Immel Man

From April 15-22, Gnome (Kyle) and myself (Connor) took a Spring Break trip to Florida. This was Kyle’s first trip to Orlando and my first since 2002. We hit Sea World, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Typhoon Lagoon, Busch Gardens Tampa… er… uh… Africa, Universal Studios, and Islands of Adventure. Day 1-2: Plane flight and Sea World We flew out of Ontario airport at 7:45 AM and after a stop in Phoenix we landed in Orlando at 7 PM. Despite my best efforts to convince my parents to stay on site at one of the Disney or Universal hotels, we ended up at a boring Marriott resort complex. We had a suite, so it was nice and roomy, but I’ve always felt Marriotts are the most conservative and unexciting hotels out there. Kraken became my favorite coaster when I visited SWO four years ago and I was just too anxious to wait any longer, so we made it our first stop. I only had a few hours to spend on my last visit, so I just concentrated on cramming in as many rides on Kraken as possible and didn’t really get to see much of the park. This time we spent a full day and really got to soak in the atmosphere and see everything. Only the waterfront plaza area is themed, but the entire park is very well landscaped and has a nice feel to it. We rode Kraken 21 times throughout the day but also rode JTA, Wild Arctic, and saw a bunch of the animal exhibits. We finished the day with a few Kraken night rides before closing. It is still Connor’s favorite coaster. We both agreed that Kraken is hands-down the best coaster at Sea World Orlando The mcbr barely touches the train before it dives down into an intense vertical loop buried in a trench. Judging by the size of this shark’s stomach, he is obviously an ACE member. SWO’s Shark Encounter sucks by the way. Hey look! It’s the swimming, diving guy show… Mmm… Pepsi products! Connor thought the pizza at this restaurant was terrible, but Rob likes it just fine. I guess all Rob(b)s like food! …except for the time it took Kyle’s phone. Kraken’s zero-g-roll is the highlight of the ride… Kraken’s first drop isn’t very steep, but it has surprisingly good airtime. According to Sea World’s legend, even Poseidon couldn’t control the mighty Kraken. Connor thinks he can do better. The tunnel was filled with mist back in 2002. The waterfalls don’t lightly wet riders on the left side of the train anymore either. Too bad, since it used to be refreshing on hot days. For some reason Kyle actually prefers California’s version… We took a break from Kraken to ride Journey to Atlantis. It still sucks. This is the part where you don’t get airtime Kraken has one of the most forceful corkscrews we’ve ever felt. It really could have used an air hill or small helix before the brakes though. There’s plenty of room. If the sun wasn’t so bright, Kyle just might be able to see that he’s about to be gobbled up by the Kraken! Connor takes his Kraken riding very seriously. The view of Kraken from a road adjacent to Sea World. Kraken looks just as long and drawn out as the rest of the recent B&M’s, but it takes everything so fast that it feels more like the older ones. This is the bathroom… where you do stuff. Our suite at Marriott Cypress Harbor. It was nice enough, but we still wish we stayed on site at Universal or Disney.

I've been on Dueling Dragons, Montu, Raptor, Silver Bullet, and B:TR. Of those I think Raptor is the best. The drop has hyper coaster quality air even though it's only 45 degrees and the pacing never lets up aside from the brief straight section after the first corkscrew. Every element packs a punch in one way or another and the whole ride just feels out of control but still remains fairly comfortable for its age. Dueling Dragons Fire is my second favorite. A lot of the same sensations as Raptor, but since the layout is optimized for dueling it misses out on a few of the elements that would make it better individually. I'm not really a big Ice fan. It feels almost like a slightly more intense Silver Bullet. I like Montu a lot too. No trims on my visit, so it ripped through all its elements and pulled strong g's pretty consistantly. The whole ride just seems a bit more controlled than Raptor and doesn't have that same reckless fun quality I like about it.

I'm going more by design and quality rather than looks. Worst: Best

It looks a lot better than the layout rendering suggested. The immelman-spiral combo is pretty cool like on Talon. Patriot probably won't be one of the better inverts, but I think it could surprise a lot of people. Don't know how I feel about the red seats with red restraints look though.

How bout we just leave launches to steel coasters. I don't think any kind of launch really fits the character of a wood coaster, they're probably better off without them.

I don't know how I feel about Maverick as a name for CP's next coaster. Unless they tie it in well with a theme it just doesn't work for me. It sounds more like something for a new flat ride. I think a name like Maverick would fit in better at a park like Valleyfair or Michigan's Adventure for some reason.

I think the main problem with Millennium Force is that we as enthusiasts are so trained to look for specific things like airtime and intensity that when we come across a roller coaster that does not meet that criteria we just close our minds off to it. This is one case where the gp has a definite edge over us. They don't all have that mental checklist of elements we use to compare and critique different coasters, so their opinion is based solely off the ride experience itself. It's that open-minded aproach that allows the gp to appreciate different aspects of some rides that many enthusiasts have lost the ability to recognize. Millennium Force does have a few spots of airtime and it does have several areas where the forces are quite intense, but the fact that neither of these are in abundance and priority is instead given to constant speed tends to turn off people before they even give the ride a chance. This causes a lot of us to have pre-conceived opinions of MF that then overshadow what the ride is actually like. Who really cares if Millennium Force caters to a different set of criteria than what a bunch of coaster fans on the internet have decided is what a coaster should be. Just sit back and enjoy a unique set of thrills that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet.

