Photo TR: Thad's 2014 TPR Scandi Trip

[Barge84]

I don't know, Caeser... I think 0 sounds like the right amount of pictures of you.

[fatdaddy]

Don't make me do a Thad only trip report! I have enough pictures to do it. I'll call it "The Good, the Thad, and the Ugly".

[Barge84]

At least I have my own category and I'm not lumped in with the ugly!

 

**After reading that, it might sound like I'm saying Caeser is ugly. That's not the intent...

[fatdaddy]

What will happen will be in every photo some will be labeled good, Thad is Thad, and the least attractive one will be the ugly.

[TPDave]

Don't make me do a Thad only trip report! I have enough pictures to do it. I'll call it "The Good, the Thad, and the Ugly".

 

 

THIS!

[rosscoe]

Waiting waiting waiting waiting !

[Barge84]

^I'm working on it! I should hopefully have it finished tonight. Sorry, got sidetracked with some of my charity stuff last night.

[Barge84]

Day 5 – BonBon-Land, Ferry to Germany, German Hotel & Hospitality

 

Today was the trip’s first early morning, and it was also time to leave Copenhagen. I didn’t seem quite as sentimental about leaving when I woke up at 5:30 that morning. Now, I wish I would’ve spent just a little more time exploring the city, but sitting around the patio at night chatting with friends isn’t a horrible way to use your leisure time, either. Copenhagen is a really great city, and I really hope I get to come back some day. Enough with the nostalgia, we're on our way to BonBon-Land!

 

It was only about a 90 minute bus ride, so most of my group stayed awake and talked the whole way to the park. We chose Robb’s bus (Sorry, Elissa! Robb and I were Facebook friends) because it’s usually the fun, loud, more… vulgar bus. I’ve determined over the years that “fun” is a relative term, because there always seem to be a few people that don’t enjoy our kind of humor. For the most part, the back of the bus was me, Ross, Steve, Priscilla, Joe, Chris, Alan, Jere, Ryan aka Snooks and Shawn. Wait a minute! That’s right! Shawn’s too good to sit in the back with us. Scratch him off the list.

 

Even though I should’ve been tired, I wasn’t. The previous evening I’d found some Monster energy drinks at the 7-11 by our hotel. That’s basically my coffee, so I was happy to finally get some. Somehow, I ended up drinking both cans that I bought during the bus ride, so I was ready to roll when we got to the park. After driving to the middle of nowhere, we finally arrived around 8. The entrance drive was a little strange, because you could the see park’s graveyard. You could see quite a few of the things that the new owners had taken out of the park.

 

We're here!

Hmmmm... This doesn't look promising.

A little history about BonBon-Land. It was built by a candy company in the early 90’s, and features characters that the candy was based on. Henry the farting dog is the park’s mascot, and there are also a few other strange characters. This includes a hippo wearing a diaper that pees its pants, and a duck that looks like it’s drunk and farting under water. Needless to say, this is the strangest amusement park I’ve ever been to. I’m guessing it used to be a little better, but since the candy company sold it a few years ago it doesn’t look like the new owners are maintaining the park as well as they should be. Today was a bit of a strange day on the trip. I’d probably rate BonBon-Land as my least favorite park of the tour, but I had an amazing day at the park. Some of my favorite memories from the entire trip came from this day. There are probably some memories that I can’t remember, either, but more on that later.

 

Both buses unloaded, and people waited around for the park to let us in. While we were collecting our meal vouchers and bracelets for the day, most of the group took some pictures of the main entryway. I thought the main entrance was really well done. Some of the crazy characters were standing on roller coaster track, while others were riding in ride vehicles. It was very detailed. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad after all! After a few minutes, the gates were opened and we were let in. There’s a huge walkway leading into the park. Lined along one side are several of the character statues, set up so you could put your face in them for a picture. On the other side of the walkway was the Fantasy World attraction. This house of horrors will be discussed later on.

 

I really liked the main entrance.

Nice detail.

Welcome to BonBon-Land!

The yellow guy freaks me out. He's shoving a stick in one ear and out the other.

Oh, don't worry. We'll be discussing this house of nightmares later on...

