Canada-USA-Netherlands – August 2018 {Day 18 - Summary}

[Hixee]

Who wants another trip report to read? Loads being posted at the moment, so not expecting this to get much notice, but hey-ho, let’s get to it!

Day 0 – Travel & Arrival

Feel the need to do a little explanation at the start of this on a couple of things. Hopefully to add a little context.

Firstly, the seemingly long-winded way of doing a trip over the Atlantic and then to the Netherlands. For a number of personal reasons, my trip to Canada/USA had to happen in August, which is also when @Ben, @Lofty, Sam and I had planned a little foray to the Netherlands. In the end, it seemed to make more sense to just take three weeks off work and do the trips back-to-back. I did plan on doing a Bristol>Amsterdam>Toronto type flight arrangement, but once everything was properly investigated, cost and practicality lead me just doing them as two separate trips from the UK, with a 24 hour ‘layover’ back in my flat in between. I’m going to do them as one huge report, though.

Secondly, thanks to @davidm's recent (and excellent) report [Link], the route and parks I’ll cover here are almost exactly the same as his! In that vein, I think I’m going to keep this report a bit more of a light touch (as much as I’m able, I do like to ramble), with more of an excuse to share photos. Hopefully means not too much reading for you all!

Anyway, that’s enough of that guff, now on to the trip!

--- --- ---

A rather disgustingly early start on Friday, coach to Gatwick and flight to Toronto (via Halifax – again, price was too tempting), and I was at the Airbnb in no time. It was late, I was tired and hungry, so I headed out fairly quickly towards the Distillery District in Toronto for some dinner. I took a minor detour on the way to Polson Pier, for an excellent sunset view of the city skyline.

All rather lovely.

Back to the Distillery District for dinner.

Really nice atmosphere in this area. One of those “lots of modern bars and restaurants built in to a renovated industrial area” places that seems to be all the rage at the moment. Not really complaining, mind, they’re pleasant places to be.

Okay, good stuff. Time for bed, I think. Big sightseeing day tomorrow.

 

[Hixee]

Day 1 – Toronto Tourism

First day was a sightseeing day in Toronto. I’d drawn up a reasonably #basic hit list of ‘things I must see’ type jobbie. Quite honestly it was mostly just the CN Tower and the Islands, with a whole bunch of wandering around in the middle.

Having had reasonable success visiting tall buildings early in the morning, and knowing it was a Saturday in peak summer, I decided to head to the CN Tower first, arriving only a minute or so after they opened. I got a ticket and headed straight up, no queue at all and the lift only had a handful of guests in it. Should mean it won’t be too busy up top, I reckon.

The view from the top is pretty great. Always love seeing these kind of views.

The Toronto Islands, my next destination!

Quite like this photo. I spoke to the parents of the two boys after I got the shot (was a “right place right time”, not staged) and have emailed the photograph to them for their collection. They were having a nightmare capturing the boys standing still, and I was fortunate enough to get lucky.

Also, what’s that way in the distance? Looks like a cred to me! This is a HEAVY crop the biggest zoom I could manage!

Proof!

A short walk from the base of the tower is one of the ferry terminals that you can use to access the Islands (I think it should be capitalised?). It was still reasonably early in the day – it doesn’t ever take long to do those observation decks, really – so the ferries we’re too busy yet. Quick ride over gives some great views of the skyline.

The Toronto Islands are a pretty huge park, with loads of paths and grass for walking and cycling. There’s a beach (although I didn’t fancy the look of the water), golfing, boating, all that stuff. Really nice area, it was great and I’d recommend it if someone was looking for an activity in the city but wants to get away from the noise of downtown.

Yes, that’s how you do it. Good work Toronto.

Thankfully they also have a little theme park, and therefore a little cred! Grabbed a ticket (top tip – head in to the little theme park a little way to find one of the secondary ticket booths, everyone seems to only use the first one) and was on and off the coaster in no time. Not bad really, some surprising pops of airtime! The kids seemed to love it, which is ideal.

Some more nice views of the city from the Islands. I bet the view from here at night is great, too, but I didn’t stick around that long!

Now for a little bit of faff to pick up the hire car. I found a really good deal on the car by picking it up today rather than the day before (it was like, an extra 30% more expensive for only 24 hours extra!), so headed back out to the airport to get the car. I was sort of expecting a bit of hassle to be honest, probably because Pearson Airport is pretty big and I just assumed that would carry some sort of delay, but it was all very easy in the end.

Thankfully, they upgraded me to a lovely, brand new, fully specced Fusion (Mondeo to the Europeans). As @Antinos will be able to confirm – it was excellent! That would be absolutely fine for 1500 miles on the road. So much so I wanted to so 15000!

