Schwur des Kärnan

Item: Schwur des Kärnan
Rating: 11
Author: Parkrating

Infinity Coaster

Hansa-Park·Gerstlauer·2015

11/10

rides

Ranked

Hansa-Park#1/ 6 Gerstlauer#1/ 14 Worldwide#3/ 111

Ridden

4times

Detailed Standings

Photos (4)

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Highs and lows

Highs

Insane theming and Immersion
The Kärnan Tower
Demented First Drop
Insanity on Wheels

Lows

May Feature a Rattle

The numbers

78.9mph

Top speed

239.5ft

Height

4,052ft

Length

Inversions

Our review

Introduction

Schwur des Kärnan is a 2015 Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster at Hansa-Park, Germany. It is themed to the real history of King Erik VI (Erik Menved), a ruthless Danish king who built the Kärnan tower in Helsingborg to defend against rebellions. But as with so many other aspects of Kärnan, the park has twisted the true story into something dark and mysterious, weaving in magic spells and trapped souls.
It is almost morbid to think that a coaster of this size and magnitude sits in what was originally a Legoland park, as Kärnan is about as far removed from a typical Legoland attraction as you can possibly get. Whatever made this - at the time - smaller regional park decide to build this towering behemoth of a ride, we will never know - but we will forever be grateful for it.

Are you scared yet?

Depending on the route you take through Hansa-Park, you could very well walk past Novgorod and believe it to be Kärnan, given its green Gerstlauer track and large tower structure. But once you actually stand before Kärnan, there will be no doubt. Its gigantic tower dwarfs everything around it, while the track shoots out from the opening and forms a chaotic mess of a coaster layout.
Schwur des Kärnan - meaning "The Oath of Kärnan" - isn't just here to thrill. It is probably one of the most immersive and well-themed coasters outside of a Disney or Universal park, featuring a long, winding climb around - and eventually into - the massive tower. Everything is dark, atmospheric, and impressively executed. The queue even features several pre-shows, including a room where you must put all - and we mean all - of your loose articles into a pass-through baggage system.
All in all, it is one of the most impressive, immersive, and straight-up intimidating pre-boarding experiences available anywhere in the world.

The Sorting Ritual

To complete your pre-boarding experience, you are ushered into a sorting room that works very much like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter - though whether your personality is actually taken into consideration has yet to be confirmed. You don't just walk up to a gate; you are assigned your row in the most dramatic, over-the-top fashion possible. The room goes dark, loud music swells, and shifting lights bounce around the floor like a mystical roulette wheel. The lights finally stop, highlighting one group of four people and then illuminating the specific door that leads to their assigned row.
This means there is strictly assigned seating on Kärnan and no, you cannot ask the gods of the spirit world for another row, and you cannot wait for the next dispatch. Whatever the spell chooses for you is what you get. Because the ride rigorously enforces full 16-person trains, this is also one of the few coasters in the world where you run a real risk of your party being split up. Even a group of two can find themselves separated if they are the last ones left in the sorting room and the only remaining spots are scattered single seats in different rows.
It is yet another moment where Kärnan finds an excuse to do things its own extravagant way, and while it might not be the most practical, we absolutely love it.

Contains ride spoilers

One Lift to Rule them All

Finally, we get to the actual ride experience, which starts off just as mysterious and intimidating as the queue and overall presentation have dictated so far. After a small dip into the darkness ahead, you turn left and come face to face with the foot of Kärnan's gigantic vertical lift. All you see is the dimly lit track turning 90 degrees upward into the unknown. Perhaps this is where it truly hits you: you are about to ascend a 240-foot vertical lift hill in the dark, dangling on your back with nothing but a lap bar to hold you in.
As you climb the massive lift inside the pitch-black tower, with only a bit of light coming from the very top, you eventually come face to face with the spirit of the dead King Erik VI, who rudely curses at you in German.
Then, without warning, the train suddenly releases, plummeting vertically backward down the lift hill in complete darkness before catching near the bottom. After a short, suspenseful delay, you once again begin your ascent - but this time, you continue all the way to the top. A sliver of light crests the peak, highlighting the end of your tower-crawling journey before the real madness begins.

Contains ride spoilers

Like a Bat out of Hell

Okay, enough with the unique, immersive, and mysterious - this is where the ride goes full Gerstlauer. First, we have one of the most insane first drops on planet Earth. As you are swung over the crest of the lift, you cruise down a short ramp before the track just sort of disappears beneath you. As you hit this drop, you get flung out of your seat and thrown toward the wall as the track suddenly twists to the side. It's almost like a rodeo bull violently kicking you upward and sideways. If you enjoy thrilling drops and airtime, it doesn't get much more up your alley than this.
You then plummet all the way down the massive tower, shooting out of the large opening and into the daylight like a bat out of hell. You are simultaneously blinded by the sudden sun hitting your face and subjected to crushing positive Gs - and yes, even some rattling.
The rest of Kärnan's layout alternates between violently throwing you to the side, then up, then to the other side - rinse and repeat. There is some seriously deadly whip on this coaster, and the two major airtime moments deliver what can best be described as "catapult airtime."
This is the sort of layout that you can truly feel in your bones once you step off the train. Some people will claim it to be roughness, but for us, we qualify this as pure intensity - insanity, even.

Conclusion

For a manufacturer as polarizing as Gerstlauer, Kärnan truly is their magnum opus. It delivers everything you would expect from a great Gerstlauer, but at a scale never seen before (and rarely seen since). Naturally, it remains divisive; some riders genuinely dislike this coaster, while others are massive fans. Given our review, it is probably no huge surprise which side we find ourselves on.
Kärnan isn't just a roller coaster or a theme park ride - it is a heavily packaged experience within a genre that is almost non-existent. It is a massive, deeply immersive, and ultra-intense coaster that features several unique, never-before-seen elements and a ride experience completely unlike any other. Love it or hate it, you have to hand it to Kärnan: it completely succeeded in what it set out to do, and it definitely won us over, hook, line, and sinker.

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