Richard Bannister

Leksand Sommarland is a children's amusement park, water park, and adventure playground all rolled into one. Though a nice park, it is probably only worth visiting for those holidaying in the area; there is certainly nothing there you cannot find in other larger parks. An hour was long enough to try the Giant Wheel, the Drop'n'Spin and the Bergochdalbanan (#1647).

Another credit whoring stop was made at Furuvik in order to ride the newly refurbished Rocket, a Schwarzkopf-built coaster that used to operate at Alton Towers as the Black Hole. The ride has been retrofitted with new and entirely unnecessary lap bars, but these are not particularly obtrusive and do not impede the ride quality. We also tried the Spokborgen dark ride (pretty good) and the Lilla Bergbanan (#1648).

As a side note, Furuvik has a railway station of the same name directly in front of the park entrance for those who'd like to visit without hiring a car. The train line leads all the way to Stockholm Central though as of this writing it is necessary to change trains at Uppsala.

We met up with Mats for the third and final park of the day, and the only one on this trip with three new credits for us. The first of these was the children's ride, Tuff-Tuff Tåget (#1649), which was surprisingly fun despite its small size. Passengers were treated to two circuits of the track for their trouble, and the operators didn't even raise an eyebrow at the sight of three adults boarding such a small ride.

Many enthusiasts speak very highly of Insane (#1650), but there's no way that we could recommend it based on our experience today. Our car was not evenly balanced, probably resulting in a more extreme ride than usual, but even so there is no excuse for a coaster which repeatedly punches its riders in the stomach while simultaneously throwing them around like rag dolls. I've previously enjoyed similar versions of this ride elsewhere, but definitely not this one; once was more than enough.

With those out of the way, it was time for Twister (#1651), a brand new wood coaster and one of the first rides to run GravityKraft Timberliner trains. The new trains are necessary because the ride layout features some extremely tight turns that cannot be negotiated by rolling stock from other companies. Shoehorning any new ride into Gröna Lund is an achievement in itself, and a wood coaster even more so; one only has to look at the structure of the ride to see that the designers have achieved something truly special. I felt the back seat had the edge over the front in terms of ride pacing, but there wasn't a lot in it either way.

Beyond the three new credits, we renewed our acquaintance with Jetline and Vilda Musen, as well as trying the recently refurbished Blå Taget dark ride. The latter has quite a few effects located underneath the track, which may even be unique; as I type this I cannot think of any other similar examples.