Friday 6th July
The trip started with most of us meeting up at Stansted airport. Trains from London were having signal fun times, JayJay and I managed to still get our pre-arranged time with only a slight delay. Sue got caught up in the worst of it so once we met up with Richard and Jordan at the airport we went through security and grabbed a standard 'Spoons. While having said meal some waiter caught wind of us discussing whether or not we count butterflies - it led to much amusement. This also led to us counting every actual butterfly over the next four days.
Food eaten and still no sign of the mysterious one. Our gate had been called so we headed over in the hope she'll be able to join us by the time the gate closes. I'm very glad to say that she did! Exhausted after running through the airport after a disastrous journey there it was great she had time to spare. Flight to Hamburg was standard and we were greeted at the other end by an Owain holding a great sign...
We then went to grab our hire car for the trip. We got some Citroen thingymabile and it was a bit of a fun tetris game trying to find a way to get us all in the car sensibly with our bags. The car was also not Richard friendly which caused quite a lot of interesting moments. We then checked into our hotel down the road from the airport.
Saturday 7th July
A slightly early start was had so we could grab some breakfast and tick of a Unesco site (this is now a thing) in the old city of Lübeck. This is where you'll find the city gate that inspired the entrance to Hansa Park.
It's quite a nice little place with some cool old architecture. I think we all wished we could have spent just a bit longer taking a stroll round.
It was then back into the car and over to Hansa Park. I only visited the other year for the first time and was very happy to already return. The park were lovely and arranged some special things for us CFers. We each got a bag of tat (omg!) and the park representative took us over to their new family flat ride for ERT (closed to general public until we had as many goes as we'd like). It was actually a fun little flat ride and some of the swings had some proper forces which was nice. We had 3 goes though which was a little bit too much, getting a little sickly. I think some of the group were willing to continue but Rich and I noped out and everyone joined us.
Owain wanted to make Karnan his 500th so we went off to tick off all the smaller coasters first. The sheer scale of is it is still daunting.
Crazy Mine was up first. It had a much smaller queue than on my previous visit which was nice. Pretty standard wild mouse with some decent theming. Next was Die Schlange von Midgard which is the fab Gerst family coaster with a proper storyline and some pretty good theming. Some of the effects weren't really working which was a shame but it's still a fun little ride. It was then over to Nessie which is still in the process of being re-themed. There is a castle-like structure going around the final building and part of the queueline. It's also getting a new dark paint scheme which is interesting. There's a photo towards the end.
It was then time for the epic Karnan. It had quite a queue which was fine as apparently I was the only one who had previously experienced the many rooms of things happening. My fav bit in the queue is the animatronic legs on the ladder representing the lower half of the dude on the TV screen next to it. I think that's a really simple but neat touch. The bag drop is also a thing of genius, as is the room of choices. The staff as we were dropping bags off were not at all pleased by Sue's lack of normal footwear (she was wearing flip flops like a loon). There was a lot of commotion and several staff peeps bickering about how to proceed.
In the end the solution was to get some proper tape and tape her feet to the flip flops which had everyone in the room in hysterics. I think we found peak Sue. I think some of the others in the group have a photo of the moment.
Karnan is still absolutely incredible. That first drop is just terrifying and the rest of it is just relentless speed with the odd moment of airtime. I felt exhausted by the end, it's just a beast of a machine and I love it so much.
Before heading round to Novgorod the rest of the group went through the water maze thing where half of it didn't seem to react as expected.
It was then time for creepy scarecrows at Fluch von Novgorod. I forgot how intense the launch on this is, love it. A lot of the outside track felt quite bumpy and rough, maybe a retrack wouldn't go amiss.
The gang found a slide
We then ticked off the rest of the coasters before grabbing lunch. I love the theming on the little kids coaster, Der Kleine Zar. The mine train is fun but I was sad it didn't duel on our ride (goes through the loop of Nessie).
For food we faffed around a bit and then decided on this pizza/pasta place. It was quite tasty and was very reasonably priced. To relax before going back on Karnan we headed over to Space Race. An indoor dodgems where you can hit panels on the side to tick off all the planets. There's a large scoreboard to show which driver has completed ticking them all off first. I think it's a very cool idea. Some of the group then caused chaos in the kids soft play zone thing in the same building.
It was then time for more Karnan.
SOOOOO GOOD.
We then took a nice little ride on the little family boat ride. Very relaxing.
We then spent the whole of the Novgorod queueline watching England not fail at football in the World Cup. Then it was obviously back for one last ride on Karnan.
As soon as Nessie had closed the park were back to painting it more...
The new building at the entrance is a great addition to their really unique entry street. Unfortunately I only took one blurry pic...
Hansa, you wonderful park, I really enjoyed my day here. Land of epic Gersts and fun things. Makes me very excited to hear what these posters were all about...
We then had a very long drive up to Kolding in Denmark. We stopped several hours into our drive for an evening meal in Aabenraa. The place was like a ghost town (it was after 9pm I suppose? But a Saturday?). We found a restaurant that was barely open and managed to have a decent meal. Another 40 mins up the motorway and we were at our lovely old school hotel. It felt quite grand but also a bit worn down. Still, we were happy with it.
It was a tiring but excellent start to our little trip. I'll add day two soon where we visit Djurs Sommarland!
Thanks for reading.
