28 Creds Later - a review of a trip to Denmark

[witchfinder]

My wife and I went to Denmark for 8 days in August and as the title of this report suggests, 28 creds were there for taking at five different parks (actually there were 29 possibilities, but I’ll get to that later)

We arrived quite late on Saturday night, headed to our AirBnB and crashed out in preparation for the next day, which would be our only full day in Copenhagen so we had a lot to pack in.

After an overcast start, Sunday was hot! Not really the weather to spend 12 hours trekking around the city, but that’s what we did. We began with a one hour Canal tour which was a combo package that included entrance to Tivoli Gardens, saving us a couple of quid. After that we used the public ferry to visit the big street food market at Reffen for a tasty lunch, headed back across the water to see the Little Mermaid statue and then went up the Round Tower for some views of the city. I won’t bore you with too many photos of all that but here’s a few.

There was an Iron Man event taking place in the city that day, which we happened across near the Little Mermaid, and it had an interesting zone that the competitors had to pass through, complete with pumping industrial metal tunes.

With the touristy sightseeing done, it was time for our first park of the trip, Tivoli Gardens. We were pretty exhausted by the time we arrived around 5pm, so weren’t really feeling that up for it, but every cred counts so in we went, using our voucher from the canal tour and buying two ride wristbands.

A bonus for us this day was that it was the one and only day of the year where they let dogs in, and we saw lots of cute doggos sniffing their way around the park.

The park isn’t too big and was open until 10pm, but we had no idea if it would be busy or not. We got our answer pretty quickly as we arrived at our first cred of the day, the classic Rutschebanen. Thankfully, the queue was short and we only had to wait a couple of trains for our ride.

We ended up on the back of the car that the brakeman sits in front of, which was a fun vantage point to see him in action, and also a pretty good row to get some airtime as it turned out. This 109 year old coaster delivered some reasonable pops of ejector on that first ride and is incredibly smooth given its age. There are some fun moments within the structure of the mountain too, so it was a great start to our evening and definitely gave us a much needed adrenaline boost.

From there we worked our way across the park with no real idea of the layout, ending up at Mælkevejen as our next cred through luck rather than judgement. This had the longest queue of the night at around 20 minutes, which obviously meant that we had no concerns about getting on everything during our few hours there.

As for the ride, it’s a typical Mack powered coaster, nothing too intense but it has a few quite forceful helixes and a very nicely themed train and station. One ride was plenty, but it was reasonably fun.

We then headed over to the Chinese themed area, which is really nicely done, and the biggest cred in the park - Daemonen. When I say biggest, I mean big for the scale of this park, but it has to be one of the smallest B&Ms out there and it’s quite impressive how they squeezed it into such a small area.

Anna sat this one out as she’d had a pretty serious case of vertigo a few months ago which she is still recovering from, so a ride with inversions didn’t seem like a good idea. Another short queue meant I was on quickly enough though and I went for the back row.

I think we all know this isn’t one of B&M’s finest moments, don’t we? The compact layout means it’s pretty intense, but I also found it had a bit of a rattle and was over so quickly there’s barely any time to take it in. The inversions were all fun though to be fair, especially as they’re taken in such quick succession. It was one to ride again a bit later on to get a second opinion on though.

The final cred was the smallest in the park – Kamelen, a very short Ziere Force which is clearly designed for kids but has a really impressive zero car.

We were subjected to five laps on this thing, and to be fair it almost has some airtime on it’s one and only hill. It was still at least three laps too many though!

With all the creds obtained in little over an hour, it was time to see what else the park had to offer. There’s an abundance of flat rides here but nothing that had much appeal for us in our slightly weary state, so we headed for the two dark rides instead.

First up was Den Flyvende Kuffert (The Flying Trunk), a charming little omnimover style ride that showcases the stories of local literary hero Hans Christian Andersen, with a choice of languages for the commentary. I wasn’t familiar with all the stories but there were plenty I did recognise and there’s even some mild nudity

Following that we moved on the Minen, which had no queue at all. It’s another vintage dark ride, this time aboard boats and featuring lots of dwarves and huge but presumably friendly dragon. At some pint it was fitted with crappy-looking guns to make it interactive, but these were advertised as being broken and that was no loss. This sits below the mountain of Rutschebanen and it was cool that you’d occasionally hear the coaster rumbling above which just added to the vibe of another charming ride.

Having done all the rides we wanted to, we had a quick wander through the rest of the park and then left to grab some food from MAX Burger in the Central Station. We first encountered this chain last year in Sweden and if you’ve never tried anything from there, I recommend you give it a go if you have the chance.

After filling up on food we re-entered Tivoli, stopping for some dessert at the fancy patisserie and spending some more time wandering around soaking up the ambience as the sun went down.

(Creepy much?)

Once it got to around 8:30 it had gone pretty dark and the park was lit up with its famous array of lights (obviously – what else would light up a park?) These really added to the atmosphere as we completed our walk through the gardens and headed for some night rides. First up was Daemonen, whose surrounding area looked great in the dark.

The queue was a little longer than earlier but I was still on in about 15 minutes and ended up on the back row again. My opinion didn’t change much to be honest – it’s a fun and pretty intense ride, but not a standout B&M and it’s a bit shaky at the back.

I wasn’t bothered enough about it to have another go as we were both getting tired and there was something more appealing at the other side of the park.

Back to Rutschebanen then, and it had no more than a two train wait so we ended our evening with a couple of rides on this vintage beauty. The first one was on the front row of the last car, and whether it was the change of seat or a different brakeman, or maybe both, we were treated to some fantastic ejector airtime on every drop and hill, which had us laughing all the way through.

