ThomVD
Giga Poster
I'm really late with this. I've visited Sweden in May, and I never really got around to making a trip report, but now afterwards I regret it, because they were really two of the best park visits I've ever had, so I decided to do it anyway. Better late than never! Sadly I was enjoying myself too much to take many pictures, so don't expect tons of high quality ones :wink: .
So I went to Sweden for 3 weeks to visit my friend Emelie there, and in the meantime we planned to visit the two main parks. Gröna Lund on a Saturday and Liseberg on a Thursday and Friday 2 weeks later. So first up was Gröna Lund and Stockholm. I didn't really have high expectations of the park because I was told it wasn't anything special, and also because it lacks theming, and none of the rides looked very impressive. On top of that it's really tiny with very little green (so the "Gröna" in the name is kind of ironic
). We arrived in Stockholm Central Station early in the morning, and went for a walk around Stockholm, towards the park. The weather was really ****. Rain, cold, and the sky was completely gray. A real shame, because Stockholm is absolutely stunning. Huge lakes in the centre of the city with beautiful buildings all around it. I just think it would've been much nicer to be there on a beautiful day, more so than most other cities. After a bit of a walk, I asked Emelie if we were close to the park. She smiled and pointed towards the other side of the lake, where I could suddenly see Eclipse, and then with a closer look I could also see Insane, Jetline and the two drop towers.
So then after some more walking we finally arrived. We made a mistake though in the planning. We thought the park would open at 10:00 until 23:00, but it was 11:00 till 22:00, so we had to wait for an hour there, in the rain and cold. We were completely soaked, hungry and really had to pee. A park day couldn't start any worse! We found some shelter and after a while the park finally opened. First up was Lustiga Huset, which is the park's excellent fun house. It was lengthy and had some really good effects. My enjoyment was slightly diminished by the fact that I was feeling so bad though. 8/10.
After it was done I went to eat something, the rain stopped, and we went to the toilet. Feeling much better afterwards, we went to the first cred of the day, Vilda Musen. Pretty awesome that they played POV videos of coasters in the queue line. It had Kingda Ka, Voyage, Millennium Force and some more that I can't remember. After the longest wait of the day (probably about 20 minutes), it was our turn. I usually don't like Wild Mice because of the painful turns that aren't actually that much fun at all, but thank god, this ride was much more than that. It had some really good drops, some airtime, great twisty banked turns, and was just a really enjoyable coaster in general. Turns didn't hurt. It was a bit short and not something that blew my mind, but it was good fun. Great interaction with Jetline, Twister and Katapulten (the S&S combo tower). 7/10.
I immediately noticed how nice the atmosphere of this park actually is. There's just a certain charm to it that I can't explain. I love big, more relaxing parks like Europa Park and Efteling, but I just really enjoyed the fact that everything was so close to each other, with so much going on all around you. Every ride has great interaction and it just has this really unique feel to it, for me at least. On top of that, I had never visited a seaside park before, and it really added to the experience. The location of the park is also the best I've ever seen, in the heart of Stockholm. I also have to mention that the staff is amazing! It was interesting that unlike Dutch and German parks, the far majority were actually female, and most of them were gorgeous. The staff were also incredibly friendly, efficient, hardworking and just gave the place an even nicer atmosphere.
Next up was Kvasten, and just like all other coasters in Gröna Lund, I had low expectations. It's the only coaster in the park that has been themed properly, which was a nice touch. We went on the front row for the first ride, which was a 0 minute wait. The seats are super comfortable and the fact that it has lap bars gives you a lot of freedom as well. The ride itself was actually really fun. A fantastic coaster for families, with a little bit of positive G around some parts and great foot choppers. Especially during the first drop that pretty much goes through Twister, and during the station breakthrough. It was probably the smoothest Vekoma I've ever ridden. I really want to ride Orkanen now, since that looks even better. It's needless to say that this coaster also had great interaction. I have a huge soft spot for good family coasters and this definitely is one. 7,5/10. After riding it we bought some fries. Annoyingly it started raining again and there were very limited places to eat indoors, but we found a tall table underneath Eclipse where we could eat in peace.
Kvasten was in the horror themed part of the park, so right next to it is the park's ghost train, Blå Tåget. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was awesome! It had some nice jump scares and hilarious animatronics. The cars had the same kind of 'seat effects' as Fluch Der Kassandra in Europa Park, which made a lot of people scream. It was great fun. 8/10.
