Episode 2: The Gap Years

This episode documents the time when I was a seriously lazy coaster enthusiast.  From 2005 to 2014, I only made a handful of visits to my local Florida parks including Busch Gardens Tampa and Universal Orlando.  My brother and I went to Six Flags Great Adventure in 2014, and then four years later, we did a two-day roller coaster trip to Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg in 2018.  That trip got me back into following the amusement industry through podcasts and social media and would put me on the path to rekindling my coaster-riding flame and putting that road trip together.

El Toro sound effects credit: ElToroRyan - YouTube

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Transcript

Welcome to Episode 2 of Coaster Redux.  My name is Erik and I am a life-long roller coaster enthusiast, but up until lately, I’ve been kind of a lazy one.  Through high school and college in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, I was a full on coaster nerd. It was the boom time of the coaster wars when every park was trying to outdo the next by building them taller, faster, and longer, and I couldn’t get enough.  Then, I graduated college, entered the working world, and coasters and theme parks went very much to the back burner for me.  I went on a lengthy yet unintentional hiatus with years passing between park visits.

In the past I would only visit parks close to home, or try to squeeze some coasters into trips I made for some other reason.  Now, after the pandemic, and getting back into following the theme park industry through podcasts and social media, I am getting ready to head out on my first week-long road trip with the sole purpose of hitting four of the best parks in the country to knock several top tier coasters off my bucket list.  I’ve never done anything like this before, but it’s time to get back out there.  This is the story of my revived roller coaster fandom, and if you haven’t already done so, please go back and listen to Episode 1, since I’ll be picking up here from where I left off.

I know as a roller coaster fan that one of my favorite parts of the hobby is getting the reaction of somebody coming off of a ride they’ve never ridden before.  That’s what I want to share with you.

And with that, let’s dive into the second episode of Coaster Redux.

I graduated from college in 2005, and started work pretty much immediately after.  I entered the maritime industry.  Boats have been a passion of mine for even longer than roller coasters.  Suffice it to say, I went full steam ahead into my new career, and for whatever reason, roller coasters fell by the wayside.  I stopped updating my website and eventually let it go.  I went years between roller coaster rides and didn’t really think about it.  Work would take me on incredible journeys as I navigated the eastern seaboard twice each year.  The boats I worked on were based in Boston during the summer months, and South Florida during the winter.  Eventually, I made the decision to stay in South Florida permanently because of the vibrant marine industry and year round work opportunities.  As for roller coasters, there are none here unless you drive 3 plus hours to Orlando or Tampa.  Even though Florida is known for its theme parks, I found it harder to visit living here than in Massachusetts since the drive makes a day trip to the middle of the state a mission I was not often willing to underetake.

During these gap years, I did go to the Florida parks a handful of times.  My brother has always been my partner in crime when it comes to riding roller coasters, and we would try to get a park trip in whenever he came down to visit.  We went to Busch Gardens Tampa a two or three of times, and finally got to ride Montu, to this day, my favorite B&M inverted coaster.  It continues to be glass smooth, despite its age, and has phenomenal whip and positive G’s, especially through the Batwing element.  The trenches and tunnels take this ride to the next level.  If you can ride in the back row right, I call that the Montu magic seat because it maximizes that whip through pretty much every element.  No matter where you sit, this is B&M at their absolute finest..  

We also rode Gwazi, the once dueling GCI wood coaster, it was rough and the layout didn’t really have any memorable moments, even when they upgraded to the Millennium Flyer trains.  It would soon close and be left SBNO for a number of years.

Then there is ShieKra, the first B&M dive coaster in the US.  I remembered reading about Oblivion at Alton Towers in the UK on ThrillRide, and I was really excited to ride this massive new coaster.  It did not disappoint.  That first drop was amazing!  I loved the free-falling sensation.  The immelman was graceful, with some whip if you ride on the left side.  You get a second vertical drop off the brake run, followed by the splash down water feature, and some smooth twists into the brakes.  While short, this was the ride during those years that best gave me that stomach in my throat sensation that was hard to find on Florida’s collection of B&M loopers. 

