Next on the agenda in San Antonio was of course Sea World. The car park sting hit harder than even Six Flags would have here, at an eye-watering $32, for the privilege of some unshaded misery half a mile from the park entrance.
The entrance itself is rather striking, giving the place a unique character amongst the chain for that alone I guess. After many years of waiting for it, we finally bore witness here to a full-on national anthem park opening. Hats were removed and hearts were held. The day couldn’t start without it. More respect here than Cedar Point.
Day 3 – Sea World San Antonio
With tickets scanned we wandered forwards through the trees, immediately spotting the first and most important coaster. #1 Super Grover’s Box Car Derby was all manners of faff. They hadn’t opened the queue properly, leaving a number of guests stuck in various switchbacks trying to find a clear route to the station.
The most cumbersome of policies however, was that they refused to allow any loose items to be placed on the sufficiently empty far platform. The solution to this, which wasn’t presented to anyone until having already taken seats in the train, was to place them in an unsecure cubby hole storage area (pictured above) located entirely outside of the ride area. To access these at this point involved leaving the train back through the air gates and pushing past a crowd of people on a set of stairs that was already holding a full queue of disabled access guests. Once the items were stored, it was necessary to push back past said guests, up the stairs, back into the station and onto the train while the 5! staff members all stood gormlessly there waiting for that to happen.
Got the cred, now let us never speak of it again. A strong start.
The day immediately came to a halt again due to some undisclosed staggered openings. Access to areas beyond Sesame Street, which was already hell on earth after a mere 15 minutes, was blocked by staff members that didn’t understand the question ‘is this area opening later?’
Assuming it would be a round number, we patiently waited until the start of the next hour and sure enough the masses were unleashed once more. Not wanting to queue for it, and wanting to get the wetness out of the way, we made a beeline for Journey to Atlantis, which we saw had already been testing. It wasn’t ready, and there was no indication of when it would be.
Tidal Surge is just over the way then. An astonishingly massive S&S Screamin’ Swing. What’s not to love? The out of seat moments at the extremities, the face down view of nothing but water below, the forceful and fast wind from the sheer speed of the swings. Spoiler: best ride in the park.
Bailing on Journey for now, we continued anti-clockwise to the coaster that had the most potential for keeping us here. I’m swiftly running out of GCIs to play with and #2 Texas Stingray was the only of the ones remaining that had been given personal recommendation, by someone we met at SFGA, as being ‘better than Mystic Timbers’. And I love me some Mystic Timbers.
Well it sure as hell ain’t that for me. I’ve reached the conclusion a while ago that I like GCI best when they’re being un-GCI. If you like the Thunderheads of the world, with their record-breaking 22 banked corners then this is a GCI for you. It rides like one of those, with a few more poppy hills chucked in for good measure. If you like low to the ground, out of control feeling, fast-paced killing machines that tear themselves apart, and a shed, this one is a hard sell. I didn’t dislike it by any means, it’s perfectly serviceable, but it didn’t get me excited at any point and didn’t make us want to stick around. I’d struggle to give you any key moments or highlights from the layout and thus it’s firmly in the middle of the pack.
Next on the journey was #3 Great White, the second Batman invert within a 15 mile radius. It was being run just about as badly, but only with one train as the other was in pieces. Other guests were suffering with an inconsistent ‘fanny pack policy’, having been instructed to keep it on, and then, once seated and restraints locked, take it off. Then the staff struggled to unlock said restraints while watching a man struggle with some contortionism of his own, I guess proving how difficult it would be for it to have fallen off, but rules are rules, sometimes, for some.
Oh, yeah, Batman again. S’alright. +1.
We were noticing a distinct lack of animals in this park by this point. There was a big building with sharks painted onto it next to the cred, which one might have expected to contain some fish, instead it held a sketchy carnival arcade being staffed by a teenager on their phone. I understand Sea World are leaning on the rides a bit more these days but assume the USP is still that you can do a bit of both. Otherwise Six Flags is kicking their ass.
Round the next corner was the construction site that is Infinity Falls. The next in a long line of rides coming ‘this summer’, though I’m really not sure what the definition of summer is any more, while getting scorched. The more annoying part about this one is that they’ve heavily advertised the ride on billboards throughout the city and, as we would later find out, the entire state. New ride! Infinity falls! Worlds steepest log flume or something (not bigging up the launch, which is the bit I was most interested about). Imagine seeing that, driving a couple of hundred miles and then finding a crane and some mud. Oh but don’t worry, you can touch look at the boat.
Moving on though, at least #4 Wave Breaker: The Rescue Coaster lets you know what’s what when it comes to articles. None. Paid lockers outside. We acquired one and entered the queue which weirdly had assigned seating allocated at the base of the stairs, by a staff member who couldn’t see the station itself. This phenomenon will come up again on this trip.
I’m not sure if I like the Jet Ski trains over the usual quadbikey ones I was expecting. The back is the most solid, straight and unforgiving thing ever, but it was otherwise roomy and it didn’t matter anyway. After rolling into a shed and being told which of the many animals we would be saving (rerideability), an overly long countdown is initiated and then what everyone imagines a Mack launch to be like happens.
Truth be told there’s very little of any force going on with this ride, it’s a very family friendly affair, which is fine if that’s what they were going for I guess. Well no, that’s a weak excuse that Chessington use, It’s not like Intamin haven’t made much better ones of these that aren’t also family friendly too, so really it’s just a bit meh. The one thing that could have saved it was a bit of train interaction with Steel Eel, but they were running that so slow that it never happened.
So, #5 Steel Eel. I’ve always enjoyed the name. In my head this was a trend-bucking Morgan hyper, but from where I was sitting it’s basically the same – hills, corners, hills. The float and crunch effect was back in full force, and sadly too much so on this occasion. Sure, the up was fun, but the crashing back down into the seat was jarring to the point of what felt like nerve damage at the base of the neck. Thus, a one and done. Mamba remains the most refined.
Found some animals nearby – penguins. They had a bit of an exhibition at least. Then we realised it was probably best to get #6 Journey to Atlantis out of the way before the locker expired.
Took the walk over there, via Alligator Alley, which was far from an alley. The Mack Supersplash was playing a rather epic theme while no one rode it and it did an extra rotation on the turntables at the top, which I didn’t know was a thing, so that’s something. Splash. Park complete.
After crossing the park once more and emptying the locker, it was decided that we should at least look in on the shows, see how those were doing these days. Filled the time until then by reaffirming that Texas Stingray still wasn’t my bag and then took a seat in the dry area to see what they had to say for themselves.
There’s a lot of pre-recorded video packages about Sea Worlds conservation efforts that dictate the pace of the Orca show. When the action does begin it’s all heavily emphasised that everything we see is natural behaviour, or at least that which is useful for medical checkups. Not my bag either, but let us not forget how ridiculously expensive Sea World tickets are.
As such, the Belugas had a similar story too, though without video packages and any semblance of microphones through which you could understand what the presenters were saying.
It was time to leave. I didn’t vibe with the place at all, it represents incredibly poor value for money, though San Diego is probably still worse, no personal standout attractions, not a whole deal else to do, rather go Six Flags mate.
So we did.
Six Flags Fiesta Texas
Can’t forget about that #7 Boomerang now, can we? Redemption. +1.
Spiteliner was still spiting. Kid spite still hadn’t been built.
Somehow talked myself into riding Dr. D again. The 7-wide cars intrigued me once more – if you get the middle seat you’re sitting dead centre of the track, which is very rare experience on any major coaster. It’ll be perfectly heartlined, a masterpiece of engineering, just like a No Limits POV I thought. I bagged the centre seat and it still sucked.
Superman got a courtesy nod, for fame reasons. Wonder Woman was probably having that tyre looked at. Had another glorious evening on the Iron Rattler.
Having crashed in San Antonio for the night, our first major park of the trip was just a quick drive down the road. As a self-proclaimed Texas’ next big up-and-coming city, there was construction and roadworks absolutely everywhere in the vicinity, but these thankfully failed to hamper proceedings. Things continued to run smoothly when we arrived at what would otherwise be a $30 sting for parking. A wave of the papers indicating that we would be picking up season passes got us through without a hitch and, astonishingly for an establishment of this nature, we were able to park up mere metres from the main entrance just before opening.
Day 2 – Six Flags Fiesta Texas
Initial impressions from the outside are that this is easily one of the nicest looking parks in the chain. An out of character cliff, waterfall and signage greets drivers before entering the car park and, once inside, the ‘quarry’ element of the surroundings is on full display. A well-painted car park B&M catches the eye, alongside a nicely styled entrance plaza through which we headed in order to process said passes. Having flashbacks to that fateful day in St. Louis, where we were issued the wrong pieces of plastic, the procedure this time could not have been simpler. No queue, papers, (Diamond, Platinum, VIP? I’m not even sure) passes that worked. They may have changed the options since the old days, and it may well be killing the popularity of the parks, but it suited us just fine.
Onwards and inwards, the turnstiles were open prior to commencement, allowing us to take a walk through the main street until just past the freshly painted (and newly trained and braked) Boomerang that lurks on the far side of the front plaza. While waiting at a rope drop area that would lead off towards a certain star attraction, we were offered the chance to enter a competition and win a picnic cooler. Not having a sufficient plan to transport said prize home on a plane in the event of winning, I declined and continued to wait in the shade. Yes, Texas was going to be hot of course, and vampire mode was already kicking in.
At the allotted time, the reasonably sparse masses were unleashed into the remainder of the park and we hot-footed it to the entrance of #1 Iron Rattler. Here we were held once again, forming a small queueline under the sign and past the test seat, ending up waiting another 15 minutes or so past ‘park opening’ before the ride itself was ready. This appeared to be happening on the majority of attractions we could see from the vantage point. A certain buzz filled the air as we headed up towards the station, one that tends to occur in the presence of an RMC. I appreciated the little back-story plaque in the queue, along with the ‘world’s largest painting of a rattlesnake’, both of which gave off a certain air of self-awareness. Appreciated less was the endless uphill zigzag of the queue line, given the temperature, but at least it’s shaded and about 1% as bad as The Boss.
