Fårup Sommerland Discussion Thread

Ride operator hit by coaster!

FÅRUP: Wednesday around noon. 14.45, an employee in Fårup Sommerland land was hit by the Orkanen roller coaster.

 

The employee had gone into the field to retrieve a bag when the accident happened.

 

The person was hurt, but is conscious. It informs Fårup Sommerland in a press release.

 

- It is of course contrary to all safety rules that an employee enters the track area while the roller coaster is running. We are currently investigating what can be the reason for an experienced employee to go in there, says Søren Kragelund, Director Fårup Summerland.

 

The employee got prompt medical attention, as there was a doctor among the guests in the park. At the same time Fårups first-aiders and park management was on site within minutes.

 

It also called a crisis psychologist for the guests as well as the employees who have been affected by the accident. Employee's relatives have been informed.

Source

What is the deal with people risking injury or death to retrieve lost items!?!?!?!? Even though he sustained a great deal of injury he's lucky to be alive.

Is it wrong that I have absolutely zero sympathy for these tools?!?

Very odd that an experienced employee would take this chance!

Fårup Sommerland will be getting Liseberg's 'SpinRock' in 2017.

It will be renamed to: 'Hvirvelvinden' (The Tornado/Whirlwind, to add to their collection of weather themed rides: Lynet and Orkanen), and will get a timber-like colourscheme which will go nicely with the rest of the park.

Source: http://www.tv2nord.dk/artikel/frem-med-braekposen-faarups-vildeste-forlystelse-aabner

And from the parks website:

http://www.faarupsommerland.dk/dk/forlystelser/alle-forlystelser/hvirvelvinden/

Hvirvelvinden

 

Try the wildest swing and spin! In 2017 we build whirlwind - our most daring theme ever. In the whirlwind you are thrown up and down from 19 meters height while you rotate around. But we warn you! You feel assured dizzy after a walk in the whirlwind. Are you among the tough and brave who dare?

 

**from google translate**

Great to see the ride being relocated! And I bet it will fit in very well.

Hvirvelvinden Fårup sommerland Fårup’s wildest ride The Whirlwhind

Hvirvelvinden stands on four legs and has a pendulum that swings back and forth. When the ride is in progress, the pendulum swings, while at the same time the pendulum head, which has room for 24 people sitting in a circle, rotates about its own axis. The pendulum swings up to a maximum height of 19 metres (62 feet) and at an angle of 115 degrees. The ride packs a g-force of a hefty 3.8. The new amusement is permitted for all dare-devils over 140 cm (4’6”) in height.

Hvirvelvinden scores 10 on a scale of wildness from 1 to 10

Fårup Sommerland was set up in 1975 and was able to celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2015. The amusement park is visited annually by some 600,000 guests, 80 percent of whom are Danes. Fårup Sommerland has a visitor satisfaction rate of no less than 99 percent and over the years has won a great many awards, including for secondbest amusement park in Europe (Kirmes, 2015 & 2016), third-best service in the world (IAAPA, 2015), Denmark’s best amusement park (2014) and Denmark’s best summerland (2014). Fårup Sommerland’s vision is to be the epitome of unique experiences for families throughout the Nordic region.

Hey everyone, Farup Sommerland has announced a new coaster for the 2020 season - Saven, a custom Vekoma family boomerang!

Translated, as the info is so far only available in Danish:

Look forward to 2020! Here comes our latest sharpest news! We can present a brand new family roller coaster in Fårup Sommerland. The saw is the name of the forthcoming roller coaster and will be the park's highest roller coaster so far, up to 24 meters. The saw is the only roller coaster in Denmark that runs both forward and backward.

 

Despite wildness and driving both forwards and backwards, Saven becomes an amusement for the whole family, as it can be tested by speedy guests as low as 95 cm. The wait for 2020 feels long right now - but we are sure it will be worth it!

The park has also done a complete overhaul to their website. Check it out! https://www.faarupsommerland.dk/da/oplev/saven/

Sheesh, if Djurs and / or Tivoli Gardens get new stuff for 2020 as well I might make another trip to Europe next year!

Well that was unexpected, this looks great

Looks like a nice setting for family coaster. My only experience with a Vekoma Family Boomerang is Raik at Phantasialand.

I really like the (what seems to be) "lengthwise" layout instead of the twisting over itself layout that's typical for these, looks fun!

I updated the announcement post with Farup's official on-ride NoLimits video of Saven. Here it is!

Great addition for a great park!

Looks great, especially the path it takes.

Wow, I love that the layout for this is totally different. It looks really nice nestled into the trees too.

Here's some interesting info coming out of Denmark yesterday.

Authorities are now saying that any attraction that involves heavy rotation, heavy movement, and / or guests screaming, without any form of protective shielding, can only run with a very limited capacity. That capacity is one group per cycle.

This policy affects rides such as Falken, Orkanen, and Saven at Farup; Drage Kongen, Piraten, Juvelen, and Tigeren at Djurs; and Polar X-plorer and Flying Eagle at Legoland. It's unclear how this affects other flat rides as of yet, but it means that while wait times for coasters now may be unbearably long, each group will get to ride completely on their own.

Here's the blurb from Farup specifically:

Dear guests,

 

Updated and tightened guidelines from the authorities have just arrived in relation to opening some of our rides. The new guidelines mean that some of the wild rides can only run with limited capacity, as only one family or group is allowed to drive the ride at a time.

 

Specifically, we expect that it will affect the Saw, Falcon and Hurricane, as the tightened rules apply only to rides that are in strong rotation or movement and cause yelling and screams and where there is no shielding.

