Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts

Friday, November 22, 2013

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

Friday, July 26, 2013

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.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Fun with Flickr - 2012 in a photo or 50

Yeah..... Year end review via my Project365 on Flickr
Looking back at some of the 360 photos I'd taken of myself over the past year so far and doing a "what I did this year" blog post.. Wooooo... so here we go..
((editor note: by years end it'll be 366 photos... but there's still a week to go.. so yeah... numbers are slightly off, who cares lets go))

Yeah, like it was gonna be hard to guess the year started off at Diznee World.
Rode the amazing new Zamperla Happy Swing at Funspot... (creepy!)
RING TAILED LEMURS!
Yeah, contender for absolute best part of 2012
Went to the "new" World of Coke on one of my 8 or so ATL trips 
this year...whhuuutttt
 Yaayyy, Mr.Mondial Shake! 
(likely my favorite flatride at the moment)
((But that changes a lot... I guess its the mood I'm in... either way... its in my top 5))  
Yaayyy! I also got to ride Strates Shows TOPSPIN after years of trying....!
And because Jeff and I heckled the op, he gave us a triple cycle about as good as you can get without running it manual!
 (guess that made up for the fact soon after a massive storm blew in and closed the fair for the night)
 Cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake
Believe it or not, I had a birthday in 2012 :O
And I jumped up and down like a fool at the Magic Kingdom on leap year...day
(after having worked till 5am and before working till 5am, again)
Got to ride Wade's Huss SDC Pirate for the first time ever :D
I believe it hadn't been used for a few years or maybe it just didn't play any of the spots I visited
SPACE ROLLER RETURNED!!!
(and went MIA again shortly after :'()
((Why cant we just keep GOOD rides in the States?)) 
(((Oh, and I went to the  Strawberry Festival for the first time)))
There was a Monorail at one point! Who knew... just one...one.
Lue Gardens turned 50, and I visited for the first time?
Fort Matanzas National Monument? How 1740... 
but pretty cool to see more of what I call "Real Florida"
Orange Blossom Cannonball.... The train set a brush fire while we were riding it!
(really)
The Florida State Capitol, in Tallahassee, Florida!
a minor goal of mine since moving here in 2009
 Big Kahuna's Water Park: OR, "how I went down a waterslide with my ATM card in my pocket...and lost it." yaayyy!
Ugh, Dixie Landin' Family Theme Park in Baton Rouge, Louisiana... Sooo not worth the drive from Orlando.... (you know, 700 miles......each way)
BUT, Blue Bayou Water Park was worth it.
Alabama's most southern Zoo!
I got to hold a baby Kangaroo... in a bag!
Cheetah Hunt, aww its not even Florida's newest coaster anymore....
Visited Sun Splash! for the first time 
(and my first time in the south west part of FL.... I'm coming for you KEY WEST... now the only part of the state I haven't explored)
Dirty dirty... but +1... and most south-west-Floridian coaster?
King Richard's Park...thing
EPIC, Clingmans Dome! 
The highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the highest point in Tennessee.
Might also be in the top 5 moments of 2012
Ehhhhh
Much better.
 Dollywood's Splash Country is pretty fantastic
! New Year's resolution.... COMPLETE :D
Lets just pretend this trip didn't happen
(although Rattler was pretty great IMO as was the rest of Six Flags Fiesta Texas)
Steel Eel at Sea World San Antoine!... only one more US Morgan to go
(I've got my eye on you Quicksilver Express.....)
The Alamo, one of America's most misunderstood places?
Also one of the few places I can think of with a large piece of American History that has a 
Ripley's Believe It or Not! and a Wax Museum across the street....ehh
Oh hey, and Deka saved me from the airport 
(missed connection for the last flight of the night) 
(and she took me to Six Flags Over Georgia)
And.... I ended up back there about a week later.
Because of the DCI Southeastern Championship MONOVENTURE to see Nolan do his thing
Stone Mountain, for some good old fashion Southern Racism
(had to wear my Massachusetts shirt cause, well, yeah..)
 Oh hey, you're a way better roller coaster than the one that looks like you 10 photos ago...
Yaayyy Six Flags Great America!
   Cha-Ching... But not really. Little Amerricka was worth the effort in visiting... 
and gave me a reason to go to Madison, WI.. and its zoo as well.
Unlike this hellhole, Mt.O, with its one still AMAZING CCI, Cyclops. 
Even WITH Hades360... I doubt I'll be back anytime soon...
Ok now... this is either reallllly cool, or really lame.
So I'm in Green Bay, WI with the new Zippin Pippin at Bay Beach while holding my shirt from the old Zippin Pippin in Memphis, TN at Libertyland
 You'd better believe there were ducks in 2012! and yes, I held a few :D
Memory Lane was visited too, in the form of Pirate's Fun Park
 in Salisbury Beach, MA
(or whats left of it)
 Six Flags New England finally got something worthwhile, even if its used, 
Goliath is lovely.
So I made a visit after skipping a chance to go in 2011 
(and both 'new' rides at SFNE since my last visit were things I'd ridden in their former locations...)
 My love
(the PARK not the coaster.....)
Magic Kingdom... this one photo had been planned out some nine months earlier.
 ((just so I could make the next 'photo of the day'....))
This
California Screamin' at California Adventure became my 700th roller coaster.... 
damn
800 seems so far away
Oh hey, and I rode the new for 2012 Manta at SeaWorld San Diego!
(and in turn visited all 3 SeaWorld parks in one season without even trying)
 And this...thing... too. Green Lantern: First Flight. Although LEX was the real reason I was at Magic Mountain... It ended up being closed the first nine hours of the day... so I couldn't make it my photo. 
 Woo, Volusia County Fair! After noting getting a chance to go last year this is still one of the best county fairs in Florida
 Some of the best news to come out of 2012?
 2013's gonna be pretty fantastic in Orlando.
And its within walking distance of my house, don't hate
Oh right, and Test Track closed at Epcot and months and months later reopened as... Test Track.
And I never really seemed to care either way?
 My second Massachusetts visit of the year also ended up being a trip down Memory Lane, although Edaville is still open, thankfully. Meeemmmoooooriieeessssssss
Ugh, and it snowed my last day on the way to the airport
Merry SHAMU Christmas
The End

 Yup, so that's about it... in the end I visited Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. AL, LA, MS, and TX all being new states for me (also part of my New Year's resolution, along with visiting a new Zoo (CHECK), Bungee Jumping (CHECK!(sorry mom)), and riding a 'new for 2012' coaster (check check check) ended up riding 42 new for me coasters, 7 of them being new for 2012 additions and 3 being ones I'd ridden in their previous homes. And for what its worth... I visited 8 animal attractions / Zoo's, 8 new for me Water Parks, and went to 5 State Capitals, 3 new for me) :D 
Oh, and if you wanna see the whole Project365 gallery its here via Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/canobiefan/sets/72157628690298479/
BRING ON 2013!
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