Busch Gardens’ next addition was Cheetah Hunt, an Intamin multi-launched coaster.  During my roller coaster hiatus, I had made a quick visit to Knott’s Berry Farm, and rode Xcelerator.  I loved the launch on that ride, and while it was short it packed quite a punch.  This was my second Intamin after Superman, and I had high hopes for Cheetah Hunt, but I left the ride underwhelmed.  I mean, it’s a long ride with three launches, a corkscrew inversion, and several hills that produced some floater airtime.  It was fun, but left me seriously wanting more in the intensity department.  Hey, I get it was designed as more of a family thrill coaster, which makes complete sense for Busch Gardens.  As a whole, I just felt like the park, and really the state of Florida, was severely lacking in the airtime department.  

Of course, I can’t continue without talking about Kumba, that seven inversion coaster that launched my enthusiasm to the next level back in ‘97.  To this day, it’s still a great ride.  It’s gotten a little rougher over the years, but that layout is still something special.  Every time I ride it, I love the classic B&M roar, that epic zero-G roll, and I think back to how much this ride impacted me, and even more so the amusement industry.  After all, it was the first big B&M, and the sequence of elements has been copied over and over again around the world.  This roller coaster still has a special place in my heart.

During this time, I also made a handful of trips to Universal Orlando.  The Incredible Hulk Coaster would continue to be solid, and eventually the park would close it and completely replace all of its track work and trains.  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter would open and Universal would again redefine immersive theming.  As a casual fan of the Harry Potter books and movies, I was blown away by the quality of the experience in both Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade.  The Hogwart’s Express connection is a spectacular attraction in its own right, as well as a great way to travel between Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. 

The two Harry Potter dark rides were great themed attractions, but I still think the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, the first of these immersive 3D dark rides is the best.  Dueling Dragons, renamed Dragon Challenge, and rethemed to Harry Potter would no longer duel, but I rode it shortly before it closed, and it was still as smooth and fun as ever.

Then there was Hollywood Rip Ride Rock It.  A basically unthemed Mauer roller coaster with a vertical lift, steep drop, non-inverting loop, and a bunch of block brakes through its course.  I actually liked this ride when I first rode because it was smooth, featured a lapbar only, and there was some airtime entering and exiting the brake runs.

Another great ride on the Studios side is Revenge of the Mummy.  This highly-themed indoor Premier launched coaster tells a great story and features a surprising amount of airtime for a ride of this type, something I’ll take whenever I can in Florida.

My next new park visit would come in 2014 with a trip to see my brother in Philadelphia, only a short drive from Six Flags Great Adventure.  This was a park that had been on my must visit list for such a long time!  Before Six Flags New England opened, this was the closest big park to Boston, but it was really too far away to be a practical trip at the time. Going in, I was psyched because this park was pretty much a B&M showroom with an inverted, stand-up, floorless, hyper, and flyer.  Over and above that, they had two Intamins as well.  Kingda Ka, the world’s tallest roller coaster, and El Toro, the only Intamin pre-fab wood coaster in the United States.

The view from the parking lot at Great Adventure is probably second only to Cedar Point for building anticipation.  It was ridiculous bouquet of twisted multi-colored roller coaster track.  There are massive rides everywhere!  I was really excited for several coasters in the park.  First, of course was El Toro.  I had heard nothing but the best reviews of this attraction.  Beyond that, I was really looking forward to Nitro, which would be my first B&M hyper, Superman, my first flyer, and of course Kingda Ka, which unfortunately was closed on the day we visited.  

The park was pretty much empty.  It was one of those weekdays in June when most of the clientele is school groups, and not a lot of general public.  El Toro was our first ride.  Walking past it, I noticed that unique sound every time a train crested a hill when the up stop wheels seemed to scream in pain as they are the only thing keeping the cars from launching into orbit.  If you’ve ridden El Toro, you know what I mean.

We walked into the station and hopped into the back row.  Over 4,400 feet of track and 1:42, El Toro redefined the term ejector airtime for me.  What an absolute power house of a coaster.  The first drop is sublime, with a steep, nearly hyper-sized dive through the structure.  Then El Toro tries to buck you with its massive camelback hills delivering the most sustained ejector airtime I have ever felt.  The best outta your seat moment is after going under the lift hill when you hit that turning airtime hill before the twisty section.  What an absolute rush.

