Family Coaster

Home of the DrageKongen

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Since my initial visit at Djurs Sommerland, I always wanted to come back. Year after year, the park surprised everyone by its new additions, such as the overhaul of the children’s area featuring the family coaster Vilde Hønsejagt or the new themed area Wild Asia featuring Europe’s fastest and longest family suspended coaster DrageKongen and the large-scale Gyro Swing Tigeren.

Bondegårdsland

The kiddie area Bondegårdsland is home to a large selection of quality family rides, most of them by Zamperla and Zierer. The whole area has a very funny farm theme which neatly suits every ride. Vilde Hønsejagt for example features an impressive front car with a hungry fox and a very fearful hen. The ride itself is a Force Two coaster by Zierer offering a very smooth and fun ride for the whole family.

Wild Asia

The theme area Wild Asia is the makeover of the old area around the log flume Colorado River and the HUSS Topple Tower Ørnen. While the log flume got a new theme and with Long Cun Expedition a fitting new name, the rare HUSS ride sadly had to leave the park after just 13 seasons. It got replaced by Tigeren, a very wild swing ride by Intamin. Due to the open seating position, the fast acceleration and the overall very forceful ride, the ride is much more thrilling than most of the other swing rides out there.

Jungle Rally

Right next to the Long Cun Expedition, you can find the park’s newest roller coaster: Jungle Rally. The small Force Zero family coaster by Zierer features the classic Tivoli layout and hence offers a ton of fun to its riders.

DrageKongen

The mighty dragon king is a large-scale Family Suspended Coaster by Intamin. It dominates the Wild Asia themed area and offers an impressive layout containing a ton of close-to-the-ground curves and manoeuvres.  

The ride starts with a gentle tyre driven launch out of the station. After a short indoor section featuring two small hills and a right-hand helix, we reach the ride’s lift hill. On a height of 30m, we now drop down in a steep lefthander into a fog filled tunnel. A large, overbanked turn and a helix close to the ground complete the clef-like initialisation of the fast-paced ride. After a straight camelback, we now make our way towards the back of the station building in a close to the ground curve combination. Here, we take a small dip before crossing the building featuring two very impressive close call moments. Once again close to the ground, we then make our way over hill and dale, before taking a left hand turn leading into a tapered helix. Soon after, we hit the brakes.

DrageKongen is a fun roller coaster. After the gentle, but fun start to the ride, the dragon king surprises everyone by its fast-paced layout. Overall, DrageKongen is a harmonious yet thrilling ride for the whole family.     

Miscellaneous

To my surprise, the Tarzanland area next to the now demolished Jungle Safari boats ride also had to make place for the new Dinosaurland area coming in 2022. I just hope that a similar large-scale playground will find its way to the park soon.

The two flat rides Søulken and Drageskibet are also a great addition to the park’s portfolio. While Søulken is a modern Polyp ride by Gerstlauer, Drageskibet is the return of the classic Pirate boat swing by HUSS. It’s great to see Djurs Sommerland investing in such classic family rides!

Pictures Djurs Sommerland

Conclusion Bondegårdsland and Wild Asia 

I once again had a blast visiting Djurs Sommerland. The two themed areas Bondegårdsland and Wild Asia simply blew me away and I cannot wait until Dinosaurland is opening. I just hope to visit the park earlier next time.  

Djurs Sommerland

Red Force Alert

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Ferrari Land

After the Caribe Aquatic Park in 2002, Port Aventura Resort expanded once again in 2017 with the Ferrari Land theme park. In the tradition of many European second gate parks, the offer here was also very limited at the beginning. The addition of a children’s area the following year significantly expanded the range of attractions for families.  

Red Force

The park’s main attraction is the Red Force launch coaster by Intamin. The 112-metre-high roller coaster towers over the Port Aventura Resort and thus captivates everyone in its immediate vicinity and, unfortunately, draws them into its queue. Shortly before the attraction went into operation, the queue was already completely full and stretched over the course of the day to below the top hat of the ride, which corresponded to a waiting time of over three hours.

I myself was only in the official queue and therefore had to spend about an hour in it. As soon as I took my seat in the twelve-passenger train, the ride started. Once out of the station, the train starts to accelerate and it becomes increasingly uncomfortable. The train then climbs up the Top Hat with a brute force and immediately descends again, but without the spiral during the descent of the two preceeding Accelerator Coasters, Top Thrill Dragster and Kingda Ka. At full speed, you soon hit the brakes and after a short uphill section, you come to a stop again.

