Theme Park Review

Canobie Coaster wrote:Glad to hear the positive reviews of Timber Wolf. The coaster really does appear to have a nice layout, so I'm glad they fixed what they had instead of immediately going the RMC route. Granted I wouldn't have complained if they had done that though...

Perhaps this leaves more of a chance to receive a ground up RMC! One can dream. Its a big dream. But still lol!

Canobie Coaster wrote:Glad to hear the positive reviews of Timber Wolf. The coaster really does appear to have a nice layout, so I'm glad they fixed what they had instead of immediately going the RMC route. Granted I wouldn't have complained if they had done that though...

While I am going against the grain here and this might cause riots for some coaster geeks and enthusiasts but I am extremely relieved that RMC is not the default end all answer to redoing ALL aging wooden coasters. Don't get me wrong, examples like Steel Vengeance or New Texas Giant are great and all but most of the the ones that have had the RMC treatment (including the two mentioned) might as well be all new coasters as they are no longer true wooden coasters but hybrid steel track with a wooden frame destroying the character of the original. I am glad GCI is stepping up and doing the retracking on various classic wooden coasters like Timber Wolf and keeping the look and feel of a true wooden coaster intact.

And speaking of GCI, Prowler is a fantastic wood coaster for being nearly 10 years old. Rode it while I was up there. Not sure what all the hate and roughness complaints towards it are all about. It rode great!

sdcfan88 wrote:And speaking of GCI, Prowler is a fantastic wood coaster for being nearly 10 years old. Rode it while I was up there. Not sure what all the hate and roughness complaints towards it are all about. It rode great!

And this is a big problem, as some people are getting good rides on Prowler and some are getting bad rides. It seems that certain seats or rows or cars are having problems that cause a rough ride, but it's hard to say exactly what is causing it. I have tried bringing it to the park's attention for the last several years, but the roughness continues to happen. I have seen a growing number of comments about Prowler being rough and people not wanting to ride it, after getting some pretty awful rides and the roughness tends to fluctuate in severity. And I have experienced really good rides and really bad rides, so I know for a fact that this is happening. I've had some friends have the same experience as well. I had a bad ride in the next to the last car on one train recently, so I tried the same row in the other train. The other train in that row was totally fine. So that pretty much shows the issue is train related, as there was hardly anything on that second ride worth commenting on in regards to the track. I hope a cause and solution are found sooner than later.

Just got back from the park. Prowler is really inconsistent in term of smoothness. During Winterfest it was smooth and hauling, while today is was rough. An empty train can really make a difference on how smooth the ride is.

I was bored the other day and searched worlds of fun 2019. Came across another site and claiming there was light construction/fencing happening?

Anyone have any support to this? It was a site I’ve never heard of and not even sure where they claim this activity is occurring or if there any truth to this? I tend to check here and screamscape for my info usually

ToNC wrote:Just got back from the park. Prowler is really inconsistent in term of smoothness. During Winterfest it was smooth and hauling, while today is was rough. An empty train can really make a difference on how smooth the ride is.

Prowler was absolutely hauling yesterday. I enjoyed the layout and the air, but it was pretty bumpy throughout. I can give it a pass because of how well it sustains its speed, but I couldn't ride it more than 2 times in a row. Honestly, Timber Wolf was the smoother coaster.

So I visited WOF yesterday and boy was it an interesting and exciting visit. It was absolutely dead. Probably the least busy day I have ever seen. Oceans of Fun had an average crowd, but that’s to be expected. But WOF’s crowd was super minimal. The main parking lot at WOF was filled up to C3. And if you’ve been there, you’d know that’s not much of the parking lot. So the waits for the rides were minimal to non existent! It was so dead that day that Spinning Dragons was a walk on.

