Corkscrew

I've seen this multiple times, but it's still cool. Here's some good ones.

Wow, that's really too bad. The three coasters are fairly new and look pretty nice. Jack Rabbit kind reminds me of that Hi Miler ride at carnivals. The GCI looks like fun, and Thunderbolt is a Hurricane, so it's automatically awesome.

Coaster is pretty awesome, it's great to have it at my home park. Now if only Playland would add a new coaster...

A common error, Moonsault Scramble (1983) was the first coaster to break the 200ft-tall barrier. My favourite coaster decade would probably have been the Golden Age of woodies - the 1920s. Ever thought that you were born in the wrong decade? Simon However, Magnum was the first true hyper coaster, so you are both right in a way.

1900-1950s wooden coasters rock, so I like that. However, the 2000s also pwns, with a lot of cool rides popping up.

I said it on Atari to you and the other damn people who keep complaining, and I'll say it again. Stop shooting your freakin' mouth off, and be happy MM is getting a GCI with Millenium Flyer trains. You have no right to complain when your home park is getting a world class coaster. I would be so excited if a park near me was getting an awesome woodie. "It's too short," "The name sucks," "It doesn't make sense," Who freakin' cares. Just be happy you have a home park that actually adds new coasters. You don't see me complaining that my home park's newest coaster is 22 years old, yet you complain that Magic Mountain is adding, from the looks of it, a very good coaster. On top of that, you can't exactly judge from pictures and computer renders, as many people here have said. Honestly, it looks like a fun ride, and that's all that matters.

I saw Happyland mentioned in another topic, so I decided to start a thread about it. For a while now, I've been trying to find information and pictures about Happyland. So far, I've only been able to find two sites with info and pictures (Closed Canadian Parks and Coasters of the Pacific Northwest). For those of you who don't know, Happyland was located near the current spot of Playland in Hastings, Vancouver. It's most popular attractions were the Giant Dipper and Shoot the Chutes. The Giant Dipper was a large wooden coaster built by Frank Prior and Frederick Church. In a newspaper article, it was reported that it had a 59 foot drop and speeds of 40 mph, but the stats do not quite work out. The drop of the ride could have been as high as 90 feet or more and speeds as high as 58 mph. At this point, I'm not quite sure what the stats were. Anyways, the ride was demolished in 1948 as it was deemed unsafe due to neglect during the great depression. The Hastings racetrack wanted to expand, which was also, in part, repsonsible for the demolition. Shoot the Chutes was very popular among thrill seekers, and also very popular on hot days. Happyland also had a kiddie wooden coaster called the Baby Dipper. The Baby Dipper was torn down in 1944, but Shoot the Chutes lasted until the parks closure in 1957. Happyland closed in 1957 as the owners wanted to move the park. This resulted in the park being taken down. Playland opened up the next year right beside the former Happyland location. Many of Happyland's rides were transfered to Playland, which is essentially the "new" Happyland. A peice of Happyland still lives on at the Puyallup Fair, where the Giant Dipper trains are in use on Coaster Thrill Ride. So, discuss Happyland here and post any info/pictures you can find, provided it's not from the two websites I mentioned. What would really be helpful is a picture of the Bumper Cars (or Skooters as they may have been called) as my grandma has fond memories of it. Thanks in advance if you guys can help me find out some more info about Happyland. To finish this off, here's a few pictures. Giant Dipper Shoot the Chutes Baby Dipper ~Corkscrew

I agree Coaster is an amazing ride. And those three glorious trains are the ONLY remaining Fred Church-designed rolling stock still operating anywhere on the planet. They came from the Happyland Giant Dipper, which used to sit across the way from the current Coaster at Playland in Vancouver. LOVE this ride! Oh, they came from the Giant Dipper? I never knew that, very interesting. Anyways, great TR. I've been wanting to go there for a while now

Not bad so far, but I would work on the pictures a little. Most of them are out of focus or blurry. Either you need to focus them a little better or maybe get a newer camera? Anyways, like I said, not bad, just maybe work on that.

