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Tivoli Gardens 2017 Trip Report
Gallary: https://imgur.com/a/wU0wn
Introduction
I had the opportunity to visit the infamous Tivoli Gardens which is a perhaps understated park in Copenhagen, but has some surprising and unique additions that make it a worthwhile visit if you find yourself within reaching distance.
The Park including Practical Information
Tivoli Gardens operates a separate entry / ride ticket system, with the option to buy a wristband. This is the better option as (at the time of writing) a wristband is 230DKK - with a ride on the larger rides such as D??monen and Rutschebanen costing 75DKK a ride spending more than a couple of hours here the cost adds up quickly.
The park itself is generally divided into three areas, the gardens, the rides area and the restaurants a shown on the illustration above. Whilst the restaurant area contains the majority of the sit down meal options, the ride areas have several fast food options if you're looking for something a little bit less formal.
Operations at the park seemed reasonable for the most part, D??monen was running 2 trains on the busier weekend, although the sluggish operations sometimes could be infuriating - not helped by VR. Some rides are especially low capacity, and such should be headed to before others - but I'll cover that in another section of this trip report.
Price wise this park is typically "Copenhagen". I couldn't find any kind of discounted entry/wristband option so it cost us a total of 350DKK per person to enter the park with the unlimited wristbands. Food was also typically theme park prices, with alcohol being on the more expensive side (as is typical of Denmark).
As mentioned before the park is incredibly easy to get to as it is located right outside the central Copenhagen Train Station. One of the side entrances and the ride "Rutschebanen" is visible on exiting through the main entrance of the train station. It's quite centrally located within Copenhagen which is an easy city to navigate by foot, or by bicycle which is the method of choice of the vast majority of locals (You can likely rent a bike form your hotel or nearby).
Ride Reviews
D??monen - Perhaps the ride that this park is best known among enthusiasts this B&M Floorless coaster which opened in 2004 is one of the smaller coasters in their lineup, standing 92ft high and using just the 6 cars per train.
This is technically my 3rd B&M looper behind Scream at SFMM and Dragon Khan at Port Aventura - but it's pretty difficult to compare it to these rides given the different scales. That said I'd certainly place it above Scream, and I haven't ridden Dragon Khan since the MCBR kills the second half - so perhaps this sits up there with them both now.
The ride itself features an elongated turnaround out the short lift hill, into a slightly angled drop, a loop, immelmen, 0g roll into the final couple of twists and turns into the brake run.
The general feel of the coaster is good and it is typically smooth as a B&M. The only slight rough patch was at the apex of the immelmen, if you're sat in the back, but that's a relative term as it was not uncomfortable in the slightest. It paces well, although given the short amount of track you'd certainly hope so, and there's some good instances of the whip whilst entering into elements. The transition between the loop and Immelmen felt like the most intense part of the ride, but overall this felt like a ride built for a family centric park - which perhaps describes Tivoli well.
The best view of this ride is undoubtable from the S&S Drop tower nearby as you get a real idea of how eloquently the ride is designed to pack it all into to such a small space without ever feeling like it loses pace. The evening enhances this with a great light package, two lines of light flank the entire ride, with the colour changing as the train traverses the track. It really adds to the beauty of the ride and fits in with the aesthetic of this park in the evening. Unfortunately I didn't feel the ride experience was enhanced during the evening a great deal, although It was great being in the back seat watching the train chase the lights round the track.
Vertigo - the dark horse of the lineup in my opinion. This Technical Park Flying Fury ride is far more intense than anything else in the park. The ride is similar to a booster whilst pulling up to 5g when rotating at full speed, the only thing I could compare this to was Apollo 13 which tours the German Fairgrounds. This, in an instance, was more intense, although Apollo 13's sustained intensity probably gives it the edge.
The other difference with this ride is for the cars to spin on two different axis (admittedly not at full speed) which in a fully functioning ride is completely controllable by the riders. Unfortunately this feature doesn't work at Tivoli anymore, however the 'autopilot' (program) does a great job of mixing up spinning, big forces and floater airtime.
I'll leave you with this Video I recorded (sorry for portrait - wanted to get the whole tower in!) and the protip to head to this first because it's capacity is terrible!
Rest of the park round up
The other major coaster at the park was Rutschebanen, also known simply as "The Rollercoaster" in English. This classic style 1914 scenic railway was nicely themed to a mountain and the addition of a brakeman (or woman!) always adds a little fun to the ride, especially as they ride the entire ride without taking their seat! This was a fun little coaster and the sort of ride I always like to see at a Park - it engages all audiences and has a huge throughput to match the attention it gets!
The park also features a Mack mine train, Odinexpressen, which spirals up to the top of the park before careering back down towards the station. The interesting thing about this mine train is that it doesn't really feature any uphill sections after it crests its highest point, which means that it feels like it builds up a good deal of speed before diving through the final tunnel into the station - 3 laps helps makes this re-ridable!
Last but not least for the coasters, Karavanen is the parks Zierer Tivoli model, naturally this park needed a coaster model of its namesake (Tivoli had the original prototype of this model back in 1974). This ride is wonderfully surrounded by plenty of plants and flowers within easy reach of anyone whose hands and arms wander inches out of the car, and does a full 5 laps of the circuit much to the delight of the younger crowd!
The park has its Dark Rides, with a classic Mack people mover telling the fairytales written by Hans Christian Andersen with some nice visuals and narration, and the boat-shooter ride set in a mine. Whilst the guns take a little getting used to I thought this was one of the better dark ride shooters I had ridden - with the ride experience providing some thrill alongside the competition of the shooting mechanics!
Rounding out the majority of the flat rides at the park there is a Breakdance, S&S Drop Tower, Sky Flyer, Air Race (majestically themed to a bird) and the all important Carousel! All in all Tivoli was a great little park, with some great highlights. The park has a really nice atmosphere when the crowds pick up a little bit - aided by it's late opening times. It's definitely worth a visit, if not for the unique rides you'll get to experience, but for a genuinely nice park full of flora and an old skool theme park kind of buzz.