Then we came across two little flat rides right next to the lake. The octopus was built on top of a pier, and the flying carpet ride was right next to it. The latter was quite forceful, which I didn't expect. I'm very skinny, so any ride with shared lap bars usually ends up with me having to hold on for dear life. It was fun though. It was called Flygande Mattan, which I'm guessing is Swedish for Flying Carpet, because it actually sounds similar to Dutch . The octopus ride was fun too.
The next cred was Twister. A small Gravity Group wooden coaster that I didn't know much about, nor did I expect it to be anything special. It looked alright off ride. We joined the non-existent queue, and went for the back seat. I found the trains extremely ugly at first, but they were comfortable. Not as much as GCI's Millennium Flyers, but still nice. The lift hill has a good head chopper. So after we reached the top we anticipated the tiny yet steep drop. It was fantastic! It took me off guard and has more airtime than pretty much any other first drop I've been on. It immediately goes over a great airtime hill, which also had ejector airtime. The entire ride is just tight turns with ejector all over the place. I was amazed. It went on for much longer than I expected, and was full of insane head choppers too. When we hit the brakes, I was speechless, and Emelie, who had lower expectations than I had, really liked it too. 9/10.
Sadly I couldn't find any decent Twister pic so here's one from RCDB.
Next to Twister is a beautiful blue Schwarzkopf classic, so that had to be done next. Jetline was my most anticipated coaster of the park, but I still had relatively low expectations. After another walk on we went for the backseat again. I like the twisting lift hill, and how the first drop really makes it feel like you accelerate because of its non-steepness (what's the opposite of "steepness" on coasters? ). The drop ended up going through an awesome tunnel. After the first MCBR, our favourite part came up. A really steep twisting drop which is followed up by an almost vertical helix into another MCBR. It pulled some massive Gs! The rest of the ride were some nice helices and a tunnel which was strangely warm, which is very welcome on such a cold day. The two things that make this ride truly special is the location and the interaction. The fact that it is very smooth with a high fun factor made it one of the most re-ridable coasters in the park. 8,5/10.
We are both really scared of heights, so we were dreading to ride the drop towers and Eclipse. We decided to 'warm up' by going on Katapulten first. I'd ridden a normal S&S shot & drop tower (without the freefall drop) before and enjoyed it, but found it relaxing rather than thrilling. The only proper freefall drop ride I had ridden was Mystery Castle, which isn't much of a forceful drop and also in the dark, so this was a first time experience for me. We went on the side that overviews the lake and downtown Stockholm, which ended up being a good choice. As we were launched upwards, we were presented with one of the most incredible views you can get. It was surreal. After the 'drop', we went up slowly again, so that we could get more time to enjoy the view. Emelie pointed out the big buildings and showed me around Stockholm those 20 seconds, and then we dropped properly. I didn't expect the drop to be this forceful! It looks slow on POVs/off ride, but was actually more powerful than the Intamin drop tower in Holiday Park that I rode 2 months after. It doesn't beat the Fabbri drop tower in power, but it wasn't far off. It's my second favourite drop tower (Mystery Castle <3), and one of my favourite flats in general, especially because of the view. 8,5/10
We loved it so much that we immediately re-rode. While Emelie really liked the ride, she didn't like the free-falling sensation, so she decided that she wouldn't ride Frittfall, the big Intamin tower. It might have been because of the cold, but I wasn't the bravest I've been that day. 2 months later I went on the drop tower and star flyer in Holiday Park without problems so I don't know what was up, but I didn't feel like riding Eclipse and Frittfall alone. I really regret this decision afterwards.
I always ride chair swings at parks (it's like a collection that I have ) so I had to ride this one too, especially because it just looks so fab on a pier on the lake. Emelie doesn't like them so she sat it out.
We went to Insane but the lady said it was closed all day. It's a shame we missed out on a cred, but to be honest, we weren't looking forward to it anyway. So that was just Intamin being Intamin. We did the funhouse again which I enjoyed more this time because I was feeling much better. Though it was still so cold that I was constantly shaking.
Next up was the kiddie area, where we rode Nyckelpigan. It was a nice little kiddie coaster, but it remains a kiddie cred. We bought the onride pic just because we could. 4/10. We also rode the family drop towers which gets to my stomach more than the big ones strangely. We missed the Tuff Tuff Tåget cred because we completely forgot about it. We didn't come across it either, so it must've been pretty well hidden. While walking back to the main park, Emelie played one of the carnival games, while I was being stunned by how pretty the staff member of that game was <3 Every one of them also spoke perfect English, and they all seemed interested in your opinion on the rides. They also had a genuine smile on their faces all the time, and enthusiastically greeted you when you entered the station. I've never visited a Disney park yet, but it will be pretty hard to top the friendliness of this park's staff.
