Here’s the single day of reports from visiting Liseberg after meeting up with CoasterForce members.

For once, no early start was required. Liseberg, like many city centre parks, opens in the afternoon. The first job was to wander around Gothenburg looking for breakfast, and with a bit of luck, we stumbled upon an international food market.

For the record, the British stalls were mostly selling fudge

Owain initially opted for an “only one item from each country” approach. We started with some French baguettes, then some lemonade from the Poland stand. Then Ploddish noticed some French eclairs, and the whole system fell through (totally worth it). Adequately filled, it was time to start wandering towards the park. How about some motivation ready for a good day…

DAMN RIGHT!

Step 1: meet Sue. It turns out there are multiple car parks around Liseberg - some unofficial ones near the entrance, and the park’s car park around the back. We found the unofficial ones, then walked around to the official one, before getting a message from Sue that she was actually back at the unofficial car park. We picked up Howie in the meantime before heading around to the entrance, doling out eclairs to people.

Woooo

First stop: Helix

Insert superlative here

Helix and I got off to a bad start. I suppose it’s inevitable when everybody hypes something up as the greatest thing in the universe ever. It’s paced beautifully, but something didn’t feel complete. It turns out the common observation of “it’s a coaster that gets better with every ride” would prove itself to be true later.

Next up was Lisebergbanana, which happened to be my 200th coaster. This is one ride I probably admire far more than I love. The swoops down the hill are all great and I love the way it dives under and over everything else at the park. It just lacks that bite that makes me fall in love with it (it’s also unfortunately overshadowed by Helix and Balder)

The best bit of Lisebergbanan where it casually hops over the log flume

Two kiddie creds later, lunch was had in the fish and chips place. Not the best park food in the world unfortunately. Time to head around to Kanonen.

It’s an Intamin accelerator. What could possibly go wrong

I didn’t notice that cattlepen at first… looks gross

We whiled away the queue with Owain and Richard recounting their many adventures in China, but not too much later, we’d made it to the station. Normally, I’m a big fan of accelerators (Stealth, Rita and Desert Race adorn my top 20), but this one feels incredibly clumsy. A good launch leads into the smallest of top hats, and a pokey, vaguely uncomfortable layout. It’s not actually too bad save for the inline twist which whips you violently around. Time for some wood, methinks.

Pictured: wood

Balder’s queue was about twenty minutes, and winds its way through the support structure. Does it stack up? Yeah, it’s pretty good. But I definitely felt that feeling of “by-the-numbers” that other people felt towards it. The airtime feels very mechanical, as if you told a robot how to design a good rollercoaster.

You tried

Back up the hill to box-tick smaller rides. There was a Sky Fly, enhanced by being parked on the side of a hill-with-a-view, a log flume that actually dared to get people wet (the horror) and Uppswingen, the S&S Screamin’ Swing, which was tonnes of fun, as all Screamin’ Swings are. Here was also where we met the best ride-op in the world. He had a boxing glove on a stick, and threatened Richard to meet him after the ride. Faff ensued on the drop tower, when I went to put a bag down and realised a million people had filled the seats with a good view. Eurgh. Time for more Helix, which was finally starting to grow on me (with Ian’s lovingly acquired fastpasses)

Helix is love. Helix is life

Now for the Gasten Ghost Hotel. Usually, I don’t go for horror attractions, but it turned out this wasn’t so bad. They put all the effort into lovingly crafted elaborate sets and costumes rather than cheap jump scares.

After a break for some ribs, the rest of the day was spent on rerides (and Swedish Bling). It goes without saying that everything comes to life at night. Balder feels lightning fast, Lisebergbanan finds its form, and Helix is something else. The park’s lighting is truly a gorgeous sight. One of my favourite little things about Helix was the view you get by sitting at the front of the train in the station. The track drops out below you and the view of Gothenberg is beautifully framed by the station’s exit portal.

I’ll add my name to the list of Liseberg fans. It’s got a great selection of things, and a classic atmosphere.

Sadly, back in 2016 I never got around to writing about the rest of the journey at Kolmården and Gröna Lund, where we visited after Liseberg. Fair to say, Kolmåden is an excellent zoo and the first RMC in the UK, Wildfire, is exactly as thrilling as you’d hope. Gröna Lund is like Blackpool but even more tightly packad.