All of the characters are completely normal.

The last character that you come to is Henry. Since Henry is a farting dog, you’d be correct if you guessed that there was a statue of him farting. Since we’re all mature adults, we didn’t do anything stupid with this statue.

 

Ross was hungry.

Gross. Ross's breath made Henry's farts smell funny.

After we’d had our fun, we were walked back to the area of the park where all of the roller coasters are located. I thought the paintings on the fence were pretty interesting.

 

Yep. That's a hippo farting. What the hell is this place?

More of Henry.

BonBon-Land was nice enough to open all four of their roller coasters for over 90 minutes! Even with a large group like ours, there was never more than a 5 minute wait for any of the rides during this time. Just another great perk of traveling with TPR! It seemed like most of the group was heading towards Dog Fart coaster, so we went the other direction. The first ride we came to was the Eurofighter, but there were some people headed that way as well. We walked past it towards the park’s spinning coaster, Hankatten, or Tom Cat. I think Tom Cat is a Gerstlauer, but I’m not going to take the time to look that up. We waited a couple of minutes to board. Of course, we were all discussing how we could load the cars to be unbalanced so we’d get as much spinning as possible out of our ride. The cars have 4 seats, 2 on each side, facing the other 2 seats. Steve and I sat on one side, while Priscilla hopped in the seat across from Steve. This is about as unbalanced as a ride can get, so it’s going to be crazy, right? Not really. I’m not even sure if we really spun much at all. The ride has a decent layout, but it was pretty disappointing after our first ride since didn’t spin all that much.. More discussions would follow to determine a better strategy. We’ll come back later to try out some of our ideas.

 

The entrance to Tom Cat, a spinning coaster. It's actually a very well themed park.

Most of the layout of Tom Cat.

You see, pussy refers to both cats and vaginas!

Entrance with the Euro-Fighter in the background.

The flat portion of the ride.

Since the Euro-Fighter was next door and the line looked pretty short, we made our way over to Vild-Svinet’s station. Vild-Svinet, or The Wild Boar, was the first Euro-Fighter ever built. Isn’t that exciting? I thought so. The ride is themed to a bunch of boars racing cars against each other. I’m sure this makes sense to someone, but I have no idea why they did this. Regardless of the odd theming, I thought the ride was pretty fun. There’s always something unnerving about a 90 degree lift hill. The drop doesn’t bother me at all, but going straight up is just weird. It has a pretty simple layout. Vertical lift hill, vertical drop, overbanked turn, loop, a turn, a helix, a couple more turns, brake run. Not much to it, but I’d take one of these in Des Moines. I was really slacking on my coaster nerd duties… I only have a couple of pictures of this ride. Sorry. I know you all come here for the sweet pictures.

 

Here's the entrance to Euro-Fighter, Vild-Svinet (The Wild Boar).

This was the only picture I took of the ride. I've failed you all as TPR's Official Coaster Nerd.

What’s next? Well, this is where I have to admit something. I rode the Dog Fart coaster. I told myself before the trip that I was going to ride it, even though it was a kiddie coaster. Come on, it’s a roller coaster with a farting dog. I have to ride that, right? My friends were so nice, giving me the entire train to myself for my first ride. I guess if I’m going to ride a kiddie coaster, they’re going to make a big deal out of it. Too bad there weren’t any showers at the park, because I felt pretty dirty after this one. When my ride finished (they let the train go around 3 times), Ross and Jere hopped in with me and we went again. Why not? I’d already lost my dignity, might as well ride it one more time. On my second ride, I’d noticed that Shawn and Adrian had found a spot along the fence where they could get some embarrassing pictures of me. I deserve it. Enjoy.

 

Henry!

Yes, I rode.

They gave me my own train. What an honor!

Going through the house.

Thanking Adrian for taking this picture.

Now I'm happy...

This is where Henry sleeps when everyone leaves the park.

 

Once everyone in our group had the credit, there was only one more roller coaster to ride. Viktor Vandorm (Victor the Water Worm) was a family coaster that had the longest train I’ve ever seen on a ride. I think it had at least 20 cars, but I can’t remember off the top of my head. When it’s going up one of the 2 lift hills, the train almost covers the entire hill. There isn’t much to say about this ride. It’s a decent little family coaster, but I only needed one ride on it.