Once I’d dropped the car back at the Airbnb, I got a streetcar back into the city and grabbed a beer (or five) and dinner at the Craft Beer Market (thanks for the tip-off @davidm). Did a bit more milling about, taking in the city before heading back to the flat.

#everycity

Some proper coasters next – Canada’s Wonderland!

 

[JSM]

Lovely report @Hixee! Just out of curiosity, isn't that observation tower right above the Blue Jays (baseball) stadium?

 

[Hixee]

Lovely report @Hixee! Just out of curiosity, isn't that observation tower right above the Blue Jays (baseball) stadium?

I believe so, you can see it just left of centre at the very bottom of the fourth photo from the observation deck.

 

[Snoo]

Like davids.. I JUST CAN'T WAIT FOR THE SEX! <3

 

[Antinos]

Hot damn, you had some GORGEOUS weather while you were there. I've been to Toronto on some nice days, but I don't think it was ever THAT nice.

 

[davidm]

Sat almost in the same seat as me at the beer bar. Good work.

 

[X: Uknown]

Toronto is on my bucket list. Oh, btw, Helloooooooooo nurse!

 

[Hixee]

Day 2 – Canada’s Wonderland

Short drive from the Airbnb and it was time for this place:

I had booked a FastLane+ as it was a Sunday in peak summer, and I was dreading the crowds. In hindsight, as you’ll see later, I don’t think I really needed it, but I wouldn’t have been able to get so many laps on the B&Ms without it, so pleased I went for it in the end. I picked it up from one of the booths next to the main entrance, and then headed in to the park.

I didn’t bother taking my camera in first thing, as I was a little concerned about the lockers situation. Figured it would be easier to go back out to the car and get the camera later. There won’t be many pictures for the first half of the day.

Headed down to the back of the park first, as Behemoth was on the early entry (I think I could have ridden Leviathan, but it was only sending out a train every 5-10 mins or so, with only a handful of riders on each, so I wasn’t quite sure what they were doing). The first few creds were complete walk-ons at this point.

Behemoth first, and wow! Brilliant coaster. The airtime was right up there with what we experienced on Silver Star last year, and the trims were barely biting. Really impressed with it. A brilliant way to start the day, too.

Next up was Back Lot Stunt Coaster – the final one of the set for me – and it was exactly the same as the rest. Don’t hate them, don’t love them. +1.

Wonder Mountain’s Guardian was open now, and I’d been forewarned about the terrible throughput by @YoungsterJoey, so I made a beeline for that to get it done. On the whole, it was pretty terrible to be honest. Coaster section is pointless, indoor shooting bits are a bit lacklustre, with the only highlight being the drop track – which even then isn’t terribly memorable. Still, only queued about 15 mins, which was the smallest I saw it all day, good stuff. Next.

So I rode five Boomerangs on this trip, and hated every single one. I’m just going to get the rant done now. Each of the five boomerangs (Canada’s Wonderland, La Ronde, Great Escape, Darien Lake and Walibi Holland) were all of varying qualities. Some had the old trains, some the new trains, some were smooth, some were rough – all of that is totally academic as I’ve realised that it’s the backwards inversions that really ****s me up. Every single one, regardless of all the other factors, left me feeling exactly the same as we hit the brakes. Gross. Terrible pieces of ****. Okay, rant over.

I did the boomerang (Bat) – it was awful. See above.

The powered mine train was down (which was my next target as another poor throughput coaster), so headed for the next worst capacity ride in the park, Fly (the wild mouse). Actually not a bad ride, particularly, but very much “done-one-done-them-all”.

I was keeping a mental tally and realised that I would be getting 550 on this trip. Not a big milestone, I admit, but if I have the choice to make it something notable, I might as well. Therefore I needed two more coasters before I rode Leviathan. Wild Beast was first, and I don’t remember a great deal about it, which is saying something. Then Dragon Fire, the Arrow looper. Not terrible, but had a couple of really rough patches. Wasn’t expecting to go for re-rides on either of those.

Now time for Leviathan, and the first time the FastLane+ really helped. I’d used it on a bunch of the other rides beforehand, but they’d all have only been a two-three train wait anyway, but Leviathan was already at a 45 minute queue. With the FastLane+ it was a walk-on! 550 done, good stuff.

I loved Fury (#4, for me), so was expecting good things from Leviathan. It didn’t disappoint! I loved the speed and smoothness of it, and the twisting airtime hills are magnificent. I also liked the fact that it had that ridiculously huge hill towards the start. All in all, a great coaster. Fury is slightly better, it does a bit more of the high speed twisting and has a bit more airtime, but Leviathan is still excellent. Canada’s Wonderland have an incredible pair of B&Ms!