The trip started with most of us meeting up at Stansted airport. Trains from London were having signal fun times, JayJay and I managed to still get our pre-arranged time with only a slight delay. Sue got caught up in the worst of it so once we met up with Richard and Jordan at the airport we went through security and grabbed a standard 'Spoons. While having said meal some waiter caught wind of us discussing whether or not we count butterflies - it led to much amusement. This also led to us counting every actual butterfly over the next four days.
Food eaten and still no sign of the mysterious one. Our gate had been called so we headed over in the hope she'll be able to join us by the time the gate closes. I'm very glad to say that she did! Exhausted after running through the airport after a disastrous journey there it was great she had time to spare. Flight to Hamburg was standard and we were greeted at the other end by an Owain holding a great sign...
We then went to grab our hire car for the trip. We got some Citroen thingymabile and it was a bit of a fun tetris game trying to find a way to get us all in the car sensibly with our bags. The car was also not Richard friendly which caused quite a lot of interesting moments. We then checked into our hotel down the road from the airport.
Saturday 7th July
A slightly early start was had so we could grab some breakfast and tick of a Unesco site (this is now a thing) in the old city of Lübeck. This is where you'll find the city gate that inspired the entrance to Hansa Park.
It's quite a nice little place with some cool old architecture. I think we all wished we could have spent just a bit longer taking a stroll round.
It was then back into the car and over to Hansa Park. I only visited the other year for the first time and was very happy to already return. The park were lovely and arranged some special things for us CFers. We each got a bag of tat (omg!) and the park representative took us over to their new family flat ride for ERT (closed to general public until we had as many goes as we'd like). It was actually a fun little flat ride and some of the swings had some proper forces which was nice. We had 3 goes though which was a little bit too much, getting a little sickly. I think some of the group were willing to continue but Rich and I noped out and everyone joined us.
Owain wanted to make Karnan his 500th so we went off to tick off all the smaller coasters first. The sheer scale of is it is still daunting.
Crazy Mine was up first. It had a much smaller queue than on my previous visit which was nice. Pretty standard wild mouse with some decent theming. Next was Die Schlange von Midgard which is the fab Gerst family coaster with a proper storyline and some pretty good theming. Some of the effects weren't really working which was a shame but it's still a fun little ride. It was then over to Nessie which is still in the process of being re-themed. There is a castle-like structure going around the final building and part of the queueline. It's also getting a new dark paint scheme which is interesting. There's a photo towards the end.
It was then time for the epic Karnan. It had quite a queue which was fine as apparently I was the only one who had previously experienced the many rooms of things happening. My fav bit in the queue is the animatronic legs on the ladder representing the lower half of the dude on the TV screen next to it. I think that's a really simple but neat touch. The bag drop is also a thing of genius, as is the room of choices. The staff as we were dropping bags off were not at all pleased by Sue's lack of normal footwear (she was wearing flip flops like a loon). There was a lot of commotion and several staff peeps bickering about how to proceed.
In the end the solution was to get some proper tape and tape her feet to the flip flops which had everyone in the room in hysterics. I think we found peak Sue. I think some of the others in the group have a photo of the moment.
Karnan is still absolutely incredible. That first drop is just terrifying and the rest of it is just relentless speed with the odd moment of airtime. I felt exhausted by the end, it's just a beast of a machine and I love it so much.
Before heading round to Novgorod the rest of the group went through the water maze thing where half of it didn't seem to react as expected.
It was then time for creepy scarecrows at Fluch von Novgorod. I forgot how intense the launch on this is, love it. A lot of the outside track felt quite bumpy and rough, maybe a retrack wouldn't go amiss.
The gang found a slide
We then ticked off the rest of the coasters before grabbing lunch. I love the theming on the little kids coaster, Der Kleine Zar. The mine train is fun but I was sad it didn't duel on our ride (goes through the loop of Nessie).
For food we faffed around a bit and then decided on this pizza/pasta place. It was quite tasty and was very reasonably priced. To relax before going back on Karnan we headed over to Space Race. An indoor dodgems where you can hit panels on the side to tick off all the planets. There's a large scoreboard to show which driver has completed ticking them all off first. I think it's a very cool idea. Some of the group then caused chaos in the kids soft play zone thing in the same building.
It was then time for more Karnan.
SOOOOO GOOD.
We then took a nice little ride on the little family boat ride. Very relaxing.
We then spent the whole of the Novgorod queueline watching England not fail at football in the World Cup. Then it was obviously back for one last ride on Karnan.
As soon as Nessie had closed the park were back to painting it more...
The new building at the entrance is a great addition to their really unique entry street. Unfortunately I only took one blurry pic...
Hansa, you wonderful park, I really enjoyed my day here. Land of epic Gersts and fun things. Makes me very excited to hear what these posters were all about...
We then had a very long drive up to Kolding in Denmark. We stopped several hours into our drive for an evening meal in Aabenraa. The place was like a ghost town (it was after 9pm I suppose? But a Saturday?). We found a restaurant that was barely open and managed to have a decent meal. Another 40 mins up the motorway and we were at our lovely old school hotel. It felt quite grand but also a bit worn down. Still, we were happy with it.
It was a tiring but excellent start to our little trip. I'll add day two soon where we visit Djurs Sommarland!
Thanks for reading.