But what I wanted to talk about was how impressive operations were, especially for the crowd. Every coaster was running two trains even though they were sending them 90% empty most of the time. This is a stark contrast to last season where lines could reach well over an hour and they would still never use two trains. It’s also worth mentioning that the ops at every coaster except Timberwolf would actually try and dispatch in a reasonably quick amount of time. The quickest dispatches were at patriot and they were not stacking at all. Mamba had some quick dispatches too and wasn’t always stacking. Prowler still had slower dispatches, but nothing compared to the 5+ minutes of stacking during my last visit. But I can’t say the same for Timberwolf. They were still doing the old method of waiting for every rider to leave the station, then opening every restraint and seatbelt before opening the gates. Then they would wait until the previous train was stacked before closing the gates and starting the long process of checking restraints. But other than that, operations were surprisingly good and I *really* hope they keep this up through the summer!

Speaking of Timberwolf. I really enjoyed it. The new turn was buttery smooth but kinda forceless. Not one hint of laterals except after the little airtime hop after the turn. The first half of the ride felt a decent bit faster but the double trims were still kicking in. But it’s the last half of the ride that shines now. Even though they added another trim after the new turn and are tilizing an old trim before the low flat turnaround (don’t know how to describe it ), it’s taken at a much greater speed. The hill after the new work now offers the most extreme airtime I’ve felt on a traditional wooden coaster. And the hills after that which didn’t normally have airtime offer nice floater. Going to soak that all in this season before the tame it down with the next phase of refurbishment.

Also worth mentioning that I tried some of the BBQ from Battlecreek BBQ and it was really good! Even though it was nearly $20 for a pulled pork sandwich and fries, it was a hefty sized meal. The flavor was good and I like how they’re actually using proper buns on the sandwiches now instead of just flat regular grocery store bread.

But overall, it was a great visit and I REALLY liked what I saw and hope it continues through the rest of the season!

^ Great report!

Cedar Fair is usually excellent at operations. I thought some of the dispatches were slower than their other parks, but they at least still ran two trains. The only two really bad dispatches were Timber Wolf (as you noted) and Cyclone Sams.

I went to WOF yesterday and here's what it was like. It was a nice 80 degrees all day and it was a Saturday so WOF was busy and OOF had almost no one. I personally couldn't tell a difference in the dispatch time but the lines did seem to be oddly short for how many people were there. The topiary's were beautiful, especially the giraffe. The clock was a nice but it took me half of the day to find it (and yes I did manage to walk by it a few times without seeing it). I got to ride Timber Wolf 3 times and it was so smooth that I'd say it is smoother than Prowler, which is something I never thought I'd say. The new turn is alright but it is much better than what was previously there. Going back to Prowler I got 2 rides on it, one in the morning and one at night. The night ride was smother but the morning ride was terrible. The new paint job on Eli was amazing but I did like the vintage look of Eli and also the color they picked makes it look like Eli is a John Deere tractor. I got to ride Nordic Chasers and it sucked, I'm sorry but it was awful to me. I loved Finish Fling and I sad to see it go and ever since then I already didn't like what ever was coming and now I'm even more sad that it's not the funnest ride. I looked inside deja vu and found a t-shirt that said Finish Fling 1973-2017 with a picture of the ride. I would've gotten it but it was $25. I looked everywhere I could and found nothing that says new ride, I can be a bit blind when looking for things like this though. Overall my visit was ok, it's about what I'd expect but personally I won't be going back until they get a good new ride even though this is my home park, just because not very much has changed since Prowler and it's only gotten more boring over time. Those are my thoughts though.

The fact that WOF was busy and Oceans wasn’t is surprising. I’m glad that WOF got some patrons on a cooler day.
Too often Oceans is packed and Wof is dead during the summer ,and it really needs to shift back in favor of WOF. Kansas City is known lately for having some of the most expensive water bills in the country due to the city’s neglect of replacing water and sewer lines. If WOF isn’t adding a new coaster next year, I would hope for an indoor climate controlled dark ride. A water coaster would do wonders too. Let us pray for a launch though