Photo TR: Thad's 2014 TPR Scandi Trip

[Barge84]

Tetris bears??? Did I miss something?!?!

[cfc]

^^I'd forgotten about the "obstacle course queue" for the Bayern curve. That was a really nice touch.

[Barge84]

^I thought about mentioning it, but I didn't have any pictures of it. It was really cool.

 

Ryan, you're right about that ride op as well. That guy would've been considered lazy at a Six Flags.

[rosscoe]

Tetris bears??? Did I miss something?!?!

 

 

Bears, did someone say bears!

[Nrthwnd]

... Other highlights for me were the Tetris bears, a great free hat, the double bayern curve's obstacle course queue (and the amusingly slow ride-op), the absurdly terrible wild mouse, our flume boat soaking Ken when we was off-ride taking photos, and later getting soaked myself on the log flume and having random Danish people laugh at me (this wouldn't be the last time on the tour). I can't wait to see what they do with the new coaster.

 

Woof.

[Nozzy]

Awesome report Thad! I loved how pretty the park was, and your pictures are a great reminder.

 

Tetris bears??? Did I miss something?!?!

 

The "scary animatronic bears" you have pictured would occasionally play the music from Tetris, even going so far as to sing the lyrics. Quite a surprise, but it made the park even cooler.

 

Regarding Space Race, I didn't see this supposed instructional video you watched (perhaps because we were running through the queue yelling Space Race!!!!) and thinking back to Tivoli came to the conclusion that all lasers on bumper cars don't work since it wasn't registering as I shot random planets (and then decided to just go bump people). Glad to know that they can work.

[Barge84]

Well, I wish I'd heard them play the Tetris music! They might have been a little less creepy... or more... I'm not sure.

[Coaster Dooey]

Awesome report Thad! Sorry I'm a bit late in checking it out - life has kinda been like that lately!

 

I really did feel sorry for you guys on this day. But it was the best day of my entire trip!

[Nrthwnd]

Damn, I'm missing the Scandi tour so much, now.

And your great TR isn't helping, Thad!

Also yeah, that Bayern Curve ride op was .... oddly slow.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Nrthwnd

[Xcoaster]

Aklso yeah, that Bayern Curve ride op was .... oddly slow.

Someone may have joked that he was purposefully being slow in order to keep with the area theming. That, or he was making an ironic statement about the name of the ride. Or maybe he was also still recovering from the evening before.

 

Either way, I got my El Paso Express "credit"

[cfc]

The Bayern Curve at Hansa is interesting, thanks to its layout, but pretty weak as a ride.

[Barge84]

Sorry for the delay, everyone. I was traveling for work last week and didn't have any free time since I was meeting up with TPR friends to drink beer and ride El Boro.

 

I should get back on track in the next couple of days with LEGOLAND.

[cfc]

Promises, promises.

[rosscoe]

And Waiting!

[Barge84]

Sorry, Ross. I might have some time tonight.

[fatdaddy]

Well?

[Barge84]

Day 7 – LEGOLAND Bilund

After the horrible night in Germany, we took it a little bit easier this time. I actually got a good night’s sleep and felt pretty refreshed when I woke up at 6:15. Today the tour was making a stop at LEGOLAND Bilund. Truth be told, I’ve never been into LEGO. If I really think about it, I can’t remember if I’ve ever actually played with them, even when I was really young. With no real tie to the brand, I wasn’t all that excited about visiting this park. I assumed that it would just be a park for children, not having much to offer adults. As usual, I was wrong. LEGOLAND was a great park!

 

It was about an hour drive to the park, and we got there a little bit early. We eagerly waited in the park’s beautiful entrance plaza, taking time to walk around a bit and check out some of the LEGO displays. Having been to WDW about a million times, I’ve seen some of the cool structures that you can build with LEGO while visiting Downtown Disney. LEGOLAND had several similar displays built outside of the park, which was a nice way to welcome guests to the park. After milling around for a bit, one of the park executives came out to greet us, and before we knew it we were walking into the park.

 

My first LEGOLAND experience!

We're not even in the park yet, and there are already LEGO displays.

LET US IN!!!

