Shaggy_Dog_
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Ride To Happiness
As a lover of multi-launch coasters and a big fan of both Helix and Taron (number 2 and 3 in my rankings respectively) I'd been very interested in riding Taiga to see how it stacked up against them and whether or not it could even be a potential #1 over Ride To Happiness. Helsinki was a city that I had long been wanting to visit, so when I saw a return tickets with Ryanair from Stansted for £70 I snapped them up and began to look forward to my trip to the city and Linnanmaki.
Helsinki Airport is really nice, and being in Finland it has a lovely Nordic charm to it. The Moomin Cafe was sadly closed though when I arrived at midnight.
Getting in to Helsikini itself is very easy, the 600 bus from right outside the airport runs 24 hours and costs a very reasonable €4.10. My accomadation was the inexpensive CheapSleep Hostel located about a 16 minute walk from Linnanmaki itself.
Linnanmaki is a free entry amusement park and I paid €51 (£44) for a ride wrsitband. Opening hours were a whopping 11am-10pm, though sadly I wouldn't be getting any twilight rides at the end because it doesn't actually get too dark in Helsinki at this time of year owing to how far north it is. I arrived at the park at about 11:30am and made my way straight to Taiga.... only to find that it was closed. Damn. I chatted to the ride host and they explained that it had opened late the day before and that hopefully it should be running later. I decided that I'd head to Vuoristorata, the park's 1951 woodie which is a near clone of Rutschebanon at Bakken but still features an onboard brakesman, but that was closed as well. So I joined the queue for Kirnu, the Intamin Zacspin. I'd heard some mixed reviews of this ride and wasn't quite sure what to expect but I really enjoyed it. It's short but quite a forceful ride. I experienced it first facing backwards going over the drop but I think it's actually better going forwards as when you reach the top it builds up the anticipation for the drop nicely in a dive coaster kind of way as you tilt forwards over it. I'm suprised that there aren't more of these around, it's a very compact ride and I think it's a better experience than something like a Reverchon Spinner, though I suspect that the throughput isn't too great on these. The name Kirnu is Finnish for "churn" and you can get a really good flip and spin on the last bend.
I headed to Ukko next, the Maurer Sky Loop. I hadn't ridden G-Force at Drayton Manor so I wasn't sure what to expect of this and it's beyond vertical lift hill, and I think the best way to describe this ride is that it's a bit odd. The restraints are a bit weird and it is a little nerve inducing as the lift hill climbs beyond vertical and you in to being upside down as it carries on and then thunders you down and around it. Unfortunately there's a bit of a jolt as it engages with the hold on the lift hill on the way back up again before it drops you backwards. It's certainly a very interesting experience and a very unique type of coaster but it's not one that you'll be wanting to reride over and over.
Next up was Swingi, the new for 2024 Intamin Gyro Swing.
If you've done Loke at Liseberg you'll know exactly what to expect from this, the lapbars and extra degrees of swing it has over the older models such as Maelstrom at Drayton Manor make for an outstanding ride. The restaints give you a lovely free floaty feeling, and at the apex of each swing the views out over Helsinki's harbours are astonishing and make up for the lack of close ride interaction that Loke has with Balder (where you feel as though you are going to smash in to it). Sadly though the operations on Swingi are awful. The time between each cycyle is so long that you actually wonder if the ride has stopped operating. As I went on it several times throughout the day I did wonder if the slow operations were perhaps actually deliberately so, in perhaps as it is a new ride were the park deliberately wanting to reduce the number of cycles it runs throughout the day by slowing down it's loading procedure to an absolute crawl? However the ride itself is fantastic, nice and forceful, and during my first ride on it as I was swinging through the air I was happy to see that Vuoristorata had now opened. The park has a drop tower Kingi right next to Swingi which gives a great view of the park and Vuoristorata and there is also an observation tower ride Panoraama where you really appreciate it's layout and get some nice pictures of it.
