Doppel Looping

Nice photo. From windseeker? This sounds funny but the thing I dont like about drop coasters is the first drop where they put the brakes on and hang you by the ankles before letting you go. After that is an amazing immelmann and a nice clothoid loop that are like a prize for putting up with the drop. People tell me it is odd to be a coaster enthusiast who does not like heights but there you go.

Went to the park Sunday. Cold weather kept crowds down, but with jacket and gloves it was a nice day to ride. Biggest lineup was at the Tim Hortons. Leviathan was lined up to the bottom of the stairs. They had these fancy red lights shining on the wheels in the station. Once on the track, the coaster hauled arse, ignoring the cold weather. Must have the snow tires on? The new coaster's lift hill and first drop is up, just waiting on some of the railings. It can be seen from all over the park, and will be awesome. You can see it from the highway as you arrive. Also had a nice ride on Vortex with a full lake below. Lake Behemoth had been drained though. Did not see my old car keys. festive red wheel lighting changing the skyline everywhere in the park more or less like the photo from minebuster exit ramp

Dispense with the unnecessary, lets get us some airtime! In haiku format: I love Behemoth Themeing unnecessary Airtime is its thing

^^ Nice advertising copy. Canadas wonderland: Now with better themeing than darien lake.

tunnel fuzz: it's a toronto subway thing

Without checking rcdb, i presume the ys drop is higher. This would mean more speed and a longer pullout. It would require a deeper tunnel if you started pullout after entering it. If the tunnel is deeper than 60’ it would be considered a subway and be subject to service cuts, short turns, broken air conditioning and “tunnel fuzz”. Hope that helps.

Then it should do a flythrough of the factory tour so you can see the workers packing the fudge.

In the category of not being very helpful... When they declare the official height of a rollercoaster, is the convention from the base of the lift hill to the top of the highest piece of track? If the yukon striker station is further up the embankment of lake vortex than windseeker?.... ahh nevermind.

No problem. I was not sure how high windseeker is.

No problem. I was not sure how high windseeker is.

yes: so they have most of the lift hill up. Looking at the pictures, it goes a bit higher before leveling off, turning a corner and dropping. As it comes together, we realize, it is going to be huge and take over the back of the park. The first photo is from the other side of vortex. It will sprawl over lake vortex, into the trees and back for the final bunny hill and helix over the Splashworks pathway after it's MCBR. I think it will give a nice adrenaline rush before hitting the final brakes and i like how it shouts out to it's retired cousin skyrider with the loop and final 90 degree banked helix. Maybe a nice lateral klunk for old times sake? (hope not) It can easily be seen from Behemoth's stairs. It should be a similar height to Windseeker. (if i were keen i could look it up, but i am sure someone on the internet will correct me). I am not a big fan of heights, and tend to get a bit freaked out when the bungee ride passes us on the way up. i can only imagine having the drop coaster go by will only add to this. It can also be seen from Leviathan's station. You can see it towering beside Wonder Mountain. This will definitely change the look of the whole park. It is going to be awesome.

