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TPR's Scandinavia 2009 Trip!


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^^ Yeah, if Knott's was located in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles, it would be an Urban park, but Knott's is actually a suburban park!

 

--Robb "Thinking people don't know the difference between cities and suburbs!" Alvey

 

EDIT: Gah! Did we just go from talking about awesome Scandinavian parks to...KNOTT'S?!??! I need to do the next update..QUICK!

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Technically Coney Island counts as Queens is a borough, but it is a suburb too, unless the Finnish parks in the cities are like Queens.

 

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!)

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^Wow I just punched myself for mixing up the location of Brooklyn and Queens, I have lived away from NY too long (Originally from Levittown in Nassau)

 

But you also answered my question of how urban is urban in Scandi. I wasn't sure if urban there is like Queens/Brooklyn/Bronx because even those as suburbs, when closer to the City, are more urban then some cities i've seen.

 

Def. makes me want to go see the urban parks over there now!

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Our next park was Sarkanniemi. An urban park SMACK in the middle of Tampere, Finland. While it might not have the biggest coasters in the world this park has a fantastic selection of rides and I've always found this park to be great fun!

 

Tornado is by far the "star attraction" of the coaster line-up and it includes probably the "most unique" element on any steel coaster - and underground zero-G roll! Yup, you read that correctly.

 

Anyway, Sarkanniemi is a great place, everyone should go here. Here are photos...

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The group has a "plan" in mind. And yes we are waiting for the Half-Pipe to open.

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Big fish must jump through hoops. If you know how many hoops there are, EMAIL DAN! mrt0ad13@aol.com

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"I can't believe the big fish must jump."

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Big fish must jump.

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TOMMI!!! NO MISCHIEF!!!

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Ok everyone, NO MISCHIEF!!!!

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You can see the park. It's very pretty.

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From the top of the tower you can see stuff.

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The park allowed us to come up to the super secret "open air" section of the Tower.

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My hammer is bigger than your Schwartz.

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"These damn frogs gave me a rash in an area I'm not allowed to talk about without the FCC coming to my house and beating me with a chainsaw. I hate these frogs and will beat them with a mallet until they give me my box of tools back!"

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Craig, what did those frogs ever do to you?

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This is how KidTums communicates with her home planet.

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Craig likes to eat Pizza.

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This is a roller coaster. It goes BOOM! There was another roller coaster that used to look like this one. If you know the name of that coaster - EMAIL DAN! mrt0ad13@aol.com

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TP Dave expresses his love and devotion for Scottish Steve. "Steve...I love you. I want to be with you forever. Let's go ride this ghost train and make out like rabbits."

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"I didn't mind the Volare, but I perfer the SCAD tower."

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If you think you know why Big Mike is happy in this picture... EMAIL DAN!!! mrt0ad13@aol.com

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A spike goes up in the air. People go "wheeeee." They spin and fall and then down they come and you can beat your fact against the wall.

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"OMG! I just found my penis!"

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There are two things in this photo. One of them is not Hanno. If you know what the other thing is...EMAIL DAN! mrt0ad13@aol.com

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We at TPR want to say "We love you Sarkenniemi!!! THANK YOU!!!!"

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Day Glow Orange Train. F**K YEAH!!!

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What is the name of this coaster again? I think it's called Water Splash Mountain. Not sure. Can't seen to find the name of it anywhere. Hmmm.....

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Would anyone like some slightly used Intamin wheels as a paper weight?

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STAY ON TARGET!

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Day Glo Orange Train = BEST COASTER TRAIN IN THE FREAKING WORLD!!!!

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I am totally hot. Check me out. World. Love me.

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Spinny, spinny, spinny.

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Hey Martin! This could have been yours had you been on the Scandi trip! =)

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All the bathrooms had KidTums sized potties. We liked this.

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Jet Star had new weird trains. We're not sure why, but they were very yellow.

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Big Tower. Chewy Beans.

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Nom. Nom. Nom.

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This catastrophic looking accident is actually one of the best damn pizza's I've ever had!

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"I've always wanted to ride a coaster where my head is in a vice."

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Um, what exactly is going on here???

