Gazza

Yeah WTF, what developments in Australia have been opposed on the basis of Covid 19? Maybe if it was koalas, traffic or height (or perhaps a lake with black swans) you'd get the local nimbys. It's Just the developer trying to save face.

Because its privately owned.

Would moving it attract new visitors to the VRTP chain or sell more One Passes?

Is it really worth going for the international crowds though? Are you talking about the international GP, or international thoosies? I mean FLY fits all of the above (highly themed, worlds first, amazing looking) and I doubt Phantasialand gets much traction outside of Germany and the neighbouring parts of the Netherlands. And I'm literally the target market for that ride, and I want to ride it, but I wont get there immediately. Re steel taipan, I dont think members of the public really get into the nuances of swing launches, or even have an opinion on them since they are uncommon still. To be honest, theres no rhyme or reason to it. Eg in content farm videos that end up your feed you get POVs of random B&Ms with a caption "Would you ride this" but I doubt it translates to people booking tickets to these parks, or even being able to find it on a map.

The only reasons (IMO) to be a strictly family park is if you're so small its too expensive to try and cater to thrill riders (But you can afford to do kiddie rides, play areas etc) The other reason is if the park had an IP that doesn't lend itself to thrill rides (Eg Peppa Pig World Florida) Personally I think having all parks offer a mix of attractions keeps it interesting for a wider variety of visitors. SW is in the heart of a major tourist destination, so could easily be a broad audience drawcard, it shouldn't be a place you go check out only once because it happens to be on your 3 park pass.

Millennium force has an inspection car that runs up beside the lift: https://www.parkz.com.au/photo/9128-Millennium_Force/gallery/sort/newest/location/millennium-force/offset/29 As others have said youd still need to get onto the track itself to check equipment mounted on the track. I think it's just Intamin being Intamin. The other Giga Intimidator 305 has a staircase https://www.parkz.com.au/photo/9889-Intimidator_305/gallery/sort/newest/location/intimidator-305/offset/11

The Sea World eye was “transportable”, but it’s not the same as a typical carnival ride that is painted with cheesy airbrush graphics and looks temporary and only stays for a couple of weeks. Those Ronald Bussink wheels seem a bit more involved for set up, and stay at their location for long periods (The Wheel of Brisbane is a good example) and the install doesn’t look as “cheap”. I think the main giveaway with the sea world eye was the metal flooring and the ugly modular fencing. But it still looks a lot more tasteful than a regular carnival ferris wheel I think SW eye got a pass because it was a big ride too, in an iconic location.

Perhaps one solution is to have more attractions, particularly smaller rides with shorter maintenance periods so even with a couple of major rides closed the park is still a full day.

If I had to guess, Fonix at Farup and the long awaited opening of Monster at Grona Lund prompted people to go to Scandinavia and do everything else. I can't really think of any other big thrill coasters in Europe this year. Certainly, I had been holding out for Monster given that project has been known about for several years, but in the end it's swings and roundabouts because I missed Balder due to its track replacement.

Is that assuming a shutdown takes a full month per ride?

So, as I interpret it, a clone in the theme park world is something with a identical or near identical design. Eg Vekoma SLCs, or the Transformers rides at the Universal parks. But I mean aside from sally designing both they're clearly not clones @Dean Barnett You wouldn't say Superman at SFMM and Superman at MW are clones, would you? (Despite both being Intamin launch coasters) So why here? In terms of differences: Our JL has 4 person standard cars, shorter layout, and a storyline based around Starro invading, The Six Flags JL has 6 person cars with a full motion base, a longer layout and a storyline about Lex Luthor and Joker kidnapping the Justice League. I think the only similarities' is the preshow room is obviously the hall of justice, and the load station has a similar look with Cyborg, but beyond that every scene and set is different. FWIW there's another JL dark ride at Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi and its even more sophisticated than the Six Flags one and also not a clone.

Bonus video: The launch at the start of DrageKongen PXL_20220713_080946827.TS.mp4

Do you have a pic of the permanent queues?

The six flags versions aren't clones of the MW version....