I made sure that I sat right at the back of the train in front of the brakeman for my first ride and whilst it was fun I have to admit to being a tiny bit dissapointed by it initially. It's not as wild as Rutschebanon at Tivoli Gardens, nor does it feel as fast as it's sister ride at Bakken. I did suspect that it would warm up and get faster as the day went on and I had multiple rides on it but unfortunately it didn't seem to that much. I think that the brakemen were perhaps operating it in slightly conservative way and not letting it tear around the track. My rides in the back were fun enough but riding near the front there is one absolutely shocking moment of ejector airtime that (literally) completely throws you. The nice high buzz bars mean that if you are sitting in the right place you'll practically be up on your feet at that spot. It's a good ride, certainly much more comfortable than Bakken's but you just wish it could go that tad faster.
Salama the Maurer Spinner wasn't bad, less spinny than Spinball or Dragons Fury but much more comfortable to ride. However the park's Mack "E-Motion" model wild mouse coaster Tulireki isn't great, it's quite jolty and a little painful, you can see why only two of them were ever built, a standard wild mouse would have been much better.
One good thing about Tulireki is that it gives you a nice view of Taiga's second launch and top hat and it was at this point I saw that people were now on the ride. I very eagerly made my way over to it and after a 20 minute wait (by far the longest of the day) I was on it. I sat at the back, waited for the first launch, and it's safe to say that the ride not disappoint.
The launch is nice and punchy, definitely better than Mack's launches, and whilst it doesn't have the sheer face pinning force or speed of a hydraulic launch it get's you moving and in to it's first inversion. The pacing of the ride is fantastic, with another inversion quickly following andf then a twisty Taron-esque section before it launches you over the top hat and it's here that the ride really shines. The back rows are forceful and whip you over but sitting at the front here gives you some lovely floatergoing in to a relentless series of elements with some force to them. It's a brilliant ride and one that I'd experience many more times over the course of the day in order to fully form an opinion of it and where it ranked. But yeah, it's very good.
The park has a couple of fast food outlet, for dinner I got a meal that consisted of fries topped with sliced vegan sausage and some green relish, very nice.
If you need to go and get any supplies during your day there is also a handy Alepa supermarket that is a short walk of around 7 minutes away from the parks lower entrance. After my food I had some more rerides on both Taiga and Vuoristorata. I also rode the rapids which are good, they look as though they are going to soak you with their waterfalls but won;t actually get you too wet, and I rode the Mack powered coaster Pikajuna which was ok but certainly no Runaway Mine Train. The park has a very bizarre dark ride Taikasirkus which is clown themed and you sit in these suspended carraiges. It's actually a lot of fun and it's good to go on a dark ride that just features good old fashioned animatronic models and physical props. Even better was Kyopelinvuoren Hoteli, a bizarre dark ride through a witches hotel which is very funny indeed and a must ride at the park.
Linunrata Extra is an enclosed Zierer Force family coaster located inside the park's iconic former water tower. It features optional VR headsets, I chose to ride without one and I enjoyed the ride, the interior has a space theme that reminded me somewhat of the very hazy memories I have of Space Station Zero. It's a fun ride, nothing earth shattering but it's the kind of nicely presented ride that kids would love.
Coming in to the last few hours of the park I decided to session Taiga. I tried a wide variety of seats and I think that third row from the back gives the most forceful experiences. As the ride warms up during the day it kicks up a notch and becomes near greyout inducing in places. One little problem though is that the first ride feels like it's launching you in to the sun due to the position of the track and first element relative to the sun in the sky so it's a bit of a squinter. I must have had around twenty rides on it throughout the day, and it was walk on for most of the final hour. It's really hard to stack it up against Taron and Helix. For sure it's the most intense out of the three and by some margin. I've not ridden Velocicoaster yet but I'd imagine that might be a very good comparison to it, obviously without the killer theming and with a more compact layout. Taiga doesn't waste a single moment of it's ride time, unlike Taron which peters out in it's final quarter. Yet I found myself thinking that Taron feels much more of an event than Taiga due to the near miss feeling of it's rockwork and trenches. And I found that Taiga didn't quite have the epic sense of scale that Helix does with how that ride uses it's hillside location so spectacularly and interacts with both Lisebergbanon and the flume. Overall I'd say that Taiga is definitely a top tier ride though and actually feels like a cross between Helix and Taron with an RMC-ish sense of pacing. It's a very good ride indeed.
