milst1

First Up: Horing in Holland [sic] Of course I know that "Whoring" is spelled with a "W", and of course I know that the the provinces of Friesland and Drenthe in the Netherlands are not the Holland part! What am I blabbering about? Cheryl and I rented a vehicle and drove to the great Hansa and Heide Parks in northern Germany (thus the clever Hansa Heide Hoedown name), but not before we did some Credit Whoring in the northern part of The Netherlands, at three tiny parks: Duinen Zathe in Appelscha, Speelstad Oranje in Oranje, and Drouwenerzand in Drouwen. Yes, I know that Hanno gets to all of these parks before I do, to my never-ending frustration. Nonetheless, check it out and enjoy! Here's our rental car, a VW minivan. We never get the car we ask for! But check out the parking lot: Empty. We were the only people at the park! It's Speelpark Duinen Zathe. In Friesland, one of the northern provinces in The Netherlands. The place was completely deserted. The lady at the entrance booth told us to find one of the workers if we wanted to ride something. Giant inflatable. Giant pirate ship, not inflatable. Weird flat. Look what we found! First credit after TPR Middle America Tour. We had to go find an op in order to ride. Let me say that these people were incredibly nice. I bought some stuff in their shop, then when Cheryl found a nice mug afterwards, they didn't charge us for it! We told them how we were enthusiasts and showed them our shirts (and TPR hoodie). Then when we were leaving, they ran out to get us in the parking lot to give us free pants!!!! Free Duinen Zathe pants!!!!! Apparently the old uniforms had been retired and were sitting collecting dust. Score. Next stop was Speelstad Oranje in the town of Oranje, which means "Orange". Speelstad means "Play Town". Or "Play City"? Not sure. This is an indoor park that is in what appears to have once been a factory. It was a slow day so the rides were on a schedule while the ops went from ride to ride. Unfortunately this schedule meant that that we missed the dark ride, which I had heard was great. Still kicking myself that we didn't figure out the schedule earlier. We just couldn't wait 45 minutes for the next opening. Of course we did get "the credit". And we saw this maintenance guy try to eat this train. Again, the dark ride credit that we missed. Sad to be leaving Speelstad Oranje. It's a nice little park! Welcome to Drouwenerzand in Drouwen. The tree-guy's name is Danny. Drouwenerzand actually had a beautiful wooden carousel. I asked about it because it's carved in the classical European tradition and looked to be maintained beautifully. Apparently it's only 10 years old and was built in The Netherlands. I was impressed. Ops manager was very proud of it. I forgot to ask how much it cost. Danny's all over the place. See what I mean? THis carousel was gorgeous. Yes, we had to buy the Danny doll. It went well with the Duinen Zathe mascot doll. Oh yeah, here's the credit. Kind of a weird spinning coaster thing, 2 seconds long. Okay, I'm exhausted. I hope you enjoyed. The Hansa Heide part of the Hansa Heide Hoedown is coming up!

Thanks for the pictures. This is the only park I've ever bothered to visit when the park was not operating in order to see an SBNO coaster. It was like a ghost town in August 2008. My previous visit had been in 1997 when the park still going, but struggling. I'm very happy that things are looking up again for Lake Conneaut Park. If you can get there, support the park!

Well this sucks! Someone cut off Wumbo's arm! WTF? We'll see the damage ourselves this Sunday. Heide Park Mascot Vandalized in Soltau, Germany September 7 Hamburger Morgenpost (Hamburg, Germany) Thieves sawed off part of the “Wumbo” mascot’s arm Tuesday night. Damages are estimated at approximately €500 (US$635). Note: Article is written in German

GREAT photos, Hanno! I'm glad to see this great ride is back in action.

Awesome, Larry! We just decided to do Wiener Prater and Vidampark in October and your tips are sure to prove invaluable. Thanks for all the legwork!