For our final ride we grabbed the front row with a different brakeman again. This ride seemed a little slower but due to the seating position we got some nice floater on the hills rather than the ejector you get nearer the back. Overall it’s a fantastic ride and the fact it runs so smoothly is credit to the park.

Tempting as it was to grab another couple of rides, we had been out for over 11 hours at that point and still needed to get back to our AirBnB which was a 40 minute train ride away, so at that point we called it a night.

A pretty short visit to Tivoli then, but I think I got everything I needed from it. All the creds, both dark rides, minimal queues, a nice walk around and a few night rides - job done really. It’s a lovely little park with some quirky attractions, nicely themed areas and of course beautiful landscaping. I’d say it’s probably a little overpriced for what’s on offer, but then everything is expensive in Denmark. If you like your flat rides then there’s plenty more to experience there and we probably missed out on a few things, but the time we spent there was very enjoyable. No doubt that the standout coaster there is Rutschebanen, and when you consider its age and the presence of a B&M in the park that says a lot.

Next up, a trip to the world’s oldest amusement park and another, very different Rutschebanen.

 

[witchfinder]

Next up on Monday was a trip to Bakken. We headed back to the airport in the morning and picked up our hire car, which turned out to be a steal from Budget as we only paid £80 for 6 days hire and they upgraded us to a Toyota Corolla hybrid, which meant we saved some fuel money too.

Bakken was on reduced weekday hours, not opening until 2pm, so we decided to drive to the nearby town of Lyngby to grab some lunch. Unfortunately, what we didn’t know was that most of Lyngby was being dug up for roadworks, making the town centre seemingly impossible to get to. We ended up pulling into a small residential area to get our bearings and noticed a fairly busy restaurant so just decided to eat there, and it was pretty good.

Further faffing around with bad SatNav instructions meant that it was almost 3pm by the time we got to Bakken, and as we had a three hour drive to our next AirBnB near Billund in prospect, this was going to have to be a pretty quick visit. We paid our parking fee (almost fecking £12!) and walked into this free-to-enter amusement park. Fortunately with it being a weekday, the park was almost deserted.

They bloody love a creepy clown in Denmark, don't they?

Anna wasn’t too bothered about riding most of the creds here so I just bought one “Fun Card” that gives you 44 coupons to use on the ride and can be shared. This would cover us for most of the rides and I’d just pay for any extras with cash (and yes, it was cash only on the one ride I paid for!)

On first inspection it looked like two of the creds were not operating, but that was just because the place was so empty and in fact all the rides were running. First up was what most people consider the best coaster in the park – Mine Train Ulven.

We grabbed a row pretty close to the back as I’d heard you get some airtime on this ride, and away we went.

To be honest, I’ve had to watch a video of this ride to remind me what happened. As mine trains go it was pretty good, and there was a little bit of airtime here and there along with some twists and turns as you go through the trees. There was also a tunnel and some rock work, so I can’t argue that it’s probably the best coaster in the park, but to be honest the bar is not high when you consider the rides it’s competing with.

On that note, next up was Bakken’s Rutschebanen. Would it live up to the high standard set by its namesake at Tivoli? In a word, no.

In more than one word, it was f*cking terrible. As I’m sure most people know, the trains were replaced about a decade ago with ones that no longer need a brakeman, manufactured by KumbaK. That’s enough to strike fear into any goon, and sure enough they were awful, with the lap bar stapling me on the first drop, pushing into my stomach painfully and threatening to make the nice burger I had for lunch put in another appearance.

If the crappy trains weren’t bad enough, the ride does next to nothing. There are a couple of double downs that might be fun if there was any airtime to be had, but otherwise it just shuffles around the corners at a snail’s pace. The only noteworthy element is the tunnel that has the image of a woman with her legs open above it, which is highly dubious for a family park! I can safely say it was amongst the worst coasters I’ve ever ridden.

These guys look like they enjoyed it a lot more than I did!

Just up the midway from Rutschebanen is the most infamous cred at the park – Tornado. This Intamin spinning coaster is known for being violently intense and even has those hard OTSRs that you get on the likes of Rita, which is definitely excessive for a spinning coaster.

It certainly looks good from off-ride with the track popping in and out of the building that houses it. With nobody at the park, my ride on this was solo and I expected that would mean quite a bit of spinning in the unbalanced car, so I opted not to ask for boost mode due to fear of seeing the aforementioned burger again.

It certainly gets off to a violent start as you’re launched up the lift hill and given an unpleasant neck jolt into the restraints. After that you’re thrown around a bunch of banked turns in and out of the building (which has no theming or even dark areas inside) for about 30 seconds before arriving back at the station. It was over so quickly I could barely tell if I’d even been spinning or not, but it didn’t feel like it had been too spinny, with the car just flowing with the turns for the most part. I didn’t mind that because I’m not a huge fan of spinning anyway, but my overall feeling about the ride was pure apathy.

The final significant cred at the park is Vilde Mus, a bog standard Mack wild mouse. The credit on my Fun Card has run out by this point so I paid cash for this one as it was the cheapest of the four major coasters. It was exactly what you’d expect from a wild mouse so I’ll waste no more time talking about it.

There is one more cred at the park, which is a small Zierer Tivoli, but at a cost of roughly £5 to ride, I couldn’t be arsed to ride a coaster that I’ve done at several other parks in the past. I’m at the point where I will ride a kiddie cred if it’s included in the admission fee for a park, but I’m not spending extra cash on them unless I’m specifically on a silly cred run.

After the wild mouse we wandered around the park to see what else it had to offer, but it’s mostly just flat rides which I’m not interested in, though some were themed quite well. There’s also a Ghost Train which looked pretty crap and an absolute sh*t ton of food stalls, with what seemed like a dozen of them selling churros. It was pretty hot by this point so we went for ice cream, which was really good and easily the highlight of the visit to be honest!