We hit the brakes, and I had a new #1.  El Toro is a wood coaster with the smoothness and intensity of steel.  It’s a true masterpiece, and as much as I loved Superman, this ride surpassed it because of the quality and intensity of its airtime, and because it is so unique.  I so wish there were more of this type of coaster out there.  With the park’s one operational Intamin under our belts, it was onto the B&M showcase that is the rest of Great Adventure.

Next up was Medusa, the first B&M floorless coaster built.  Yeah, I know, it was called Bizzaro when I was there, but we still called it Medusa.  It had gotten the same mid-life re-theme and special effects as Superman in New England, many of which had been removed by the time I visited.  This was a solid B&M.  As always, I loved the zero-G roll.  It’s a perfect example of how Kumba’s elements were copied and pasted around the world, though never done quite as well.  

Then we rode Green Lantern, the B&M stand-up, formerly Chang at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom.  This was essentially Mantis at Cedar Point, but with an extra inversion.  Great for nostalgia.  Not so great for smoothness.  

We bypassed Superman: Ultimate Flight at this point because it was the only ride with a wait, and headed to Batman: The Ride.  This was the first of these original B&M inverts that I had ridden, and this was by far the surprise of the day!  Despite its age, it was still perfectly smooth and really intense!  It’s probably the most whippy invert I’ve been on to date.  Plus, the queue has some pretty solid theming, especially for Six Flags.  What a treat to ride one of the coasters that kicked off B&M’s career.  I wish their newer rides had this same intensity!

Speaking of surprises, we rode Nitro next.  So many people wax poetic about B&M hypers, and with this being one of the biggest and highest-rated ones, I was really looking forward to it.  The trains with the high-mounted seats and the simple and free clamshell restraints are works of art.  Unfortunately, this ride left me severely disappointed.  It had a terrible rattle, and the airtime was weak floater at best.  Maybe I can chalk that up to having just ridden El Toro, and no airtime can match that ride, but I just felt completely unimpressed by Nitro.  We rode three times, in different rows, and the end result was always the same.  It just didn’t live up.  I wanted to like it, like really badly, but I just couldn’t.  Are all B&M hypers like this?  I sure hope not.

Once we had ridden everything else in the park, we circled back to Superman.  It was only running one train, and the line was about 45 minutes, which was a bummer after pretty much walking onto every other coaster in the park, but I wanted to get my first flying coaster ride in.  So we waited, and I have to say I liked it.  It was a new sensation.  The highlight was the pretzel loop where you get some super forceful positive G’s while laying on your back.  That element isn’t really flying, but I had never felt anything like it before.  Flying coaster, check.

We had a phenomenal time at Great Adventure, and it was really great for my brother and I to get to a new park.  We kept going back to El Toro, and who could blame us, that ride is just sooo good.  I was bummed about missing out on Kingda Ka, but hey, there’s a great reason to get back at some point.

I left Great Adventure that day with a new favorite coaster in El Toro, and with my preference for Intamin over B&M firmly implanted.  The builder of floaty looping coasters that had become so prevalent in my home state of Florida, and really around the country had fallen out of favor for me.  I was a much bigger fan of the more intense airtime driven machines from their Swiss rival.  

About four years would pass before I would get to more new parks.  Sad, right? My brother later relocated to North Carolina, and in September 2018 I flew in to visit him, and again, we made a plan to get out and hit some new parks.  He originally suggested Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Carowinds, which he had been to about a year prior, but was underwhelmed by their two big B&M’s in Intimidator, and Fury 325.  With my only B&M hyper experience being the lackluster Nitro, I wasn’t that psyched to go there, but I remembered driving south on 95 from Boston to Florida when I had passed a massive red giga coaster with yellow supports, of course Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion.  Now a professed Intamin fan, and really wanted me a piece of that, as well as their second Intamin, Volcano: The Blast Coaster.

Additionally, during the gap years, a new manufacturer, Rocky Mountain Construction, had exploded onto the scene, taking old beat up wooden roller coasters and adding inversions, steep drops, overbanked turns, and general insanity.  I had watched some POV’s on YouTube of their work here and there.  I knew Six Flags New England’s Cyclone had been RMCed, and that year, Kings Dominion had introduced Twisted Timbers, RMC’s conversion of their old Hurler wooden roller coaster.  RMC was the new hotness for coaster enthusiasts, and I really wanted to try one for myself.  Both my brother and I agreed on Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens, and with that, we were off.