Red Force is a very short, but damn good roller coaster. Here, as the speed increases, you notice the forces acting on the train before it reaches a height of 112 m, which is extremely impressive, especially in comparison to the Shambhala roller coaster – currently the third-highest roller coaster in Europe with a height of 76 m. The descent and the final rush of speed also provide sufficient endorphins so that you leave the ride extremely happy. Regrettably, however, at this point another ride on the roller coaster was out of the question, unless you buy the expensive Express Pass for Ferrari Land, which gives you one-time access to the 4 ½ main attractions.

Junior Red Force

As impressive as the Red Force roller coaster is, the Race Coaster Junior Red Force from the SBF Visa Group is not. The ride in the small roller coaster offers basically nothing apart from a tapering downward spiral and a brute upward curve. Sure, the setting of the children’s coaster in the inner courtyard of the much larger Red Force is very nice, but that’s about it.

Miscellaneous

As it was getting increasingly crowded, I didn’t test any other attraction in Ferrari Land apart from the two roller coasters. The Flying Theatre Flying Dreams and the Racing Legends simulator ride would have been of particular interest here. In addition to a handful of children’s rides, the very nice-looking car ride Maranello Grand Race and the two S&S towers of the Thrill Towers (one Space Shot and one Turbo Drop) complete the contemplative offer.

Pictures Ferrari Land

Conclusion Ferrari Land

Ferrari Land is not a theme park where you would spend more than one or two hours, but you have to in high summer thanks to the low capacity of the rides. Overall, the entire amusement park is more like a themed area of the amusement park next door, which offers an extremely immersive experience in this respect. But as a stand-alone theme park, the park simply lacks what it has to offer.

Sure, Red Force is good and the Flying Theatre and the simulator are probably very nice, but that’s about it. The Ferrari theme is also extremely specific, which will certainly appeal to one or two visitors to the Costa Dorada, but unlike Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, you’re not standing right next to a race track here. It will be interesting to see how the park develops.

 

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Ferrari Land

Raging through the Helices

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Preface

It’s the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic and things are getting a bit back to normal as the numbers are currently dropping in Germany and more and more people are getting their vaccinations. Previously excisting restrictions are dropped and a visit to a theme park feels great once more – even though we are all wearing masks once we cannot avoid getting too close to people and of course on the rides.

Serengeti-Park and its Serengeti Safari

Since my last year’s visit was not the best, as Serengeti Park was crowded and the capacity of the rides was restricted to a minimum, I took a day off and visited the park on a very quiet Friday. This of course had the advantage of experiencing the awesome Serengeti Safari – one of the few drive-through safaris you can experience in an animal park – at my own pace and without being too restricted by the other cars. I was also right in time for the feeding of the lions, which led to some awesome pictures.

Splash Safari and the Black Mamba

After driving through the Serengeti Safari it was time to experience the theme park. Here, I mainly focused on the other “safari” experiences, which are mainly rather unique attractions and for the most part don’t feature any animals. I especially enjoyed the Splash Safari and Black Mamba Jetboat experiences, as both of them were extraordinary good in keeping you cool on a very hot summers day. While the Splash Safari offers a nice RIB speedboat ride on the park’s central lake, the Black Mamba jetboat safari just got you drenched the second the ride started – not to any surprise: It was the most popular ride on the day of visit.

Batukai Racer

The most recent addition to Serengeti Park is the roller coaster Batukai Racer by Technical Park which replaced the aging Chura Racer – a large Tivoli coaster made by Zierer. The layout of the 13m high family coaster basically only consists of a steep drop followed by three helices one after the other. The first of them is of special interest, as its curvature gets smaller when approaching the ground, which results in some very high G-forces and a rather awkward inclination. The second one acts like a small break in between as you get some more altitude before the final helix hits the ground. The ride itself is a bit jerky, yet not uncomfortable and a rather thrilling experience.

A story of a lost phone

So thrilling, that shortly after my first round, I wanted to do a second. I was a bit distracted taking photos with my camera so that I did not realised that I let my phone on one of the benches nearby before queuing up for the second ride. After the ride, my phone was gone and I started to panic a bit. I asked the ride operator if he saw anything, but that did not help. He gave me the information that it might end up at the service centre nearby the park’s main ticket booths at the end of the day. I waited some time and decided to give it a try and walked all the way to service centre, but they did not yet got anything. They asked me to come back shortly before their closure or write an email after my visit. So I went back around 5pm and to my own surprise they actually found it!

Even though I had to worry a bit about the phone, I had an extraordinary day at the park and enjoyed it quite a lot. The drive through the empty Serengeti Safari, the rides on the park’s roller coaster Safari Blitz and Batukai Racer, as well as the refreshing and drenching boat experiences on the Splash Safari and Black Mamba made my day.

Pictures Serengeti-Park

 

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Serengeti Park