That did it for Bakken, and we got on our way to “near Billund” after just over an hour at the park. Obviously we didn’t see this park at its best, as I’m sure when it’s busy and night time with all the lights on, it has a lot more atmosphere. It seems to have a very nice location in the woods, but there wasn’t a lot of shade or notable landscaping within the park and it really did have a tacky fairground vibe. The biggest issue though is that as a coaster fan, the selection of rides is just not very good. There was nothing that made me want to ride again or go back to the park in the future. The upside was that we needed to cred run the park quickly and that’s exactly what we managed to do, so in that respect it was a good visit.

I’m amazed I just wrote as much as I did about a one hour visit to Bakken. Next up is much more of a theme park, and that theme is little plastic bricks that really hurt if you step on them barefoot.

 

[witchfinder]

Quirky little amusement parks out of the way then, let’s get on to the proper theme parks, and the first of those was the original Legoland.

Billund hotel prices are frankly extortionate even by Denmark standards, so we were staying in a lovely AirBnB on a farm in Vejle, which is about 25 minutes drive from Billund. We weren’t expecting a hugely busy day but based on queue-times Legoland is never quiet, so we left at 9am to get to the park in plenty for time for opening. A nice early arrival meant we were parked up right across the road from the entrance and waiting to go in by 9:35.

In reality, we actually got there too early really, as they don’t open the gates until bang on 10:00 so we were just hanging around outside for almost half an hour, but a pretty big crowd was gathering behind us so at least we got the lead on them.

Also, they let dogs into this Legoland!

The weather forecast for this day was for showers, but a decent temperature otherwise. For that reason, we’d brought our rain jackets and in the end it was really hot and sunny again with barely a cloud in the sky all day, aside from one very short rain shower mid-afternoon, so we were lugging our layers around for most of the day.

Anyway, the gates opened and like all organised goons do, we made our way towards the back of the park and to the lowest capacity coaster first - X-Treme Racers. I thought this was just a bog-standard Mack wild mouse, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was one of the extended models, and the theming on the Technic Lego style trains was great.

We only rode it once but it was more enjoyable than the standard model and a fun way to start the day.

Next up was what looked to be the best coaster in the park – Polar X-Plorer.

This model in the queue line reminded us of our dog Brody, who we were missing

Having reached the back of the park in good time and without the handicap of slow-moving children, this was walk-on and we grabbed the back row.

What a fantastic family ride! Pretty smooth with a couple of mild airtime moments and some pretty forceful turns, and then you get to the drop track. The only other coaster I’ve ridden with a drop track is Thirteen, and while that is OK, the drop track on this ride was brilliant. No warning, just boom, straight down with a great airtime pop. Loved it.

After that it’s a pretty boring trundle back to the station past some arctic animals rendered in Lego and a now-empty section where I believe they used to have live penguins. Overall though it exceeded expectations and since there was still no queue, we went straight round for another ride. Once again we got the back row and had another great ride, and I should probably mention the trains which I thought were really nice and comfortable.

All in all, an excellent ride and a great start to the day. 25 minutes in and that was two out of four creds done, so next we headed to a dark ride.

This is a pretty old shooting dark ride by the looks of it, and it certainly turned out to be clunky as half way around, just as we were going through one of those spinning tunnels, it broke down! After sitting stationary for a couple of minutes, all the lights came on and a member of staff came round to unlock the cars and point us in the direction of the exit. Woohoo, an evac!

Anna was actually relieved about this as the cars had been spinning significantly and that was not doing her post-vertigo brain any good at all. We walked out, taking a few photos along the way and had a brief sit down while she composed herself.

Back to a cred then, and the next one was came to was Dragen, or Dragon if you didn’t understand the Danish word.

Once again this was virtually walk-on once we’d made our way through the elaborate castle façade. Unlike the Windsor equivalent, Billund’s Dagon is a Mack powered coaster which begins with a very similar dark ride section to the Windsor one before “launching” into the outside layout. This was, quite frankly, a bit sh*t. Very short and not a lot happened before you were back in the station. Windsor wins the battle of the dragons.

From there we moved on to the Wild West themed area and the final cred in the park, Flying Eagle.

This had the longest wait of the day at around 30 minutes and by this point it had got really hot. There’s very little cover in the queue line for this so we stood there baking amongst some decent theming of a typical western landscape, so the temperature seemed quite fitting. There’s also some really nice Lego models of lots of different animals in this area.

Nice beaver!

The coaster only operates with one train and does two laps, so the queue moved quite slowly but eventually we were on and these Zierer Force rides are pretty fun family coasters. We did the equivalent model at Tayto Park last year and once again got the faintest hint of some airtime as well as a few nice twists and turns.

With all the creds in the bag before midday, the rest of the day would be nice and easy as we could have a leisurely walk around the park and do any other rides or attractions we fancied. The queue for the nearby log flume was a bit too long for us to bother with, so instead we sought some shade and another water-based attraction that allowed us to indulge our creative side.

We found this area where you could build little Lego boats and sail them down a river, so due to the abundance of blue and yellow bricks we decided to be a bit controversial and create a boat with the Swedish flag in it, and adorn it with a moose figurehead. Frequent readers of my trip reports will understand the significance of the moose.

It sailed pretty well and was frankly the best boat on the river because the kids weren’t putting any thought into the design of theirs!

From there we ventured into the Pirate-themed area and another water ride, which I think is just called the Pirate Boat Ride?

No raving allowed on this one, sorry.

This was a nice relaxing ride with some brilliant set pieces and animatronics, all rendered in Lego of course.

That brought us to lunchtime and we headed back to the wild west area for a meal in the restaurant there, which ended up being the most expensive meal of the trip at over £60 for two mains, drinks and a dessert. The ribs I had were decent though and the Lego fries were fun.