It was around 13:30 by then and we had already done pretty much the entire park, but were far from bored. We decided to take a little break, so we just sat on a bench next to Frittfall, Eclipse and Kvasten. Then we continued to re-ride everything. I'm not going to go into detail as much for the next part of the report. But we re-rode all of the coasters (front & back row) and did some of the smaller flats. Pop Expressen is the park's breakdance. It is very well decorated with a disco ball, and played some of today's biggest hits. The ride program on this thing is amazing! It was really long, fast, and crazy. It was my first, but also definitely the best breakdance, and one of the better flats I've done in general. Every breakdance I've done after this one, just disappointed me. 8/10.
Another ride that we hadn't ridden yet was the love tunnel thing, which was a really cute boat ride. It was well themed and nice, but strange how there was glass around all the sets. That kind of took away the immersiveness. Close to that was the bumper car ride. We ended up re-riding that more than 10 times probably. It was so fun and we had a great laugh. By the time we were done with the bumper cars, it was getting dark so we re-rode all the coasters again. To end our day in the park we just went from Jetline, to Twister, and back, with a total of 7 rides for both. All the coasters were even more awesome at night, with lights everywhere <3 It was almost magical. The views were stunning!
At 22:00 we left the park, and took the ferry to the other side of the lake. It really felt like a goodbye to see the park, which was all lit up and gorgeous, just getting further and further away from us. We had a walk through the oldest parts of Stockholm, and went back to the station. Stockholm at night is just wonderful, and it felt extremely safe.
So despite the circumstances, I had an incredible day. To say that my expectations were blown away is an understatement. The combination of a fantastic park, short to non-existent queues, wonderful company and just the sheer length of it really made this one of the most memorable days of my life. The fact that I still know it in so much detail after almost 6 months kind of proves my point. The park has a unique and lovely atmosphere, a LOT of charm, some of the best and friendliest staff around, a ton of great re-ridable rides and a picturesque location. It is hard to explain what makes this park so amazing, but this report is really the closest I can get. I fell in love with both Gröna Lund and Stockholm, and I'm honestly craving to get back. Especially to ride Eclipse, Frittfall, Insane and Tuff Tuff Tåget, but also to get re-rides on Twister, Katapulten and Jetline. Preferably with much nicer weather too. It was a day full of new experiences, excitement and so much fun and laughter.
Park score: 9/10
Thanks for reading my report! :--D Liseberg is next!
So I went to Sweden for 3 weeks to visit my friend Emelie there, and in the meantime we planned to visit the two main parks. Gröna Lund on a Saturday and Liseberg on a Thursday and Friday 2 weeks later. So first up was Gröna Lund and Stockholm. I didn't really have high expectations of the park because I was told it wasn't anything special, and also because it lacks theming, and none of the rides looked very impressive. On top of that it's really tiny with very little green (so the "Gröna" in the name is kind of ironic
). We arrived in Stockholm Central Station early in the morning, and went for a walk around Stockholm, towards the park. The weather was really ****. Rain, cold, and the sky was completely gray. A real shame, because Stockholm is absolutely stunning. Huge lakes in the centre of the city with beautiful buildings all around it. I just think it would've been much nicer to be there on a beautiful day, more so than most other cities. After a bit of a walk, I asked Emelie if we were close to the park. She smiled and pointed towards the other side of the lake, where I could suddenly see Eclipse, and then with a closer look I could also see Insane, Jetline and the two drop towers.
So then after some more walking we finally arrived. We made a mistake though in the planning. We thought the park would open at 10:00 until 23:00, but it was 11:00 till 22:00, so we had to wait for an hour there, in the rain and cold. We were completely soaked, hungry and really had to pee. A park day couldn't start any worse! We found some shelter and after a while the park finally opened. First up was Lustiga Huset, which is the park's excellent fun house. It was lengthy and had some really good effects. My enjoyment was slightly diminished by the fact that I was feeling so bad though. 8/10.
After it was done I went to eat something, the rain stopped, and we went to the toilet. Feeling much better afterwards, we went to the first cred of the day, Vilda Musen. Pretty awesome that they played POV videos of coasters in the queue line. It had Kingda Ka, Voyage, Millennium Force and some more that I can't remember. After the longest wait of the day (probably about 20 minutes), it was our turn. I usually don't like Wild Mice because of the painful turns that aren't actually that much fun at all, but thank god, this ride was much more than that. It had some really good drops, some airtime, great twisty banked turns, and was just a really enjoyable coaster in general. Turns didn't hurt. It was a bit short and not something that blew my mind, but it was good fun. Great interaction with Jetline, Twister and Katapulten (the S&S combo tower). 7/10.
