Dirk's huge USA tour - 4th Edition (BGW update)

Nice Pictures. There are actually for Superman clones, I think. I know There are 3 at Six Flags parks, and one in China.

[Dirk_Ermen]

1st & 2nd of June: Cedar Point

On the First of June we drove first roughly 6 hours to Cedar Point. After checking in at our hotel we arrived around 6pm at the park. A little later than expected. But we drove through a time zone boarder so it was suddenly one hour later on the clock. But that didn't ruin the fun on the first day.



After getting our Platinum Passes we went first to the tallest coaster of the park. Since construction of this damn thing I wanted to ride it. Even tho it's extremely short, it should be pretty awesome.



The queue was just under 30 minutes. Every step closer to the gates at the station made my heart go faster with another bpm. Eventually it was time. We got into the 2nd row of the train and waited to get launched. Adrenaline was pumping, which has been a long time ago that something like that actually happened to me when riding a new coaster... Train moved slightly backwards, which means it just hooked onto the launch system. No countdown, lights went on in a flash and not even an eye blink further we were launched off. The launch was super, not on acceleration g's. But on duration, it was awesome to just keep on going faster and faster. At the moment when you went up it was over before you'd realize it. It's weird that you'd barely notice the height on the ride, Especially the first time. We've also ridden the ride entirely frontseat and entirely backseat. The view frontseat is just great. The wind of the speed in your face, and also the look into the spiral. Beautiful!
Overall Opinion: Top Thrill Dragster is an awesome ride when it comes to it's launch. The view is great when you look into a different directions than the rest of the train. But the ride is just too short. During both days the queues were always around a 30 minutes wait. Actually still a little too long for just a 25 second ride, but I doubt there are many days that this ride would run with a shorter queue.

326: Top Thrill Dragster



After TTD we went to the 2nd tallest ride of the park: Millennium Force! Also known as Millennium Forceless to some people. Well, time to find out if that's really true! The queue for this ride was also around 30 minutes on both days. We did our first ride on the 2nd row of the ride. We didn't want to wait another extra 10-15 minutes for the complete front row. Plus the cars have staged seating anyhow, so we also get to see something more than just 2 seats. The cable lift was fast. Near the top it even accelerated even more. The drop was very cool, after that. The ride is just complete speed sensation. Wind blowing in your face and trees flying by with 93mph. The first hill provided front seat a very nice floater air, just to continue to some nice turns, some with even a little more power than expected. The 2nd hill that's right next to the first hill gave about the same force. Also around floater air. A cool tunnel was next, to follow up with a really fun ejector in the front seat. My guess the G's were around -0.3 / -0.4g on that final hill next to the queue. One more powerful turn later and your being slowed down again by the final brakes.
Overall opinion: The ride is tons of fun, don't expect a lot of airtime since then you're being majorly disappointed. This ride is all about the sensation of speed. I personally loved the ride but it doesn't beat any of the rides in my top 10.

327: Millennium Force



Mantis was next to Millennium Force so that was going up next for me. Heard some bad stories like that this ride was pretty rough. But from my experience in the backseat, it wasn't that bad. I did had the outside seat so a little headbanging was in place but for the rest the ride was a lot of fun. Cool looping, followed up by a dive loop, after that some 270????????? turn into a fun inclined loop. Yeah, cool stuff. One minor point about the ride and that's one of the ride attendants imo. It kept whining about the position of my feet in the stand-up car. I usually put the nose my feet all the way to the front so the seat is a little lower than when I'm standing perfectly straight up. But that ride attendant wanted me to put them all the way back. So it was whining about 4-5inches of distance... Not that she had to pass through or something... She just wants to make everyone stuffer... Oh well, I still managed to get the right seat position tho. I was on time with moving the seat slightly down. So the dongle has been saved from doom.

328: Mantis



We walked all the way to the back of the park. We first wanted to ride Gemini but apparently it broke down around the end of the day. Let's hope I can still ride the Blue side later on. Oh well, I saw an almost empty train going up on Mean Streak, so that ride was next.
The queue was huge! But the final part of the queue was cool tho, walking underneath a big part of the coaster itself. Station was completely empty. We had a private ride in the front seat. The ride was fun to do. Trim brakes on the drop were hilarious, but from what I've heard they are there to reduce the stress on the bottom of the first drop. Which doesn't really help because they still need to re-track it every year at the end of the year... Airtime, none really there actually. Backseat is even worse. The ride shakes like hell at that spot. All the cars bounce behind that first car. Cool ride in overall, but I've done much better woodies than this...

329: Mean Streak



Maverick is right next to Mean Streak so that was going to be our next and last coaster for the first day. Boy what did this ride surprise me. It blew straight into my Top 10 and ended up on the first spot! Wow, what a ride. I knew a lot about this ride but I never imagined it was this good. The whole ride doesn't give you a slight moment to breathe from the beginning until the end. Ejector air, fast transitions, more ejector, inversions, awesome launch, more airtime, extremely fast stengle dives and even more ejector. Again just wow! I expected to have some pretty uncomfortable experiences when it came to those extremely fast transitions but that wasn't the case at all. We finished our first ride a little over 8pm. Apparently the entrance still was open so we quickly entered again for another final ride. If I've got to recommend a seat. Go somewhere near the back, the ejector air on the first drop is obviously more than in the front seat. Also, the transitions feel much faster and unexpected since you can't look far enough forward to see what's coming next.

330: Maverick



Next day we started with Raptor. Not much to tell about this ride, probably because we rode it in the early entrance and the oil, track, etc was still cold which gave a much slower ride than it would give near the end of the day. Good ride, but it still doesn't kick Katun of my first place on best B&M inverts.

331: Raptor



Corkscrew was the next new ride for me eventually. The airtime hill after the first drop looked pretty fun to me. The ride was like any other typical Arrow Coaster. The hill provided some cool floater air, loop gave some nice g's. But that's about it. Fun ride in overall.

332: Corkscrew



After a walk towards Gemini we walked past Magnum XL-200. We cannot let a ride on that one slip. No queue at that time in the morning so we got a seat in the front. I laughed my arse of after the turnaround. The airtime was brutal and fun at the same time. Mom didn't think the same about it tho. She hated the roughness of the airtime. Very fun ride, didn't took the time to ride it in the backseat. So I can't compare it yet.

