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

Osceola County Fair, for a few minutes

Osceola County Fair, my first visit although I'd passed it a few years ago. Didn't see what I was looking for and kept on my way.... This year would be the year I'd finally make the stop. Kinda odd having  just left the Florida State Fair not even 20 hours earlier!

Ok, lets do this..

Osceloa County Fair, woot. Doesn't have much going on for it..
but.........it has this.

The ONLY reason I'm here....

TOP SPIN!

(see how happy I am for once?)

having seen it SBNO 5 years ago or so.. And then having it be a 'No-Show' at the past say... 12 Strates fairs I've haunted... I tracked it down in Kissimmee. Damn. (but it was worth it for a well run Huss ride!!!)

From what I was able to find online it had really just come back on the road/rails last summer in Augusta, then it had a 'news worthy' incident at the New York State Fair... And it's made it way back to Florida.

So with that taken care of, it was time to stroll the midway, well, the part that still had power. It seemed like 4 or 5 rides were all powerless but were up and running later in the night.

 One of the two tracked dark rides at the fair, Ghettolovely.

Midway games and such...

 Musik Express was at the back end of the midway, we skipped it.
(had done it at the Seminole County Fair)

Hey look! Something Florida State Fair DIDN'T have for some reason this year.....

Zyklon was here, although was closed most of the night due to off and on rain.

Once it did open briefly, Jeff and I were on the second loaded car. Ha
Oh hey, and Strates new-ish Zamp Sky Flyer was here too, although rain ruined our chance of riding it, we had just ridden Reithoffer's last night

[RANT]Why have a wheel with 24 cars if you're only gonna load THREE per cycle, with at least 30 people waiting in line! Everyone was commenting on the horrible operations. Many even left the ride after 2 or 3 cycles of only moving up 10 feet in line[/RANT]
But the new-ish LED's look great on it...

Midway overview from the wheel, sadly EVERYTHING would close after we got off it.. Due to a massive rain storm that blew in. had we not waited 30 minutes for the wheel I may have gotten to ride the Zipper, Fireball, After Burner,  Sky Flyer, and the Top Spin a third time..... Oh well :(

PWNT

Yeah.....
 So that's about it... Even with the rain closing the fair way too early and not getting all my rides in.. I still got to ride a Top Spin run better than any other I've come across in the past 3 years or so. I miss when even my local Six Flags would run it well.. Now most parks run them with some craptastic one flip program and call it a "thrill ride", whatever.

 NOT AMUSED

A very MARTA moment

Thanks to the Megabus GOFREE sale, I ended up in Atlanta for the day (by day I mean...8 hours)... And during the day (8 hours....) I ended up on the MARTA and in College Park (Via WIKI, in 2008 College Park had the highest crime rate in Georgia.) I also had a lovely walk past "new" World of Coke, the Georgia Aquarium, CNN Center, Five Points, the Under Ground, "old" World of Coke, the State House, and then by car a trip to Hip and Trendy 'Little Five Points' (not to be confused with regular Five Points, heavens no.)

Anyways... Here's a very MARTA moment for Deka....

 YAH YAH YAH! I'ma do mah THING, welcome to the MARTA

Trainsssssss!

And planes too. I guess.

 [RANT]

Can we please, please, plleeeassseee get these signs for the Monorail? 

BEING STUPID = DEATH!

[/RANT]

Mmhmm

Really, Irene?

Story Time! - So I've lived in Orlando, Florida for two years now and there has yet to be a Hurricane... the ONE weekend I get to come home to Boston and they're the ones about to get hit by one... The first in 20 years... Back in 1991, before I was even in Kindergarten, Hurricane Bob hit Massachusetts... The only Hurricane I've ever "been" in. Now I'm stuck here waiting for Irene to make her moves.... And shes doing a pretty good job at ruining my trip but at least day one went off without a hitch.

OK, lets do this... Yorks!

Childhood memories from 20 years ago!... aww
(hey look at that... something else 20 years in the making)

 It's a Zoo Amusement Park Fair

Quack, quack, quack... Moving on!

((because))

After 15 years or so without a coaster..... The Zoo/Park has added this!

Wacky...Mouse

 Got my $2 in ride tokens... (thanks MOM)

And........... Cha-Ching? #665 I believe..... and certainly worth the 1,200 mile trek.

Oh hey and they have......

A Scrambler

And a Round-Up

After all that excitement I took a lovely stroll across the street and into York Beach, Maine.

An old New England seaside town? It'd be pretty if not for all the power lines.. everywhere.

Ah, much better! And so different looking/feeling than the Florida beaches I've been to this year.

Uh, or not.

FUN O RAMA

(That can only mean one thing!!!)

Cake flavored Ice Cream.

And some pretty beach side houses before Hurricane Irene destroys them

(like she destroyed the rest of my trip)

Ah, a nice 2 hour trip to Maine... Because nothing is better than being at work till 1.45am, being at the airport by 4.30, getting to Melrose by 11, and then sitting in a small car with your entire family for a few hours just so you can ride some stupid-ass-little-kiddie-coaster that you've already ridden at least 20 others of already.... but not this one and you needed to mark it off on Coaster-Count so your life could be complete.... and to top if off Not 1, nor 2, but 3 of your flights back home have been canceled due to the first Hurricane to hit New England in 20 years! [/RANT]

And a photo to leave this post with...

Disney's Pocahonts King! Yeah...

...or get off the pot.

So.. pretty much from the second I moved here... Jeff told me we were gonna go here someday because he had never been and it was something I'd like to do as well.......... Two years later we made it to Bok Tower // Bok Mountain Lake Sanctuary and Singing Tower (two years and a few nudge-nudge-jokes)

Random filler text stolen from Wiki - Bok Tower Gardens (also known as Bok Mountain Lake Sanctuary and Singing Tower) is a botanical garden and bird sanctuary, located north of Lake Wales, Florida, United States. It consists of a 250-acre (1 k2) garden, the 205-foot (62 m) tall Singing Tower with its carillon  bells, Pine Ridge Trail, Pinewood Estate, and a visitor center. The tower is built upon Iron Mountain, one of the highest points of peninsular Florida, estimated to be 295 feet (90 m) above sea level.  It is a National Historic Landmark that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. - Yup, now I don't need to fill in the back story...

So here we go... Bok Tower Gardens

Little model thing that shows whats inside the tower... America's Taj Mahal apparently.

 Little map of other 'singing towers' (Woo, New England!)

Yup, we just drove like an hour from Orlando to look at flowers....

 Oh hey, and to hear this tower sing

And to see the lovely view from one of the highest points in Florida. (haha)

 Holy crap, Lilly-Pads!

 And a big scary Spider...

And a kitty with one eye.

AND A SQUIRREL!!!

Oh yeah, and like.. gardens and stuff. Pretty eh?

 Heh, what a loser......... 

Someday I'll have a dragon headed fence around my house too, just you wait...

(Neat, eh?)

But I really do wanna try something like this with Tillandsia at my house.

(Eww, they're related to the pineapple!)

So yeah, that's about it.. Bok Tower is cool.. But its kinda far from Orlando. Once Legoland opens down the road maybe it'll be worth a revisit, although that's not to say it wasn't worth a visit in the first place, it was. And it was one more thing to mark down as 'Real Florida' on my ever-growing list.... 

(and thanks Jeff for a fun filled day)