Viking Tour Part Two

Our Viking Coaster Tour continued with the fourth park of the trip, Farup Sommerland. This was another fantastic park, with great natural scenery. It also happened to have what ended up being my favorite coaster of the trip, Fønix. Our day started with a behind the scenes tour of the coaster, where we were able to visit the maintenance room and talk with the head mechanic before riding. The rest of the park had a lot of attractions, including things like canoes and kayaks that were common across many of the parks on this trip. One of the highlights was an extremely long obstacle course that wound through trees and over water. It took more than half an hour to complete. One part had a bridge over a small canal, but also a monkey bar option. We saw a very unfortunately teenager who made it most of the way across on the monkey bars before falling into the waist-deep water! The day ended with more exclusive ride time on Orkanen, a very comfortable family suspended coaster.

Welcome to Farup!

Touring the maintenance bay.

Me with some blueprints.

Walking around the track.

Just holding a coaster wheel!

Fonix is a beautiful ride.

Twisting out of the stall loop.

The adorable kiddie coaster!

Gliding over the water on Orkanen.

Self-serve canoes are common in many Scandinavian amusement parks.

The obstacle course.

It went through a pirate ship at one part!

You get a diploma for completing the obstacle course.

Log flume time!

Orkanen has an underwater tunnel on the first drop.

End of the day group picture.

We had one more adventure that day - the ferry to Sweden! Our bus drove to the port city of Frederikshavn, where our bus accidentally backed up into a car (oops, just a slight bump!) before we boarded the ferry. It was a pleasant 3.5 hour ride across the Skagerrak, with sunlight still visible by the time we arrived in Gothenburg after midnight. Luckily it was a short ride to our hotel, the Grand Curiosa. This is a spectacular new hotel right next to Liseberg park. Each floor has a different theme, mine was mythical monsters.

Getting ready to board the ferry.

Sunset from the ferry.

The sunlight lasted well after midnight.

Arriving at the hotel late at night.

The rooms are very nice!

The massive art piece in the central atrium. Each part reflects the theming of the floor.

After breakfast in the hotel (in the extremely large breakfast room, complete with carrousel), we met as a group for our morning tour of Liseberg. We got to walk beneath the Balder wooden roller coaster and sign our names on the wood, before some exclusive ride time. During one of our rides they had to manually reset, meaning multiple employees came out to our train on the brake run to pull it forward into the station. Haven't had that happen before!

Liseberg is a fantastic park. It looks great and has great rides. The urban location on a hillside adds a special charm, and many of the rides (including Helix, Lisebergbanan, and the log flume) utilize the terrain. We had a fantastic day at this park, capped off with an evening ERT on Helix while we could kind of hear a Bruce Springsteen concert at the stadium a few miles away.

Yes, there's a carrousel in the lobby.

Scary things on the walls of the 5th floor of the hotel.

View of the park from the hotel. It's very close!

Our walkback around Balder.

Signed our names on the wood.

Morning ERT on Balder. Excellent ride!

Liseberg is a beautiful park.

Haunted lunch location.

Overview of the park from the ferris wheel.

Closeup of Helix. Amazing how it weaves through the trees on the hillside.

A big office development next to the park. Check out the pool halfway up the middle building.

Gothenburg overview from the ferris wheel.

Liseberg is a beautiful park.

Valkyria's first drop.

The park is heavily themed - this is Valkyria's station.

Dinner time.

Me and Kyle on the log flume.

Helix in the evening.

Exclusive ride time!

After a long day at Liseberg, I had a good night's sleep at the hotel. Our next day was a long one, with a long drive back to Denmark and two park visits. I'll cover just the Swedish first half of the day in this post. To break up the four hour drive to southern Sweden, we played bingo on the bus, with coaster prizes. We arrived at Tosselilla late morning. It's was probably the "least good" park of the trip - still a lot of fun, but this growing park needs time to settle in. For now it's like a sprawling filed with some fairground rides sprinkled in. It's mostly geared toward families and children. We also missed a credit here, as unfortunately Mad Mouse was closed. After a few hours in the park, we boarded the bus again and headed back to Denmark across the Øresund bridge, the longest road/rail bridge in Europe.

So many breakfast options.

Tim's what?!

Waiting to enter Tosselilla. I like their crazy duck mascot!

First missed credit of the trip.

The family coaster was unfortunately a bit rough.

Pirate ship and water park.

Crossing the bridge.

Next stop - Copenhagen!

