Day 5:
Canada's WonderlandWe left the hotel at around 7:00 to try to accommodate for traffic at customs. Sadly we ran into a bunch of hiccups along the way such as where we were going to find Canadian money for their tolls, which is something we didn't consider. We spent 20 minutes looking for a bank that may have been open at the time. We assumed there would be something at or close to the border. When we went into the building with the huge sign when we crossed customs that said in huge font "Currency Exchange ," the lady there told us there were no tolls in Canada. She said if we run into a toll road, they will take a picture of our license plate and mail us... Why can't the US be this easy? We never ended up running into tolls so that was half an hour wasted, along with the 20 minute wait for customs. Now, we were pushing it for time.
We took the wrong exit for the park, so we ended up going to the entrance where we had to make a left into the park, which took another 10 minutes because so many people were trying to get into the park. By this time our day was started late, and we knew the park was going to be ridiculously crowded.
It's cool how Leviathan towers over the entrance.
In my attempt to grab every credit, I missed quite a few things and maybe rode coasters that I shouldn't have ridden over others. We took a gamble though, and we got all the coasters we wanted to get. Of course we started off with low capacity coasters that I would never wait an hour for,
The BatIt sucked, what else can I say?
Next up was another low capacity ride and this line was already getting long,
The FlyThere was a point on this ride where I was just begging for a trim. These turns were so fast. When my wish came true, the trim was nice and hard. Classic Mack. At least these are smooth and kind of fun.
From this point on, I didn't have a chance to take too many pictures because we were running around the park, and not many of the lines had great views. Behemoth and Leviathan had plenty of pictures, but everything else doesn't really have any, I apologize again.
Now it was time to go to the back of the park to get some family credits. We hit up
Ghoster Coaster first, which was
another long line. It was ok. I can give it credit for doing exactly what it was supposed to do, but it wasn't as good as Waldameer's Comet.
Next up was... Oh f@*k... another Vekoma SFC,
Silver Streak. I don't understand how these can actually hurt when they are going that speed. These things are boring and ridiculously rough, and this is the worst of the two I have ridden.
Finally something worthwhile, and in fact, the number one priority in the park,
Sky Rider. Just as background, Shockwave at Kings Dominion is my least favorite coaster, so I was skeptical going into this, despite hearing good things about it. Wow was this good. Crazy airtime on a stand-up coaster? Yes please. This thing is filled with great moments. Both of the turns were typical Togo and were a little rough, but they didn't detract too much and it wasn't bad at all; not nearly as bad as Shockwave. The first loop was great and when we hit that first airtime, a huge smile went onto my face. Crazy airtime while standing up is an experience to behold. The helix was a little rough, but it didn't have that nasty jerk at all. It was just a little head banging. Then the following airtime hills were crazy. One more turn and a quick few pops of air before the end. This was so much fun. I knew it could have been good if it was smooth enough, but this exceeded even that expectation. This found it's way to #23 ahead of Wooden Warrior and behind Volcano. Truly great. Too bad this has to be the one to be leaving the park and I hope it finds a new home soon.
It was now time for one of the big ones, my 3rd B&M hyper,
Behemoth. I really like Apollo's Chariot and I think Nitro is pretty good, but neither of them are at all exceptional. Let's see if Behemoth can break this trend, and my expectations are high since I've heard such great things about the airtime.
The line took about 50 minutes. And it got so much worse later in the day. This moved slower than most B&M lines. I'm assuming it has to do with one less car.
It was also very cold while in line. I've always heard things about the cold in Canada, but I didn't know it was this bad... It didn't feel like it was below freezing, though.
Wow! This coaster didn't even come close to my expectations! It is an overrated, pointless, repetitive, slow, forceless, boring, rattly, heaping pile of horse manure. Well, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't very good. The first hill is promising as it gets a great pop into long sustained airtime. As I said, this was promising. I don't necessarily expect too much from the first few elements as I expect the pace to pick up and I expect to see some variation of hills and elements. After the pointless, waste of time, "don't even bother making this at all forceful" hammerhead, the next hill felt exactly the same as the previous. I understand the necessity for repetition as it makes the variation so much more exciting. The next hill comes and it does the same thing. The next one comes and it actually shows some variety by doing the same exact thing. At this point I'm getting bored of pretending to enjoy the same thing over and over again. Now that there have been about 90 trims in a row, the next hill wasn't quite on par with its predecessors, but it was still similar. Then, the entrance to MCBR felt the exact same way until it stopped. At this point, I know the ride sucks. I am aware of the heavy trimming the MCBR does. We swerve lazily into a pathetic helix which then transitions into another turn and low and behold, the next few hills have barely any airtime. Truly a great finale... One thing I haven't addressed yet is the rattle, just to make things worse. I can take a rough wooden coaster, but B&M rattles hurt my head and wow does this have it! I don't see how anybody can even have a remotely high regard for this roller coaster. I agree it's pretty good, but it is not even remotely exceptional. This found its way into spot #43 behind Sky Rocket and ahead of Cheetah
Sh Hunt. [/rant]
Next it was time for the second wooden coaster,
Mighty Canadian Minebuster. I had no expectations going into this.