 

Viktor Vandorm, the family coaster.

Alan, Victor, Stacy, Steve, Priscilla, Me, Jere. This is only half of the train!

Grow up, Steve...

Now, I’m not exactly sure what got into me on that morning, but I acted like a completely different person. I’m not really a quiet person, per se, but I’m not a person that likes to stand out in a crowd. Within my group of friends I act like a complete idiot, but around the rest of the group, I tend to be pretty reserved. There was just something about how quiet everyone was being on that morning. Out of nowhere, while waiting in the station I yelled, “HEY! If I have to wake up at 5:30 in the morning to ride roller coasters, I’m going to have a good time. OK?!?” Everyone just kind of looked at me. I yelled, “COME ON! LET’S HAVE SOME FUN!!!” That one got a little more of a reaction. When it was my turn to ride, I climbed in and pulled down the restraint. I started clapping and yelling, just trying to get people excited. A few of my friends joined in, but I think the rest of the group thought I was insane. I screamed like an idiot throughout the entire ride. When we pulled back into the station, I just kept yelling “YEAHHHHHHHH!!!! YEAHHHHHHHH!!!” Our group got off the ride and headed back towards the spinner and the Euro-Fighter.

 

Some of my friends were asking why I was acting like that. I told them that the group was dead, so it was time to liven things up! We went back to ride The Wild Boar again. There were about 15 other people in the station when we got there. It was quiet, so I yelled, “OH YEAH!! HERE WE GOOOOOOO!!!!” I’d clap and yell as loud as I could. Pretty obnoxious, right? Yeah, I know. When our train was ready, I got in the front row with Shawn, Joe and Priscilla. I can’t remember who was in the back row, but I think Steve and Ross were there. I honestly can’t remember. “Oh yeah, here we go” became my tagline for the rest of the trip during ERT sessions, so I let another one of those go when we left the station. I started giving an on-ride commentary for everyone on board. I’d describe everything from drive tires to chain dogs while we were riding. Going up the lift hill I said, “Straight up. You know what that means? STRAIGHT! DOWN!” None of my friends had any idea that I was going to do this, so they were laughing hysterically throughout the entire ride. I was later told by Robb and Garbels that they could hear me all the way on the other side of the park. I guess I never realized how loud I could be! I know that reading this won’t do it justice, unfortunately, but it was one of my favorite moments of the trip. Too bad we don’t have video of it, so you’ll just have to trust me. With our ride ending, I let everyone know that we were at the “BRAKE RUN!!!” Luckily, Matt was there to get a picture of us at the end of our ride.

 

What just happened? Shawn and Joe are crying...

We spent the next 30 minutes or so trying to come up with the best possible way to make Tom Cat spin like crazy. After a couple of rides, along with some on-ride commentary, Shawn and I found the perfect combination. Everyone had been trying to do 2 big people on one side, and a small person on the other. We decided that Shawn and I would sit on the same side, with no one else in the car. The first time we did it, it was probably the craziest ride that I’ve ever had on a spinning coaster. It was absolutely insane! I couldn’t even give any commentary to Shawn, all I could do was laugh and scream throughout the entire ride. When we got back to the station, we told everyone that this was the best combination to try. Many insane rides were given that day during ERT!

 

For the remainder of ERT, we just kept going back and forth between the Euro-Fighter and the spinning coaster. I tried to keep coming up with new ways to be obnoxious, and I think it was working pretty well. A train pulled into the station on the Euro-Fighter so I said, “Party of 8. Your table of fun is ready!” Or when I was leaving the station on Tom Cat and yelled back to Shawn, “TIME FOR THE SPIN CYCLE!!” I think I’d only met about ½ of the trip participants by this time of the trip, so I’m guessing that day was a lot of people’s first impressions of me. That’s probably not a good thing, but I’ll have to live with that.

 

SPIN CYCLE!!!!

