Tous les avis

First Drop Déception !

Superb engineering once again from B&M, but not a great ride. It's more of a looker from the ground; it is mostly contrived to look impressive from the ground (which it does!). Anything other than the front row misses out greatly. Sheikra is surrounded by other superlative rides, which biases my low score for this one, but then that's the challenge of trying to out-do yourself!

Débit

Great little ride but desperately short of capacity. Shuttle coasters by definition are single train, and in a park as busy as this, this is a daft idea. Would really benefit from being a pair of identical rides.

Théma Bonne suprise ! Ejectors

The Mummy remains one of my favourites at Universal Orlando. Rapid and uses physical effects to great effect; as opposed to the disaster that is Gringotts just round the corner... The mummy is also unique in that it's possibly the only coaster that our Mother-in-law has been on! (What is it? It's a dark ride!... Well, it's sort of true!) The staff have operations down to an absolute tee, managing to cleverly disguise operational signals in character. I recall one ride where the restraint was locked but perhaps not quite so much as it should have been, resulting in absolutely enormous ejector airtime. Much fun!

Superb location, cleverly engineered. Not intended to be a heavily forceful ride; though obviously still has the same basic height restrictions as other B&M's, which I find somewhat contradictory. Good job it does not rely on brute force to do it's job!

Never get bored of Bobsled coasters. With the retirement of the Wild Mouse, this is now my favourite ride left in BPB.

Inversions Harnais Fluidité

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.

Vibrations

Judders and rattley. The near identical ride in Florida is considerably smoother, and better for it. Desperately needs an overhaul and possibly the same trains that DLP's Space Mountain picked up.

Been on quite a few dive coasters, and, at least as far as it's gimmick is concerned, Oblivion's drop remains the best example. It's the only one dive machine that hits the tunnel in the vertical. Older style OTSR leave space for airtime (double dose if you can get the modified seating with two seatbelts and more room...) Sure, it does NOTHING else, but as a glorified drop tower it's the best one. As a coaster, sure, the other examples have extra features, but can anyone particularly say Sheikra's inversions are memorable? Nope.

Had the luxury of having multiple stay-on rides, at night, at Halloween! Given the space constraints in Tivoli Gardens that it exists at all is an achievement. Not the best B&M you'll ever find but has oodles of atmosphere in a great park. Night riding repeatedly cannot be recommended enough!

Inversions Intensité Harnais

Ace coaster, and one that almost cannot be believed to be portable, even after all these years. Clunky two part restraints are a dislike especially the shoulders, though I can see why they are necessary. The ride would have clearance issues in certain places if your arms were free. Pacing isn't the best; after the 5 inversions the ride still has quite a bit of run time, but can't do an awful lot with it. Still an incredible achievement and long may it continue!

Débit Inconfort A raser !

The Smiler is Marmite. Love it or hate it, it seems. The latest Gerstlauers have learned that rate-of-change-of-acceleration is important. Smiler was on that learning curve, but not right. Suspect build quality from day one, even pre-accident it had a lot of problems. The spin-and-spew quality to the ride is, I will grant it, somewhat novel, but those trains, oh those trains are hateful bolt-upright things and highly uncomfortable. Also, I intensely dislike the queue line. Yay! Let's deliberately pack you all in like cattle in a cage. Not a pleasant experience. Given a shorter queue I'd maybe have enjoyed it somewhat more; however the only thing that will entice me into a return is a refit with Hangtime-style clamshells. Some legends say the Black Hole was cursed; and I am inclined to believe the Smiler is proof!

Horror theme is hardly enticing; and a crap ride to boot. Like other early Gerstlauers, instant migraine. Merlin can afford far better and being short changed with crappy rides in one of the few parks that could actually finance something good in the UK is doubly annoying.

Instant migraine. Oakwood were looking for something impressive within their budget, which I guess the ride ticks that box, but absolutely no desire to go back on this. Gerstlauers I like are very rare indeed, and this is definitely not one of them.

Good layout in a half interesting setting if it's not overran with rubbish and graffitti. Frequent power cuts in the park mean frequent downtime, and the ride has poor capacity at the best of times. Routinely fitted with 50-pence piece shaped wheels, and the restraints aren't far short of requiring a yoga instructor to get in an out. Can't help but think it was intended to have TTD-style lap bars; but insurers got nervous after some unfortunate events elsewhere.

Could not fathom the high ratings on this one. Want to know how to make a hypercoaster slow, airtime free and forceless? Come try Steel Force.

It's hard to image a 250ft coaster being dull, but somehow SFMM managed it with this one! We've been spoiled by so many other, better hypercoasters. The MCB grinds the ride to almost a complete halt, taking a lot of the G out of the "fabled" helix. The drops aren't especially steep, airtime is limited due to use of straight-track rather than parabolas (think Blackpool's Big One), and the boxy-trains by todays standards don't expose you anywhere near the same as Intamin or B&M efforts.

1/2 star is too high! An interesting "feature" was that this ride could be despatched without the restraints being locked - and remember quite clearly having to hold them down for a mate sat next to me!

My favourite wooden coaster at BPB still standing, it seemed to notably decline after Richard Rodriguez' bonkers record setting. In dire need of much TLC.

The Crash National. Sorry. 20 years ago this was a 4-star attraction. Maybe we're spoiled by 20-years worth of accumulated experience elsewhere but there are coasters of comparable vintage in a far better state than this (Rutschebanen at Tivoli Gardens for instance, or most of Kennywood).

An obscene ride when it first opened - brilliant setting, and the out-and-back elements are a lot of fun. Somewhat dislike the twister elements. Chaos might float some peoples boats but coming back battered and bruised just because the trains don't track properly isn't so much fun.

Bizarrely, of the three woodies at Holiday World I think I preferred Legend - certainly got the most re-riding out of it.

Situation Débit Inconfort

A former world number 1, on last visit it sadly resembled sitting on a jackhammer, and marred by being operated hopelessly slowly. It's smaller, older brother at Oakwood has aged much more gracefully.

Inversions Situation Vibrations

I was one of the lucky ones to ride Kumba in it's opening year, completely oblivious to it's significance at the time. Still a great ride this far down the line and Busch work very hard to look after it - allegedly it's one of the more complex B&M's to maintain. It doesn't share the same structural features as virtually all other B&M's, take a close look at the joints between track and structure. It can be a bit rattley at times but it's also not scared to apply forces, something newer rides often back away from.

Launch Harnais

OK launch, and forget the rest - does essentially nothing with all that speed. I doubt Rita will outlive any of the other Intamin Accelerators, the site it's on is one of the few locations in the towers where development is permissible above the treeline.

Situation Confort

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 Intensité Baffes

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.

Situation Vibrations Inconfort A raser !

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"!

Inversions Fluidité

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 rise of lapbar-only coasters is perhaps also starting to make B&M's older restraint designs look a little obsolescent; you never know we may see something to compete in time.

Inversions Launch Baffes

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 spite of the roughness. Go on Universal, I dare you, figure out a way to put the B&M Hyper restrains onto the Hulk... Somehow...?!

Situation Harnais

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.