First stop?  Kings Dominion.  I love that you can see the park from the highway.  There’s no missing it.  I305 makes an incredible first impression.  That lift hill with so few supports and that near vertical drop looks like a something out of a cartoon.  We decided to start with Dominator to get warmed up.  This coaster originally opened as Batman: Knight Flight at Six Flags Ohio, the B&M floorless I so badly wished we had gotten at Six Flags New England back in 2000, until I experienced Superman.  Anyway, it’s a very pretty ride, and the orange color scheme looks great.  The ride itself is really fun.  It’s smooth and forceful.  It doesn’t have a Zero-G roll, but the layout is a bit more unique as far as B&M’s go, so I’ll take it. This was the last weekday the park was open before going to weekend only operations for the fall, so it was completely empty, almost to the point of feeling awkward.  We walked onto everything!  We did two rapid fire rides on Dominator and then made our way back to ride Twisted Timbers.

WOW, that’s a loud lift hill!  You can hear that thing over and above everything as you approach the ride!  The burgundy track twists into a barrel roll in the first drop and the ride just snakes all around the queue.  I was really looking forward to this.  Something completely new and different in a roller coaster.  We only had to wait a train or two, and we were soon heading up the lift for our first RMC hybrid.

So let me just say that RMC takes every rule about roller coasters and completely throws them out the window.  You can’t have inversions with only a lap bar, especially inversions with hang time that tries to eject you.  You can’t have inversions on a wood coaster, or a hybrid coaster, or whatever.  You can’t have a turn that banks in the wrong direction.  You can’t do these things.  To reference Roller Coaster Tycoon, guest 345 just threw op on Roller Coaster 2.  It’s ultra extreme.

But guess what, RMC, and Twisted Timbers…….just……..did.  The first half of the ride is unbelievable!  The barrel roll down drop is great, and then those three rapid fire camelbacks deliver airtime reminiscent of Superman and El Toro, even though they are much smaller.  Then the real RMC craziness kicks in.  The airtime hills become off axis.  Tight twisted inversions come at you rapid fire.  You can’t do that!  Did they just let some little kid have access to their autocad and draw all over the screen in crayon?  That fake out turn back through the structure when you bank the wrong way EJECTS you, and the return to the station is just one ejector pop after another in every direction.

What was that?  Can this be real?  There are no rules.  RMC just completely eliminated all of them.  Alan Shilke gave a giant middle finger to everything that came before.  This was bonkers fun, but honestly for me, those last few bunny hills were kinda too much.  Just throwing you up into the restraint rapid fire, almost aimlessly.  I love the concept, and the throwing the rules out the window, but it seems a little too Tik Tok.  Too Generation Z.  Too much, too fast, too many filters and emojis.  Just throw ‘em all at ya one after another.  Despite all that, I really liked Twisted Timbers, and I was phenomenally impressed by what RMC could bring as far as intensity to a small beat up wooden roller coaster.

Speaking of intensity, if you look the word up in the dictionary, there should be a picture of Intimidator 305 next to it.  This would be my first giga coaster, and I was beyond excited to get on another big Intamin.  There was no wait, so we literally walked into the station and into the back row.  The cable lift was fast, just like El Toro’s, and as we crested the peak, I was so ready for my first giga drop.  It didn’t disappoint, nor did the remainder of the layout.  This ride breaks another Roller Coaster Tycoon ultra extreme rule.  You can’t have a huge drop into a relatively flat high-banked turn.  That would cause your guests to grey out.  Oh, wait……this ride does that!  The positive G’s in that first turn are unlike any experience I have ever had on a coaster.  Then there was some airtime on the camelbacks, but that’s not what this ride is about.  Those incredible turning transitions taken at ridiculous speeds that throw you from side to side like a ragdoll took my breath away.  That might be almost literal, because this ride is so intense in the positive G department, that it almost leaves you breathless when you enter the final brakes.  This ride is a complete rush.  It’s so fast, so whippy, and so forcefully unique.  It’s unlike anything else I’ve ever ridden.  How does this even exist?  It was borderline too much for me.  Not something I would want to marathon.  Two rides in a row left me needing a break.  We did ride it several more times that day, and I loved this g-force machine!  