We boarded one of the first trains at the back, and first experience with the Gerstlauer rolling stock (no, that’s an Arrow pictured above) was positive. The restraint is a little more simplistic than the usual RMC faff, easier to operate and with far less lower leg impedance. The surroundings and seat itself lend themselves to a rather more ‘exposed’ feeling as well, which is always a plus for me too. Soon, the snake was off. A simple downhill corner kicks things off before the lift hill, demonstrating that company designs hadn’t yet gone full wacky by this earlier point in time. This start however is highlighted by a pleasant interaction with the neighbouring mine train which, on several occasions, managed to line up its own train thundering around and under us, while we prepared for the climb.
And what a climb, the steady pace allows for plenty of appreciation of views out over the rest of the park, aided by the as yet unnoticed terrain aspect of the lift structure. While distracted and not really yet fully contemplating that I was back on holiday riding world class coasters, the train plummeted from under me. And what a drop, it definitely hits hard even for an RMC. There’s a slight left kink to the entry and then a pull out to the right that give it that extra edge of insanity. The speed at the bottom, enhanced by a corrugated metal shelter, is quite something too.
A ton of momentum throws you up onto the cliff in a great surprise double-up type airtime moment that culminates in a poppy overbanked turn. As you accelerate back downwards and sideways out of this, the speed builds once more through another, faster banked turn, eventually plunging back down to the ground at immense pace. The base of the dip here delivered a significant amount of positives, an amount I’m not entirely accustomed to on such hardware and it was a very welcome difference in style. From there, the one and only inversion hits, executed to perfection as it gently flops you headfirst over the top of the cliff once more.
The terrain of course is the Iron Rattler’s signature move. After the large, fast paced elements, you suddenly find yourself going through some motions as if you were in the dying moments of a layout, with some short and punchy airtime hills straddling another couple of small sideways twisty bits, all low to the ground while still 100ft in the air. If I were to take any issue with this ride, and I’ve always got to find something, it’s that these sideways elements in particular felt a little pedestrian to the more seasoned RMC experiencer in me. Maybe in 2013 they were as-yet-unseen and kicking all types of ass, but of everything in this layout they did the least for me.
Not to worry, the airtime is smooth and powerful out of this section and into what my limited, spoiler-free knowledge led me to believe is the legendary cliff drop. Moments like these are always a luxury in a coaster, the sudden discovery of more potential energy than you had before, a ramping up of pace in the midst of the inevitable ramping down of resistance. A big, stonking ejection out of your seat off the side of the rock and back towards station level leads into another low, fast turn and a surprise tunnel through said rock. I had no idea that this existed and loved it. Rushing through the dark and cooling temperatures in hardware like this is entirely unlike anything else in the world and while it’s just another simple corner in itself that doesn’t do much, what happens next is rather epic too.
Violent, sideways and skywards ejector into the brake run. There’s a ton of energy that the snake has left to give as it all comes to an end, but it goes out with a bang and perhaps the most vicious moment of the entire layout. I can’t really argue with that. Overall Iron Rattler went down an instant classic. It’s only really mid-tier RMC, but of course whenever we talk about these things that’s still some ridiculous praise in the grand scheme of worldwide rollercoasters.
The ride has bags of character and I love the many unique aspects it manages to bring to the table. Even though I’ve done a stupid amount of them by now, the fact that their third-ever creation delivers such special moments is testament to how game-changing this stuff was at the time, and still remains to this day. God damn Iron Rattler.
Our first mistake was going round for a second lap, with still just a 10-15 minute queue. After another long walk up to the station, it was announced that ‘essential cleaning’ was required while procedures were already under way and some guests in front of us left immediately. The snake had already kicked someone’s ass this early into the day, also impressive. Through fear of having a ‘Six Flags day’, or rather the Rattler going down at any other time during our visit, knowing we definitely wanted more goes on it, we opted to wait this one out.
The waiting was painful, endlessly torn between leaving and hitting up the rest of the park, understanding there were a lot of creds ahead of us, yet being a mere couple of trains away from another cheeky lap on what was undoubtedly the highlight of the lineup, and one of the primary reasons we were here in the first place. The process was more painful. While I’ll never criticise the meticulousness of the actual cleaning we witnessed, the lack of visible progress became frustrating when the entire ride team would stop wiping, pack everything up, begin cycling the train again, only to then get all the kit out once more and start the routine again, several times over.
I estimate that around an hour passed before we finally got back on it again. By no means too long of a wait for such an attraction, but at the same time most likely entirely unnecessary. The ride delivered once more as it had before, but now it was definitely time to rack up the ol’ coaster count, via the gift shop.
Where I took a liking to this imagery in particular.
Over the way, having been screaming “louder, LOUDER, AHAHAHAHA” at us all morning, was #2 Dr. Diabolical’s Cliffhanger, the parks latest addition, and a B&M described by many as a sign that the company were finally getting a bit more fruity again in their old age. I was intrigued, I think that’s certainly needed in order to keep myself entertained at this point. Heading straight into the indoor section had us queuing in a dimly lit corridor with some artistic shots of the ride itself, a small window to the outside world in very close proximity to some coaster track, for some intimidation, and a perky little tune on the speakers.
The doors at the far end opened and preshow #1 began, with a staff member awkwardly standing in the midst of the scene in a lab coat. While it’s certainly nice to see Six Flags going down a more theatrical route, the show itself felt dated and redundant, which is impressive given the age of the attraction. Apparently we were there to sample a new youth-retaining elixir but, as the good Dr. is a bit of a D, this is a lie.
As we move through a hidden entrance in a bookcase (not seen that one before), we hit preshow #2, in which we learn that we were actually there to have our fear extracted in order to raise an army of creatures. The nature of these creatures is never revealed and while I somewhat appreciate this being left to the imagination, I feel the environment probably warranted some visual indicator as to what the end goal was.
The reality is that some loud, annoying noises go off and we head back outside into concrete, sunlight, lockers and a big B&M. All semblance of theming vanishes and you’re completely detached from the story aside from a single piece of station audio, muted by the open air aspect of a barren loading area and standard ‘enjoy your ride on the Dr. D’ Six Flags operations.
Never mind though, maybe the coaster will be a highlight of the genre? I thought to myself as I boarded the outer back seat of the highly unusual 3×7-seater row cars. Sad to say it was baaaaad. I’m no ride engineer, but something’s happening with B&M. This coaster rode incredibly poorly, and it’s not the first brand new B&M this year to display signs of this. The flexing in the outer rows is jarring and uncomfortable as it bounces and lurches you through what would traditionally be smooth and forceful track elements.
If I had to guess, and it’s only a guess, this is part of some stress-relieving, life-enhancing endeavour (oh look, that fits the ride theme!) to make the hardware last longer, to help make a sale. Whatever it is, it makes things less rigid, perhaps there’s less wear and tear on the track and the trains, but instead those flexing forces are transferred through the riders and it quite simply isn’t a pleasant experience.
I found no redeeming features whatsoever on this 150ft chunk of steel, other than how it looks, you can’t deny the sexy curves of their track design. The drop is marred by juddering about uncomfortably, the inversions are marred by jolting around uncomfortably. The audio is abrasive and annoying, especially as it can be heard park-wide.
The second half of the layout is Boring and Mild at best, with the only evidence of that aforementioned fruitiness of B&Ms latest and greatest designs being a steeper than usual airtime hill which, to be blunt, rides like a bad Gerstlauer. The attraction was about as unpopular as the 23-year old B&M on the other side of the park, not good for the new girl. Let us never speak of it again.
Speaking of the 23-year old B&M on the other side of the park, that’s where we headed next, via more waterfalls.
#3 Superman Krypton Coaster here has another bit of a legendary status for quarry related antics. I’ve become rather jaded to the whole multi-looper ride type over the years, but was excited to see if what was basically the last hurrah of this particular ride type for me could deliver anything special.
Yes and no. While visually I liked what was going on, it doesn’t quite use the terrain in the way I had imagined it might. Unlike the Rattler, it just drops from the top of the cliff and you’re done with that aspect (it’s also quite weird to see just normal civilisation at the top of this particular cliff, rather than some wild frontier).
It’s an unusual, big curvy drop that is rather fun. There’s a bit of a rattle going on at the higher speeds as you power into the massive loop under Superman’s ass, which is par for the course. Things do get a little wild in the mid-section, with some semblance of that old school violence that can be found in certain transitions. A snappy inversion here, an airy lurch out of a mid-course there, it delivers the cookie cutter element sequence once more but goes about doing so in a slightly unorthodox way. I guess I kinda liked it, one of the better of its type for sure.
Speaking of the better of its type, Wonder Woman was last on our major hit list and I was intrigued to remind myself about the insanity of that OG Raptor layout after the hilarious disappointment that was the Jersey Devil. The ride had other plans however, it appears to be destroying itself rather quickly and was only able to run one out of three trains, the others undergoing repair, with constant downtime. Arrival at the queue saw what would have become the most significant wait of the day (essential cleaning aside) had we sucked up the single train operations and just gone with it. However we decided that this was the best opportunity to play the ace up our sleeve, the season pass we had earlier acquired came with 4 free line skips per customer.
How to use these was a different matter however, the online portal for the pass gave no answers. We headed back to the centre of the park and found the flash pass kiosk, asking the guy outside how it worked. A different, convoluted website was involved that needed bar code scanners and the registering of multiple passes onto a single login. Once that was dealt with, a simple selection of the ride was needed and a QR code was generated, which could be shown at the ride at any time that day. Spoiler: it never was.
For geographical reasons we took the opportunity to break for lunch here before heading into the park again. The wrong #4 Goliath, or Batman as it’s more commonly known, sticking out like a big, blue, sore thumb just around the corner, became the obvious next tick off along route. The queueline was hideous, though mercifully empty, consisting of endless uphill switchbacks with not a drop of shade in sight. That new holiday heat was really starting to get to me already.
Flashbacks to Dorney Park in the station, they were running this Invert like absolute trash too. Meandering about between restraint checks and other procedures, arguing with guests over shoes on, shoes off, fanny packs on, fanny packs off, all while train #2 was sitting uselessly on the brake run getting everyone else sunburnt and annoyed. Let’s just get this over with – standard Batman fare, a little rip on the feet in the heat, but otherwise I’m over it.