Yeah, it's really crazy. I have some video I should upload of it sometime.

Well, it might look smaller, but Santa Cruz's Hurricane/Windstorm is exactly the same as Fun Forest's. The only differences being Fun Forest's Windstorm is slightly newer and nobody ever rides it, heh. Agreed, probably the best portable coaster out there, in my opinion.

I see it as a good choice. They're cheap and don't take a lot of space. Plus, I'd say anything else is a good addition to Vekoma land.

Nothing will be changed, this video is not new, and probably has been brought to their attention. I've heard of many employees riding with the safety bar unlocked, so honestly, I don't think they'll care all that much.

I've seen the video several times, it's a park employee. Otherwise there would be people on the ride and no cameras. It is possible to open the restraints mid ride, there's something on the side of the train to pull. Plus, I've heard many stories of employees riding with the lap bar up. The bar isn't actually there to keep you in, but rather to prevent standing up. But yeah, once again, it's an employee taping an employee.

Hah, that's a smart idea. I wish I could do that at my home park. My home park's passes are $70 (a bit cheaper if you get them early) and it's no where near the size of SFNE.

Aww, I have a Vekoma Corkscrew at my home park, and it's not that bad. Plus, this one really helped Alton turn into the huge park it is now. Vekoma Corkscrews are incredibly compact, so I can't see another coaster really fitting in it's space at Alton. @Six Flags Enthuseast: Wild Thing isn't really that bad. Sure, it's not a smooth ride, but it's not super rough.

Yeah, it's the exact same model, right down to the company that created it. The one at Santa Cruz is the same colour, I think. There's also one at Old Town that's coloured green. No, it was never owned by Six Flags. It spawned off of Expo 62's rides. You might be thinking of when Disney wanted to buy it and fix it up in the 80s.

@Nrthwnd: Yeah, Playland, while not very big, is doing much better than Fun Forest. No problem, and yeah, it will close for sure at the end of 2009. I'm trying to convince my parents to go next year so I can get some more rides on Windstorm before it is (probably) scrapped, or relocated. Here's video footage I took of Windstorm:

Three years. 2005-2008. A pretty long time, I know I can't go for that long now.

That's a pretty sweet looking fair! The only fair even near me is only for two days in May, and all they have is a kiddie coaster, haunted house, inverter, ring of fire, and some other basic flats. I would kill to have a fair like that near me.

@Robb: Yeah, it was kinda creepy, walking past all the rides and just having the ride ops stare at you. It didn't really have that amusement park feel, you know know, popcorn smell in the air, the sound of kids screaming, all that kind of stuff. No problem! @pgathriller: I don't know if the ride was broken down or not, I'm willing to bet it's not popular enough for them to justify having someone operating it. They do sound like pretty unreliable rides though, so I'm not sure why it was closed. Thanks! Not a lot of people have heard of it, infact, I hadn't heard of it until a few months ago! If you're there, I would check it out. The $23.00 ride wristband is worth it, IMO, if you plan on being there for at least an hour.

Mindbender at Galaxyland. You could hear it from the other side of the park when it was running. Corkscrew at Playland also has a pretty bad screeching lift hill you can hear from accross the park.