Hydromax, a skyscraper at Pleasure Island (UK) Hades at Mt. Olympus The Ultimate at Lightwater X2 and Eejanaika Eagles Fortress ERT on Voyage at HoliWood Nights 2008 Renegade with eyes closed, TPR Middle America ERT session

This is looking like a good year, but it is padded by the amazing TPR Middle America Trip and a few FEC's. And a waterpark. About 50 parks so far in 2010 (white entries are links to my trip report): Plopsaland Indoor Hasselt (Belgium) Disneyland (CA) Disney's California Adventure (CA) Universal Studios Hollywood (CA) Six Flags Magic Mountain (CA) Knott's Berry Farm (CA) Alton Towers (UK) Camelot Theme Park (UK) Pleasure Island Family Theme Park (UK) Fantasy Island (UK) Botton's Pleasure Beach (UK) Drayton Manor (UK) West Midlands Safari and Leisure Park (UK) Keansburg Amusement Park (NJ) Blackbeard's Cave Family Entertainment Center (NJ) Jenkinson's Boardwalk (NJ) Keansburg Amusement Park (NJ) BonBon-Land (Denmark) Bakken (Denmark) Tivoli Gardens (Denmark) Fun City (Sweden) Liseberg (Sweden) Fårup Sommerland (Denmark) Tivoli Karolinelund (Denmark) Tivoli Friheden (Denmark) Djurs Sommerland (Denmark) Six Flags America (MD) Canobie Lake Park (NH) Wild Adventures (GA) Six Flags Over Georgia (GA) Luna Park Coney Island (NY) Great Escape & Splashwater Kingdom (NY) Magic Forest Park (NY) Hoffman's Playland (NY) Jeepers! (NY) Clementon Park (NJ) Schlitterbahn (New Braunfels, TX) I know, it's strictly a water park, but I'm throwing it up here. Six Flags Fiesta Texas Nickelodeon Universe (MN) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Adventureland (IA) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Worlds of Fun (MO) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Silver Dollar City (MO) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Six Flags St. Louis (MO) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Holiday World (IN) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Indiana Beach (IN) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Six Flags Great America (IL) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Mt. Olympus (WI) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Timber Falls Adventure Park (WI) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Knucklehead's Bowling & Family Entertainment (WI) - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Valleyfair - TPR Middle America Tour 2010 Still To Come: Speelpark Duinen Zathe (Netherlands) Drouwenerzand Attractiepark (Netherlands) Hansa Park (Germany) Heide Park (Germany) Some October Trip Hopefully Orlando in November Hopefully Efteling December is a big question mark. Enjoy your travels! Someone go to Phoenix Phall Phunfest for me!

Great find, Hans, thanks for the report. Somehow I've missed this one.

Thanks for this excellent report. This is a good reminder to fans that setting up a park is an expensive proposition, and keeping it going it not always an easy task. Super parks like Disney and Universal and SF and CF make upkeep look easy, but it's not. Maintenance and managment of these parks requires enormous resources. You have to keep things looking good and still pay salaries and the bank. Home entertainment possibilities and other distractions have eaten away at the traditional amusement park market, and small operator's are often struggling. So get out and support your local 'crappy" park, no matter how lame it is, or one day you'll be doing a report like chadster's. Just my two cents.

Two weeks ago, Cheryl, Lauren, and I went up to the Lake George region (upstate New York for those who aren't familiar with NY State) for some R&R while Lauren was visiting from Texas. We hit the Great Escape, of course, but saw some interesting stuff on the way home at two smaller parks, Magic Forest in Lake George and Hoffman's Playland in Albany, the state capital. We started at Magic Forest. Unfortunately, even after going back the next week, we were unable to catch the diving horse show, and I apologize for not getting pictures. You can read about Lightning The Diving Horse here. Two shows are better than none. Poor Santa needs a summer outfit. This is the park's 47th season! It's a beautiful little park with all kinds of weird statuary. Speaking of statues...This one is holding up a turkey leg, I think. Cheryl on Santa's knee. Ummm.... This is more like it. Hello, Mr. Formal Cook Pig! Representing the three major food groups are the famous trio, self-medicated hot dog man, Belgian fries in Amsterdam man, and last but not least, Mr. Pete. Not sure why they're labeling Dutch children as Hansel and Gretel, who were German. They had some one-of-a-kind kiddie rides here. I have no idea what this is. This is a rarity, a kiddie-sized Tumble Bug ride. The only two adult-sized rides that operate are at Kennywood and Lake Conneaut. These were built by Harry Traver, designer of some of the wildest roller coasters ever, none of which survive today. Now this really blew me away. Inside were unbelievable moving Disney dioramas... Unfortunately my pictures don't do these justice. Each one had moving parts. It was incredible. another... another... There were 9 dioramas in all, telling the entire Snow White story. I didn't ask the park about the display, but the collection is amazing and unique and worth the visit by itself. Of course there's a credit, an Allan Herschell. Some nice old-fashioned flats too. Next stop was Latham, a suburb of Albany, for Hoffmann's Playland. They had the very same Allan Herschell model! Herschell was better know for carousels. The factory was outside of Buffalo. Station view. Nice choo choo. Two Jolly Caterpillars in the same day. I'd only ever seen these at Keansburg. Nice collection of Lusse Auto Skooters. Another unusual model. The 1953 Herschell carousel was in nice shape. The park received this ticket booth when it purchased the carousel. Thanks very much for coming along on our trip!