I’m not sure what happened at the end of ERT, but some of our group got separated from us. Instead of worrying too much about it, we figured we’d run into them eventually. We were right. Not long into our walk around the park, we ran into Steve, Priscilla, Bill and some others. Steve was sweating and kind of out of breath, so I asked him what the hell was wrong. He had just come from the park’s obstacle course. I made the mistake of giving him crap for being out of shape, and before I knew it I was being challenged to do the course now. Great. I go to the gym and workout, and I’ve lost a lot of weight the last couple of years, but that still doesn’t mean my giant body is built for doing obstacle courses. Of course, I’m too stubborn to back down from a challenge, so I went over to the course and completely embarrassed myself. Anything associated with balance is basically a lost cause for me. I’m 6’6” and I wear size 15 shoes, so walking across anything besides a sidewalk can be difficult for me. Thankfully, the course wasn’t too long, but I’d done plenty of things to make the rest of the group laugh at my expense. There might be video of it somewhere, but I can’t remember. I hope not!

 

Great start!

EB shook the ladder.

Finding a hidden Mickey.

Thanks for taking my picture, Ross!

Now that I was sweating and out of breath, it was time to find a little less strenuous activity. Unfortunately, the next thing we came to was a little race track with tiny bikes. I guess they were closer to big wheels than bikes, but I’m just going to call them bikes. A few of us grabbed one and started riding. I failed to notice that my tires were flat, and it made it about twice as difficult to pedal as a normal bike. Steve’s was perfectly fine, so he spent the entire time ramming into mine from behind at full speed, laughing the entire way around the track. There was even a small tunnel that you went through, and I was seriously concerned that I was going to be too tall to get through it. It was close, but I made it. Enough of that exercise crap! I’m on vacation. Let’s go find some rides!

 

On our way back to the main ride area, we saw some really strange things. A few of the characters in the park would never be allowed in America. If you know anything about this park, then you’ve probably seen the cow with enormous exposed breasts. She used to be more prevalent, but there’s only one place that you can find her now. We were lucky enough to walk right past her so I could get a picture. There’s just a ton of weird things going on in this park. Sadly, some of the water rides look like they’ve seen better days. The park’s rapids ride looks like it hasn’t been open for awhile, and the flume ride looked really run down. There’s no way I was going to ride it.

 

Great. Now I'm thirsty.

That's a big beaver. HARDY HAR HAR

I hate that thing.

The park has an enormous Frisbee ride, named Svend the Swinging Arm, which is themed to some giant cartoon spider. I’ve only done MaxAir at Cedar Point, and I thought it was fun so I was ready to give this one a ride as well. This thing was incredible! The park runs it on a really long cycle, and there are several moments where you’re almost completely inverted during the ride. It seemed like everyone on the trip thought it was one of the best that they’d ever experienced. The ride op also cracked me up. He was probably in his 50s, and he had two huge tattoos on his calves. On each of his legs he had one of the characters from the park. When he checked my restraint, he looked at me and said, “Just so you know. You’re allowed to yell on this ride, too.” He chuckled to himself and walked away. I didn’t know what he was talking about at first, but then I realized that he’d been working the Euro-Fighter during ERT. I guess I left an impression on him! Oh, back to the tattoos. He had the Boar on one calf, and the spider on the other calf. Those were the two rides that he worked. I thought it was kind of cool that he enjoyed his job that much! I’m sure as hell not going to get my company’s logo tattooed on my body any time soon!

 

This thing kicked ass!

Standing just a few hundred feet away was The Cobra Tower, which is a mid-sized drop tower. I’ll never understand how I can ride drop towers and coasters, but my fear of heights won’t allow me to ride a star flyer. Drop towers really don’t bother me too much, because I know we’re coming down soon. This wasn’t anything earth shattering, but I always enjoy a good drop tower. I re-rode because there was an empty seat next to Shawn. I’d completely forgotten that Shawn hates drop towers, so I was really happy to be seated next to him during the ride. See, last year on the Texas/Midwest trip, my friends made me ride 2 of the star flyers, including the 400 foot tall one at SFOT. They laughed and laughed at me while I was terrified the entire time. Payback’s a bitch, huh Shawn? While we were at the top waiting to drop, I kept acting like we were going to fall. Making the car shake and screaming. He didn’t think it was as funny as I did, but I don’t really care. Love you, Shawn!