I’ve really only seen a few pictures of the LEGOLAND in Florida, so that was what I had imagined in my head for LEGOLAND Bilund. I have to admit, I was really caught off guard with how well landscaped and clean the park was. The theming in each different area was top notch. Obviously, most of the park’s decorations were made out of LEGO, making it even more unique. The other thing that surprised me was just how big this park is. This place is pretty big! We were able to see a lot of the park while being walked back to Polar X-Plorer, the park’s newest roller coaster. Plenty of pictures of the park will follow, but here are some that I took as we were walking to the back of the park.

 

Huge LEGO spider.

Ghost - This year's new attraction. We'll come back later.

We finally reached our destination, and it was time for some ERT on Polar X-Plorer! Once again, I knew nothing about this ride, but I could tell right away that it looked pretty similar to Verbolten at BGW. Someone in our group confirmed that it was made by the same company, so I was excited to try it out. I’ve become a pretty big fan of Verbolten over the last couple of years. To me, it’s probably the best “family” coaster that I’ve been on. It might be a little too intense to be called a family coaster, but I think you know what I’m talking about. Polar X-Plorer didn’t disappoint. It’s not a very big ride, but it packs a punch for how small it is. The ride is pretty well themed, making it look like you’re about to, surprise, go on a polar exploration. You can’t miss the huge mountain in the middle of the area, and the coaster interacts with it throughout the ride. After the lift hill, there’s a swooping drop, then there’s a couple of fun air time hills followed by a helix. The train pulls into the mountain, and spoiler alert, something happens! I’ll try not to DROP any hints about what goes on inside… After the “surprise”, the train exits the mountain and kind of chugs along a little bit, past a few LEGO animals. It ends inside of a cave, where you get a great look into the penguin encounter. I’ve always like penguins, so I loved this added little extra.

 

ERT was a blast, and I lost count of how many rides I was able to get in during that period. I think that for the most part, the group really enjoyed Polar X-Plorer. It’s just a really fun ride. As always, I was more than willing to give out some of the more unknown facts about the coaster. My favorite was that the lift chain was made by a Belgian company named Der Flugen Der Chainen. I promise that I’m not always this stupid in my normal life, just on TPR trips. The most memorable ride for me was when Shawn and I sat behind our bus drivers. Lena (I think that’s her name) had more fun than anyone I’ve ever seen on a ride. She couldn’t stop laughing about the “surprise” inside the mountain. She literally laughed for about 3 minutes, even after exiting the train. It was nice to see someone from the “GP” having so much fun with our nerdy little group! I can still hear her laughing, “Hee hee hee”. It was great, and Shawn can back me up on this one!

 

Polar X-plorer - Small, but a lot of fun!

A little more of the layout.

Why did I get stuck riding with Shawn?

OH YEAH!!!

Following our trip to the Arctic, the park was nice enough to escort us to the front of the park and let us be first in line for their newest attraction, Ghost. I had absolutely no idea what the hell Ghost was, but based on the theming and name, it looked like some sort of haunted house attraction. There was a giant spider near the queue (as seen earlier), and the show building looked just like how you’d envision a haunted house (also seen earlier). Not only was the group first in line, but a new challenge was created. Some of you might know about our little friend MBF. MBF = Must Be First. This person was pointed out to me on a previous trip’s last day, and it’s kind of bothered me ever since. Thanks to TPDave for making me notice this! MBF, regardless of where he is in line, always seems to find his way to the front of the line for an ERT session. Honestly, it’s annoying and pretty rude, so I (along with others) made it my personal goal to make sure he wasn’t first for any more rides. Ghost was the first ride where this happened. I just happened to be the first person that got to the entrance, so I made sure everyone knew that I was #1!

 

MBF - Must Be First

 

They opened the park and we were let into Ghost. The general sentiment of the group was that they didn’t seem to like this ride. I actually thought it was kind of cool. The first portion of the attraction is a walk through haunted house. Everything is made from LEGO, and there are a few gags that you can trigger, depending on the room. Surprise, a lot of them made farting noises. They really like farts in Scandinavia! They also had flashlights that you could use to light things up in each of the displays. These were nice, because it was pretty dark in the house, and it was kind of hard to appreciate all of the detail that went into it. I guess I need to mention the most confusing mirror maze that I’ve ever been in. Truth be told, I never did find the exit. I just kept running into a really good looking guy wearing a pink shirt before I gave up and turned around so I could go out the entrance.