Okay, I was pretty happy that I sussed the platform bins situation by now, and I would be fine to have my camera with me, so I popped out to the car and grabbed it. Thankfully, you’ll have some pictures to look at now.

Starting with some shots of Leviathan from the car park.

My next plan, along with taking pictures as I went, was to wrap up the remaining creds.

Walked past this piece of ****.

Then rode this piece of ****.

Down the hill towards Behemoth for another few laps, which was still just as excellent. Bloody loved it. Especially with FastLane+.

On my way back up the hill I jumped on a few of the flat rides. Windseeker, Skyhawk and Sledgehammer. Most notable of these is Sledgehammer, of course, which was an odd experience. I don’t tend to do these spinning flat rides very often, but this one was okay. The spinning isn’t too intense, and the pops of airtime are pretty cool, but on the whole it feels like an awfully elaborate ride. Definitely better as a spectator than a rider!

Didn’t take many pictures here, but looped round the back of the park mopping up the other woodie (which I really enjoyed in that “so-bouncy-it’s-funny” kind of way), the various kiddie creds (didn’t go for Taxi Jam, didn’t look like I’d stand a chance) and finally Vortex. Was quite impressed by this actually, it has a few moments of pretty intense swinging.

I headed back to Leviathan for a few more rides, thinking I’d probably be at the end of my energy levels for the day. I think after my 4th lap (brining the day total to 6) I was starting to get a bit worn out. Still, the coaster was still absolutely wonderful and so much fun.

The entrance sign is rather excellent too!

Purely by chance, I happened to catch the Flying Frontenacs Stunt & Dive Show, which was much better than I anticipated. There was a lot of pretty serious stunt work going on here, and it was great to be part of a collective ‘gasp’ from the crowd now and again. I got lucky with the timing, but I would say stick around if you happen to be in the area when it’s on.

Only snapped one decent picture during the performance – was a bit too distracted by their aerobatics otherwise!

At this point I decided that I should give Behemoth another couple of laps, so headed back down to that end of the park (basically the opposite end!), and rode it twice more – again making the most of the FastLane+.

Ok, time to head out now I think. I’d been at the park since about 9am, and it was nearing 8pm now, so I felt like I’d had my fill. Couldn’t resist stopping in the end of the car park on the way out for some final Leviathan pictures, though. I did debate about doing the same for Behemoth, but by the time I’d actually worked out how I’d get round to the road, I’d given up! Pretty pleased with how these came out.

Canada’s Wonderland: So, thoughts then. I liked the place, but the more I think back on it the more I think I actually just really liked the two B&Ms. Sure, Vortex was alright, but there really isn’t anything else that I’d put forward as a ‘good’ coaster there. It’s got some big flats, which is great if you’re in to that, and it’s got a lot of creds, but nothing there is particularly exciting. Enjoyed the day, and I was glad I’d bought the FastLane+ as I think I’d have been feeling a lot more exhausted if I’d have had to stand in line all day, but don’t think I’ll be making a trip back – even for Yukon Striker. Next time I’m in the area, yeah probably, but not a special trip. At least they’re adding another B&M.

I pulled over on the drive home for some poutine (yes, basic). It’s cheese and chips and gravy, simple really, and rather good. Accidentally ordered a ****ing huge one too (wasn’t paying attention properly), so saved some of it for the next day.

Happy days. Next up, a mostly culture day, but there is a cred!

 

[Antinos]

Man, this is easily the best photo-set of Canada's Wonderland I've seen! Fantastic job with the camera!

Sounds like you had a fairly standard day at the park - everybody unsurprisingly loves the B&Ms and the rest of the park varies from "it was alright" to "it sucked."

Also, I really want some poutine now <3

 

[Youngster Joey]

Didn't do the Volare eh?

Glad i could help you navigate the park and you had such a short wait for wonder mountain guardian.

 

[Hixee]

Didn't do the Volare eh?

Glad i could help you navigate the park and you had such a short wait for wonder mountain guardian.

Oh no, I only didn't get the powered cred and Taxi Jam, I just didn't feel like the Volare deserved any mention.

 

[Snoo]

Funny, we talked about your hatred for boomerangs while at Michigans Adventure. It appears it has become legend.

 

[Lofty]

That ****ing Volare definitely does not need mentioning.

 

[Snoo]

That :emoji_zipper_mouth:ing Volare definitely does not need mentioning.

Only because it was so bad though. It's legendary bad. <3

 

[Lofty]

I just couldn't believe the pain. My body has never been touched in such a way before

 

[Hixee]

To be fair, at least it wasn't the Boomerang.