 

For some reason we all wanted to ride the Frisbee again, so we went and did just that. Still awesome. That’s really all I can say about it. I’d like to see more of these models come to the US. After another great ride, we ran into another group of TPR members heading towards the Disk-O. I’d never been on one before, so I was excited to try it out. Elissa came over to me and quietly said, “OK, I don’t get the joke. Who are you making fun of?” I told you that I’m normally a low key person! I explained that I was just trying to have fun, that the group seemed kind of tired at the morning ERT. She mentioned something about me being on crack. A huge group of us got in line for a TPR takeover of the Disko. As luck would have it, I was the only person that didn’t get on. I was busy leaving my wallet and phone with some non-riders, so I entered the queue last. That was disappointing. While I was waiting, I heard someone say, “Is this Thad’s phone.” I turned around in time to see Elissa taking a picture of Soupy’s ass. Don’t trust anyone with your stuff on these trips. I immediately deleted the picture when I got my phone back, but I wish I would’ve kept it to use in this report. Lesson learned!

 

Back to the ride… When the Disko was finished with its, I begged a few people to stay behind and ride with me. Robb, KT and Steve stayed behind to ride. Robb had the video camera out, so he told Kristen that she needed to scream louder than me during the ride. Challenge accepted! I’ll just say that it didn’t go well for KT. I’m pretty sure that I won the contest! The Disko wasn’t really as exciting as I’d hoped. Are they all the same, or was this one a tamer version?

 

More odd theming. I think this used to be the cow with the breasts hanging out. Is that correct?

My first disko. Meh.

I got to ride with KT. She was supposed yell louder than me, but she couldn't do it. (Thanks to TPR for the photo)

Our enormous group started walking around looking for something else to ride. As luck would have it, there was a wave swinger themed to some crazy turtle not too far away. All of us were able to get on the same ride, and Garbels and I were talked into sharing one of the two seater swings. I’m not sure if they’re designed to hold that much weight, but I was really hoping those chains were stronger than they looked throughout the entire ride. I was pretty sure that we were going to end up on some TV show like “When Amusement Rides Go Bad.” Fortunately, we survived our ride, and I think I even gave Garbels a kiss on the cheek for good measure.

 

Jake told a lot of people that this was his favorite moment of the trip. Pretty sad. (Thanks to TPR for the photo)

Just wait, our morning gets even dumber. The park has a slow moving boat ride that takes you through some questionably un-PC scenes of animals. I didn’t have my camera out during our ride, but it was really strange. The highlight of this attraction was our idea to have a fat boat. Robb, Soupy, EB, Darin, Steve, Jere, Garbels and I all got in the same boat. This seemed like a really good idea at the time. Once we left the station, we immediately regretted it. I honestly thought we were going to capsize a few times. The boat was so heavy that the floats on the boat were submerged. I’ve never seen anything like it. You could feel the boat dragging along the trough for our entire ride, and the boat moved at a snail’s pace! By time the ride ended, two other boats had caught up to us. We’d started a traffic jam! Luckily, the other boats had TPR people in them, so we weren’t upsetting any of the normal park guests. Whew! The ride attendant gave us a disapproving look as we came back into the station, so I got out of there as fast as I could. I know that there’s video of this entire ride, so it might surface at some point.

 

Fat boat. (Another TPR photo)

The large group disbanded because it was nearing lunch time. Everyone wanted something different, so we just kind of broke off into groups and went looking for food. Only one restaurant was open, so the group ended up at the same place. It was your standard burgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets and fries counter service restaurant. Unfortunately the 69 Kroner pizza meal deal couldn’t be found, even though there were signs all over the park for it. 69!!! Get it?!? The food was actually decent, but I felt bad for the 3 employees who got slammed by our group. They handled it pretty well, and food was coming out at a decent rate. Kudos to them! There was a huge area with plenty seating right next to the restaurant, so we found a table and sat down. It was actually pretty nice, but there was a shrieking bird sound that would go off every few seconds. We later found out that they use it to keep birds away, but I think I’d rather deal with the birds than listen to that thing scream every 30 seconds! It was really annoying.