 

After meandering through the haunted house portion, you find yourself in the basement of the building. In the waiting area, there’s a scene that looks like something out of Frankenstein. Thinking that this was just another room to walk through, I somehow didn’t notice that this was a queuing area and walked past about 10 people from TPR before I realized it was a line. Sorry for being such a jerk, everyone! I corrected my mistake when I figured out what I’d done. The doors opened after a couple of minutes, we were led into a huge room. As usual, I had no clue what this attraction was. There were two rows of seats, about 20 seats in each row. So, we all climbed in and they lowered the restraints. The ride started, and there was a mad scientist LEGO guy in the middle, explaining something in about his new machine. The ride lifts you up a couple of stories, and you can see at this point that there’s another vehicle on the other side of the room, so you’re looking right at another group of riders. This was fun since it was mostly TPR members at this point in the day. Essentially, Ghost is a Frog Hopper on steroids. I thought it was fun, and I’m guessing kids love it. It seemed like a perfect attraction for a park like LEGOLAND, as I’m guessing the younger kids love being able to ride a “thrill ride”.

 

Wizard

Some suits of armor at the top of the stairs.

Where are the other 3 ghosts, Pinky?

A witch and her cauldron

He didn't have the guts to ride...

Ridiculous amounts of detail.

More ghosts. This place is pretty haunted.

Waiting outside of the ride portion.

We exited the ride and were told that all TPR participants were going to be let on the park’s Wild Mouse if we used the exit ramp. Since this was the last real credit of the park, everyone started heading towards X-treme Racers. While we were walking over, I told Joe to watch MBF. He was near our group, in the middle of the pack walking towards the ride. As we started getting closer, he started speeding up and walking around other people, making his way to the front of the group. Just as I expected, he was making his move. I wasn’t going to allow this to happen! Off I went, making my way up the side of the group, basically power walking to get to the front. Once the two of us were out in front of everyone, I think he finally took notice of what was happening. He quickened his pace, and so did I. I’m pretty sure by the time that we got to the ride, we were about 50 yards ahead of everyone else from TPR. Now, where the hell is the exit? We were both frantically looking around for it. As this was happening, all of the TPR people walked into the Entrance, and since there wasn’t any line, they just started letting people on! Yes! Mission accomplished. I proudly walked through the queue line, as people were giving me crap because I wasn’t first. I had to explain that I wasn’t trying to be first, but instead, making sure that MBF wasn’t.

 

The ride was your standard Wild Mouse, nothing special. About the only thing worth sharing was how far down they pushed the restraint on Cary and me. We sat down, pulled the restraint down, and waited. The ride op said they had to go down one more click, and they did. I noticed at this point that the button had stopped blinking, meaning we were good to go. He kept pressing both of our restraints down, getting them to click at least once, and possibly twice. The other ride up finally yelled at him and said, “They’re good!” Let’s just say it wasn’t the most comfortable ride I’ve ever been on. Oh well, I didn’t expect much from it anyway. Time to move on!

 

Oh good! Another wild mouse!

Dragon was nearby, so we decided to ride it now before the line would get too long. Depending on how pathetic you are, you might actually have another credit to count at LEGOLAND. Dragon is a powered coaster, so I don’t personally count it, but there are plenty of other dirty credit whores that probably checked the box off after riding. Speaking of credit whores, let’s discuss my mate Steve. Steve likes to portray an aura of being carefree about the whole coaster nerd thing, but let me tell you, he’s just as bad as most of the others on these trips. I’m pretty sure it was this day when we got the big speech about how he only uses Coaster-Count.com (the dash is said out loud), not the Coaster Count app. Also, you need to make sure you’re set to strict count, or you’re not legit. I’m telling you, Steve lives for credits. Dragon was going to be his 400th, before we found out it was a powered ride. More on the 400th credit later…

 

