Liseberg Live - 18th Sept - Trip Reports

[Mysterious Sue]

Lets start at the end….

After a rushed goodbye to everyone on the Easyjet flight I made my way to the coach station, body aching, but head still buzzing with the morning’s frolicking in Gothenburg. Thoughts about the real world of unpacking and work slowly crept in as I boarded the coach and settled down in my seat. I put my hand in my pocket and felt something strange…a small square of cardboard!!!! Suddenly I remembered a million things that had made me laugh that weekend – Broms!, ballads in the Balder queue, the Lady GaGa argument, unpronounceable Swedish words, Liseberg-banana, giant chololate bars, the rainbow tunnel of love, ketchup teats, Kanonenenenenen, kate winslet impressions, Rush on a hill, epic airport time wasting games, the Madeline McCann stem cell seat game, Ian’s Ferrero Rocher dance, AJ loosing his crones!, running through revolving doors and sitting on wolf statues, the Yak Pass Plus, the Botel Titanic, jukebox times, the Tree of Silence, rapids getting jammed under the water cannons, the man with gravity defying hair, Helga the evil ride op, and of course the passing around of the cardboard!

As I laughed (and my fellow passengers began to move away) I realised how amazing it was that I didn’t know any of you just six months ago, and now here I am with my own theme songs (although I’m not sure I’m too happy about Sloppy Sue!). Everyone’s so different but it just seems to work – we have accountants and singers, cabin crew and geologists, teachers and students, IT people and traffic light engineers, loud people, quiet people, the Tree of Scilence, and god knows what else – it’s like CF Sesame Street! And I’m convinced you’re all in insane! Just thanks for making me a part of it, you’re all fabulous!

So thanks for a fantastic weekend! Thanks especially to Rach for staying at Castle Mysterious with me and helping me find the airport, Gavin for running the live with limited faff (even though he looked half dead!), the Swedes (and Fin) for makings us welcome to your corner of the world and for the translation, and thanks to Ian for putting up with us all as usual.

For more pictures…

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/alb ... =200902399

Here are a few highlights…

Balder (because you you can’t have too many photos)
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG1008.jpg

The park
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG1002.jpg

Brad photobombing
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG0978.jpg

Liseberg Banana na na na na na
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG0988.jpg


The rainbow tunnel of love
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG0984.jpg

Neal with the Tree of Silence
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG0993.jpg

https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG0994.jpg

Will steals my phone
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG0995.jpg

The garlic ride works with liquid anthrax???
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG0999.jpg

Ketchup teats
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG0982.jpg

Abba FTW
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG1004.jpg

Brom's comedy breasts
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG1058.jpg

The rainbow bus
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG1081.jpg

AJ's new look
https://sites.google.com/site/ifihadach ... AG1098.jpg

For those who don’t have facebook, here is my summary of Sweden:

Swedish fridge magnet - £7
Swedish burger and chips - £15
Yak pass plus - 395 Crones (if you have in-date notes)
Riding Balder - priceless
Weekend with beautiful CFers - pleasure that can't be bought
:--D

 

[furie]

(because you you can’t have too many photos)

Sorry Sue, but you can when they're all the size of Sussex and killed my PC trying to load full scale 10 mega pixel images in... So they're just linked for the moment until you resize them.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Ohh sorry Furie, somehow I managed to link to the un-resized ones. Hang on I'll try and sort it out :roll:

 

[peep]

Friday 17th September

Yet another Friday at work where I'm wetting myself with anticipation for yet another theme park filled weekend. Everyone was actually in a good mood at work which was nice as it made the day go smoothly. 6pm hit and I was out of the door like a shot, racing to the Oxford Circus tube station to join the rush of office peeps racing to start their weekend. There was no hassle getting to London Kings Cross station and getting a ticket went swimmingly. I then swiftly met Will and once again we found ourselves on the train to Cambridge for Richard-based times.

We spent the train ride discussing other recent trips and the weekend ahead. It was a costly weekend and we were praying it would be worth it. With no issues we then met Richard outside the station who then drove us to his house. After some time Brad and Peter arrived. Lots of time was then taken to decide about what we should do for food. It was gone 9pm before we resorted to Dominos Pizza. This would be my first Dominos pizza and I enjoyed it. Before long it was midnight and it was time to get some sleep as an early start was arranged for the morning.