Yes when I went past last week (at night) those parts were white (with primer I guess is what I saw), they’ve since completed those parts in yellow when I passed this morning.

Djurs Sommerland Wednesday 13th July https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/djurs-sommerland Next park and perhaps one of my most anticipated was Djurs Sommerland, which is located about 45 minutes from Aarahus, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. For a laugh on the drive to the park I stopped off at the Graceland replica called "Memphis Mansion" someone built in the town of Randers. The park I felt was similar to Europa Park with its very wide variety of activities, but seeming avoidance of having any rides with inversions (Which Europa Park only addressed with the addition of Blue Fire) It’s definitely a solid traditional theme park, with distinctive themed lands (Albeit pretty conventional and sometimes stereotypical: Wild West, Pirates, Farmyard, Dinosaurs, Vikings etc), nice theming and immaculate upkeep. There are also a ridiculous number of playgrounds, and i know if i was a kid that would be the best thing ever because a couple of them were huge and had large spiralling slides, so nice to know the kids have plenty to do that doesn’t involve queuing. And of course Homer Simpson trampoline world USA: The park was busy but the lines moved well, with waits never above 30 minutes. Like Farup, the staff were friendly, efficient and not stressed and quite good with kids (Eg particularly at Piraten where they were using foam swords to get people to do up their seatbelts) So i got plenty of rides on everything I wanted to. Drage Kongen x3 Started off with this and it was a pleasant surprise. Heard it shakes a bit, but in reality less so than say Big Dipper or DC Rivals. It looks gorgeous built into the landscape, with great near misses with the landscaping. It also has quite an ‘unpredictable’ layout. You cant really see it in one go like you can for Orkanen, and it alternates between high up parts and down low turns, randomly goes behind the main building, has random sharp turns, its excellent. I heard the ride had a ‘fast start’ and I thought it was just some quick friction wheels out of the station, but spoiler, it launches like motocoaster into an actual indoor section with a drop and helix in the dark, which totally surprised me. Jungle Rally Small model Zierer kiddy coaster with a basic oval layout, but again good effort into the theming. T-Rex Family Coaster This ride was built during covid and just sat there until this year. The whole Dinosaurland sorta works, it’s like a rusty weathered version of Jurassic park with “Dino Inc” plastered everywhere like you’d see “Ingen” everywhere in a Jurassic Park themed zone. A lot of the signage had an “Engrish” vibe to it, which is unusual since Danes are usually spot on with English. But IDK it felt weird, like you had fossil digs and skeletons right next to live dino animatronics. Is it like a purgatory where Dinos and Humans live together. The ride decent if not ground shattering, with a lively pace through some helixes. It had onboard audio but it was kind of just there, with some music and researchers yabbering on the radio, it wasn’t full on synced to the ride. Dino Xpedition This had no queue at this point and was right next door so I did it thinking it would just get some better pics of T-Rex Family Coaster, (which is somewhat set back) actually turned out to be quite a lengthy car ride with some fun special effects, and even a random dark ride section with King Kong (Maybe they got a discount package of animatronics 2nd hand and built the zone based around that?) The queue was nicely themed, again a bit stereotypically as a dino research lab. Thors Hammer x2 One of those Gerstlauer Bobsleds, and a clone of the original at Tripsdrill. Short description its like a wild mouse with some banked turns and helices. They are fine as a middle of the road attraction, but I've concluded on the whole they are really not that much more thrilling than a roller skater. What I did love is the theming, the station had a full on Viking feast scene, a yak being milked, runestones. Great stuff. Juvelen x3 Awesome ride. You take the pacing of Jet Rescue and increase the speed and length of the ride and you get this. It just powers through the course and feels relentless, with the 2nd launch maintaining the pace. There are some great details too, like the odd crashed ATV along the track, and some near misses with tree stumps on the inside of the banked turns, so it feels like you are going to bump your head. The queue line theming is nice too, obviously inspired by Indiana jones, with lots of nice stonework and tree roots running through the ceiling. Piraten x5 The ride everyone talks about. Piraten is a mini version of a hypercoaster from Intamin. If you replaced the launch and top hat of Superman with a lift hill, and then tacked on the last bit of DC Rivals, this is what you get in terms of pacing and level of airtime. I’ve ridden Kawasemi back in 2019 so my thoughts are still the same (Though I got better rides on this in the summer heat verus the Japanese winter) Its a great ride loaded with airtime, but it’s definitely a product of its time. Back in the day Thoosies would consistently rate the intamin “Airtime Machines” at the top of the rankings (EGF, Toro, SROS etc). But then the likes of RMC came