I went on a short cruise (3 days) with my family that went down to Seattle, so our plan was to head to Seattle Center and go to Fun Forest. It turned out to be less than ideal weather; rainy and cloudy. Now I've heard that Fun Forest barely has anyone there, even on a nice summer day, so I wasn't surprised that barely anyone was there on a rainy day. It was like the park was operating the rides for my sister and I. We were the only ones to buy ride wristbands that day. Excluding us, only about 6 other people rode more than one ride. There were also a few little kids there throughout the day whose parent's bought them a couple tickets for a ride. Honestly, it was kind of depressing to see this little park almost completely empty. The employees outnumbered the people in the park! When we asked how long they were open to, the guy at the ticket booth responded, "I don't know, it depends if anyone shows up." Wow, you know a park isn't busy when they say that. Anyways, I'll stop talking about how empty the park was, and head onto some ride reviews. Roller Coaster Reviews: Rainbow Chaser-A cute little kiddie coaster. I just rode it for the credit, but it would be a good ride to start little kids off on. It even has a bit of airtime, which I found interesting. Nothing really special, though, Rainbow Chaser is the park's oldest ride, and you can definitely tell by the screeching noises. Something I found kind of weird is that the chain lift was more like a launch section. Instead of being pulled slowly up the lift, we were launched up and reached the top in less than a second. Now, the ride isn't that tall, but I still surprised that it was so quick. It's low rating is simply because it's a children's coaster, nothing more, nothing less. 1/5 Windstorm-Windstorm is small, around 60 feet tall, but it is intense. The ride is crammed into a small space, and therefore has many intense, tight turns. Windstorm has a simple lap bar, similar to the ones found on Schwarzkopf coasters. These simple lapbars allow for a few pops of airtime throughout the ride. The highlight of the ride is the nearly 90 degree dive. You dive down about 30 feet at a nearly 90 degree angle, but before you know it, you zoom right back up again. If you're sitting on the right side of the car, your head is pushed down and your mouth is blown open from the forces! Then you head into a nearly 90 degree diving helix, then you go straight for a little bit, and finish off the ride with another nearly 90 degree helix. I took off-ride video of Windstorm and compared it with other footage, and my footage was much faster. I think the ride was much faster because it was raining. Also, on videos I've seen, it was crawling into the dive, but it was going very fast when I rode it. When we headed into the brake run, we were still going really fast. Windstorm is not very smooth, but the slight roughness adds to the intensity. The speed that is kept up through this ride is really awesome. You are still recovering from the previous element when you hit another element that throws you around, like a helix or bunny hop. 4.5/5 Major Ride Reviews: Orbiter-I like to call this ride the scrambler on steroids! The Orbiter is freakin' insane. I wasn't really expecting that much out of the ride, I actually thought it was just going to be a normal scrambler, but boy was I wrong. The ride starts picking up speed and rasing higher up in the air. Before you know it, you're zooming around, staring almost straight down at the ground, then almost straight up! The forces on Orbiter are amazing, you can feel them pushing you around as twirl around at, what feels like, light speed. I'm very prone to motion sickness, but most rides don't affect me much. However, this one did. I came off of Orbiter feeling sick and dizzy. It was still cool, though. 3/5 Music Express-A classic Music Express. This one is a clone of the Mack ones. It didn't go too fast, but like all Music Expresses, it was still great. It wasn't quite as fast as other ones, but still pretty fast. Yet another ride where you can feel the forces pushing on you! For some reason, these rides don't make me too sick. 3.5/5 Galleon-I don't know why, but I like Zamperla Galleons much better than HUSS Pirates. I quite enjoyed the Galleon, and I rode it a few times. For the fourth time in a row, another ride that you can feel some nice forces on... but hey, I'm not complaining! 