Ryancrash

We enjoyed a tasty dinner at Ikea (served up by the Swedish Chef, I'm sure) - Swedish meatballs with lingonberries, and lingonberry soda. YUMMERS! Good stuff! (Even if it was no match for the amazing Swedish meatballs with lingonberries that we ate at Liseberg...) I am SO ready to go back to Sweden now...

Another awesome update Robb - the Rosie O'Donnell comment killed me. Linnanmäki was a blast - a wonderful end to such an epic trip. Yes, they could use one really kick ass roller coaster, but the park still had an awful lot to offer. We had fun all day and never ran out of things to do. And yes, Kieppi was mind-blowing! Ah, I miss Finland and I miss Scandinavia - I really wanna go back and do the whole trip all over again, it really was phenomenal. As for Kirnu, I'll vote penis (just to be a dick), but in reality I saw something far more mundane - I thought the coaster looked like a big laughing clown face.

Awesome TR Divv! It made me that much more stoked for next year's UK trip. Looks like a great weekend - and you found another ghost train for Scottish Steve! (He secretly LOVES those.) And you guys even hit Wagamama - I'm jealous! I really don't know why we don't have one of these in New York already. Reflex looks great too - any bar with Debbie Harry and Billy Idol on the wall is alright in my book. CHEERS!

Mmm, I like snacks! This update made me hungry. Dollywood really does have some of the best park food. Next time I'm gonna have to get some of that cinnamon bread... First time I rode Thunderhead, I reached the top of the lifthill and heard loud crashes of thunder all around. I thought it was part of the theming. (No, actual thunder!) Tennessee Tornado has held up surprisingly well for an Arrow looper - it was still running great when I rode it last year. And I love Mystery Mine! (Even though I do now love Fluch von Novgorod just a little bit better...) And let's not forget the awesomeness of the Mountain Slidewinder... Dollywood rocks, one of my absolute fave parks! Can't wait to go back!

Awesome... Cheers to the Brit crew!

Well, I'm changing my vote to #10. It's got a bit of the same feisty attitude that made Elissa's original photo so great. Robb comes in second, Ice Bat in third.

Elissa's original photo is still clearly the best - she's just got so much enthusiasm! This one will be hard to top in the future (without someone getting thrown out of the park...) For this new batch of photos, #8 is the winner, with Ice Bat (#0) coming in a close second.

Oh my god, Hitler bear is hilarious! I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Awesome... Thanks for sharing the pic Larry!

Hitler bears?! WTF?! Whatever these are, sounds like something we'll definitely have to find on next year's trip.

Bar photos please!! Drinky drink drink drink drink... Sorry to hear The Ultimate hasn't improved with age - and thanks for the advance warning. I'll brace myself and prepare for the worst on next year's UK trip.

I love that you guys kicked off the trip with Plex and company - Awesome! I wanna go ride Mumbo Jumbo.

Mmmm.... I! LIKE! WAFFLE HOUSE! All that Coke looked pretty good, but - where was the Faxi Kondi? (Haven't seen any since Denmark...) Oh yeah, and I think Coke owes y'all a hefty paycheck for all the product placement!

Yay for sexy dayglo orange train! Tornado was so damn awesome - better than Volcano, seriously! Yay for sexy barrel roll in the tunnel! (And yay for Trombi not beating me up half as bad as a certain death machine at Canada's Wonderland...) Särkänniemi was a thoroughly delightful park - and they even gave us gifts on the way out. A little bit of rain didn't spoil our fun - this was an awesome day. Hope to return and ride Tornado some more!

Coney Island is at the very bottom of Brooklyn (not Queens) - from Manhattan, it takes nearly an hour to get there by subway (or longer, depending on where you are in the city). If Coney Island were on 14th Street right in the middle of Manhattan, then it might be comparable to the urban parks like we hit in Scandinavia. (Except for the fact that all the parks we hit in Scandinavia were SO much nicer than Coney Island!)

^If we're going for Maiden, it's gotta be "Aces High!" And if Priest was on there it would have to be "Riding On The Wind!"

Power Park was great - I loved it! Thunderbird rocked, and I also enjoyed the shooting dark ride, and the star flyer - and the drop tower packed a surprise punch for a ride of its size. Our hotel was easily the nicest place we stayed on the entire tour - it had so much character, it was like something out of a fairy tale. (I was reminded a bit of some of the fancy theme hotels we stayed at in Europe last summer.) And the food was delicious (reindeer mousse - YUM!) And then there was our awesome TPR grand prix... Power Park was a real high point of the trip, a truly delightful resort. And personally I thought it was really cool seeing sunlight so late at night. (The sun did actually "set" around 11:30 pm, but it never actually got dark.) I can't wait to go back to Finland and visit this park again! Thank you Power Park for our awesome visit - and thanks Robb for another great update! Can't wait to see the future update from our grand prix experience...