along and re-wrote the book in terms of what a wild intense ride could be, so Piraten is still good, but no longer best of the best. The highlight of the ride was those two twisted airtime hills after the 2nd turnaround where it becomes a bit unhinged. Skatteoen Skat Owen? No, it's a Storm Coaster clone (Or rather, Storm cloned this) so you all know what to expect. This one has lovely theming, with rockwork and pirate forts, and a boardwalk that edges around the base of the ride and over some bridges to the station. The pre lift flume section had a kraken animatronic with several moving limbs. Not really much of a narrative, just pirate related stuff that looks nice. Of course, one of the best features is that bystanders get full view of the splashdown, so non-riders get more of an appreciation of the water coaster gimmick. Sablen Had to do this because its a new ride type to me. Its a larger version of a frog hopper but the whole tower tilts. Frustratingly i got the middle seat so really the least possible amount of movement, so perhaps that means im rating it lower than it should, but the sensation is more like “oh, its tilting”, and not “woah this is unstable, better hang on”. It doesn’t generate enough of a lurching sensation IMO At that point i stopped for lunch at the Pirate food market. The park is well priced, I had a nice chicken salad, drink, and a side serve of onion rings and jalapeno poppers and i think it came to $17 and all came served on crockery. Vilde Honsejagt Unbelievable the number of Zierer family coasters the rest of the world has but none in Aus. This was a medium sized one, with a cute chicken theme, and a train themed like egg crates, with a fox hunting a chicken at the front. Milk Shakeren Following the theme of doing rides that were new to me. This Zamperla Barnyard ride lifts up and tilts. When I got on i realised its really just a variant on a wave swinger or all those other rides that tilt and spin. The outward facing seating position makes it a little more stomach churning. Visually it looks great. Tigeren Totally did not expect to like this as much as I did. This is a larger version of a Gyro swing, with lap bars like Goliath at AW. The last time I did a Gyro Swing i felt a bit off colour afterwards, but this was something else. I think the sheer size means the swings are more sustained, and the airtime more drawn out, so you do get a superb sensation of flight and freedom at the top of the swings. I just felt like the overall pacing and mechanics of the ride made this better than any other equivalent i;ve done. It also had a well themed queue, perhaps the most elaborate ive seen on a flat ride. And my first encounter with those infamous counters, but I think it was more for the benefit of the operator since they were still manning the turnstile, you weren’t just being let in unsupervised. Rio Grande Rafting Rapids ride, but wasn’t really much to write home about but the bit with the wave generator and geysers did look pretty nice. Skydebane Discovered this by accident. There is a free shooting range. You get given a ashtray with about 10 little slugs in it and a piece of paper with a target. Find a spare bay, wind the target out and start shooting. This is the first time ive ever shot anything with live ammunition and predictably i was terrible at it. Solguden This is a dumbo type ride, but it had fountains around the outside you had to dodge by lifting your car up and down. It was hot so i was just plowing through them regardless. Visually i love the way the arms look like stacked stones. Speedy Gonzales This is one of those ‘dry’ multi lane slides. I just went up there towards the end of the day hoping to get some pics of Piraten (since the slide is on a bit of a hill). Anyway turns out to be totally unsupervised so you just grab a raft and send yourself down by pushing a button. +1 on the ride count. Andedammen Have i been on a Metalbau duckmill? Nope. Ok lets ride. As gentle as you’d expect, but everyone should ride the silly rides occassionally right. Long Cun Expedition I closed out on this about 5 mins before closing time. I had been skipping it all day because it looked like a clone of the flume I’d done the day before. But the station looked gorgeous, actually resembling a stilt house you’d see on a rice paddy in SE Asia. Had some suprising squirting elephant, but a flumes a flume. And thats it, managing 24 rides in 11 hours was a productive day, and you can see from the Parkz database the park has around 50 attractions, so you could easily bum around doing more flats. You’re never going to get bored here. In terms of how to improve the place. Well the most popular rides were the big thrill coasters (Well, the coasters in general actually!) which sort of explains why management keeps building one every couple of years. So maybe now is the time for them to branch out and build a looping coaster? Perhaps a dark ride? They attempted it briefly on the Dino Xpedition car ride. Oh, but one thing. They have a ride called Buffalo Bumper Cars, but it would have been such a great Danish/English pun to call them "Buffalo Bils" But really, its a popular park that guests are quite satisfied with, so there’s not really much room for improvement As always, you can see more photos here, and if you have other questions about the park, just ask. https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/djurs-sommerland