 

[Hixee]

Day 3 – Toronto to Montreal via Ottawa

Another predominantly culture day – don’t worry the latter half of this report is very cred heavy. Plus, this day starts with a coaster, so if you’re not interested in the culture you only have to read the first bit. Right, let’s get on with it.

Another ‘hidden’ (in the loosest term possible) coaster that @davidm slithered in a few months back and beat me to it! The pipeline coaster at Wild Water & Wheels.

Place looked very dead as I arrived, with only a few cars parked up and a couple of staff milling around the go karts. Wandered towards the little ticket booth and they seemed rather happy to have someone else to talk to. Asked for a ticket for the coaster (3 goes for $10), and they went running off to find a couple of people to operate it.

Waited around the base for the two people to appear, one climbed the tower with me, the other stationed themselves on the big skid brake at the end of the ride. This is one of those where you get off at the bottom and then walk yourself to the top – makes everything much simpler, I’m sure.

First go, then.

With a reasonably major shove off the top I was hurtling down the first drop. Good sense of speed, in part due to the exposed nature I think, and fairly smooth. Pull up, and then, oh boy, I’m flying towards the first hill. Start to crest the hill and airtime! Wow! Wasn’t expecting that. Lovely pop of floater.

It was the next fraction of a second where everything suddenly got very real. Immediately after the crest of the hill is the turn, and it was as at the start of this corner I realised that the little carts didn’t have any up-stops. I felt the main running wheels re-seat on the rails as I was already turning the corner. Holy ****, it’s totally plausible this thing could totally derail. I look ahead and see the next hill, significantly lower than the next one with the same turn after the crest. Brace, airtime – hopefully we end up back on the rails - little jiggle as the wheels find the track again, and we’re off.

Rest of it is just a meandering lap around the outside of the golf course. Finishing with a very hard stop on the wooden skid brake (accompanied with a lovely burning wood smell). All pretty good then, actually.

Off I get, back up the tower for another lap. That really got the blood pumping.

Spoke to the lady at the top about the airtime and she had some comment about “oh yeah, you had a fast one, this thing can be pretty scary” (paraphrasing), so that was reassuring. In the good way, I suppose, I’m glad I wasn’t being dramatic and that she fully acknowledged that it does that sometimes.

This time I had the confidence to keep the camera (only a small compact this time, not the big SLR!), so you get some shots of my toes.

She didn’t give me so hard of a push the second time, and whilst I still felt the wheels losing contact with the track, it wasn’t anything like as bad as the first run. Was a little bit glad really, that felt intense.

One more ascent of the stairs and another little chat with the lady operating it, and I was off on my final lap. Wahoo!

Thanked the guy at the bottom, and headed on to my next stop for the day, Ottawa! Not more creds today, so you can skip this bit if you’re not interested.

I’d debated for a while about having a night in Ottawa, but after looking at options and factoring in faff (was already going to have a few ‘one-night’ hotels on this trip and didn’t fancy another), I decided just to park up for a few hours in the city and see the Parliament building (note-to-self: go find that country capitals thread). Couple of hours drive from the coaster and I was in downtown Ottawa parked right next to the Rideau Canal.

Was all rather nice really, walked down by the canal, then up towards the Parliament buildings. I’ll chuck a bunch of pictures in now.

Quite liked this war memorial – breaking through the gate imagery was effective.

The main Canadian Parliament building.

The Library building was lovely.

I’d spotted an interesting looking view from the top of Parliament Hill, so decided I’d wander over that way before making tracks. Dropped down to the canal, crossed the locks, and climbed back to towards Nepean Point (name found later on Google). Views were pretty good.

Final leg of the day was the drive from Ottawa to Montreal - all pretty easy really. Checked in to the Airbnb, grabbed a bit to eat for dinner (more on the food another day), and headed to bed. I was pooped!

Next, La Ronde.

 

[Hixee]

Day 4 – La Ronde

Another one in rapid fire. Time for another full day at a park – La Ronde.

Pretty impressive approach to the park coming over the Jacques Cartier Bridge, although a fairly last minute, tight, highway exit to make it on to the island. Although from there I have to admit that I got a little confused. Those of you who’ve been will either agree with me, or think I’m a moron (or both, I suppose)…

The ‘main’ road drops off to the right, but doesn’t actually look like the main road at the junction. Loads of signs pointing left, nothing going right. One of the signs pointing left says La Ronde, sounds good. Follow the road all the way round, and you end up at the bus and trade entrance to La Ronde with no way in to the car park. Hmm…

Exit leads you back up to the previously mentioned junction, with two options – re-join the highway, or take the un-signposted route. I know for sure I don’t want the highway, so I head down the other way. Turns out just after the junction there’s a load of signs, and it is in fact the main entrance to the park. I think the ‘assumption’ is that you’ll know that’s the main road.