This was nearby so here's a photo of it:

As the day went on it got hotter and hotter, so we tried to alternate between indoor attractions and outdoor ones that had some shade. Most of the rides we went on had pretty short lines so we packed loads into the afternoon and I’m not going to go into too much detail about most of them, but here’s a short summary and some pictures.

The Lego Train – it’s a train and it gives a nice shaded journey around the outskirts of Miniland.

Lego Atlantis – it’s a mini Sealife centre mixed with some Lego models, and it wasn’t very good.

Lego Top – rotating observation tower. Nice views, doesn’t stay up there very long. Surprisingly had no queue at all!

Ghost-The Haunted House – it’s a combo of an interactive walkthrough which was very dark and a mini drop tower which we skipped as we couldn’t be bothered to wait for it. It was a bit meh.

Vikings River Splash – decent rapids ride with some good theming, much better than the now-retired Windsor one. Didn’t get very wet which was a shame given the temperature, but the final drop was impressive and one poor lady on our boat got soaked!

Miniland – you know the drill. It was really bloody hot with minimal shade so we didn’t stick around too long.

To round off our day we headed back to Polar X-Plorer and got the back row for the third successive ride. It seemed to have warmed up a bit too as it was a little more lively than in the morning. Easily the best ride in the park.

The final attraction I wanted to try out was in the previously-ignored Lego Movie World.

The awkwardly-named Emmet's Flying Adventure - Masters of Flight is a flying theatre with a pretty ugly warehouse-style queue line. The only plus point is that once you near the front of the queue, you can play with Lego while you wait.

I’ve done one flying theatre before (at PortAventura’s Ferrari World) and wasn’t really impressed with it, so wanted to see what kind of a job a better theme park would make of it.

Unfortunately, I was again not impressed. The theme for this is a race between some flying Lego vehicles, and you get assigned to one of them before going into the theatre. The dialogue in the videos before and during the ride is all in Danish, which is fair enough, but it did mean I didn’t really know what was going on. There were English subtitles in places.

The problem I have though is with the ride hardware – it’s just not very convincing. I think the idea is that you’re supposed to be immersed in the screen so that it surrounds you, but I could see the top, bottom and side edges of it and I find the movement of the ride jarring in conjunction with the on-screen action, which as you can imagine for Lego-themed kids ride was very colourful and geared towards somebody with a 5 second attention span.

So yeah, two flying theatres done and not impressed with either of them. I think they probably work better with real world visuals such as flying over natural landscapes, so maybe I’ll find one that I do like eventually.

That brought us to about 16:30 and we’d ridden everything we wanted to and were pretty hot and tired, so we headed to the exit, taking a few more photos along the way as there’s something to see in every corner of Legoland.

We ended our day with a look in the shop, which must be every parent’s nightmare given the prices, before making the short walk back to our car, getting out of the car park and on the road back to our accommodation in just a matter of minutes.

We really enjoyed what was my first visit to the original Legoland. Anna had been before when she was a kid, so it was a nice nostalgia trip for her, but for me it was great to see this park and how much better it is than the Windsor one. The coasters are significantly better, with Polar X-Plorer a real highlight, and the supporting rides were generally of a better standard too. What really stood out though was how much more there seemed to be in terms of interactive, Lego-building attractions. I know Windsor has these, and to be fair I’ve only visited that park once and wasn’t really focused on them, but they certainly seemed to be more prevalent and interesting at the Billund park.

The theming across the park was good – pretty generic for most theme parks of course, but all done with the Lego twist, and there were loads of neat little details if you took the time to look. Operations were generally excellent across the park, with many queues splitting groups of 2, 3 or 4+ people into separate lines to help with loading and the ride ops working efficiently. That meant that even though the park was pretty busy, we managed to get on loads of rides and still have time for a sit-down lunch and plenty of faffing about. Also, they allow dogs!

All in all it was a great day, even if the weather was a bit too fierce for us, and if you’ve never visited then I highly recommend it, especially as it could almost be done as a day trip from the UK with Ryanair flying to Billund from several British cities and the park literally within walking distance of the airport.

Up next, a non-park day (which I’ll cover briefly) and then the park that’s home to Denmark’s newest coaster.

 

[Howie]

OMG, that Lego dog really does look like Brody! I mean, they've got the pose wrong, obviously, both his back legs need to be sticking forward, but other than that, yeah it's him!

So yeah, two flying theatres done and not impressed with either of them. I think they probably work better with real world visuals such as flying over natural landscapes, so maybe I’ll find one that I do like eventually.

The Voletarium is your friend. Get thee to Europa Park, Sir.

Fab reports, Denmark is getting more and more tempting by the day.

 

[witchfinder]

The Voletarium is your friend. Get thee to Europa Park, Sir.

It's on the list for next year

 

[witchfinder]

The next day was a travelling day as we drove from Vejle to our next AirBnb in Blokhus. We took the scenic route, driving up the west coast and stopping to do some sightseeing. I also ate this disgusting* thing at a seaside café.

*also delicious

One interesting place we stopped at was the Bunker museum at Hanstholm. This is an area that was home to a lot of military fortification during WWII and lots of it still remains. Check out the size of my weapon!

They’re somewhat missing a trick here as all the outdoor area is free to roam and you only have to pay to enter the museum itself. The thing is, all the fun stuff is outside.

Whilst exploring the outdoor area we happened across this train, which was originally used for transporting ammunition between the gun emplacements and is still operational. For a modest fee we got a very interesting ride around in these oppressive little carriages, which goes through the woods and the old ammo storage area.

This was pretty damn creepy and while it’s probably not appropriate, it would make a brilliant location for a scare attraction with the actors dressed as zombie soldiers, jumping out of the old buildings and slamming the cages that surround the carriage. But that’s just me with my theme park enthusiast head on.