333: Magnum XL-200



Now it was on to Gemini. On our way we walked past Jr. Gemini. It was too quiet at the moment to give me a ride. Later on if there were more kids they were going to see if they could give me a ride. Awesome!!! Let's first ride it's bigger brother than. I saw both sides running early in the morning, so I hoped that both sides would have been open. But later on I saw only the Red side running today. Not enough people in the park was the response on having the Blue side currently closed. Oh well, than it's just having my hopes high up for tomorrow on riding the blue side. The ride was fun, started in the front seat with a ride. Cool airtime going up the hills and turns but that about the only thing. I doubt I will experience the ride running with both sides since without that, it completely misses the point of having a racing coaster.

334: Gemini Red Side



I spy a Vekoma Junior hidden between the trees. So time to ride that one. Seatbelts on a kiddy, with even a protection that you cannot open the seatbelts yourself! Way to make it kiddy proof. [:D] I gave the operator a good laugh for the day when I was like the only one cheering and stuff in the train. Played tons with that bell of course. Like I always do at our local kiddy coaster at Toverland. [:D] The ride was fun. I think this was a mirrored version of the woody woodpecker at Universal Orlando. The operator was also cool to let the ride go on twice. [:)]

335: Woodstock's Express


(Notice the thrill rating... )

We walked back towards Jr Gemini because I saw it running with almost a full train of little rascals! I arrived on the spot and I was allowed to ride. W00t! Mom was also allowed to join on.
Boy what are those seats small! No wonder there is a height restriction. With a bit of bending and flexing my legs I fitted in the restraint. Now only that seatbelt left, which was just large enough for me to close it. Woohoo! [:D] Mom did had some bad luck tho, she couldn't get it closed so no ride for her... Just when the train was about to dispatch they received a call... ...the thunderstorm for today was too close now and they had to close the ride. ARGHH!!! So close on riding it!



Because of the Thunderstorm that was rumbling all the coasters were closed for about 2 hours. Rain made it also hard for some coasters to re-open quickly again, so we just strolled around the park and did nothing special except shooting some photo's.



Eventually we arrived at Disaster Transport, the storm was over at this point and we heard some cars doing test runs. A small queue was already formed at the entrance of this ride and we joined the queue. A couple minutes later, entrance went open and people entered the ride. A short wait of under 15 minutes gave us a ride in one of the few Intamin Bobsleds out there on the planet. The theming was pretty cool but that's about it. I totally missed the drift-feeling of the cars on this ride. So this ride just obtained the 2nd place out of 2, in my Intamin Bobsled ranking.

336: Disaster Transport



Most of the rides were open again so it was time for us to pay a visit next door at Wicked Twister. Again a short queue of under 15 minutes and we took place in the backseat. The front spike wasn't anything special really, but the back spike was pretty cool. I dunno why but having the spin experience on the front spike didn't really do much to me. (I'm comparing to V2 right now.) But having it on the back spike was awesome. Probably because you are looking straight down and see the world rotate is much more affecting than seeing a sky rotate... But still, as Intamin impulse shuttles this ride doesn't kick out the 45????????? angle roll in SFDK. This ride obtained the 2nd place above the Intamin Impulse shuttles with one twist. [:)]

337: Wicked Twister



I'd still had to ride another wooden coaster at this park. One that's a bit older and looks much better than Mean Streak. Yeah, I'm talking about Blue Streak! Tiny wooden out 'n back Rollercoaster with some cool airtime hills. We did a ride near the front seat and it was loads of fun. Some great airtime and didn't lost it's pace on the straight ends.

338: Blue Streak



We did some more walking around the park and eventually ended up at the Arrow Mine Train in the park. Like with every Arrow coaster you can see their shaping issues and where it's going to give their lateral bumps. I expected a longer ride but it was fun for the credit. [:)]

339: Cedar Creek Mine Ride



Since we were at the back side of the park again, I gave a try on Jr Gemini again. Got once again permission from the Ride Opp and after strapping myself in. I was good to go! [:D] 2 girls also came into the queue because they saw me strapping myself in on the ride. They got told off that they were too tall. As soon as they asked why I got allowed, they got as an answer that 'I was a special case.' Awesome staff! They even gave me 2 laps on this coaster!

340: Jr. Gemini



Only 2 rides left that are currently open today and up next as new one is a Swarchkopf Classic. The wildcat! I love these classic rides, they are fun and if well maintained: Smooth! This one fell under the well maintained category. Lovely ride, too bad the queue was a little too long for my tastes, or else I would have gone for another ride. That abrupt final brake is awesome! [:D]

341: Wildcat



Final new coaster left for today. An Arrow Suspended coaster. Haven't ridden too many of these yet so more ride experience on these rides are always welcome. The straight first drop was cool, but the first part of the ride was too much controlled on banking. Hardly any swinging experience at all. The 2nd part of the ride was cool, some really nice swinging interaction but on the final brakes I found out why the first part barely swung... They controlled their swinging too much, with a lot of pistons... I could understand why, because the 2nd part could end up with some crazy swinging without a couple of those pistons... Still a fun ride. [:)]

342: Iron Dragon



After this we've ridden some of the better rides we've also ridden on the 1st day. Tomorrow to the park for a couple hours and then off to Waldameer. Can't wait!

[Dirk_Ermen]

3rd June 2010 - Cedar Point and Waldameer

Today was the day for me to ride my very first Gravity Group woodie. But first we were going to use our early entry access to Cedar Point. For a couple more coasters. Also, I'd still had to ride the Blue side on Gemini in order to have ridden all Rollercoasters in Cedar Point.



We entered the park a little later than 9am. No big deal. All the people with early entry were probably around MF and Maverick, so I've ridden Raptor twice in a row. Both rides in the back row. Still a cool ride. After that I wanted to ride Maverick a bunch more times, so we walked towards the back of the park. Slowly rides started testing again since it was already 9:30am. When we arrived at Maverick I was surprised about the length of the queue. Barely none! It was more like a get in the queue, walk 2 minutes and wait 3 minutes for the next train. Eventually I've ridden it 5 times in a row. Too bad about Cedar Fair's policy that you cannot stay seated. I've had a couple moments where I'd easily could stay seated.



