Ugh, the *awful* Intamin ZacSpin - Green Lantern: First Flight

Ugghhh..... Six Flags Magic Mountian and Intamin have built one of the worst coasters I've ever ridden.... and they've named it....
 Green Lantern: First Flight.

So Six Flags, and Magic Mountain with its need to add coasters and stay ahead of the "coaster capital" record crap... plopped down one of the most pointless, violent, terrible coasters I've come across so far. The rare Intamin ZacSpin / Ball Coaster. The ride is a production model and sold for around 7mil. Its hard to think Six Flags put much effort into the ride and didn't get it just to add one more coaster over Cedar Point.

After my one and only ride on it... I can see why only four were ever built and didn't really care if I ever rode it again. That being said.. I was kinda looking forward to the ride at first and maybe a little more so seeing is how I missed being able to ride a smaller model of the same ride by a few days back in 2007..... But once the ride opened to the public, months late, the reviews started coming in saying it was crap. Oh well....

Yup.... Green Lantern: First Flight.

825 feet of pain

 Walking up to the ride.. it looks like it might be fun.. or at least it looks, uh unique?

And its a little strange that Six Flags built a green and black coaster right next to the parks only other green and black coaster.

Sadly, it beats the living crap out of you... and manages to slam your entire body forward and back with its free spinning car. Once was more than enough although I had originally wanted to ride it twice to try leaving the station both forward and backwards as well as trying the left and right sides of the arm. Jeff refused (I also got placed with some random other single rider...)
(but.. but... +1?)

And for a park as massive and busy as Magic Mountain it really is a capacity nightmare. With each car only holding 8 riders and only a single car cycling at once along with the horrifyingly slow load times... the line for it, while short... just doesn't move.

(I think it has 5 cars in all but four will be loading in the station while the fifth cycles...)

Here's the oddly shaped lifthill. You can also see the seats on the right are off-balanced. While loading in the station the staff try and keep this from happening but even my ride, this happened.

(I'm also kind of amused that all four ever built have chain lifts.. yet in RCT3 it can only be made as a launch coaster... I guess because when RCT3 came out only the concept was out but none had been built yet)

Ugh, don't worry. No one is having fun.

Along with the free spinning nature of the ride, the cars are able to flip 360 although it doesn't happen every time and it seems to only be able to happen in one spot (at the very end) our car did mange to do one full 360 flip but while watching I saw some cars not do it at all.

Um, but at least it looks cool?

I don't know.. I found two videos on youtube from CoasterForce that shows the ride in action. In the first video, an off-ride video from a few angles you can see cycles where the cars don't ever flip (the first full off ride video) and cycles where they do make at least one full rotation  (2nd, 3rd, and 4th)

Yeah, its awful... Also, Green Lantern is the only one of the four built that have those guards on the side of the restraints that prevent you from sticking your arms out/up. How odd.

Here's an on-ride video... ew.

In this video the car doesn't even make a full 360.

(you can see it invert at the end but then it rocks back without completing the roll)

Oh hey...

Here's a photo of me with it.

(I had wanted to do my 365 with Lex... but it was closed almost the whole day we were there...)

Yeah.. So I'd be fine without anymore being built. I guess I'd ride them (you know, for the credit) but I wouldn't really look forward to it. I kinda think that's how most Magic Mountain guests feel too. I didn't see anyone getting off and running to get back in line.. or even saying positive things about it! You'd here multiple people exiting the ride complaining about how bad it was.

Yup

Remember that time I went to Belmont Park?

[RANT]

So this one time... While in Sunny California... I drove down to San Diego with Jeff to go to SeaWorld and Belmont Park. I was pretty excited to ride Giant Dipper.... But because there was a cloud, yeah, p∩O˥Ɔ ƃuıʞɔnℲ ɹǝɥʇoW ∀ ............. The park just decided to NOT OPEN!

WHAT THE HELL

No notice, no mention on their website or any of the social-media outlets used by the park.. Nothing. Just a closed park with no one to even ask what was going on... They couldn't even bother to keep ONE employee around?

So yeah... That sucked.

[/RANT]

Anyways, maybe some OKC photos soon.

A Bear called Wolf?

Great Wolf Lodge.... the original.

Sweet.... an indoor, bear themed waterpark in the Dells?

Having spent the day before at Six Flags Great America and having driven to Madison, WI (and its zoo) and onward to the Dells.... By way of Little Amerricka, Timber Falls and Knucklehead's (that just happens to be next door!) 

we made it to out hotel for the night....yay!

The lodge... its big

Woo, almost there!

The lobby, very luxurious... but who cars because...

There's an arcade inside! but who cars because..........

There's a pretty big waterpark inside!!!!

After dumping our crap in the room MedusaRob and I changed into our swim shorts and ran downstairs to the slides! yaayyyyyy

yyaaaaayyyyyyyy!!!

Once inside, Crooked Creek, the parks lazy river is the first thing you see

In the back of what's the original building is a kiddie area Hawk's Beak and the Mineshaft Slides that ended up being pretty good!