 

After lunch was over, some of our group wanted to try out the flume ride. I’ll pass. The benches near the ride looked pretty nice, so I tried those out for a few minutes.

 

Kind of disgusting, if you ask me.

No thanks.

Once my friends finished riding the gross water ride, some of them wanted to try out one of the horse on rail rides. I sat out on this one as well, choosing to take embarrassing pictures of all of them riding this stupid thing. Oh, Priscilla said that this was the best ride in the park, but I’ll let her explain why…

 

Alan looks really excited.

I don't know what Jake is doing.

Yee haw, Shawn.

Jere lives in Wyoming. I think they ride horses to work. (Hey, it's one of the few states that Iowa can make fun of!)

Priscilla was a big fan of this ride.

Steve's used to riding koalas, but this will do.

Hi, EB!

EB again.

Joe says, "Sup Bro?"

No words can even describe what Ross is doing.

Having done most of the rides, we set our sights on getting some souvenirs. I started collecting fridge magnets a couple of years ago. They’re cheap, don’t take up much room, and I can usually find one at each park that I visit. Someone told us that the huge candy shop also had the most souvenirs in the park. They were right. The store was huge, and filled to the brim with a lot of crazy toys, shirts and candy. I ended up finding a magnet that I liked, and bought my 5 year old niece a Henry stuffed animal, along with a whoopee cushion with Henry on it. She loves farts, so I knew this would be right up her alley. In case you were wondering, she thought they were both great gifts! We spent a long time in the shop, mainly because someone couldn’t get their credit card to work. Ahem… Shawn. While I waited, I walked around the store looking at all of the creepy animatronics and stuffed characters. Seriously, some of them were really scary. Eventually he got it to go through, so we could go check out the last few rides we hadn’t seen yet.

 

Pee pee pants hippo.

Creepy gorilla.

Slutty pig.

I thought it would be funny to take my picture with a coffee mug that had the name Thor on it. It's pretty hilarious, especially when I don't turn the mug the right direction. Idiot.

I watched this thing eat for about 3 minutes. It was really intoxicating for some reason.

There's a lot going on with this bathroom sign. I could probably talk about all of my questions for 10 minutes, but we don't have that much time.

See, this make sense. The ant is pissing in the bucket. Got it.

On the bus, Robb had told us to make sure to check out the kiddie drop tower, The Crow Trees. It was on the other side of the park, so we started walking over to it. We passed the Frisbee on the way there, and a few of us took one last ride on it. I loved that thing! The Crow Trees were a long way away, but we eventually got there. I won’t ruin the surprise, but if you’re ever at the park, you should make sure you ride this thing. It’s pretty cool. That’s all I can say. I’m glad we made sure to ride it!

 

Back row: Ben, Victor, Stacy, Jere, EB, Cary

Front: Shawn and Ross doing something weird, Jake not paying attention, Adrian being a douche, Chris and Alan being normal.

Me and my little buddy Joe!

There was only one area of the park that we hadn’t walked through yet… Drum roll, please… A Wild West area! YES! It was actually pretty well done. The main draw was yet another Desperado ride, with the exact same storyline as the one at Bakken. Steve sat this round out for some reason. Priscilla later told us that he probably didn’t ride it because he’d had the high score at Bakken, and if he played again someone might beat him. Talk about competitive. What a loser! I made sure to ride in the front row this time, and ended up with one of the top scores. Much better! We found Steve outside, and gave him some crap about not riding. Of course, he denied it. Lame.

 

Another well themed Wild West area.

It was time to start working our way back to the front of the park, because the bus was leaving at 3:30. On the way back to the entrance, there was a huge purple octopus ride. I don’t know what I thought it would be, but had I known, I wouldn’t have told everyone to ride it. It was a kid’s boat ride. That’s it. No spinning or anything. There we were, about 12-15 adults, riding this stupid kiddie ride. While we were on it, a family with small children got in line, and looked at us like they were really confused. Sorry, everyone. My fault!