And at 10pm as the park closed and the sun finally decided to start thinking about setting you realise what a beautiful park Linnanmaki is and how lovely the atmosphere here is.
Helsinki Airport is really nice, and being in Finland it has a lovely Nordic charm to it. The Moomin Cafe was sadly closed though when I arrived at midnight.
Getting in to Helsikini itself is very easy, the 600 bus from right outside the airport runs 24 hours and costs a very reasonable €4.10. My accomadation was the inexpensive CheapSleep Hostel located about a 16 minute walk from Linnanmaki itself.
Linnanmaki is a free entry amusement park and I paid €51 (£44) for a ride wrsitband. Opening hours were a whopping 11am-10pm, though sadly I wouldn't be getting any twilight rides at the end because it doesn't actually get too dark in Helsinki at this time of year owing to how far north it is. I arrived at the park at about 11:30am and made my way straight to Taiga.... only to find that it was closed. Damn. I chatted to the ride host and they explained that it had opened late the day before and that hopefully it should be running later. I decided that I'd head to Vuoristorata, the park's 1951 woodie which is a near clone of Rutschebanon at Bakken but still features an onboard brakesman, but that was closed as well. So I joined the queue for Kirnu, the Intamin Zacspin. I'd heard some mixed reviews of this ride and wasn't quite sure what to expect but I really enjoyed it. It's short but quite a forceful ride. I experienced it first facing backwards going over the drop but I think it's actually better going forwards as when you reach the top it builds up the anticipation for the drop nicely in a dive coaster kind of way as you tilt forwards over it. I'm suprised that there aren't more of these around, it's a very compact ride and I think it's a better experience than something like a Reverchon Spinner, though I suspect that the throughput isn't too great on these. The name Kirnu is Finnish for "churn" and you can get a really good flip and spin on the last bend.
I headed to Ukko next, the Maurer Sky Loop. I hadn't ridden G-Force at Drayton Manor so I wasn't sure what to expect of this and it's beyond vertical lift hill, and I think the best way to describe this ride is that it's a bit odd. The restraints are a bit weird and it is a little nerve inducing as the lift hill climbs beyond vertical and you in to being upside down as it carries on and then thunders you down and around it. Unfortunately there's a bit of a jolt as it engages with the hold on the lift hill on the way back up again before it drops you backwards. It's certainly a very interesting experience and a very unique type of coaster but it's not one that you'll be wanting to reride over and over.
Next up was Swingi, the new for 2024 Intamin Gyro Swing.
If you've done Loke at Liseberg you'll know exactly what to expect from this, the lapbars and extra degrees of swing it has over the older models such as Maelstrom at Drayton Manor make for an outstanding ride. The restaints give you a lovely free floaty feeling, and at the apex of each swing the views out over Helsinki's harbours are astonishing and make up for the lack of close ride interaction that Loke has with Balder (where you feel as though you are going to smash in to it). Sadly though the operations on Swingi are awful. The time between each cycyle is so long that you actually wonder if the ride has stopped operating. As I went on it several times throughout the day I did wonder if the slow operations were perhaps actually deliberately so, in perhaps as it is a new ride were the park deliberately wanting to reduce the number of cycles it runs throughout the day by slowing down it's loading procedure to an absolute crawl? However the ride itself is fantastic, nice and forceful, and during my first ride on it as I was swinging through the air I was happy to see that Vuoristorata had now opened. The park has a drop tower Kingi right next to Swingi which gives a great view of the park and Vuoristorata and there is also an observation tower ride Panoraama where you really appreciate it's layout and get some nice pictures of it.
I made sure that I sat right at the back of the train in front of the brakeman for my first ride and whilst it was fun I have to admit to being a tiny bit dissapointed by it initially. It's not as wild as Rutschebanon at Tivoli Gardens, nor does it feel as fast as it's sister ride at Bakken. I did suspect that it would warm up and get faster as the day went on and I had multiple rides on it but unfortunately it didn't seem to that much. I think that the brakemen were perhaps operating it in slightly conservative way and not letting it tear around the track. My rides in the back were fun enough but riding near the front there is one absolutely shocking moment of ejector airtime that (literally) completely throws you. The nice high buzz bars mean that if you are sitting in the right place you'll practically be up on your feet at that spot. It's a good ride, certainly much more comfortable than Bakken's but you just wish it could go that tad faster.