We rode everything else at Kings Dominion, and I have to give a nod to two other roller coasters.  Racer 75 had just received some love as far as new track work before my visit and this was a really great out and back wood coaster.  Very smooth, solid airtime.  And secondly, Flight of Fear.  This was a really fun enclosed Premier launched with a decently forceful launch, lapbar only trains, and fun layout.  

My brother and I left Kings Dominion satisfied and looking forward to Busch Gardens Williamsburg the next day.  I should mention that their second Intamin, Volcano The Blast Coaster was closed during our visit and unfortunately would never re-open. Between the two parks, Busch Gardens was the one we were most looking forward to.  It has the reputation for being the most beautiful park in the country, and also includes a great line-up of coasters.  We drove an hour to Williamsburg, had a steak dinner, and crashed hard after a day of non-stop intense thrills.

The next morning, we were only minutes from Busch Gardens.  We pulled into the parking lot, and were greeted with views of Apollo’s Chariot and Tempesto right at the entrance.  The whole park is shaded in trees, and each area is themed to a different European country.  The terrain is hilly, and it’s hard to see one area from another.  We walked into the park, through the shaded grove of the Scotland section, past the Arrow Loch Ness Monster and headed for France.  The first ride of the day would by Gryffon, the park’s B&M Dive machine.  This was very similar to ShieKra, but it had an extra inversion, and the view from the top of the lift was something special as the coaster towered above the canopy of trees and the James River was visible in the distance.  I liked Gryffon almost as much as ShieKra, but I give the latter the nod for slightly better whip and placement in the park.

Up next was probably the coaster I was most looking forward to at Busch Gardens.  Verbolten, mainly because it was something different.  This ride was the replacement for the Big Bad Wolf Arrow suspended coaster, and its final drop covered the same path along the park’s Rhine River.  This highly themed Zierer launched coaster features an indoor section and a drop track.  The theming in the queue is outstanding, and you then board a train made up of possessed sports cars and brave the haunted Black Forest.  It’s a really fun ride, albeit a little rattly.

Then we rode Alpengeist.  This was another anticipated ride for me since Busch Gardens Tampa’s Montu was my favorite B&M invert, and this was bigger in every way.  Plus, being from New England, I loved the ski-lift theme.  The ride is 195 feet tall, so pretty much a hyper coaster, and the elements were not in the standard B&M order, with an Immelman following the first drop, then a vertical loop, Cobra Roll, Zero-G roll, and a single corkscrew.  While the stats were impressive, the ride left something to be desired.  Sure, it was big, but it just didn’t have the intensity or whip of Montu.  

The next coaster was Apollo’s Chariot, the world’s first B&M hyper.  I didn’t have high expectations after my disappointment with Nitro, but this ride was much better.  There was no rattle to it, and it was exactly as advertised.  Great wide open B&M trains with that minimalistic clamshell restraint, good first drop, a beautiful trip out into the woods, and good floater airtime on every hill, with that last one before the final brakes delivering some of the best.  OK, it’s not an Intamin, but for what it is, I like it!

Then we rode Tempesto, the Premier Skyrocket launched coaster, and it was fun!  You get some pretty good airtime cresting the top of the ride, then some good hangtime in the heartline roll, and more air every time you drop back down.  While nothing special, it was a fun ride that has a good place in Busch Gardens’ line-up.

We then doubled back and rode Loch Ness Monster, that classic Arrow terrain coaster with interlocking vertical loops, and I liked it!  You absolutely cannot argue with its picturesque setting.  The drops into the loops were great, and I enjoyed riding a piece of roller coaster history.

Finally, we rode Invadr, a more family oriented GCI wood coaster.  Set in the New France section of the park, this is a beautiful little ride.  It opened the year before our visit, and was still running like brand new.  It was smooth, and fun, but didn’t really have much in the way of airtime.  I don’t think it was designed that way.  It did deliver great laterals and twisting turns through a great trip through the woods.  While we didn’t realize it at the time, the trains on this coaster were actually taken from Tampa’s Gwazi and refurbished.  

