Doppel Looping

powdered flavoured coffee substitute..... ouch

Whatever you decide to call it, you could get a B&M rattle to play with!

Wonder mountain guardian is worth doing, especially if CW is not your home park and you don't get the chance to ride it often. It's lineup is inside the mountain so you cannot tell how busy it is until you are in the lineup. You can also plan to go in mid day when it is hot and you want to get out of the sun for a while. not sure if you can take food in the line but you cannot take bags with you, so they have to either be in a fluffy bunny or stashed in the bushes. I might be more inclined to spend my precious ropedrop time on some coasters.

Like a guillotine?

Good timing would be to get to the 401/ airport area after 9:30am. By then the early morning rush hour would be less. (it is a busy highway and has traffic no matter when). This would get you to wonderland around the 10:00AM opening time. google maps says it takes 3:24 to get from ambassador bridge to YYZ so It might mean leaving at a stupid early time of day. I might be inclined to buy a fastpass for an extra 2 hours of sleep... Otherwise use your favourite map app and ask for no tolls and see what it says. HWY 407, sometimes called ETR Electronic Toll Road is the one to avoid.

cross detroit to windsor get on hwy 401 ignore signs for hwy 407 toll road. pass pearson airport on left get on Hwy 400 N (works from either express or collector lanes) exit rutherford rd. leads to wonderland driveway. avoid rush hour (ha)

sorry, was having fun with the minimalist review. (and can't type well on a phone...) I got there part way into passholder ERT to find what seemed like a barely full queue house. then i noticed a back section that was completely full which accounted for a 40 minute wait. No complaints on a brand new coaster on it's second day open to the public. The station is well done with way more themeing than we typically see at a cedar fair/ wonderland ride. They had lots of stuff related to the "Striker mining company" to look at. Non Canadians may not get all of the significance, but the themeing originally planned in the 1980s was done by/with Pierre Berton, one of Canadas prominent historians/ authors. (Studs Terkel or maybe Ken Burns today is a comparable US author.) Berton was born in the Yukon and wrote about canada's north and the national railway, and helped Canadians understand and celebrate their history. He lived for 50 years in nearby Kleinburg. It is really nice to see the commitment to reviving this work they have put into the ride. It really looks like this meant a lot to wonderland and they really tried to honour it. The station has good flow and as you exit the que you get separated into separate stairs for front row, rest of train and single rider. From the top of the stairs, I was quickly ushered into row 3. I don't tend to bring crap along with me when i ride, so i did not get to try the fancy fluffy bunny conveyor. It is kind of weird, but you put your stuff into these cubbies and they go up over the train to the other side where the unload platform is. The empty containers follow the same course so there is lots of activity in the station. We waited as the previous train had a more generously proportioned rider who they were strapping in with some kind of auxillary restraints clamped to the hooks on the back of his seat. I spotted red seatbelts and chose to sit where there was one to avoid extra grief. It fit with tons of room. There was a lady next to me who needed the ops to work hard to close her restraint. The vests were fine/ comfortable enough that i did not notice anything about them. I have been on Skyrush, Banshee, Valravyn and never noticed any problem either. I think that people who complain about them profusely could maybe consider a different hobby... It took them a while to get everybody in and loaded. It feels like they are taking extra care with the new ride which will sort itself out as they get experience. The floor came down, the gates opened and we were on our way. There was a little kink at the bottom of the dip before we made our way up the lift hill. The hill went fast and at the top gave a great view of the park. This coaster is set in the middle of the back of the park. it is great how it fits in with the mountain, the lake and the other rides nearby. I must admit I don't love heights, and have avoided drop coasters until i could get the nerve up to ride them. This did not seem as bad for me as there was stuff to look at. We got lowered over the top, but not as far as i would have thought (which is fine with me). when we let go, the back row was treated to a brief airtime pop which i liked. The drop through the tunnel was awesome. you could feel the wind resistance through the tunnel, as it does not seem any larger than it needs to be. It was really cool heading down towards the lake below. The pullout and immelmann was awesome. Truth be told, i am more of a loops and helixes guy anyway. I have never been on an immelmann as large as this and it was awesome to fly effortlessly in a giant arc and see the park unfold beneath us. It does not pull hard G's and is a nice smooth flowing inversion. After a dip across lake vortexx we come to a dive loop that leads us into a loop, and then a turnaround through a bit of a trench and into the MCBR. It all happens so quickly and smoothly it is difficult to keep up with what is happening. We flew into the MCBR with a bit of a pop and slowed a bit before cresting the drop with an airtime pop and drop before pulling out into the final helix. It feels like the loop and helix are a shoutout to skyrider, and are really nice. Before you know it you are flying into the final brake course to think about what just happened. I think this is a really nice reridable coaster. It is not as intense as some but really soars through the course for an enjoyable ride. The complete package with station themeing, massive drop, First Loop on a dive coaster and location over top of the new plaza at the back of the park make it a geally great ride. Get a Pierre Berton book to read on the airplane and come on up and ride this thing!