I can't seem to find any information about this for Tivoli Gardens, but other parks in Denmark, such as Farup, Djurs, and Legoland Billund have all confirmed this on their social media channels. It's logical to assume that if I indeed missed it, Tivoli will be incorporating a similar policy, Bakken too.

https://www.facebook.com/faarupsommerland/

https://www.facebook.com/djurssommerland/

https://www.facebook.com/LEGOLANDBillund/

^Very interesting. This seems to be a new 'worry' for parks as Japan has also put out recommendations asking people not to scream on roller coasters. The majority of the research shows that when you pass quickly by small amounts in the air from talking/screaming the infection chance is super low so I wonder if this will be short term when people realize it's a little crazy.

https://soranews24.com/2020/05/26/no-screaming-on-roller-coasters-please-say-tokyo-disneyland-other-japanese-amusement-parks/

Amusement park association wants quiet thrill rides, no hugs as part of post-coronavirus closure reopenings.

The coronavirus pandemic has been rough on many businesses, but it’s been especially devastating for amusement parks. Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea, as well as Osaka’s Universal Studios Japan, have been closed since late February, dropping their attendance-related revenues down to zero even during Japan’s Golden Week Spring vacation period that straddles the end of April and beginning of March.

But with infection numbers decreasing, amusement parks are looking ahead to what sort of precautions they’ll need to put in place in order to reopen. To that end, the East Japan and West Japan Theme Park Associations have prepared a document titled “Guidelines to Prevent the Spread of Infection of the Novel Coronavirus,” which says it has the agreement of Oriental Land Japan and USJ, the companies that manage Tokyo Disneyland/Disney Sea and Universal Studios Japan, respectively.

The document, which was posted by Mie Prefecture’s Nagashima Resort hot spring facility to its website, lays out a number of suggested policies. A lot of them seem like they’d be pretty easy to implement, such as capping admission to parks and individual attractions, or checking guests’ temperatures at park entrances and denying admission to those with fevers, and also asking all guests to wear masks while inside the park. The associations also ask entertainment facilities to encourage the use of cashless payment systems and advance purchase tickets, to shorten the amount of time spent standing in lines and handling cash.

The guidelines then move into discussing how to manage the attractions and rides themselves and things get tricky. Again, some of them, like keeping windows and doors to indoor attractions open for better ventilation, don’t seem like they should be that hard to follow, but then you come to this:

“Roller coasters and other conveyance-style attractions

Have guests wear masks, and urge them to refrain from shouting/screaming.”

The cathartic release of tension that comes from yelling your guts out at the most intense part of the ride is sort of the whole point of riding a roller coaster. Shouting and screaming are the exact responses they’re designed to produce, after all. But with the coronavirus being an airborne infection, the associations would rather not have riders’ breath, saliva, and other mouth-sourced particles flying around.

It’s not only thrill rides that the guidelines want guests to remain quiet while enjoying, though. “Refrain from shouting/screaming” also shows up in the sections for indoor attractions and costumed character shows, which would cover Japanese amusement parks’ terrifying haunted houses and also excited squeals of “Kawaii!” for any cavorting mascots. Speaking of which, the document also asks park managers to instruct staff, including those in costume, to refrain from hugging or any other sort of physical contact with guests, and to develop gestures that can communicate friendliness since employees wearing masks (another listed guideline) will make it harder to see their welcoming smiles.

At the moment, these are just guidelines, so it doesn’t look like you’ll be thrown out of Disneyland for getting scared on Space Mountain. Still, if the experience of riding a roller coaster is an even split between fun and frightening for you, the guidelines suggest you’re probably better off waiting a bit longer before your first post-closure day at Disneyland and getting a temporary fix with a virtual visit instead.

On the topic of shielding to prevent airborne spread specifically, that would be insanely difficult to retrofit on an existing roller coaster. My limited coaster engineering knowledge is enough to understand that plexiglass shielding on, say, the backs of seats would cause a pretty sizable amount of air drag that might even prevent a coaster from making it through its circuit.

I'm trying to do more research on the new changes from the Danish authorities but every search term I use gets me articles about Florida.

Farup Sommerland has announced Fønix, a brand-new Vekoma looping coaster, for the 2022 season! When it opens, it will be the tallest, fastest, and longest roller coaster in Denmark.

https://www.faarupsommerland.dk/en/foenix/

A massive new roller coaster will rise from the forest floor and the ashes of corona by April 2022. Fønix (Phoenix) will rise 40 metres into the air – and extend majestically into the forest – in Denmark’s longest loop ride. Fønix will be the undisputed fastest bird in any Danish forest with a top speed of 95 kilometres an hour.

Fønix will be the first roller coaster in the world to feature a “stall loop” - a spectacular world first element combining the all-time favorite classic looping with the inverted stall into one new unique element. In this new element the train is forced into an overhead position by half a loop followed by an inverted camelback where the riders experience a period of 2.5 seconds of weightlessness before entering the second half of the loop combined with a twist.

Fønix will be the first roller coaster in Scandinavia to offer the most so-called airtime, which is the sensation of weightlessness you get when the body is exposed to zero gravity. With a total of 14 different elements, such as drops, loops and twists, you will get the sensation of weightlessness for a full 9.2 seconds on Fønix.

This looks awesome, glad that more of these next gen Vekoma's are getting built as they all look excellent.

Also, I can't help but think how similar this looks to the concept art that was released in the Grona Lund expansion story. Obviously not exactly the same model or anything since it's just concept art, but some similarities there for sure.

If you're wondering why this ride looks familiar, it's because it's the same layout as the now-cancelled Vekoma coaster Wildcat at Magic Land in Bosnia

This looks really good and makes certain I'll visit a park I was on the fence about if I finally take a long envisioned Scandinavia trip in the next year or two. Will be my first new-gen Vekoma if so.

Sweet jesus, that video from Magic Land makes this ride look like the unholy union of iSpeed at Mirabilandia and Lech at Legendia.  I'm sold.