When I got off after my 5th ride the park was open and we headed back towards Gemini. I wanted to see if they had opened the Red side, Blue side or maybe even both sides... When I walked past the ride it was only running the Red side. Awwww! Off to Magnum XL-200 instead. I haven't ridden it backseat yet, so it was a backseat ride for me. Cool ride, much more gentle on the transitions.



Mom wanted to ride TTD at least one more time, so we did that. 30 minute queue. Not too bad. During queuing I suddenly saw Gemini running both sides! Yes! So after a ride on the dragster I did a sprint towards Gemini. It wasn't crowded at all at the ride, I just could get in and go! I guess the predictions of the crowd today were enough to open both sides.
The racing effect was pretty cool, but I noticed the red lift hill was sped up a little bit, so red side eventually won... [lol] We did a ride in the front car. But there was a pretty annoying kid behind us yelling how the race went... >.<'' I could close my eyes and I still would know if our train was the winning or the losing one...

343: Gemini Blue Side



After that ride it was definitely off to Waldameer, finally to my first Gravity Group woodie! But Waldameer isn't really a park just around the corner of Cedar Point. We had to drive roughly 3 hours before we got there. Eventually we arrived around 4:30pm. That means 4 hours at Waldameer to ride everything that we want.



We payed our wristbands of $ 20,95 each and got in to ride the coasters. Just behind the cashiers the first coaster was there. Looking at it, it reminded me of Little Dipper at SFGA. But during the ride I noticed it was a longer version with extra dips and hills. Cool! Later on I rode it again and asked permission to shoot an onride video. No problems with the fella so I got on and shot a nice onride of this classic. [:)]

344: Comet



I spotted Ravine Flyer II in the distance so I walked over there. The biggest and best parts of this ride are hidden away from sight. I spotted the 90????????? banked turn already in the queueline. I started out with a ride in the front seat. There was no queue at all so that made me a happy guy. We were off and came onto the lift, a nice view became visible over the lake. The drop looked pretty steep and we gained some great speed of that. Flying with a really nice light ejector over the first hill and then we flew into some quick turns. Climbing up did cost a lot of speed and kinda made it lose it's pace that early. Another steep drop and the pace was all back again. Flying back over the bridged airtime hill. The drop continued into a cool tunnel which was pretty cool and unexpected. Only to find 2 more cool airtime hills after that tunnel. Then the turn went back up to the visible part and this is where it slightly starts to lose it's speed again. Still good enough to keep it's pace... just... Some nice turns and hills into place taken with all slightly more than floater air. The 90????????? banked turn was up next and didn't really add ANYTHING to the ride. It was cool to see how it rode without any lateral hangtime or whatsoever... The final time getting some cool speed and then it's pacing was gone. Trying to keep up with some mini hills that gave some nice floater but the speed was just too far gone... A turn and then brakes were up next.
The brakes also braked really awkward, everytime the front car reached a brake. It locked and than unlocked again. So with about 3-4 stops and releases the brakes weren't the most comfortable brakes...
Overall Ravine Flyer II is a very good ride. The ride starting from the first drop towards about 2/3rd of the ride is awesome. I just absolutely loved the long hill over the bridge, diving into that tunnel and following it up again with 2 more short pops of air. But the ride just feels in too many over-calculated like a newton coaster. Perfect constant airtime over various hills. Also it feels too over-calculated because of all that banking. If they took away some of the banking there would be much more lateral G's coming up that would create the true wooden rollercoaster feeling to me. Now there were only lateral G's at some transitions or awkward banked parts.

Ravine Flying entered my top 10, that's for sure. But I'm not sure where to place it yet. Probably around 4th or 5th spot.

345: Ravine Flyer II



Only 2 rides left, as first Ravine Flyer itself. Tiny but fun kiddy coaster. Some hilarious jet coaster banking in this ride.

346: Ravine Flyer 3



The final coaster left in this park was the Maurer S?????????hne Spinning Coaster. This is one of the coasters you could find on the German Fairgrounds. It was fun to do a ride. Managed some good spinning. [:)]

347: Steel Dragon



We've ridden all the coasters, so there was still plenty of time for some flat rides. The freefall was cool, I was surprised how open those seats were... The drop was cool and the stop was very sudden at the bottom. But we've enjoyed it.

Also cool was the Haunted House ride. It plays a bit with visual effects but there weren't many scared in the ride. I laughed my arse off at some of the effects and had respect for the way, how they came up making some effects visible.

Also checked out the pirate funhouse. Wasn't really a funhouse but a walkthrough that had again some visual effects. So another mindf*ck ride. Crooked walls, Crooked floor, some random pirate jokes and more funny stuff.

I finished off my day with a total of 15 rides on the Ravine Flyer II. Also met again someone who I also met yesterday at Cedar Point. That was fun, so we had a good chatter about the ride(s). Apparently Ravine Flyer II was running a bit slow today. But that might be because of the trains. I know another ride that affects ride experience by the difference of the trains. (Grand National)



I had an awesome day today and when I'm writing this I'll be about 45 minutes away from my hotel near Kennywood. Time for some more woodies and from hearing a very good airtime coaster. [:)]

-----------------


How I'm currently sitting here currently posting all the TR's @ 1:30am

Hey Dirk, was great meeting with you at CP and Waldameer. Looking forward to the rest of the updates.

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by Defcon62

Hey Dirk, was great meeting with you at CP and Waldameer. Looking forward to the rest of the updates.

It was cool to meet you! And welcome to Coastercrazy [;)]

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4th June 2010 ????????? Kennywood

Today it was time for a visit to Kennywood. Haven't heard much about this park. I only knew that it had a couple classic woodies and a good steel airtime coaster. We left a little late at our hotel which shouldn't really had been a problem. But the congestion around Pittsburgh made it kinda a problem. Because of some traffic jams and a lot of construction on the road we eventually arrived around noon at the park. The parking lot was very crowded! Damn!
We payed our entry fee and went into the park to check out the first rides. There were queues everywhere! And not small queues, but long ones... Even outside the regular queuelines because they rarely used their zig-zag's...

We joined first the queue from the Thunderbolt. Classic coaster that I only know from photo's. Just when we entered the queueline outside the queue. Kennywood decided to op up ONE zig-zag... When looking at the ride I noticed another thing... They were only running one train! No wonder the queue was that long! After queuing roughly 30 minutes they decided to add a train. Finally they are starting to run a bit capacity!



