East Coast Tour Day 10 - August 15
Dorney Park and Six Flags Great Adventure
Today I had to make one of the hardest decisions of the trip. The first option was to stay the whole day at Dorney and it's waterpark, to chill out, take it easy and have loads of time riding and taking
pictures of the amazing Talon and Hydra. The second option was that I (or we) would only go to Dorney for the morning and night ERT, and spend the rest of the day taking our revenge towards the rainy
weather that ruined our day at Six Flags Great Adventure. I chose to go to Great Adventure, because the park had so many good coasters that I missed, and I would have plenty of B&M-love during the night ERT.
I will not stop thanking Robb, Elissa, Fred (or was it Joe?), SFGAdv and anyone else involved in creating the opportunity to go back to Great Adventure. But first things first. And that would be the Steel
Force ERT in the morning. Our hotel was right across the street from Dorney Park, so instead of very little sleep, we had little sleep, and we walked towards the far side of the park. Steel Force looks very
intimidating. When I boarded the trains the first thing that I noticed was that they were ENOURMOUS. Forget the crappy Intamin seats, these Morgans are the way to go. The ride itself wasn't forcefull in
any way and the level of design of the track is laughable, yet the ride is soo much fun. The huge helix is taken at a very high speed, and unlike the helix of S:ROS and Six Flags America, the helix isn't
boring at all. Defenatly a fun ride.
Next up was Laser, and I probably get a price on my head for saying this, but I didn't like it. I nearly fitted in the trains for starters, and after the loops the ride might as well go right into the brakes. Just like when I rode scorpion at Busch Gardens Africa, the loop is fun because it's forcefull, but the rest of the ride does absolutely nothing for me.
After everybody said goobye to Laser we got a little suprise from the park, we got to be first riders on Voodoo. Voodoo happened to be my first Intamin Inverted Impulse and I really like the ride. The launch is what you'd expect from a LIM, it's fast and always catches you by suprise. The twisting spiral in combination with the straight one and it's holding brakes was very cool. Now, the capacity is low and the duration not very long, the ride is very cool to experience, just make sure not to wait 2,5 hours for it.
As soon as everybody got their ride on Voodoo, and certain people got some rides on kiddies and a Wild Mouse as well, some of the group gathered at the hotel to head out Six Flags Great Adventure. While driving towards SFGAdv took 3 hours, we only had 4 hours in the park itself. And although I did not get all the credits in the park, I was glad to have ridden Medusa, Superman Ultimate Flight and the Great American Scream Machine, in addition to re-rides on Nitro and El Toro. Not being able to ride Blackbeard and Rolling Thunder wasn't bothering me at all, I was just glad to being able to get back there and do the important credits.
Medusa was awesome, the ride kept throwing inversion after inversion towards you, and although the front isn't that forcefull, getting your feet almost chopped away by the track is a huge adrenaline boost. Superman Ultimate Flight was my first B&M Flyer and while a lot of people said that the ride is boring as death after the pretzel, I really loved it. The sensation of flight combined with inversions like B&M does, is soo cool. The high G's in the pretzel were awesome and the flying around after it were incredible to experience.
The Great American Scream Machine was a lot like Medusa in a way. It also threw you inversion after inversion, but GASM also threw a brick wall at you at the same time. Damn, that ride was rough. I think I speak for the entire world when I say that I am glad Arrow never build an SLC.
After a quick stop at Nitro, which was still running insane, we saw a small gap to ride El Toro. Now, when we rode El Toro during our first visit, it was in the morning. Now, the ride was warmed up. So as I seated and got stapled, I was expecting nothing more than the previous run, almost a week ago. And boy was I wrong. Whereas your usual airtime woodie 'lifts' you out of your seat, El Toro during the morning was hurling us out of our seats.
The only way to descible the airtime on the hill over Rolling Thunder during a warmed-up run is 'abduction'. There is no other way to put it.
So thanks to the Q-bots we were able to ride 5 top coasters in 4 hours on a very busy day, and while we all agreed that this decision was the right one, we headed back to Allentown and take part in the B&M-Night-ERT. I still can't find enough chances to thank Robb and Elissa for arranging SFGAdv-Part II, thank you, thank you, thank you, once again.
Back at Dorney there was still some time before the ERT started and the lines were quite long, and because Dorney is part of Cedar Fair, it has no queue-passes. So I decided to take it easy, eat supper andwalk around the park to take some cool pictures. When to ERT started I first headed back to Hydra. I heard few bad stories about this one-of-kind B&M Floorless. And indeed it was not one of kind. The hangtime is the barrel-roll is very weird. Then, when you get to the top of the lift you expect a pre-drop, and since it was my first ride on Hydra and it was already dark, I couldn't see that there wasn't a predrop. So before I realised the lack of a pre-drop, the train was already halfway down the drop. The inclide-dive-loop was more like an overbank and the coaster badly needed a looping, but the rolls were very fun. Overall, Hydra is, taking it's small size into account a true marvel from B&M.
So after I had ridden Hydra 5 times, it was time for the last B&M on the trip, and the coaster that totally did the unexpected to me: Talon. Ever since I found out about the coaster I loved it's layout and brilliant colorscheme. Yet, the more I read about it, the more I read review, I read that the coaster seamed forceless, slow and no fun. Boy was I wrong. From the moment the chain lets go of the train, the only moment you can gasp for breath is the half-second you're in the high part of the S-turn. The Loop, ZeroG, Immelman and helix go seamlessly from the one into the other and are everything but forceless. After the S-turn, the low turn, wing-over and helix are even faster and more powerfull than the first half. The ride is insane, and I stayed for the remainder of the ERT in the back seat, while arguing with the rest of the row whether Montu is better of not.
In my opinion, Montu is better. Talon at night was just as powerfull as Montu warmed-up, yet Montu has far more inversions, and the typical slow moment all B&M inverts seem to have is shorter. Plus, the
bonus-loop after Montu's MCBR is incredible. Montu and Talon both have the same force and speed, but Montu is bigger and longer.
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I started counting down for West Coast as well!
