Erik & Smisty & TPR do Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland

[bert425]

I'm SO glad I didn't see this.

I would have been horrified as an American

 

 

THIS is America, bay-bee!

[cfc]

I agree that Rutschebanen is way over-braked. The old version with the brake men was much better. I still get a kick out of Tornado, as insane as it is.

But, yep, the fun house and the haunted-house ride are the two best attractions there.

[Electerik]

What's the name of this thread? Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland? Anyway, here we are in Germany for Hansa Park.

 

09: Frog Frog Frog

 

Inside the park looking back towards the entrance. It's quite nice, but unshaded compared to the rest of the park in a way that makes me feel like the whole area is new.

 

While the park's two Marquee coasters are both Gerstlauers, the one I was most excited about was this Schwarzkopf, "Nessie."

Which was fine, but not amazing. Maybe the most interesting thing about it was the finale, which was a drop into the (tunneled) brake run.

 

Pretty great logo, though.

 

Crazy Mine is a fun Maurer wild mouse with an attached observation tower you can climb to take photos.

Fun story about how I'm stupid: As someone who doesn't speak German but pretty quickly picks up "entrance" and "exit" whilst visiting Northern European theme parks, I spent a long time looking for the entrance to said tower, but only kept finding the exit. Turns out there's only one way up and down, and "Aufgang" doesn't actually mean "exit," but rather "rising." Oops.

 

Schwur des Kärnan (or "Kärnan's Oath") is pretty clearly the star of the park.

Smisty's review: "You spend a lot of time on your back."

I didn't ride it. Was on the fence, but leaning towards giving it shot. Then we got to a preshow in which I had to be separated from my glasses (strap or no) for who knows how long, and the ride ops were giving off a really weird energy.

So yes, I went all the way to Hansa Park in Germany and then chose not to ride Kärnan.

Hey, I don't tell you how to vacation!

 

I liked the wild mouse, though.

 

Animatronic butt.

 

Not pictured: keyboard that made the frogs sing. And by "sing," I mean "say the word frog."

 

Obstacle course and bouncy bridge!

 

Smisty asked me to take a photo of her on the horse. And for not extra charge, I sexy-ied it up a little.

 

Old West Christmas Store

 

I was pretty excited about Hansa Park's proper powered observation tower, but it was down all day for queue painting...?

Lame.

I really did want to ride this, as Hansa Park is very near the Baltic Sea, but doesn't do much to really show off its location.

 

Lunch at Restaurant Weltumsegler at the front of the park. Pretty good, and super-friendly staff. Also, I was able to keep my glasses on.

 

This park is not ugly.

 

Hansa doesn't have a proper dark ride, but it does have this boat ride with flowers and water features and fairies (or something). Sure, you can see every inch of it from the pathways that surround it, but I still like that it exists.

 

Log flume #1 of 3!

 

Pull yourself across the lake, but don't try to touch the Schlong of Midgard!

 

I don't normally ride kiddie coasters, but this one seemed interesting and it was. There's an indoor section with an animatronic, and since the ride has two laps, he talks to the train twice--the first time is tell you to go kill the snake or whatever, and the second time is to complain about how much you failed the first time. (Or at least that's how I interpreted it.)

 

These last four photos are all from a pretty nice kid's area. I probably should've led with that.

 

Pirate-themed "doesn't get you wet" raft ride, with a cool station.

 

*Ahem* ... With a cool station.

 

These stupid rides are everywhere now. But very few are as nicely themed and plussed-up as this.

 

Arigato.

 

There's a little bridge that takes you over a road to this resort area. See? Sea.

Misty didn't come see this. So now we're even, credit-wise.

 

Flucht von Novgorod is the park's other Gerstlauer. It features a dark ride section and some other fun accompaniments to try to obscure the fact that it's a Eurofighter.

Can you wear your glasses on this one? No idea. Didn't try.

 

A warning about the over-the-head restraints?

 

Look at this. In America, people would be straight up climbing onto the track and dying.

God, we're stupid.

 

On the other hand, we did invent country bears. So, you know, it all evens out.

 

Log flume #2. This one features animatronic rats that scurry out towards the logs as you leave the station!

(Well, "animatronic" might be an overstatement. Still awesome, though.)

 

It also takes advantage of the terrain in order to feature something I'd never experienced but always wanted to: a single lift hill with drops both before and after it. Does anyone find that cool besides me? Probably not. But it's how I generally tried to build log flumes in RCT2, so I think it's neat.

 

Log flume #3.

Well, a super flume with a very simple layout, but still.

 

Late in the day, someone posted photos of a outdoor tracked jungle adventure jeep ride which we had not seen, which led us to this whole area of the park we had somehow missed.

 

Misty finally gets her photo on a horse without me screwing it up.

 

The little jeep ride has "cameras," attached via cord, that you can pick up and point at things. They do absolutely nothing, but they exist.

 

Woo! Two updates in a row that basically end with a jungle adventure jeep ride!

 

The bridge across the road to the parking lot and our bus.

 

A quick stop off for dinner at an intersection with a couple of different fast food choices. We went for something local, "Sunset Boulevard," where I got this pretty decent burger and a blizzard/concrete ice cream thing with popcorn in it.

 

Back in Denmark (specifically Aarhus) and in our room by sunset.

Okay, so, on a scale of 0 to 10 (where a 0 means I have no desire to ever return and a 10 means it's literally a top 10 park--a system that currently works just about perfectly since I've been to around 100 parks) I give Hansa Park a 6.

Not sure why I'm giving them a numerical value. I've never done that before. Anyway, still more fun than sitting on my couch writing a trip report!