Looping Starship Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 Hi all! I´m sorry for not posting this earlier on, but i´m quite busy at the moment.. However, after visiting Liseberg once a year since i where born (1982), it makes it my home park. I came up with the idea a couple of weeks ago to my girlfriend "Hey, let´s try it in the very beginning of the season on a day in yhe middle of the week, to keep the crowd minimal". Ofcourse, she said "Let´s go!" immediately. So, on tuesday the 29th of April, we headed for the 3 hour drive to Gothemburg. We stayed at my parents friends place and had a nice time there. Wednesday the 30th was so the day. I still get that feeling in my body everytime i´m getting close to Liseberg. The park opened up at 12:00 and the rides 12:30. When we parked my car 12:35, the only thing i could see moving was "Kanonen". When we payed our parking fee, i saw it made a Roll Back for the first time in my life. Too bad i didn´t have my camera ready When we entered the park, the first thing we noticed was, the park was almost EPMTY. I´ve never seen it like this before. I´ve only visited Liseberg in the middle of the summer where the lines are atleast 50 minutes for almost every ride. WE HAD BLAST! So, let´s take this from the beginning, in pictures! Here we are, on our way to Gothemburg. The best city in Sweden (my opinion that is)! My girlfriend Camilla and the Swedish Looping Starship fanatic/freak. When entering the park, i always choose the southern entrance. This is because you have a big parking lot just outside and there´s less crowd here. The first ride inside the park from here is the Rainbow. Rainbow made it´s debut back 1983 and is a fairly standard HUSS Rainbow. I used to ride this when i was younger but it´s not that thrilling anymore, if i say so. It´s getting a bit worned out by now but it still makes that nice "HUSS-Sound". Flume-Ride. Lisebergs Log Flume which was new 1973. Built by Mack and features two drops. During the ride you pass under Lisebergbanan and also pass by the ferris wheel and formerly Aerovarvets location. Definitely a classic that never will be removed. You can´t visit Liseberg without riding this one. Tornado is a quite rare ride. Had it´s premiere 1989 together with the waveswinger and Aerovarvet and came from the Italian manufacturer S.D.C who´s no longer in business. This ride was built for the travelling fairs but ended up somehow at Liseberg. Was originally painted in gray but got a major overhaul a couple a years ago. Nice colours, terrible ride. The second and last drop of Flume Ride. They had some problems here, if you look close, you see the log at the top. Emergency brakes where activated i guess? Let´s move on to "Kanonen", which was the first ride for the day. Kanonen opened up for the 2005 season and is located next to Balder. Kanonen is a very compact and twisty Intamin launch coaster which is packed with alot of constant directional changes. It´s hard to to get a great photo of Kanonen´s complete circuit from the ground. Basically, the coasters intese and actionpacked part, goes over and around the lines. Let´s call this "The heart of the ride". Yaaaaay, the traing is going over the top hat. There where so few riders during the day so they just had one train running. During busy days they run two. The coaster is short. The ride is over before they has checked the restraints on the other train, waiting to get launched. The trimbrake (i believe) after the vertical dive from the top hat, before entering the vertical loop. The vertical dive after the top hat, before going over that small airtimehill with the trimbrake. My girlfriend (enough)...Now, look at that precious, beautyful and sexy loop with the train in the background! Just me giving Intamin some love...That´s totally normal, isn´t it? As i told you in the beginning. The lines where EMPTY. This path use to be crowded during the summer. Here´s also the "quite-many-G´s-turnaround" For all you detail fanatics. This is one of many drivewheels after the brakes. Okay, enough of "Kanonen" (we rode it 3 times in row). You probably saw something made of wood on the background? Yes, BALDER, and "she" was the next ride for the day. Balder has the same "problem" as Kanonen. It´s hard to take any good pictures of them. And it doesn´t make it easier with all those fences and the line that goes beneath the track. Balder, a pre-fabricated Intamin woodie which opened up 2003. A very great addition to the park. It didn´t ran that good in the beginning of the day. The bearings where to cold i guess? "oh no, i´m not standing in that queue". I´ve never been in a line for Balder that´s shorter than 60 minutes so this was better than sex! In the beginning of the line, you can read about 10 famous coasters with facts and pictures. This always takes 5 minutes to read and when you´ve read about them all, you know you only have approx. 