Mark9

I pretty much agree with all your viewpoints here, Helix in particular is a good ride but I've never found it to be the amazing ride that others do. I too prefer Icon. I think stacking is just an inherent trait of dive machines, I'm yet to ride one that doesn't stack in some way. I find Balder incredibly repetitive and I don't find the air time that interesting. I think I prefer the out of control woodies like Wodan and Wicker Man too the more controlled way Balder rides.

What do you mean by seasoned?

In my personal viewpoint, Leviathan is the worst of the six hyper/giga B&M's I've done. It just lacks that extra something that the others do.. 1. Behemoth 2. Mako 3. Shambhala 4. Raging Bull 5. Silver Star 6. Leviathan Operations were similar to CP but the staff, they were miserable as anything. The odd employee was happy but you could tell the majority didn't care. If you're doing the trip we did, yes you would need a Canadian visa. We crossed the border on a coach at Buffalo, New York state. Canadas Wonderland is a one day park though, as the vast majority of rides were off the shelf models.

You'll still go right?!

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..

Difficult by public transport.

Canada Wonderland is worth it for Behemoth and Vortex alone (and I'm sure Yukon Striker). You don't really need fast lane really as they tend to run full capacity on all their coasters and Behemoth/Leviathan have very high throughputs. The only thing really is you can't get to the park that easily from Toronto which is the nearest city. You only need one day there as they have long opening hours such as 10am-10pm most days. Both parks have very short seasons so keep that in mind. Cedar Point for example is only open for three full months before going weekends only in September and October.

No one posted about this? Gosh, thats a shame. Not even Benin? Looks great, so great that Mack has kind of cracked America what with Time Traveller this year and now this.

BRITISH ENGINEERING. Ah magical memories.

Black Bucanneer was 1988 Current Vampire was 2002 Tomb Blaster was 2002 (albeit not the current form) Rattlesnake was 1998 Rameses in Stargate form was 2000 Toadies 2001 There's very little of original Chessington left now.

Ironic that Hocus Pocus Hall opened to quite a muted response in 2003 and no one cared for it, but is now one of the last of *cough* un-corportate fun.

Explain this please.

It's not throughputs, its efficiency that I'm more about. No point running your ride on three trains if they are always stacked in the break run. A lot of the Cedar Fair rides just have you sitting waiting for the other train to finish loading. Thats one thing that only Oblivion is truly guilty off at Alton and Blackpool. The other rides, its just great to see the Nemesis team in perfect sync, the train heading straight into the station. The queue was up the hill but it never stopped moving. Same with Wickerman, Smiler and Thirteen ?

Agree totally!! An RMC would be an awesome choice!! We saw what happened at Towers when they got a more traditional woodie!!

Wanted to make a comment about Towers really as its the first time I've really seen the place busy since 2015. Operationally they were spot on. Full capacity on everything (aside from Galatica which we didn't go near, stupid VR) and near perfect operations. Nemesis dispatching before the second train hits the break run, Oblivion using both stations, Wicker Man dispatching quickly with minimal stacking. Blackpool was much the same on Saturday. UK operations blow American operations out the water. I was really impressed with Towers and its fantastic to see them back on form. Wicker Man has really done so much more for Towers then people realise. ?