#5 Poltergeist was next on route in the clockwise direction and we sidled up to the decent looking haunted house façade and pleasant spooky station decoration. Now don’t get me wrong, I love what they’ve done with the place, I just wish it wasn’t just another Premier spaghetti bowl.
A little bit of thrilling and fun in the sun, but otherwise I’m over it.
Things went bad again upon re-arrival at Wonder Woman, it had ceased operation. The queue had mostly dispersed, beyond the point of the fast track merge at the very least, though they were still allowing guests to head in and wait it out, sitting forlorn on the floor. Two engineers were at the front of the station faffing around with the drive tyre that takes the train up onto the chain lift. The tyre was clearly on its last legs, frayed, cracked, split and bare. A measurement was made with a gauge. Apparently it still met the specs and was still good to go in that state. The coverings were re-covered and the operator was given the all clear. Except that it was too late.
Phase 1 of ride shut down for inclement weather had begun. There were now storms in the area. Wonder Woman should have been back in action, but could no longer operate, nor could anything with a height above 25ft until the storm had passed, according to the staff there. It was time to bail.
Taking the 25ft rule to heart, we assumed the next necessary course of action was to hit the smallest cred in the park – a miniature Vekoma Junior by the name of Streamspiter. It was blocked off by a cleaning bucket, which we initially believed to be a blatant disrespecting of the weather rules, but it later appeared that the stupid thing never operated at all during our time on park.
Talking of stupid spites, they were supposed to build these kiddie coasters across the chain for the ‘summer season’, but haven’t even started yet. Construction, get excited, I guess.
Now, the only thing worth riding that was also still open was Pirates of the Deep Sea. This dark ride was great, containing a lovely, cooling queue line with some really nice details. The first scenes of the ride itself with all the rain effects and storms brewing (just like outside) was really atmospheric. It got a little more cliché as the sections went on, with many ghost train throwbacks to other, similar attractions and obvious hints of the old Scooby Doo theme it used to have still shining through, but otherwise solid fun and a welcome change from the usual Six Flags fiasco.
Gave that a couple of goes before ending up on bench: the ride for a couple of hours, waiting out a storm that never truly hit the park that hard. The threat of lightning was such a tease, having killed the operations.
With the opening hours dwindling, eventually some signs of life were seen from a few nearby coasters. A lot of guests had already retired by this point in the day, so all credit to the park for not pulling a New England. They actually bothered to get things going again.
Well, they were trying to at least, we rocked up to Pandemonium only to find that they had immediately broken it. Come back later.
Time to get the dread out of the way, of yet another S&S Freespin, the actual #6 Batman The Ride of the park. It seems my love- (Arashi) hate (Dragon Slayer) relationship with these has reached both extremes and this one fell squarely in the middle – inoffensive.
We wasted sooo much time in these dying moments. Went to the Boomerang for a double dose of bad clones, only for it to break down the moment we reached the station. Not another one.
#7 Road Runner Express was doing fine and was a welcome break from the mess. A punchy little custom layout with some good speed, wild turns, two lifts and the previously mentioned bonus interaction with the Rattler.
Boomerang was still spiting, so it was back to #8 Pandemonium. We witnessed an engineer jump in a car for a final test run before giving it the thumbs up and then managing to complete our own lap. In the hurry, I forgot to care that this is the almost-best Gerstlauer spinner layout.
#9 Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster was accepting guests again, and then went down immediately AGAIN as we batched ourselves into the station. It sounded like an absolute wreck from off-ride, I know the track shouldn’t be that noisy. We sat it out, again, they looked at the front drive tyre, again, they gave it a thumbs up, again. Finally, finally I hopped into the back seat, ready to see if it lived up to old Railblazer.
Upon departing the station it begin juddering violently, and slipping on that front drive tyre, barely, barely making it up onto the chain lift, all while the operator was giving a nervous glance to the engineers still present, his hand hovering dangerously close to the E-stop. We sooo very nearly didn’t get this lap, it was a total miracle. Should probably take another look at that tyre.
And the result? It rode about as badly as it sounded, and kinda like Jersey Devil did after 5 minutes. These things clearly don’t age well, or the parks are very bad at looking after them. But crucially, it completely affirmed my feelings for Railblazer. The evidence of the ridiculously killer ejector moments from that back seat was all still there and it still managed to absolutely haul through the wonderfully Raptor-specific stylings of the layout. A candle in the wind, perhaps.
With only minutes left on the clock we ran back to the other side of the park to close out on the Rattler. In a very satisfying manner, we saw Wonder Woman now stuck on the lift hill, from our own lift hill, before enjoying yet more snake-based elation.
In a very unsatisfying manner, they had to go and Six Flags the day right at the very end though. We entered the still-open queue one final time for the night, making it all the way up into the station only to be shouted at by ride staff that “IT’S CLOSED!” A train full of riders was yet to be despatched, along with half a trains worth also waiting in the air gates. I half attempted to point out that there would still be seats free anyway on their next load, but it was met with another instant rebuttal of “IT’S CLOSED!” Perhaps, most annoyingly of all, some of the other guests in those air gates began to back him up by also shouting “IT’S CLOSED!” at us. Why did they care?
Our only option was to walk the long way back down the queue, to eventually find that they had chained off the entrance behind us.
We’ve been hitting the States pretty hard over the past few years, rough patch aside. By far the largest black hole left was big ol’ Texas, which was destined to form the foundation of a visit this year. Though it has many a bucket list park and coaster to its name, it was clear in the earlier planning stages that the Lone Star State simply wouldn’t be enough to satiate the needs of my style of road trip alone, and the question soon became; East or West?
Both directions had their draws and drawbacks, but both were also relying upon fresh openings for this season to really give them some bite. In the end it was a certain combination of these newbies that swung the decision. Let’s see how far the road takes us this time.
Fortunately or unfortunately, there is no epic tale of travel to tell on this occasion. Contrary to what I had come to expect in recent years, it turns out flights and hotel bookings can all run smoothly, sometimes. A simple plane journey from Heathrow to Austin passed without incident, where we were soon allocated our Canyonero-style vehicle in order to help us blend into the landscape. Though massive and with blind spots the size of the state itself, it had comfort. form and function over the El Toro-inspired Kia Souls we’d become accustomed to and, most amusingly of all, it had better fuel economy than those too.
Having arrived late afternoon, there was time only for a quick warm-up session to kick the trip off. Not too far down the road, in the humble town of Seguin, lives a certain little wooden coaster.
Day 1 – ZDT’s Amusement Park
Z(ee)DT’s (try not to say it like you’re British) is a tiny establishment, consisting of an arcade, a restaurant, some go-karts, a couple of micro-footprint flat rides and of course #1 Switchback, itself spanning what feels like more than half the square-footage of the park. You can either wristband up for everything, or just the coaster. Of course we opted for the latter and headed in under the structure.
The baby Wood Express trains were a welcome sight, along with the cute little execution of the switch track prior to the station.
These miniature Gravity Group creations have developed a bit of a reputation for being beasts, was this one about to punch above its weight as well?
Yes it was. While not quite carrying the sheer violence of a Mine Blower (RIP no thanks to RMC), or perhaps the relentless pacing of the aforementioned Wood Express, Switchback delivers a series of highlights amongst a fun-fuelled layout. The tightest of turns out of the station and again at the crest of the lift hill show off the manoeuvrability and compact nature of the hardware before a punchy, slightly twisted right-then-left first drop lines you up alongside the lift structure.
Passing through the long straight that forms the switch track feels a little silly, but it ends with a momentous little pop of a first hill, diving around the side of the restaurant. Another twisted downwards lurch leads into a heavily overbanked hairpin turn, a sheltered hill and couple more minor airtime moments turning back towards the station and into the signature vertical spike.
87 degrees, or so they claim, the train stalls with a simple energy and begins the return journey back through the entire layout. While the speed has been lessened, the lack of anticipation while moving backwards lends itself to keeping this half just as entertaining as the start. There’s a respectable amount of ride duration for the size. A bite of the brakes hits as you pass back through the switch track, leaving only the slightest of rollbacks up the first drop, before you trickle forward and come to a full stop and a quick slide of the track lines you back up with the station.
A world’s only, no less.
Through only sharing the park with a number of guests that you could count on both hands, we enjoyed several back to back laps of satisfying coastering. It’s the perfect kind of ‘solid’ experience that would do wonders to so many locations across the globe, over the likes of, say, a monkey-laden B&M. They remained operational until reasonably late in the evening, allowing us to pop out for a quick bite to eat down the road, and then return for another handful of rides before hitting the highway to the hotel and catching up on some well earned sleep.
After getting a decent sleep for the first time in 3 days, I actually felt human as we hit the road again on route to Kings Island.
I was really excited to visit the park, and had been for quite a while, I couldn’t exactly pin down why though. Maybe it’s because it’s just one of those names, maybe it’s because I’ve heard it described as the best Cedar Fair park multiple times, the only thing I knew for sure was that it wasn’t for a certain coaster. I hope we can all agree that the park on paper is currently lacking a true stand out attraction and instead just has a solid line up of coasters that could fall anywhere from average to awesome, so let’s go find out.
We arrived at the park early, we wanted to maximum every minute in the park today to ensure we got everything done and plenty of re-rides.
We also needed to collect our purchased in 2020 season passes, which had every possibility of being a disaster.
They weren’t though, in fact it was all very easy, and better still the man who served us was friendly too, what a great start to the park.
As was walking around the entire park, which they allow you to, before the attractions were ready to open at 10.
The park looked great, and it was awesome to get close up views of the coasters we’d be riding in 20 minutes.
Mystic Timbers
At about 15 minutes to 10 we made our way over to the entrance of Mystic Timbers and were able to learn exactly what people mean when they say the park has fantastic operations.
At 9:50 the ride’s soundtrack was turned on, building the suspense nicely. At 9:55 a ride host appeared, with a nod. At 9:59 he got a phone call. And at exactly 10am the chain dropped and us and a few others began powering through the queueline, realising when we reached the station that the coaster was already running 3 trains.