45 minutes left to your ride... Transfer track. Holzbau Cordes was the builder of this coaster and i suppose they wanted their credit for that, so, here it is... They added longer noise walls on the coaster. Please don´t add anymore, it looks so strange with them. Criss-Crossing wood and nuts and bolts... More of that criss crossing wood. The last humps before entering the brakes. This is also the photo section for the ride. Blue Train is coming..... Airtime hill A few "turnarounds". Can you see the train? We took 4 rides in a row on Balder, testing both front and back train. But i will never ride Balder in any other position than the very last seats. What a dissapointment it was, sitting in the front! When we´ve had some fun with Balder, Camilla insisted so much on riding "Spin Rock". SpinRock is a 24 seater Zamperla Discovery that opened up for the 2002 season (the worst season ever due to the rebulding of Aerovarvet). I´m not that big fan of these. It was a walk on, that´s why i tried it. I´ve only been on my way riding it two times and after standing in the line for 30 minutes each time, it broke down. So i´m not supposed to ride it i guess. Anyways, i got the credit but i won´t ride it unless it´s a walk-on. After that, my girlfriend wanted to try "Uppswinget", a ride i find awesome! (okay, i´ve been telling her for almost a year how awesome that ride is, yet it´s far away from Aerovarvet´s awesomeness) Uppswinget was new for the 2007 season and as you probably notice, the ride is a S&S Screamin Swing. It´s the fifth S&S installation in the park and is located on the mountain inside the park. Besides this, the park has a S&S turbo Drop and the Space Shot which Vekoma paid due to the big fluke back in 1996, HangOver. HangOver was the first Vekoma Invertigo installation in the world but had problems from the very begining. It was supposed to be the new attraction for the 1996 season but it never opened so S&S installed the Space Shot on record time, only 6 days, and Vekoma paid the bill. Actually, Vekoma went bankrupt for a little while due to the costs of HangOver and all the problems it caused. It swings you out and over the three helixes on the bavarian mountain railroad that goes over the mountain. This gives you a major thrill when facing down the rollercoaster since it´s 60 meters (198 feet) down to the ground. The problems still remains on this ride. We rode it 4 times in a row an the fourth time, it broke down. They got indications that the restraint´s wheren´t closed, so after 5 swings, the emergy stop was activated. The left arm where we sat, remain closed for the rest of the day. Last summer when i rode it for the first time, they only had one swing working, in the middle of July on the ride that was new for the season. 1.5 hours was the waiting time and i rode it twice..This time, we rode it ten times I just had to take a picture of this (the line, not Camillas ass). This was the longest line for Uppswinget that day. It was amazing. Especially since i spent 1.5 hours last time i rode it. We rode it so much, it almost got boring The installation took only two weeks. It seems like those S&S guys has mustard in their...well, you know... Due to technical problems with one of the brake sections, we couldn´t ride Lisebergbanan but later on, they opened it up. I told Camilla that we should go and ride it, but i found it strange that the trains where running so randomly. They use to have 5 trains so there´s a new train coming all the time... This is the explanation. EMPTY! The parks most popular ride was EMPTY. I´ve never seen this in my whole life! Anyways, i got to witness when they parked a train. I saw it last year but this time i had the camera with me. They stop the train on this path. Press a few buttons and.... The whole wall is moving. After this, they park the train behind the station wall and after that... The wall comes back, with the missing trackpiece, TADAAA! The station got quite crowded now while we waited for the parking procedure and now they only had one train running... DOH Station brake segment and the restraint unlocking mechanism Wooohoooh, more of these transfer wheels! Zierer/Schwarzkopf this time. The view from the lifthill. The observation tower which opened up 1990 (if i remember correct). The park states that it´s not Intamin who built this, in fact, it was Waagner Biro but it certainly looks like Intamin´s design?Somewhere my mind tells me that Intamin and Waagner Biro has some kind of co-op? ah well... Lisebergbanan opened up for the 1987 season and was the parks second operational Schwarzkopf coaster. It was a massive success! Anton designed this coaster after the bankrupty (don´t know how to spell it) of his company. Anton designed it, Zierer built it and im 99% sure that Gerstlauer supplied the electronics. 