No pic but when I went past it was red and white, not red and yellow.

The statue makes it look like he's trying to avoid being poked in the butt.

Crash Bandicoot Spinning Coaster. You know it makes sense.

It's funny reading this because "West" is the shorthand used internally when talking about the ride. In a public facing article about the ride I would have fully expected every instance to say Wild West Falls™ or similar.

Having multiple screen based attractions is more of a Universal thing.

Farup Sommerland Tuesday 12/07/22 https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/farup-sommerland The Monday I went to Legoland I stayed in Aarahus that evening. In Aarahus they have Tivoli Friheden, so i went there for couple of hours and indeed rode Cobra 4 days prior to the accident, but I might just skip over that park for the time being. The following day I went to Farup Sommerland, which is right up near the northern tip of Denmark (Only a couple of km from the coast in what seems to be an area that everyone goes for their summer holidays, (like Lakes Entrance or Forster) The park is quite a long rectangle shape, in an area of woodland with several small lakes. Entering the park is like going to an old Drive In theatre, where you drive in and pay at a series of booths, with the car park inside the compound. This means you can come and go from your car to get stuff out of it, and the park is pretty open about this, and has huge bbq areas, so already you can see the mindset of the park is more about hosting a day out than squeezing every penny (Or Kronor in this case) but that said the F&B offerings were good too, with a mix of sit down and takeaway places. Most of the park had this rustic forest theme, so a lot of rough timber looking buildings, barrels, crates, logs and rides themed around forest animals. If you wanted to sum the park up, its this: It’s summer peak but wait times were still fine, worst I waited was 30 mins for Fonix in the middle of the day. I wont really do a play by play because I did certain things a few times anyway and it was a long day. In terms of strategy, the park has a wait time app. I think the only thing I gleaned from it checking in the days prior was that the spinning coaster Flagermusen seems to get long waits, so I think I started out with Fonix, Flagermusen and Orkanen and then from there just floated around doing stuff. So, onto the rides. Fonix x5 Really bloody good. Next gen Vekoma is as good as people say. It just has a really solid layout that has a heap of elements and nuances crammed into it, so literally not a single dead spot and heaps of cool elements. The station is quite aesthetically pleasing with stained timber and steel, banners, stained glass etc. A steep first drop gives heaps of air, followed by that cool 'stall loop', which provides extended floater at the top. Things get frantic with sideways airtime on the following element, and then a heartline roll that feels as crazy as the one on steel taipan, but add in a real pull to one side. Yet more airtime with a double down and twisted hill, then a smooth corkscrew through the station. The remainder of the ride is yet more airtime and twists, so heaps of excitement. The final turnaround has a 'wave turn' which is like a turnaround that has a inward bulge/bump built into it, so you get a cool pop of air going around that too. Fast pace, decent level of intensity, always perfectly comfortable...Hope we see one in Australia. Flagermusen Standard Reverchon spinning coaster. Head on down to the Ekka this week or up to Aussie World if you want to know what these are like I did like the misty cave at the entrance, so bonus points for that. Lynet x3 A Gerstlauer launch coaster with compact little 6 seater cars. Bit of a crash compare to Fonix. On paper it sounds good, quick launch, top hat, airtime hill, zero g roll, a few turns and a corkscrew, but Gerstlauer tend to do quite harsh transitions and coupled with the hard restraints, it takes away some of the re-rideability. Eg if there is airtime you are slammed upwards, if there is a corkscrew you are slammed sideways. When you consider what every other manufacturer is achieving, it's dissapointing. The queue line was just full of barrels and crates....t h e m i n g. Orkanen x2 So im sure many of you are anticipating this one considering what's coming to Gumbuya and Movie World. Happy to report its a good ride, with zippy pacing, but that's perhaps its only downfall, since its a short layout taken fast, so its over and done with quite quickly. Going up the lift hill I had a giggle at the automatic lawnmower doing its thing under the ride. Decent first drop, a very short tunnel and then into a suprisingly forceful overbank. You then speed down a bit of a straight with a tiny bit of airtime, then two tight helices that are actually a bit dizzying. The pace continues with a u turn and a little twisting dip in a dark tunnel, and then the ride is over. The last turn is so dynamic i unintentionally swung my leg up and you can see why Vekoma suspended coasters have warnings about keeping your lets down! The theming looks nice too, a lot of old boat shed type stuff so a high level of detail, even if it's just 'junk'. So for sure, looking foward to having this in Australia since its one of the best family coasters designs out there and very comfortable. Falken x2 A wooden coaster that's fine as long as its going in a straight line. When it does the turnarounds at the end of the course it shakes like crap. The layout almost felt a bit RCT. On the straight bits it had drops and airtime hills, which were well