I used to write for this site in its original incarnation. I'm not really sure what happened, but the webmaster stopped replying to my e-mails and eventually removed my name from all the articles I had written. The new site looks good regardless.

Looks kind of like Ozark Wildcat+ to me. I'm not really a GCI fan, but they really do consistantly improve from one coaster to the next to a greater degree than any other manufacturer.

I like Mantis a lot actually. It's probably one of the top five most intense B&M's if you catch it with the trim off, but it can still be fun in normal operation too. I've never bought into the whole thing about standups being painful to guys. Any idiot can position himself comfortably. As for the headbanging, I've just learned to deal with it. Mantis is not Arrow/Vekoma rough, but you are going to come off the ride with sore ears. Just try to enjoy all the unique forces and elements you normally don't see on beemers and you forget about the roughness.

1. Kraken 2. Superman Krypton Coaster 3. Scream 4. Dominator Kraken is like a textbook example of how to properly execute each B&M element. From pictures it looks long and drawn out, but on the ride every part has just the right amount of intensity or weightlessness. It's just a completely seamless ride from start to finish. My only complaint is that I wish there was some sort of spiral or helix along the way.

Hypers/megas and especially gigas are not built more often because they are so expensive. Unless it's a large park with plenty of money to spend like CP, a giga doesn't really make sense when a cheaper and smaller hyper does the basically same thing and will be just as impressive to the GP. And I'm pretty sure Cedar Point never advertised MF as the tallest continuous circuit coaster. They said and meant the tallest coaster period. That was during a period where CP claimed S:TE was not a coaster at all.

Dueling Dragons Fire and Ice are two distinctly different inverted coasters that along with Montu make a present total of three, my friend...

I don't think the Orlando/Tampa area needs a fourth invert.

The structure probably doesn't need any additional support. No reason to use unnecessary lumber. Balder is the same way. traincrossinmicromarch2011-5.sv6

Probably Nitro or Apollo's Chariot. Any B&M hyper would be a good choice. They're smooth, exciting enough that you wouldn't get too bored, and probably wouldn't wear you out as fast as an Intamin.

Never been on an Arrow shuttle, but even though they supposedly have good airtime I doubt the loop or launch are as good as a Schwarzkoph.

1. Cedar Point 2. Islands of Advenure 3. Busch Gardens Tampa 4. Paramount's Kings Island 5. Six Flags Magic Mountain 6. Universal Studios Florida 7. Six Flags Fiesta Texas 8. Knott's Berry Farm 9. Disneyland 10. Geauga Lake

Incredible Hulk and Top Thrill Dragster. Enthusiasts' opinions on Hulk are pretty mixed actually, it's mainly the gp who consider it the holy grail of coasters. As for Dragster though, I just don't see what there is to like about a huge single-element coaster with a fast but weak launch, forceless transitions to the tophat, and zero airtime. The drop is still pretty good, but you don't get the true sensation of a completely vertical 400 ft drop due to the twist. I think Millennium Force's drop is still the one to beat. A year or two ago I also would have said X, but fewer and fewer people keep raving about it as it ages.

Assuming that was directed towards me, what are you getting at? All I did was speculate a little bit on what CP could be building at some point based on what someone said in another post. I'm not trying to claim it as as fact or anything.

If you're talking about the proposed Voyager wheel, it's going to be built with its own hotel in Las Vegas in the near future: http://www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com/voyager.htm

^ Why wouldn't Valleyfair test it? I guess there's no specific reason, but they might as well if the ride is complete. As for what Magnum Force said about making sure you ride everything in Frontiertown in 2006, CP must be getting something seriously big if the area is going to change that drastically. There still looks to be enough unused land there to build a mid to large-sized coaster without changing too much. I guess whatever it turns out be will have one of those huge, sprawling layouts.

Disneyland and DCA are technically the closest to me, but I never really go there that often so I usually call Knott's my home park. My favorite there used to be Ghostrider, but in its condition these days it's pretty much a tie between Silver Bullet and Xcelerator.

I got stuck on the brake run of Millennium Force for about 15 minutes on the last ride of the night. The guy next to me was nervous about riding and absolutely stapled himself into the seat as hard as he could, so he was pretty uncomfortable sitting there .We all got free front of the line passes for any ride the next day. Gnome and I also got a 10 second little carousel-style ride on La Revolucion at Knott's before it broke down.

Six Flags Magic Mountain Six Flags Fiesta Texas Cedar Point Knott's Berry Farm Geauga Lake Busch Gardens Tampa Islands of Adventures Universal Studios Hollywood Disneyland Magic Kingdom Epcot Disney-MGM Studios Disney's California Adventure Sea World Orlando Sea World San Diego Circus Circus Adventuredome New York New York Sahara Nascar Cafe Stratosphere Tower Buffalo Bill's MGM Grand Adventures Pacific Park (Santa Monica Pier) Park's I plan to visit in 2006- Six Flags Great Adventure Six Flags New England Lake Compounce Knoebel's Hershey Park Belmont Park Universal Studios Florida Disney's Animal Kingdom