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Last Cred Review

Tonkso

Hyper Poster
You still get the fear/intimidation factor? I've lost it now, and I'm slowly losing it on drop towers too. I want it back!
 

redheadedRobin

Mega Poster
You still get the fear/intimidation factor? I've lost it now, and I'm slowly losing it on drop towers too. I want it back!
Since I only have 40 credits, I don't visit parks regularly and on top of that I'm an anxious person, I think the fear and intimidation are never going to go away lol
 

Dan Nguyen

Roller Poster
Since I only have 40 credits, I don't visit parks regularly and on top of that I'm an anxious person, I think the fear and intimidation are never going to go away lol
I usually make a New Years resolution to visit a new park every year. Doesn't have to be a massive trip. I used to be really intimidated by big coasters with big drops and lots of inversions. I've gone on enough of them now that they don't really phase me.

I've got about a month till my next park trip. Can't wait.

270 Giant Dipper - Belmont Park.

I made an effort to hit this coaster at sunset, so I got to see the sun set over the California coast on a historic 1920s wooden coaster. Fortunately this ride runs better than Swamp Fox at Family Kingdom. Unfortunately, the trains don't track well so you feel every pothole and rough patch on the ride. Better trains would easily put this ride in the same league as the legendary Coney Island Cyclone. This ride is my second favorite coaster in San Diego behind Manta.
 

redheadedRobin

Mega Poster
I usually make a New Years resolution to visit a new park every year. Doesn't have to be a massive trip. I used to be really intimidated by big coasters with big drops and lots of inversions. I've gone on enough of them now that they don't really phase me.
Yeah, I've made it my mission to visit at least two new parks per year (one big park and a smaller one). To be fair, I only started being an enthusiast two years ago in the middle of the pandemic, so that made things a bit harder. Hopefully I can get some traction now and get over my fears, since it seems me and my partner will be travelling quite a lot.
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
Adventure Express, back row. Yowza, forgot how hard this thing whips!
 

Homer

Hyper Poster
Renegade at Valleyfair. Let me tell you that GCI shouldn't be slept on. Considering beforehand the only GCI's I've been on were original Gwazi (which aged like milk), White Lightning (fun yet short), and Kentucky Rumbler (the best KFC meal you can get); Renegade was an absolutely wild and unhinged wooden roller coaster with a flowing twister layout with some nice floater and a great sense of speed. Hands down the best GCI I've been on and honestly redeems GCI in my eyes.
 

Intamin to Win

Mega Poster
Went to Hersheypark recently, 2nd to last day before Wildcat closed. The park was absolutely packed! I’ll provide notes on a few creds here:
Wildcat: I’ll be honest, I will miss this ride. Always had a soft spot for it. Obviously, an RMC renovation will likely be far superior to the old woodie. But this was the best wooden coaster in the park from the day it opened until the day it closed. I like a little rattle, you know? 8/10

Storm Runner: Love love love the launch on this thing. Sure, TTD or Ka are faster. But the initial acceleration on SR is just superior. Shame it’s so short. 8/10

Skyrush: Some rides have fancier elements. Some rides are longer. But this is the world’s best coaster when it comes to the sheer power of its whip and airtime. (It was running really well this visit too. Thing was crankin’) 10/10

Candymonium: My first actual new credit in a long time. Like most B&Ms, it was good, but not great. It COULD be great if it just wasn’t trimmed. Those trims are such buzzkills. I can’t get over how much they drag down the whole ride experience. Not just on this ride, but any ride they’re on. (They ruined i305 for me, for example.) The turnaround pulled a lot more G’s than I was expecting though, that was cool. Overall, would be a 7/10 if it was untrimmed, but because it is, 5/10 [-1 for each trim]
 

TPoseOnTantrum

Giga Poster
Doing a bit of sightseeing in Barcelona, visited Tibidabo yesterday and since I’ve zero interest talking about a clunky powered coaster (#92) I’ll go to the obvious;

Muntanya Russa (#91)
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It’s simply a fantastic little coaster. Take away the jaw-dropping view and lush trees, and it’s still a wonderful ride with thrillingly intense laterals, sweeping turns, great pacing, and mostly agreeable tracking. Yeah that one airtime hill isn’t navigated well but it can be overlooked in favour of a great layout. The lack of any real line made it extremely rerideable. Glad that I visited.
 

