Canada's Wonderland
Entry posted by Mark9
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The final park of the trip is a short skip and a jump from Toronto, Canadas Wonderland is a park boasting 16 rollercoasters and masses of flat rides. Whilst only two of the rollercoasters are really noteworthy, the park is well known for hosting the only Huss Jump 2 in the world as well as owning a Mondial Super Nova and top scan.
So.. first the elephant in the room.
The humongous and previously biggest B&M ever is an intimidating beast. Surrounding the park entrance with its massive hills, Leviathan is one impressive ride. It's easily the parks busiest attraction and the Canadians love it. What about me though? Having done Millennium Force two days previously, what would doing my second giga coaster in two days do?
The problem when you build something to be a country's biggest or most impressive is that you have to do very little with the ride to get the attention. Leviathan has a crippling problem that really bothers me but really what it is a very fast rollercoaster with very little air time. It darts around corners and through tunnels very quickly, the snappy turns being particularly fun. But then it ends. Mako, Silver Star and Raging Bull all have ride content after an MCBR to make the ride feel like it has two parts. The first full of giant hills, the second more smaller hills and helixes. Leviathan enters a break run. It's a massive anti climax after a ride with that much speed just ends with little fanfare. The argument could be made that the ride has done all it has needed and anything else would just be window dressing and just lengthening the ride. Well Fury 325 does exactly that and is well loved because of it. Leviathan feels like a waste of a massive opportunity. We had three rides including a night ride and although the night ride was more like it, it still felt underwhelming.
Luckily there is another ride for a second chance and that is Behemoth.
The main difference between this and Leviathan is the height, the train configuration and ride length. Everything that isn't great about Leviathan features on Behemoth and more. It's a fantastic, air time filled ride. Whilst Levy is all about the speed, this is all about being chucked out of your seat and each hill provides that little burst of it. Of all the hypers I've done, this does the most with its post MCBR section featuring several air time hills and a nice forceful helix. I loved Behemoth because its what a B&M hyper should be all about. It has a great river side setting and does justice to its right length and height. This is without a doubt my favourite hyper coaster from B&M. It had maybe a maximum of a ten minute wait so re-rides were easy and it really delivered.
Vortex is the second arrow suspended on the trip. It doesn't feature two lift hills and its all the better for it as it has a great layout, big swings and properly follows the terrain. The lift hill takes it atop the rocky mountain, the icon of the park, before dropping down the hill into some big helixes that make the car swing pretty violently to the right. It then drives down towards Yukon Striker lake. Whilst a short ride, it delivers a powerful punch. This had the second longest wait of the park for some reason. It has a pretty broad appeal to a lot of people and delivers an interesting and good ride.
What doesn't deliver a good ride is a Volare. This is my first of these horror shows and whilst I don't think they are anywhere near as bad as is made out, they really aren't great attractions. From the torture device restraints to the way the thing just cannot corner properly, instead rattling and jerking left and right, it seems crazy that the have kept this. Right next door is an SLC, this was one of the better ones. I maintain that give these things a good restraint system and they would be fine because I take no issue with the layout.
Hello SLC bunny.
Whilst this park has 16 rollercoasters, a majority are pretty much off the shelf models like SLC's, Boomerangs, Mack wild mouse/powered coasters and the odd one is original. The Mighty Canadian Mine Blaster made sure that even if I wanted children, that would be impossible now. It started off fine but one of its hills just sent the restraint down another click and ouch. Every hill then become a battle not to cry out in horror..
No, what this park really does is flat rides and it is here that makes Canada Wonderland that little bit more well rounded then Cedar Point #controversy
The torture device.
The Submission experience
The blast from the past.
The parks impressive selection has one big downfall in that each ride has a might short cycle. The Mondial supernova for example lasted less then a minute and it barely built up any speed or sensation. I'd actually ridden it in Germany 12 years ago when it was called Air Wolf and there, it was a mightily impressive, intense ride. Here its only okay. The Zamperla ride didn't need to last much longer then a minute as it was weirdly forceless despite holding you upside down for longer then other similar rides. And finally, the Jump2 was just one of the most bizarre ride experiences I've ever done. If I had to describe it, it would be like what would happen if you're moving along merrily in a car and are then shunted suddenly 50/60 feet into the air in a second. It was jerky yet smooth, fast yet slow, short yet tall. I'm not really surprised that Huss only sold one because it's not a solid ride experience. I didn't come off whooping at this amazing ride but I didn't feel disappointed. It is distinctly average and yet none the less I am glad to have ridden it.
We managed to get on all the rollercoasters here and a majority of the unique flat rides so at 9pm, we decided to leave our first Canadian theme park. I recommend a trip here for those that like their theme parks a little bit weird. This is a theme park of variety, where each member of the family gets a lot of ride choice and things to do. Its like the polar opposite of Cedar Point which almost deliberately targets thrill seekers only. With another 16 coasters under my belt, the day was good and our next week was going to be a completely different kettle of fish and one of the most breathtaking and life altering weeks of my life..
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