Enough with the park’s awesome operations, how was the coaster?
It was very good, but consider this part 1 of my review, because re-rides later in the day elevated Mystic Timbers to a Top 10 woodie, out of 106, and left me speechless with just how intense and relentless it was.
All I can say for now is, it’s fast, it’s twisty, it’s powerful and the airtime is amazing.
Also the shed, for what is it, is great fun, and added even more character to this fantastic coaster.
Beast
Another coaster that’s having a 2 part review is the legendary Beast, because this coaster, in the morning, with a slightly upset stomach, didn’t do all that much for me.
Our night ride later however, was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had in this hobby for a while, so we will pick Beast back up later.
For now it’s long, it’s legendary, it’s alright.
Diamondback
Diamondback, the park’s B&M Hyper was next, and was quite the disappointment.
I’d heard this coaster described as one of the best Hypers the company ever built, but in my opinion it’s mid to low tier, with not all that much of note happening other than countless hills that at best have weak floater airtime. A massive step down from Mako on the last trip.
Orion
Will Kings Island be like Carowinds though? Where the B&M Giga is significantly better than the B&M Hyper? Yes! Side note, Diamondback, for as average as it is, still smashes Intimidator…
Going into my first lap of Orion with tempered expectations was exactly the right thing to do, because I came off really enjoying it. Then every re-ride (which were easy to get thanks to great operations) it grew more and more on me.
Orion is never going to set your life on fire, but for what it is (awesome first drop, fantastic feeling of speed and good airtime moments) its great fun, I like it far more than I expected I would going into the trip.
Banshee
Might as well knock off the final of the B&Ms while we are on a roll.
Banshee then, I wasn’t a fan, and that’s coming from someone who used to have 2 B&M Inverts proudly in his Top 25, Nemesis and Pyrenees for those wondering.
The trains are so wide and chunky that the whole thing felt far less aggressive and dynamic than Inverts are supposed to. Couple that with the layout which seeks to break the inverted inversion record much more than balancing forces like Inverts are supposed to.
I wasn’t a fan, but the coaster had some of the longest queues of the day, so it’s clearly doing something right.
Adventure Express
With all the major stuff knocked off it was time to start ticking off the lesser coasters, starting with one of the better ones, Adventure Express.
This Arrow Mine Train was good fun. It was the perfect amount of old school Arrow violent, and the ending sequence still makes me laugh to this day.
Racer
Racer was next, and a nice surprise.
Kings Island’s racing woodie was actually pretty great, and rode far better than the one at Kings Dominion.
This one was more than just an oldish (50 years) woodie that raced, this one actually offered some fun forces including some decent pops of air, and much like Adventure Express the ending sequence still makes me laugh to this day.
You know the best part though? It didn’t take a revisit to get both sides, unlike Kings Dominion…
Do me a favour and pretend you can’t see Orion.
Flight of Fear
Keeping the Kings Dominion comparisons going a second, their Flight of Fear was a fun surprise, the one at Kings Island however is absolutely awful.
Rough to the point that it almost stalled several times just about covers it to be fair.
Backlot Stunt Coaster
The last time I’ll mention Kings Dominion I promise!
Backlot Stunt Coaster rode exactly how it did at the other Kings park, which is to say, it’s pretty good, but nothing special.
Woodstock Express
Woodstock Express was next, the park’s baby woodie, it was alright.
Invertigo
Followed by Invertigo, the park’s Invertigo…, which was also alright.
It was easily my least favourite of the 3 currently operating Invertigos though, and it doesn’t really fit in all that well at a park like Kings Island.
If you’re starting to question where my review of The Bat is, there isn’t one, it was closed all day. I’m not that concerned though, I feel like Kings Island could announce an insane new coaster any moment these days and that we will be re-visiting very soon.
Eiffel Tower
Unlike a certain other Kings park (I’m sorry), Kings Island had their observation platform open, so with a little time to kill we went for a picture lap on the Eiffel Tower.
Flying Ace Aerial Chase
The final coaster to tick off, the only thing between us and more Mystic Timbers, Flying Ace Aerial Chase, wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
After queuing far too long we were presented with the worst layout of the Vekoma SFC, with the worst trains possible on a Vekoma SFC, riding the worst a Vekoma SFC has ever ridden.
We honest to God almost witnessed a child break their jaw on the stupid restraints as the coaster took a poorly transitioned corner at 10mph, Vekoma have come a long way.
Then it was time for Mystic Timbers lap 2, and God damn! The coaster was flying around the track now making every force we loved earlier more intense and the coaster as a whole absolutely relentless.
When me and Heartline get off a coaster in silence it either means 2 things, “that wasn’t very good but I don’t want to be the first to say it” or “that’s just blown my mind I need a second to get my thoughts”.
Mystic Timbers was firmly in the second category, it had just transformed from being a very good GCI to being up there with wooden coaster royalty. And it wasn’t finished with us yet…
Still awestruck we stumbled onto the park’s train to get some pictures of Mystic Timbers from other angles, I completely failed in this endeavour but was happy to rest my legs regardless.
Then after a lap of the park and some more Orion, we headed back to Mystic Timbers just as the sun was going down for lap 3 and things were about to get even more intense.
First off, the queue was now rowdy, in a funny way, with a group of teens repeatedly starting a game of “PASS IT BACK!, PASS IT BACK!, PASS IT BACK!”, with queue line rocks.
Then Mystic Timbers cemented itself as a Top 10 woodie by somehow being even more intense than lap 2. We were absolutely screaming through the trees, at dusk, being thrown all over the place, while the train and track beneath us both made sounds like they were able to tear apart.
Pure intensity, pure joy, I love Mystic Timbers.
Beast time!
Night time Beast eh? I’ve got to admit, I didn’t see the fuss, well I was about to eat my words big time, but not without a fight.
The park had a big 50th anniversary fireworks and drone show at 10pm, which meant they needed to stop running Beast during it, but don’t worry operations will restart as soon as the show ends.
We joined the queue at 9:45, got almost to the station, operations stopped just before 10pm and then they didn’t restart again until way after the show ended.
If this was because of a technical issue then thanks Kings Island for fixing Beast so it could educate me on Beast night rides. If it was normal procedure after the fireworks end, then maybe make it clearer that it won’t restart straight after the show ends.
Either way, as soon as the ride restarted we reached the station in no time and were presented with an amazing atmosphere of excited riders and awesome ride ops, who chanted “BEAST! BEAST! BEAST!” with every dispatch.
Then it was our time.
Words won’t do it justice.
Flying around in the pitch dark at what feels like a million miles an hour, seeing the other train launching towards you in the dark, the smell of the grease and wood in the tunnels, the creaking of the wood beneath you, the thought of is there really a beast in these woods, God damn it was special.
And with that Beast became the biggest change of heart I’ve had with a coaster in recent memory. Going from, it’s alright, I respect that, to something super special and memorable. The power of Beast night rides, I’m a believer now.
And just like yesterday at Kennywood, we ended yet another day on a massive high and a legendary coaster.
Kings Island then, very good. Fantastic operations, clean and well kept park, friendly staff, 3 awesome coasters.
All you need to do now to become a contender for best park in the US is to give us RMC Son of Beast or the World’s largest Mack Xtreme Spinner, I’m not asking too much am I?
Thank you for reading, click here for day 4 of my trip report where we ride another amazing GCI at Beech Bend and the amazing Storm Chaser at Kentucky Kingdom.
The excitement of our long awaited trip finally beginning made me forget all about the previous day’s misfortunes, and the fact I had only had 2 hours sleep max.
Kennywood
The 3 hour drive to the park flew by quickly as the excitement grew further, and the much needed energy drink kicked in.
Kennywood was easily one of the more anticipated parks of the trip, for me at least. The ride line up is so different than most other parks out there, mixing unique modern coasters with no less than 3 old school woodies. I’d heard the place compared to Blackpool Pleasure Beach many times, for many reasons, and for me at least, that’s a strong compliment.
Steel Curtain
As you may have gathered from the introduction I try to keep tabs on Kennywood, and one thing I’ve learnt is that having Steel Curtain open on your visit is not always guaranteed. So that’s exactly why we headed there first after seeing it running.
I went into Steel Curtain with as open a mind as possible, but I couldn’t shake the voices in my head that were telling me it probably wasn’t going to be a top 25 coaster. And it wasn’t, but is it about as good as it could possibly be to just miss out.
Steel Curtain is a fantastic coaster, with a terrifying lift hill, pre drop, dive drop start, that leads into a fast paced layout full of fun and snappy inversions and strong pops of airtime, all while sitting in a very exposed position.
No one part really stands out and slaps you in the face, but Steel Curtain as a package is awesome and was the perfect welcome back to the US coaster scene.
Phantom’s Revenge
But it wasn’t as good as Phantom’s Revenge…
Before this trip, whenever I saw someone rank Phantom’s Revenge in their top 10 I thought they were going insane. Now though, I can absolutely understand the love this legendary coaster gets.
First off, if I felt exposed in the Steel Curtain trains, which I did, Phantom takes it to the next level. It honest to God feels like you are sitting in your favourite arm chair at home, not about to drop 228 feet, travel 85mph and get ejected into space multiple times. I love it so much, it adds so much character to a coaster that’s already dripping in it.
Then the layout, oh my God, talk about a coaster with 2 clearly defined sections.
The first half of Phantom’s Revenge (not including the lift hill) is great fun, and what all old school hyper coasters should be, smooth, fast and with a few decent airtime moments. The second half however is absolutely outrageous with some of the strongest ejector airtime moments I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve experienced a lot.
You can never prepare yourself for the second half of Phantom’s Revenge, and if you’re anything like me you’ll spend the whole first half of the coaster trying to ready yourself, fail completely, and then spend the whole second half laughing in disbelief at what you’re experiencing.
Phantom is amazing and was easily one of the best surprises of the whole trip.
Thunderbolt
Next up we rode the first of the park’s old school woodies, and easily its best, Thunderbolt.
While I’ve certainly ridden better old school woodies, I thought Thunderbolt was good fun, with its location and interactions with Phantom’s Revenge certainly enhancing the experience.
