It's somewhat better backwards and the launch is pretty powerful but all-in-all I find it very forceless and too short. It is however a nice addition ...
It's somewhat better backwards and the launch is pretty powerful but all-in-all I find it very forceless and too short. It is however a nice addition to this park and I like the voting system.
El Toro is known to be the best wooden roller coaster in the world right now according to the golden ticket awards. To me, El Toro is perfect, besides...
El Toro is known to be the best wooden roller coaster in the world right now according to the golden ticket awards. To me, El Toro is perfect, besides it’s intensity. It’s speed and airtime are so extreme, that you’ll get a slight beating depending on where you sit. I sat in the very back and on the second hill, I banged my head on the back of the train. That doesn’t mean that wherever you sit, you’ll get a rough ride. It just means that if you sit more towards the front you’ll have a perfect experience on this amazing coaster. El Toro is perfect in its airtime, speed, turns, and theming.
Hm. Difficult to rate this one. Let's start with the first encounter. You walk onto this plaza and you see the Sky-Rocket-II-structure towering in red...
Hm. Difficult to rate this one. Let's start with the first encounter. You walk onto this plaza and you see the Sky-Rocket-II-structure towering in red - the station being decorated in a haunted-house-style, though. The theming
around it is weird, not creating a spooky atmosphere at all and not being coherent. For example, the area around it features wrecked cars and a stretch limousine. Secondly, you kind of don't know what to expect in the cue line. It warns you about scary displays, that you mustn't enter under the age of 14 and with any bags. This is especially annoying, as it causes a lot of confusion, yet nothing happens if you take your bag with you and they even have a shelf for them in the station.
The cue line in itself does not feature actors, but is merely scary decoration with some surprisingly old-school animatronics occasionally trying to startle you with movement and loud noise. Apart from these it is designed well, but pretty short and does not seem to improve the ride as much as, say, the Xpress cue line at Walibi Holland - it has too much of a fair ride vibe.
Operations are efficient, although the cars are so small that getting to the other side to stow your backpack away is kind of a struggle.
The ride: You get launched forward very softly into what could be a loop for all you get to know of the track by then. Of course, you don't make it far and roll back into the station. That moment feels a lot like the airtime on the highest point of a pendulum ride. What follows is probably the highlight: being launched backwards into yet another loop - this time you already reach quite a height. The force felt here is a relatively uncommon sensation and strongest in the back row. For this reason alone, I think this ride is best experienced there. You once again drop back into the station and get your final launch (none of these three feel strong whatsoever). Next comes a series of elements, that feel kind of like a quick best-of-coaster-experiences. Because the track is bent upwards in such a narrow radius, the positives are strong, but you immediately twist violently and get very strong airtime, when you reach the top of the ride, heads up. Next in line is a slow inline twist with beautiful hangtime, a feeling enhanced by the lap bars, before you tumble down into a non-inverting loop with once again strong positives at the bottom.
The ride is intelligently designed to feature so many good things in such a concise space and is consistently forceful. Still, it fails to leave a lasting impression - it simply feels to flat-ridish.
The inversions are just there for show; they do nothing but provide plenty of headbanging and not a fun experience. Nice location over a main walkway ...
The inversions are just there for show; they do nothing but provide plenty of headbanging and not a fun experience. Nice location over a main walkway though. Giving 2 stars is generous.
