usually presented with an audio guide for this to explain the details but this wasn’t happening on this occasion so it was all taken in on visuals. Of which there are many great ones, but also fun little tricks like a mouse moving in the rafters.
The second major area contains De Arend, one of the first two locomotives in the Netherlands, situated in a station from back in 1839. Trees and all. Pretty cool.
Other stuff around the museum includes the usual displays, along with miniatures and the like.
A mini game simulator that actually is responsive to what you’re doing.
And plenty more real live locomotives in their natural habitat which you can mostly just freely wander around.
They also have a show, for kids, but it’s all in Dutch, and a set of the famed Dutch snack machines – but they were all empty! A real trip ruiner.
In all seriousness though, a great place to stop off for a few hours.
And then things went wrong. I had wanted to get to Plopsa Station in Antwerp next for some more dark ride action and to get one final, final use out of that pass, but the roads were having none of it. Catastrophic traffic on the attempt to escape the Netherlands. Catastrophic traffic on the attempt to get in/around Antwerp. Absolute carnage.
In the end it transpired that I couldn’t have arrived until 15 mins before close which, given it wasn’t just a Wickie Coaster and something I had a modicum of interest in, wouldn’t have really worked. Even at the point that this idea was bailed upon, my backup plan then ended up being cut very fine as well.
Plopsaland de Panne
Oh yes, one last hurrah on the new sensation for the season.
Cheat shot.
To make matters worse in the massively faffy ending to the trip, they were only running one train on it and therefore I queued the longest I ever have for Happiness by a significant margin, picking up just a single lap in my hour on park.
Worth it though, gleaning perhaps one of the best rides, of many, experienced on it. It worked up one hell of a spin and I had that golden top hat exit moment in the back row, rotating from sideways to backwards as it takes the plunge in a literal heart in mouth, stomach wrenching terror of a drop. It was at least double the magnitude of the Time Traveller version and that one’s already beyond insane. Scary thoughts seeped their way into my brain on the brake run after all that wait. If it rode like that time, every time, it could well be a number 1.
The chunnel was trying to be a bit more spitey on the way back, with tons of aggressive warnings all the way along the French motorway saying ‘severe delays into the UK, expect to queue for several days’. This didn’t happen, instead we got automatically booked on a slot an hour earlier due to turning up in good time. Even inside the place all the signs were apologising for the devastating disruptions and yet, beyond a little slower than usual passport queue, nothing was actually wrong. I’ll take it.
Summary
Short and sweet, but quite the map. They’re always fun.
Total countries – 5 New coasters – 18 Total coasters – 23 New dark rides – 5 Total dark rides – 8 New parks – 5 Total parks – 10 Zierers – 7 Best new coaster – Fønix of course Distance travelled – 2000 Miles-ish Spites – –1/17 (-5.88%)
2015, Copenhagen. It’s hard to imagine a time when I took this stuff way less seriously. Less than 50 coasters to my name, Helix wouldn’t be a part of my life for another few days yet. Sightseeing was at the forefront of the agenda and I remember it was a faff. So this time it was quite refreshing to have another crack at it, a city tour, early morning, in the comforts of your own vehicle. Great fun.
One of the stops was the famous Nyhavn, or ‘that colourful street’. Colourful it was, also feat. boats.
And seven years ago, almost to the day, this had been so crowded with tourists we could barely even see it. Now it was a case of rock up, basically touch it. Tick.
We were here for creds of course though, a certain lovely little place by the name of Day 4 – Tivoli Gardens
Had a +1 to offer. It should have been a 2, but worldwide delays on parts meant the new-ish powered coaster was listed as closed on the website up until the day of the visit. We wanted to park directly under Dæmonen for the day but someone beat us to it and we ended up a street behind. Still pretty surreal.
Wait a second. It’s back!
#1 Mælkevejen was refreshing for a number of reasons. It was open when it shouldn’t have been. It rode way better than the old version it replaced. The theme was space.
