TR: Paramount Canada's Wonderland

[N'at Man]

TR: Paramount Canada's Wonderland

5/13/2006

 

Paramount Canada's Wonderland is a strange park for me. Saturday was my third visit to the park but my first in 13 years. The park was somewhat familiar yet very new to me at the same time. It's strange for me to not have visited a park within a 6 hour drive of home for so long but I kept waiting for the park to add a new coaster worth making the trip. Actually I'm still waiting but I decided to make the trip anyway along with Dave, Janna and Greg while meeting up with Derek, Nicole and Paul once at the park. We were not part of the ACE event but some of us did use the free Paramount ticket from Eastcoaster.

 

My first visit to the park was in 1986 when Thunder Run debuted in the mountain and that was the only coaster type ride I was brave enough to ride. In 1993 I had just joined ACE and had a very limited track record but I managed to ride all seven coasters at the park. This trip I picked up five more credits. We actually rode every coaster in the park (aside from the restricted Taxi Jam) since Greg needed all of the credits. There aren't many days when I can say I rode 12 coasters at a park but Saturday was one of them.

 

The park is very attractive and one of my favorites in North America as far as presentation. I love that it has brick pavers instead of blacktop for example. Wonder Mountain is an excellent centerpiece for the park. The park has a nice selection of flat rides and some newer coasters although they don't seem to get the signature coasters other major parks seem to get every five years or less. Vortex is the last high quality thrill coaster the park installed IMHO and that was 15 years ago. I suppose land is an issue as the park is bordered by a highway and sprawling housing complexes. You even have to drive around one complex just to get into the park.

 

To beat the crowds in the morning we started with the Italian Job Stunt Track. The line wasn't very long as it looked like most people headed to Top Gun or Tomb Raider along the way first. But we did have a slight mechanical delay before getting on rather quickly. This coaster is the same as the one at PKI except many special effects weren't working. I think we were all caught off guard by the power of the helix after the launch. IJST is a fun coaster but it doesn't warrant waiting through a long, slow moving line in the middle of the day.

 

Next up was Tomb Raider The Ride, a Zamperla Volare. We were not looking forward to this but I must admit it wasn't nearly as nasty as the Denver model. That's not to say it was any more thrilling or worthwhile but at least I wasn't beat up too badly.

 

We skipped Top Gun for the time being since the line was already ridiculous. We headed over to the Bat because of its low capacity. It probably didn't matter too much because the line was already over 30 minutes. The ride was pretty tolerable for a Boomerang so we weren't too mad a Greg for needing to ride this.

 

Next up we rode the Fly. It was a solid mouse with minimal braking. It's a great ride for the park in a nice location. Our next stop was the Krackenwagen bumper cars. I don't usually ride theme park bumper cars but these are probably some of the last Lusse bumper cars I haven't been on. Unfortunately they are newer models and they don't run very well. Half of the riders seemed unable to move during most of the ride.

 

We worked our way over to Dragon Fire which has lost a 'y' in its name since I rode it last. The old Arrow coaster surprised me with the speed it took the inversions. The loops were powerful and the counterclockwise corkscrew was fast. The transitions still sucked but it was a fun ride.

 

Our next ride also lost a letter, 'e', and that would be the Wild Beast. I don't remember being too impressed with this ride and I still don't like it very much. It has some speed but the track is crap. Plenty of bounce and shuffle.

 

We stopped for lunch at the new Backlot Cafe. I was impressed with my personally cooked pasta dish. It's a nice place to have a meal.

 

After lunch we rode the Mighty Canadian Minebuster. I remember this being a nice ride but they've removed and altered several hills since I rode it last. Now it's just a strange ride. It wasn't as bad as Wild Beast but it wasn't all that good either.

 

Nearby is the Sky Rider. The capacity of this ride isn't bad for a Togo Stand-Up. This ride had a decent crew. I try to control myself with line jumpers because you usually can't win. But when six people push by it tends to irritate me. We actually got the upper hand on a group of line jumpers and it didn't hurt that the rules sign was nearby. We had some fun with it without getting into a nasty situation. When the place holder in the station confronted me I said, well, if I let them line jump that operator over there would have to eject your friends from the park and I wouldn't want that to happen to them. Actually I could care less but why not take the high road. Anyway, the ride was enjoyable. The ending bunny hills were my favorite element producing some nice floatage. This Togo is one of the better ones.