Saturday 18th

Early starts in the morning: they're not for everyone. A drive to Stansted was on the menu so we all got up, however much we hated the idea at the time. We parked up at the airport in a car park which felt a million miles away from the terminal. As soon as we entered the terminal a Mushroom and David were found. Greetings were had and we moved on through security as check in was not needed (online check in is approved of). Getting through security took no time at all and we were soon on the search of a Gavin. We discovered a very tired and ill Gavin at one of the coffee places. Breakfast was then called upon and it was quickly decided that Wetherspoons would be the place that provided us with such a meal. I had a lovely full fat English breakfast, great way to start the day.

We then took our time getting over to the gate via the weird train thing of small capacity. Mushroom works for Ryanair so managed to get a few of us priority boarding tickets, which was nice. We opted for middle rows due to leg room. The flight was nothing exceptional or exciting and seeing as I spent most of the flight attempting sleep-based moments I'm not surprised that is my thoughts on the flight. However coming into Sweden was interesting. The plane kept swerving from one side to another which gave an interesting view out of the windows. Cloud then no cloud, heard to explain but was cool.

Once through security at the tiny airport we had to go to a newsagents to get our coach tickets into Gothenburg. The coach journey wasn't too bad, was funny as Gavin was sitting in front of the rest of the group and as his profession is being a teacher we all felt like school kids so queue the mocking and hilarity.

We then got off the coach in the centre of town and we walked to the park (a good 30 minute walk). We went past the stadiums which I didn't think were that impressive. The walk did feel quite long but was entertaining due to Brad's obsession with the place and Richard's game of "Volvo/Ford". It took lots of explaining for me to clock on what was going on and after a while I'd shout random car manufacturers, Will went one step further and just shouted whatever he felt like.

In the topic about the CF Live event someone moaned about the picture having two red arrows above the meeting point and said about being bitterly disappointed if those arrows weren't there upon arrival. When we did arrive we spotted a large red arrow and below the aforementioned arrow were Loefet (Peter) and his brother Marcus. It was absolutely hilarious that they'd actually gone to that amount of effort of creating it, great job guys.

However it wasn't long before Richard took the sign and decided to have fun with it. This involved hitting people with it and walking behind people with the sign above them. It was like watching an episode of Trigger Happy TV being made at times (didn't help that a TV crew were filming a family lol).

Then a giant green rabbit came from the park and greeted us. It was green.

One of the trams that went past looked quite old and cool.

Seeing as we were still waiting around for easyjet CFers to arrive Richard had more sign based antics.

More CFers finally arrived, a mix of emotions is quite clearly seen in the photo below:

We then had a bit more time to await Finnish CF-member Tommi. He arrived and we all headed into the park. A few of us had ECC cards or TPR cards (or in Loefet and Marcus's case, annual passes) so we headed straight through the side gate. A second meet up point was arranged as pass peeps had to go to the info place to get wristbands while everyone else had to get wristbands at the ticket offices.

The wristbands were cool 'cause they had VIP on them. That made me happy.

So back over to the meeting point and first ride of the day was decided upon. When waiting around we discovered one of our new favourite games, they say a picture tells a thousand words or whatecer, hopefully the below is an example of that:

Their classic coaster, Lisebergbanan was then chosen. I found it to be a really strange ride, it has some cool moments but I just wasn't 'wowed' by it, I think it had been too over-hyped to me before riding. We then swiftly moved on over to Balder. On our way I got talking again to Tommi, was great seeing him again, still can't believe that the last time we met was in 2005.

Balder had a queue but with 20 CFers around a long queueline never feels very long. I found it to be a very fun woodie. The random pops of air time all over the place were cool, even if they didn't last very long. Overall I enjoyed the coaster, something a bit different to what I've ridden before.

As it was next door, Kanonen was next up. It's a strange coaster, an Intamin launched that is very small, launches into brakes and does a few inversions. Unfortunately I sat at the back and I found the ride to be horrific. I didn't actually enjoy a single moment of it and any point where I might have enjoyed it the restraints made sure I loathed it, my shoulders still feel bruised. Naughty Intamin.