Overall, Busch Gardens Williamsburg was a gorgeous park with a great collection of roller coasters, although none of them were stand-outs for me.  Maybe it was the fact that their rides were kinda similar in a lot of ways to Busch Gardens Tampa, or that I lived in Florida, the land of B&M’s at that point, and many of theirs were more of the same.  Or maybe it was that after the all-out rush of I305 and Twisted Timbers the day before, the B&M line-up just didn’t pack the same punch.  

It was still an amazing two days of coaster riding, and it was great to share that time with my brother, since we don’t see each other that often, and riding coasters together is something we really enjoy.  On the drive back to his place, we looked up roller coaster podcasts and listened to a few, and even started talking about doing our own podcast going in depth on our thoughts and opinions on the rides we’d ridden.  Hey, there’s an idea!

So after that trip, I started listening to more roller coaster podcasts, mainly In the Loop and Coaster Radio.  I loved listening to them talk about their experiences on different rides, and they also kept me up to date on everything going on in the amusement industry.  I was still a lazy coaster enthusiast.  Living in South Florida, Universal and Busch Gardens were the closest parks at about 3 hours, and I had been there, done that.  Islands of Adventure would open Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure in 2019, but that family coaster was not enough to justify a trip up to Universal for me at that time.  Nor was Tigris at Busch Gardens Tampa, a Premier sky rocket just like Tempesto in Williamsburg.  

However, I got some motivation when Busch Gardens announced Tigris, and teased an RMC refurbishment of Gwazi coming in 2020.  I loved the way they not so subtly hinted at what was to come.  

Now there was something that would get me off my duff to go out for a ride.  I couldn’t wait for 2020 to get up to Busch Gardens to ride Iron Gwazi.  Sometime later, they released that the new coaster would be the tallest, fastest, and steepest RMC hybrid coaster, immediately drawing comparisons to Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point, the RMCed version of Mean Streak which I had ridden in 1999.  And that ride looked incredible!  Plus, all the podcast people were calling it the best coaster on the planet.  Having something along those lines in Florida would be amazing.

SeaWorld Orlando also announced its next attraction in Ice Breaker, a custom layout Premier multi-launch coaster which would also open in 2020.    

Of course, that would turn out to be the year of the pandemic, and the entire world would come to a grinding halt.  During the shut-down, I continued listening to coaster podcasts, and watching videos on YouTube. I watched as so many coaster openings were delayed, and I was getting stir crazy!  I hadn’t ridden a coaster since 2018 at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.  Among those being delayed were Iron Gwazi and Ice Breaker.  Guess I would have to wait another year to ride.  

Meanwhile, at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, construction was underway on a new Intamin multi-launch coaster coming to the Jurassic Park area.  This was meant to be a high-thrill roller coaster to fill the void left with the removal of Dragon Challenge.  The ride was set to open in 2021, though Universal was very quiet about it. They didn’t release anything about the new ride, until shortly before opening in the spring of that year.

When VelociCoaster first opened, the enthusiast community was abuzz about this immersively themed Intamin creation.  Many were calling it their new #1 coaster.  Iron Gwazi and Ice Breaker would be pushed back further to a spring 2022 opening, but I couldn’t wait any longer.  After doing nothing besides working and being cooped up at home for over a year, I needed to get away.  I needed an adrenaline rush.  With Velocicoaster now open, I had my motivation to head north to Orlando the first week in October of 2021.  Of course I also still had to ride Hagrid’s which had opened two years earlier.  I wanted to make it a two-day trip, so I also put SeaWorld Orlando on the itinerary.  Hey, they had three B&M’s I had yet to ride.  Kraken, a large floorless with seven inversions, Manta, their flyer, and Mako, the 2016 hyper coaster that was Florida’s tallest at the time.  This seemed like a worthwhile trip, and I really needed the escape.

Join me for the next episode, when I hit the road in Florida to ride the new additions that make this state, now more than ever before, an absolute must for coaster enthusiasts.  Not just for those who like the detailed theming, and family friendly, but for us adrenaline junkies as well.  Florida would no longer be just the land of B&M’s, and a state almost completely devoid of airtime.  These next park visits will provide the fuel that leads me to plan my next big coaster adventure, that epic week-long road trip.  That’s next time on Coaster Redux.