2004
Coaster Trips: 2004: Legoland Billund, Tivoliland
Monday May 3rd
Legoland Billund
Legoland Billund is of course the original Lego park. It is home to two coasters; the Timber Ride and the X-treme Racers. There is a lego factory just around the corner that you pass on the route to the park; it's easy to spot, given the two feet high duplo bricks sitting outside!
On arrival at the park we were met by a manager who talked to us briefly about the fact that Legoland is aimed at children aged between 3 and 13, and how they were not used to seeing a large group of coaster enthusiasts coming to their park. Justin pointed out quite rightly that there are very few adults in our group.
Unusually, our first ride at the park wasn't a coaster; the entire group took turns to ride on the Jungle Racers, which is a spinning ride with water skis that the riders can control. There are a number of water sprays that can be controlled by onlookers, and this led to quite a bit of merriment.
As I was one of the first to ride, I decided to go try out X-treme Racers (#238) while the rest of the group was filtering through the Jungle Racers. I got in two quick back to back circuits. While this is the standard park model of the Mack wild mouse, it has been enhanced at Legoland with a few mirrors and some water effects.
I had just disembarked for the second time when I saw the entire group being escorted over. As I'd already been on it twice, I decided not to hang around, and walked over on my own to the Dragen. While this is similar to the one at Legoland Windsor it is powered throughout and therefore not a coaster. As with the ride at Windsor, the actual time spent moving at speed is the minority; most of the journey is a dark ride.
Next, we were all escorted over to Power Builder. Now this is fun; it is a collection of ten Kuka "Robo Coaster" arms, which can be programmed by the rider to do an amazing variety of flips and spins. Naturally all of our group chose the most extreme settings, which were quite something. The ride program is relatively short; this is fortunate, as you could easily make yourself very sick by riding this one too much. Nevertheless, I got in two rides at this point.
The group moved back to the Dragon Coaster at this point, and rather than seperate from the group I decided to ride it a second time. This was followed by an unofficial takeover of the Timber Ride (#239), the third Zierer Small Tivoli of the trip (but only the second we were able to ride). This one has received some beautiful theming which really adds to what is otherwise a very small coaster. A circuit on the Lego Canoe log flume brought us to lunch time.
Lunch, while very good, was very slow. Despite the fact that our orders had been placed some time before, and the fact that Justin had phoned ahead to make sure they had our order, we ended up waiting 55 minutes, wasting some of the precious remaining time we had for the park.
Nevertheless, immediately after lunch (as one does!) we were able to get in one more extreme ride on Power Builder, a trip up the LEGOTOP® observation tower, and the Lego Racers 4D show. The latter was an unusual example of a 4D theatre, as all the effects actually seemed to be working properly!
We met the coach in the car park of Billund Airport, which is about five minutes walk from the park, and boarded the coach for Aalborg. Justin announced that we were to stop at Tivoli Land, an extra park, and home to (oh joy!) the first Vekoma Boomerang of the trip.
Tivoliland
As things turned out, however, only a small group of people got to ride the Boomerang, and those only got half a ride. Something went wrong with the coaster that cause it to jam half way up the second spike, and everyone was evacuated from the train. While this was in progress, one of the spin rides seized up, and then the drop tower broke down too. While the Gravity Tower and the Star Discovery, were fixed reasonably quickly, the Boomerang did not recover, and when I walked past it later on the train was valleyed at between the spike and the loop.
Anyway, on entering the park (which, for the record, cost more than any of the other parks on this trip), most of the group staged a ride takeover on the Caterpillar (#240), an unusual Pinfari Big Apple ride with a turntable to allow two trains. Many amusing photographs were taken which will no doubt appear on the club web site by the time you read this. The Looping (#241) was a flavour of Pinfari that I hadn't come across before; a TL-59. However, it was sufficiently rough that one ride was enough.
I have never come across a Moser Rides drop tower before, but Gravity Tower was one of these. I think I was the only person who wasn't hurt by this; the restraints don't have any padding, and depending on your build (and depending on the padding in your clothing) you could potentially get a fairly heavy whack when the drop begins. But it didn't affect me, thank goodness, and I really enjoyed the ride. Poor Martin was in quite a bit of pain afterwards and declared it to be the most uncomfortable ride he had been on ever. With better restraints however, I think everyone would have liked this.
The only other ride I did was the Spøgelsestoget ghost train. A Pinfari creation, this was certainly different but not a particularly exciting example of the genre.
The best bit about today is that it will be the first time this trip I'm finished my trip report before 10:30pm. Goodnight.