You know when you just get a vibe from a park. You take a second to survey your surroundings. I’m in <insert park here>. Everything just feels right, it’s welcomed you home. There’s not many of them, but they’re out there. This is one for me and I was reminded of that as soon as our first ride was over.
Next up was the replacement #2 Kamelen, for the old Karavanen (which we rode just a few weeks ago again in France, accidentally). Look at that face. It’s so inviting, with the little lights on the hat and everything. Love it.
We came armed with plastic bottles, hoping to turn a profit at the recycling machines they have on park but sadly they’ve been modified to take only the cups that the stalls serve up now.
Oh well, dark ride time. The Flying Trunk is always a classic, I love the parts when this omnimover passes over itself, it’s an odd sight. The thing I didn’t quite remember was all the Hans Christian Andersen stories they squeeze into this one being rather ‘rushed’ in the voiceover. The narrator basically admits it himself in one of the scenes, that tale is too long to tell today.
We also did Minen while in the mood. I stand by the fact that this well themed indoor boat ride didn’t need guns. The scenery is gorgeous and fine without it, plus the targets don’t even have anything to do with anything. Why would you want to shoot the moles that are cleaning a dragon? Damn kids.
Dæmonen still kicks ass and I was proud to be wearing it’s shirt. Learnt that it’s totally not me getting bored of B&Ms, just that those formulaic layouts in particular do nothing for me. Here, however, I really enjoy the anticipation build in the first section. The big drop has a great kick with the gained momentum and the 3 choice inversions all hit in a single sequence in a satisfying way. They aren’t the focus of the ride. They complement it. It looks damn good too.
Rutschebanen though, Is this even better than I thought before? Because I absolutely adored it before. The mood in the station, the brakemen operators are just so chill and good at what they do. It’s infectious. One of them is wearing a million sunglasses, they’ve kept some of the knuffelbeers from covid era in the trains and then placed the rest in various scenes throughout the ride. They’re riding polar bears, they’re up on a mountain, everyone’s having a good time.
They run this ancient woodie hard, that restraint does nothing, you fear for your life on those drops. The laterals are crazy, it’s dark, it’s light, you’re waving at people. Then we finally mustered up the courage to join in with the locals and exit the ride while it’s still moving. It’s such a fun feeling, pushing against that bar as you roll into the station, just waiting for it to pop and then leaping into action at several miles per hour. Don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Thoroughly back in love with the place we whiled away the afternoon on all the old fond memories it provided. Monsunen, the evil flat ride, tasty and offensively cheap pizza, the little rabbit lawnmower doing his thing out in front of the Nimb restaurant. I could spend all day here and not even need to ride. That’s the measure of a good park and I miss it already.
I’ve always treated the two sides of Denmark as separate entities when visiting in the past so crossing between them the next morning was quite a novel experience.
Our weapon of choice was the Storebæltsbroen, I do admire a good bridge and this one is absolutely massive. Love how it was inside the cloud, it’s even tall enough for the world’s biggest cruise ships to just pass under. A tad pricey though.
Day 3 – Sommerland Sjælland
Talking of pricey, the first park of the day definitely suffers from coast2coaster syndrome somewhat. One look at their uninteresting +3 lineup certainly had us exclaiming how can they justify charging more than Fårup? For tarmac and an SBF Visa spinner. There is more to the place than it would appear though.
Entry is the same procedure, with the admissions booths being a drive-thru. You can then head down the car park and stroll through the entrance uninhibited by the staff-less presence.
It all began with said SBF Visa on tarmac, which shares both the name and look of the Beech Bend equivalent – #1 Spinning Out. Ignore those two in the back.
The major rides here can operate on time slots or rotation during the ‘low’ season which it already was by this point, so although we saw an engineer sign off the biggest coaster for the day, it was a case of come back later for it. Sommer is over.
Heading off into more of the park, we stumbled across the amusingly named Simulator Inator, the entrance of which is shared with an eatery.
Didn’t know what sort of hardware to expect, but this TV screen in the tiniest of queuelines gave it away. What’s unusual about this picture?