I immediately noticed how nice the atmosphere of this park actually is. There's just a certain charm to it that I can't explain. I love big, more relaxing parks like Europa Park and Efteling, but I just really enjoyed the fact that everything was so close to each other, with so much going on all around you. Every ride has great interaction and it just has this really unique feel to it, for me at least. On top of that, I had never visited a seaside park before, and it really added to the experience. The location of the park is also the best I've ever seen, in the heart of Stockholm. I also have to mention that the staff is amazing! It was interesting that unlike Dutch and German parks, the far majority were actually female, and most of them were gorgeous. The staff were also incredibly friendly, efficient, hardworking and just gave the place an even nicer atmosphere.
Next up was Kvasten, and just like all other coasters in Gröna Lund, I had low expectations. It's the only coaster in the park that has been themed properly, which was a nice touch. We went on the front row for the first ride, which was a 0 minute wait. The seats are super comfortable and the fact that it has lap bars gives you a lot of freedom as well. The ride itself was actually really fun. A fantastic coaster for families, with a little bit of positive G around some parts and great foot choppers. Especially during the first drop that pretty much goes through Twister, and during the station breakthrough. It was probably the smoothest Vekoma I've ever ridden. I really want to ride Orkanen now, since that looks even better. It's needless to say that this coaster also had great interaction. I have a huge soft spot for good family coasters and this definitely is one. 7,5/10. After riding it we bought some fries. Annoyingly it started raining again and there were very limited places to eat indoors, but we found a tall table underneath Eclipse where we could eat in peace.
Kvasten was in the horror themed part of the park, so right next to it is the park's ghost train, Blå Tåget. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was awesome! It had some nice jump scares and hilarious animatronics. The cars had the same kind of 'seat effects' as Fluch Der Kassandra in Europa Park, which made a lot of people scream. It was great fun. 8/10.
Then we came across two little flat rides right next to the lake. The octopus was built on top of a pier, and the flying carpet ride was right next to it. The latter was quite forceful, which I didn't expect. I'm very skinny, so any ride with shared lap bars usually ends up with me having to hold on for dear life. It was fun though. It was called Flygande Mattan, which I'm guessing is Swedish for Flying Carpet, because it actually sounds similar to Dutch
. The octopus ride was fun too.The next cred was Twister. A small Gravity Group wooden coaster that I didn't know much about, nor did I expect it to be anything special. It looked alright off ride. We joined the non-existent queue, and went for the back seat. I found the trains extremely ugly at first, but they were comfortable. Not as much as GCI's Millennium Flyers, but still nice. The lift hill has a good head chopper. So after we reached the top we anticipated the tiny yet steep drop. It was fantastic! It took me off guard and has more airtime than pretty much any other first drop I've been on. It immediately goes over a great airtime hill, which also had ejector airtime. The entire ride is just tight turns with ejector all over the place. I was amazed. It went on for much longer than I expected, and was full of insane head choppers too. When we hit the brakes, I was speechless, and Emelie, who had lower expectations than I had, really liked it too. 9/10.
Sadly I couldn't find any decent Twister pic so here's one from RCDB.
Next to Twister is a beautiful blue Schwarzkopf classic, so that had to be done next. Jetline was my most anticipated coaster of the park, but I still had relatively low expectations. After another walk on we went for the backseat again. I like the twisting lift hill, and how the first drop really makes it feel like you accelerate because of its non-steepness (what's the opposite of "steepness" on coasters?
). The drop ended up going through an awesome tunnel. After the first MCBR, our favourite part came up. A really steep twisting drop which is followed up by an almost vertical helix into another MCBR. It pulled some massive Gs! The rest of the ride were some nice helices and a tunnel which was strangely warm, which is very welcome on such a cold day. The two things that make this ride truly special is the location and the interaction. The fact that it is very smooth with a high fun factor made it one of the most re-ridable coasters in the park. 8,5/10.We are both really scared of heights, so we were dreading to ride the drop towers and Eclipse. We decided to 'warm up' by going on Katapulten first. I'd ridden a normal S&S shot & drop tower (without the freefall drop) before and enjoyed it, but found it relaxing rather than thrilling. The only proper freefall drop ride I had ridden was Mystery Castle, which isn't much of a forceful drop and also in the dark, so this was a first time experience for me. We went on the side that overviews the lake and downtown Stockholm, which ended up being a good choice. As we were launched upwards, we were presented with one of the most incredible views you can get. It was surreal. After the 'drop', we went up slowly again, so that we could get more time to enjoy the view. Emelie pointed out the big buildings and showed me around Stockholm those 20 seconds, and then we dropped properly. I didn't expect the drop to be this forceful! It looks slow on POVs/off ride, but was actually more powerful than the Intamin drop tower in Holiday Park that I rode 2 months after. It doesn't beat the Fabbri drop tower in power, but it wasn't far off. It's my second favourite drop tower (Mystery Castle <3), and one of my favourite flats in general, especially because of the view. 8,5/10
We loved it so much that we immediately re-rode. While Emelie really liked the ride, she didn't like the free-falling sensation, so she decided that she wouldn't ride Frittfall, the big Intamin tower. It might have been because of the cold, but I wasn't the bravest I've been that day. 2 months later I went on the drop tower and star flyer in Holiday Park without problems so I don't know what was up, but I didn't feel like riding Eclipse and Frittfall alone. I really regret this decision afterwards.