executed. The turnarounds were pretty standard banked turns, with the final helix being a bit of an endurance test. Pindsvinet Standard model Zamperla kiddy coaster like the one at SW, but with a super excited looking hedgehog on the front of the train. This had birch trees growing close to the layout you could easily reach out and whack if you wanted. Mine Expressen Standard model Vekoma roller skater like Roadrunner, but with a bell that jingles the whole way around. What made this one cool was that there was a ramp that went up to the 2nd floor for no reason, then ramped back down to the station, so they built it purely to make the queue more interesting and to give good views of the load station. I like it. The setting was nice too. Saven x3 They have another Vekoma family coaster but this one is a boomerang model. Unlike most boomerang models, they've stretched the layout out, so its a few hills and gentle turns in a row, so it slaloms over and under pathways, and even has a water splash effect. Its 'fun' though, a bit more spirited than a regular family coaster, and looks damn nice too. Raevens Hule I like funhouses, and this one was done like you were in the underground burrow network of a fox, but you'd hear sound effects of buzzing flies and farts (foxes are dirty animals?) has all your usual funhouse stuff like moving plank floors and spinning tunnels. It has a really good final room built at a tilt (like young einsteins) and it genuinely did throw your balance off a lot. I wish we could have these in Australia. Skattejagten A great place to f yourself up. A very long ropes and obstalce course that had everything. Cargo nets, bridges, rafts you had to haul yourself across....a full sized pirate ship! Would take a solid hour to do if you did it honestly and did every obstacle, but would also be exhausting. Many obstacles were over water, so you can fall in if you fail. Totally unsupervised so relies on the common sense of guests, but nobody was doing anything stupid except for one bloke taking his dog through it. My favourite bit was the bouncy platforms. Farup Rafting A rapids ride by ABC engineering, but it didnt really do anything noteworthy. A standard layout through generic woodlands. They did have a few water jets on timers so occasionally rafts would be in the firing line, but a lot of the time they were shooting at nothing. Probably the longest wait of the day. Motorbollen I've never done this ride type before (Or maybe I have, since I've been on the Wasp at Aussie World, but this is nicer) Its like a more mechanical version of a flying scooters. You sit in a motorbike, and when you twist the throttle, the arm your bike is on swings out all of a sudden, creating the sense of a speed boost (because now you are going further/faster since you're following a larger circle) Skovturen Did it for the sake of it since I wandered over to get a pic and it had no line. I was attracted to it because it had one of those "arrows with distances pointing everywhere" type signs, and noticed they were all theme park related (Eg Distance to Legoland, Liseberg, Vekoma HQ" All the theming was fairly 'pleasant' and 'cute', including a recreation of the burrow home of the park mascots. Toget Needed to sit down towards the end of the day, so did a lap around on this. Mostly follows parallel to regular pathways, i think the only place it got off the beaten track was when it goes down the back of Mine Expressen. Traestammerne (Literally "Tree Stem" ) A log ride (Which as I discovered many parks in this region have this layout). Almost felt like a bigger version of a travelling flume they had themed up a bit to make it fit in better. Didn't really have any wow moments, but definitely leaves you damp (lucky I did this at the end of the day) I think the one thing I missed that I wouldn't have minded doing was the 4D Cinema, because they were playing planet SOS and I haven’t seen that for years. The park also had several separate boat rides (Canoes, paddle boats, motorboats etc), one of which was right in amongst Skattejagen but ran out of time for that in the end too. Overall a really friendly, enjoyable park. The staff were good, they got stuff done and kept the lines moving without being drill sargeants. There was one guy single handedly running Falken for example, and he was running it efficiently without stress. Overall staff were happy to joke around it seemed, were good with kids and seemed happy. Likewise good staff on Fonix, and i ended up on the last train and they gave us a 2nd lap when everyone started chanting "En til tur...en til tur" I did also like how the park seemed mostly focus on creating an atmosphere of a good day out. Heaps of people having BBQs, you could bring your dog, but at the same time the regular food outlets were well priced and had plenty of customers too, so i guess its all about making everyone "fat and happy". And lots of kids play areas too, so for them it would be heaven. I ate at the Chinese place, and had a Fransk Hotdog at some point. I also tried a local specialty, "hotsnacks", these are like warm versions of those wierd salted snacks you seem to only see for sale at IGA, except i accidentally ordered the wrong size and had to bin half of it: Also they had a ride called Nut Swing As for how to improve it. Maybe more 'medium' sized rides, since it seems like a lot of kids flats even though they have the audience for more medium sized ones. Could also do a dark ride. Coasters are well covered in every respect, but I guess they'll keep building bigger. Definitely head up here for Fonix and a great day out if ever in Denmark.

