Photo TR: Cookiex goes (back) to Lisberg

[cookiex]

So last Monday I made a rash decision that I would go back to Liseberg this week. I had been to Heide-Park earlier this year (April 16th) and am going to Europa Park for a full weekend trip starting June 2nd (the day after my college courses end for the summer). Liseberg is, quite frankly, one of my favorite parks out there, and if you've been there it's not hard to see why. Friendly atmosphere, smooth operations, and in my opinion the two best coasters I've ever ridden, Helix and Balder. The two coasters not only compete with each other for the top, but this year will make an interesting comparison to their sister coasters at Heide (Colossos) and Europa (Blue Fire). Since I've already been on the former I can tell you that Balder beats Colossos out of the water, but I'll get to that in a bit.

 

I was there at the gates just a few minutes after opening (11.00 A.M) and left the park once it finally closed (11.00 P.M) so I got a full 12 hours at the park, which meant plenty of riding. The thing with Liseberg though is that you can't stay all that late if you still want a train ride home that evening, at least to where I live (in the southernmost point of Sweden). I found a bus that would depart from Gothenburg at 1:45 A.M, which did mean waiting for quite some time at the central station.

 

Let's get down to the meat of it, shall we?

 

If you enter Liseberg from Korsvägen ("Cross road") you'll walk past this nicely landscaped area where the ferris wheel and Atmosfear tower overhead.

 

Across the street are the Gothia Towers, the tallest buildings in Gothenburg.

 

If you bought the ticket and wristband online in advance (like me) you'll just enter through one of the ticket booths to the side of the main entrance.

 

There she goes <3 <3 <3

 

The entry sign (apologies for the messed up quality but it was the best image I had)

 

The queue line for Helix is actually very effective in building up suspense, despite being mostly a concrete slab with a few fences and rocks all over the place. I think the soundtrack helps a great deal.

 

The drop out of the station leading to the corkscrew catches me off guard every time. There's a surprising amount of air in the back

 

Some rides like Uppswinget did not open until noon, so I had to fiddle around for a bit outside the entrance. The ride is still a bit freaky but also very fun.

 

Liseberg is a very crowded park resulting in images like this (three trains at once!)

 

I'm coming for you, Balder!

 

Probably the coolest thing I saw all day was the switch track on Lisebergsbanan. The whole wall retracts back a few feet revealing the maintenance area cleverly hidden in the back. Here they are adding a fourth (!) train to the track.

 

Kanonen has never been a favorite of mine. It's not an especially bad ride, but it's cramped layout and uncomfortable restraints (way too much padding!) means I usually only ride it once or twice. Desert Race is way better.

 

The launch is pretty intense though. The only real way to prepare for it is to lean your head back and count the number of "heartbeats" that play before the launch. The last one even cuts off which means it's time to go.

 

Boom!

 

Balder time! I was honestly a little worried about Balder after riding Colossos last month. Colossos had the same cool airtime as Balder, but was brought down by a really rough experience inbetween. If you want to know how it bad it was, just watch any recent video of Colossos and listen for the awful sound it makes on most hills. Yikes.

 

Balder did not have that problem and was just as amazing as ever, though. <3

 

It's a relentless but also very smooth ride that never lets up until the end. Deciding wether this or Helix was better was pretty much splitting hairs.

 

The new garden area was pretty nice, even if it hadn't fully bloomed yet.

 

Aerospin is the big new attraction for 2016 and it was... weird.

 

Getting the planes to even move side to side was trickier than it looked. No rider on my ride was even able to flip even once! I should've taken a picture of the scoreboard, which was all zeroes. You could hear people coming off the ride being confused as to what they were supposed to do. Also, the whimsical soundtrack felt like it was taken straight from a 90s kids film which only perpetuated the weirdness.

 

Sploosh!

 

I've never been a fan of river rapids rides (unless they have a drop like Kali River Rapids that get you super wet, then it becomes awesome) but I decided to give Kållerado a chance. It was okay.

 

Through the wood!

 

FlumeRide closed for an hour or so around 6 P.M apparently due to technical issues. Nobody seemed sure of what the problem was, but they got the ride back up and running shortly after.

 

The best part of the day started at 8 P.M where pretty much everything was a walk-on. This was the line for Helix (the very last staircase before the loading area).

 

Nightfall came and Liseberg became even nicer than before with all the lights.

 

Balder and Helix were even more amazing at night!

 

Balder was completely engulfed in darkness which made it seem even faster and more intense than before.

 

Each ride had a different set of lights which made them stand out more.

 

The Gothia Towers completely dwarfed the main entrance.

 

Closing out with a panorama picture taken from Korsvägen.

