Our trip to Göteborg - Liseberg Theme Park - Part 1, Kanin Land, Dad almost throws up and the toilet incident.(Post 3 of 8)

When I asked the kids what their highlight of the trip was, the answer was a resounding 3 to 0 "Liseberg Theme Park!", I'd be lying if I didn't agree - however it was a close call with some of the castles we saw.

Liseberg is a huge theme park (Scandinavia's biggest) just outside of  Göteborg.  It opened in 1923 and has a massive wooden roller coaster - "Balder".  It was rated in the top ten amusements parks in the world by Forbes in 2005.

The mascot of the park is a green and pink bunny called Liseberg Rabbit, and the park gets its name from "Lisa's Mountain (Lisas Berg)" which was what the landowner named the area in 1752.

History stuff, skip past the ===== if you want to just read about our trip

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The park was opened in 1923 as part of the Gothenburg exhibition and consisted of a funicular railway and fun slides.  It was intended to be a temporary attraction for the exhibition but it proved so popular that it was kept open.

The park was purchased by Gothenburg City Council in 1924 and a municipal company named Liseberg AB was created in 1925 to run the park (AB in Swedish is the equivalent of Pty, Ltd in Australia).

A pool was built in the park in 1935 but demolished in 1962.  The park also housed one of the largest dancehalls.

The park currently has 6 rollercoasters (all the adult coasters were closed for winter):
Balder - a 1km long, 36m high wooden rollercoaster reaching speeds of 90km/hr.
Helix - A big steel rollercoaster with several corkscrews (inversions)
Kanonen - A hydraulic launch rollercoaster on a 440m long, 34m high track reaching 75km/h
Lisebergbanan - A steel train-themed coaster. 80km/h, 1.5km long track, 45m high
Rabalder - Kids coaster - 39km/h, 222m long, 9m high
Stampbanan - A young kids rollercoaster

There are also two water rides (both closed for winter):
Flumeride - 630m flume with 2 drops (one is 14m down)
Kållerado - A rapids ride, 560m

Other rides are -
AtmosFear - A tower drop, 116m (closed for winter)
Bumper Cars
Evert Taube's World - A museum
Hanghai - A spinning disc ride (closed for winter)
Höjdskräcken - Tower drop, 60m (closed for winter)
Jukebox - A spinning car ride
Liseberg Lustgarden - a botanical garden with sculptures
Liseberg Wheel - 60m Ferris Wheel (closed for winter)
Mechanica - 28m tall raised spinning platform ride (StarShape)
Pariserhjulet - Ferris Wheel (closed for winter)
SpinRock - Giant Swing ride
Uppsjutet - 60m launch tower (closed for winter)
Uppswinget - Giant swing ride (closed for winter)
Waltzer - 1.1m high spinner (closed for winter)
Wave Swinger - Raised spinning swings

There are also a stack of kids rides
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 The park was open for its Christmas Season but some of the rides (unfortunately all of the big rollercoasters) were closed for winter - it is too dangerous to operate them in the cold and ice.


The first thing we could see as we approached was the massive wooden rollercoaster - Balder,

The side of Balder over the fence

Part of Balder

as well as the Ferris wheel and Helix rollercoaster:

View of the park from the road as we approached

We got a park in a hotel/shopping centre nearby called Gothia Towers and walked across a skybridge to the park.  The kids were very excited and not too keen on Dad stopping to take pictures:

View of the park from the skybridge

Entry gates

Snowmen queuing

This guy got fed up of waiting and went for a relaxing dip.

The park was relatively expensive to enter - about AU$50 per person but that included full access to all of the rides (most were closed for Winter) and the park was huge so it was worth it.

Just inside the main entrance

Kristine isn't too keen on rides, but she enjoyed herself looking at the Christmas markets and exhibitions.

Christmas display inside the main entrance

At first the kids were a little overawed and didn't say much

Walking through the park

But then they found a huge pile of snow marked as a play area and they were happy.  Kris took the time to check out the gift shop and I fretted that we were paying $250 for the kids to play on a pile of snow.

You'd think they'd never seen snow before

Snow!

As is usual in Sweden, it started to get dark pretty early - about 4pm.  While that made it hard to take decent photos, it meant that the park Christmas lights came on, and they were amazing.

The kids soon discovered Kanin Land (Rabbit Land) which is a kids play area.  The main attraction was Bushållplatsen (The Bus Stop) which was a big play house with slides and walkways.  The sighn outside says that people over 100cm tall can play there, but only with child supervision. :)

Kanin Land

Cam enjoyed Bushållplatsen

The view from one of the rope bridges (yes they managed to get Kris and I on them)

Then follows a stack of blurred photos as I somehow tried to keep up with 3 kids who had been in a car all day as they climbed, slid and jumped through the fun house.  I was worried about getting stuck in the slide, so I raced to the bottom, only to find that the slide came out on floor 2 and the kids were still running around up top.

Found one of them at the bottom..

When we finally finished up at the Bushållplatsenfun house, we moved on to our first ride - the Stampbanan.  Stampbanan is a kiddie rollercoaster and we thought this would be a good introduction for the kids, we even managed to get Kris on it.

It was good fun except, for me, the scariest part was the unnatural position the kiddie sized coaster and safety bar put my legs into..

Stampbanan

Next the kids wanted to try the dodgem cars.  We didn't realise there was an adult and a kiddie dodgem ride and put the kids on the kiddie one.  It was pretty slow and a bit tame, but the excitement was added when all the instructions were in Swedish.  This one was called Tuta & Kör (Hooting and Driving - the google translate for this came out as Flasher Driving - which could work for Cam or Tom I guess).  Cam really wanted to go on the bigger set but we ran out of time - maybe next trip.

Kiddie Dodgem Cars

Kiddie Dodgem Cars

The night lights continued as we worked deeper into the park:

Lights just outside Kanin Land

Our next stop was the Högspänningen (The High Voltage).  The kids were keen for this but we couldn't convince Kristine.  It consisted of two sets of three cabins that lifted and turned in a circle.  Each cabin also was able to spin on its axis by means of a wheel in the centre.  The kids loved it and I tried very hard not to taste my lunch a second time...

Högspänningen

Here is a clearer shot courtesy of the Liseberg website:

Högspänningen

I managed to get a few photos from the cabins before I had to put my phone away before centrifugal force catapulted it back to Adelaide.  Most of my memories of this ride is a spinning whirl of lights and Alana's maniacal laugh as she spun the wheel.

View from the Högspänningen

After that ride Dad had had enough of rides for a while, and besides Kris had only been able to watch the last couple so she was keen to look at some shops.  Once I managed to walk straight again, we went for a bit more of an explore around the park.

Bridges over the river

The ship

Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of ru... whats that mum? Oh ok, a bottle of water..

More snow was found:

More snow

After this the kids all needed to go to the toilet, fortunately we were right near one.  Unfortunately, somehow Alana managed to drop her glove into the toilet ("Before I went" - she repeated several times as she tried to hand me the sopping wet glove).  Eventually Kris managed to get it dry over one of the warming fires while I ordered a set of Churros.

Next post - Tomte's workshop