The queue for this ride was really well done, just like everything else in the park. You walk through the entrance to a castle, into the courtyard, and then into the ride’s station, which was themed to the inside of a castle. Lots of cool little scenes were built, so if there was a line you’d actually be able to pass the time by checking out all of the detail in them. Lucky for us, the ride was still a walk on. While we were waiting to board, Steve handed me his phone and asked if I’d take his picture, since this was going to be #400. Seeing as I’m a great guy, I was more than happy to help out. Dragon has a weird rule, allowing only 3 adults in the same car. So, even though there are 4 seats, only 3 can have adults in them. Joe noticed the sign first, so he was going up and down the line making sure that everyone was in the right spot. Unfortunately for Joe, him being nice completely backfired on him. When the gates opened, Adrian walked up and climbed into a seat, making it 3 adults in their train. Steve and Joe were going to ride together, and the employee stopped Steve as he was getting on and said, “You can ride, but she can’t.” The ride op was pointing at Joe. Steve completely lost it, laughing almost as hard as I’ve ever seen him laugh. I was standing there the entire time like an idiot because:

 

A. I didn’t hear what the ride op said.

B. I was waiting to take Steve’s picture.

 

While the entire train was already seated and had their restraints locked, I was still standing there waiting for Steve to stop laughing. I finally yelled, “Hey jackass! Are we taking this picture or not?” Steve had completely forgotten about me, so he finally posed for the picture. I gave him his phone and hopped into my seat. Joe stood in the station waiting for the next train. The ride was fun, including a dark ride portion where you traveled further into the castle, eventually running into a Dragon. I bet you’re surprised by that, aren’t you? Most of you have probably already seen the LEGO animatronic dragon from these rides, but I hadn’t. It was really cool! Yeah, it’s not Disney quality, but LEGO has done some really great things with this park! After you come face to face with the dragon, the ride is launched out of the castle into an outdoor area. There were lots of curves and a couple of small hills, nothing much. Once again, it was just fun. We exited and waited for Joe. This is when the rest of the group found out that the ride op confused Joe for a woman. Now, I’m not exactly sure how Joe would ever be confused for a woman, especially after seeing all the beautiful Danish women! I’ll be damned if we didn’t think it was the funniest thing we’d ever heard. Poor, Joe. Sadly, our group isn’t the kind of group to not give someone crap, so he heard about it for the next couple of days. We’d call him ma’am, miss, lady, girl, and my favorite… Josephine. We loved it. Josephine didn’t.

 

Entering The Dragon's castle.

Hang in there.

(In my Shawn voice) Oooooh, it's a wittle, bitty, dwagon!

Inside the ride's station.

Now that we’d added another female to the group, it was time to check out the rest of the rides at the park. From what I’ve heard, most of the LEGOLAND parks have some sort of version of a jet ski ride, and Bilund was no different. Our group had a lot of fun on the version at Bakken, so we all agreed to give this one a spin. This park’s version was called Jungle Racers, and was themed to… a jungle, I guess? They had two loading platforms, but only one was open on the day we were there. I love that they built two of them, because it doesn’t have a lot of throughput, so I’m guessing there are huge lines for it in the summer. We waited about 15 minutes before we were able to board. Once again, we had fun, but this version seemed a little slower than the one at Bakken. I’m guessing they don’t want children getting too crazy with it, so I can understand. It’s still a lot of fun trying to splash other people. The park also put in some water cannons that spectators could trigger. We took full advantage of this feature while we were waiting for the rest of our group to finish up. This was also right around the time that Ross offended an entire family of friendly Danish people. While he was riding, Ross saw me taking pictures. The next time he came around, he lifted his shirt up to show off his nipple ring. I have pictures of this, but I’m not going to post them. You’re welcome. The nice family standing next to me was a little shocked by this behavior, but didn’t leave. Then next time around, Ross flipped me off. All I could hear was the mother say, “OH NO!” She grabbed her two children and escorted them out of the area. Way to go, Ross! Another happy family!

 

Jolie

Karl

Ron looks fancy no matter what he's doing.

Steve

Ruben

Miles

Shawn

Can't take Australians anywhere. Poor kids. This is actually the only acceptable picture of Ross on this ride.

EB

Jere, with Cary in the background.

Chris. Not a stud.

Stud

Since it was only a matter of time before the park asked us to leave, we figured we should probably try to get in as many rides as possible. As I’m writing this TR, I’m actually surprised at just how many attractions there were at LEGOLAND. You could easily spend a full day here, possibly more depending on the age of your children. Not only were there a lot of rides, there was a ton of different variety, too! I was really impressed with this park! Right next to Jungle Racers is the park’s shooting dark ride, The Temple. I’m going to assume that this is a Sally Ride, but if I’m wrong I’m sure I’ll hear about it. Once again, it was brilliantly themed to an ancient Egyptian pyramid. I’m guessing we’re supposed to be on some sort of treasure hunt. The ride was pretty much a walk on, and we boarded our adorable little jeeps so we could get some treasure!