The original room also has some activity pools and a few hot tubs for both family's and adults only.

To the left is what was the second addition to the waterpark.....

Fort Mackenzie and the Totem Tower slides

With the big dumping bucket 'n all. woo

There's also one major slide in this section.. but we'll get to that later. There's also remains of a since-removed slide (patches where it entered and exited the building and where its exit pool once was)

Back in the original building we now head to the right... where most of the new slides are at GWL

Slap Tail Pond... a sizable wavepool is the main attraction here

And its lined with cabanas!!

To the right of the pool are Coyote Cannon and Whirly Bird Run tube slides 

Coyote Cannon is the yellow slide and Whirly Bird Run the green. When it first opened I think Coyote used multi-rider tubes as its slide size was larger than Whirly Birds but I don't know GWL's history, just guessing here.

Here's where Coyote Cannon leaves and reenters the building, exciting. I know.

And up against the back wall... almost in time-out was Montanan Edge Raceway

A pretty sweet four lane headfirst mat-racer, here's the outside view of its helix.

It was one of the best slides at the resort.

An one last photo of this area showing the slides outside of their building.

Ok, now moving back to the original building... in back of it is a small-ish outdoor waterpark area with a few more slides and pools....

Thunder Bay, featuring Thunder Run and Lightning Falls waterslides

and an activity pool.

 Both outdoor slides are tube slides.

And now were back to where I said we'll get back to later.....

.....Great Wolf Lodge in the Wisconsin Dells is home to ProSlide's first enclosed Tornado slide!

Howlin' Tornado!!

This alone made staying at GWL worth it. Tornado slides are pretty notorious for long slow lines, but here you need to be a resort guest to slide. 

Making this Tornado a walk-on! 

Rob and I must have ridden it a good ten (15?) times... As soon as we got off the slide we'd run right back up the 6 flights of stairs just to go down again... 

and again... and again.

Most Tornado slides end after the funnel. Howlin' Tornado has a little bonus slide at the end to get you back inside the building.

And at night the ride is covered in color changing lights.

(The waterpark closed just after sundown the night we stayed so we only got to enjoy the lights while sliding for a little bit... but I would have loved to have gone for a true night ride on it...)

Pretty

So yeah, Great Wolf Lodge was pretty awesome and a nice way to relax... if you call running up stairs and diving head-first down slides relaxing... Having just driven like.. halfway across Wisconsin

and before doing it all over again the next day!

And.... <3 what was basically 'Exclusive Slide Time' on a beasty ProSlide Torando! :D

Also....

This....

Creepy

Northeastern Wisconsin Zoo, or... Killing time before going to Bay Beach?

Well, once finding yourself in Green Bay, Wisconsin with a few hours to waste before the areas only roller coaster opens for the day...

There's the Northeastern Wisconsin Zoo.. or as its now called NEW Zoo.

So yeah, a another new-for-me Zoo credit. Woo!

NEW Zoo, Green Bay, WI.

AZA certified annddd under massive expansion!

Ooooh, I wouldn't wanna miss that!

Oh, wait. 

Oooooh! I'm excited already!!!

uhh?

Pretty.... but uh, where are the animals?

I guess the thing about being at a zoo before it even opens is... None of the animals are really out yet or are sleeping. Note to self, no need to be at a zoo at 8.30AM 

((and while on vacation!))

Well, here's some animals....

Kinda....

anyways... after about an hour of walking around an empty zoo on what was the coldest August day I've had in maybe five years... we started to see some animals... yaayyy :D

Like this little fox!

And this bison, who was pretty impressive.

This goat was being.. uh, a goat?

The lion, like most of the animals were sleeping. 

While it was nice to get to the zoo before the animals had been harassed for the day it would have been nice to see them a little more active...

MOOSE! I think this is the first time I've seen on in a zoo

(but I have seen them in the wild too!!)

Sleepy RED PANDA!!!

Mr. Wolf taking a drink.

Badger, Badger, Badger

(mushroom,mushroom)

 This bird..thing?

Giraffe, say whutttt

:D Sandhill Crane!... My favorite kind of crane?!

(I've got one in my car)

Prairie Dog snack time?!

Caw-Caw'

Where's M1?

ALSO! BEAR!!!! :D :D :D

annddd.....

Some quack-quacks. 

So yeah, Northeastern Wisconsin Zoo / NEW Zoo. Easily the second best zoo I've been to in the state of Wisconsin. Well, I think I've only been to two zoo's in Wisconsin.. but yeah, still, NEW Zoo had Bears, Ducks, Red Panda, and Crane... pretty much every animal I wanna see in a zoo but my favorite, the Hippo :( ...still, its a nice zoo and I ever found myself in the Green Bay area I'd go again.

Hey look, two updates in a row!

I've got a third and fourth set ready to go too, one last one from 2012, and a neewww 2013 set! :O

If anyone's looking here, there's more on the way :)