My first ride will DEFINITELY be "Kickstart My Heart" - Hell Yeah! After that will be "Midnight Rider", "Devil Went Down To Georgia" and "Gimme All Your Lovin". While I think most of these tunes are crap, at least they give you more choices than I had on Hollywood Dream The Ride. HDTR had five songs to choose from - The Beatles' "Get Back" was the only one I could stomach, so I just listened to that over and over on every ride.

Thank you Gröna Lund for rolling out the red carpet for us! Gröna Lund was AWESOME - a real highlight of the trip. And Insane was indeed just that! I screamed like a girl every time I rode it - seriously! I can't think of another coaster on earth that's gotten that kind of reaction out of me. Talk about intensity! (Not to mention a little matter of bloody noses and burst blood vessels in eyes...) The other coasters were great too - I loved Jetline, Vilda Musen and Kvasten. And the walk-thru haunted house! Gröna Lund was such a great park - can't wait to go back there. Robb - I hope you do an update for our overnite cruise on the Viking Line! That was an awesome experience too. My very first overnite cruise - I tried it, I liked it!

Why does the Creature have dreadlocks? The dreads make him look more like Predator. This isn't the Creature I remember loving. The Creature was always one of my fave Universal monsters. I agree he needs to be brought forward into the new millennium and introduced to a new audience, but I'm not sure this was the right way to do it.

^Yes, Uppswinget needed a longer cycle, a few more swings. Great ride, great scenic setting, but it was over before I had a chance to get scared by the height.

Hey Robin! Great TR - so glad you and Peter were able to join us for a couple days! Tusenfryd was a blast. This was the day when Ivan was armed with the water pistol - no one was safe! Nice pics of Spin Spider - this was the ride where we encountered Robb's creepy stalker dude! And remember the girl in the yellow pants? First we saw her freak out on SuperSplash (?!) and then she rode Spin Spider and absolutely lost it - I thought she was ready for the sanitarium after that one! She was lying on the ground, being consoled by her friends - too damn funny. And Liseberg - what a day! BALDER = best woodie EVER! This park was definitely a highlight of a truly awesome tour. And you and Peter both survived our haunted house walk through - congrats! Glad you were able to make it to Djurs and Fårup - yes, Lynet was quite impressive indeed. Also some nice boat pics - I seem to recall that on one of our boat trips, we too had a lifeboat named Sean. Thanks for sharing the photos Robin! And Steve's right - next year you and Peter need to join us for a WHOLE trip! Cheers, Ryan

The first two times I rode Tranan, I was hanging on for dear life! You really do feel like you're gonna fly right out on those "inversions". Quite a fun little ride! Did anyone else notice that one of those birds looks suspiciously like the dog from the Hundeprutte-Rutsjebanen at Bon Bon Land?

Yes, Balder was even better than El Toro!! Absolutely amazing - my new number one woodie. Liseberg was so awesome - Balder, Hotel Gasten, Lisebergbanan... and did anyone else try the Swedish meatballs with the mashed potatoes and lingonberry sauce? It was DELICIOUS - much better than Ikea's. One of my favorite days of the trip.

Awesome trip report Divv!! Sure is great to relive last summer once more... what an adventure it was. Reading this just got me even more excited for Scandinavia. I just realized (right now) that in exactly two months from this very moment, I'll be on an airplane, somewhere between New York and Iceland. (Yeah, I'm starting the trip a few days early...) Can't wait to see you all in Copenhagen!

I watch both discs, they each have their own special charms. If I end up watching one more, it would probably be the footage disc - it's kinda more like coaster porn. But I'm definitely a fan of both discs and I certainly wouldn't want to lose either of them. And yeah, I'm totally down with a dark ride DVD! Next to coasters, dark rides are my favorite things in the park. This is probably an impossibility, but any chance of some historical dark ride footage? When I grew up in Seattle, there was this awesome dark ride called "Flight To Mars" at the Seattle Center Fun Forest. I loved that ride. When they razed it in the 90's to make way for the EMP museum, it broke my heart. Anyhow, such footage may not even exist, but I thought I'd throw that out there just the same.