Hansa-Park Reviews 107

Difficult to find once you enter the parking area. I was lucky to meet a few other travelers there. Otherwise a ghost town. Friendly when they arrived. Make sure to call them ahead of arrival to announce your transfer. When picked up after I called, we were asked to compromise two seats by having two small kids sit on our labs to make room for other travelers. Not okay. Not safe.

I’m now cueing for my 5th attraction. Yep, you read that right, 4 attractions in 6 hours! If I’m lucky I’ll get to squeeze in one more before closing timme at 18.00(!). But that’s pretty much it. No eating, except for the fruit I brought in my backpack, no cotton candy, no popcorn, slush or whatever, only cues cues and more cues, waiting 40-70 minutes for 1-2 minute rides.

My husband and kids have done pretty much the same even though they’ve targeted kids’ attractions. Their highlight (read: low point) was a toss up between the candy floss not opening until 16.00 and waiting 20 minutes in line for pommes frites and sausages - explained as they finally reached the counter by the poor Hansa-park “family”-member being all alone in there with payments, serving, cooking and refilling.

I’ve spent my cueing time thinking about things you could do if you want your park to receive 5’s instead of 1’s at TripAdvisor and other review pages.

Employ people! Enough personnel will at least ease the cues for food.

Employ the right people! Other than a stuffed animal waving at me (or probably the whole crowd around me) and a attraction operator telling me where to sit, I had no interaction with anyone, no one smiled at me, no one seemed happy either about their life or the work they were doing. Some of them didn’t even bother to do their work, being more interested in their own conversation than trying to fill the six person floaters at Störtebekers with more than two people.

During all this cuing I’ve had plenty of time to come up with ideas of improvement to reduce cuing time at attractions. Please feel free to steal them and realize them for a greater experience for all of your visitors.

Step 1: Limit the number of visitors! In the long run, wouldn’t it be nicer to have satisfied customers returning year after year than once in a lifetime visitors never ever coming back and doing their best to stop others from going?

Step 2: Fill the attractions! People want to ride with their friend(s) and family, I get that. But that means empty seats, loads of them. In Nessie for example an average of two seats a ride are empty. At Kärnan, two empty seats as well in my train. And like previously mentioned two people per boat at Störtebeker is a total disgrace. Now that I’m in line for Highlander I haven’t really counted seats since I’m writing this instead.

Step 3: Drive more than one train! How is it I see an extra Nessie-train just standing there on a side-rail when people are waiting 50 minutes to get a ride? The ride is obviously built for two trains running simultaneously, why isn’t it going at full capacity? If it can’t be done (due to lack of maintenance, staff, or for other security reason) at least let me know by a note or something.

Step 4: Increase opening hours! After traveling through Germany it’s become clear you haven’t bought into the American 24/7 attitude - at all. But how about making an exception, opening an hour earlier for families with small children already up at 7, and closing some hours later for teens and those of us who don’t get to ride everything we’d like to due to lack of time?

Step 5: Add space and/or attractions! Since you don’t spend your earnings on enough employees or long opening hours, perhaps there’s room in your budget for more space and stuff to do to spread the visitors out just a fraction more?

And - if nothing of the above can be done: At least add something to make cuing a bit more fun and like an experience in itself! At Kärnan you have made an attempt at this with a journalist telling the story of Helsingborg’s old tower/castle on three screens as the cue moves forward in a mindnumbingly slow fashion. But it’s boring, I’m sorry to say. And the only other “extra” I’ve seen are mysterious traces of horses in the pavement where I’m standing in line. Don’t know what those are about, maybe there’s a price if you manage to count them all? But hang on, no one will ever be able to since there’s only time for six rides during opening hours …

Eventually getting on Highlander there was a guy calling out for single riders (why not a separate cue for us riding alone?) and thanks to him they actually filled the ride. Cudos! Perhaps time for a promotion for this family member taking his job seriously?

To summarize my experience at Hansa-Park; Kärnan and Highlander are rides worth cueing for, but in my opionion they are the only ones, and if you don’t come to Hansa-Park with children small enough to appreciate bouncy towers and merry-go-rounds don’t bother coming at all.

The park is great with lots of good fairs. I have though never in my life seen a more in-efficient set of staff at the fairs. Without doubt and without compromising safety they could get the double of persons through at the same time we spend in the queue. Do not go here on holiday periods with a lot of people cause your kid's and thus also yourself will be disappointed when you only get to try half of the rides during the day. We were here on a chilly Easter Friday, can only imagine when it's warm and during summer holidays.....