Finally got the chance to take a look today and it's really great work. Thanks so much for the hard work. It shows!

Thanks for the nice trip report. It looks to me that the park has changed very little since we were there in October 2007 for Magic Screams. Every coaster was up and running then except for Twist n Shout, a credit I'll have to go back for. Of course the water park and water rides were closed when we were there. I've read that they've had little ups and downs over the last few years with the coasters but I see pretty much the same thing I saw 2 1/2 years ago, a well-run little park that's set in a gorgeous landscape. The only major problem seems to be their anemic attendance. I lived in Monticello, AR, about 2 1/2 hours away by car, between 2001-2003 and I never saw a single marketing piece from MS. And Hot Springs just isn't the tourist draw that it once was. Anyone here see their advertising, say, in Little Rock? Once again, thanks for the nice photo update.

Nice first trip report! I'd love to do a Great Lakes/Western NY kinda sorta trip this summer. And I really have no excuse for never having visited my fantasy island.

Great post! We really enjoyed SFDK when we visited a couple of years back, and I remember spending a fair amount of time watching in awe of the staff guys that were hanging out inside the cage with the big tigers, playing and feeding them from baby bottles. Great that you were able to have such an intimate and special side experience.

I ran into this woman at HoliWood Nights a couple of years ago...Hope she doesn't mind. Never did get her name. She had this one, plus a raptor logo on her arm and one on the other leg too. I'm not at home so I can't manipulate the images easily, so I'll just post this one nice pic of the nicest tat. CP

In an 8-K submitted to the SEC, Six Flags announced that it fired Michael Antinoro, EVP Entertainment and Marketing, Andrew Schleimer, EVP Strategy Development and In-Park Services, and Mark Quenzel, EVP Park Strategy and Managment, saving their $400,000, $500,000, and $500,000 salaries, respectively. The company also announced that the office of the CEO would be leaving NYC and moving to the company's Dallas, TX offices. Not sure if this is also a move of the corporate HQ exactly. Read more about it here. Click on the June 21 8-K.

This is indeed tragic. The Kochs were warm hosts when we went to HoliWood Nights in 2008, and others have pointed out that he appeared as vibrant as ever recently, certainly in the YouTube updates on the new Voyage trains and Wildebeest. I'm only 4 years younger myself... I tip my Great Adventure cap and raise my re-fillable cup of soda to the memory of Will Koch.

Awesome TR. We were just there for HoliWood Nights in 2008, just a couple of years ago, and I can't believe that since then they've added two major attractions and will very soon have new trains on Voyage. Thanks very much for the refresher course!

Tell us where it is Mystery! No clue what you're referring to. Thanks for posting the DAFE info, Rastus. We've joined in the last year. I think dark rides are a key amusement park experience, right along with coasters and flumes. My two favorite dark rides are outside of the U.S. "Pooh's Hunny Hunt" at Disneyland Tokyo was the most incredible dark ride I've ever been on. They took an ordinary Pooh dark ride (I think the one at Disneyland in CA), used the same story line, and then injected the ride with heroin. I don't know how else to describe it. Another great one is "Droomvlucht" (Dreamflight) at Efteling in The Netherlands. That's a work of incredible beauty, and it even has its own original soundtrack. (Ironically, we heard the Droomvlucht soundtrack being used in a fairy tale dark ride at Liseberg, in Sweden, a couple of weeks ago!) I still love the old monster houses with crash doors from the days of my youth. They're awesome. I too was scarred by the Great Adventure fire in the late 80's. That had been an attraction I'd visited, naturally. That incident, caused by one shmuck's cigarette lighter, turned me off of parks for years, but I realize today that most parks take safety very seriously and most are working to constantly improve safety, maybe to a fault (like forcing you to empty your pockets before riding a coaster - sheesh).