Ghostwood Estate
In the slightly lengthy queue for Ghostwood Estate, the park’s interactive ghost train, we tried to work out if it would be a better idea to phone all the hotels separately to update our card info, or to phone head office and get them to do it for us. It turns out both ideas are awful, but not as awful as Wyndham themselves. We will pick this up in a second…
Ghostwood then. It wasn’t great if I’m honest, plus our car kept getting stuck throughout the layout, which I’m putting down to 2 chunky women batching themselves into the back of our car while the staff weren’t paying attention.
We needed to head to the car for snacks, and to reapply sunscreen, so while there we decided to get this hotel crap out of the way once and for all.
Our hotel for the night was currently staffed by a woman who was at best useless. She wouldn’t let us update our card info on her system and kept saying you’d need to phone the head office.
Then you phoned head office, got a confused foreign man, who then told you to phone the hotel.
Getting angry now, Heartline phoned head office 1 more time. Explained how upset he was with the whole situation (read about it here) and asked 1 last time for them to fix it or to explain what we’d need to do to fix it ourselves.
After they hung up on us, and we got back through to the same man, he gave us the only solution he could think of. Cancel all your booked hotels that have the expired card info and rebook them now, 1 by 1, on the phone, at much higher prices.
I don’t think I need to explain everything wrong with that statement, but I will tell you that at that moment we officially decided we’d face all the hotels 1 at a time and stretch resolving them over the whole trip.
You know what would calm us down man, more Kennywood.
Jack Rabbit
Starting with Jack Rabbit, the second of the park’s old woodies.
It wasn’t all that great, but thanks to a family sitting behind us it damn sure was amusing.
We are bouncing along, not much happening, no one else on the train really caring either. Then suddenly this woman behind us shouts “here it comes! airtime! woo!”, and she wasn’t wrong. The coaster delivered a vicious pop of ejector air, it was great, the whole train loved it, then we went straight back to riding in silence, bouncing along with not much happening, it was so strange.
Sky Rocket was meant to be our next ride, but it was currently experiencing a delay, and it was far from the first one we’d seen today.
So, on a bench outside the currently broken Sky Rocket, while I was waving at the amazing Kenny the Kangaroo (see the mural outside Thunderbolt), Heartline phoned our hotel for the night, 1 last time, while knowing we had many different options for the night if they didn’t want to play ball.
Of course they didn’t. So they were told to shove it in as many words as possible while we powered through the short queueline of the now reopened Sky Rocket.
Sky Rocket
Sky Rocket was far better than I was expecting, and so much better than the terrible Sky Rocket 2 models.
Fun punchy launch, good airtime moments, snappy inversions, and all while being perfectly smooth, a good little coaster.
Racer
Racer was next and the last of the park’s old woodies, and honestly probably the worst.
It didn’t really do much, positive or negative, and the racing aspect didn’t even work properly with 1 train winning every time.
I can’t fault it too much though because from the second we stepped off of Racer the park stepped up its game and transformed into the Kennywood I’d read about online, and became one of the best parks of the trip.
It all started with our 3rd lap of Steel Curtain.
As we took our seats in the train, nervous that we wouldn’t have enough time to complete the park, and spend quality time with the Phantom, we were asked to leave our seats and step back behind the airgates because there was a fault with the restraints.
It was the after market seatbelts, the ones that have caused multiple headaches in the coaster’s short life.
Cue around half an hour of comedy gold, including but not limited to.
The ride operator cycling the seatbelt system every 30 seconds, producing a fast paced clicking noise, that we could perfectly replicate in our axe damaged hire car.
The ride operator answering a question from someone in the queue with, “I’m just pushing buttons”, which once again we adopted into the hire car.
The already displeased engineer dropping his spanner through the track 30 feet to the floor below.
The sheer excitement on a new staff member’s face that they were now trained to operate the coaster’s handicap elevator.
Best of all though, they managed to solve the fault and we were able to get a 3rd lap, which was probably the best of the whole day.
Exterminator
With Lil’ Phantom and Old Mill both being closed, Exterminator was the last ride we needed at the park before we finished the day at Phantom’s Revenge.
The queue for Exterminator was awful, dark, loud and crowded, it helped to remind me that I’d only slept for 2 hours. The coaster itself though was pretty great, just for how much it spun and how intense it was to experience that in the dark.
Then it was Phantom time, and my God, it was awesome.
No queue, hyped up staff and the coaster running even better than it was earlier in the day. The perfect way to end a great day at Kennywood.
Thank you for reading, click here for day 3 of trip report, where we visit the fantastic Kings Island.
It was finally upon us. A trip discussed in mid 2019, planned in early 2020, delayed and adjusted more times than I care to remember. This was the big one, the one we’d all been waiting for, the even greater follow up to my favourite trip of all time (USA 2019, which you can read here).
We were ready, but it would turn out that the World still wasn’t…
If you read my recent Florida trip report you’ll remember that we had a rather close call checking in for our flight thanks to the (at the time) mandatory Covid tests. This time though, we were prepared.
A friend drove us to the airport, and I made sure to ask him to get us there early. I’m talking early enough to do the Covid test and still be early enough to be at the check in desk before it even opened. He did us 1 better, he got us there even earlier than that.
Even better, the queue for the Covid test centre was far less than it was when we needed it for our Florida flight. This is going to be a breeze…
Just as expected, we were Covid free and in the first group of people to be at the check in desk ready to go.
Boarding passes in hand, luggage checked in, it was time to head to security.
This was the era in the UK when security queues at airports were on the news daily for being 6 miles long and 4 hours at all times.
While I can’t say that didn’t happen at some point, I can say that although the queue we entered looked awful, it was in fact only about 40 minutes long.
We did the maths while we queued, we should still be about an hour early for our flight even after this mess. Also various budget airlines were combing the queue and fast tracking you out of it if your flight was nearing. I’m certain that the team at American would do the same for us if we were in any risk of not making it.
So we get to the front of the security queue and have to go through the barriers that let you into the main bit with all the scanners.
We scanned our boarding passes and were both presented with a message to seek assistance.
In the confusion of scanning it a 5th time to see if it was really us or a Heathrow problem a security bloke came over and asked us where we were flying, and then escorted us off to the side where several other poor souls were standing.
“Your boarding passes aren’t letting you through because American Airlines deem it impossible for you to get through the scanners and to your gate in the over an hour you have left. You’ll have to go downstairs to the check in desks to get them to sort it out”.
Many questions were floating around now, such as, “why didn’t anyone come get us out of the queue then?”, “we joined security straight after we checked in, straight after check in opened, what more could we possibly have done?”.
None of that logic mattered though, as the security bloke just told us there’s nothing he can do, you’ll have to go see American downstairs.
So we all headed there. To a closed desk…
So we all headed back to exactly where we left off, back to the same security man at the side of the scanners.
He started phoning people while still going on about how this is 100 percent an American Airlines issue and not Heathrow.
5 minutes later an American team member came sprinting up behind us, shouting “let em through!”.
A wise girl in our group of stranded souls asked him a simple question that we were now all thinking. “Because of all that running about we’ve just had to do we are now getting a bit tight on time, can we fast track what’s left of security?”.
“If you get through these barriers, you’ll get on the flight”, he replied.
What was left of security didn’t take all that long, but with time now tight, nearly all of our stranded few decided to sprint to the gate.
It was all for nothing though…
We got to the gate, plane still sitting there, “sorry you’ve missed it.”
It was at this point I was glad that all the other stranded passengers were American and from the parts of the US where words don’t get minced and tempers fly high.
The duty manager was summoned, he wasn’t much use though…
“First off, no one is getting on that flight.”
Cue all the previous comments made at the security man but this time angrier.
“Chill out guys, we’ve got, hundreds of flights to the US departing today, you can fly anywhere you want, free of charge, you won’t even need to go back to check in, there’s a special desk between gates X and X.”
Off we went, all feeling defeated, but hopeful. If there really is that many flights, maybe the wait won’t be long and maybe we fly somewhere that might make things slightly easier. It would mean Heartline would have to rejig the plans for the 50th time though…
We all get to the desk, and it wasn’t great…
No shade on the lady working there, she was friendly and understanding, and clearly not in the position to do anything close to what the man had promised us.
We had 3 choices. Fly in 3 hours to New York, fly in 5 hours to New York, via L.A., or wait 23 hours for the flight we just got screwed out of.
Option 1 please.
This meant we’d need to switch terminals, and go through all the security faff again at a different location though…
Would we miss another flight today?
Thankfully not.
I’d struggle to call it a victory, but there would be a silver lining to this mess. In the queue for security I contacted BA asking them to urgently phone me because I’d need to change my pick up location for the car. At the gate a friendly lady phoned me and told me that changing my location will save me nearly 500 pounds, that makes this sting slightly less.
Once we finally got in the air the flight itself was fine, as it always is with American. But now it was time to let it sink in that a 4 hour drive to almost Kennywood, had just become a 6 hour drive to almost Kennywood, and we’d also be arriving much later than before. This was going to be a rough night.
We landed ahead of schedule and immediately launched as fast as we could towards the hire car pick up, where thankfully there was no line, just a man complaining that the car he was given through choosing the “wildcard” option didn’t suit his needs, well yeah…
The car we were given looked like it had been attacked with an axe in several places, but we were in a rush and didn’t want to go through the faff of changing it, if we even could. We brought the damage up with one of the staff members as we left though, she made a note on our forms and commented, “I’ve told them not to rent this one out anymore, and that was 3 renters ago!”, yeah that sounds about what I’d expect.
The sat nav told us we’d arrive at our hotel between 1 and 2am with no stops, and because we’d now past the free cancellation window it was set in stone, we’d have to make it there no matter how ruined we were.
Or not…
We phoned the hotel when we around half way there to let them know we’d be arriving so late. I mean you shouldn’t have to, but we’ve been burned before by not making the effort.
“I’ll be here all night sir, arrive when you arrive”, “awesome, thanks”, “could I just check the name though?” “sure”, *gives name*, “oh I’m sorry, we’ve been trying to contact you all day, the card you used to book the room has expired, so we’ve cancelled your room, don’t worry though we have rooms, and we can check you in for the day rate price once you arrive”, “I see….”.