The active film was called Great Wall of China and began with an over-enthusiastic rickshaw driver taking us for a spin along said wall. Full marks for realism. Before long we look down to notice he’s attached a couple of fireworks to our transportation and, once lit, things get a little wild. Before long we’re mechanically separated from the driver.
It all boils down to that age old simulator styling of making every situation into a fantasy, physics-defying rollercoaster, but also not very good. It did go on for quite a significant amount of time, day turned to night, summer turned to winter and it ended on the big visuals of a massive fireworks festival, during which our lost driver makes another appearance by shooting over the moon and into the ocean. Full marks for continuity.
I fully believe the entrance price is justified by this nightmare fuel alone. I do love a good custom Wacky Worm face, particularly when they aim for the more weird and grotesque, essentially mocking our very hobby. #2 Vildbassen was a standout in more than one way, by also not having any form of restraint for adults and just a seatbelt for the kids. This meant I was getting fully Skyrushed sideways out of the train on the turn after the station for 8 of the 9, 9 laps. Which had me wondering what the clearance envelope is.
We’d heard tales of a boat ride at the park that contained ‘indoor scenes’ and wanted to verify for ourselves whether it could obtain ‘dark ride status’ or not. Subsequently we got very lost in the park for a good while trying to find it, which is when we found out how many other things the place has to offer.
Alright, let’s take a closer look at these spitey things. The blue one is ready to go as far as I can tell but this rain-soaked piece of paper says we have to wait for the grand opening next year. Construction, get excited.
You can get scared by hanging out with goats and Black Phillip.
You can feel like a giant, roaming freely amongst these miniatures.
Better than Silver Dollar City. And Gold Rush. And Bakken.
After much searching and time killing we found what we were looking for. Amazonas.
It was very impressively themed, they clearly went all out on this thing. The ride lasts for over 7 minutes as well, with various jungle exploration escapades going on. Sadly, by definition of the database, it only goes into a cave once with just the one scene, so is decidedly not dark enough. Good though.
All that wandering meant we arrived back at the Pinfari to see the SBF operator shut shop and head on over to run the #3 Vildkatten. While hell on earth for us coaster folk, it’s a highly popular ride here. Everyone else on our train did a Rollercoaster Tycoon and jumped for joy at the exit before heading straight back round for another lap. We, on the other hand, nursed a couple of bruises and thought ‘I want to go home’, heading straight for the park exit.
BonBon Land
The other park for the day was BonBon Land, a place that I’ve previously declared the largest park left in Europe that I hadn’t yet visited. I’m sure there’s various different ways of measuring it, but I’m not even sure who that title falls to now. Maybe that Italian place who can’t spell Eurofighter.
Let’s talk about BonBon land though, or perhaps not, because I don’t think words can do this park justice. Pictures speak a thousand of them. Vildbassen was being outdone at every turn and the charm of this place was through the roof. I loved every second of it.
#4 Hundeprutten, the dog fart coaster, cracked me up. I usually like to consider myself above toilet humour but just the terror on the face of this train paints a picture of it being a serious medical condition and his desperate plea for us to stop taking advantage of it. Every lap, without fail, the non-descript speaker inside the dog house makes that sound and the comedic timing is nothing short of genius. Best Zierer Force One in the world.
World’s first Eurofighter, the #5 Vildsnivet. Wild Boar coaster. Why?
Because he’s a racing driver, and straddling the back of the car like a madman. That’s why.
I actually rather enjoyed the ride too. It’s a good little layout and rides surprisingly elegantly considering it’s the first and how bad some of the next few ones were. The whippy banked turn out of the first drop is done really well and the loop is solid.
#6 Han-Katten was a bit of a let-down (that brake run though). There’s some rather superlative reviews knocking around the internet from over a decade ago. Claims of this being the most intense spinner in existence, of some of the biggest names in our hobby being unable to stand after riding. It was as decidedly meh as with all my early experiences with Gerstlauer spinners, don’t tell me it never gets better than Six Flags.