TwiTi96

Roller Poster
My last credit was Tig'rr at Indiana Beach

I've ridden the Whizzer before so I had some expectations for this ride.

There's something fun and intense about how these old Schwartzkopf coasters whip through tight helixes and turns. This one had some fun hills in it also. It feels like a wild mouse almost but without the hairpins. 7/10 on the objective scale: not a lot of things fundamentally wrong with the ride, it has solid forces and element selection, and well timed pacing was evident. The one biggest downside is the bottom-mount friction brakes that can't run in 1 drop of rain. 6/10 on the subjective scale--while it was a fun ride, the layout was a bit repetitive and just a little jerky here and there and of course didn't have the sheer intensity as some bigger or faster rides that would give it a 8+
 

CanobieFan

Strata Poster

Peter Immelmann

Mega Poster
Finally rode my last remaining major bucket-list coaster in Germany - Schwur des Karnan. Certainly one of the most unique rides I've ever experienced. The fully enclosed twisted first drop is truly one of the most memorable moments on a roller coaster I had in the recent past. A must-ride I'd say. And the theming and story telling in the queue line and station is pretty awesome.

However (admittedly knowing what's coming) the special effect on the vertical lift was a bit underwhelming. I just heard the height of the free fall section was enhance at some point, so I expected a drop down a substantial part of the lift, but it rather felt like it was at most half of the total height. Must have been very short before the upgrade. All in all, I really wished that section would be a bit quicker paced. It just takes too long.

The outside sections starts off pretty strong but gradually becomes a bit duller. Well, I'd say it still counts as fast paced but it's not like I'd wished it would feel (e.g. like the low-to-the-ground sections of Fury 325).

Regarding smoothness, the ride is a bit funny. Sure, the ride is known to not be glass smooth. But most of the track is actually ok, I'd say. It's just that there are a number of pretty rough spots that, however, seem to be arbitrarily sprinkled throughout the layout (as opposed to being where the strongest g-forces or most snappy transitions are). At least that results in an experience that is physically not too demanding after all. So it still counts as fairly rerideble, I'd say.

So, all in all, I really appreciate the uniqueness of this ride and this awesome drop and theming. Still, it's not a ride I need to come back to every year.

Regarding the park it's in: This park is pretty! Lot's of theming and nice landscaping. By far not a place only for thrill seekers. There are plenty attractions also for families and young kids. And it brought along another surprise: Nessi! This 42-year old Schwarzkopf coaster is surprisingly smooth for its age, it has a cool vertical loop and actually ejector airtime (in the back on the second drop)! So,much more fun than I expected it to be. Overall, Hansa-Park is a great mid-size park. Fully recommended.
 

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Peter Immelmann

Mega Poster
After I rode Alpina Blitz (the Mack take on the Mega-lite) last year I manage to get on my first original Mega-lite in Piraten at Djurs Sommerland. First, this is another great family oriented mid-size park. Lots of nicely themed rides, super friendly staff(!!) and an overall very relaxed atmosphere (e.g. they have funny children's playground with dozens of trampolines and they actually support that you bring your own food by providing picnic tables and grills for you own BBQ). Speaking of it, probably you should enjoy all these first and come back to Piraten after lunch at the earliest, because Piraten actually needs some time to warm up and unlock its full potential. But once it's warm, its a lot of fun! Packed with good old Intamin ejector airtime. It really brought me a big smile on my face every time I was riding it in the afternoon.

Now, how does it compare to the "Mack version"? Well, I'd say there are two things that Alpina Blitz does better. First, the first drop. It kicks a bit more than on Piraten. Second, Alpina Blitz has these flawless transitions from the bottom of the airtime hills into the low-to-the-ground turns that feel very dynamic. These transitions feel a bit more forced on the Intamin. However, what the Intamin definitely does better are the S-hills. They are just so good at the original Mega-lite. But also the other airtime moments are a tiny bit ahead of the Mack version, I'd say. So all in all, I actually prefer the Intamin over the Mack (but it's close).

One thing I was wondering about: The shape of the first drop is very shallow meaning that the radius of the crest is rather large. So the airtime kicks in rather late and is relatively weak (at least compared to the other airtime moments on the ride). So I was wondering if the design was actually made for a significantly higher lift-hill speed. In fact, the cable lift starts off relatively fast but slows down a bit towards the top. Does anyone know if Intamin designed it for a higher speed over the hilltop in the first place? And maybe allowed for the option of a slower one to reduce forces in the first turn? That would make sense for me. Otherwise, I'd wonder why they didn't give the first drop a bit more airtime (which is actually the one improvement that would be desirable).

