simon8899

Great PhotoTR! Need to do CedarPoint when I'm in or near NYC next time - will also do Hersheypark, Knoebels and SFGA then at least. Weather can be a bitch judging by your Knoebels pics. Honestly at that weather I'd headed for some museum or shopping mall. I pick my hotel at a central location - all parks I wanna do within 100 miles - and then make a priority list which parks to hit first if weather is mostly dry. I dont care for a single shower or two - but if weather is worse I rapidly get frustrated at a park. I also have a list with destinations for bad weather...

Some impressions from the Hannover Schützenfest. I visited on a monday and I've to say that I've never saw a carnival that deserted. Only the Olympia-Looping, Break Dancer and High Impress were at least gathering 4-6 riders every 15 minutes. Many rides were fairly deserted all day and I decided to skip those so the showmen don't have to spend all the energy for only one rider. At last there was also a new credit for me: A classic Zyklon 47 coaster built in 1968. At the time it was competing with the Schwarzkopf Wildcat, but the latter being far more forceful and exciting. This still is a good kiddie/family coaster though. The Waveswinger offers a nice background art - lets see how fast Imageshack deletes this... The advantage of an empty carnival was that the Dancer ran a 5+ minute program! Showman Dölle had a poster with his past rides on display. Didn't know Round-Ups are around since the 60s. Now some empty rides were I didn't see a single rider all day... At least some kids inside the funhouse. It's Spencer/Hill approved! Three girls on the long wait till the ride starts... Crowded midway...lol. At least I was able to get three spins on Olympia that day! Now its only less than 2 weeks till Sommerdom in my hometown Hamburg - and yes: Olympia Looping will be there...

So far I've only ridden the X-Car SkyWheel at Linnanmaki and loved it.

You can take my pictures of the new Wild Mouse and Kang-A-Bounce at Bakken from my trip-review if you like them. Next to that you still have listed an Enterprise in Bakken which was nowhere to be found - judging by the pictures it was replaced by the Kang-A-Bounce.

CHICKEN!!!

Cool to see that Knoebels keeps their "ancient" rides, the bumper cars look like being at least 50 years old. Also always interesting to see how Moser Rides cornered the market with their kiddie towers.

The new SooperDooperLooper train looks great! Gladly they didn't add OTSRs like on Revolution.

3 spins on Olympia Looping today at Hannover Schuetzenfest. Olympia running very good today, one girl totally greyed out and was helped out of the train. Sadly carnival was quite deserted so wasnt able to ride much.

Typical small time fair: Dancer, Bumper Cars But just watched the Heart Breaker on youtube - cool ride with a small footprint!

Part 6: An evening at Tivoli Gardens Tivoli Gardens is one of my fav parks. Maybe not sporting the biggest ride selection or coasters, but all rides they have are big fun and for its space they pack a lot. Tivoli Gardens is located in the heart of the city. Just exit the central station and you stand right in front of it. Flats include a Break Dancer, Peter Pan, Inverted Carpet and a seldom found Huss Flic Flac, the latter sadly closed as it was outfitted with new gondolas. Up in the air it goes with a drop tower, a tall Funtime Starflyer and an amazing tupsy-turvy airplane-ride. The coasters: Rutschebanen - best classic woodie, pops of air, great brakemen who know their ride and go the curves really fast for a side friction coaster Demonen - B&M floorless, quite short but packing some punch which is seldom found among B&M coasters which are mostly more family-rides than thrill-rides even if they invert Odin Expressen - my fav MACK powered coaster, seldom found Gs in the downward helices and final tunnel Next to my hotel was the brand new Tivoli Hotel Some animation going on - next time I'll have to book my room over there... First ride of the day was Demonen Tivoli Guard marching band Always good to ride Rutschebanen again! Moving from the garden area into the rides area at the back of the park Found the way to good beer. Food is midrange, BUT they serve Oktoberfestbier, Salvator, and Weizen Hell and Dunkel from tab! Wonderfully themed kiddie ride Kraken and Odin Expressen zooming by behind it. Sadly Dragen was closed and getting new gondolas What a funny insane ride. Lines are always long but have to do it at least once each visit! Seldom found Inverted Carpet by Zierer. Even more enjoyable than the classic variant. Tivoli at night is always spectecular Last ride of the day: A nighttime ride on Rutschebanen That's all folks! Coming up this month are the carnivals in Hannover and Hamburg. In September I'll be heading for Holiday-Park, Europa-Park and the Vienna Prater.

I prefer open ferris wheel gondolas as its better suited for picture taking - especially at night. The worst thing that could happen is that there's light inside the gondolas...

Last year at SFMM when Green Lantern was still under construction not many people ventured behind so Scream and Goliath had very few visitors - always so many seats free I simply kept sitting or just switched seats having multiple immediate re-rides on both then.

I quite enjoyed the ride on the Rutschebanen. Yes the lift hill isn't really straight up anymore - well as long as it works and the authorities say its safe, I'm game.

You can put more than one car onto a Wildcat track - and if the brake-system is in order the cars wont bump into each other at the end of the ride. At the carnival they even added slow moving transfer wheels that move the cars at a bout the speed of a log in the logflume station from the exit to the entry station so they don't need an operator at the exit station in slow times.

I don't have a before-after reference as this was my first spin on this coaster. To rate it among the classic coasters of this tour I'd say its better than Vouristorata at Linnanmäki but of course not as good as the Rutschebanen at Tivoli Gardens.

