simon8899

I still remember when the Looping Star at Hansapark had three-train operation one was installed backward - so hot.... Today we've far too little backward running or shuttle looping coasters!

Thanks for the Ghibli museum pics. Simply love the movies. Shows that Disney went wrong with its CGI-animated movies. The Studio Ghibli mpvies are so massively complex and all hand-animated. For example the robot is a former war-robot that in the movie cares for a beautiful garden.... The coaster around the mall reminds me of Pacific Coaster at Santa Monica Pier....

The looping coaster around the shuttle replica is one of the first Maurer-Söhne coasters after they aquired the former Schwarzkopf coaster division from BHS. Still has some features of Jetline or Lisebergbanan. How was it compared to classic Schwarzkopf coasters?

If weather forecast holds I'll be there comming saturday for my first ride of the year....

Cant wait for my visit in September....keep fingers crossed for fine weather....

Even if parks like this dont have fancy coasters I love them for their classic carnival rides which are harder and harder to find.

Sadly you cant order weather by e-ticket.....yet.... I mostly do 2 days at one loacation to have better chances - especially while travelling mid-/northern europe.

As nearly everywhere in the world july and august are the top holiday months - so avoid them if possible. However Holiday-Park is closed weekdays in spring and september. I planed on doing Europa-Park, Holiday-Park, Tripsdrill and Walygator one week in late september - but as most parks are closed during the week I'll do Europa-Park only and save the others for my next life...

Western Playland looks like having mostly classic carnival rides. Whats always interesting to note is that the light-package on your rides is mostly very, very basic compared to euro rides...the log flume and Zyklon coaster are especially "dark"...

Sad news for all locals.... Smaller carnivals slowly die here also. Most poeple want flashy big state-of-the-art rides and as "smaller" showmen cant afford them poeple go for the big fairs in the major cities - and as the smaller fairs loose crowds they die out. Over here all fairs are organized by the local Economic Deptartment at the city hall.

First construction pics.... 60 meter ferris wheel by showmen Steiger Hmmmm.....looks familiar.... Something still missing.....

Frühlingsdom is comming up to start at the 23rd of March. Now the attending rides have been announced: hamburg.de Highlights include the Olympia Looping as well as the Mondial Inferno "Airwolf" and the Zierer Star Shape "High Energy". Classics include of course a Huss Dancer and Frisbee as well as a Schwarzkopf Monster. Two weeks to wait.....

Looks good....already booked my 3-night / 2 day stay for end of september.

Great to see that even a small park can not only previal but expand around the mega-ressorts next door. If they've the woodie up by April 2013 I'm sure to check it out....

As I'm 34 I'd suggest 33 as a good minimum age - at least for my preference of having no lines....

I still remeber the driving school from back when I was a kid at Legoland Billund. Notably in denmark some signs are different/unknown than in germany - so I completly ignored them and caused some accidents....

The webpage of Sommerland Syd has now been updated....and they get themselves for the Tornado... - a Zyklon Galaxi coaster - a Huss Rainbow - a Huss Enterprise All most likely used. Judging by the pics the Huss rides have a kind-of Maya theme... So for me its a park less on the list to visit regulary.... Sommerland Syd webpage

^But only if you can reactivate a Concorde...

great report....cant wait till next year.

One part of the problem IMO is that many parks use low-income students as ride-ops. Only very few parks still use full-employed personel on their rides - and after years of experience you simply "know" your ride. Those ride-ops can - like Scotty - say that their ride "sounds wrong". I had it years ago on the Alpina-Bahn that a ride ops said to change trains as the one rolling in "has a banging wheel-assembly". I doubt that many students with a few hour hands-on training will notice such things. Next to that I always test the restraints myself - as in holding them and trying to push them up with full strength. As the saying goes: Trust is well - Control(ing yourself) is better. Next to that in my experience most rides have measures to prevent launch with an open restraint. There're LEDs red/green for the ride-attendants and the ride-ops wont get green light as a cicuit runs through all restraints and only if all restraints are closed the cicuit is closed. Schwarzkopf and Huss use such systems. Of course these systems could also fail due to material fatigue. Sadly no system is perfect after years of aging...

On LA I strongly recommend to hire a car - even if traffic is weekdays a nightmare you're still faster than by public transit. SF offers one of the better US public transit systems - you can reach the SF park by boat and bus: baylink

@jzoole Olympia Looping is the only coaster with 5 vertical loops I know of....

One the one hand you've to impregnate each work of steel with rust-repelling paint every few years - maybe they did this too sparsley or the air there is quite salty. On the other hand most 1910s, 1920s wooden costers dont feature one original wood part anymoore so the replacement isnt a bad thing as long as they keep the classic ride...

If they wanna open it it nearly two months I cant see something too big beeing newly errected here for this summer - maybe they'll re-theme some rides...

Rutschebanan (1914) at Tivoli Copenhagen here also oldest wood coaster ever ridden. The oldest steel would be the Matterhorn Bobsleds (1959) and the Schwarzkopf Wildcat (1964). All are still in operation - the Wildcat even travelling on german fairs.