We were all getting very hungry but we decided to have vekoma family coaster times. However we got distracted by rapids. I ended up in a boat with Richard, Neal, Will and Peter. I had a few thoughts before we left the station:

- Are we going to get drenched?
- I hope my important travel documents don't get destroyed from the water
- Will this rapids attraction manage to bring out Neal's now infamous rapids-laugh?

To sum it up:

- Yes
- Nope, as I was clever and hid them in my towel
- Yes!

It was no where near the class of Phantasialand's rapids but it managed to get some of us absolutely drenched and provided us with some hilarious moments. I mean a rapids ride which actually has rapids where you get wet (water actually pouring over the side) is always a good sign. However unexpected explosions and firing lines of water were a great bonus for entertainment. Richard, Will and I got spited the most but Richard's reaction is always a great catalyst for causing Neal to break into rapids-laugh. haha, good times.

We'd opted for food based times now. I managed to pull a facepalm moment by saying that our choice of food establishment was number 11 on the map when in fact it was an image of a knife and fork. Fail. After finally finding the correct location of the pizza buffet place most of us headed over to it. There was a small queue to get in and during the waiting time some of us opted for somewhere else. So Will, Rach, Peter, Mysterious Sue and I went in search of something else.

After lots of faffing and going back and forth between several eateries we ended up at a hot-dog type place. I had two hot dog-type sausages with three scoops of mashed potato (yes, it did look more like vanilla ice cream lol) and apple juice (wasn't in the mood for drinks of the fizzy variety). I really liked the food, the sausages were quite cheap but they tasted ok and the mashed potato was amazing, I loved it. All for the equivalent of around £5 too, I was very happy with this choice.

It was then time to meet everyone else outside the family coaster.


Due to time and tiredness I'm going to be leaving it there tonight, our adventures in Sweden will continue on Thursday night. Thanks for reading.

 

[thx]

^ Just to clarify one thing buddy, I met you guys inside the park after you had ridden Lisebergbanan, as the stupid train had mechanical problems and arrived 32 minutes late, which made me miss the meet-up.

I had a really great time, thanks a lot everyone . Even though it was quite a long day, it went fast and I had a blast and it felt like I was on holiday, even though I knew the place well etc. which was really cool and a nice change from the reading for uni I had done quite a bit for a few days back home, lol. It was also nice to be back at Liseberg, I love the park and hehe have to say that I really think Balder was better in the dark dunno if it's the cold making the track shrink a bit (lol) or a sort of placebo-effect, but still.

Also enjoyed to chill in the bar afterwards talking/listening to the interesting discussions etc. I do have to say I feel a bit ashamed of the stupid swedish alcohol prices tbh, lol. Anyway, I have to make sure not to let 5 years pass until I get to a CF-live again :lol: Funnily enough, now for the price I paid to get to Gothenburg and back (or even clearly cheaper) I could get to London (Stansted, sometimes Gatwick) with cRyanair pretty much always, if I book at least 2 weeks ahead... So yeah, I'll be back (old joke, but..) [insert A. Schwarzenegger voice here].

 

[peep]

^Of course, apologies, my bad.

So lets continue shall we?

So we had just had food and we were now meeting back up outside the family coaster, Rayboulder, or as it should now be known...Mushy and the tree of silence. The station is a really strange design and there was a lack of space in the height department. However we got on and rode it, was quite enjoyable. Sometimes the smaller coasters can pack quite a punch, this one nearly does.

Uppswinget was the next agenda. We all went up the escalator with it's coloured windows. We had to queue a while for the ride, but it was minimal compared to having to queue for Rush at Thorpe. Annoyingly I was on the side facing over the cliff which meant that I didn't get to see the epic drop when swinging, shame. It's still a good ride, I'm not sure why but I actually find Rush more forceful and fun, this one feels a bit tame.

We then made our way along towards the drop and shot towers. When we got over to them no one really wanted to go on so we continued onwards. The next ride chosen was the log flume. I opted out of it, along with quite a few others. The multi-drop at the end looked quite epic but I wasn't up for getting soaked again lol.

I went on a little roam with Peter to try and win some Toblerone or Plopp (Swedish chocolate bar). Their game stalls are basically fun gambling with epic 2kg of chocolate as prizes, was defo worth a shot. I think we spent the equivalent of £5s worth of Krona trying to win something but we failed miserably. Oh wells.

