Coaster reviews

Location Comfort

With the VR firmly in the bin where it belongs, this landmark of a ride remains is hugely enjoyable. In a park full of monster coasters, it naturally looks rather tame these days. Nontheless it's in a good location, uses the trees and hills to good effect, and saves the big trick to the end. It also serves a very important role of being a bridge between kiddie coasters and todays 200 foot tall scream machines. Hugely historically important and deserves looking after for a long time to come.

Inversions Intensity Headbanging

Dragon Khan has unfortunately, seen better days. It is exhibiting signs of high mileage, rattles, bangs and, by B&M standards the trains are not tracking nearly as well as they could be. It's intensity is high, as with most of the early B&M's, and still a good ride, but in present condition not the excellent one that it could and should be. Would be an easy 5 star if better looked after.

Location Rattle Discomfort Tear it down!

I hate to borrow the phrase, but "but it looks so pretty" from a popular series of youtube videos is unfortunately the only good thing anyone will ever find to say about Gouderix. Despite it's crappiness, Gouderix is a must-do-once for all coaster fans for precisely that reason. Vekoma have learned from their errors of 25 years ago, and now make some of the best rides. "Most improved manufacturer"!

Location Disappointing! Discomfort Tear it down!

I was so disappointed with Boulder Crash in 2006. Fabulous location; but a terribly violent ride. Intensity does not require sitting on a jack hammer for 90 seconds. It's coming to something when I enjoyed the parks Boomerang (admittedly one of the better examples of it's type) rather more! Boulder crash is absolutely screaming for an RMC rescue package, if there ever was one. It's not like the layout even needs much of a change, just needs smoothing out with lighter trains and suspension to soak up the damage.

Inversions Smoothness

Scream! In any other park or location this ride would rate so much better. Decently intense for a post Y2K B&M, and actually, the unassuming "it's just a ride come and play" mentality is fun. At SFMM, it's job is to be a capacity sink, a job which it does very well. We didn't even have to get off the back row on our last visit! Anything sat next to Twisted Colossus was always going to have a tough time of it in the rankings. A bit of planting up wouldn't go amiss to dress it up a bit and give something other than the bare-concrete to look at? it is quite literally the car-park coaster. The ...

Theming

Gringotts is a coaster I'd say I rate far more for the theming than for the coaster itself; if I was rating Gringotts as a dark ride, it would easily get 5 stars!

Inversions Launch Headbanging

Had the privilege to ride the Hulk in both it's original and retracked form. Both were best from the back seat, by a country mile. Both are headbangy, but smoother in the back seat, and both demand the ride be ridden not ragdolled. I dare say I thought the retracked variant may be rougher than the original! That said, the triple whammy out of the station and quick-fire inversion sequence are hard to beat. Second half utterly forgettable after the mid-course brakes - but then keeping up the pace of the first half would be a near impossible task. One of the better coasters in Florida, even in sp ...

Location Layout

I really loved Air when it first opened; despite it's many, many reliability issues and much documented lack of force! I would associate what it does mostly with those long Japanese coasters that trundle around at speed but not doing an awful lot. Air definitely is not long, nor does it do a lot either. Despite this I did declare it to have one of the greatest half-rolls ever; a reference to the dive into the cut-and-cover tunnel proximity effect. Air was a demo of what a flyer could do; without actually doing it. It also attempted to widen Alton Towers audience; rather than selling the "ter ...

Location Harness

Oh, I want to like Cheetah Hunt more than I do. As a concept, it is kind of clever but unless you are listening to the nerdy explanation in the cattle-pen queue line you'll miss that. Multiple high powered launches are always a good thing, and Intamin are never shy of putting force into their coasters. The awful restraints and vibration spoil unfortunately detract from the rest of the circuit.

Inversions Harness Smoothness

This was the first Mack Mega I had the privilege to board, and there's a reason why I immediately declared that I had a new favourite manufacturer. Unlike the decade of well engineered but mostly forgettable B&M's of the early 2000's (we are spoiled aren't we?!) Mack pulled the cat out of the bag and delivered inversions in a new format using hugely exposed yet comfortable trains. They got the pacing bang on, saving the biggest trick of the ride right to the end. Highly recommended. I can see why BPB went with Icon, it's a shame it's not half the ride Blue Fire is.