(As if you havent had enough of Cedar Point already) Blue Streak So this woody has a problem in that there's a part of the ride that travels past the bins and it absolutely stinks. Other then that this is a surprisingly fast and brutal wooden coaster and it took us a little bit by surprise. It had two trains running and never had a queue. I like. Corkscrew This was pretty standard actually and apart from doing its thing over the pathway and has sentimental value, it's just another rollercoaster at the park and hasn't too much going for it these days. Look at my photo skills. Gemini I don't really understand this ride. It didn't seem to be very reliable on my visit and for a ride that makes a point of it being a racing coaster, it must be the worst racing coaster out there. The thing doesn't are as the right hand side will always have the advantage. It's also a hybrid coaster but it was pretty unmemorable. Magnum XL This ride is brilliant. My only experience with Arrow hypers is The Big One which is in my opinion, an absolutely atrocious attraction. No air time, painful, shuddery and rides terribly. But Magnum, my god is absolutely fantastic. I can imagine riding this thing in 1989 and being blown away by just how much air time features throughout the ride. Oddly, the majority of the ride is outside the park and can barely be seen as you stroll around the midway. The ride is strangely themed to almost like a space ship (but obviously not) and features a huge drop and a journey towards the adventure park. But on the ride as you come back towards the station the ride throws air time hill after air time at you and it just feels insane. My first ride I was kind of in pain from just how much ejector you get. The second time I was fully aware and I adored it. So yeah I loved it, my fiancé loved it and I wished I'd ridden more. Alas, too much to do. The next big ride is ages away in Old Town (or whatever its called) and too start off with... WARNING, A LENGTHIER REVIEW When it comes to Intamin, they are either brilliant (Taron, Juvelen, iSpeed) or monstrous (Cheetah Hunt, Tornado). With Maverick, back in its opening year and it had an inversion removed due to being too forceful, I had my reservations with how rideable this thing was going to be. Since opening its had some restraint modifications to make it more comfortable to ride and with its mini look but explosive layout, this ride has developed a somewhat cult following among enthusiasts. And I'm happy to say I am a fan. The queue line is quite scenic for Cedar Point, going around a small lake and into a small shedded area before going into the station. I like how each train has a different colour and a different name. In the station, two trains are loaded at a time. We always chose the second train and I think it has a slight drawkback. When the trains are dispatched, the first will go straight into the launch lift hill but the second waits at the bottom. Problem is you have nothing to look at so you just sit (like in the picture) waiting for the ride to do something. But once it gets going this ride doesn't disappoint. From snappy inversions, huge air time hills with bucket loads of air time and a great little speed run through the lake with water blasters going off, this has something for everyone and is a real crowd pleaser. What I like about rides like Maverick, Icon, Taron, Juvelen is that the launch is only part of the experience, a faster lift hill if you will. You're not supposed to get off these rides beaming about how fast you accelerated but how the whole things come together. Maverick is a winner because it brings together everything that is good about Intamin. They don't always get it right but when they do, they really nail it. My only hope is that more open across Europe as they are such great, enjoyable rides. And finally... Ah RMC. Back in your earlier days whilst Theme Park Review were raving and singing your praises, I think a lot weren't too sure about the odd blocky track, the strange stall turns, the way the ride seems to throw riders around with all the grace of a bucking bronco. But over time, as more and more opened, whether completely new like Wildfire at Kolmarden or refurbishments of older rides, each has opened to massive praise. Steel Vengeance is without a doubt their biggest project. Not only did they change the universally hated Mean Streak but the created one of their longest and craziest rides. How does it really compare to other rollercoasters when to be honest there's very few like it. From the moment the train is dispatched, even before the lift hill there's air time which bodes well. What follows the lift hill is what feels like the most out of control experience felt on a rollercoaster. From the banked air time hills, the zero g rolls that felt like they come from nowhere in the layout, the way the train dives through the structure feels incredible. The zero-g stall, the small air time hills into the break run. When it comes to B&M's and you ride, you can remember the layout quite easily, it's simple to describe the feelings through each hill or inversion. When it comes to Steel Vengeance, that feels impossible. Especially on the ride when you're flying past wooden beams or over the top of hills, trying to process the experience feels like a trivial exercise in over-analysing. It's just damn good. My only complaint is the restraints, particularly around the legs aren't great. I don't know if its a height thing because it only seems to effect a few people. But its a minor complaint in what I think is one of the best rides built in the last ten years. Sure, I prefer Gatekeeper as I personally enjoy that ride more. But I don't underestimate the technical skills and know how that went into modifying, building and designing Steel Vengeance. Go and ride, simple as. And so with all that, the Cedar Point experience was over. And was it worth it. Without a doubt yes. Maverick, Still Vengeance, Gatekeeper, Millennium Force and Raptor make the visit more then worthwhile. This is such a strong line up and it's only part of the offering. I know there is a load of people who like to pit CP against Magic Mountain and knowing I have been to two of the sought after US parks feels pretty awesome. I personally prefer CP but Magic Mountain is still a top theme park; I'd go there for Tatsu. JOY! The next stop is Canadas Wonderland so see you then. And thanks for reading.