#7 Viktor Vandorm brought it all back to reality with a quirky custom Zierer Tivoli layout that was originally designed for a specific piece of land, in a park in Germany. It even had wooden supports back then. Hybrid.
One of those evil tilting forwards drop towers.
Can never say no to a Fabbri tower either, even with weird sketchy seating.
I got excited here, thinking the ‘new for 2022’ attraction Prærie Expressen was another potential database entry. They used to have an old Alterface interactive theatre in this spot, have they gone and got a new one?
Alas, no, no ride system. Just sitting on stumps (or standing) and shooting cowboys on a new film on the screen. Got the best score of the day though.
Bon-Bio 4D was unhinged.
There’s a bizarre utilitarian shift inside, unlike anything else in the park.
It was playing both Moby Dick and Aladdin back to back, but not as we know them, in films that were more than a little off in many aspects.
I can’t really do the situation justice but the language kept changing, which synced up parody-poorly with the characters mouth movements. A whale is captured by an evil scientist in a mechanical octopus contraption and we pursue in an attempt to save it. Various peril occurs but there’s this crab channelling One Punch Man who just, with no physical or audio effect, casually sends characters flying off the horizon with a single touch. Yet strangely he’s not the hero of our story as, entirely unrelated to what has been happening, the parent whales show up out of nowhere at the end and save the day. Damn you, Moby Dick, I’ll get you next time, hahahahahaha. Punch.
Before we had time to recover from that one, the developer logo played twice and Aladdin was on his smart phone, having a picnic. Jasmine video calls and is thoroughly pissed off. He wakes up the genie, who is also scared by this, they need to get home now. Various peril occurs but it makes even less sense. Random 3D slow-mo cuts happen in the wrong places with no impact, creatures behave in very strange ways, it’s like all of the developers were locked away in separate dungeons, and also have no concept of what actually makes things good. We finally get to, wherever his home is, and spend an age flying through and near-missing a ton of towers while (another) massive firework display is going off. He lands on his balcony, is dragged into the bedroom by the ear and the doors slam shut, while genie adopts a bodyguard outfit in front of it and shakes his head at us. End.
Enough waffle, don’t even know where to start on this boat ride.
I had naively believed that our hotel woes were behind us, but on arrival at our stop off in Germany for the night we found that I had received an email saying my credit card details were out of date… not this again.
I’ve no idea what’s going on at this point, this particular trip was booked several months after the previous card had expired. The hotel for the following night had already confirmed that they had taken the money up front on that day, straight off of the same card details I provided. There’s no trace of the old details still on my account and yet still the system is out to spite me.
The staff decided to make a huge deal out of this matter for some reason, with two different people repeating at least 6 times between them that my card details had expired, why didn’t I check my emails?! (in the last few hours, while driving, and on holiday) and that 6pm was the cut-off point so they had cancelled our rooms.
That was all well and good, but I’m standing here right now with the credit card in hand, what are we going to do about this? The point just didn’t seem to sink in.
Eventually they just checked us in anyway, with no issue at all, so the completely unjustified berating was a total waste of life. Guess you still can’t go anywhere any more.
An early morning run on the autobahn had us making good time into Denmark the next day. We had successfully completed the 2sommer run before and of course were confident that we could do it again with just a +2 to pick up from each this time. For fun, and the sake of the relative significance of the new coasters, the order was switched up this time.
Day 2 – Djurs Sommerland
I’ve always got on really well with this park before. It’s such a lovely place to be and they’ve had a cracking lineup for a good while now. Slight technical hitch upon arrival this time (again), we had booked our tickets online but never received a confirmation email. It transpires that they ‘hadn’t turned the machine [computer] on’ though strangely the guest services and ticket counter were unable to do much about the problem. Instead they asked us to buy another set of tickets up front and send an email asking for a refund at a later date, which seemed a less than ideal solution.