Rode Yukon Stryker today. It was fun.

If you are coming to Toronto, you should consider going to Centreville on the island http://www.centreisland.ca/. It is a small family oriented park, but is really cool. You have to take a ferryboad to the island, a City park with lots of greenspace, old growth shade trees, surrounded by waterways where people go to picnic, bike, rollerblade or canoe in the summer. It also has a great view of the city from across the harbour, and a free frisbee golf course. Centreville is a small family run park that has been going since late 1960's. It has a flume ride, an old haunted barrel ride, skyride, scramber, antique cars, bumper cars and vintage merry go round. They also have a steam train that goes through the park. I believe there are or were kids rollercoasters, but no real ones. No extreme rides, but a really nice place to go. Also: La Ronde is basically 6 flags run by the french, with frustratingly slow operations, but it is still worth visiting. It is almost so bad it's good... It is on an island in the St lawrence river, on the grounds of what was Expo '67. It is worth spending most of a day at, and then heading back to montreal for dinner/ nightlife. It deserves some criticism but not to be crapped on as severely and thoroughly as has been done here. You can get in with your 6 flags season pass. You can take the subway to the island and a shuttle bus to the park gates. While in montreal, check out St Laurent street and Schwarzes deli for smoked meat sandwiches, and 1 or both of the main Bagel shops: St Urbain or fairview, where they bake them in wood fired ovens. (Avoid F1 race weekend unless you are coming to see it) Check out one of the many summer festivals: just for laughs / Jazz etc, montreal is a great city to visit. and: Wonderland pro tip: if you have platinum pass you can come 9:00am Sunday for early ride time. The area rotates each weekend. I usually go for the hour, then maybe an hour and a half of regular riding as the park fills up with real guests, then either hit the water park or go home for lunch. You could time your weekend with one where Yukon is the ERT area and have less lineups, then spend the afternoon on the island or touring around. Take your second day at Wonderland on the Monday and it will probably be less crowded.

I went to Passholder preview day yesterday. It was a bit chilly and damp, but it did not stop die hard wonderland fans from showing up. I think people realize that the rides have all been sitting for 6 months outside in the winter elements, and don't seem to mind that coasters and rides need a bit of a break in to get running reliably. Passholders seem grateful that they get invited to a preview, and are excited just to be back at the park. The park was well staffed, and everyone i saw was friendly and seemed excited to be there. It was a funny canadian thing that just before dropping the rope where i was, the security guard asked people please not to run, and they complied and behaved themselves.... I went to get an early ride on Leviathan, hoping that people would all be waiting for yukon, which proved to be true with abut 2 trains of people waiting, but they were still sending water dummies around. Instead i went on Wilde Beast. They Have put some new track in, but it is still bumpy in parts. It flew around the track with the wet rails. If you can't tolerate bumpy wooden coasters, don't ride it, but i had fun. The ride ops were inviting people to reride if their seats were available, so i did it twice. I got a ride in on NIghtmares and then Leviathan was opened. Got a great back row ride. Maybe it was wheel heaters, or the 'snow tires', but the ride ran great, and booked it around the cold track. I got an almost walk on ride on Vortexx before passing by the new ride. It did not start testing until around 6:30 and started taking passengers close to 7pm. Thousands of keeners eagerly waited in the damp cold for a chance to ride on the first public day. The lineup filled the station queues, spilled through the plaza, across the bridge, up the hill, past the diner, past windseeker, past the games and to the carousell. Good on them, but I will wait a few weeks and come back on a quiet day. The station building is really nice, themed to the Striker mining company. It also has a plaza nearby where you can stand under the final helix and watch the trains come overhead. The track interracts with the walking paths, and offers great views of the coaster. This is the second train to depart. They seemed to be taking a long time to dispatch trains. it felt like 10 minutes, but looking at the times on some pictures it was closer to 7 min. There were lots of staff to talk to people in the line, and pass out new park maps. They said that if people were in line, they would stay open until they all got to ride. At that rate, they would be there the next morning so i don't know how it worked out. Good luck! rip orbiter

Passholder prieview night tends to be a bit of a shitshow. In past years even without any new coasters it was really packed with new staff not up to full speed and running out of all food. Apart from that it is great! I will probably go and check the place out and maybe do a few rides. I will watch ‘striker go around the track but dont like lining up for hours for anything. In a few weeks i will skip off work on an early weekday where i can walk on.

