TR: Liseberg 14/05

[viking86]

Hi all! I just came home from Liseberg after spending an entire day there with 7 other crazy people from the Norwegian Coaster Club. I dont really remember everything that happened that day so this TR wont be extremely long

 

Alright, here we go...

 

Once we were inside the gates we headed for Kanonen since this is the most popular ride and it has the lowest capacity of the coasters in the park. It wasnt open when we came so we decided to take a quick ride on Balder since the queue was short. I had never ridden Balder before so we took the front row. After a 180 degree turn we hit the steep and fast lifthill. You get a really nice view of Kanonen at the top, but there isnt much time to enjoy it. After a short right turn you dive almost vertically towards the ground, and you get some nice floater air in the front seat. The rest of the ride is a double figure-eight layout with lots of ejector airtime and smooth turn. We rode it in the backseat later and the first drop was just insane. Airtime all the way down. The last hill is very surprising as it really throws you into your lapbar. A nice ending to a fantastic ride.

 

After our first ride on Balder, we saw that Kanonen had opened so we decided to get in line. A little while later I was in the front seat looking down the launch track. The sound of drums starts, and we roll back and forth a little. Arms up and I was ready to go.... An explosion is heard on the speakers and off we go. WOW! The launch was better than I expected, but it seemed to loose its speed very quickly right before the tophat. I cant really remember much of the ride, except that I really liked it. Maybe a bit painfull on the twisting airtime hills, but still a really good ride. Unfortunately it broke down so I only got one ride on it. They started testing it again late in the evening, and I got to see a rollback. It was just a shame it never opened again that day.

 

I cant really remember when we rode it the first time, but one thing I do know is that we rode Lisebergbanan quite a few times that day. This ride is just fantastic, it has everything. Airtime, strong positive G-forces and lateral G-forces. Its a very fun ride, and the interaction with some of the other rides is just great. The only negative thing about this ride is the brakes, which arent the most comfortable.

The ride throws you around a bit, but its still smoother than many newer rides. Thats quite impressive considering its 18 years old. I can easily understand why this was Anton Schwarzkopf's favorite coaster. Another thing that impressed me, was that they were running 5 trains on it so the queue was moving constantly. There were always 1 train on the lift, 2 on the track, 1 on the brakes and 1 in the station. Way to go Liseberg!

 

Some of us rode Cirkusexpressen to get an extra credit. Its a small Zierer Tivoli coaster and its something you only want to ride once. The seats arent padded very well, and the ride is a bit rough. I feel sorry for the kids who has to ride coasters like this when the adults can enjoy smooth coasters like Lisebergbanan and Balder.

 

The park has many other fun rides like Höjdskräcken, a great S&S Turbo Drop, Flumeride, a really good Arrow logflume, Kållerado, a very wet river rapids, Spinrock, a fun Zamperla Discovery 24 and at last, but not least.... Spökhotellet Gasten. This is a haunted hotel with real actors in it. It really made me jump a few times. Without a doubt the best attracion of its kind Ive been on.

 

Despite the fact that I only rode Kanonen once, I had a fantastic day at Liseberg and I cant wait to go back sometime. Liseberg has 3 fantastic coasters, and Im sure there are some other norwegian coaster enthusiasts out there who agrees with me

 

 

Pictures will be coming soon...

[robbalvey]

Wow! Nice TR! I can't wait for our visit. We leave in something like 4 weeks!

 

Can you tell us about what other rides besides the coasters they have there? Are there any 'must do' dark rides or flat rides?

 

--Robb "Balder sounds awesome!" Alvey

[viking86]

I reccomend checking out Spökhotellet Gasten, the parks haunted hotel. If you want to know more about the other rides at Liseberg, check out this http://www.nojespark.net/liseberg.php

[Cllins]

Can you tell us about what other rides besides the coasters they have there? Are there any 'must do' dark rides or flat rides?