Now it didn't took long for us to board and obtained a place in the backseat. Usually the best spot on a wooden rollercoaster. Took my camera with me on board. No ride opp said anything about it, so I shot an onride video. [:D]
The ride itself was very cool. Immediately the ride action started when we got dispatched from the station. A drop into the valley with a turnaround just above the ground on the other side, only to dip again after that turnaround. Cool start, when we climbed to the top of the lift the lateral action began. A fun 540????????? curve with some ups and downs. After that an MCBR came and we had a drop into the valley. On both of these drops we had some great floater air. Again: A very awesome ride. Not a ride that would hit my top 10, but definitely worth to have ridden it.

348: Thunderbolt



Up next was the big ass steel coaster. I couldn't remember what seat I had to ride it. So after a 30 minute queue we went all the way backseat. We had some hysterical women in front of us. ?????????I've never been this high before!?????????, ?????????OMG, OMG OMG, Are we there yet??????????, ?????????Arrrgghh!!!?????????. It kept me cracking up through the whole ride. The ride itself was good. Cool first drop, 2nd drop was just crazy because it's all the way down into the valley. Cool turnaround and than finishing off with some great and funny bunny humps. Probably the best Arrow(?) Hyper Coaster I've ridden but definitely not the best steel coaster in overall.

349: Phantom's Revenge



There was some more wood to ride in this park. So we entered the massive queue from the Mobius Racing coaster. Although, I didn't knew it was a mobius coaster until I rode it... This was a very cool classic ride. There need to be more Mobius Coasters around the world. When I entered the queue to ride the other side I read that there were 2 more mobius coasters around the world. The one at Blackpool that I've ridden too and one more at Mexico City. (Next crazy insane trip? [lol]) The racing effect was cool for this compact mobius coaster. I've had a ride somewhere in the middle of the train and also once on the back of the train. Didn't notice really any airtime except for one spot and that's the final drop in the backseat. Another beautiful classic ride to add to my collection.

350: Racer





Still one more wooden coaster left and that's the one with a very awesome logo! Jack Rabbit! Another long queue for this one but the having only seatbelts was awesome! We managed to grab a seat near the back and for a good reason too. I spotted a double down in this ride. The ride started out with a gentle turn and a gentle straight part with suddenly a drop into a small valley again. Cool! Nice floater air in the back. A turnaround that looked very slow but went actually pretty fast was cool. Another drop and then onto the lifthill climbing to get some more momentum. A gentle turn on the top and then back down with an awesome double down. We got some great ejector on that in the back. Another turn and a final floater before coming up onto the final brakes. Short ride but really fun because of that double down.

351: Jack Rabbit



On the park map you could see that there was only one coaster left and that's a tiny kiddy coaster. Got to do it for the credit of course. [:D] It was one of those rides that look like they would fall apart in any minute. Did the ride and according to the signs I didn't need a kiddo! Yay! Hilarious small ride.

352: Lil' Phantom



According to my knowledge there should be a total of 7 coasters in this park. Currently I've ridden 5 of them and one of them isn't finished yet... So where is the hidden 6th credit... I checked out the park map and looked for possible indoor coasters. I ended up finding a huge building on the map with a possible coaster so we walked towards that.

Looking at the ride description it matched a rollercoaster so we started queuing. The theming was pretty cool done for this ride. The logo looked awesome above the entrance which made me more exciting. Coaster or no coaster [:)] Inside there was an even longer queue but after a while I'd finally saw the cars and I was right. It was another coaster! This was another spinning coaster with a pretty cool theme. The lifthill was brilliant done on theming, after that the theming went kinda away. Only 2 more turns and the theming was kinda gone. But then we got the drop which was in a room with some cool theming again. After big drop and the double up it was time for the spinning mouse turns section. This was completely in the dark. After that back to same cool theming room.
I enjoyed the ride, the theming really did it's job on this ride and added something to the ride.

353: The Exterminator



I ended the day with some photo's taken around Sky Rocket. Phantom's revenge was closed due a technical difficulty and we still had to drive 4 hours to the next park: Hershey Park.

[gouldy]

... I am envious of you.

Enjoy Fahrenheit. That is 3rd or 4th on my favorite rides list.

Hmmm... The Voyage doesn't feel overcalculated at all. It had some really strong laterals, and of course a lot of airtime

My biggest problem with Voyage is that it feels overcalculated. All of the out of control feeling is so artificial.

[slosprint]

Just to clarify, if you force me on Wildcat I'm forcing you on the back seat.

And I was Dissapointed with Fahrenheit when I rode it. I far prefer Stormrunner and, I must admit, Roller Soaker.

[Dirk_Ermen]

5th June ????????? Hershey Park

Today was our visit to Hershey Park, we arrived later than expected and ended up on a very crowded parking lot. We were like: Noes! But eventually when we were inside the park it was again really crowded but when looking at some of the lines during the day it wasn't THAT bad...



We headed first to the lowest capacity ride of them all: Roller Soaker. It wasn't that crowded yet in the soak zone yet so we should manage to get out not too soaked... Well, the ride is designed in such a way that you'll get out soaked anyhow, if you'll be traveling in a forward direction. xD So if you'd like ride this without getting soaked... Ride it backwards... With the bombs it's extremely hard to soak people in the back row. Plus near there end there is a water beam squirting upwards that hits the left side of the car to make the front rider entirely soaked. But the back rider will just get soaked jeans.



The ride itself was simple and cool, the interaction makes this ride awesome. I loved soaking the riders with the last water bomb. [:D] (/me shoots people right into their face having them completely drenched.) The bad point of this ride was the capacity it has and the capacity it was running on. The ride sends off every time 3 cars at the same time. But only when the other 3 cars were completely through the track! So yeah... Pretty obvious that this ride runs with the lowest capacity possible. At the start of the queueline it's roughly an 2,5 hour wait for this ride. That's definitely NOT worth it... If you want to get wet, just walk underneath one of those water bombs from below...

354: Roller Soaker



The next coaster we've ridden was Lightning Racer. Both are 2 very cool GCI's with an awesome dueling effect. The layout is actually pretty easy. It zig-zag's together from lifthill and back and on each end of the zig-zag you'd get a face off with eachother. Still very cool to see and ride like that. One moment you'll be actually racing and the other moment facing eachother on a turnaround. G's wise this ride is okay. Nothing extremely special. You can also notice that this was one of the earlier GCI's they've build. They didn't really inserted their ejector air transitions and floater air hills like they currently do. It looks like they used to keep it roughly around floater air max. Since that's what I've felt on the transitions and on the longer hills barely to none. But yeah, the racing effect makes that up a lot! Lightning racer is a good coaster that would rank above Gwazi to my opinion. But it'll definitely stays under Troy, Roar and El Toro.