Salama the Maurer Spinner wasn't bad, less spinny than Spinball or Dragons Fury but much more comfortable to ride. However the park's Mack "E-Motion" model wild mouse coaster Tulireki isn't great, it's quite jolty and a little painful, you can see why only two of them were ever built, a standard wild mouse would have been much better.
One good thing about Tulireki is that it gives you a nice view of Taiga's second launch and top hat and it was at this point I saw that people were now on the ride. I very eagerly made my way over to it and after a 20 minute wait (by far the longest of the day) I was on it. I sat at the back, waited for the first launch, and it's safe to say that the ride not disappoint.
The launch is nice and punchy, definitely better than Mack's launches, and whilst it doesn't have the sheer face pinning force or speed of a hydraulic launch it get's you moving and in to it's first inversion. The pacing of the ride is fantastic, with another inversion quickly following andf then a twisty Taron-esque section before it launches you over the top hat and it's here that the ride really shines. The back rows are forceful and whip you over but sitting at the front here gives you some lovely floatergoing in to a relentless series of elements with some force to them. It's a brilliant ride and one that I'd experience many more times over the course of the day in order to fully form an opinion of it and where it ranked. But yeah, it's very good.The park has a couple of fast food outlet, for dinner I got a meal that consisted of fries topped with sliced vegan sausage and some green relish, very nice.
If you need to go and get any supplies during your day there is also a handy Alepa supermarket that is a short walk of around 7 minutes away from the parks lower entrance. After my food I had some more rerides on both Taiga and Vuoristorata. I also rode the rapids which are good, they look as though they are going to soak you with their waterfalls but won;t actually get you too wet, and I rode the Mack powered coaster Pikajuna which was ok but certainly no Runaway Mine Train. The park has a very bizarre dark ride Taikasirkus which is clown themed and you sit in these suspended carraiges. It's actually a lot of fun and it's good to go on a dark ride that just features good old fashioned animatronic models and physical props. Even better was Kyopelinvuoren Hoteli, a bizarre dark ride through a witches hotel which is very funny indeed and a must ride at the park.
Linunrata Extra is an enclosed Zierer Force family coaster located inside the park's iconic former water tower. It features optional VR headsets, I chose to ride without one and I enjoyed the ride, the interior has a space theme that reminded me somewhat of the very hazy memories I have of Space Station Zero. It's a fun ride, nothing earth shattering but it's the kind of nicely presented ride that kids would love.
Coming in to the last few hours of the park I decided to session Taiga. I tried a wide variety of seats and I think that third row from the back gives the most forceful experiences. As the ride warms up during the day it kicks up a notch and becomes near greyout inducing in places. One little problem though is that the first ride feels like it's launching you in to the sun due to the position of the track and first element relative to the sun in the sky so it's a bit of a squinter. I must have had around twenty rides on it throughout the day, and it was walk on for most of the final hour. It's really hard to stack it up against Taron and Helix. For sure it's the most intense out of the three and by some margin. I've not ridden Velocicoaster yet but I'd imagine that might be a very good comparison to it, obviously without the killer theming and with a more compact layout. Taiga doesn't waste a single moment of it's ride time, unlike Taron which peters out in it's final quarter. Yet I found myself thinking that Taron feels much more of an event than Taiga due to the near miss feeling of it's rockwork and trenches. And I found that Taiga didn't quite have the epic sense of scale that Helix does with how that ride uses it's hillside location so spectacularly and interacts with both Lisebergbanon and the flume. Overall I'd say that Taiga is definitely a top tier ride though and actually feels like a cross between Helix and Taron with an RMC-ish sense of pacing. It's a very good ride indeed.
And at 10pm as the park closed and the sun finally decided to start thinking about setting you realise what a beautiful park Linnanmaki is and how lovely the atmosphere here is.
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