We went back over the log flume and soon enough some CFers were coming down the drops, like I previously said, it looked fun.

I think by this point we were just heading in random directions and we came across new dodgems. Dodgems were then had. They were fun if a little slow and the bumpers were really soft which imo took out some of the fun

Time for the group photo now and it was decided that we should all crowd around the tree of silence back in the random queueline for Rayboulder. It was a very bizarre experience and everyone was watching us with a very 'wtf' look. The ride ops then asked us something over the tannoy but obviously the majority of us had no idea what she was asking/telling us. However, amusing all the same. The group photo is below and was taken by Rach:

We then found ride of the mysterious green rabbits. It's one of these little kids raft rides where the boats are shaped like garlics. The queueline was full of peeps throwing little red berry things at others, was quite amusing. The ride itself was rather lame and it had some of the scariest flowers I'd ever seen.

Some of the group had tickets to get into the haunted house attraction/walk-through so we went and did that. The theming was amazing with some strange rooms but it wasn't very scary and considering there were loads of actors in there it was all a bit too rushed.

We saw the ice bar, considered it, looked at price and then we opted to move on. As we continued to wander around some of the group wanted to go on jukebox, a random American 50s themed flat ride. It looked sickly so I passed and went to visit the merchandise stores with Mushy and Rach. We didn't really see anything of interest and headed back just in time to watch everyone on the ride.

We then went over to the shot tower as peeps now wanted to go on. For some reason I didn't really feel like going on but it was fun to watch AJ's reaction as he had never been on a shot tower before.

We then moved along the hill to do Uppswinget again. This time I managed to sit on the other side so I was facing down the hill on the swings. It was better on that side but Rush is still miles better, it just doesn't go as fast etc.

I think we then did Liseberganan again. It was a lot better than in the morning, it had definitely warmed up and those little moments I liked first time round became epic and the looping round Uppswinget is really cool.

It was getting dark now and we decided to head back over to Balder. On the way some peeps decided to do the mirror maze.

Balder looks lovely at night:

Some peeps opted for night Kanonen. My shoulders didn't like the sound of it so I waited at the exit with Ian's cousin. It was getting a bit cold and I wanted Balder based night riding. Once everyone got off Kanonen, Blader happened.

There was quite a queue but random singing happened which was amusing. Ian also pointed out the random lady on the video making quite a deal out of a pen being taken on the coaster. This was quite amusing.

We did Balder a few times and at night it was definitely better, especially at the back. The little pops of air time are amazing when travelling at that sort of speed. I thought it was just great fun, not the best wooden coaster I've been on but it's still fantastic.

We then went on to ride it a few times. Some of the group were really tired so headed to the hotel. The rest of the group had one more go on Balder and then we ran over to get one last go on Liesberganan. Which was still great fun.

The rides were now closing so it was time to call an end to the day. We got a taxi to the boatel. I still think it's hilarious that Ibis have a hotel which is on a boat, I dunno why but it just tickles my funny bone. We checked in and then met the rest of the group in the bar for a couple of drinks before having sleepy times.



Overall it was a fantastic day and thanks to everyone that helped organise it and make it amazing. I thought the park was random with some great attractions in there but as others pointed out to me it doesn't really have an atmosphere, however it does get better in the evening. I kinda compare it to Blackpool but done nicely with amazing staff and good food.

As always thanks for reading and my trip report for Gronaland will be posted at some point in the near future.

 

[robbeal]

GUTTED I couldn't go. I hate missing out on anything Liseberg, I love the place, and i've always fancied doing it in a live group, ever since I first went. Looks like everyone had a good time though. Never realised the IceBar was back though, and you DIDN'T do it! We spent over an hour just titting about in there last time we went, its mega! Yeah, its expensive for drinks, and when we went there was an age limit, due to it being solely a Vodka bar, but its a rare experience. I hope it stays until the next time I can get there!

 

[tks]

Ann Widdecome is dancing to "my heart will go on" on strictly.... :lol:

haunted house anyone?

 

[AJ]

BEST room in a haunted house EVER <3<3

 

[nealbie]

OMG! The Titanic room! <3 <3 <3

Ed, you're amazing!