 

--Robb "Balder sounds awesome!" Alvey

 

 

Just got back from Liseberg, they have, Chair-o-plane, S&S drop & shot towers, Big wheel, Top spin, A ride like vortex at Thorpe park called spinrock, A carpet type of ride called rainbow, a mega G force ride called Tornado, Waltzer, Tea-cups, Bumper cars, Carousel, Flume ride, Rapids, Escalator ride (two of them !), House of mirrors, Horror walk though (Gasten Ghost Hotel, its very good), spin and spew ride called jukebox. I haven't made my mind up about Balder yet, It’s made out of wood but acts like a steel coaster its smooth as a steel coaster and has lots of airtime (I mean lots of airtime), & the coaster makes farting sounds as it goes over the airtime bumps (I believe Colossos at heide-Park makes the same sounds). Don’t get me wrong it’s a very good coaster for airtime, but it’s not got that wooden coaster feeling. When queuing for it the wooden structure does not move one inch when the car is storming around the track (and it does go around the track at some speed). There are no wood creaking sounds at all. Its all concreted to the ground by one massive slab of concrete. The cars are made out of steel, I am not a great fan of steel cars on a wooden coaster track. Maybe it just me being picky. Also when you see Kanonen working go for it, as it had lots of problems when it was running last Saturday for the couple of hours it was working. Only had one go on it. Rita’s launch is better than Kanonen’s but Kanonen is a better ride over all as it has some very tight twists & turns you almost stop at the top of the top hat!. Lisebergbanan was a surprise very fast & good drops on it.

 

 

Nick “hope you enjoy Liseberg as much as we did” Collins

[viking86]

Heres a few pics from our great trip to Liseberg

[SharkTums]

DUDE!! I had no idea they had an escalator ride!!!

 

Elissa "more excited about that then any of the crappy Intamin rides!" Alvey

[viking86]

One thing I forgot to mention: With the exception of those working on Lisebergbanan, the ride-ops at Liseberg were working somewhat slow. Especially those working on the S&S tower were very lazy. They walked slowly around the tower, switching between talking and checking restraints. When I was at Tusenfryd last year, the ride-ops on Thundercoaster were running to check the seatbelts and restraints and the queue was only 15 mins. The queue on Balder on saturday was 30-40 mins.

[viking86]

Heres a small video of me and another member on Kanonen on our first and only ride. Its filmed inside the station so you only see the beginning of the launch. Im the one closest to the camera looking slightly nervous

Kanonen2.zip

Me on my first launched coaster ever!

[nemesis-storm]

Like Nick (cllins) has mentioned we were also at Liseberg on 14th May.

 

I can see why Balder is high up on some coaster enthusiasts favourite coaster list.

If you prefer high airtime – very smooth wooden coasters get a ride on Balder.

It produces some really awesome air time through out it’s entire course. It’s also very smooth – hardly any G’s ( that I could notice anyway).

 

Like Nick I felt it ‘lacked something’ that a wooden coaster should have. I thought the same of Colossos at Heide Park too.

 

We waited no longer than 25 mins for Balder

 

Kanonen is better than RITA, that was not a suprise for me to be honest. We only managed to get 1 go on it also, we were in the queue line when it broke down .

The launch is fairly powerful - but the train felt to me lost some speed almost straight away. When at the top of the top hat - the train almost stopped. A large increase in speed on the drop from the top hat in the vertical loop. Some small G is encounterd in the downward & upward spirals with a bit of airtime in between. Then into the Zero G roll and into the brakes - A good ride - bit of a poor launch compared to RITA but overall a better ride.

 

Anway on to some pictures

 

Balder's first drop

 

Balder

 

Kanonen

 

Kanonen

 

Lisebergbanan

 

Cirkusexpressen

 

Tornado - a kind of sit down enterprise?

 

Höjdskräcken

 

More pictures of Liseberg & larger versions of the above pictures are on my 'flickr' photo pages

 

[PhishyBrewer]

I need to get out of the states and start doing some traveling. The only country I've been to beside the USA, is... Canada

 

And even though I live in California, I've never been to Mexico. BECAUSER I'M AFRAID!

 

Who wants to go somewhere? Let's go.

 

Nice TR and photos. I'm jealous

[ncf]

Heres a small video of me and another member on Kanonen on our first and only ride. Its filmed inside the station so you only see the beginning of the launch. Im the one closest to the camera looking slightly nervous

 

Hey! I'm one of the Norwegian coaster club members who were there And I took that video

How can I post a video? I have really GREAT off-ride vid of Kanonen from HöjdSkräcken I think I sent it to viking86 too, maybe you can upload it?

[Sebbe]

Great pics of my favorite park. And a good trip report. Hope to visit this park during my trip to sweden this summer. The park has a uniquely atmosphere and three top coaster.