 

The ride seemed like it was pretty long, and the guns actually worked pretty well from a decent distance. I think there were 3 different colored jewels that you could shoot at, each one having a different value. Each room had a different scene including treasures, explorers, mummies, etc… I thought it was great! I think it’s the only non-Disney/Universal shooting ride that I’ve ever enjoyed. My final score ended up being second best out of our group of about fifteen. I think Ben (CoasterDooey) won, which wouldn’t be the only time he wins a contest on this trip.

 

Let's go shoot some mummies. Or something.

Lots of detail here, as well.

More queue...

The Sphinx isn't as big as I'd thought it was.

Treasure!

It was getting close to lunchtime, but we were right next to another ride, so we hopped on. Pirate Boats is LEGOLAND’s attempt at Pirates of the Caribbean. At least, that’s how it felt to me. When you come up to the ride, you can only see a few boats out in the water, traveling around an island with an old man on it. I had no idea just how elaborate this ride was going to be! We waited a few minutes, and when we were boarding we convinced nine people in our group to ride together. They did, and we were left with only five in our boat. We were laughing because they were so crammed into their boat, and we each had a ton of room. I wonder why people say I’m an ass… After passing the island, there was a lot more to see. There were soldiers guarding a fort, pirates, and an entire indoor section. It was pretty cool. I’ll let the pictures do most of the explaining for this ride.

 

I love that the bus drivers came into the parks and enjoyed themselves!

So much detail.

That's where Universal Orlando sent Jaws!

I kind of felt bad for this guy, but he's got enough food to last for a couple of weeks. I see 2 birds and 2 turtles. He'll be fine!

I don't want to know what's happening behind that wall.

A different view of the fort.

He might be in a little trouble.

9 people in 1 boat. TPR is so efficient!

Gator chomp.

Apparently the gators in Denmark are pretty docile. Just like the football team in Gainesville.

Why is there a lookout?

Finally, some pirate booty!

No fear have ye of evil curses, says you? Arrrgh... Properly warned ye be, says I. Who knows when that evil curse will strike the greedy beholders of this bewitched treasure?

Where are we again?

How arrrrrre you doing today?

This guy looked a little lonely.

Strike yer colors, ya bloomin' cockroachers!

It's not on the scale of Pirates of the Caribbean, but it's really well done.

We wants the red head!

Pirates and donkeys just make sense!

This was the first shower for some of the trip participants.

Turtles must be REALLY easy to make with LEGO.

I can't tell if Joe is laughing, or if he's rubbing his nipples and getting pleasure out of it.

We were getting pretty hungry. Lucky for us, it was time to eat. TPR had a reserved area at the buffet in the front of the park. The buffet was huge! They had a lot of variety, and while it wasn’t 5 star quality, I thought it was pretty good for an amusement park buffet. They even had an ice cream sundae bar! We stuffed ourselves full, then sat around an chatted. This was first time that I had the pleasure of meeting Gus (Gloomy Gus). Guess is a retired gentleman, who for the most part keeps to himself. But he can be pretty abrasive, just like me, and I wanted to finally meet this guy. I would soon regret that! When we were looking for seats, there were several open spots, and Gus was sitting there. I sat my tray down directly across from him and said, “I’m sitting here, because I can’t wait to talk to Gus!” Most people don’t know how to take me at first, but Gus is an old pro. He’s seen too many jackasses like me in his life to know what to do. He started telling me all about the Dr. visits you have to make once you hit the age of 50. He explained all of them in great detail to me while I was eating. He was getting great pleasure from my reactions, so of course, he kept going. I’d had enough with him after he’d stuck his finger from one hand through a hole that he’d made with his other. Yeah, that motion. I actually liked Gus quite a bit, but every time I’d see him for the rest of the trip, he’d make that hand motion, laugh hysterically; then walk away. Welcome to TPR, everyone!

 

Lunch was over, and there was more park to explore. We were leaving in about 4 hours, so we went looking for something else to do. We’d heard about the aquarium, and that sounded like a nice way to let lunch settle in. On the way to that corner of the park, we passed by a few of the LEGO displays and other various decorations.