Anyway, we eventually got to Blokhus, our base for the next couple of nights, which was close to our next theme park destination.


The next day we had to get up pretty early as we had quite a journey to get to Farup Sommerland.

Actually we left our accommodation at about 9:45 and were in the park before the official opening time, though there already seemed to be some people on the rides.

This was a Thursday and based on looking at recent queue times, I wasn’t expecting a busy day and we didn’t get one. Every ride apart from Fonix was pretty much walk-on all day and with the weather being in the low 20s and plenty of shade around the park, this was one of those near-perfect days that you hope for when you visit a park for the first time.

Upon entering the main entrance area, we initially headed right as I wanted to grab the lowest capacity cred first as even on a quiet day, nobody wants to wait any amount of time for a ride like Flagermusen. This is a standard JASSM, but they definitely went to town on the theming. Look, it has a misty tunnel for the entrance!

Note to self: never ride a spinning mouse alone half an hour after eating breakfast.

From there we started a roughly anti-clockwise route around this half of the park, picking up creds as we found them. The pathways are a little convoluted and there are a few areas where you have to backtrack, but it’s a very nice place to walk around with a canopy of trees overhanging you in many areas.

The next coaster we came to was Lynet, the Gerstlauer launch coaster, which is another low capacity ride. It was only running one train but there was still no wait for the ride at the point we got to it, probably helped by the fact that the queue line went on for ages.

I’ve ridden the similar Anubis at Plopsaland so I was expecting some fun from the rolling launch, and it delivered. After that there are some nice elements including the top hat, a couple of inversions and a hill that would probably give some airtime if it weren’t for the OTSRs. They sadly made it a tad uncomfortable and not something I would want to ride over and over again, though it was fun and I did intend to come back and ride it again later.

Unfortunately, when I returned to ride it again towards the end of the day it was down, and had been for hours, and from reading @Hixee 's trip report it seems like it was still down a few days later. Consequently, I can’t give a very thorough review of it but am at least glad I managed to get one ride.

What you’re about to learn from the following sequence of pictures is that you can have any colour of coaster you want in this half of the park, as long as it’s green.

Next up was the Vekoma Junior Coaster, Mine Expressen. We were greeted by a completely empty station on this one, save for the enthusiastic old man operating the ride, so we had the rare treat of just the two of us riding in the front row, with the bell in the train jangling as we went around.

Perfectly nice ride as it weaves through the trees, but one and done.

We then made our way past Saven, ignoring it for the time being and heading to the main event, Denmark’s newest, tallest, fastest, joint-invertingest coaster.

Compared to everything else in the park, this is a beast, towering above the tree canopy and occupying a large area on its own. The theming is fairly subtle, limited to nice fantasy-style designs on the buildings and fixtures and some pleasant landscaping. It fits the park’s vibe well without being anything outstanding.

As previously mentioned, this was the only ride with any kind of queue and even that was only a train or two’s wait unless you wanted the front row. They were only running one train but with such low crowds, that’s forgivable. The ride ops were again kindly old gents, which made me worry who is going to run the rides at this park in ten years time!

We kicked things off with a ride near the back of the train, which I followed with both a front and back row ride while Anna had a breather. After three rides, my overriding feeling was that this is Vekoma doing their best RMC impression so far. From the out-of-your-seat-all-the-way-down first drop and the quirky loop/stall combo, to the ejector hills and twisty-turns, this is a ride full of the kind of elements RMC have made their own over the last decade. In the corkscrew through the station, Vekoma have added their own (literal) twist to things, and that’s just as fun as it is on Lech, though the ride as a whole is a lot less intense. That’s to its credit really, as it is far more reridable than the Polish coaster. It’s taken the best parts of Lech but made them a little more family-friendly, and as a result I’d say this is the best Vekoma coaster of the ones I’ve ridden. It’s smooth, it’s thrilling and most of all it's a lot of fun. Easily the best coaster in the park and, up to this point, the best in the country too.

It doesn’t come close to being a Top 10 cred for me, but I’d happily ride it all day. I didn’t though, as there were another four to pick up, and the next of those was Saven, the Junior Boomerang.

These are fast becoming the staple ‘junior thrill’ coaster across the world and they do a good job of being a step up from a typical family coaster. They are generally quite forgettable but this one did have some reasonable theming and a fairly unique layout, being more of a straight line than many versions that wrap around themselves.

That completed the set of green coasters in that side of the park so we then headed back to the main entrance area, stopping to ride the rapids as the day was warming up. These were quite nicely themed, but we were batched with a group of Danish teenagers that wanted to practice their English with us as we went around, so I don’t remember much about them other than we didn’t get very wet.

With three creds left and it not even lunchtime, we headed over to the opposite side of the park and started with the kiddie cred, Pindsvinet.

Cute!

Next up was a ride that has a bit of a reputation for being rough, so Anna initially sat this one out.

Falken was my first ever S&S woodie (not that there are many of them out there) and the station was empty, with near empty trains being sent out apart a group of what looked like Japanese kids lapping it on the back two rows.

I grabbed the front row for my first ride and braced myself for the worst.

It was actually pretty fun! There are a few shaky bits, especially on the twisty sections towards the end, but overall I didn’t find this to be rough and the first half offered some pretty decent airtime too. I’d be back for more of that later, but one cred remained before lunch and it was one that I’d been looking forward to for a long time.

Back when I first got the coaster enthusiast bug and started to look on RCDB at what was out there across the world, Orkanen really stood out for me due to its vibrant track and location over a lake, with the tunnel through it looking really impressive.