4/5 And now, on to the pictures! A few of my pictures are a tad out of focus, sorry, it wasn't exactly ideal lighting conditions that day. And I'll end this TR with this photo... "I'm crushing the Space Needle, I'm crushing it!" And yes, it is bigger than Disneyland's castle. Overall, Fun Forest is a neat little park I would recommend to anyone if they're in Seattle. Windstorm is not a ride you want to miss, so make sure you ride it before the park closes in 09. Thanks for reading my first TR! Finally, one last photo of the kiddie area. The Dumbo style ride located inside the building... The Fun Forest bench thingy again. And now, one last visit to the kiddie area and games building before we leave. The final element of the ride is another steeply banked helix, but this one is kind of odd. It first heads up, then snakes it's way down. Windstorm is quite a short ride, less than a minute from the time it leaves the station to the time it hits the brake run. But the ride is so intense, it doesn't even matter. It packs a lot into that minute. The turnaround that heads into the largest drop of the ride can be seen here, as well as the first nearly 90 degree (diving) helix. The first drop isn't very big, maybe 30 feet at the most. It's still pretty awesome. I thought the ride wouldn't be scary at all, but once we headed down the small first drop, I was already freaked out! The fast, rough, and violent nature of this ride really adds to the scare. Then take a whole bunch of sweet elements and toss 'em in, and you've got a first class scream machine. The dive of death complete with signage... and a tree! Just in case you forgot what this coaster is called. Back to the major rides, here's Windstorm's almost 90 degree dive of death complete with a headchopper! The dive of death is quite possibly one of the most extreme moments on a coaster! The indoor area has a whole crapload of video games, as well as a few rides, mini golf, laser tag, and a couple blow-up attractions. This ride is the frog hopper, as you can see. Another never before done picture, the Space Needle through the trees through the Century Wheel through the Carousel. I promise, I'm done with these lame jokes now ;p And now, back after the Monorail, the rides are open, yay! The monorail... not much else to say. And now, heading on to the Monorail, you can see Windstorm. The kiddie bumper cars again. Two pictures of the kiddie bumper cars will have to replace a picture of the adult bumper cars, as I forgot to snap a picture of them. Back up to the kiddie area, here's the carousel and Fun Forest concrete bench thing. Just in case you forgot what the pirate ship is called. Music Express yet again. The fun Galleon pirate ship. Here's the fun Mack knock-off Music Express. Surprisingly, this one had it's speakers pumping, which sounded strange amidst the quiet park. Orbiter is visable here. And to the right, the midway games through the Galleon through the ticke-okay, I'll try to stop now, but no guarantees ;p The Music Experience Project or whatever the hell it is through Wild River, through the ticket booth. I bet this pictures never been done... the Space Needle through Wild River through the ticket booth! You can see the nice, simple metal lap bars here. The lap bars allow for a few pops or airtime throughout the ride. The red train behind the blue train wasn't shown any love today Noted! Anyways, this is the front of the blue train. The ride runs with two trains, a blue and red. Each train has three cars. I don't really know why, but I like short trains, and these are no exception. The obligatory lift hill shot... Gee, I wonder what ride this is? Here's the main reason why I'm here, Windstorm! Wild River wasn't shown any love today. Even if it was operating, I doubt there would have been any riders. A water ride in the rain sounds less than appealing. Here's Jet Spin, a Top Spin ride. I've heard that is hasn't operated for a long time, probably due to high maintenance costs. Today was no exception. This log flume is called Wild River. Ahh, here we are, the major ride area. The park is seperated by the monorail, with the major rides being on this side. The Musical Projection Experience, no wait, the Experience of Musicality Project... no, isn't it the Experience of Music Projects... The Experience Music Project, there we go, that's it I quite like this shot. The view of the Century Wheel is slightly artsy. Here's the monorail from Expo 62. Since we arrived at Fun Forest before the rides open, we took the monorail downtown after checking out all the rides. Century Wheel and Space Needle. I can't remember the damn name of this ride. The Carousel, which obviously, was not open at the time of this picture. The Century Wheel, yet again. Snow Convoy, a little kiddie truck ride. In the right hand corner is the kiddie bumper cars, and near the center is the Century Wheel. The Century Wheel didn't operate, like some other rides in the park. I doubt I would have ridden it anyways. Ghetto ferris wheels, no thanks. Where are we again? A very interesting, cute little pirate ship. I would have ridden it, just for the heck of it, but there was no ride op at it. It did test early in the morning, though. Here's a blatant Disney rip-off. Every small slightly-ghetto amusement park needs one. Rainbow Chaser yet again. Yay, a credit (I need all the ones I can get)! I mean, here's Rainbow Chaser, AKA, screeching metal death trap. One of the kiddie rides. Here's Tornado, one of the park's bigger rides. Didn't get to ride it as there was no ride op at it all day. I see the space needle! We must be in the right place.

Agreed. The "Coaster" at my home park, Playland (Vancouver), is the park's main attraction. Lines often reach well over one hour, yet they barely ever run more than one train. They have three trains, but it's rare to even see them run two.

Breed by Nirvana