355: Lightning Racer ????????? Lightning
356: Lightning Racer ????????? Thunder



Up next we saw the wild mouse standing, not much to say about this ride. It's a regular Mack Wild Mouse coaster. Even tho this ride still had some smoother turns than most of the Wild Mouses... But the ups and downs still were as rough as every other Mack Mouse...

357: Wild Mouse



Next coaster was right opposite the Wild Mouse. The next GCI twister in the park: Wildcat! I remember this coaster from one of the old Discovery Documentaries. Finally I get to ride this. We've ridden it once in the front since that's usually the best spot on any GCI Rollercoaster. I've enjoyed this ride but it's the same like lightning racer. Good coaster but definitely not the best GCI I've ridden. This coaster would probably rank all the way on the bottom from my ridden GCI's. But it's far for the worst woodie tho.

358: Wildcat



We walked past Fahrenheit again and the queue was huge. Roughly around 1 to 1,5 hour wait! No way that we are going to queue in that line... We walked further towards Storm Runner and noticed the Vekoma Boomerang standing there lonely. So we gave it a ride. Waited a train or 2 and took a ride on it. If I'm not mistaken it had some first generation trains from Vekoma on it. The seat padding and restraint shaping looked a lot like it tho. Only thing that was different was the 'headbang' padding. But it could be that they've added it due that typical boomerang headbanging. It's been a while for me to ride a Vekoma Boomerang again and it surprised me how fun they actually were. The drop gives you a good freefall feeling, the cobra roll is rough, but that's just the design of their boomerangs. I'm not sure, but I guess the newer boomerangs are better heartlined. These have still 180????????? banking on the highest point of the cobra roll. Loop was fine as always and same for the return.

359: Sidewinder



After the boomerang, Storm Runner was like lying right in front of us now. At least the launch was. I expected to have a long queue for this just as Fahrenheit because it's a bigger ride but when I entered the queue it wasn't longer than 15 minutes and that's even for the front seat! Well, eventually we were seated in the front seat. Waiting for launch and then we're off. Good launch, fun top hat in the front. The immelmann kinda inversion was weird. But that heartline roll into a dive was cool! The weird banking going up and then the ride was over... Really cool ride but just too short to my feeling. It had it's good parts like the launch, a classic top hat and that unique roll. But that's actually it. The ride kinda disappointed me because I expected more of it. Oh well, it's still a good and fun ride. But it's not going to reach into my top list.

360: Storm Runner



Next to the queue of Storm Runner a mine train was running. Looking at the cars and transitions it was an Arrow mine train ride. When we queued for it, it took longer than we expected. But when getting closer we found out why. Still running one train, and of course when we came near boarding. They added the second train... Oh well, we had some laugh on making random comments like: ?????????Where they hell did the all the people went? I guess this ride is too unsafe, everyone flew out!?????????.
The ride itself was fun but short, it had a powerful helix on the end tho. Cool family ride.

361: Trailblazer



Only a few more coasters left to do, up next was a good ol' classic Swarchkopf coaster. I love how Swarchkopf build their rides. Lift has a 45????????? turn in it. How? Using 2 seperate chainlifts like you would do on RCT to safe space. The drop was cool and the loop was powerful. After that they trimmed it. [:(] Cool ride, but as I've said on many other coasters before: Not the best coaster, but definitely a fun ride.

362: SooperDooperLooper



The famous B&M invert for their footchoppers and helix pre-drop was next. The helix was a nice touch on the ride. A classic B&M thrill section with loop, immelmann, zero g roll. Up next was some long section parts with not many turns, dips or inversions. Spreaded out on a lot of length there was only 2 more corkscrew and tons of straight pieces of track and a couple a turns. Also probably one of the worst spots to put an onride photo. At the final brakes... So when riding backseat, you'd get to see how everyone looks when they are being slowed down. It's a fun and smooth invert. But those long sections were pretty lame to me. Fun ride but it feels like it could have been a much better ride...

363: Great Bear



The last wooden coaster from the park was up next. Cool ride, longer than I expected. Some fun air, good laterals. I had fun.

364: Comet



As last, the newest coaster in the park with the longest queue. It was near the end of the day so the queue was much shorter again. We ended up still queuing 45 minutes. We took a ride backseat because the first drop. So that was fun. The Norwegian Loop was fun, but felt slow. If the element was a bit lower, you would have traveled much faster through this element and than it would have been much more fun. The drop out of the element gave some floater tho. Up next was a cobra roll and 2 corkscrew rolls. A nice turn, good airtime hill with some good forces and after the final turn the ride was already over. It's a fun ride with a cool concept. But I have the feeling that this ride misses something.

365: Fahrenheit



That was for so far my opinion from the rides at Hershey Park. We left the park on time since we still had to drive further to Knoebels.


Talking about a bug problem at one of the gas stations! And mom almost wanted to pump some gas over here...

[Dirk_Ermen]

6th June 2010 ????????? Knoebels

Today was it time for a park that has tons of classic rides. It took a while driving from our B&B, since there wasn't any (cheap) hotel in the neighborhood. The park has free parking, always good! Also it works with no regular entry fee. So anybody could enter the park.
Since there was no entry fee, it works with wristbands and tickets. Apparently they have a no-wirstband/handstamp policy for the weekends. Damn! So I had to buy tickets for the rides. The park had some ticket books from $5,-, $10,- and $20,-. We bought 2 books of 20 and went to the coasters. One would already had been enough for the 2 of us to ride all the coasters at least once. The wooden coasters were $2,25 a ride. I guess on any carnival it would have been at least double that price!



First I went to ride the Twister. Knoebels attempt on building a twister Rollercoaster. I was surprised about the ride. Airtime wasn't there so much but laterals was there enough on this ride! Even the double lift hill was funny to see IRL. Never seen that outside Rct. Good powerful laterals during that turn. Same goes for the turn on the top of the lift. Good floater going all the way down and than the madness begins. Another turnaround later you'd get the huge helix which I truly love. Lateral forces all the way around. Even in the back it smacks you straight into that turn. Some other turns next, a cool tunnel and than the ride was already over.
Twister is an absolutely great ride, all it missed was some good airtime moments during the ride. If those were in there. It would have definitely hit somewhere my top 3. Now I'm not sure if it would reach into my top 10. That's something I'd have to think about.

