Choosing to visit theme parks abroad can be very costly when it comes down to booking flights, hotels and means of transport to get there. It can leave you staring at your bank account in shock after flying home due to it costing way more than expected. However, I have found a way to get park entry for both Gröna Lund in Stockholm and Kolmården on the outskirts of Stockholm completely free and legitimate. Read on to find out how..
Being A Member of Either the European Coaster Club or Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain
The trick to get this deal is by owning either of these memberships where a ECC annual membership will cost you £29 for 12 months as a UK resident and a RCCGB membership will cost only £16 for the year. One of the many benefits of owning either membership is that upon showing your membership to Guest Services at either park, you will receive free entry to both parks for 1 day every 12 months per membership. This is a fantastic deal so please do spend generously when inside the park or at the gift shop to show your appreciation for it.
Getting There
Now, getting to Gröna Lund is the easy part as it is in the city centre of Stockholm similar to how Tivoli Gardens is at the centre of Copenhagen. You can fly from UK airports such as London Stansted or Birmingham to Stockholm Arlanda for cheap with Ryanair for as little as £15 one way and then it’s a 15 minute train into the city centre. Once there it’s a 13 minute tram to the front entrance of the park. So it’s even possible to extreme day trip this for very cheap if you’re only paying for the flights for around £40 return! With 6 coasters (and a 7th one opening in 2027), this can be a very cost-effective European theme park trip to do!
Kolmården however isn’t the simplest park to get to as it is completely in the middle of nowhere. Again, it makes sense to fly into Stockholm Arlanda as this is the nearest airport (and Sweden’s biggest) with many budget airlines flying here from the UK. You can also twin this with a day at Gröna Lund to make it a very cheap Swedish park trip.
Renting a car would make getting there a whole lot simpler, however it takes roughly the same time to get here by car as it does train so to make things easier it’s probably better (and cheaper when including fuel and paying for parking) to ease the stress of renting a car and make it more relaxing. It’s 1hr 30 mins on the train from Stockholm Central station to Kolmården station where it’s then a 12 minute drive to the park where you can either Uber/taxi it or get the park shuttle bus which runs every half an hour.
Summary
This seems like a fantastic 1 or 2 day trip to do to Sweden where you get to ride some well-regarded coasters such as Monster at Gröna Lund and Wildfire at Kolmården by only paying for the return flights and transport costs (or hotel if doing both parks over a couple days).
Kolmården is a big bucket-list park for a lot of people with it having an RMC in a safari park basically in the middle of nowhere where not many people would travel that far for just one coaster. If you’re an animal lover then this makes it even more worthwhile as they have a huge array of animals such as bears, lions and leopards which still makes it a fun day out away from the 3 coasters they have there.
The main thing to take away from this promotion is joining a very prestigious club being either the ECC or RCCGB where I’d recommend still taking use of the membership by attending their great social events, exclusive park hire and other discounts/promotions that you gain as a member. It’s highly worth the price for an annual membership just for these!
In total, you can do this trip to Sweden for as little as £16 (RCCGB annual membership for entry to both parks) + £30 (return flights with Ryanair to Stockholm Arlanda) so looking around at roughly £50 total per person! Fuel costs and/or airport parking for the UK and train travel in Sweden must also be factored into this too of course.
If you need any help, advice or tips booking a trip, feel free to reach out and I can see what I can do 🙂
Dan
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