I've done four of the suspended in their original trains (including Vampire) and Ive only the Kings Island one left to do. Iron Dragon is the worst of the four IMO. See TTD and Stealth can be in that category and thats fine, I just personally find them a waste of time for such a short ride experience. I don't even find the launch that impactful; Once you've done one you've done them all and there feels like no difference from Stealth to TTD, to Rita, Desert Race, Kanonen or Xcelerator. Ironically I love the launches on Maverick, Taron and iSpeed because you can feel that speed building as opposed to just being at full speed almost right away. What I mean by no atmosphere is that majority of the rides are quite literally in silence. If Raptor had sand in its tracks and there was no roar from the trains then that area would feel completely silent, eerie and dead. It hasn't really got much to do with quirky European theme parks but more even Six Flag parks have music in the station, but majority of Cedar is silent. But anywho

Halloween is without a doubt, my least favourite time of year at theme parks. Nothing could interest me less then a bunch of dressed up students ignoring me too make some girls scream in a maze, or the park over run with people in the dark looking to make trouble.

I came up with a list of rides that are worse then Thirteen and I only came up with Spinball Whizzer, Galatica and Rita. Thats not a detriment to Thirteen, I think its a perfectly serviceable ride and one of Towers more fun offerings.

I'm going to go via the park layout when talking about the rides here, its easier then trying to remember the order (Millennium Force will be the exception). Ah Cedar Point. Ever since I first got properly into rides in 2003, seeing the Top Thrill Dragster documentary on Ch4 (I think), I've been endeavouring to get out there but things stopped me. But no more. The first thing that surprised me really was the park layout. The front of the park is absolutely loaded with attractions, Raptor is right on the midway for example and sandwiched in next to it is Valravn. Rougarou and Millennium Force being just a stone throw away. But then Maverick and Steel Vengeance are a good fifteen minutes walk right at the back of the park and in-between that is only really Top Thrill Dragster. People will hate me for this potentially but the park has zero atmosphere. I guess this comes from preferring theme parks to amusement parks, every single ride is just completely silent, the only sound coming from bored Cedar Point staff asking you if you enjoyed your ride or the ride itself. Its bizarre, even Six Flags rides have music around them. But not here. I also think their fastpass system absolutely wrecks the place. Basically, the basic package is around $79 and this is al the high throughput rides like Raptor, Rougarou and Gatekeeper. But if you buy the $99 package you get all the low throughput stuff like Steel Vengance, Maverick, TTD and Force. It's no surprise that Raptor is going around with a 5 minute queue, whilst the lower capacity rides have 30-60 minute queues. It's an oddly unbalanced place. Anywho..... with that out of the way.. Gatekeeper With any ride at Cedar Point, there's always an expectation especially as this is one of the most talked about theme parks in the world. With GK, its always come across as a very average ride, some saying the Swarm is better. I don't care if I am an exception to the rule though and I absolutely loved Gatekeeper. I thought it was the perfect wing rider with near misses that actually work, a large sprawling layout that does the wing rider concept justice, no awkward shuffling of the trains through transitions and no effects that are turned off to safe money. It looks gorgeous sweeping over the entrance to the