1987, on the premiere day, the park had to stay open for 1 more hour than scheduled, due to the mass of people standing in the lines. Passing Uppswinget i Lisebergbanan. Going down in the first of the three helixes The last turn before the brakerun. Going back into the station. The three helixes. The brakerun... More brakerun.... The end of the ride. Jukebox, the Schwarzkopf Monster 3. It was sold by Wieland Schwarskopf (Antons son) and designed by a Swedish artist (forgot his name). It has a really neat themeing, especially the Corvettes and that has got nothing to do with my own Corvette.... While rideing, they randomly pic a song and this big board tells you which one is playing. Kind of logic, huh? A random photo of the waveswinger. Look at the crowd...The park is almost empty! I still can´t believe it.... Why why why??? This used to be the best ride in the bark. AEROVARVET. The awesome Intamin Space Shuttle themed as a passenger jet. I finally managed to calm down a bit. I miss Aerovarvet so much. Aerovarvet made it´s first loop 1989 and it kept flying til 2002, where they did this stupid, silly re-build. This is just when the park closed, i thought i could get one more ride on this silly pirate ship thing but they closed the park then. I took my camera pointed on the ride and the rideop posed for me. Well..it wasn´t exactly what i meant. I asked him if i could come up on the loading platform because i loved Aerovarvet so much. What happened? The super awesome ride-op said: "OH, you are a fan of Aerovarvet?? Ofcourse, just come my friend. Take your time while i´m shutting it down". We had a chat and he sure did miss Aerovarvet. That awesome ride op also stated that there is nothing that awesome in the park as Aerovarvet was. As you can see, they kept those COMFORTABLE (i still can´t get why everybody keeps saying they are uncomfortable..they must be damaged or something. These are so soft and they gives no pressure on you chest at all) restraints. Here i am, 5 minutes after the parks closure, with the remainings of Aerovarvet. *sighs* i still miss you so much. The ride op allowed me to take a photo of the control panel but i´m not allowed to show you because of the parks "industrial spy rules" (or how to say). He also showed me how to operate a Intamin Space Shuttle, the worlds best flat ride but since he was in a hurry, i never got to try it myself. I said goodbye to the remaings of Aerovarvet and we headed home after an awesome day at Liseberg. The count: Balder:8 times Kanonen: 8 times Uppswinget: 10 times Lisebergbanan: 2 times Kulingen (The remainings of Aerovarvet): 5 times Plus all the other rides in the park. Thank you for reading and sorry for my english... And a bonus shot for you. Does it look like i´m in pain on this picture? A free icecream to the first one who guess what ride it is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Thanks. Nice TR. I really enjoyed your pictures! It looks like you had a great day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingbooba Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 I still don't see why they downgraded Aerovarvet! Plain stupid... Anyway, I'd really like to visit Liseberg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted May 5, 2008 Author Share Posted May 5, 2008 Thank you packfanlv. I can´t say i´m a great photographer so i really did my best. I´ve got more pictures so i will edit this thread later on tonight. Kingbooba: Stupid is just the beginning of that thing. Even the super-awesome-rideop told me "This isn´t even popular. It´s not fun. It just swings back and forth. On a busy day we use 30 % of it´s capacity." The park director told me that Aerovarvet wasn´t popular anymore, so they rebuilt it into this thing. Well. if it wasn´t popular as Aerovarvet, what should we call it now, then? I just HATE when they scrap or take out these Space Shuttles and Looping Starships. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliston Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Thanks for the great pictures!!! I'm going to Liseberg this summer... can't wait! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted May 5, 2008 Author Share Posted May 5, 2008 Aliston: It was my pleasure to make this TR Liseberg is a really beautyful park and it really has that "magic atmosphere" in it. A tip for you, when going there, make sure you enter the park via the SOUTHERN entrance. The southern entrance is just beside the Huss Rainbow. The southern entrance isn´t that busy as the main entrance (Northern) and when you enter the park, you have 2 ticket/ride pass booth´s besides the entrance. Choosing the southern entrance means that you´re ready to rock and roll earlier. You won´t need to stay in the lines for the ridepass/tickets that long. You also have about 4 minutes walking to Kanonen and Balder from here, expect 10 minutes from the main entrance (during busy days)!Anyways, i hope you will enjoy your Liseberg visit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliston Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Wow... awesome, thanks for the tips. I'm from the US, never been to Sweden, though I have quite a bit of Swedish ancestry and so we're going on a sort of "discover our roots" trip. I said I'd only go if I got to ride Balder . Should be quite an adventure and the tips will definitely come in handy if the park is crowded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted May 5, 2008 Author Share Posted May 5, 2008 Aliston: Do you know when you are going there? If you know, please give me the date. Maybe i can meet up with you. It´s only 5 days since i was there but i´m already having anxiety.... Another great