 

All in all a great day at Liseberg. Choosing to go on Thursday (Ascension Day) instead of Friday turned out to be a wise move, as the crowds were a bit lighter than usual and the coasters never had lines longer than 30 minutes tops. I checked the official app the day after and on Friday Helix had lines as long as 80 minutes! I truly dodged a bullet there.

 

Final ride count:

Helix - 9x

Balder - 8x

Lisebergsbanan - 3x

FlumeRide - 3x

Kanonen - 2x

Uppswinget - 2x

Rabalder - 1x (new credit)

Aerospin - 1x

Kållerado - 1x

Hanghai - 1x

Edited May 8, 2016 by cookiex

[cfc]

I agree that Balder is better than Colossus (which I also like a lot). I like Kanonen, but it seemed a bit slow after the initial launch (Desert Race is the better of the two rides).

[ThemeParkJunkie51290]

Awesome report! I would come to Sweden just to ride Helix! That coaster is on my bucket list for sure!

[markysharky17]

Looks like an amazing ride! I need to get to Liseberg and get on Balder, Helix and Mechanica!

[Barge84]

Thanks for the report. Can't wait to get back there in July!

[Anthlon]

Thanks for report,

I am heading for Liseberg in near future so it was helpfull for me, you have nice counts at the end, similar like I usually do.

 

Now to the Balder, i am soo looking forward to ride that one but i have to say.. Colossos in Heide Park is one of my favorite ride and i rode it about week ago ( around 1.5.) several times (again like last five years i do more than one visit a year). I do not feel that one so rough, althrough it can be felt more intense if you are sitting above the wheels (1+3 row per car) and it is true that i rode mostly in the middle. I am very sensitive for roughness so in same park Limit+BigLoop is one ride per visit and done, so by that i am looking forward to ride Balder if it is better in mean of smooth ride than Colossos.

[cfc]

The last time I rode Heide Park's Colossos was back in 2008. I loved it, but Balder was still the superior ride.

[viking86]

Great trip report! Liseberg has always been one of my favorite parks, a great ride collection, beautiful scenery and excellent operations!

 

Now to the Balder, i am soo looking forward to ride that one but i have to say.. Colossos in Heide Park is one of my favorite ride and i rode it about week ago ( around 1.5.) several times (again like last five years i do more than one visit a year). I do not feel that one so rough, althrough it can be felt more intense if you are sitting above the wheels (1+3 row per car) and it is true that i rode mostly in the middle. I am very sensitive for roughness so in same park Limit+BigLoop is one ride per visit and done, so by that i am looking forward to ride Balder if it is better in mean of smooth ride than Colossos.

 

Balder was perfectly fine in August last year, you should be fine! Just a small piece of advise regarding your high expectations, from my experience Balder can be a tad sluggish during the day. It will still provide great airtime, but it can be quite slow through the turns. Well, should you experience that the ride didn't quite live up to your expectations on your first ride, just wait until evening, because for the last couple of hours before closing that thing is flying like a bat out of hell!

[_koppen]

The trick to get the seat to spin on the Sky Roller is to rock the wings back and forth.

Start one way and when it starts to tilt that way then change it to the other way and when it start to change to that way change it to the other way again.

 

The rides are very bad for people with shorter arms though, you need to flip the wings as far as they go in order to manage a flip, Johanna can for an example never manage that and for that see hates the Sky Rollers.

 

It usually takes a few rides to figure it out, but IMO they should have an instructural video in the queue or something as it can be frustrating for people who never finds out.

 

Great photos btw!

[Johnlloyd]

The trick to get the seat to spin on the Sky Roller is to rock the wings back and forth.

Start one way and when it starts to tilt that way then change it to the other way and when it start to change to that way change it to the other way again.

 

The rides are very bad for people with shorter arms though, you need to flip the wings as far as they go in order to manage a flip, Johanna can for an example never manage that and for that see hates the Sky Rollers.

 

It usually takes a few rides to figure it out, but IMO they should have an instructural video in the queue or something as it can be frustrating for people who never finds out.

 

Great photos btw!

 

At my home park, Canada's Wonderland, they just opened the first Gerstlauer Sky Roller in North America. In order to flip the seat, you need to alternate the direction of your paddles slowly and lean into the direction every time you have a paddle that is pointing downwards. Once you have flipped, you should then "lock" your paddles so that way you can continuously flip the seat throughout the duration of the ride. I have also found it quite difficult to flip the seat in order to do barrel rolls as whenever I've been Skyhawk at Canada's Wonderland, it's always been windy. I've been so close to flipping every time but, the wind pushes me the other way! Maybe I'll get to flip next time I visit the park!

 

Nice photos of Lisberg, Cookiex!