How often do they evac it?

What about the Racer at KI before Cedar Fair took over ?

Legoland Billund Monday 11th of July 2022 https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/legoland-billund for plenty more photos. So I’ve just returned from 3 weeks in Scandinavia. The first park I visited was Legoland Billund. Normally I’m not that into Legoland, I went to the one in Windsor because it was included in the Merlin Pass I had at the time, and I went to the one in Japan because I had an unexpected free afternoon (and basically wanted to ride the Mack Submarine Ride) , but they are just ‘okay’, a bit expensive and not really that engaging unless you are a kid or a real Lego fan. But, it almost felt rude to be doing a theme park trip in Denmark and not pay a visit to the original Legoland. This one is actually better than the rest and has a few rides that make it worth a trip even if you are a thrill rider. I arrived at 9 and stayed till 4, but would have had no problem staying right through till close at 7. I had a hire car to make this part of the trip a bit easier, its about a 3 hour drive from Copenhagen, with a spectacular crossing of the 18km long Great Belt Bridge. But you pay accordingly for using such a big piece of infrastructure, the toll works out to $50 each way. Intentionally left early so I could hop out and have a look around. Still I arrived well before opening time. The park has a wait time app and I’d already looked at it a couple of times in the preceding days to see what got bad waits and started my day on those rides. Flying Eagle is a Zierer Family Coaster with nice theming and cute little animals everywhere. As a coaster its pretty good, maintains it speed, and had this one bit with a few S bends. If I was after a standard model family coaster this would be it. It’s just a shame it has only one train, because it gets smashed with crowds. Next I kept moving towards the back of the park, but saw X-Treme racers had no line so I ducked into that too. It’s a larger model of a Mack mouse, so starts off with a big drop, does a few switch backs, couple more drops, couple more switchbacks and then done. Fine for what it was, but it’s just a mouse right? The cars do look pretty cool with their Lego Technic theme. Next door to it is the Lego Movie World, which is quite new and looks great. Apocalypseburg Sky Battle is a flat ride (but seemingly a popular one) however again I was ahead of the crowds so no wait. It’s what you’d get it you crossed Tailspin with an enterprise, so you are simply spinning around, with wings you can tilt to make your seat flip. It felt a bit harder to get it to work, but you can usually get a couple of spins in one direction before it runs out of momentum, and then tilt the wings the other way to get some more spins. The main attraction is Emmets Flying Adventure - Masters of Flight A flying theatre like Sky Voyager, but the difference is that instead of the seats being pushed out towards the screen, you load facing the back wall and the whole row rotates to face the screen. The ride takes you out of cloud cuckoo land (complete with vanilla scent) one Emmets “Triple Decker Flying Couch”, but then the Duplo aliens attack, so cue a chaotic flight through various lego movie scenes. Great fun, but it definitely has a lot more movement than your usual flying theatres where you are gently flying over landscape. This had much more diving and spiralling. I didn’t ride Unikitty Disco Drop, but loved how it looked. By this point I was at the back of the park at one of my most anticipated rides, Polar X-Plorer, a Zierer ESC with a drop track. The theme is like an Arctic base where they are investigating animals, and there are various panels on the walls with scientific information, environmental messages etc. The ride is a bit more punchy than you’d expect! It carries momentum like a full sized coaster, with good speed off the first drop, pops of airtime and forceful turns. You then come around into