Years later I have ridden several of these Vekoma SFCs, including two other installations of this model at Dollywood and Energylandia, so I knew what I was getting, but still it was great to finally ride this. It didn’t disappoint either, with the reasonable intensity that this model offers enhanced by the feeling of your feet dangling close to the water through some sections.

With all the creds done within 3 hours, it was time for lunch. This park seems to have some interesting dining options, including a tapas bar, but due to the low crowd levels, that and many others were closed. The main entrance area had a quick service place that served Burgers, Mexican, Chinese and more though so we grabbed something from there. I went for a freshly prepared Pork Rendang which was very tasty and amongst the best food I ate in Denmark to be honest.

They also served drinks in these weird biodegradable cups which you were supposed to fold to make a ‘straw’ but nobody seemed to be able to work them out. I gave it a go and ended up tipping coke down myself.

After that hefty lunch and given that all the main rides were done, we wandered the park for a while in the sunshine and grabbed an ice cream. Many areas of the park resemble just that – a nice country park that just happens to have a bunch of big rides alongside tons of playground equipment. As with the other parks we’d visited, dogs were allowed and I did smile at the drink stations that had been provided for them.

There was also this

Following that we caught the train up to the mini golf course. I love the train here – it gives a great journey around the park, through the trees and past many rides, but more importantly it’s a proper transit system where you can get on or off at one of three stations. Top marks.

The mini golf was another fun activity and was not only free (unlike at most UK parks) but seemed to be completely unsupervised. In the UK this would probably result in utter chaos, but everything was running smoothly here in typical laid back Danish style.

The only downside to the mini golf was that I lost by a solitary point. We kept the cute little Farup-themed pencil though.

By the time we finished it was 3pm and with 2 hours left before the park closed, it was time for some rerides, starting with Falken. Anna joined me for a mid-train, non-wheel seat ride which was fine, but then we tried the back row and it was noticeably rougher, though the airtime was great.

This coaster definitely exceeded my expectations and I enjoyed it enough to have 5 rides during the day. The layout wasn’t especially imaginative but delivered good air and the wild ride you expect from a woodie, so no complaints here.

After that it was back to Orkanen for a back row ride (we did the front earlier) which offered a bit more intensity on the whippy transitions and final helix. Really great family thrill rides these, and I’d love to see a UK park get this version and stick it over a lake as Farup have done.

We then got back on the train to take us to the opposite end of the park, where we cooled off from the now intense sun with a ride on the log flume, which as the sign advised, did indeed get us wet. This was a pretty good flume, with a fast pace through the channels and three good drops.

All that remained then was to return to the headline attraction for a couple more rides to round the day off.

Another back row ride and one close to the front confirmed for me that Fonix is at its best when ridden at the back, and it had probably warmed up a little since the morning, giving a slightly more intense ride with some great airtime moments throughout.

That brought our visit to Farup Sommerland to an end as we made our way to the exit at around 4:30 and were out of the park and back at our AirBnB within 15 minutes, though how to get out of the place wasn’t entirely obvious due to the lack of signage. In the end you just go out the way you came, so I’m not sure what you do if you needed to leave an hour after opening on a busy day when cars are still coming in!

As I’ve already said, this was a pretty perfect day due to the low crowd level and pleasant weather, and the line-up of coasters certainly helped. Fonix is a fantastic new addition and there’s a good supporting cast of Orkanen, Falken and Lynet. The rest are filler rides, but decent enough for families. There’s also a great selection of other attractions including two good water rides, a number of flats and all kinds of interactive play equipment. There really is something for everyone there, with some decent food outlets too and even the ability to bring in and cook your own on their grills.

The staff were friendly and operations were fine, though it was such a quiet day I have no idea what they’re really like. I wouldn’t really call this a theme park - I suppose its location is its theme really, with nearly all the rides themed around wood or nature. It is very nicely landscaped and easy to get around, though there are a few dead ends and the signage is lacking in places, though when they do it, they go big!

I suppose the biggest issue with the park was a lack of atmosphere. That was partially due to the low crowds but also we didn’t hear any music except in the entrance plaza. Nowadays you expect to hear a soundtrack playing in the queue line for an expensive new attraction or as you walk through the park, so it was strange not to. So there are a few bits and pieces that could be improved but none of them detract from what was overall a really lovely park with some of the best rides in the country.

One park left on this trip report, and the big question at this point was would Djurs outdo Farup in the battle of the Sommerlands? Come back soon to find out!

 

[witchfinder]

I need to get this report finished before the end of the month so I get my League of Goons points, so let’s round things up.

The day after visiting Farup we were on the road again, heading East towards our next base in Fjellerup. On the way we stopped off at Skandinavisk Dyrepark, a remote but quite spacious wildlife park that Anna wanted to visit for one reason and one reason only: Moose!

They also had Polar Bears in a nearby enclosure, which seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, but it was fun to see them in a large space with plenty of water, which they we enjoying playing in on this hot day.

There were other animals including regular bears, wolves and a huge variety of other deer, but we only had an hour or so there after our journey so didn’t see everything.

After that we made our way to our AirBnB, ate some food by the seashore and watched the sun go down.

The next morning we awoke to find the bad weather had finally caught us and our final full day in Denmark was going to be a wet one. After breakfast from the local bakery, we made the relatively short drive to Djurs Sommerland along some country roads that were quite heavily flooded already in places. I’m not sure they’re too good with drainage here and I’ll touch on that again later.

With the weather being pretty grim we were at least hoping that what may usually a busy Saturday at the park would be much quieter. It soon became clear however that the Danes don’t mind a bit of rain, and this ended up being the busiest park day of the trip.