There's my excuse for a picture of Minebuster. The line ended up being around 45 minutes.
I thought it was ok. The airtime on the first hill is great, but the second one left me laughing the entire ride. To think that somebody thought it would be a good idea to waste money on that kind of a hill. The rest of the ride wasn't very memorable and the helix at the end was decent. It wasn't rough, and it was somewhat enjoyable, but nothing exceptional. I rode front car middle row, but the ride before us, that exact seat was left empty and that was the one we wanted...
Leviathan is calling me...
First, though, I had to ride my first Arrow Suspended since Big Bad Wolf,
Vortex. I had high expectations for this. Sadly, though, the line was pouring out of the queue and it took around an hour to get up. We rode back car front seat and it was really rough. It felt more like an Arrow than Big Bad Wolf did. I really didn't enjoy this too much because I noticed the poor trackwork more than the swinging. It was still fun, but it had some bad draw backs. Maybe I picked the wrong seat on the wrong day.
Oh hello.
It was time for my 3rd Giga Coaster,
Leviathan. Well, kind of. There was an hour fifteen wait and then it was time for Leviathan.
Again, high expectations not met. Thankfully, this was actually good. My sister and I got a back seat ride and we were able to leave the two seats in between us empty. The drop was great until it slammed right down into some more B&M rattle. Thankfully, that was the only time it was really bad. It was present and still gave me a headache, but it wasn't close to Behemoth. The rest of the ride was ok. The airtime was strong but all of those "low to the ground turns" everybody raved about were forceless. Sure the speed is there, but I didn't get the whip in the transition I was hoping for. After the final hill, the ride hits Behemoth mode and crawls into the brake run. I enjoyed this one a little more than Millennium Force, but it still couldn't pull off being better than Nitro (still?). At this point, I knew how stupid this park was. The best coaster so far has been a Togo Stand-up coaster that's being torn down. This is where I said that I will not come back here until they get something good.
meh
I was hoping to finally ride a great B&M hyper...
And nope.
Next we went to the nearby (and by nearby I mean under) Arrow coaster,
Dragon Fire. Yeah, it was bad. I'm just happy to ride a classic Arrow.
After that was the third and final wooden coaster of the day,
Wild Beast. I was naturally excited for this since I loved Grizzly (I'm starting to notice a trend of this being remarkably close to Kings Dominion just with more crap and a better stand-up coaster). I thought this was great. It doesn't have that huge lateral hit on Grizzly, but otherwise it was pretty similar and still quite fun. Great airtime and fun lats. It just can't compete with Grizzly.
Every priority was now done. We went around the park and looked at every line that was left and saw that they were all piling out of the queues and that they would be over an hour, even Backlot. We decided to leave it with an hour wait for
Wonder Mountain's Guardian and call it a day so that we didn't crash on the road from exhaustion. It was interesting when an employee allowed someone to line jump because somebody saved the spot for them, despite park policy... that's great. The screens on this thing were kind of cheap but the technology was pretty cool definitely the most fun shooter because everything was on a screen and it was far less confusing. The coaster portion was laughably rough. It didn't hurt, I just questioned why they would even try this. It didn't help the ride. At least it was a +1. I won't spoil anything, but the inside of this has a great surprise so be sure to check it out and don't spoil yourself like I was.
Overall, I thought Canada's Wonderland was a decent park. Obviously, the excessive amount of crap rides and the lack of quality rides really makes this seem bad, but at least the employees were nice enough and everything was moving smoothly. the park was quite beautiful, too with open fields and many gardens. The crowds were excessive, but the park handled it well. I wouldn't want to come back, but I appreciate what the park had to offer.
Good-Bye for a long while!
The drive
home (edit: home? that would be horrible!) to the hotel* was smooth enough. The customs officer was nice as was the one on the other side. He was nice enough to make sure we weren't driving back to Jersey from Canada's Wonderland. I thought it was cool for my sister and I (18 and 22) to go to Canada alone and try to work it out. It was a bit scary but it was quite an experience. Now what happens when I want to go to La Ronde to get my rides on Le Monstre before RMC rapes it? They speak French there!
To give you an idea of how weird this park was for me, here is how I ordered the top coasters I rode here:
1.Sky Rider
2.Leviathan
3.Wild Beast
4.Behemoth
5.Wonder Mountain's Guardian
Just to show you how meh those B&Ms were. Don't expect them in my final top 20. Next up will be Darien Lake, where there is actually a noteworthy coaster!
1.Boulder Dash | 2.Legend(HW) | 3.Beast | 4.Ravine Flyer II | 5.Intimdator 305 | 6.Phoenix | 7.Twisted Timbers | 8.Wicked Cyclone | 9.Thunderhead | 10.Storm Chaser