the ice mountain seen in the middle of the ride (And they didn’t bother doing rockwork inside, they just painted all the framing and mesh black). Overhead is a screen with lego explorer people hammering into the ice, when all of a sudden you hear a crack and the whole section of track you are on drops about 5m, and stops at the bottom, linking up with the rest of the track. From here the track comes out of the mountain, but its basically at ground level now so all it can do is some tiny dips till it gets back to the station. But on the way as you re-enter the building you pass some windows looking into the Penguin exhibit. Which I decided to check out next. Ice Pilots School originally opened as Power Builder, and is a robocoaster ride. They made an attemp to theme it like a Hangar you’d see in some remote location for arctic flights which was nice, but overall the attraction doesn’t scream at you from the outside. Are they trying to avoid it getting overcrowded? It does seem like it could run into capacity issues. Here, you use a touch screen to program a motion sequence for your arm, get onboard, and try it out. Of course i picked the most extreme ones i could, so the arm is catapulting you all the way over the top, or spinning around on the spot whilst making your seat twirl too. It probably only goes for about a minute, and some of the movements are a bit forceful, so the cycle they give you is enough. Looping back towards the front of the park I passed the Temple. Every Legoland has this and it’s pretty meh. Imagine something like Buzz Lightyear with rotating cars and laser guns, except the sets are just bland lego egyptian themed and the guns work poorly. But it tends to just be a walk on most of the time due to the capacity of the ride system so fine for a diversion. I think at that point I opted to eat early (Park opened at 10) sinceI heard food places get bad lines (Which turned out to be true walking around a couple of hours later): Found a place selling the signature “Lego Fries”, which tasted about as good as they looked. I got in the queue for Vikings River Splash the river rapids ride. This is another ride I’ve seen and been interested in, since it it has a vertical lift and splashdown. As far as rapids go, its fairly gentle, and you wont get wet. Most of the theming was viking related humour that would appeal to kids (Eg 3 stone statues singing “We will rock you”). The lift hill comes halfway through the ride on this one, plus of course the vertical lift at the end. It’s just a shame the final drop doesnt spin you like the one at Califorina Adventure. Overall a good fit for the park though. Dragen had a bit of a line so I went for a lap on the monorail and got my bearings for the rest of the park (It’s in a bit of an L shape) I try to do observation towers around midday since it means the sun is out of the way for most of your photos and the tower itself isn’t casting strong shadows across the park. LegoTop is it, but only about 30m high, so it’s good for a view over Miniland, but the actual coasters are at the other end of the park so you dont really get a good overview of them. However up there I spotted Ninjago and realised that was one of my other priorities to ride. Ninjago is a Triotech dark ride with 3D glasses, but instead of guns you swipe your hand above a sensor and use that to direct your shots. Felt like it had a moderate level of control, though quite a few stray shots. It can be finicky, you have to hold your hands 10cm above the sensor, which can feel unnatural and some kids struggle with it. The queue was a series of interconnected dojo rooms, which carried through into the ride itself. The story I wasn’t really familiar with, but at each screen there were hordes of skeletons or bad ninjas and even dragons you were shooting at. A couple of scenes used projection mapping onto rockwork. There were still a few more things I wanted to ride. Ghost - The Haunted House is a fairly kid friendly haunted house