Richard Bannister

For the second time this year I found myself standing in one of the parks I had wanted to visit for a long time in the shadow of a signature coaster that was not operational. In this case I had known before the trip of the closure, but it was still vexing to stare at the seriously impressive spectacle of Steel Dragon 2000 while wondering what it might have been like to ride. A little over two years ago now the coaster train lost a wheel during operation, seriously injuring a guest in the water park, and the ride has been closed ever since. It seems remarkable to me that such an expensive piece of engineering has been left inoperative for all this time. Hopefully it'll reopen some day.

At any rate, there were plenty of other rides to keep us interested. We began our morning with Ultra Twister (#647), coaster number one hundred for John, and my second Ultra Twister on this trip. The vertical lift mechanism on these rides is really neat, and the amusement value was enhanced ten fold by two screaming japanese girls in the back of the car. Though painful it at least had novelty value, unlike the Corkscrew (#648) which most certainly did not.

George celebrated his five hundredth coaster on White Cyclone (#649), the longest wooden coaster in Japan, and the only one in the country we had yet to ride. Our tour guide had helped him imprint his name and the number five hundred in Kanji, at least that's what he thinks it said (see story here). It was probably the most worthy coaster in the park, and a pretty decent ride, although not a top one by any means. The designers here clearly liked their helixes, as there were a lot of them, and the train didn't deal with them all that well.

The park has two identical coasters in Wild Mouse [2] (#650). Only the right hand side was running today, though to be fair there were only a small number of people in the park which could hardly justify running both sides.

Beside the entrance to that huge non functional coaster was a twin track Wiegand Bobkart ride. These are among my favourite non-coaster rides out there, and it is very hard to put my finger on why. For those who are not familiar, consider an electrically powered sled in a trough not unlike that from an old playground slide. This motors along at a decent speed, not as fast as a coaster enthusiast might travel but quick enough for riders to feel it. Following that, we decided to brave the first generation Intamin built Freefall. Given the recent announcement that the two owned by Cedar Fair are up for sale it seems that the days of this ride are numbered. We couldn't very well skip it in that situation. As predicted the free fall sensation was superb, but the landing was pretty sore.

We moved next to the Looping Star (#651), still in excellent condition and running as good as new. Tim remarked that this was due to the precision German engineering, but as our very vocal representative from that locale it was noted that he would say that! After a very expensive drink, we hit the other Schwarzkopf coaster, Shuttle Loop (#652), also running as good as new.

We also elected to try the Haunted House walkthrough. There were no particularly impressive scenes, but one should nevertheless try these things while the opportunity is there. A similar description can really be applied to Jet Coaster (#653), a rather strange ride that had three good drops breaking up some fifteen second turns taken at a speed that cannot have been more than five miles per hour. All that was left was the obligatory credit whore stop, Children Coaster (#654).

At this point, we had done just about everything I wanted to do, and on John's suggestion we made our way back for a reride on White Cyclone, a brutally rough experience that might have finished my riding for the day had I not chosen to sit on the left hand side of the train where at least I had enough support through some of the corners. If my first ride had been like this I would not have gone a second time; as it was, there was no way I wanted to go back again during the day.

Instead, I talked John into riding the Frisbee with me, a Huss-built giant model identical to those at King's Island, Bobbejaanland, and from this year, Cedar Point. I really like these rides for some reason; my stomach will not allow me to ride repeatedly without ill effects, but once every half an hour or so works just fine. This one felt more powerful than the others I've experienced, with a slightly longer programme giving a few more full height swings.

We took a reride on the Looping Star before trying out the Space Shot, a triple tower attraction, though only one was operational. The launch felt very weak; either an old air compressor or power savings. It was on disembarking from the ride that I first observed a very odd policy I later noticed on every ride in the park. Riders were not allowed to vacate the ride platform until everyone had congregated around the exit gate. One one ride later in the day I had almost got the gate open when my hand was gently but forcibly removed from the mechanism and the operator held it shut. Ten seconds later, when a queue had formed behind me, it was opened again. What on earth is the point in this? Answers on a postcard please.

It was only as we were heading towards the exit that I noticed the Viking attraction, an extra large pirate ship ride which had been closed all day, appeared to have opened; there were people up on the platform. Power walking over there showed that my impression had been correct, and we were able to ride. The dimensions of this ride are something to behold; the ships (yes, there are two of them) must go one hundred feet in the air at least, and each seats about one hundred and fifty people. The end result? A ride capacity of somewhere around six thousand guests per hour, a seriously impressive figure at the best of times. Somewhat disappoingly, the experience felt no different to a standard pirate ship; the huge size had no real effect. I was hoping for more airtime, but it wasn't to be found. Nevertheless, it was still worth riding once, if only for the novelty value.