Yay, faff over and I’m at the car park entrance.

But wait…

None of the booths are open and there’s only one other car in line. It’s 09:30, where is everyone? Quick check of the website and oh, it opens at 11:00. Didn’t even think to check, how stupid of me! Thankfully they opened the car park by about 09:45, so I parked up and decided I’d head up to the bridge for the view.

The bridge is great.

Look at all those hills!

The woodie is huge!

Good way to pass an hour, and queues are forming at the entrance now. I head in, immediately process my Six Flags Season Pass, and make a beeline for the bulk of the coasters.

I did Toboggan Nordique (Wild Mouse) first, easy.
Super Manège (Corkscrew clone) next, pretty nice actually. Much better than I expected.
I did the boomerang (Boomerang) last – it was awful. Been through this before.

So I rode five Boomerangs on this trip, and hated every single one. I’m just going to get the rant done now. Each of the five boomerangs (Canada’s Wonderland, La Ronde, Great Escape, Darien Lake and Walibi Holland) were all of varying qualities. Some had the old trains, some the new trains, some were smooth, some were rough – all of that is totally academic as I’ve realised that it’s the backwards inversions that really :emoji_zipper_mouth:s me up. Every single one, regardless of all the other factors, left me feeling exactly the same as we hit the brakes. Gross. Terrible pieces of :emoji_poop:. Okay, rant over.

Walked over to the woodie next, but after 10-15 mins there was some drizzle and they announced that the ride had to close because the “brakes don’t work in the rain”. Apparently a problem with the woodie only though, everything else seemed to keep running. Thankfully the forecast looked like it was only a light shower, so moved on. I’ll come back later.

Goliath was next, and had a reasonably short wait. Wow, this was impressive! The first three hills are great, and the turnaround is reasonably unique (and good), and with the trim brake barely grabbing the return leg was also excellent. Really was one of the better B&M hypers, from what I can remember. I’m fairly surprised this coaster doesn’t come up more often. Really loved it. Let’s get the rest of the park done, so I can get some more laps in.

SLC and Dragon (indoor cred) were fine. Memory fails me, to be honest.

While over this end of the park, I hopped on the ferris wheel for the views, before using the monorail to link up the ends of the horseshoe layout of the park.

Not only does it ride well, but it looks amazing too!

Wahoo, Batman Vampire!

To be honest, as great as B&M inverts are, these Batman clones all blend together now for me. I’m sure it was a good, smooth, forceful ride, but I’m sure I could write that about most of them. I did take the opportunity to take one of these pictures though:

After riding Vampire and grabbing some lunch, I did the shot tower (eh…) and the giant swing (nice long cycle) while I was over in this area of the park, and then did another lap of Vampire before getting back on the monorail towards the wooden coaster – which had been up and running for a while.

You get a good close-up of the logo from here.

Ride itself was a piece of ****, to be honest. It was dull, violent and uncomfortable. Did one side, then straight back round for the other and then moved on. Lame. The only thing in its favour is that it’s massive. Oh, and the slightly amusing story of its construction, where one side of the coaster opened a year before the other because the workers had a strike in between and stopped construction.

Goodness me, that can’t be right. That makes the Golden Tickets look half sensible!

I’ll close out the day with a load of walk-on laps of Goliath. Best thing here by miles.

La Ronde: Feel totally indifferent towards this place, to be honest. The ride selection is okay, with Vampire miles above everything but Goliath, which is more miles ahead of that. It’s green enough, but it doesn’t really feel very welcoming. It feels a bit disjointed and rough around the edges. The park needs a bit of love, really. A new coaster, and maybe something to link up the park around the lake would do wonders for it. That plot of land behind Vampire would be prime for a Raptor. Just saying…

With that, I left the park and headed back to the Airbnb, before heading out again to the local neighbourhood for some dinner and culture. Found a lovely little restaurant and had some more poutine, and found the whole area pretty charming really. Nice.

Next up, another day without any creds! But probably only a short report, before a three park day. So might be worth sticking around.

 

[Antinos]

As far as locales go of parks that I've been to, La Ronde is only beaten by Cedar Point. Goliath and Vampire both look so incredible with their color schemes against the green foliage and bridge and the blue water. But I agree with you - the park does need some TLC. Again, fantastic work with the camera!

Oh, and just look at Le Monstre. It's just ASKING for an RMC conversion!