It should come as no surprise that i am an old school Schwarzkopf fan. Growing up we had a Jumbo Jet at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. I can still hear the sounds of the anti rollback ratchets from across the midway. They used to startle the crap out of me and define the thrill of being at the ‘Ex. As i got old enough, I got to ride on it a few times to the distress of my mother before it got dismantled and taken away. There was something that drew me to it. Wether it was the radar tower on top, or the spiral lift hill or that you could stand at the foot of the first drop and watch the coaster scream down the hill directly at you before breaking into a steeply banked high speed curve at ground level and heading back up the tower. and those ratchets… Thanks to the magic of the internet and the need to divert attention from responsible productive activities, i stumbled upon a blog, “the lost coaster” dedicated to the cedar point jumbo jet. https://thelostcoaster.wordpress.com/ The author had been drawn to it in the same way and had gone about finding out what happened to it. It was here I learned about a still running Jumbo Jet at a seaside park called Amigoland in the south of France which i filed away for future reference. It is one of the few remaining of the 7 that once graced Coney Island, Morreys Piers, the Ex, Cedar point and Walibi Belgium. There is still one in Mexico operating, and maybe one in Belarus. France seemed my best bet since i almost speak a version of the language and the food is good there too. Since my wife and I are not traveling to the US unless absolutely necessary these days, she suggested the south of France for our summer vacation. I said, “Sure, and since we are going there anyway, do you think we could stop off and see something cool?” It seemed perfectly reasonable… Amigoland is a small seaside fair, open only for July and August in a resort area called le Grau de Roi. It is an hour or so west of Marseilles, with a long beach on a peninsula that goes on for miles into the Mediterranean and lots of motels and vacation attractions that you would expect to find at such a place. And Amigoland. And one of the worlds few remaining Jumbo Jets! Having said all of that, they don’t make it too easy to find out about it either in french or english. There is a vague facebook page with few details, and a few random tripadvisor reports. The park is only open during july and august, so we chose the last week of august to start our trip. (despite the fact that one does not go to France in august since they are all on holiday then.) We were staying in Aix en Provence which is a cool little town we chose as our home base. If/ when we go back i would stay at one of the hotels on the beach so we can enjoy it there and don’t have to travel so far. The park opens late, at 8:30pm, so we were waiting for it to open with a 1.5 hr drive home to look forward to afterward. We were curious about what kind of food they would have at a french fair. Would there be a Chien Chaud au mais (corn dog?) hey had hot dogs in a steamer jar. they also had baguettes with meat and cheese that they would grill fresh for you. It turns out that the french word for cotton candy is Barba pappa. Who knew? Surprisingly they had a few stands selling Churros. There were a few odd mexico references as well. Maybe the name Amigoland is related but there is no explanation to confirm or deny this. So, as it turns out, amigoland is a mid sized fair with a decent selection of modern flat rides, a whacky worm, some kids rides, a semi permanent flume fide, a giant ferris wheel and of course, a jumbo jet. Everything looks to be well maintained and in good shape. tomorrow i will post a review of the jumbo jet and try to explain why i am so obsessed with the coaster. Approaching the park you see the flume, and something off on the horizon... splashdown don't know what this was but it was extra extra large. the bottom spins around and the seats flip as the arm swings around and you lose your chien chaud Les petits churros de ma pere? steamie hot dogs here is barba pappa! mexico? what's going on amigo? here we are! Not sure why they have olympic rings, but they seemed to like to abuse copyrights everywhere. good selection of kids rides too. washrooms conveniently behind so you can ride umber one after going number 2 big wheel with nice lighting package. break dance more copyright fun boy in the bubble Safety first, no cellphones, no smoking, no pregnant women, no children under 2 yrs sunset over amigoland le simulateur that's showbiz for ya! kraschen wagon flipper did not ride the wacky worm not sure of the mexico connection? the jumbo jet is always on the horizon lots of casinos and ways to lose money this was a bizarre little gambling den. it looked seedy but you can win an air compressor. so there's that...

Good thing we have professionals to design our coasters.

Some yukon construction pics. They have a big yellow crane getting ready and a lift hill segment being put together.

Fly porter to washington dc and rent car from there. This way you avoid pearson/ air canada and get free in flight drinks too!

Leviathan wheel heaters?

I just want to see how they manage to stack this 'rollercoaster' If anyone ca do it, six flags run by the french can.!

Public transport from airport to wonderland not great. It would take all day. It is about a 30 min drive in good traffic. Avoid hwy 401/400 in rush hr. take 27 north and rutherford/ major mackenzie over.

Went to the park today and took some pictures. They are working in the transfer tracks. There is a long brake run on a trailer ready to be set up. The station is really close to the ground. No lift hill so far.

or MCBR = don't crash into the train in front of you.

^To be fair, i may have caught the enthusiast guy out of context and it may be only one of many topics their conversation had, but i moved on. I had been hoping for a modern looping coaster, and so finding out that it had the first dive coaster with a loop was a nice bonus for me. ( huge Werner Stengel fan surprise surprise) For a coaster nerd, i don't really like heights or hanging at the top of drops, so i have needed to work my way up to dive coasters. I joke that once you get past the drop on Valravyn, the Immelmann is spectacular. I am glad we are getting Canada's largest immelmann as well. (don't know if that will make the t-shirt)