Sounds great, hope we can meet up when i am there. If you find yourself coming to toronto for some reason, we can go to wonderland. i have a platinum pass and can get bring a friend tickets.

I am going to the craft brewers conference in Denver in early april, and am going to go to Lagoon on the way home April 13. i checked and Lagoon will be open weekends then. some questions: What is the public transit like in Salt lake city: is it possible to get from the airport into town, and from town to Lagoon by public transit? google maps seems to think so. Is there a good area to stay in salt lake city? i am flying in on the friday and out on the saturday. ideally i would get a hotel where i could walk to some nice places to eat and drink without worrying about driving. And: Are there any fellow coaster nerds that want to meet up at Lagoon? I am happy to go alone, but it is fun to meet others too. I am pretty easy going, and a huge Schwarzkopf fan. I of course want to ride Colossus and Jetstar, and anything else is a bonus. I heard they had a 2 rider per seat policy on jetstar? If so, i presume they may group single riders? I am not sure how far along they are on the new coaster, but since i have never been before, they are all new to me...

Just south of Wonderland is the Vaughn Mills mall. On it's south side, there are a few hotels including Aloft and Novotel. To get to Wonderland from there is just a drive across the parking lot and along Canadas Wonderland Drive. I wouldn't want to walk it but one could. It would also depend on what else you want to do while in (or near : ) Toronto, but maybe it is as good a place to stay as any. There are a few suburban chain restaurants nearby. For trips to the city you could drive to the subway, or just drive to where you want to go. From that area, rush hour traffic drives in to town in the morning and back out to Booneyville in the evening.

Sorry but no. Doppel looping was the last big coaster there.

Sad to see the Orbiter, or the Enterprise go. It is one of my all time favourite flat rides. I thought when they painted it last year they were going to keep it a while longer, but who knows, they may have found a major problem and chose to retire it rather than spend more to repair it. I'm not sure it was new in 1981 when the park opened, so 37+ years of operation for such a machine is not too bad. I have always been fascinated with how it works, with the centrifugal force pulling the gondolas outward while the arm lifts up until they go upside down. (some dork will tell me it's centripetal force, don't care) The Giant Enterprise is the biggest of all of the Enterprise variants, and has an extra hydraulic ram to start the lift. I build working lego amusement park rides as a hobby, and won first place at brickworld chicago in 2016. It was challenging to make in lego without having the thing fly apart. During testing, the pneumatic cylinder went too fast and it would launch the thing off the table! I built mine with 16 gondolas rather than 15 because geometry, and it was close to a meter in diameter. LEGO Huss giant enterprise My Dippin dots insider told me that Werner Stengel designed the first Enterprise for Schwarzkopf, and that HUSS engineers saw designs while visiting their office, and copied the idea. If you look at Schwarzkopf Enterprises, the pivot for the arm is raised up off of the platform rather than below the arm, so that when it comes back down, gravity does all the work rather than the hydraulic ram pulling you back at the top. The gondolas are also pivoted lower down so they swung out better. To get in and out, the roof and side bars would pivot upwards which prevented it from accidentally opening during operation, whereas the huss bars would pull back after unlatching. Heinz Fahtz also made a version which i have never seen. If you were not careful when riding it, you could really get messed up. Some people are more susceptible to spinny rides, so this is not for them. If you keep your head back and look straight ahead you should be ok. It was fun to see the horizon flip upside down as you went around. Orbiter opened later at 11:00am, so i had to stay later to get one last ride before going home to avoid the crowds. HUSS Maschinenfabrik aus Bremen so long and thanks for all of the great rides!