Viking Tour Part One

After a couple days as a tourist in Amsterdam, the ACE Viking Tour began on my birthday! I haven't done an organized international coaster tour since way back in 2015, so I was exited to meet up with fellow enthusiasts and visit 10 parks that were new to me. I caught a train from my hotel to the airport, which was the starting point of the trip. The first day was the bus travel day - a long drive from Schiphol airport all the way to Billund, Denmark. Driving past Hamburg I could see the Elbphilharmonie, which was cool. We also made a stop right near the German/Danish border at ScandiPark, which was essentially like a large truck stop mixed with a fake CostCo. We reach the Lodge Hotel in the early evening, and socialized in the courtyard over a beer. I took an evening walk on the path that went right past the hotel connecting into downtown. It was a nice path through greenery lined with sculptures. Considering Billund only has a population of 7,000 the small downtown was surprisingly nice and well-developed. There are little nods to Lego everywhere, since that's what the town is famous for. I walked back to my hotel after 10:30, and it was still light out.

Leaving Amsterdam we passed modern business parks.

Our ride for the week!

Of course they had giant Toblerones at ScandiPark.

Passing the port of Hamburg.

My room at the Lodge.

Sunset vibes on the path.

Weird little sculpture guy.

The sewer covers have Legos!

The Lego building in downtown.

Downtown Billund late in the evening.

The next morning our group walked over to Legoland, the first park of the trip. While there are now multiple Legolands worldwide, including in the UK, Japan, Malaysia, and USA, this is the original, opened in 1968. It's a great family park, and we enjoyed our half day there including exclusive ride time on the Polar X-press roller coaster and plenty of time exploring the Lego miniature land. In the afternoon we hopped back on the bus to drive northeast to Tivoli Friheden. This small park on the south side of Aarhus was quite nice, and we spent a few hours there. The highlight was when we overloaded the Bisværmen ("bee swarm") family coaster and it kept stopping about a foot too far forward in the station. The operator had to call maintenance to manually release us. 🤣

After checking in to the Hotel Atlantic in downtown Aarhus, several of us walked over for dinner at Aarhus Street Food. I had boller i karry, a traditional Danish dish of pork meatballs, curry, and rice. After dinner I walked with Kyle around Aarhus. Although it's the second largest city in Denmark, I didn't really know much about it. There was a nice old center, as well as a new port area. Very pleasant to walk around and enjoy the late-evening sunlight. We also saw a number of teenagers with sailor hats walking around and riding in party buses; we later learned these were high school graduation celebrations.

Welcome to Legoland!

Cute little Lego dragon.

A Lego snake and a roller coaster.

Group photo on the water ride!

A miniature Lego version of Nyhavn in Copenhagen.

Miniland was super cool, with working trains and boats!

Ready to head in to Tivoli Friheden.

It was a small but nice park.

View from the ferris wheel.

My room at Hotel Atlantic.

View from my balcony!

This cool building was across the street from our hotel.

Outdoor seating at Aarhus Street Food.

Dinner and a local beer.

On the canal in downtown Aarhus; still sunny at almost 10PM.

Nice architecture downtown!

Cool little gargoyle guy.

The cathedral, which was completed in 1500.

New modern architecture in the port area.

More views of the port area.

And more cool old buildings!

11PM sunset across the water.

The next morning we all boarded the bus to our next park, Djurs Sommerland. This was a delightful family park with some really well-themed areas. We got all of the coaster credits in by 11:30AM (including my 850th coaster!), and then met up for lunch at the "Western Buffet." A big storm rolled in during lunch, and we waited out the worst of it inside the buffet. The highlight of the park was Piraten, an excellent coaster which we had evening exclusive ride time on to close out the day at the park.

Good morning, Djurs Sommerland!

Group photo with a park employee selfie. This would be a tradition for the trip.

Of course we rode the kiddie coaster. :)

ACErs in the front seat of DrageKongen.

SPLASH! Nice theming on this ride.

Headed into Mexicoland...

Ummmm...

UP UP UP, UP UP UP

Milestone credit for me on Juvelen.

Lots of great scenery on the coasters.

Dinosaur jeep ride!

Inside the Western Buffet.

Afternoon thunderstorm rolled in.

I got a poncho, and we rode the train.

Got in a round of mini-golf once the rain cleared up.

Group picture, with staff selfie, at the end of the day.

Leaving the park, we continued on to Zleep Hotel in Aalborg. I walked around with Kyle again, getting a take away dinner at Istanbul Kabob and eating in the church square. Aalborg was a cute little city!

My room at Zleep Hotel.

Nice buildings in downtown Aalborg.

The 14th century Budolfi Church.

Iskender kebob for dinner.

With two days of the Viking tour under our belts, I went back to the hotel for some sleep before our journey would continue the next day with more of Denmark and crossing over to Sweden.