After a Saturday that had completely devolved into rain and a visit to the tiny Aarhus casino that only had two blackjack tables, we woke up on Sunday morning ready for our 9th and final park of the weekend... We're at Djurs Sommerland! Wait a second, this looks like Tobu Zoo!?!? Freakin' awesome, Djurs has Piraten, which is the only Intamin MegaLite outside of Asia. I don't understand why US parks haven't been gobbling these up...small foot print with... ...gobs of airtime! These things are super fun. But damn the tight Intamin t-bar restraints! You have to lose all of your body fat and still suck in your gut to get the belt done. Did I mention that one gets a discount when one shows their Club TPR card at Djurs Sommerland???? Isn't it funny that we have the Lake Compounce ponchos in Denmark? Here's another look at Piraten and its theming. They had a great Gerstlauer bobsled too, like the one at Tripsdrill. Slides are fun Kids area Indoor play area Another view of Thor's Hammer I didn't get the boob credit. ...Um, theming police? This was a bizarre jungle adventure cruise. Can't get the animal screeching soundtrack out of my head. Massive climbing/ropes/obstacle course installation. Quite challenging, actually, but low enough to not require safety lines. They sold dough that you could roast over open flame. Ornen, a Huss Topple Tower. We were pretty tapped out at the end of our 4 day Scandi credit tour. It's on to one more ferry and then a race back to CPH airport for the return flight to Amsterdam. Thanks for looking at our report!!!

Yeah, just wanted the credit, really. Scad Tower? Look up three pics from your post! Thanks for reminding me of the correct name!

Day 3 had us heading to another 3 parks, Fårup Sommerland, Tivoli Karolinelund, and Tivoli Friheden. Unfortunately, there was rain in the forecast. We had to get up really early to catch... ...another ferry, this one from Gothenberg to Frederikshavn, Denmark. This wasn't our boat but another similar ferry. This was a longer trip, about 2 hours. Our first stop was Fårup Sommerland, which we loved. We showed our Club TPR cards and the kid waved us through to the parking lot and we walked into the park. First stop was this S&S designed, Gerstlauer built woodie, Falken. We really liked this nice family woodie with an out and back portion and then some helix-twister elements. Does this constitute lift hill porn? Nice attention to detail here...after the first drop and an air hill into a tunnel, this impression of a rider who didn't strap in properly appears at the tunnel mouth! It's a beautiful park with a lot of rustic nature, but enough attractions that you don't feel that it's empty. This was a cool attraction: Little motorboats! Apparently the rides are also popular with the local wildlife, featured in the park's hilarious TV commercials. You can check 'em out on the park website. Nice raft ride. Reverchon spinning mouse. I love the Fårup logo, with the green on top and the water blue below. See how thick the trees and foliage are? You can't see the swings. Lynet (Lightning) is the second Gerstlauer launch coaster we've done. Sure enough, just took video and no pics. Duh. Here's a still from one of the videos. Another thing we liked: fresh fruit stand in the park. Another look at Falken. Time to head to our next park. Karolinelund is in the Danish city of Aalborg. It was founded by the Lind family after WWII and is now owned by the city. Once again I failed to take many pictures and this Wacky Worm was the only coaster shot that I got. They also have a Zyklon and a surprisingly smooth Boomerang. I have figured out that I don't care about the headbanging in a Boomerang, but the boomerang element itself always makes me nauseous, forward or backward. Anyone else get this? They also had this clown. And this also old-school dark ride. I found the nameplate... Sweet, I didn't know that Pinfari did dark rides. We jumped in the car and headed to another large city with a park in its midst. The city is the second largest in Denmark, Aarhus, and the park is Tivoli Friheden (Freedom). Unfortunately the forecast rain had started on the drive to Aarhus and was going strong by the time we arrived. Alas, we were told that the Sartori inverted "Cobra" would not be running in the rain. Too bad, it looked like fun. We found another really good dark ride. This one was themed to haunted hotels like in The Shining and Psycho. Good stuff. As you can see, they had a true free fall tower (like Terminal Velocity at Extreme World in the Dells). We wanted to do it but it was rainy and cold and we basically chickened out, which was too bad because it was a small upcharge from the all ride wristband. Hopefully we'll get to do it with a million people (when you can't wimp out!) on the Middle America Tour. Extra sour! Can you believe this? We scored the rest of the credits and headed to the hotel, which gave us this room with an awesome view. Coming Up: Final day at Djurs!