 

Not sure what we were thinking.

We had about 90 minutes to waste. There was a 4D theater by the entrance, and the show was going to start soon. We entered the building, not having any idea what was inside. Lucky us, it was some crappy Ice Age 3D movie. To top it off, it was all in Danish! Quite a few of our group decided to take a nap. I wanted to, but couldn’t fall asleep with the annoying sneeze gag that kept shooting water at the audience. How many times can something sneeze on you in 20 minutes? I think it was 5 or 6, but I lost count pretty early on. Next time, we’ll have to see if the show is in English before we go in.

 

Right next door to the 4D theater was a really strange building called Fantasy World. Fantasy World is enormous. It’s all inside, and there are several rooms that have different themes. Jungles, Winter, Caves, you name it. All of it was creepy as hell. This is the kind of place where you’d film a horror movie. Some kids get locked in there after the park closes, and the animals all come to life and kill them. At least, that’s what the place made me think of. I tried to find a bathroom, and it took me down the longest hallway I’ve ever seen, like something out of The Shining. Every few feet, there was a really scary looking anthropomorphic animal standing there. I finally found the bathroom, and got the hell out of there. I haven’t slept since that day.

 

One last look at Henry.

Huh?

This was creepy.

Probably the weirdest thing in the whole building.

Liver Lips?

Don't look into its eyes. Seriously, how creepy is this?

Where the hell is the bathroom? This is getting really weird.

The more I look at this, the scarier it gets.

Some people wanted to buy some more souvenirs since we had a little time before we had to leave, but I just sat down with some TPR members on a bench by the exit. When the time came, everyone headed out to the buses, ready for our trip to the ferry dock. Tonight we were going to be crossing over to Germany via a ferry. I’d done a couple of ferries when I was in Europe many years ago, but that was the last time I’d been on a boat that big. It didn’t take too long for us to get there, so we had to wait a few minutes before they let the bus drive on the boat. Once we were parked, we made note of where the bus was. Everyone was on their own for the next couple of hours. A few of us staked out some tables on the top floor exterior area, because the weather was pretty nice that day. Others went down to the duty free shop to get some beer to enjoy while we were crossing the water. The boat didn’t take too long, and before we knew what happened, it was time to get back on the bus for our drive to the hotel we were staying at for the evening.

 

Waiting for the bus to load onto the ferry.

Finally on the ship!

Out at sea.

People just relaxing and having some drinks.

It was pretty nice that day. A little windy, but we stayed outside for the entire ride.

The German countryside was pretty. Lots of fields and windmills, just like the rest of Europe that we’d seen. You could tell that we were in the middle of nowhere again. When we got to the hotel, it was one of the only things at that exit. This was a mom and pop kind of operation at the hotel. There was a definite charm to the place.

 

They flew the American Flag for us! Suck it everyone else on the trip! USA! USA! USA!

They also made us a huge BBQ dinner that evening, just for our group. It was delicious. Lots of different meats were being cooked on the grill out behind the lobby. Tons of sides and a few dessert offerings were available, but it seemed like our group was a little more interested in drinking some alcohol. Not long before the trip, I’d started taking some medication that I’m not supposed to drink alcohol with. Let’s just say I learned why my doctor warned me about it. The beers were going down pretty well, when someone asked the waitress if they had any shots at the bar. She said that they had Jägermeister. Cary ordered 10 shots for the table. Nice! When the waitress came by, Cary asked how much the shots were going to cost. The waitress replied, “Two fifty.” Now, when we heard this, we thought she was saying that it would be two hundred and fifty euro. We were freaking out. Everyone was offering to give Cary money so that he wouldn’t have to cover all of it on his own. Luckily, we later found out that the shots were each 2.50, so the total was really only 25 for all of them. Wait, what? That’s really cheap! The rest of the night basically turned into Jager night. Was this the best idea we’ve ever had? No. Not even close. Was it fun? Yes. Yes it was. As usual, the crowd turned on me for some reason. The toast of the night became “F**k Thad!” I’d even yell it each time. If I’m being honest, I don’t even like myself, so I agreed with the toast. This is where things start to get a little hazy for me. I know it was getting pretty late. Lots of people were heading to bed, and yet I just kept going for some reason.