I always ride chair swings at parks (it's like a collection that I have
) so I had to ride this one too, especially because it just looks so fab on a pier on the lake. Emelie doesn't like them so she sat it out.We went to Insane but the lady said it was closed all day. It's a shame we missed out on a cred, but to be honest, we weren't looking forward to it anyway. So that was just Intamin being Intamin. We did the funhouse again which I enjoyed more this time because I was feeling much better. Though it was still so cold that I was constantly shaking.
Next up was the kiddie area, where we rode Nyckelpigan. It was a nice little kiddie coaster, but it remains a kiddie cred. We bought the onride pic just because we could. 4/10. We also rode the family drop towers which gets to my stomach more than the big ones strangely. We missed the Tuff Tuff Tåget cred because we completely forgot about it. We didn't come across it either, so it must've been pretty well hidden. While walking back to the main park, Emelie played one of the carnival games, while I was being stunned by how pretty the staff member of that game was <3 Every one of them also spoke perfect English, and they all seemed interested in your opinion on the rides. They also had a genuine smile on their faces all the time, and enthusiastically greeted you when you entered the station. I've never visited a Disney park yet, but it will be pretty hard to top the friendliness of this park's staff.
It was around 13:30 by then and we had already done pretty much the entire park, but were far from bored. We decided to take a little break, so we just sat on a bench next to Frittfall, Eclipse and Kvasten. Then we continued to re-ride everything. I'm not going to go into detail as much for the next part of the report. But we re-rode all of the coasters (front & back row) and did some of the smaller flats. Pop Expressen is the park's breakdance. It is very well decorated with a disco ball, and played some of today's biggest hits. The ride program on this thing is amazing! It was really long, fast, and crazy. It was my first, but also definitely the best breakdance, and one of the better flats I've done in general. Every breakdance I've done after this one, just disappointed me. 8/10.
Another ride that we hadn't ridden yet was the love tunnel thing, which was a really cute boat ride. It was well themed and nice, but strange how there was glass around all the sets. That kind of took away the immersiveness. Close to that was the bumper car ride. We ended up re-riding that more than 10 times probably. It was so fun and we had a great laugh. By the time we were done with the bumper cars, it was getting dark so we re-rode all the coasters again. To end our day in the park we just went from Jetline, to Twister, and back, with a total of 7 rides for both. All the coasters were even more awesome at night, with lights everywhere <3 It was almost magical. The views were stunning!
At 22:00 we left the park, and took the ferry to the other side of the lake. It really felt like a goodbye to see the park, which was all lit up and gorgeous, just getting further and further away from us. We had a walk through the oldest parts of Stockholm, and went back to the station. Stockholm at night is just wonderful, and it felt extremely safe.
So despite the circumstances, I had an incredible day. To say that my expectations were blown away is an understatement. The combination of a fantastic park, short to non-existent queues, wonderful company and just the sheer length of it really made this one of the most memorable days of my life. The fact that I still know it in so much detail after almost 6 months kind of proves my point. The park has a unique and lovely atmosphere, a LOT of charm, some of the best and friendliest staff around, a ton of great re-ridable rides and a picturesque location. It is hard to explain what makes this park so amazing, but this report is really the closest I can get. I fell in love with both Gröna Lund and Stockholm, and I'm honestly craving to get back. Especially to ride Eclipse, Frittfall, Insane and Tuff Tuff Tåget, but also to get re-rides on Twister, Katapulten and Jetline. Preferably with much nicer weather too. It was a day full of new experiences, excitement and so much fun and laughter.
Park score: 9/10
Thanks for reading my report! :--D Liseberg is next!