Faff out of the way, we stood ready for the rope drop at the now slightly more signficant looking entrance to Wild Asia (insert Chessington joke here) and then, once let in, hopped straight onto #1 Jungle Rally.
It’s a cute little Zierer (there’s a lot of those on this trip) and really nicely presented. They’ve definitely fleshed this area out a lot since it was just the signature attraction, mud and concrete and I’m very impressed.
We took a token lap on Drage Kongen to see if much had changed over the years. Wasn’t too bothered about it before, though I believe it was a victim of hype at the time – I can still recall the bold statements bouncing about from ‘could be as good as Nemesis Inferno’ to ‘might ride like an inverted Megalite’. No.
The ride still rattles around and is essentially a weaker version of the larger Vekoma model, which makes little financial sense at the very least. It’s not a bad attraction by any means, it looks really nice, the little trick at the start is a good spectacle from the air gates and the layout goes on for a surprisingly long time. What had improved on this occasion for me was the atmosphere in the station, with some good music and lightning effects that I don’t particular remember from opening year.
They’ve been so busy at this park, the new and massive Tigeren has replaced the old Topple Tower that we were lucky enough to catch operating once. This ride had me at ‘bigger Loke’ and it’s rather spectacular in the forces that it pulls. Lap bar freedom, massive beyond vertical swing, big amounts of weightlessness and crushing positives. I’m no flat ride connoisseur but these are totally my bag.
Headed into the new, new area next to see some dinosaurs. I don’t really remember what was here before, if anything, but it’s quite the transformation. Dino Xpedition is a fun little jeep ride along the lines of many others of this ilk. I’ve since been led to believe that not everything was working properly inside the cave, the projections were broken and even technology like the queue signs were out of action, which is unfortunate on something so recent.
#2 T-Rex Family Coaster was rather great. I’ve now been given more hope for this rebirth of modern Mack & Moritz powered coasters as this one provides so much more of a ‘ride’ experience. The layout has some pretty funky moments and the build up of speed into a significantly faster second lap is particularly satisfying, making it a much more well rounded experience.
Having finished with everything on the hit list we jumped on Juvelen for a back row ride. It still kicks a surprising amount of ass when it wrenches you through that second launch and into a very potent set of twists, turns and near miss interaction. Love it.
Cheat shot.
Last up was the old favourite Piraten. It actually had a queue, which I’ve never really seen before, so we weren’t quite able to get as reacquainted with it as we had hoped. I think this hurt the reputation of the ride somewhat, it’s definitely something you want to marathon to get the most out of. It remains a fantastic ride, with a near grey-out inducing first turn, several moments of powerful airtime and the satisfaction of those violently twisty hills. Half hour waits for such a short, cloned layout just didn’t quite hit the spot this time and I’m far less confident about the whole ‘Piraten is better than the other Megalites’ thing now than I used to be. It may be much more circumstantial than I previously believed. Still, we’ll always have 2017.
On that note it was time to hit the road to the main event and inspiration for the whole trip, though there was even time for a leisurely lunch on route because we wanted to be cheeky and take advantage of the reduced rate afternoon tickets.
Fårup Sommerland
We arrived 5 minutes early and enquired about the deal at the signature drive-thru ticket booths. Sadly it’s entirely down to the whims of a computer system so there’s no opportunity for the admissions staff to be lenient in this case. They recommended we back up and park for a couple of minutes until the time ticket over and then we were waved through once again to seal the deal.
The park was much busier and, more surprisingly, much larger than I remember from before. We of course wanted to get to Fønix first and the walk through the pleasant greenery seemed to take forever, it just kept going and going along the very long and thin layout that spreads either side of the main entrance.
At last we were greeted with the sight of fresh Vekoma track and stumbled into a 20 minute queue not knowing what to expect.
God damn Iron Gwazi, they’ve finally done it.
#3 Fønix is the Vekoma we’ve all been banging on about for years, the new generation has finally arrived and is ready to play with the big boys. I absolutely adored this thing and we couldn’t get enough of it. Essentially to the point where all notions of courtesy rerides on the other coasters went out the window rather quickly.