Bakken for the most part looks like a european carnival that at some point decided to stop moving and keep sitting in place. Most rides are portable carnival rides, including some classics which are nice to ride again. Bakken is located in Klampenborg, a suburb of Copenhagen and is reachable from the central station by local commuter train "S-Tög C". Be aware that this trains operate on weekends and public holidays only until 7pm. There're later long distance trains stopping at Klampenborg for Copenhagen, but at an additional price. The coasters: Rutschebanen - classic side-friction coaster now with new brakemen-less trains by KumBak running very well with good air in the last rows. The new brakesystem reminds a lot of the original Matterhorn Bobselds. Tornado - Very spinny spinning coaster by Intamin, short but worth multiple rides. Racing - Classic Zierer Flitzer in original 70s carnival layout and original cars, still big fun Mine Train Ulven - Family coaster by Intamin, nothing special and a good ride for smaller kids The wet way to Bakken. Technically this already is Bakken as the ride area is only a small part of the whole park. Classic Flitzer! Love the original cars with no re-straints whatsoever. Station of Mine Train Ulven. Brand new MACK Wild Mouse. Kiddie credit. Great spinner Tornado! Totally weird ride! Or as we in germany say: Kotzmühle! This was also weird but very funny. A little rain doesn't keep the scandinavian off a logflume. Always good to have a Anton´ Monster! Rutschebanen impressions. Coming up next: Evening visit of Tivoli Copenhagen!

This I'd count as a coaster: Fort Fun - Trapper Slider by Wieland - iron tracks, single cars, modern wheel assembly - car can't fall off the track This I'd not count as a coaster: Rasti-Land - Bobcart Bahn also by Wieland - speed-controlled bobs inside a classic alpine sled track

Twister really holds up to its name - very tight, quirky and packed layout making lots of fun. Short but intense pops of air on the last row. Jetline is - of course - Schwarzkopf great - fast, high Gs, after the first round around the latter section of the park it reminds a lot of german carnivals Alpina-Bahn.

Put it onto my own web server: Live's great - At Gröna Lund! Americans can be sooooo prudent!

Sadly Jetline was down again - I was lucky that it was up again in the evening.

Gröna Lund: Can get packed very fast. Try Insane and Vilda Musen first as those have low capacity. Hit the other coasters in the evening, after 8pm Twister and Jetline were walk-ons. If you've a chance to hit a local carnival skip Dancer and Extreme as lines are veeeery long. Liseberg: Balder has the longest line so try this first, then Kanonen next door. Lisebergbanen runs up to 5 trains so mostly short waits. If you wanna do flats do them in the evening - veeery slow operations on Jukebox!

Part 4: Liseberg Liseberg is a nicely located park in the city of Gothenburg. Gothenburg itself is a mixture of european city styles sporting netherlands (the canals), german (the main treelined parade road) and scottish (harbour layout) - which is no wonder as this city was in part built by workers from this countries under invitation from the then swedish king. Gothenburg also sports a very good tram system. Disabled riders should beware that Gothenburg still runs their 30s and 50s trams on a regular basis and not all have been converted. That said Liseberg has its own tramstation on line 3 - but major station Korsvägen is only about 500 meters away from the main entry. Liseberg has two areas: The level area at the foot of Liseberg were most rides are and the hilly Liseberg area were the beautifully landscaped Lisebergbanen and logflume go through as well as some small footprint rides like the drop/shoot towers, the ferris wheels, Upswinget and a Schwarzkopf Walzerfahrt/Tilt-A-Whirl. New this year is a beautifully themed Monster by Gerstelauer replacing the old Schwarzkopf ride named Jukebox. The coasters: Lisebergbanen - one of the longest coasters in europe zooming through the wooded hilly terrain of Liseberg while also circling Upswinget, the old drop-tower and going over the logflume, said to be Anton Schwarzkopf's favorite coaster and I can understand why even if I like his looping-coasters more Kanonen - small Intamin accelerator but packing a punch into its small layout with top-hat, loop, and heartline roll, the latter offering good hangtime Balder - IMO a quite overrated coaster, not a bad one but Colossos at Heide-Park is bigger with more air and Twister at Gröna-Lund with the far more quirky layout Beware of the Angered Centralstation! Directions in Gotehnburg Classic trams at Gothenburg city-square Harbor Here you also find the Liseberg Guest Harbor. Now finally you can park your yacht while visiting the park. Brand new Gerstelauer Monster for this season. Pros: Good program and 50s/60s rock hits. Cons: seperated seats and individual lapbars, so no longer able to "work" the spinning up. Total Cons: Ride attendant in coma, carnival ride would be ready 3-4 times faster. Kanonen looping, quite short but very cool accelerator. Balder, overrated but okay woodie. This Afterburner had the longest line, so skipped it to ride it at an upcoming carnival. Evening lights on the mirror labyrinth. Magic Mountain should have these! Schwarzkopf' version of the Tilt-A-Whirl: The Walzerfahrt. The old Schwarzkopf ferris wheel. Skipped the new one as its enclosed by windows - not ideal for taking photos. Lenny Kravitz was performing at Liseberg! Nothing better than nighttime rides on Lisebergbanen! Evening view of the new ferris wheel and AtmosFear. Visited Liseberg 2 days in a row!!! Kanonen going very slow (!!!) over the tophat - even way slower than Xcelerator, but never saw or experienced a rollback. Lisebergbanen impressions. Upsvinget looks impressive but on a classic Pirate there're more airtime feelings, maybe because the lapbar is really tight on this one. Great operations on Liseberbanen with up to five trains. Second evening in the "old Harbor" area - good food options here. Coming up next: A showery day at Bakken!

At swedish park maps it was noted which restaurants had a B-license - B(eer) and Wine - or an A-license - A(ll) including the hard stuff.... The latter only at full-service restaurants.

I'd count it as new credit. Plus: Love that the Schmidt Transformer will be at the DOM again after years.

On Montezooma's Revenge last year at Knotts - first ride of the day and I was the only rider in front seat.