The rain stopped just as we arrived and we were in the park ten minutes before rope drop, so we lined ourselves up near the entrance to the Asia themed area. We intended to get on DrageKongen first as my research showed this usually gets one of the biggest queues in the park after the first hour of the day, as befits its newest major attraction. At 10:00 the rope was dropped and kids started running towards the ride. We got there within a couple of minutes and lined up for a front row ride, since this would probably be the only one.

The theming in this area was brilliant and the queue line and station were nicely presented. Getting on this ride is tricky though – the seats are quite deep and the restraints don’t lift that high, so you end up having to contort yourself to get strapped in. We managed it though and away we went.

There are definite pros and cons to this ride. On the upside, the layout is fun and it’s quite forceful in places with some fast transitions and good interaction with the landscape and buildings. On the downside, in addition to the awkward seats, it’s quite shaky already despite only being six years old and while the unique layout was appreciated, I can’t help thinking that this kind of ride is more in Vekoma’s wheelhouse.

We were probably not going to have time to ride it again anyway but as it turned out, neither of us were that bothered about doing so anyway. There’s another coaster in the area though so we grabbed that before we moved on.

Jungle Rally is another well-themed ride but just a tiny junior coaster. Thankfully it was walk-on, so we got our one ride and were on our way to our third cred of the day within 20 minutes of the park opening.

We made our way to the back of the park next, walking through the Wild West and Dinosaur themed areas towards the lowest-capacity cred in the park, Thor’s Hammer.

The theming in this Viking area was fantastic and that extended to the queue line and station for the ride, but we were disappointed that the same effort hadn’t gone into the coaster trains, which had a rather tacky bright yellow design.

Anyway, the ride was pretty much walk-on at that point so we jumped into one of those tacky trains and enjoyed a ride that is very similar to Cobra at Paultons, with the wild mouse style turns followed by some helixes and the airtime hills for the finale. These Gerstlauer Bobsleds are always pretty good fun.

Next up on our clockwise(ish) journey around the park was one of the most anticipated coasters, Juvelen. We joined a 10 minute queue for this, during which time the rain returned with a vengeance. The ride ops were occasionally peering out of the station, possibly to see if it was safe enough for the ride to run, but they obviously judged that it was as we were on for a back row ride in due course.

This is another ride at the park that has quite faffy restraints due to the Quad bike style trains, and the seating position is a little awkward. After a fun pre-show (is it a pre-show if you’re already on the ride?) you’re launched at a decent speed into a series of twists and turns and the occasional hill that mildly threatens airtime. You then hit the second launch and it’s more of the same, but a little faster with even more threat of airtime, before you eventually make your way back to the station.

I’d heard great things about Juvelen, but while it is definitely a good family thrill coaster, I was a little underwhelmed after that first ride. The launches were good but the combination of the wet weather, all those turns and some slightly rattly trains made for quite an uncomfortable ride, so I resolved to try again later.

At this point it was pouring down so having got half the park’s creds in the first hour, we sought shelter until the rain eased off. After half an hour the weather looked like it was improving so we made our way back to the new Dinosaur area to ride the T-Rex coaster.

While we were heading over, the rain got worse again so we ended up getting soaked on this. You know what you’re getting with these Mack powered coasters – nothing too exciting but good family fun. The theming of the area and trains was good and the on-board audio was a nice touch, but the layout was pretty bland and the ride seemed quite slow until it picked up some pace on the second lap.

With the rain continuing to pour down, we decided it was time to take shelter again and have lunch. We headed back to the Wild West area and chose to eat at the Burger and Ribs buffet, which in retrospect was a horrible mistake. The food was OK but the queue to get it was one of the longest we stood in that day and not worth a second visit, so we didn’t really get our money’s worth.

After lunch it was still raining but we decided to press on, and with only three creds left we were in good shape. While our food went down we joined the 30 minute queue for the final junior coaster, Vilde Hønsejagt (Wild Chicken Hunt in English) which has a great zero car and nice farmyard theming throughout. The chicken clucking noises in the station were a particularly good touch.

This is another Zierer Force – they seem to like them in Denmark – and a fairly fun layout for the kids, who seemed to enjoy it.

That left two creds, both of which are in the pirate-themed area at the front of the park, so we made our way over there and started with Skatteoen, the Mack water coaster. We were pretty wet by this point already so getting a bit wetter wasn’t going to make much difference. Once again, there was some great theming on this one.

As with a lot of these rides, the big splash at the end is mostly for show, and we didn’t get much wetter than we already were. Quite enjoyed this though, as while most of the layout doesn’t do a lot, the final drop has a decent hill before the splashdown that gave a little bit of air.

Speaking of airtime, that left just one coaster and what in theory should have been the best the park had to offer – Piraten, or as I like to call it “one third of Millennium Force”

Seriously, with its cable lift, banked turns, camelback, tunnel and ejector hills towards the end, I think seems very much like a mini version of Cedar Point’s Giga. The queue was relatively short at this point in the day, although it would have been shorter still if there wasn’t so much faff loading the thing. With annoying adjustable seatbelts and lap bars that frequently needed securing by the ops, this made for the third Intamin in the park with awkward trains.

Credit to the ops though – they were having a great time geeing up the waiting riders with their swords and pirate outfits, encouraging everyone to cheer as they left the station for their ride. Eventually we got our turn and went for the front row.

This is another ride I’d heard great things about, and I was keen to see what an Intamin Mega-Lite had to offer. The first drop is pretty tame by more modern standards and transitions into a tight curve that many people grey out on, though nether of us thought it was that intense. After that there’s a variety of airtime moments including a few twisted hills and the aforementioned camelback and ejector hills. There’s also a cool, low to the ground section that goes through a tunnel.