Absolutely right, Ginzo, just no time to go to GL. Almost added Skara Sommerland to the trip, but they were not yet open. Here's a map of the circle route we did, flying in and out of CPH. As you can see, either Stokholm or Oslo would have been a long way out of the way. I'm just happy that we were able to hit everything planned and still get a little sleep. Larry, the price of "Fun" City was 200 Swedish Krona, and the day of our visit the exchage was 7.7 to the greenback, so about US$26 each. To ride a rubber band car! Thanks for the nice comments, everyone! More to come!

Day 2 started with a ferry ride to Sweden, a stop at the very bizarre Fun City, and concluded with great visit to Liseberg. First you wake up early and park your car on a boat. Set sail... ...land in Sweden, drive a couple of hours and end up at one of the weirdest parks we've ever been to, Fun City near Varberg. We had seen the credit on the road driving in, now we just need to find it. Upon entering the park, you find some small scale climbing course stuff. ...the odd stand... Small funhouse. This is "Fun City" after all. Na-chuh. But we don't touch so that we can fill out the U.S. customs form with a clear conscience. Swinging pirate ship. Little did we know that the pirate walk-through beyond it would scar us for life. More on that a little later. There's an assortment of flats, but the place is dead. Ticket booth, or torture chamber for unruly guests? After going through some woods, we come to this interesting looking water park area. We can't find the damn coaster, but we've found reindeer, or caribou. Never could tell those apart. After walking past more animal areas over a muddy road, we finally find where we think the coaster is. Guess what? Cheryl's face says it all. I'm too embarrassed to tell you what we paid to get into..."Fun City". The grease monkeys were apologetic about the coaster being down, and thought they could appease us with this Car Bungy thing, which looks 10 times better than what it actually is...a car connected to some rubber bands. We start heading back out of the park, and again pass this pirate walk-through. We decide to check it out. This was a mistake. There was no building behind the facade. There were only small shelters housing a number of long-neglected scenes of approximately this quality. Look at this. I have to nominate this for "Worst Walkthrough...Ever". This particularly unnerving scene should qualify for "Worst Set of Worst Walkthrough...Ever". We got the hell out of there fast. An hour's drive brought us to the wonderful Liseberg! And it was turning into a beautiful day. Pay the entrance admission, then skip the ride ticket booths, make a right at the bumper cars to get to Guest Services. At this point lovely Swedish hotties, worthy of Big Mike's lineup, will favor you with... VIP wristbands!!! But you've gotta be a Club TPR member!!!!! Freaking Balder man!!! More freaking Balder. Two Intamins in one picture! Some Liseberg offerings are not Intamin, but they are still good. Final run before the station of the great Lisebergbanan Zierer Schwarzkopf coaster. Great live music but dressed as a chilling reminder of the morning's traumatic experience at "Fun Shitty". Liseberg is also the public gardens. I sang the "Escalator Ride" song here. Upswinget looks like an S&S Power Screamin' Swing. These are fun. This was a great Spooky Hotel walkthrough, and it's normally an upcharge attraction, but it's free with your VIP wristband that you got by showing your Club TPR membership card! We were getting pretty beat by evening (notice the sun is still high). We did another run on Balder. Then we hit a fairy tale dark ride that had a Peter Pan-like roof ride system a la Disney, but was using the musical soundtrack from Droomvlucht at Efteling!!! Thanks for visiting Sweden with us, everyone! Day 3 is back to Denmark and three more parks!!!

This was my first visit to all of these parks, so I don't know how the Kumbak trains have affected the rides. Actually, both of the old Rutschebanens ran great. I seem to recall photos of Robb actually doing the braking on one of these. Was it at Bakken or Tivoli?