thjing for you to know is that Balder has very low downtime as far as i know. It happens a coulple of times a day that the train stops on the wrong wpot in the station, so they have to reverse the train to the "parking spot". Make sure you catch Balder later on in the day, when the bearings are warmed up. It´s a BIG difference! When we rode it the last 2 times, those "anti-lift-wheels" where almost constantly "activated". Those two rides where way out of control Interesting with the swedish roots. I´ve always claimed that there´s a Swedish guy in every American body. It´s like the Americans want´s to be as us here in Sweden Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrthwnd Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Aliston, you should also go through the Gaston Ghost Hotel at Liseberg. Several of us went through it on the TPR UK Tour Add-on at the end of the tour (which included Liseberg and Tusenfryd) in June, 2006. And it was a great walk-through, then. I believe it cost extra, besides your entry ticket, but those of us who went together, thought it was well worth it, at least once. And then there's the ICE BAR nearby. Quite an experience, and something to do that is really different. Esepcially if you'd like to have a cocktail that's served... on an ice mini-roller coaster! ~ ~ ~ Great TR, Looping Starship. I miss Liseberg very much, and hope to go there again, in the not-too-distant future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loefet Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Correction: Liseberg actually have 5 S&S installations, the 2 towers, the screaming swing and the 2 frog hoppers (Små Grodorna). You looks to have had a fun time, too bad the the weather looks a bit chilly. How was Balder running? Was it "bumpy" on the lower 180° turns? Nice to see some pictures of my home park again, even though I'm living over 1000 miles away at the moment. Can't wait until I'm back in the Gothenburg area (one month away) . Anything up to Midsummer (around the 25:th of June) and after the second week of august, are usually good times if you want to go to Liseberg with low crowds. Just hopes that they will go forward with their new expansion asap... ^ Bill, they removed the Ice-Bar after that season, but they seems to have another one installed, not sure where though. But it should be a more permanent installation. And the Ghost Hotel cost 45 SEK to get in (unless you have a VIP pass like we did). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted May 5, 2008 Author Share Posted May 5, 2008 Loefet, my bad. i forgot the small frog hoppers... Nrthwnd, thank you so much. It´s my first TR ever so your words made me happy As for the Gaston Hotel. I walked through it last summer. I´m sorry, but maybe it scares the teenagers, but i didn´t find it frightening at all. I like how they use real actors though. That´s cool! When did you visit Liseberg? It´s five days since my visit and i already miss it alot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groteslurf Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Great TR. Liseberg is one of the parks in Europe that I didn't visit yet. One of these years I must be able to go there as Balder and Lisebergbanan are 2 rides I really want to try out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted May 5, 2008 Author Share Posted May 5, 2008 Thank you Groteslurf. As i said earlier, it´s my first TR and it´s very nice too see that people like my TR. It sure do take some time to make them. Liseberg is a very very nice park. Besides the good rides they offer, the park is magnificant. It´s really clean and tidy and in the evenings..wow. It´s so cozy. It´s really magic. Especially when you hear the trains coming over the mountain on Lisebergbanan with all the lights on. Beautyful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkTums Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Great TR! And for someone who doesn't have English as a first language your captions were awesome! I do have one question though...if Balder is a girl, does that make me a lesbian!?!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrthwnd Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 When did you visit Liseberg? It´s five days since my visit and i already miss it alot! During the first TPR Tour that was done, in mid-June of 2006. Liseberg was part of an "add-on" at the end of the tour which was mainly through UK parks. We did Tusenfryd park, before Liseberg. Yes, it's been nearly two years since my first (and only) visit there! But hopefully, not my last, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bucket Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Excellent TR! Lisebergbanan looks like tons of fun! They just don't build them like the used to anymore...! Would love to make a trip out to Liseberg one day! Thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted May 6, 2008 Author Share Posted May 6, 2008 Hahahaha, Elissa, i suppose that you, more or less, loves Balder? What about Robb? He must be quite upset that a pile of wood and iron is sexier than he is? However, thank you