I’ll make a very long saga short here. Wyndham hotels are one of the most useless companies out there, with an awful website and terrible customer service on their helpline.
Because this trip had been booked so long ago and changed so many times, most of the Wyndham hotels were booked on a previous credit card. When booking more recent hotels for the trip a new up to date credit card was used and stored on the website.
It turns out though, the hotels are only able to use the card you originally booked to stay with them on and will make no attempt to sort this out.
They will not contact Wyndham or use the website to get the up to date credit card, nor will they phone you to ask for an up to date credit card. They just get to 6pm, see your card is expired, and then cancel the room.
Needless to say this was quite the situation and not one you want to deal with at midnight when your flight has already messed with your plans.
We decided we’d attempt to deal with sorting the hotels for the rest of the trip tomorrow, and tonight we’d just forget our previously booked hotel and find one that means less driving tonight.
So, while I was feeling like death, and Heartline was begrudgingly eating a McDonalds, we found a decent looking and well priced hotel right next to Hersheypark, a park we were very excited to be revisiting later in the trip.
This trip would end up redefining the phrase “oh, I’ve stayed at worse” and it all began tonight at a hotel with views of Skyrush.
The hotel room was dirty, dated and falling apart, and located next to a major road, that from 3am onwards was nothing but trucks, all using their horns.
This led to me probably getting 2 hours sleep on my bed that was seconds from falling apart while it sounded like the jump scare from the Dark Knight coaster was endlessly replaying outside, a rough night indeed.
Thank you for reading, click here for day 2 of my trip report where we visit the awesome Kennywood and ride the outrageous Phantom’s Revenge.
The final day of the trip was here, and although it’s always a sad time having to go home, this time more than ever I felt that we had completed and got the most out of everything the place had to offer.
With the exception of the last few things that we were going to round up on a big (time sensitive) loop from our hotel to the airport.
Starting with American McDonalds for breakfast, their Canadian bacon McMuffin is about the only thing that American McDonalds do right.
Fun Spot Orlando
Before driving 5 minutes over to Fun Spot Orlando.
Because of its location, Fun Spot Orlando felt much more like an actual park than the Kissimmee site, but also because of its location, the Orlando park had almost no atmosphere, at least when we visited.
No atmosphere and no customer service either it turns out.
Where the staff at the Kissimmee park ranged from slightly caring to so friendly it was a little awkward for my English brain to understand, the Orlando site was staffed entirely by people who didn’t want to be there.
We didn’t have a discounted purchased in advanced wristband like we did at Fun Spot Kissimmee, so instead would need to buy a points card in order to ride today, thankfully we only needed 1 lap on each coaster.
So we went to the ticket counter, the woman serving wasn’t at all interested in being there, and then managed to rip us off too.
It would later turn out that this wouldn’t matter (spoilers) but at the time it wasn’t the greatest of first impressions of a park.
Sea Serpent
We started with the park’s E&F Miler kiddie coaster, the first of the park’s completely cloned line up.
Freedom Flyer
Before making our way over to Freedom Flyer, the park’s Vekoma SFC, and riding the worst example of this layout yet. It was however 100 times better than Flying School at Legoland Florida.
White Lightning
The final coaster left to experience at the park was White Lightning, the park’s twice cloned GCI woodie. I’d ridden both clones multiple times before White Lightning, and I’m sad to say that once again this is the worst version.
And that was Fun Spot Orlando, expensive, and not very good.
Right, clock’s ticking, let’s go.
Next up we visited a K-Pop shop and a Walmart, where we managed to spend so long that all other plans had to be cancelled, it was time to head to the airport, it was time for everything to go wrong…
We got to the airport, with the traditional 3 hours to spare for international flights, had some food, flew through security and then took a seat way too early at our gate.
Then we were delayed, then delayed again, and again…
Then with no staff at our gate, the screens changed from delayed to cancelled… With no text or communications from British Airways, the airport website also changed our flight from delayed to cancelled…
I’m so thankful that Heartline was here during the whole thing. He has experience in this sort of crap that I don’t, so he knew exactly how to react to all of it.
Step 1, we need to sprint back to the check in desks and raise hell.
We were in the first 6 or 7 people to make it to the gate but were immediately told to stand aside so they could check in people for the flight after us, we will make an announcement soon.
And oh boy did they.
A scared man, stood up infront of the 10 of us now and told us:
Your flight has been cancelled because a storm earlier meant your plane landed in Miami. When that plane took off later to come here, the staff on board ran out of flying hours so they had to go back to Miami. There’s nothing we can about that. Also, we phoned BA HQ and they have informed us that even though there are plenty of seats free on the Heathrow flight, they will not be putting any of you on that flight. Once again there’s nothing we can do. We also can’t book any of you onto the next Gatwick flight here because we don’t have permission, you’ll have to do that yourselves.
Step 2, find somewhere to sleep for the night, keeping all receipts so BA can refund it later.
While I phoned every hotel on a special list of nearby hotels that help during this sort of thing, Heartline went on Booking.com.
It began to dawn on us during this search that hundreds of flights had been cancelled. None of the special hotels on the list had a room, and prices on Booking.com were soaring as we went on.
Finally Heartline found us a hotel at a “decent” price, now all we’ve got to do is get there.
Hire car or taxi?
Hire car would be easier in all senses, let’s go down that route.
OH. MY. GOD.
There was honest to God a 3-4 hour queue for every single car hire company. With rumours also flying around that cars were close to selling out…
Thankfully we got to chatting with a very friendly American man in the queue, who after hearing about what we needed the car for, hearing how long the taxi queue was (possibly longer than the car hire one), suggested we try Uber.
It turns out, this man is a genius, and Uber is a lifesaver.
Install app, give details, press find me a driver, then in less than 15 minutes a friendly man arrived and we were off to our hotel.
Which just so happened to be pretty much inside of Fun Spot Kissimmee, for better, and for worse.
On one hand we were sleeping a 2-3 minute walk from one of my new favourite wooden coasters. But on the other one we were sleeping next to a set of traffic lights on a major junction, while also being in a hotel that’s part of the almost 24 hour entertainment area that attaches to the park, either way BA would be the ones paying for it.
Day 12
Thankfully I was still able to sleep rather well, which isn’t all that surprising considering the intensity of the trip that had come before.
How did we spend our free (sort of) extra half day in Florida? By watching Battlebots and chilling in the hotel, but we knew we couldn’t leave for the airport without one more ride on the beast.
So, with 1 hour to go before leaving, we walked back into Fun Spot, topped up the points card we were overcharged for the day before, and made our way back to Mine Blower for 1 last lap. It was amazing, and the perfect send off to the amazing trip that Fun Spot Orlando certainly was not.
Then it was time to once again journey to the airport and deal with more crap from BA.
Because 2 of us booked our flights through American and not BA directly it took over an hour to check us in to the flight. Not an hour plus of come back again soon, but a literal hour plus of standing at the check in desk while they seemingly had no idea what they were doing.
One of the most memorable moments of the saga was being told to go speak to the team at American who were not best pleased at the BA implications that it’s probably American’s fault, go see what they can do. “You’re flying with BA, they are the ones who will have to check you in, I don’t understand the issue”, with an eye roll summed it up perfectly really.
Finally though we were in and it was time to come home, but not without another delay of course. Now the only issue would be getting our money back and squaring the missed hours up at work.
It ended up being for the best that Legoland was just a inconvenience, a stepping stone, and +3 on route to more rides on Iron Gwazi, because my God, the park was more than a step down from every park that had come before it on the trip, in literally every category possible.
It was a bit of a blast from the past too though, because the park, today at least, ticked all the boxes of Merlin when they were at their very worst in the UK, something they have thankfully moved on from, this side of the Atlantic at least.
The entrance plaza wasn’t too busy when we arrived just before opening, this was most likely due to the forecast wet weather this morning. Looks like we will be able to breeze in, get the creds and breeze out again man, if only we knew…
First up we headed to Dragon because it made most sense geographically.
We walked all the way through the open and empty queueline, into the station building, before a panicked staff member told us that they weren’t ready yet and they couldn’t say how long it would be.
They looked like they were doing last minute station checks and it woudn’t take long, but it wasn’t worth waiting when other rides would be walk on, we will come back soon.
The Lego Movie: Masters of Flight
So we headed to the nearby flying theatre, which was operating, and being operated terribly.
Despite the queue being short we waited far too long to make it inside the show building, and when we did we discovered the reason, the loading of the ride was laughably slow, to the point that even those around us were wondering what was going on.
As for the ride itself…
Well, it was leagues behind Legoland Windsor’s Flight of the Sky Lion, both in terms of media and implementation, but I’ve certainly ridden more insulting flying theatres. This was fine, but I wouldn’t want to exist through those operations to have another go.
We walked back to Dragon, which now had a member of staff standing at the entrance, “Dragon isn’t ready yet”, “do you know how long it might be?”, “no”.
Coastersaurus
So we made our way to the park’s wooden coaster, Coastersaurus.
It was actually raining now, and after seeing how the rest of the park was running we were worried that operations had been suspended, but no, they were just painfully slow.
Coastersaurus sucked. Yes I know it’s designed as a child’s first woodie, but I can think of several children sized woodies that kick Coastersaurus’ ass.
We walked back to Dragon, the staff member was still standing at the entrance.
Flying School
So we headed to Flying School at the very back of the park.
The rain meant most people were now heading to indoor attractions or cafes meaning there was almost no one else at this end of the park.
Thankfully operations weren’t too bad here, but it would be truly impressive if you could make loading 8 people take 10 minutes.
Not so thankfully, this layout of the Vekoma Suspended Family Coaster, combined with the stupid and unnecessary over the shoulder restraints led to a rather unpleasant experience.
We weren’t the only ones who thought this either. There was a father hyping up his son while we waited too long at the air gates, and while we travelled up the lift hill. But by the time we arrived back in the station, ears bruised, he had nothing left to say.
If this is what flying is like, count me out.
We walked back to Dragon, where we asked again, “do you know when it might open?”, their response was the expected, “no, I wouldn’t want to say”, then something about a piece of theming not working. Right.