 

Next we headed over to do some junior coasters. The Silver Streak was enjoyable with its old, wide OTSRs. The Ghoster Coaster has a great airtime moment off the second hill which really surprised me.

 

We finally got around to riding the Vortex, an Arrow Suspended. I knew this was the best coaster in the park but it was running very hot. It slammed into the brake run causing everything to shake violently. It's a pretty coaster to begin with as it climbs the mountain and runs over a nice lawn and out over some water. But this ride is fast and intense. I rode Top Gun at PKI last year and the Vortex blows it away. Plus it is smoother than Top Gun. Overall this coaster may be better than the Big Bad Wolf. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to ride it again later in the day.

 

We still had to get on Top Gun even though we were not looking forward to it. When we arrived the ride was down because they were looking for a lost article. I thought parks just waited until the end of the day to do this. The operators were very slowand it was probably slower with two trains than most SLCs are with one train. We had to wait a good hour and the line crawled. The ride was awful, one of the worst SLCs I've been on. To bad it wasn't a nice B&M Top Gun.

 

We got a call from Derek and crew so we finally met up with them after riding the Psyclone which is Mondial pendulum style ride. It was fun but not as good as the giant Huss version. Nearby was an interesting Huss Jump 2 ride called Sledge Hammer but we simply didn't have time to ride it. I hear its not as wild as it looks but I still wish we would have had time to try it.

 

Time was running short but we wanted to get on the powered Thunder Run coaster. It runs through the mountain and it is a fun ride with good speed and intensity. We had just enough time to get in line for Shockwave, a Mondial Top Scan. It's nice that Wonderland leaves the ride lines open until the park closes. I'm not sure I know what a good program is on one of these but it certainly had its insane moments. I left impressed.

 

We had a nice, full day of riding each ride once at PCWo. Unfortunately as nice is the park is the coaster collection will probably not draw me back for a while. But for a rare visit it was well worth the trip up to Canada.

[niiicolaaah]

Nice TR, Tim. It was really great meeting you and everybody.

 

Minebuster has been completely massacred by Splashworks. It used to be my favorite ride in the park, and now I'd rather not ride at all. The first time I rode on Friday, going up the second hill my lap bar was SLAMMED down and tightened a couple clicks. I'm surprised I don't have any bruises, lol. I'm surprised that you think Wild Beast was worse. I rode it several times on Friday and found it to be running better than usual. Actually, now that I think about it, my ride on Saturday wasn't that great, and today it flat out sucked.

 

We were in line for Top Gun when that lost article search occurred. We had fun amusing ourselves in line, wondering what this random dude was doing sitting in the middle of the grass, and watching the cheerleaders throwing each other around; however, it was pretty awful waiting in line for 90 minutes for a ride you knew was going to be bad.

 

But yeah, PCW is pretty, I'll give it that.

[Carnage]

Nice meeting you as well Tim. Would have been cool if we could have had more time at the park together with you guys.

 

I find the lap bar on Minebuster odd. It's not really as if the lap bar clicks farther on that second hill, as much as the entire lap bar mechanism tightens. Not sure if that makes any sense at all though.

[gregleg]

Nice meeting you guys, as well.

 

I apologize for needing that stupid Top Gun credit. Stupid, stupid SLC. Vortex was a pleasant surprise, though. Easily the best coaster there -- never thought I'd be saying THAT about an Arrow in these times.

 

For lunch Dave and I had both opted for salads instead of pasta (for me pasta isn't an option anyway, unless it's a nice rice pasta like a pad thai or something, and even THEN I have to be careful of the sauces). Anyway, the salad station was nice, making salads to order and mixing each in a separate bowl (no cross-contamination issues there), but slow as a result. Still, it's great to see an option like that at a park, much higher quality than the usual crap and easier for me to find something I can eat.

[N'at Man]

I apologize for needing that stupid Top Gun credit. Stupid, stupid SLC. Vortex was a pleasant surprise, though. Easily the best coaster there -- never thought I'd be saying THAT about an Arrow in these times.

 

Don't take the blame on that one as I needed that credit too. You're lucky the Bat wasn't too bad because we *would* have blamed you for that one. At least we had fun playing fake Yatzee on the PDA while waiting for that one.