for your kind words. I can´t say my English is good, but here in Sweden, they start to teach you english in school at the age of 10. Add all the televisions programs and movies that you watch and your english is constantly "maintained" without your knowledge. I also use it quite alot so maybe that´s why? I think you´ve seen worse English than mine I´m curious now. Since you loved Balder, how about Kanonen? That´s also an Intamin coaster, or is Robb better than that one? Nrthwnd: Aah, i see. That´s the visit where you got hammers, right? I´ve seen it on Youtube. Too bad i wasn´t aware of TPR at that time. I´ve always loved riding amusement rides but it´s the last year where the interest "behind the scenes" has come. Liseberg won´t be removed, let me tell you that. What we enthusiasts are waiting for now is the "OK, GO" for the expansion. They´re going to expand the park on the southern area, where the parking lot is. The only question is, WHEN? They´re having problems with the government i guess and everybody is quite unpacient right now. Thank you Bucket Lisebergbanan is a REAL classic and is still, after 21 years of operation, the parks most popular ride. More popular then Balder and Kanonen! However, it needs to be repainted now since the track has began to rust on the areas where the wheels go. I´ve never seen a coaster that´s so customised as Lisebergbanan. It´s a really great ride even if it doesn´t feature the typical Schwarzkopf dives. Its doesn´t actually have any major drop. The biggest drop is the first of the three helixes and the first "drop" is a 360 degree helix. After that, you race into a high g turnaround where they have placed the S&S Turbo Drop, so that´s really cool. However, the feeling of racing through the trees, over the mountain, over the Logflume, thru the last Helix behind the trees, is really cool. Also when you dive thru the helixes an passes under the Screamin Swing. I think it´s still the longest Schwarzkopf coaster ever built since the ride is 1548 meters long. Too bad i was too young (born 1982) when they built the coaster during the winter 1986 because my fathers company transported the lifthill, some of the supports and i think it was 2 of the three helixes. Just imagine the pictures i could have When the coaster opened, Anton Schwarzkopf rode it himself and he immediately said that it was his best coaster ever. The best thing is that the lines are moving really fast since they run all five trains during busy days! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted May 6, 2008 Author Share Posted May 6, 2008 Bucket! I took this satellite photo for you (and everybody else, ofcourse). Here you can really follow the coasters layout over the mountain. As you can see, the coaster is long and you can wake me up in the middle of the night, and i´ll draw it´s layout for you (i´ve rode it hundreds of times) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liseberg4ever Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 http://liseberg.se/Liseberg/Svenska/Liseberg+Island/lisebergparken/Åkattraktioner/FLUMERIDE.htm?wbc_purpose=Basic&WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished the flumeride its not a mack. it's a arrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBru Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 This is an amazing TR! The photos were great and so were the captions. I also love Intamin Space Shuttles. What exactly did they do to Aerovarvet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted June 5, 2008 Author Share Posted June 5, 2008 Thanks mate I did made a few minor faults, making a TR in the middle of the night when you´re going to work the day after just doesn´t work.... Liseberg4ever: I managed to mix them up..ofcourse it´s an Arrow! Thank you for telling me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 5, 2008 Share Posted June 5, 2008 Awesome trip report! I really want to go to this park, but not for the same reason most of the members here want to... I'm really intrigued by Lisebergbanan. It looks amazing to me. The Intamin Rocket looks pretty fun too, but for some reason or another, Balder doesn't "excite" me like I thought it would. Maybe the fact that El Toro is losing it's "novelty" to me has something to with that (please, don't hate me for saying that ! ) Again, nice pictures, and thanks for sharing! Rob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looping Starship Posted June 5, 2008 Author Share Posted June 5, 2008 Hi Rob! Thank you for that, my first TR ever so i did my best Oh no problems. I was never hyped about Balder...I wasn´t even excited until i went over the top down the first drop.....Balder really chocked me and since that i always ride it ofcourse. Lisebergsbanan is a true legend. There´s so many myths and so much interesting history behind that coaster. It truly is a piece of history! It´s still the parks most popular ride. No ride has ever come close to the massive success it had when it opened 1987. The last 2 helixes pulls off massive G´s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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