366: Twister





Next coaster was the classic Phoenix that the park had saved from destruction. No seatbelts, only buzzbars. Awesome! The whole ride is pure airtime madness. It stats off gentle on the airtime. So mainly floaters. But near the end they all turn into ejectors! I love it. My favorite seat is definitely the front row on this one. The double up and down is just brilliant on airtime. Ejector, floater, ejector and another massive ejector on the up with the turnaround. Very cool ride but this ride missed again the good lateral forces. It had some, but just not enough to be a top 3 ranking for me. But this one would definitely hit the top 10 somewhere. Where, I don't know yet. But having ejector air with having a good 5-10 inch to fly is just pure extacy to me.

367: Phoenix





Next coaster was only a kiddy left. Done for the credit of course. I laughed my arse off at the awkwardness of the bunnyhills.

368: Kosmo's Kurves





The rest of the park is also pretty cool, the whip is just pure classic. The haunted house was also pretty cool to ride. Some hilarious scares, some cool effects and a very long ride. Good haunted house. If you'll ever visit the park. Don't miss out this haunted house.





The merry-go-round had some cool extra thing too. Apparently something they do since they first got it. They hand out an arm with a small hole in it. During the ride, the arm is being extended so that everyone who rides it, could reach it. In that hole there is a small ring that you could pull out. So the extra game is try to get the ring out and as much as possible. You don't win anything with that, but it's still a cool extra game to make the merry-go-round suddenly a lot more interesting. After the ride everyone throws their rings back into a box. Fun stuff.



When your in the park, you'd hit the Flying Turns several times. It's actually a pretty small ride when your standing in front of it. During a photo session around the ride I spotted a staff member under the ride. Of course it wouldn't have been me, if I tried to arrange a small tour under the ride. It was a Sunday, so it was a too busy day to give me a tour. But on a week-day I would have gotten one without any problems. But... He was open to tell something about the ride...
Apparently the problem left on the flying turns is the front car. It doesn't follow the turns as it normally should do. In every turn, the front car moves a bit diagonal with the nose to towards the top of the turns. They are trying to fix it. As soon as that happens it will probably open. [:)]





Knoebels was a very cool park. Even tho mom wanted to leave earlier, we still spend all day until 6pm in the park, and to see for what I've ridden for $40,- it wasn't that expensive park either. I guess any regular person would be able to ride everything they wanted for roughly under $20,-. Unless they want to re-ride everything a lot of times.

As closure of the report, a few pictures from the black Diamond Construction:

[Dirk_Ermen]

7th June 2010 ????????? Dorney Park

Today it was time for another park on the list. The park with the first B&M with jojo roll and no pre-drop. Also it was time for a meet-up with one of the fellow staff members: Tetsu! We started our meet-up at the Mac Donalds just across the park entrance. We arrived a little later than expected but we had some small delays on the road to Dorney. We drove together to Dorney and went inside the park.



We started off small, we spotted one of the kiddy coasters and did that one. Robert hasn't ridden it yet so it was a new credit for him too! Funny coaster that went 3 laps.

369: Woodstock Express





Up to a low capacity ride, the wild mouse. Looking at the cars it was a Maurer Mouse. That also kinda explains why the low capacity. You cannot load/unload with slow moving trains on this one. Stays fun to ride.

370: Wild Mouse



After that we walked to the unique floorless coaster. Barely any queueline so we went to the backseat of this ride. Only waiting for the next train to board. The jojo roll was unique and fun. In the front row you'd get the whole element on a slow pace. Back row just until your about upside down. The first drop was okay in the backseat. A nice floater down. With a pre-drop that would have been a cool ejector down the first drop. Inclined loop was okay. The zero g roll went like extremely slow. Or else you didn't went through it with zero-g... The corkscrew with a small dive into the 'misshapen' cobra roll was fun but with a little more speed than the zero g roll. The Cobra didn't felt anything wrong with it. I know some people still complain that it's almost no inversion anymore, but it still feels enough like an inversion. A slow hill, slow dip. Then you'd get a drop into the next corkscrew which gives a nice floater in the backseat on that drop. Cork is cool and then the ride is already finished again... Cool ride but you can definitely see that B&M is going for slow paced rides... To my opinion that's definitely a shame. I love about all the older B&M's with their fast, insane pacing. But when you'd think about it, these slower paced coasters would probably last longer and stay much longer smooth...

371: Hydra the revenge







Up next as coaster, the Intamin Impulse. Always fun to do because of their launches and lovely sound. As difference this time it hold us back on the back spike. Wasn't really that comfortable... I'd rather would have seen some different use of the LIM like providing something close to hangtime (0.4-0.5g) instead of a full stop. Cool ride tho.

372: Possessed



We weren't far away from the other 2 kiddy coasters in the park. Tried Steel First. But the ride-opp wouldn't let me. Gah... That's the first coaster on the trip where I have been denied on. Maybe in a couple of years when I have a little rascal that would be tall and short enough... [devilish]
So we headed to the coaster next to it. A Zamperla Powered coaster. Always good! Nice and powerful was this ride. Some good laterals in the helix and it also went 4 laps. That was fun.

373: Dragon Coaster



Off to a bigger coaster, we weren't far away from the Morgan Hyper, so that's cool. If I'm not mistaken this would be my first Morgan Hyper coaster too! Backseat was fun, some nice floaters over all hills but nothing major. I guess it's backseat around -0.1g. Front seat had some good -0.3/-0.4 spikes. The helix halfway the ride was nice and powerful on laterals. Good and fun ride.

374: Steel Force





Right next to this coaster was the wooden coaster from this park: Thunderhawk. Rough ride but nothing compared to mean streak or Ghostrider before it's re-tracking. Also too bad about the trim near the end of the ride, it killed all the airtime it had on the end. For the rest did the ride had some really nice lateral forces.