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Many big fish must jump.

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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!

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Sorry a few of us missed the Group Photo up there in the tower. And we know who we were...are...

 

But due to a surprising return of "The F-ing Fear of..." I found myself starting to keep to the middle of the deck. Thankfully, I passed a few others by, who suffered the same damned 'thing' as I do - or did, I thought after all these tower rides and coaster heights I've ridden - and the friggin SCAD Tower fer pita's sake'!

 

But there I was and we were, "casually" clinging to the middle of ...it. I did manage to get a couple of pix taken from up there - how, I still can't remember, to this day. Probably blocked it out.

 

And so, a few of us decided to leave early and get back down on (we hoped) terra firma ... mmmmm firm terra.

 

So, again, so sorry we missed the pic. Maybe you could PhotoShop us in?

 

And fantastic park, Sarkanniemi was! Even with the rain we got that day, that nearly scuttled the Jet Star credit, lol! Fun fun park. Another one in a great tour this year, Robb. So happy to have been a part of this one.

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Yes, rain and all, that was a great day. Tornado was excellent, the ghost train was a bizarre mixture of gore with cartoon goofiness, and Trombi wasn't so much painful as it was awkward and uncomfortable.

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One of my favorite memories from the trip was the group of us waiting for the Rain to stop so the Jet Star would reopen. We joked around with the ride up and sang her and the Norse weather gods all the songs we could think of with the word "sun" in them. It worked. She asked maintenance to wait by the ride so it could be opened sooner and the rain broke.

 

It just goes to show, you should be nice to ride ops, and you can have anywhere with the right group of people.

 

I loved this park, I just wish (like most Scandi parks) that they had adult t-shirts that were not elasticised.

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Just in case anyone is curious, the hideous new rolling stock on Jet Star ran quite well.

 

I was concerned that the lap bars and more enclosed cars would kill the ride experience, but the ride seemed to be roughly as good as the Indiana Beach Jet Star. The new trains are not as open as the original Schwarzkopf ones were, but they really seemed to haul ass.

 

Maybe it was the rain? Or maybe the new trains are heavier?

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^ and ^^

 

I remember Ginzo getting off the Jet Star and proclaiming it the best coaster of the trip right after it started raining and they shut the ride down.

 

Although I'm pretty sure he did this to antagonize the other TPR members who didn't run to the ride as soon as it started testing, because we were still waiting in line for the drizzle to stop and the ride to reopen.

 

However as moose said, the waiting in the line and singing were far more memorable than the coaster.

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Trombi wasn't so much painful as it was awkward and uncomfortable.

 

There's a joke in here, somewhere. Something about first dates and/or first times . . .

 

I can't find the joke, but Trombi did remind me of . . . bad stuff, in roughly the same was as Fly Away at Bobbejanland did. It made me feel dirty, somehow, and cheap; also, used.

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I remember Ginzo getting off the Jet Star and proclaiming it the best coaster of the trip right after it started raining and they shut the ride down.

 

Yes, totally "better than Balder".

 

Actually, Jet Star might have been my favorite coaster at Särkänniemi.

 

 

Although I'm pretty sure he did this to antagonize the other TPR members who didn't run to the ride as soon as it started testing, because we were still waiting in line for the drizzle to stop and the ride to reopen.

 

Glad your rain dances worked. This ride almost killed our perfect record for the trip, which would have been a bummer.

 

Is this the only TPR trip where basically everyone got every credit?

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You know, that sun song strategy paid off. Regardless of if it opened or not, it made up for the fact that many of us ran as fast as any coaster geeks could, only to see Joe run off the ride and tell us how awesome it was just as the sky opened up and the ride closed again. Ryan really painted an accurate picture.

 

Truly a great park and Tornado was just awesome, so much so that it wasn't all that bad riding in the rain over and over in the same front seat

 

By this point in the trip, it truly was Intamin-fest -- a good thing!

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Is this the only TPR trip where basically everyone got every credit?

 

From what Robb & Elissa said at the end of the tour I remember, this was the First TPR Tour that had every coaster (eventually) open, that was on the main list for the tour.

 

Ka-ching!

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