So we headed to the worst Miniland I’ve ever seen in order to kill yet more time.
The whole thing was under some tatty looking tent canopy, was small in size and had almost nothing interesting to look at or interact with.
We walked back to Dragon, where several other guests were now camping out, looking unimpressed that it still wasn’t open. They now had 2 members of staff there, to control the disgruntled masses, they still weren’t offering anything useful though.
Lost Kingdom Adventure
So we went to ride the park’s shooting dark ride, Lost Kingdom Adventure.
I’m almost certain it’s a clone of the not very good Laser Raiders from Windsor, and as expected, it wasn’t very good.
We walked back to Dragon, where they now had entertainers trying to calm the masses (all 6 of them), and the ride still wasn’t open.
So we headed to Ninjago, to ask if we could film it for the Dark Ride Database.
As soon as we hit the back of the short queue, 10 or so people from boarding, the ride broke down, and it appeared the staff had no clue how to react to it.
An announcement was made only to those on the ride, which pretty much read like, we don’t know what to do, stay seated ya’ll, while they left those in the queueline completely in the dark about what was happening, time to leave…
We walked back to Dragon, the situation was unchanged.
We were getting a bit fed up now, both in terms of the coaster not opening and costing us Iron Gwazi time, and the frankly useless information the staff members at the ride were giving us.
At Disney, the lady at Frozen told us with a wink and smile that it won’t be long, I’d stick around.
At Universal, the VelociCoaster ride team were playing the “nothing to fear” temporary fault announcement every 2 minutes.
Here though, there was no information, would it take 10 more minutes, we are working on it, or is it closed all day, give us something please.
So we went to guest services and asked a slightly scared but otherwise friendly bloke, who told us, “it’s open guys…”, “WHAT?!”.
We walked back to Dragon, and he was right, it was open, we would be completing the park after all.
Dragon
Honestly I’m still confused how they managed to add the rather lengthy dark ride section onto the front of a pre-exisiting Vekoma Junior clone, and that instantly makes it the best coaster at the park, not that there is any other competition.
Park complete, but with how well asking that man went before, let’s try him again.
We had purchased our Legoland tickets from a discounted ticket website available to Cedar Fair passholders. We bought them before Peppa Pig opened next door, and despite our best efforts were unable to either refund our Legoland tickets or upgrade them to include Peppa.
Let’s go see the man.
This time he told us we’d need to go see the team at Peppa Pig to see what they could do.
Absolutely nothing, but with an attitude it turns out.
Fair enough, Iron Gwazi.
Busch Gardens Tampa
Back to Busch we went, and this time with nothing to lose and everything an extra it was a much more relaxed experience, further cementing that I like the park, but the Williamsburg one is better.
Iron Gwazi
They don’t have Iron Gwazi though, and they certainly don’t have walk on Iron Gwazi.
Seemingly the rain in the morning had put the Floridian masses off and this led to (for 90% of our half day visit) us being able to stroll straight onto one of the greatest coasters in the World, currently 7th in my top 25 in case you forgot.
I had this massive fear before the trip, that even though we were visiting during the less busy season we’d be struggling to get enough laps in on major coasters to form proper opinions of them, but no, over our 1 and a half days at Busch we got a silly amount of laps on Iron Gwazi.
Opinions remain from the last visit, best RMC I’ve ridden, outstanding.
We broke up our walk on Iron Gwazi’s by re-visiting the park’s other major attractions.
Montu
Starting with Montu.
Going in knowing that Montu isn’t an elite tier B&M Invert and that it wasn’t going to blow my mind made my 2nd lap slightly better than my first, but I just wish it was all the things I wanted it to be.
Side note, has it always looked this bad? In my mind Montu was heavily themed, or is that just another thing I wanted it to be and it isn’t?
Kumba
I blame Heartline fully for this re-ride.
I begrudgingly agreed to join him on a re-ride after he promised me an inside seat, that we’d sit nearer the front and it should be much less rattly and awful there. It wasn’t. To his credit though, he came out of his outside seat and agreed it wasn’t great, correct.
SheiKra
SheiKra was still absolutely forceless, but smooth as butter, I can’t complain too much.
Cheetah Hunt
Finally something worth re-riding.
I fell even harder for Cheetah Hunt on this re-visit.
Like I said before, going in knowing exactly what Cheetah Hunt is going for, and embracing that, rewards you with a long ride that’s great fun, with a few intense suprises along the way. Easily the 2nd best coaster at the park, and I’m quite relieved I never visited when it was the best.
Cobra’s Curse
While Cobra’s Curse was exactly as I remembered it from last time, it’s still a great little coaster and more worth your time than 2 of the park’s major B&Ms.
Re-rides complete, it was time to settle in with Iron Gwazi for the night, but not before spending far too long attempting to check in for our flight home tomorrow, a task that would end up being completely pointless, spoilers.
The final hour or so of Iron Gwazi time became slightly frustrating with multiple breakdowns and a constant 30 minute queue, which sucked after we had been walking on it all day.
This did lead to us meeting the lovely Rollercoaster David though, who we had a nice chat with, mostly about his very obscure T-shirt, before he offered us the use of his annual pass to buy ourselves an Iron Gwazi one at a massive discount. Thank you once again David, I love getting to represent “God damn” Iron Gwazi at any opportunity.
Thank you for reading, click here for the final part of my trip report, where we visit the very underwhelming Fun Spot Orlando, and then everything goes wrong.
With Florida for the most part now complete, it was time to revisit some of the most stand out, life changing, poll wrecking, World class attractions that we had experienced thus far, starting with Rise of the Resistance.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Because we didn’t want to pay over 50 dollars for parking today, we opted to take the sketchy hotel shuttle bus 1 last time.
We didn’t plan to or want to stay all that long at Hollywood Studios anyway, but the shuttle bus now gave us a deadline that had we to stick to, unless we wanted to miss Velocicoaster, pay lots of money or faff like we’ve never faffed before, it was a fun challenge to be fair.
Knowing what we were doing now, sort of, meant we took the sketchy shuttle bus to the Disney transport hub, walked to the nearest Disney resort hotel, jumped on their bus and in less than 10 minutes we were at the gates of Hollywood Studios. Putting the claims of 2 hours to get from the transport hub to Hollywood Studios by our sketchy bus driver totally to shame.
Tower of Terror
Because we missed Tower of Terror last time, this was where we needed to start today, and it was a good thing we got there not long after opening.
The ride was running with not all the lift shafts in operation meaning the queue was moving far slower than normal, and it was rapidly filling up behind us.
Eventually though, after much sitting down on the queueline walls to rest our ruined legs, and meeting Goofy, it was time to enter the Hollywood Tower Hotel itself.
This ride man, the atmosphere it creates is ridiculous, from the moment you step into the hotel until you leave, I can’t put it into words, it’s just something you have to experience.
I loved the dark ride section on route to the lift shaft that’s unique to the Orlando version, it’s a nice change from staying in the shaft the whole ride, plus it helps build the dread perfectly.
As for the drop section, I’m so glad to report that the Japanese one was tamed down, because Orlando’s ToT hits every bit as hard as I remember the French one hitting, and when these are running as they should they are just so much fun.
Rise of the Resistance
If anything, Rise of the Resistance was even more intense a second time around.
This might be difficult to explain…
The shock value was still there for certain, how could that ever wear off? But knowing roughly what I was about to get myself into as I entered the first preshow was such an exciting experience. Then being able to sit back a little more, and breathe the ride in a little more, instead of trying to take it all in the first time around, it felt a lot more rewarding.
It was a little sad that a key show element, which was in B mode last time we rode, was once again in B mode, but you can’t have everything I suppose.
Opinions remain from last time, absolutely stunning, simply incredible, one of the best dark rides ever created.
With what we came to do complete, we still had around 45 minutes before we needed to head to the bus park. “What’s the queue for Runaway Railway?”, “80 minutes”, “Star Tours is only 30 though”, “let’s do it”.
Star Tours
To almost 100 percent validate how great RotR and Smugglers Run are, I still don’t really like Star Tours.
This is going to be hard to explain, and annoy everyone…
Please remember I’m not a fan of Stars Wars, and to date have watched 1/3 of one of the movies, and it was one of the new ones, I did like it though.
I really like the serious, high stakes, modern feel of the new Star Wars rides. They are easy to understand and don’t require you to know much about Star Wars to enjoy them. Being a Star Wars fan just elevates the experience to new heights.
RotR you’ve followed the resistance to a cave network and get yourself in big trouble for daring to side with them.
Smugglers Run you are asked to pilot the Millennium Falcon, a ship everyone knows, to do some misdeeds for an eccentric character, and some money.
Then Star Tours just feels built 100 percent to cater to die hard fans.
We’ve flying to planets only fans will know, why are we as park goers even allowed to fly there? There’s tons of weird humour and inside jokes, the kind of stuff that puts me off watching the original Star Wars films.
Then the ride hardware, I mean I can’t complain too much, it opened before I was born, but it’s very primitive these day.
I’ll stop moaning before I annoy too many people. Hopefully in the future Disney can update it though because right now it feels like the Star Wars ride you ride if Smugglers Run has too big of a queue.
With that bonus ride we were done with the park and took a casual stroll to the bus park for our hotel shuttle bus, which of course was late…
After a quick bite to eat, which I recall as being a Subway, it was time to get back on the road, this time in the hire car, and launch to Islands of Adventure. Side note, even though American Subway is 15 times better than British Subway, how can it exist in a country where Firehouse and Quiznos do business?
Universal Studios Islands of Adventure
Powering from the parking lot to the entrance of Islands of Adventure once again felt like a real pilgrimage, and then, in almost no time at all (the crowds were much lighter at this time of day) we were on the edge of the Forbidden Forest ready for another lesson with Hagrid.
Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
This time there was no locker faff, the queue was slightly shorter, and even better, the preshow was now working.
And thanks to Hagrid and Arthur Weasley being 2 of the most entertaining characters in the films, this preshow instantly became the best Harry Potter preshow at the Resort and was a nice cherry on top of what is already an incredible attraction.