walkthrough, with some interactive dioramas and a mirror maze. The finale of the ride is actually a little drop ride (High capacity frog hopper really) where you are ‘levitated’ by a mad professor and then dropped. Seems like is a Merlin special, becuase a lot of the Dungeon attractions they run have this ride, as well as Sub Terra at Alton Towers. Visually it’s nicely done overall but could have been a more coherent experience Piratbade is one of those Mack towboat rides that actually goes through a substantial enclosed dark ride. Quite liked this actually, it was mostly static with the odd lighting effect, but nice and relaxing and quite popular. More parks need the slow scenic boat rides IMO At that point I was over near Dragen, the Mack powered coaster, so waited about 30 mins for that. I’ve heard mixed reviews of this one but I thought it was pretty cool! It starts off with a dark ride section through castle scenes, eg the kitchen, the jesters court, the wizards lab and of course an encounter with a dragon. It’s a powered coaster, so once you reach the dragon it actually picks up speed along a long straight (I guess the closest thing to a family launch coaster with 1997 tech), climbs a bit of a hill then does some helices in rocky area with shrubs and vines. The coaster portion was short but you know what I didn’t mind and thought this was better than the other Dragon coasters at other Legolands. At this point I was getting close to the time I had to leave. I went back to Polar X-Plorer for a second go at the back of the train, still good Back at the front of the Park is Atlantis, one of Merlins Sea Life aquarium, but with an entirely too long pre-show where you watch an average 3D animation of you going down below, dragged out by the fact all the story telling has to be in 3 languages (accomplished by the 3D interior of the sub having cartoon speakers labelled with the Danish, English and German flags) The actual aquarium was well themed and larger than I expected, with many gummysharks and tropical fish. I do wonder about the messaging of having all those lego models in the tanks…plastic in our oceans I rounded out my visit at Miniland. This one was mostly focused on Denmark, with a bit of Scotland, Norway and I think Germany, they also had a section of worlds tallest buildings with model of the Burj Khalifa, Shanghai Tower, Mecca Royal Clocktower. Really nicely done, I liked the oil drilling rig, and the working port with the various moving boats. A lot of the other usual world wonders you’d see at Legoland had been spun off to be located along the Minibade self drive boat ride, but you can still see them from the walkways around that ride. I wouldnt have minded doing the Lego Canoe flume ride but the sun was beating down a bit and I didnt feel like waiting 40 mins. Overall, I had a good visit despite the crowds and got a fair bit done there. The one thing they needed to fix was the F&B lines. They were spilling out everywhere, and to add insult to injury a lot of the vending machines were broken so I couldnt just grab a drink that way. As for what I’d do to improve the park? Tough to say, it’s quite complete as far as family parks go, they have enough water rides, enough dark rides, enough flat rides etc, and enough in terms of unique flagships. I filled up several hours, and of course if you are kid you are going to want to do the splash battle, more of the flats, the driving school etc. Maybe a really small duplo coaster like the one in Windsor to take pressure off Flying Eagle? As always, you can see more detailed photos of the whole park here: https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/legoland-billund After finishing at the park I drove an hour up the road to check out Elia, which was once featured in a Tom Scott video. From a distance the steps look normal sized but they are more like climbing the tiers in a grandstand. Its supposed to let off a jet of fire once at random times, but didn't when I was there.