Darien Lake Photo TR

Last Friday, my friend Mandy and I, along with my brother and his girlfriend went to Darien Lake. We usually go once a year. The weather turned out great and the park was actually pretty empty for a Friday! We left Auburn at around 10 am and arrived a little before noon.

 

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking but here is my opinion on the coasters.

 

"Ride of Steel"(Superman): 9/10 Always a great ride, a little shaky, but not bad at all.

 

Predator: A piece of crap. Painful to ride. It has no redeeming qualities except for it's sentimental value to me. 1/10

 

Boomerang: Not horribly rough, but headache inducing. 5/10

 

Viper: A good ride. Not rough, fun. 7/10

 

Mind Eraser: Not too rough either, actually fun! 6/10

 

Overall we had a great day, and hopefully Darien Lake going flagless will bring good things. Enjoy the pictures.

 

 

-Nick

Yay for no flags!

Tornado was added in 2005. It's a great ride, but we didn't get wet today...

Mind Eraser from the parking lot. I always thought it looked so huge.

Walking in, we see Predator is open! Although it's really nothing to be excited about...

One last shot of Viper.

Lift hills are hot.

Finally we made it to the station, this is as busy as it got.

One of my favorite pictures.

It's in a really nice area, but the walk to the station takes longer than the ride.

Curves and camera stuff.

Vertical loop goodness.

We went over to ride this piece of Arrow sexiness.

The swinging ship sucks.

I approve this Vekoma ferris wheel!

Mandy says hi.

Viper is actually my second favorite in the park. It's really not too shaky at all.

Barracuda Bay

Mind Eraser and the log flume.

We decided to ride the ferris wheel, just to sit for a while. My camera broke for a good portion of the day, but started working on the ferris wheel, so I made sure to get plenty of pictures from up top.

I usually like Darien's Boomerang, but we rode the backseat once and got headaches.

Is that a Vekoma I see?

We rode the front once, which wasn't all bad, but later we sort of dared ourselves to ride the back seat. Twice. I never really thought a coaster could be too rough for me, but at the bottom of every hill the lap bar would slam you in the stomach. It was almost unbearable. Even the ride ops were stunned that we came back to ride a third time.

Not too well.

Predator was my both mine and Mandy's first "big coaster" and I've always loved it for that reason. It was closed during our visit last year, so I was anxious to see how it was doing.

We gave Superman a break and decided to ride this pile of crap.

At one point the line looked like this. We got a back seat and front seat ride within 20 minutes!

The last three bunny hops deliver some serious air.

I heart Intamin magnetic brakes.

But it didn't! The line was about a two ride wait most of the day!

I love this picture, too bad it came out blurry. We thought Superman, I mean "Ride of Steel", would have a huge line with it still being early

Test run through the trees!

It broke! We noticed a crowd leaving the area and came to find this. After a few minutes, they got the lift going, so we stood at the entrance hoping it wouldnt take to long to reopen...

Back to Superman and it's shrubbery. I guess I should really start calling it by it's official name. I think if it can't be Superman it should be repainted and given a new theme completely. Mandy thinks it should now be called "The Bomb Pop"

Uh oh.

I had to take a peek.

Heading back towards Superman, we pass Shipwreck falls. Definetely not an exceptable amount of wetness!

The first and smaller drop is in the background.

After Mind Eraser we took a ride on the log flume to cool off. It's a nice ride, with two drops and a tunnel, and you don't get too wet!

I think B&M should copy this design.

Puke cleaning.

Side loop.

Somebody threw up in the station, so almost everybody left, giving me time to take pictures in the queue which goes right under the ride.

Purdy.

It really isn't too bad. We rode three times in the front and once in the back.

It is time.

Ranger is getting pretty old. The last time I rode it shook a lot sideways.

Darien Lake really is a great park. A few good coasters, and a really nice setting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

They finally let us in. We were two rides from getting the front seat, and the first train they sent out with people broke down on the lift. We decided not to wait, and left.

They tested much longer than anticipated, but we were first in line, and I refused to leave! A lot of people began sitting around everywhere.

The test seat has seen better days.

While waiting I took some more pictures. This is my favorite support on the whole ride. Tehe.

Nice pics, the waterpark looks very nice too.

 

--Jay

Nice pictures and great photo TR. Nice water park photos. I don't know why you got a headache on Boomerang since I just rode SFDK's in the back and it was smoother than normal. The log ride appears to be pretty decent.

 

-Sam

Did you see any signs of that Intamin stand up that was piled there? I'm still wondering what happened to it. I hope PARC got it and plans to put it up again.

Thanks for the compliments. The waterpark is really.nice, but on a hotter day.

 

^^I'm surprised it wasn't at all rough in the back, I figure it's mostly going backwords, because your the first entering the boomerang, so your still going pretty fast.

 

^ I forgot to look for it, but I've seen pictures of it sitting there. I too hope they decide to do something with it, A new B&M would be much better, but a very used stand up is better than nothing.

 

 

-Nick

This is a very nice TR. A lot of unique photos.

 

Shockwave/Shockwave/Batman: The Escape is still there. You can see it in front of you right as you're about to go down ROS's first drop. You can also see it from the Giant Wheel, if you look in that direction.

 

I pretty much agree with everything you said, other than the part about Mind Eraser being good. (It's definitely better than Predator still though).

 

I really love that shot of Viper's train about to take the drop. It really shows how shallow that drop is, despite how big the ride was back in it's day. (Even Canada's Dragon Fire and the Demons have higher drops!)

 

 

.

^ Thanks, and about Viper, the drop does seem to be getting smaller and smaller. It used to give me the weirdest feeling, but now I feel nothing, it's just rolling down a hill. However, everytime I ride it I like it more and more. It doesn't get as much credit as it deserves.

 

 

-Nick

Great TR, however, that shark needs dentures! It has like, zero teeth!

Nice PTR, however, I must say again that Predator is actually pretty good save fore a few spots when in the second car, first row. Everywhere else I agree is pretty bad. But if they get those new single bench PTC's, it might be comparable to Dania Beach Hurricane. (I'm not kidding)

^ I agree that it could be pretty good with new trains. There was a little bit of air on the first drop, but I also noticed that there's a trim there now. If it was smooth and trimless, I bet it'd be great. They still have the plaque in the station from a long time ago saying it was rated the 9th best wooden in the world. So they claim.

 

-Nick

Who the hell takes a picture of a "puke" cleanup. I imagine that had to draw some weird faces as you photographed it.

^ Hahaha, well what you see is actually the woodchips they used to dry it up, and yeah I got pretty weird looks wherever I went. It was my first time using a digital camera so I was taking pictures of everything. I looked like a spy with my TPR shirt on, I got some weird looks from ride ops.

Just in case anyone is interested here is a picture of the pile of coaster track.

Totally Agree! Predator is by far the roughest coaster to the point where it is unbearable. At the bottom of every hill, you experience the most intense G-s. I had a bruise on my shoulder and stomach when I came off of it! For some reason it has that I really hate it but I want to ride it again feeling to it, like you are hoping with each ride you take on it will improve. Kind of like Wild Beast!