It was all good fun without being especially outstanding. It probably has more airtime moments than Millennium Force, but they’re not very sustained and it doesn’t have the speed to match the thrills of its Giga-brother. Obviously it’s not meant to – this is in effect a family ride that aims to give a taste of what Intamin’s mega and giga coasters offer without the fear factor of their extreme height. In that respect it is pretty successful, but having ridden some of those bigger rides I was a little disappointed with it overall.

With all the creds done and as it was still raining, we decided to ride the train back to the opposite end of the park so I could get a re-ride on Juvelen. Just as at Farup, the Djurs train has three stations and serves as a transit system around the park. Danish theme parks, I applaud you.

The abysmal weather certainly wasn’t putting anyone off as the queue for Juvelen was now at 30 minutes and stretched to an especially disgusting cattlepen outside the station building. I say disgusting because there was a canopy above it which was probably intended to be used as a sunshade in better weather, but on this day was gathering up the rain and periodically dumping it on people below. Also, remember how I mentioned that the Danes weren’t very good with drainage? That criticism extends to the theme parks.

This was just one example of several huge puddles in the queue line and didn’t stop when I got inside as there was even somehow a puddle at the top of a flight of stairs.

I finally got into the station and went for a row near the front of the train this time. Anna sat this one out as she was fed up of being soaked.

I’d like to tell you that my second ride on Juvelen was better, but it was much the same as the previous one. I was hoping to be able to take in the layout a bit better second time around, but I was quite distracted by the absolute knobhead on the row in front of me that had his phone in one hand filming him and his partner throughout the ride. Half of me was begging for this prick to drop his phone to teach him a lesson, but that was tempered by the fact that if he did, it would quite likely smash me in the face. After that and the miserable queue line, I was done with Juvelen.

The weather was starting to brighten up, but we were both fairly fed up by this point so we headed towards the park exit with my plan to grab a couple more rides on Piraten before we left. The waiting time for the ride had increased to 30 minutes and it was soon apparent why when I got to it, as it was down for a technical problem.

I waited around 10 minutes with no sign of activity, but as the queue started to thin out I decided to stick with it and was rewarded soon after when it reopened. After another 20 minutes I grabbed the back row and was treated to a little more airtime but still I wasn’t overly impressed with the ride as a whole. I know a lot of people rate this as the best coaster in the country, but for me Fonix is leaps and bounds ahead, which you’d expect really considering how newer it is.

I wasn’t enthralled enough to wait for another ride so I rounded off my day with a ride on the amusing little drop tower Sablen, which was nearby. The sword theming was great and I’d never ridden a drop tower that tilts from side to side before so that was fun.

We had always needed to leave the park by 5pm to get to Aarhus for our ferry, but by 4pm we were done with the park and decided to get on the road just as the sun finally came out.

In my experience, whenever you do these multi-park trips there always tends to be one day near the end where you think “that was one park too many” and on this trip, this was that day. That was more to do with the dismal weather and relatively large crowds rather than the park itself, but overall Djurs Sommerland was a little bit of a disappointment.

The park itself is probably the best proper theme park in the country, with several excellent themed areas and rides and enthusiastic staff wearing outfits that fit the areas they occupy. There’s plenty to do there for all ages and the food options were good, despite us not choosing the best one on the day. Operations were a little patchy, but a lot of that was to do with the complicated restraints on some of the rides.

Where things fell down bit for me was in the rides themselves, with none of them really meeting my expectations. Everything was good, but nothing was really great, and again that may have been due to the weather to some extent. They are missing a really high intensity thrill coaster, something with inversions for example, but this is a family-centric park so what they have fits the target market well so I can’t complain about that too much. In the end though, Farup wins the battle of the Sommerlands by having better rides and also because we had a nice, warm, laid back day there. Djurs does have soundtracks for most of their rides though, so they certainly beat Farup on that point.

After leaving Djurs, we drove to Aarhus where we caught the ferry over to Sjællands Odde. I highly recommend this if you need to travel from Copenhagen to Aarhus or vice-versa, as if you book it early enough, it actually costs less than the toll for crossing the massive bridge that joins the islands together. You also save over an hour of driving time so it’s more relaxing and the food I had on board was some of the best I had on the entire trip. Win-win-win.

From Odde we drove another hour to our last AirBnB and got an early night as we had another hour’s drive in the morning to get back to the airport, and that is where this trip report ends.


So, 28 creds later, what are my thoughts on Denmark? Overall, really positive. I loved that most of the parks were efficiently run but had a laid back vibe. There’s a good selection of coasters with very few being absolutely terrible, though if you’re looking for some high intensity creds then this is not the country for you. Operations were good at most of the parks and the staff were friendly everywhere. I may have moaned about the last park a bit, but for the most part we had a lot of fun and I think late August is a great time to visit the country as the peak tourist season is over but the weather can still be decent. Outside of the theme parks, the country was interesting to explore for a few days and there’s plenty to enjoy if you have the money to afford it.

In terms of parks, Farup just about comes out as the best due to the ride line-up, but we really enjoyed our day at Legoland too. In terms of coasters, let’s finish this off with a top five…

1. Fonix (by some distance)
2. Rutschebanen (Tivoli – definitely not the Bakken one!)
3. Piraten
4. Falken
5. Polar X-Plorer

Thanks for reading!

 

[EmmaUK]

I do need to get myself back to Denmark soon. Last went in 1985 when very young and I kind of remember Legoland but I wonder how familiar it would be after all this time

 

[Hixee]

Just caught up with this. An enjoyable read and sounds/looks like a great trip all round. Must have been doing lots of similar motorway miles and maybe overtook one another in places!

Nice report, thanks.

Ps. LoG points added.

 

[witchfinder]

Just caught up with this. An enjoyable read and sounds/looks like a great trip all round. Must have been doing lots of similar motorway miles and maybe overtook one another in places!

We almost certainly passed each other in opposite directions between Djurs and Farup