Richard Bannister

Regular readers will be aware that my theme park hobby is on something of a hold at the moment due to the birth of my daughter at the end of May. Hard as it may be for some to believe, I’m perfectly okay with this. Two decades of coaster enthusiasm has seen me visit almost every major amusement park in the western world at least once, and as a result I’ve now reached a point where the cost and effort per respectable new credit is disproportionately high. That wouldn’t have been a blocker to me in the past, and truth be told it isn’t now – but the enforced break means that when I do start travelling again every target area should have plenty of major rides that will be new to me.

In the near term the majority of my more interesting park visits will be adjuncts to business travel. Today’s adventure was just that; my work required me to spend a few days in Seattle, and when I booked the flights I gave myself a day to recover from jet lag. I know from many years of experience that my synapses will misfire badly for at least twenty-four hours after crossing multiple time zones, rendering me entirely unfit for work. Fortunately one doesn’t need a serviceable brain to visit parks and ride coasters.

My morning began at a branch of SIXT Rent A Car located in the basement of my downtown hotel. I walked through the door about ten minutes before the published 9:00am opening, and found what I can only describe as a classic demonstration of corporate America: a queue with five people in it waiting in front of two members of staff sitting at their desks doing nothing whatsoever. Apparently the computer system was configured to stop them touching it before the appointed hour, and thus we all waited in an uneasy and vaguely awkward silence.

On a happier note, when things did start moving they did so with remarkable efficiently. All paperwork was sorted by 9:20am, and ten minutes after that I was heading north on I-5. The border crossing into Canada added only a ten minute delay to my journey, which I counted as a win, not least because it was only slightly longer than I needed to completely lather myself in factor fifty sunscreen.

In preparation for my trip today I made a valiant but fundamentally unsuccessful attempt to buy PNE Playland admission online. I just couldn’t make things work; all five of my cards were declined by the TicketLeader booking system. Worse yet, after a few failed attempts at purchasing my account was apparently locked out, but the computer didn’t tell me that; instead, further attempts were met by a message saying that there was a problem with the site and that I should try again later. I did so on an intermittent basis over a two week period before giving up and booking over the telephone. (The lady I spoke to told me that the site probably would have worked if I’d quoted my address as that of the park. I’m quite certain that no would-be fraudster would ever think to try something like that. Definitely not.)

I arrived at the entrance gate shortly before 12:30pm, roughly ninety minutes into the advertised 11:00am-4:00pm operating day, and immediately realised that the park was heaving with people. I’d assumed that three and a half hours would be enough for two new ticks and a lap on the 1958 wooden coaster, and indeed it was – but only just, as the queue for the latter closed less than ten minutes after I joined it. If management cared about guest satisfaction then they’d have extended hours on the fly, but equally if management really cared about guest satisfaction they’d have done something about throughput on their two major coasters, which in both cases was best measured using a calendar.

My day began at Bug Whirled (#3130), a figure eight spinning coaster from SBF Rides and my first encounter with the type in Canada. The ride looks positively fantastic when compared against the norm for the genre; it has trees at its centre, a custom sculpted sign at the entrance, and bright red ladybird-themed cars. The illuminated banner common to the type is not mounted on the track, but instead has been raised high up on the rear of the adjacent Hell’s Gate flat ride. This is not something I’ve seen before, and indeed I didn’t notice it at all until I went through my photos a few hours later. Today’s cycle was four laps which was about right.

The main draw for me today was ThunderVolt, a launched roller coaster that should be immediately recognisable to long-term enthusiasts as the former Senzafiato from Miragica. The ride is somewhat different in its new home to times past, as Zamperla put it through a comprehensive overhaul – removing the original hydraulic launch in favour of a simpler LSM-based system, and replacing the train with their own comfortable “Lightning” design. I was assigned to the front seat today and from that location the experience felt much as it did years ago, a solid ride memorable chiefly for the powerful pop of airtime over the first hill.

ThunderVolt is a great addition to the park, and for 2024 at least it can legitimately be marketed as having the fastest launch of any coaster in Canada. The bad news however is that it is very short, coming in at just 22 seconds from launch to what I think of as the brake run – a set of trims located just prior to the final turn back to the station. Today there was a ninety minute queue to board, which was just too long for a ride of this length and size. The wait time could probably have been halved with a little bit of hustle, but in all honesty I think that a much better approach would have been to redesign the station area during the refurbishment.