So, after all, very good ride and I would actually take this over some larger Intamins like Superman the Ride at SFNE (but I think not above Expedition G-Force - although it has been a while since I rode EGF the last time, maybe I should refresh my memories at some point).
 

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Gazza

Giga Poster
Yesterday I got to visit Linnanmäki for the first time and ride all 8 of their coasters while in Finland. Today I'm in Estonia and was able to ride one more coaster at Kadrioru Karussell, bringing my total count up to 1,085


Yes, I wasn’t prepared for how good Tagia would be.

Ended up getting a 6x ride ticket bundle in addition to my wristband and used the shortcut queue 6 times.

Loved that little speedhump before the Immelmann, and there’s a bit where you are doing some S bends next to the large building on the right, and then all of a sudden it plunges sharply with huge ejector.

But the whole thing is solid, miles ahead of Maverick and Taron in terms of the track design (Though Taron of course has better theming)

*******

My most recent cred was 681 on Saturday, there is an updated model Reverchon spinner at Aussie World called Dingo Racer.



Main changes to the regular version is that spinning gets unlocked on the turn the first big drop, and stays unlocked for the rest of the layout (Older versions seemed to keep the spinning momentarily locked on drops in whatever position you happened to be in)

Kind of funny going around the big horsehoe turn spinning out of control.
Right at the end the very smallest dip has been changed to a double up too.

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Tonkso

Hyper Poster
Managed to do the Lincolnshire Vekomas yesterday, namely Millennium and Jubilee Oddessy at Fantasy Island.

What a strange place that is.

The coasters were reasonably good actually, Oddessy is a genuinely imposing coaster and as one of the tallest full circuit inverts out there you can't deny that lift hill is an intimidating experience.

It's rough, but not rough compared if you compare it standard SLCs, it that makes sense? It's a fairly decent length with some forceful elements too so a solid addition to their lineup and still the showstopper after 20 years.

Millennium is pretty fun with some decent forces experienced in the helixes, there is an odd length of straight flat track after the first inversion though which is begging for a little airtime hill.


The rest of the park is a tale of two halves. Inside the pyramid feels pretty magical, well maintained and very well themed. There's some nice little dark rides in there, a simulator ride with an agonisingly long pre-show, a genuinely really good water slide and shockingly, a trackless dark ride with screen shooting which has way higher production values than anything else in the park by miles. Merlin should be taking note, if a small place like this can do it, so can they.


Outside was more of a funfair, with tattoo parlours and knock off market stalls. The funfair rides were actually pretty solid and dialed up to the maximum settings. We gave the market a swerve...


Unfortunately, and this isn't really the fault of the park, the park clientele was disgraceful. I've never seen so many people smoking and vaping anywhere else in the UK, and this is in queues and around children's play areas. Foul language, litter being dropped everywhere and general thuggish behaviour plague the park at every corner. Again, this is not the fault of the park but left me feeling pretty disheartened at the state of my own country.
 

Niles

Giga Poster
Just got back from a trip to Spain where i rode a bucket list coaster:

Montaña Suiza at Parque de Atracciones Monte Igueldo (#320)

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What a great little coaster, while short it is very sweet, in the back i got a bit of floater off the final hill after the tunnel and it has some great headchoppers at points. It also has a speedy lift and its funny to see gf family concerned about the lack of any restraints 😅

But honestly its all about the views overlooking the cliffs and ocean below. Easily the best view on any coaster i have done.

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I managed to get gf along with her sister and mum on here even though they are terrified of them, being such a chill coaster they came off enjoying it.

The park itself is sweet and offers the best theme park food (really yummy pastries) While you can drive up to the park the funicular railway is the way to go.
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As it was a bit out of the way of our trip i checked if the coaster would be open, it says the coaster does not operate in the rain and the day was forecast to rain from 11am onwards. Thankfully while we could see the rain covering the mountains around us, this little region avoided it till it poured down at 4pm, very lucky.

The views are worth the trip up the mountain anyway to be fair.
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Other than that i had a great trip to the north of spain (apart from smashing my face on a pipe in a swimming pool🤕) we went along the northern coast and saw some beautiful towns and went to some great natural areas, it was my first trip outside the UK for a while so it was nice to get away.

More pics of the park 😍
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