No more underwhelming profiling, no more bland forces, no more pointless inversions. Almost every single moment hits hard and fast and, under the guise of what has already become their established style, it’s unbelievably refreshing.
The first drop was punching harder than Piraten and leads into a forceful pullout of positives. Instead of dwelling on this for too long you’re immediately up into the weirdly floaty stall and flopping out of your seat in a gorgeous moment of contrast.
I love the insanely tight and twisted exit of this element, it doesn’t even look real from off-ride and I guess totally justifies why the trains are a little shorter.
Perhaps the one piece of the puzzle that doesn’t quite land is the subsequent big hill. It feels just a little too high, there’s no significant airtime or even sustain on it and then it rides like it has to turn into that turnaround slightly prematurely. Basically the single thing Lech and Abyssus do better.
All is immediately forgiven as it throws you into an outrageous second inversion that tries to hurl you outwards – up there with the classic Blue Fire and the more recent Mosasaurus. A double down follows into a twisted hill, this is definitely riffing off of some other greats as well.
Of course next is the point dance, the station inversion. It’s currently a little obnoxious offride as everyone has taken it upon themselves to scream really loudly through it, though this was a bonus contrast with the Lech equivalent not even letting you in the station and not having people on it. Onride however it’s another powerful snap of an element, perhaps only faltering in not being as good as the one before it.
Another moment of strong positives breaks the flow in the next turnaround and then we hit a finale of no less than six bouncy, twisty, joyous airtime moments. Some wonky, others straight, one popping out sideways like an RMC, it does it all and it does it well. Well done.
Best Vekoma in the world by an almost immeasurable margin for me and, somehow, the new best coaster in Denmark. I’m excited for these again now and can’t wait to see what they do next. That’s dangerous.
Of course there’s one other Vekoma to tick off round the corner. #4 Saven looks great in it’s natural habitat, not to say they didn’t do a nice job with the clone at Energylandia but this one fits in the space for a reason. I really like the water splash effect, it’s very convincing from around the middle of the train.
The outbound trip is solid with it’s satisfying sequence of hills, just it loses a bit of oomph on the return run from being purely gravity driven. Couldn’t help but think a little boost on the spike would help spice it up a bit.
As stated, we never got round to revisiting the rest of the park, save for after the queuelines had closed for a quick photo lap. 2017 me was very lazy and basically missed pictures of half the rides so at least that’s solved now. In terms of lineup, things are looking pretty great for Farup now.
Orkanen wasn’t needed, I’ve lost count of how many others I’ve ridden since, but is still a remarkably good piece of hardware for what it is.
We found Falken to be solid, if unremarkable in the past and that was with far less experience. Having just come off the back of what, 60 mostly unremarkable woodies in the last couple of months I’m not sure a reride would have done anything but harm it slightly, though it’s undoubtably fine at filling it’s niche here.
Lynet was smooth before, offensively smooth. The clear standout of the type and surprisingly good given the hardware. I worry that it isn’t any more, so leave the memories alone. Still, solid launcher for the park.
Fønix is an obviously massive step up though, and I bet the park is even seeing that themselves. Everyone was just lapping it again and again, with the queue remaining a consistent and popular length all the way up until close, with guests desperate for that one last ride. I can’t imagine that this level of attention is anything but new ground here given the attractions that preceded it. Our final lap was treated to a rendition from the entire train of “EKSTRA TUR, EKSTRA TUR, EKSTRA TUR” on the brake run. Sadly we weren’t going to get our Steel Vengeance moment as I could still see a queue snaking down the station stairs. A sly shake of the head from the operator confirmed this as we pulled back into the station, but I admire them for trying.
It was a little depressing to walk away from something with such strong emotion and yet at the same time thinking it’ll struggle to even crack a personal top 50, but this is the fate I’ve chosen for myself. Fønix is nothing short of incredible though, and I don’t say that lightly.