If it had been up to me I would have done two things. The first would be to remove the trim brakes before the final turn, widening the radius if necessary as causing people to black out is perhaps not ideal. The second and more important change would have been to add a turntable or sliding station to support a second train. This would kill two birds with one stone, allowing one train to load while the other completed a two or possibly even a three lap cycle. It’s obviously a bit late to do something like this now, but if the PNE happens upon a few million dollars at some stage this may be an upgrade worth considering!

The imaginatively named Coaster had a completely full queueing area today. Given that one might have hoped that two trains would be in use, but it wasn’t to be; the second stood parked in plain sight in the station. The resulting wait was an hour, though on a positive note I found myself assigned to a back seat which was, in a word, brilliant. The ride has fixed position lap bars that are well clear of passengers, and as a result the primary restraint is a seatbelt that grabs violently over each hill as riders experience extreme airtime. I’d have loved to have ridden more than once, and decided to set dignity aside briefly by playing the foreign tourist card with the operator at the ride entrance – but sadly it didn't work. Maybe I’ll visit again some day.

Cypress Mountain is a winter sports resort located roughly thirty minutes away from downtown Vancouver. In recent years management have worked to expand the business to year round operation, with one of the major additions being a mountain coaster, as of this writing the only ride of its type within 150 miles. It is evidently popular; today a sign at the entrance indicated that it was completely sold out for the day, making me very glad that I’d taken the time to reserve in advance. Readers should be aware that time slots were being rigidly enforced; I saw a couple who’d arrived a little early being told to come back in fifteen minutes.

Eagle Coaster is accessed via a chairlift which unloads directly adjacent to what passes for a station: a series of temporary canvas gazebos over a wooden boarding platform. Today one operator was handling the load process, while another watched for people using mobile phones on track, with a megaphone ready to embarrass as necessary. A camera system was being used to try to ensure enough of a gap between dispatches to allow for full speed runs, though in practice this seems to have been configured a little optimistically; on both of my laps I managed to catch the person in front of me perhaps three hundred metres from the end.

Though it pains me to say it, this installation definitely isn’t one of Sunkid’s finer efforts. Large sections of layout are made up of perfectly straight track adjacent to gravel road, and while portions go through forest there’s very little variety in the overall design. The one area of note is a series of three airtime bumps at the half way point which, if hit at full speed, lift you completely off your sled. Unfortunately they are really not enough to save a lacklustre ride that definitely isn’t worth the premium price ($35 for one lap, $53 for two laps).

Cultus Lake Adventure Park is a tiny family park located in a resort area roughly an hour drive east of Vancouver. The Sunday evening departure rush was well underway when I arrived shortly before 7:00pm, but the area was still sufficiently crowded that I had to take a spot in an overflow parking lot located about 250m away from the park entrance. On the plus side however this was free of charge, and while it didn't make any difference to me some readers may appreciate the fact that it is located directly behind a clearly promoted Cannabis Store.

The park appears have been designed by expert-level players of the “Micro Park” scenario in Roller Coaster Tycoon. Nineteen rides and attractions have somehow been shoehorned into a space of just 50,000 square feet, a little less than that occupied by ThunderVolt. Three of these (and a restaurant) are located on an upper level boardwalk that leaves more than enough room for other attractions underneath. The park’s larger roller coaster routes overhead almost half of the land bank, and an inverting spin ride comes within a few feet of it as it rotates. The overall presentation is excellent, combining existing trees with western theming to produce an effect that should warm the heart of even the most jaded enthusiast.

Blastin’ Barrels (#3131) became my second figure eight spinner of the day. The operations here were a bit sluggish, albeit for an obvious and good reason: a new operator was being trained. I took the opportunity to learn something myself about how the ride hardware works while I waited. At the end of our cycle the restraints would not open, but after some faffing around with the compressed air hose the problem was sorted out.

The highlight of the evening (and maybe even the day) was Runaway Mine Train (#3132), a smooth and comfortable Zamperla J2SK family coaster. A tyre drive lift prefixes a drop, a descending helix, and a few turns that end up back in the station. While not extreme in any way the layout somehow captures that elusive fun factor, to the point that I could happily have stayed on board all evening – and probably would have done if the wait had been a bit shorter. I was very tempted to queue for a second cycle regardless, but I decided that it would be more sensible to begin my drive back to Seattle.