 

One beer wasn't enough for Steve.

Beer foam or Ross? You decide.

 

Theme Park Review's Vine of us doing shots. Yuck.

 

[vine]

[/vine]

 

A totally rude and unnecessary toast by Priscilla. Thanks again to TPR for the Vine.

 

[vine]

[/vine]

 

I don’t remember thinking it was all that late, and then one of the servers mentioned that it was already 1:45, and they were supposed to close at 1. I felt really bad, so I left so they could go home. There were only 3 of us left at that point. Me, AJ and Michael. Since I was staying the guest house area of the hotel, I had to wander back into the forest to find my room. At 2 am, in the pitch black of night, it’s pretty hard to find your room when you’re drunk. I dropped my iPhone on the gravel and cracked the screen, and I also couldn’t find any of the guest house buildings. I was completely lost! Starting to freak out, I made my way back towards the main building, hoping I’d run in to someone. It didn’t take long until I saw Michael. Lucky for me, he was heading back to the guest houses as well. He showed me the path I needed to take, which was about 2 feet from where I’d been standing. I keep telling you this, but I can be a real idiot on TPR trips. Thanks for helping me out, Michael! Somehow I found my room, and was in bed around 2:15. What a great day. I wonder how tomorrow will go since I’m completely hammered and I have to wake up in 4 hours. Spoiler alert… Not well. Tune in for the Hansa Park update to hear more about the worst morning of my life.

[Nrthwnd]

...Tune in for the Hansa Park update to hear more about the worst morning of my life.

 

What??? Worse morning than......Steve???

 

Great TR of Bon Bon Land, Thad.

And you did great on the obstacle course, I felt.

[rosscoe]

Epic.

 

Some of those photos should never be shown in public!

[deguy123]

Here is a nice shot of us on the ferry! Great report again Thad! The next morning was a hard one for you guys

[SharkTums]

You're strange...but not as strange and terrifying as Fantasy World...or turning a corner and seeing Struffel inside of Fantasy World!

[Barge84]

What??? Worse morning than......Steve???

 

I wouldn't say that. He was feeling a lot worse than I was! That doesn't mean that I wasn't ready to die, though!

 

Here is a nice shot of us on the ferry! Great report again Thad! The next morning was a hard one for you guys

 

That's a great picture! Thanks for posting it.

 

You're strange...but not as strange and terrifying as Fantasy World...or turning a corner and seeing Struffel inside of Fantasy World!

 

If you think I'm strange, I'm probably doing something right! As for Struffel, I'd rather see him in Fantasy World than ride next to him without his shirt on. Jake's picture from Farrup gave me nightmares.

[fatdaddy]

It's rare that you find a trip report where someone posts 20 pictures of...themself! Oh, the narcissism! Talk about a Thad only trip report. But I was indeed entertained Thadiator, carry on.

[Barge84]

I'm glad you approve, Caesar. I'll sleep well tonight knowing that!

[Joe Cool]

That Euro Fighter commentary was one of my favorite moments of the whole trip. ERT JUICE!!! Awesome report as always Thad and man I don't even want to talk about that next morning bus ride.

[jynx242]

Getting quite a few laughs from this report Thad. Thanks for continuing it (and making me so freaking jealous that I didn't do that trip.)

[cfc]

I think this says it all.

 

 

 

[Barge84]

I'm all class, Chuck!

[SuperShawn]

I'm anything but class, Chuck!

 

Fixed.

 

 

Even though Bon Bon Land was rough around the edges it was a great day. Nice update Thad.

[AJMouse]

Oof. The morning at Hansa Park. Oof.

[TheSchwitek]

HA! Glad I could help you find the guesthouse!! It was an exciting 30 second journey into the black abyss. This was a fantastic day/night! Loving the Trip Report, and looking forward to seeing more!

[The Big Hand]

I can't for the life of me remember anything from that night in Germany...

Because I was asleep in my bed.

[rosscoe]

And waiting

[TPDave]

Agreed - I want to get these photos off my HDD!