As for the ride itself, much like RotR, a second lap, this time as the sun was going down, allowed me to really sit back and experience the coaster to its fullest, and it’s amazing.
We also got to experience a temporary block brake stoppage at the bottom of one of the drop tracks. As someone who’s almost as impressed with the techinical aspects of Hagrids as I am with the actual show experience, this was awesome to be part of.
It wasn’t so great for the couple a few rows in front though, who were convinced something terrible was going to happen. Maybe this experience will convert them into coaster nerds and they will do their research and learn how truly impressive Hagrid’s ride system is, but more likely they are probably scarred for life.
Opinions remain from last time, absolutely stunning, simply incredible, one of the best family coasters ever created.
VelociCoaster
Then it was time to go see the dinosaurs again.
A fellow UK based coaster fan happened to be having his Florida holiday at the same time as us, and we had seen from his social media that earlier in the day VelociCoaster had been struggling with technical issues. Sadly these issues were still present tonight, but all credit to Universal they always got the beast up and running again. These issues just meant we weren’t able to marathon the coaster as much as we would have liked, but I’d for certain say we got enough rides tonight to be content and to be sure of how we truly feel about it.
Not much had really changed from last time, but possibly getting more familiar with the layout hurt it slightly. Nothing to fear though, VelociCoaster is still amazing, still a World class coaster and the Mosasaurus roll is most certainly still one of the most ridiculous elements I’ve ever experienced.
That marked the end of our slightly more chilled out day of revisiting the best Disney and Universal have to offer. Thank you for reading, and click here for day 10 of my trip report where we give Busch Gardens and Iron Gwazi the same treatment, but not before visiting the rather frustrating Legoland Florida.
Today it was time to visit the least exciting of the major Orlando attractions, SeaWorld. That’s not to say I wasn’t excited to visit though, the park is home to several attractions I wanted to experience.
Manta
Manta wasn’t one of them though, but only because I’ve ridden its clone, Acrobat, in Japan, and didn’t want Manta to unintentionally damage the reputation of a coaster I really enjoyed. Spoiler alert, it did, but we will get to that.
First off I need to mention the queue for Manta, which was amazing for both the theming and the sealife, as well as the air con because the heat today was intense.
As for the coaster, I didn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did Acrobat but I’ll hold my hands up right now and say that I think half of that opinion is me becoming jaded with B&M Flyers. The other half though, it just wasn’t as intense as I was expecting.
I know it’s illegal to moan about large scale coasters being cloned, and I know Manta came first, so I’ll say something positive and move on. The pretzel loop on Manta is one of the most intense experiences out there, I’m still not sure my lungs have fully recovered from it. Also, the freshly repainted track looks amazing.
Next we managed to get lost on route to literally any other coaster, leading us to stumble upon a large building signed Empire of the Penguin. “Wait, isn’t that a dark ride?” “It used to be I think.” This needed investigation.
The results of our investigation revealed that it in fact used to be dark ride but it is certainly one no more, and these days is only home to a smelly penguin walkthrough. Though we did get to see dust covered control panels from the attraction’s ‘better days’.
Journey to Atlantis
Much like Poseidon’s Fury 2 days ago it really felt like Journey to Atlantis opened just for us. The coaster/dark ride hybrid had been down for a couple of months for extensive retracking and all rumours led to us missing the attraction on our visit. That was until a week or so before we arrived when the park announced that it was finally back in operation.
I’m really on the fence on an opinion of this ride and it annoys me. On 1 hand what I experienced was fine, the dark ride parts were decent enough and the coaster parts were your typical Mack water coaster. On the other though, knowing what this attraction used to be, and knowing I experienced it as a shell of its former self upsets me slightly.
With that being said, what I experienced was alright, thank you SeaWorld for opening it in time for our visit.
Kraken
Freshly repainted Kraken was next, and it was good fun.
Nearer the top end of the B&M Floorless models I’ve ridden, but not up there with the best, certainly leagues better than Kumba and Hulk though. It had a little more character than just going upside down many times and wasn’t anywhere near as headache inducing.
Mako
While Kraken isn’t even in debate for being the best B&M Floorless, Mako might just be the best B&M Hyper ever created.
Coming from a man who normally has to be dragged back on B&M Hypers for rerides because they normally offer almost nothing interesting to me, Mako is special and I fell hard for this wonderful shark themed coaster.
Let’s be clear, Mako isn’t going to blow anyone’s minds or offer anything super intense or different, it’s just great fun and delivers the perfect combination of the ‘sensation of speed’ and possibly the best floater airtime in the industry.
By the end of the day Mako had become my most ridden B&M Hyper, an accomplishment in itself, but more than that, I wasn’t getting bored, if anything I was enjoying it more every time.
Mako is the best coaster at SeaWorld and I’d feel bad for it if it wasn’t at least mentioned in a list of the “best coasters in Florida”.
Infinity Falls
Infinity Falls was next, and while I enjoyed my ride, it wasn’t anywhere near as memorable as the carnage of Bilge Rat Barges.
Also, the drop on Infinity Falls really wasn’t anything all that special. It might be the same height as the drop on Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure (Singapore) and 4 foot taller than River Quest’s largest drop but it doesn’t even compare to the sheer terror those 2 drops offer.
It’s alright.
Super Grover’s Box Car Derby
Better than the World’s only Zierer Force Three for certain though.
Ice Breaker
I feel like Ice Breaker, the park’s newest coaster, from Premier Rides, is getting unfair hate, and unjust praise, so I’m here to lay another opinion on the table, it’s a great coaster, that’s massively flawed in several ways.
The good first. The coaster layout itself is very good fun, with a punchy triple launch and several super intense moments of ejector air.
Now the bad. Comfort collars, while they don’t completely kill the awesome ejector, you can’t experience it to its fullest. The awful train design, meaning no one can get in or out properly, slowing operations to a crawl, in a park home to 3 B&Ms all capable of doing silly numbers every hour. Stupid glasses rules, they made Heartline take his glasses off his face, where they are more than safe, to hold them in his hand on a coaster with an intense triple launch, strong laterals and intense ejector airtime, you know, the situations where you might need to brace with that hand.
In short, I really like the coaster, why did they sign off on those trains though man…
With the park now complete, we decided to pop out for a bit before returning later in the evening for rerides.
Our first stop was Firehouse Subs, just over the road from SeaWorld. Firehouse have stepped up to be probably my favourite sandwich franchise, and possibly my favourite thing to eat in the US, they are amazing and it hurts me that they aren’t in the UK. I guess it’s for the best, we’d probably ruin it anyway…
Fun Spot Kissimmee
Our second stop was Fun Spot Kissimmee, a location we’d become quite accustomed with by the end of the trip…
FSK was quite a bit less of a park than I was expecting, and more a collection of rides at the side of the road. While we never experienced anything ourselves, and we were there far longer than anyone could have predicted, the park does give off a bit of a vibe for somewhere trouble might happen. Then again, they have Mine Blower, so it’s worth the risk.
We arrived, parked in the free car park, almost connected to the $12 dollar car park, powered in, collected our wristbands, and launched straight to…
Galaxy Spin
Galaxy Spin! But only because Heartline was delaying his fray with Mine Blower for milestone reasons.
It was fine, nothing too memorable as these spinning coasters go, but we did find money in the ride car, the park’s paying itself off already!
Kiddie Coaster
Next up was Kiddie Coaster, a tiny E&F Miler coaster, and one of the first times I’ve questioned if we’d be turned away for being too big in the US. We weren’t, and better yet we were able to obtain the location of the parks last coaster, Hurricane, which we still hadn’t spotted.
Mine Blower
That can wait though, it’s main event time.
Mine Blower, the parks infamous Gravity woodie is absolutely outstanding and far exceeded my expectations to comfortably sit 9th out of 106 in my Wood rankings.
Heartline for years had been banging on about how great Gravity are, but I only had 2 previous experiences with the mid to large size extreme ones, and they weren’t anything like he was selling to me. Cú Chulainn was good fun but nothing special and Xiamen’s Jungle Trailblazer was incredibly disappointing.
I feel this only helped to make Mine Blower even more shocking and memorable.
This coaster is easily one of the most intense wooden coasters ever created and is relentless from start to finish, brutal doesn’t do it justice. An insane first drop, a vicious inversion and then almost non stop ejector airtime, all while it feels like you’re doing a million miles an hour and rattling around (like wood should) creating an almost unrivaled out of control experience.
Hurricane
Our rides on Mine Blower convinced us we’d need to return again, after our return to SeaWorld, in order to test the beast out at night.
So for now let’s take a break from Mine Blower and check out the parks final coaster Hurricane.
Hurricane is a large E&F Miler, standing at 52 feet, and it was so much fun that I really want to go ride the largest they ever built, an 88 foot one that is soon going to reopen in Texas after a relocation.
Hurricane rode way too fast and intense for the track and train design, it felt truly frightening in the best ways. I’d love have to given it another go, but for some reason when we returned later there was no staff at the coaster.
SeaWorld Orlando
Back to SeaWorld we went, where we rerode everything that had earnt it, while taking it easy and breathing the park in a little bit more.
This return helped to convince me that the park, at least when we went, was a nice place to exist in, much more relaxing than the crowded paths of Disney and Universal.
It also helped to elevate Mako to possibly the best B&M Hyper position, and regardless of that, proved that it was a wonderful coaster and a true asset to Orlando.
Fun Spot Kissimmee
Then after a bite to eat at the hotel, we launched back to Fun Spot, God I love how close everything is in Florida (except you Busch Gardens…), in order to get our mines totally wrecked by the wooden weapon that is Mine Blower.
Yeah… This thing got even more intense at night. We were tired, the coaster was fully warmed up, we were getting full trains every time, you couldn’t see the layout as well, it was ridiculous.
I hope at least some of you understand what I’m talking about when I say that during these many rides on this amazing coaster, with lots of weird and wonderful people, the experience transcended from just I’m riding a very good roller coaster to this is truly special and a memory I’ll never forget.
That doesn’t happen often for me but when it does, God Damn, what a coaster.
Thank you for reading, click here for day 9 of my trip report, where we revisit Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure.