 

For the life of me, I don't remember seeing a train. I have a picture of it, though!

Even the fountains have LEGO in them.

Just one of many displays inside the park.

More LEGO.

They're everywhere you go.

I'm assuming this is an important building in Denmark.

Derp.

The entire park is just full of so much detail. We’d finally arrived at Atlantis, and the next showing was in a couple of minutes. I didn’t realize there was an actual attraction before you got to see the aquarium. Our group was let into a darkened room with a large screen. There were about 4 or 5 rows of benches for people to sit on. Oh, a movie! I’m not even going to tell you what this was about, because it was really dumb. Even little kids seemed to think it was stupid, but I’ll give the park credit for one thing. They found a way to mix Danish, German and English into the film. They would say the line in Danish, repeat it in German, and then repeat it in English. It was kind of weird, but at least I knew what was going on. After being subjected to the movie, the doors flung open and we were able to see the aquarium. Finally! Sadly, it wasn’t all that great. I’ve probably been spoiled over the years, but I think they could have done a little better job with this attraction. I only saw a couple of sharks. The highlight was probably the button you could push to make a LEGO diver fart underwater. Classy, huh?

 

Meh.

Some sting ray.

I think this was the guy that would fart if you pushed a button. Why does everything fart in Scandinavia?

There's even LEGO underwater.

This is a terrible picture of a shark.

Scuba Steve

What are you looking at?

EB was confused. He thought he was really underwater.

That's Steve. He's my mate! (I wrote that for Joe)

Joe and his sweet USA headband.

Chris in his skinny jeans.

I was feeling a little... crabby.

Enough of that crap, let’s do something fun! Oh look! Another Western area! Once again, the park had a Wild West themed land. And yes, once again it was pretty well done. This might have been my favorite area in the park. It actually felt pretty real, and I didn’t feel like I was at a theme park when I was walking around. Oh, and don’t forget about the crazy bread making that you can do. We didn’t do it, but I know some people from TPR gave it a shot. Maybe next time!

 

Sigh... Just another well themed Western area...

I'm pretty sure I've never seen this in America.

Mount Rushmore.

That guy has really hairy nipples.

If I ever come back, I'm making the bread.

We skipped it earlier, but some of the group wanted to try out the park’s log flume, LEGO Canoe. I’d already seen a few of the boats get absolutely soaked, but I didn’t say anything. I just politely declined to ride, and walked around to get some pictures. It sounds like it was a decent little ride, but I’ll have to let someone else tell you about it. The only thing I can give you is some pretty funny pictures of people getting wet!

 

The park's log flume.

L to R: Steve, Cary, EB and Chris. They might have been a little heavy.

Priscilla, Joe, Colin and James don't seem too concerned about getting wet.

Ryan (in an ugly shirt), Dan, Ken and Nolan.

They were soaked! Water came pouring over the sides. Glad I sat this one out!

Ross (looking like a bad ass), Jake and Shawn.

Not too bad of a splash.

He only knew 3 notes.

More pirate booty! I'm so funny!

One has to wonder what happened to his clothes.

OK, that’s all for now. It seems like a good place to take a break since you can only have 100 pictures in one message. I’ll try to finish this up in the next couple of days. Sorry it’s taking so long!

 

And remember…

 

Me, Steve, Josephine

Edited October 7, 2014 by Barge84

[jbottgen]

Did you forgot your experience as 'Thad Warrior Princess'?

[Vtafro]

I seem to remember different activities before the park opened.

What was thad doing here?

[vuurvogel]

You are a treasure Thad!

Look what popped out of the box

[spongey]

Awesome report as always.

 

I am beginning to think you write a diary every night on these trips your attention to detail is amazing!

 

The power walk to the mouse with MBF was the highlight.

[Barge84]

Well, I guess some of those pictures won't be used in part 2, now.

[SuperShawn]

I seem to remember different activities before the park opened.

 

Never fails for us to take a family place and ruin it within 5 minutes.

[SharkTums]

Never fails for us to take a family place and ruin it within 5 minutes.

 

5 minutes? I'm pretty sure that photo was taken about 30 seconds after arriving into the plaza.

[Barge84]

I was just letting Ross realize his dream!