park and never ran less then three trains keeping queues to a minimum. It was a big surprise and even my fiancé liked it (and he hates all wing riders). Raptor This is no exaggeration. Raptor is an absolute beast and one of the most intense inverters out there. It took me a little bit by surprise as I was expecting a tamed down version of Monster at Walygator, but no trims on here, just a pure thrill ride that is not for the faint hearted. My favourite part was the final helix which whips you into the break run. I also loved the loud roar from the ride, it's absolutely ferocious and B&M certainly don't make them like this anymore. It also looks wonderful in its colour scheme. Valravn This was something of a disappointment for me. To be honest its completely pointless at Cedar Point. Steel Vengence, Maverick and TTD already do pretty much this ride but do far more interesting things. Valravn just feels like a bog standard dive machine but it was always busy and suffered a lot of downtime during my visit. It may (have been) be the tallest, longest dive machine but for my money, Baron1898 and Oblivion are far superior rides and in a park like CP, with many tall rides, Valravn is a bit of a let down. Iron Dragon is next up, this was an ok suspended but it doesn't really seem to do much with its concept. It doesn't really swing much and when it feels like its about to get going, a lift hill appears or a break run. What was nice to see was how busy this ride was. It always had a 15 minute queue. Rouragou Another orange B&M (seriously, why are the B&M's at the front of the park?), this time the former stand up coaster now floorless coaster Rourgarou. This ride is pretty odd, its former Mantis state making a very abstract floorless coaster. More positives stand in that it always ran three trains so queues were at a minimum and its a very fast ride with another very loud old school B&M roar. What it isn't though is smooth, the trains do tend to knock you about a bit. For my money, Raptor is a far superior ride, I do think Rouragou's first drop is a bit of a guilty pleasure though. Millennium Force So this ended up (by careful planning) being my 300th coaster credit. I think it was a rather apt choice. I have a love/hate relationship with Intamin at the best of times and I am glad to see MF really impressed. I like that its a coaster built purely to show off some speed. It's not really an air time ride like most gigas/hypers are, its purely to show off some height at great speed. We only rode on the back row for our rides but I thought it was a fantastic ride. I particularly liked the two tunnels which the ride speeds through. And onto the final ride of this part. Top Thrill Dragster Intamin acceleators are really not my thing. Whilst you get this really impressive launch, the ride rarely ever carries that momentum on for long. Kanonen was probably the best for having an interesting layout and Rita/Desert Racer try their best, the majority are simple letting their impressive speed make up for lacking rides. Top Thrill Dragster is very much one of those rides that impresses with speed but feels completely unmemorable to me. Controversial maybe, but I much prefer a ride like Maverick, Icon or iSpeed which have far more then just an 8 second ride. The launch is fantastic, don't get me wrong but if I'm going to be queuing an hour (plus with rollbacks and breakdowns may I add), then there are much better choices at CP to waste your time waiting for. No point in hitting 420 foot if you only have a second to really appreciate it. I think I may be in the minority for this but its been 15 years since Dragster opened and rollercoasters have moved on from just being record breakers and nothing else.

(It's not over rated, you just don't like it as much as others do)

