Goliath513 Posted May 24, 2008 Posted May 24, 2008 My friend R.C. and I were at the park yesterday for opening day and for Coasters After Dark. Let me just say, that I was quite impressed with the new ride. Unlike Sierra Sidewinder at Knott's which I rode earlier this year, Tony Hawk is actually a fun ride. Before I go to the ride review, I just want to say that I believe this is a nice solid addition to the the park. They did a good job at redoing the old Zonga plaza instead of just slapping the ride on the concrete pad. I was surprised how fast they completed the area considering I was there on Sunday the 18th, and the paths had not yet been poured. The entrance to the queue is hard to find and is quite confusing. They had a park employee directing guests to the entrance. The flash pass lane being right between he entrance and exit made it confusing for the guests. They did a good job at making use of what's left of Zonga's queue and using the old loading platform as a queue building with TVs and other Tony Hawk related media. The station is lightly themed, but I suppose it fits the whole skating theme. The cars are a bit cramped for tall people like me, but they are still comfortable. When the ride gets going, it goes up the lift hill very fast. The first drop get the car going quite fast before back up to the signature mouse coaster turn arounds. In these, the cars pick up spinning as they go around the turns. Depending on how much spinning the cars pick up in the beginning, the rest of the ride builds on it. I rode THBS 5 times yesterday and every ride was a much different experience. The first one was very mild spinning and I was a bit disappointed, but later rides proved this to be an amazing ride and great addition to the park. One of the better ride entrances in the park. Zonga's station is now used as the queue building. If Cedar Fair named this, it would be called Backlot Skateboard Coaster. This car spun like crazy! The Tony Hawk/Zonga plaza looks nice. The end of the ride offers great ejector airtime! They were right when they said every ride is different. Tony Hawk had the longest lines of the day. Except between the changing of shifts, operations were smooth. New angle of Roar and V2 from the queue. This part of the ride is awesome! No more pictures of Tony Hawk. The park was PACKED yesterday. Some obligatory credit whoring during Coasters After Dark. Medusa is still as great as ever! Next up, we decided to ride the Vekoma death machine because there was no wait. What were we thinking... Please tear this down and replace it with a good ride. The only night shot because my camera sucks at shots in darkness. Sorry for the lack of night time pictures. We later met up with Eric (Zonga), who we had seen throughout the day, after he got off work and joined him and several of his friends for some night rides on Tony Hawk. Overall, Coasters After Dark was a success.
Gav- Posted May 24, 2008 Posted May 24, 2008 I love the colors!, the ride must be crazy too. Never seen much of this park, but it looks very nice.
PKI Jizzman Posted May 24, 2008 Posted May 24, 2008 Awesome! I'd always wanted to get on one of these, and I'mglad I'll be able to get on it next spring! I can't wait! -JZ
R.C. Posted May 24, 2008 Posted May 24, 2008 Here is my part of the trip report from before Sam got to the park: The Tony Hawk logo. This logo can also be found on the trash cans around the ride. I got to the park at about 10:00am and people were already riding Tony Hawk's Big Spin. When I got through the gates I found out that THBS was open to the public at this time even though the park wasn't technically open (I'll explain this shortly). So I headed over to THBS and jumped in line. The line was pretty long at this point, but I wanted to ride it. After 10 minutes THBS had technical difficulties. I decided to wait it out, since nothing else was open yet and I've been on the other rides a lot. Every time they announced that the ride was down, a few people left the line. After about 30 minutes of downtime, they announced that the ride was going to be down for a long time, that they had a guy from Gerstlauer who was trying to fix the ride, and that the rest of the park was now open. Almost everyone left the line at this time. There were about 15 of us that decided to keep waiting. It looked like they were working on the motor for the lift hill, but I couldn't really tell. This was where two of the five operating trains stopped during the break down. While I was waiting I talked with the ride operators who told me that the park had been open since 7am that morning. It was supposed to be for the press only, but the general public were also let in. This is why so many people were already in the park and riding THBS. The ride was down for about 1 hour and 20 minutes when the ride operators decided to give us a free Flashpass that we could only use on THBS once it was back up. After about 2 hours of downtime the ride was fixed and it ran for the rest of the day without any major problems. Now what you really want: More Pictures! Yes, I finally decided to join TPR.
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