So i went to the public announcement today, it was pretty low key in a good way. No real fanfare, just come on over and talk to us about our new project. It makes sense that they couldn't invite large groups of public onto an active construction site, so they pulled the fence aside so people could see what is going on. All in all a pretty chill way to tell your customers we are spending over $30 million on our newest attraction. All they needed was a box of doughnuts which is the canadian sign for We are doing a project. They opened up the fence by the construction area and put a sample piece of the track out in front. There were Wonderland staff with nametags standing around talking to people. I saw a well meaning coaster enthusiast trying to convince what looked like the main guy that they should be building an RMC. He patiently explained "Just because you like RMC doesn't mean that the rest of our guests will" and "we will see when we go to do a new coaster if they are still in fashion". He politely all but said no wfay. (wait there is no f in way...) it was funny to see, but cudos to the enthusiast for being persistent. He kept coming back to the question hoping for a different answer. It was a cautionary tale not to be such a knob while out in public. I spoke to a guy who was the digital media person. He was a super nice guy. Without prompting, he mentioned the world records and suggested they were helpful in marketing the park. And also politely explained that they don't really see la ronde as their direct competitor. I asked him whether they planned to open rides for holiday in the park. He didn't think that coasters would be possible but that they were looking at getting some of the flat rides going. He also said that platinum passholders would be allowed to attend, but not regular season passholders. (well they can go, but they have to pay...) Earlier this season i saw what i now think may be wheel heaters in Leviathan's station, whether they are to make late season operation work better or make holiday in the park possible, i don't know. I spoke to some guys in work shirts as well. He said that the footers and groundwork was mostly complete, and they were starting to put the track up "like LEGO". He thought it would go pretty quickly from now on in, and though they might even get the lift hill started today. Soon after 10:00am, they closed up the fence and everyone went on their way. I got some pictures including the track staging area. Front gate display stats a piece of track and a rock the transfer track/ station with loading platform stow away mechanism new coaster going here sunrise over lake behemoth. Somewhere in that lake is a set of my car keys, but that is another story for another day. tunnel exit, no wider than it needs to be staging area stuff start of the lift hill more stuff and more stuff with neat view of behemoth

I ran into a friend the other day on SV! hah!

cool, i might try to skip the morning of work and go. I didn't get the email (story of my life) and i looked on the season passholders portal and there is no mention of it. i also noticed that they have bring a friend tickets again which had been reduced to selected days, mothers day and fathers day, but it appears to be all season again? wow, wish i knew earlier. Anybody else want to go and see them unveil the new coaster (hopefully not known as ZIz)? I have glasses and a green hat.

I agree about low capacity rides first. Thunder run is a Zierer powered coaster built into the mountain. be sure to look for the dragon in the middle. The fly is a fun wild mouse coaster that gets crowded due to low capacity. The ghoster coaster is a kids wooden coaster but fun. I think it is a clone of the one at kings dominion. Make sure to ride vortexx in the back, it is a really nice ride, and one of the best of the arrow suspended coaster style. At the back you get pulled through the hills and helixes. It is also a clone of the one at kings island but set onto the mountain and with helixes over the river. You can see the tunnel for the new coaster in the middle. I have come to like Behemoth better than Leviathan, I like riding in the back of the bus to get pulled over the airtime hills. I have also found that the 4th car back second row gives you a nice floater air over every hill. The magic seat. Leviathan also nice but has sneaky hidden lineup behind which can be long. (it is well shaded though). Lately i have enjoyed this at twilight, maybe 8:30-9:30pm. It is an awesome experience. Some of the nice flats don't tend to have too much lineup: Klockwerks is a huss swing around, Orbiter, one of the last Huss Giant enterprises, Sledge Hammer is very rare, maybe only 2 in the world? the Gerstlauer flying ride is fun and not very common too. Wonder mountain guardian has it's entire lineup inside the mountain so you cannot tell how crowded it is. You can go in the hottest part of the day to get out of the sun. It is Ok and unique but not something i go on very often. The older coasters tend to draw less lines: Dragon fyre (arrow looper) is fun. Wooden coasters: Wilde Beast and Minebuster are not bad and have had some new track in the last years though still a bit rough especially minebuster. For some reason the Bat (Vekoma boomerang) tends to be busy. it is not bad if not too much of a line. They can't seem to get all of the wheels to touch the track at the same time on the SLC headbanger Flight Deck. I don't tend to ever eat in the park and sometimes walk across the parking lot to the wing place. have fun.