Cedar Point. Magic Mountain. Islands of Adventure. When you think of American theme parks, these three really are the gold standard when it comes to Uk enthusiast interest. And for good reason CP and MM have a tonne of rollercoasters, IOA is a goldmine for theme lovers (if you can ignore the sheds). It sometimes amazes me just how many US parks fall completely under the radar like SF over Georgia, or Carrowinds or the park I'll be reviewing, Six Flags Great America. This is no run of the mill Six Flags park, housing the worlds first B&M rollercoaster (Iron Wolf), the worlds first B&M inverter and the one B&M wing rider in the Six Flags chain not to mention the RMC or intamin coasters. First thing to really cover though, Six Flags is expensive. $22 for parking and $15 for a slice of pizza. Geez. Now thats out of the way, let us begin. X Flight opened around the same time as The Swarm and the two feel pretty similar. One of my biggest bug bears with the wing riders though is its use of effects. Up until Gatekeeper (oh I'll get to you later), all four wing riders I've done, rely massively on water or fire or mist and all four fall short because they either have nothing on at all or only a handful of effects. It's kind of frustrating knowing what the ride should be and what its actually doing. X Flight though, is safe, middle of the road B&M. We got the first ride of the day on front row left and it didn't feel like anything mind-blowing. A decent ride experience for sure, but if you want a good example, try Flug at Heide. We turned our attention to Demon, an arrow looper. American parks have a lot of these old school style Arrow rides and I can't hide it, I kind of love them. Knowing they were designed with pencil and paper and sure they've been outclassed massively, they are still fun (if jerky) rides. This ride was adapted from its initial layout as well, two extra vertical loops added to compliment the two corkscrews. Next, Raging Bull the only hyper twister that B&M have really ever built and I'm not sure why as this is a great ride. It's long, has air time, lots of force, an unconventional layout and the ride team were operationally perfect. I only wish we had ridden it more in a variety of seats as it was enjoyable and fun. We made our way to Viper, a wooden coaster which is the mirror image of the Cyclone at Coney Island. I liked this but I took no photos of it because I'm a lazy bum. Next ride was Superman Ultimate Flight which sported a 30 minute queue (so far we'd walked onto everything). This again, is super safe B&M and whilst the pretzel loop is as good as is found on Manta and Tatsu, the rest of the layout is a big underwhelming. It's better then Galatica if only for the pretzel loop but if you don't like the pretzel, there probably isn't much for you here. With Batman: The ride closed we decided to head to Goliath, our first ever RMC. I opted for front row and what we found is a masterclass in rollercoaster design, with one problem; it's too short. The ride experience is only thirty seconds long if that but its a damn awesome ride. I was beginning to see the hype but it would be the next day where I came to really feel what RMC are capable off. For now though, it was V2, one of those terrible Intamin launch impulse things and if you decide to read my Cedar Point blog, I'll save you time. These things kind of suck. If its walk on they are almost acceptable, but I've done three different versions now and they all kinda stink. It's okay though because next ride up was.... It was Batman time. A little bit of history, I've previously done two of these rides and been underwhelmed each time. The 7 row version in Spain wasn't great and backwards at Magic Mountain just wasn't much fun. Finally it was time for the real deal, the first ever B&M inverter. It was awesome. It has theme, it is intense, it is snappy, it wastes no time at any point in the layout, its fresh coat of paint looks spectacular, it was just fantastic. 26 years on and it runs like an absolute dream. This Batman deserves all the praise regardless of the 11 other versions there are. This is the real deal. With our minds blown, we had lunch (very expensive) and had a ride on the Dark Knight, an outstandingly themed Mack wild mouse. We then tried to ride Whizzer but that was a no go, went to ride Raging Bull, got in the seat then got asked to get out of the seats and back behind the loading gates. Turned out their had been a park wide power cut and nothing was operational. We took a lap of the park, seeing what was going on but decided to cut our losses and head off. We missed out on a few rollercoasters unfortunately but maybe we'll head back one day. It's a short drive from Chicago and a is a severely overlooked theme parks. Six Flags in general is a bit of a dark horse. I've heard awful things in the past but with the three I've visted there's been good operations and friendly staff (not in a Cedar point 'how was your ride' kind of way either). I look forward to my next Six Flags park visit.

There is, it would just mean that depth charge would somehow outlive a log flume and a rapids ride

With three new parks and several new rollercoasters, probably time to show off the new top ten. 1. Nemesis (-) 2. Steel vengeance (NE) 3. Blue fire (-1) 4. Katun (-1) 5. Alpina Blitz (-1) 6. Maverick (NE) 7. Icon (NE) 8. Gatekeeper (NE) 9. Wodan (-4) 10. Behemoth (NE) The biggest shake up of my top ten in years but a lot of these rides more then justify their placements.

Well done for conquering your fears and getting on smiler and nemesis. It’s only the beginning for you now! The thing with you saying Nemesis is rougher then smiler,thing is Nemesis isn’t a young ride anymore, considering it’s rocking on 25 seasons it rides incredibly well.