Some friendly tips for people coming to ride Yukon Striker: Wonderland is a pretty good park with an improving collection of coasters and some diverse flat rides. It's water park is not bad either. Early season weekdays before school lets out before ~late june, are the best time to go to Wonderland to avoid lines. It gets crazy busy from then on to september. If you have a season pass or platinum pass, you can get ERT Sunday mornings 9:00am to 10:00am when the park opens to everybody else. I usually go for ERT and the first hour or two, and then go home as the park gets busier. I can get lots of rides in 2.5 hrs and then have the rest of the day to do other things. Each week they rotate the ERT area between Behemoth, Leviathan, and up til now Vortex area. On the website they have a calendar of what areas have ERT on a given weekend, though clearly i am not very good at reading websites. They also have Slashworks ERT where passholders get in an hour early there too (it opens later than the main gates). Toronto has an international airport which has direct flights to lots of cities as it is one of Canada's big hub airports. Flying to US from here, you actually clear US customs on this side, so when you land in US it is treated like a domestic flight (factor in extra time to clear customs on the ride home). Lots of rental car options there. Or you can drive here, our roads connect you yours via buffalo, detroit and the thousand islands. We have our own currency which you can get from bank machines, or rely on lousy exchange rates at places that take us cash. You pretty much need a car to get to Wonderland. Technically there is a bus that takes you there but is a pain in the arse and takes a long time. Wonderland is north of the city, and in good traffic i can get there in 30 min from downtown, it can take much longer during rush hour depending on where you are coming from. Toronto is a great city with lots to do. Public transit in the city is not bad and you can get to theatre, restaurants, bars, breweries pretty easily. I own Junction Craft Brewing which is a 20 min drive straight south of Wonderland (in good traffic). Tell them you are one of Doug's rollercoaster friends and you will be looked after. (or message me) We have an island in our harbour that is a city park with a small amusement park, Centerville. They have an old log flume, some antique cars, an indoor scrambler, the Haunted barrel works and a steam train that takes you around the island. No extreme thrill rides, but a nice park. bring a picnic, it is fun, and has great views of the city. You need to take a Ferry boat over. Open weekends in may to september. http://www.centreisland.ca/

Marking my calendar as a snowstorm brings the city to a standstill. I looked at the website under the early ride times section and the 3 main areas are: leviathan, behemoth and lumberjack/ vortex. Do you think they have forgotten to update the site with yukon striker or is it not going to be part of the ERT schedule this year? to answer my own question, it has pictures of the above 3 areas with the text: "From 9:00am - 10:00am on Sundays during our 2019 season, Season Passholders and Gold Passholders get special early access to some of our most popular attractions including Leviathan, Behemoth, and our all-new rides world recording breaking dive coaster, Yukon Striker!"

hey, cool they have a hexentanz in behind it! any idea of what happened to the mall of america one?

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/files/thumb_4a7299fa-1ab8-4807-9997-7a764a7c2355.jpeg looks like it says pigpenis. is that a new character? Coming in 2019?

For what it is worth, there were plenty of rides open for the amount of people in the park when i was there. I don't think i waited more than a ride cycle on anything. The ride ops moved quickly even though it was not busy. I have been to a lot of parks and Wonderland is among the best for ride operations and cleanliness. The food is unacceptably bad, but the rides are great.

Went to wonderland for the last time this year. It was cool and wet but there were a few die hards who came out. They had many rides closed, probably expecting low attendance. Despite that it was a good day to go. I did not have to wait for anything. Nobody seemed bothered by the weather, they just dressed for it and went about their day like nothing happened. Pro tip: use the washroom in the mountain, as it is heated! It was nice to see the fall colours in the park, you realize there are a lot of trees. Winterfest will be weird with all of the leaves you take for granted gone. The placement of yukon stryker is ideal for being able to see it all over the park, it will be nice to see trains on it. They have part of the immelmann up so far, and have almost finished the walkways at the top of the lift hill. It will be a cold place to work soon, but i guess they wanted to wait until splash works closed to start so they could block the area off and not have to worry about pedestrians. Leviathan had it's trains in the shed with water dummies in the front rows. It started cycling as i was leaving. I finished off the season with 3 back to back rides on Behemoth and said goodby for a few months. New skyline from parking lot with yukon lift hill below windseeker fall descends on wonder mountain spot the new lift hill from the plaza Haunt has left it's laundry out. Dragon Fyre train rests in siding collecting a bit of snow. Leviatahan closed with all trains in shed as ride ops huddle for warmth. You don't get pay people to go in a coffin when they will do it for free. Wild beast taking a rest this morning. the fly Klockwerks doing it's thing. Vortex frames yukon drop. You can see snow on the track. nice view of partially completed immelmann from vortex platform Boring timbers was open but the ride op said they needed 10 people to run a cycle and needed 9 more. Goodby wonderland 2018. it's been a slice.

Last day at wonderland

Maybe it was tired.

The "fancy red lights" are wheel heaters which explains why it's hauling A$$. I'd like to think this is a good sign for the ride operating at Winterfest but it's Cedar Fair so... lol. My "SARCASM" sign was in the shop.