375: Thunderhawk



Off to the final coaster of the park and to my opinion the best coaster of the park. It's one of the B&M Inverted coasters. Good fun on first drop. Classic first loop with a perfect amount of G-forces. Good zero G roll, fun immelmann. After that a good helix with some really nice g's. A small moment to breath and then with a good floater air in the back to the rest of the action. Corkscrew, powerfull helix and then the ride is almost over. Nothing really to complain about this ride. It has good forces which aren't too extreme, but not too gentle either. Not a world class ride but definitely a very good ride!

376: Talon





We also checked out the waterpark this time. Had some fun over there, couple of fun slides. Relaxing wave pool and a very good meal deal with our seasons pass. Just over 20 bucks for a large pizza with 4 drinks. Normally you'd already pay 24 bucks for a full pizza alone.



Fun park to visit, on a quiet day you can easily ride all the coasters without any long queues. And if you'll be visiting the park. Say hi to Tetsu and his crew at the meteor [;)][lol]


Tetsu keeping an eye on his crew[lol]

After the visit to Dorney we went to a town fair nearby. Tetsu knew there was a zipper last year but apparently it wasn't there this year. Damn! I really want to ride a zipper!

[slosprint]

I have never seen anyone drink so much Mountain Dew in my life... Talk about abusing the free drink policy! [lol][lol]

Abusing the free drink policy would be filling up a cup and dumping it in the garbage.

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by slosprint

I have never seen anyone drink so much Mountain Dew in my life... Talk about abusing the free drink policy! [lol][lol]

We don't have Mountain Dew at home so we drink it here. Abusing the free drink policy was thanks to mom, she filled eventually a couple of bottles.

[slosprint]

Originally posted by Jonny Richey

Hmmm... The Voyage doesn't feel overcalculated at all. It had some really strong laterals, and of course a lot of airtime

Wait... I just read this... What?

The voyage is about the most over-calculated non-prefab woodie out there!

[Dirk_Ermen]

8th June 2010 ????????? Six Flags New England

Today was going to be the the day that I was going to ride the #1 steel coaster according to the polls. There is also a cool B&M floorless in this park for me to ride. For the rest some standard clones like a Vekoma SLC, Vekoma Boomerang and also a Gerstlauer Spinner. Again we were much later than expected so we arrived around 11am. Should still be enough time for us to ride all the coasters and some other rides.



We started at what's supposed to be the best ride of the park, Superman: Ride of steel Bizarro. We started with the very first ride in the backseat. Since that's usually the best spot of about every rollercoaster. Immediately when getting seated we noticed how annoying those new restraints are. They are just way too fat so that they push on your legs instead of your hips. If they were a lot thinner they would close much better and wouldn't be such a big deal in the first place. Now you'd get pretty much a gap between you and the restraint, which normally isn't a problem. But since these restraints are so thick it's a lot more uncomfortable. The operators check your restraint and no matter how far that restraint is closed. The add a painful push on top of it. Ouch!
The ride finally starts, music sounds becomes louder that it just becomes annoying and that all way of contact with your surrounding is just gone. Finally after all that noise, the ride starts, cool first drop. A slight floater and then the drop already straightens out again. Tunnel, another cool hill. Again some good airtime over the hill, a powerful turnaround. And a couple more hills. The one after eachother more powerful that the one before that. With the final airtime hill before the twists and turns happen the G's are the same as the first hill on EGF. Some nice turns and helixes, cool airtime transitions and then over to the final bunny hills. There was shamely a trim on there, but the other 2 were still taken at a proper speed for some nice airtime. When the ride was over the noise through the speakers was still going on for a while, which made contact with your friends/family in the train just very hard. The view on the first ride was also killed by those speakers. I'd only could see a bit in the back of every car. Since at those spots I was just tall enough to look over those huge headrests. During queuing later on the day I'd also noticed that they took out 2 seats of each train just to install that sound box for the noise during the ride. What a waste! They decrease their capacity only to have noise during the ride? Wow...
Anyhow. I've got to agree with a lot of people, this is an extremely good ride. But to me those fat restraints and the view blocking/ear killing speakers ru?????????n the ride far enough for me to kick it off it's possible #2 spot. The ride would probably end up now somewhere around 8th or 9th spot to me.

377: Bizarro







We went a bit back up to the old wooden coaster out there. It was a pretty rough coaster where the paint just fell off and the older paint jobs became even visible! The bad maintainance just was visible to the public... What a shame again... The ride was rough, but had it's fun moments.

378: Thunderbolt





We went back down again to the small zierer coaster. Those are always fun to do. Especially because it's a zierer large. I love it when you get some great lateral forces when the front car is all the way on the bottom and your still on the top of the first drop. [:)]

379: Catwoman's Whip



Up next, a Vekoma Classic. Another SLC that Six Flags placed around the world. This one was fairly smooth. I guess I'm getting used to our prototype banging on SLC, which makes the re-calculated ones much smoother. Too bad about the extremely slow staff. Every train had to wait the duration of another lap on the final brakes before the staff actually dispatched the next train into the course.

380: Mind Eraser





Time for a better and more unique coaster. It's the B&M floorless. Since me and mom were tired of Six Flags's money maker with their stupid lockers. $1,- for a locker because you cannot take your bag with you and drop it on the platform. So we took separate laps, I went first and was lucky to gain a spot front seat meanwhile the staff, who attended everyone to a row, wanted to put me in a different row. In the front there was a group of 3, and that idiot originally placed me in an empty row. Anyhow, about the ride. Cool drop, nice loop, dive loop. Turnaround through the loop, a trim that I didn't notice in the front row. Fun zero g roll, and the interlocking corkscrews as a finish. Cool ride, nice and smooth.

381: Batman The Dark Knight





We've had now one area of the park with Rollercoasters, there was still the other area with some rollercoasters. The first coaster we saw was the little kiddy coaster in the Looney Tunes area called: The Great Chase. We easily got to ride it. Usually all the kiddy coasters run like 2-3 laps. This one ran only one lap and then they unlocked everyone again. So the loading and unloading took over 5 times as long, as one lap!

382: The Great Chase



We walked past the Pandemonium which had a pretty long queue at this moment. Oh well, let's first ride the other wooden coaster in this park. When we looked at the ride during queuing we saw that it used to have a steeper and deeper first drop. The old catwalks and wood for the rails are still there! But what a rough ride was this! It had 2 moments of ejector air but that was only because of a terrible shock on the top of a drop. The ride shaked almost as bad as mean streak in the backseat. But that wasn't the only thing. It had 2 turns that went extremely slow! Wow, how more can you kill pacing... The first drop looked cool and was also pretty cool. But again still rough. The ride was pretty bad actually. The slow turns take away all the fun and all the other moments are very rough. I do like rough on a rollercoaster. But this was just too much and too bad.

383: Cyclone





Time for the boomerang, queue wasn't that long. So we took a ride somewhere in the backseat. Boomerangs stay fun, I like the release of the train the back. It proves more air than any regular S&S tower does to me nowadays. This ride was full of advertising, trains were again very colorful like the trains on the demon at SFGA. Also the restraint had some weird cover over them... I wonder why... Vandalism protection?

384: Flashback





Off to the final new coaster of the day. The Gerstlauer spinner that you can find in various Six Flags Parks. It's been a while to me that I rode the last Gerstlauer Spinner. I guess it was on my Denmark trip so this was cool again. The first part was kinda slow, since I remember quicker S-turns than on this one. The helixes are always cool, the long stretched part was tons of fun because we had a good spin going. The drop of the mcbr and airtime hill was also hilarious because of that good spin. One more helix and we've got the final brakes where we still had some good spin going on. I love the system that puts the cars back into the correct position. Just a wheel that slows you down and turns you to the correct zero position. Awesome ride, just because how simple this is.

385: Pandemonium





At the end of the day we did a couple more rides on Bizarro, since yeah. Even tho they screwed up the ride. It's still the best ride of the park. After that the park was closed and we headed back to our hotel where we had finally an evening to relax and calm down. Tomorrow it was time for a park with one of the best wooden coaster on the planet. Can't wait!

Have fun riding the BEST wooden coaster on the planet (can't see anything possible being better)

God damn. How many parks have the M&M stairs? Either way, you gotta love 'em.

I'm beginning to think I'm the only one that really likes Cyclone. The high turns may be bad if all you want is pure speed but from a progression standpoint they're genius. Really think that's one of the most underrated rides out there, especially if you get it with the trims off.

I really liked Cyclone in the back seat!

[Dirk_Ermen]

9th June 2010 ????????? Lake Compounce

Today was another great day on my coasterlist. Time to finally ride, what should be, one of the best wooden coasters on the planet. We headed off in time, since we also had a meet-up planned today with one of our coastercrazy members: Slosprint. We should have been there in time, but because we followed our navigation, it lead us to the back entrance of the park. So we ended up at the employee parking lot... Oops! Oh well, that little mistake only cost us about 10 minutes. After we've payed our entrance fee, we got in the park.



We started off with the wildcat at the park. Slosprint said it was painful in the back, so we went backseat! I had good fun on the coaster. It wasn't as rough as mean streak, but it packed definitely some punch! On g's the ride was okay. Barely any airtime tho, but it had some rough laterals.

386: Wildcat



Up next was the best ride of the whole park. Ranked worlds best wooden rollercoaster in the world. Well yeah, it took me a hard and long decision but I just concurred the first spot on my Wooden Coaster list. But only by an inch! The length is perfect, the speed is just insane, the pacing is also insane. Great combination of laterals and airtime and it provides an awesome ride wherever you'll be in the train. The ride looks awesome on the hillside. All hidden in the trees. [pshades] When we entered the queue we were almost at the gates and then they decided to add a train. Sure thing. So my first ride started in an ice cold train but it still was a very good ride. When we had a ride in the train that was warmed up, it ran like crazy. Laterals in the beginning with some small air but the further you'd get through the ride. The more airtime and laterals. The sudden steep drop was also awesome. Just when you'd expect a tiny hump again. You'd drop like 60-70 feet down. There are also some very cool hidden turns that you just cannot see until you'd actually ride through that turn. I Love it! The turnaround at this ride is just insane, it starts with 0????????? banking and eventually ends up to about 25-30????????? banking max. After that you'd get an insane run over tons of airtime humps and some tiny hidden lats. Especially the triple up is just pure extacy, it's fast and insane at the same time. In the first couple of rides this ride did hit the second spot, but after a couple more rides during the end of the day it had a great duel with the coaster on the first spot in my head... And it eventually won. Boulder Dash, a true deserved #1 Rollercoaster!

387: Boulder Dash









The next coaster we've ridden was the Vekoma Boomerang. Slosprint told me it was one of the smoother boomerangs with barely any headbanging and I'd really have to agree with him. The 2 rough transitions in the cobra roll actually didn't headbang as usual. It had some beautiful trains. Too bad one of the ride attendants was pretty much being an arse. We just wanted to wait another ride so that we could sit somewhere in the back, since there were only a couple more seats left in the middle of the train... But no, we couldn't because the line was supposed too long... We even wanted to let people in front of us but no, that wasn't allowed by her. How ridiculous... Our group of 3 people couldn't even seat together in one car. Oh well...

388: Zoomerang



Up next was the final coaster. A kiddy coaster in this park. After walking into the queue we already been told that we were too tall. Darn you... But Slosprint's awesome mom helped up getting a kid, so we could ride it after all. Usually I don't do on stealing kids for a ride, but yeah... This was already being arranged for me... Before I realized it! So yeah, we both had a ride on the Kiddie Coaster! Rocket launch up the lift And then some fun kiddie-coastering!

389: Kiddie Coaster



After that we've been like up the mountain and back, shot photo's from BD and done a couple more rides on BD until it was 4pm. Very cool day at Lake Compounce.







After our visit it we attempted to visit the Coney Island Cyclone on the way to our hotel, since Playland in Rye closes also at 4pm. We left around 4:30 at Lake Compounce and arrived around 7:30 at Astroland. Everything was already closed. As expected, it's a weekday. It was continuously raining outside. So I assume they closed pretty early today. The weather was bad enough that mom even couldn't see Manhattan from a small distance... Too bad for her...



Tomorrow are the plans for Six Flags Great Adventure. Kiddie Ka, El Toro, Nitro. Again, a huge collection of coasters for me to ride. Can't wait! [:D]

[Dirk_Ermen]

Biggest fail for me yet... We just found out that we forgot our video camera in Lake Compounce. We just called and they have it there. So now we've got to dive 3 hours back to pick it up... There goes a full day of SFGAdv today... [:(]

[slosprint]

We can pick it up on Sunday and mail it to you if you want.