Wildwood, NJ: The somewhat iconic Condor is slated to be removed from Morey’s Piers this coming season. The Huss manufactured thrill ride debuted on Morey’s Seaside Pier in 1988 and featured sets of revolving cars that traveled up a 115 foot tower providing a great 360 degree view of Wildwood only outmatched by Morey’s 150 foot Giant Wheel.

While revered by many non-acrophobic Morey’s visitors, the ride had seen its share of problems over the years resulting in large amounts of downtime. According the Morey’s Piers blog the ride needed a one million dollar rehab which was just too much to spend on a 23 year old attraction. The ride will be temporarily replaced by another attraction for the 2012 season while Morey’s finds a suitable permanent replacement; that replacement alluded to be a vertical swing type ride (such as Sky Flyer or Vertigo perhaps.)

Check out the photos of Condor being disassembled.

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Morey’s Piers has also been doing a plethora of improvements and relocations this past month in preparation for the upcoming season:

Mariner’s Landing will be seeing a new ride, axing the Chance manufactured Sea Dragon in favor of a replacement swinging ship dubbed Rip Tide; the ride will be themed as a Wildwood lifeguard boat.

Raging Waters is getting an update with a massive overhaul to their Endless River ride, adding in rock scenery and other improvements.

Ocean Oasis, Surfside Pier’s waterpark, is also getting a 6 lane ProSide manufactured racing slide.

Great Nor’Easter’s track has been “re-shaped” which according to the blog has resulted in a much smoother ride experience.

Finally the Sky Scraper upcharge ride is being moved from the old Hunt’s Pier to Adventure Pier while Jersey Junkyard and Revenge of the Mummy 3D (or whatever the heck it was called) are being removed. I know…heartbreaking…

2011 Lead Ticket Awards Results

Posted by on November 13, 2011 | 5 comments

Wow, it feels like ages ago since I opened the 2011 Lead Ticket Awards poll. I let it run from mid-September to Halloween (Oct 31st) to let a respectable amount of votes trickle in but this year most of the votes were cast early on with nearly 300 of you casting ballots! I want to thank everyone for participating in this year’s LTA’s! Now, let’s get to the results!

Park Categories

Worst Food for the Value

Listen, when we eat at an amusement park we’re not looking for Château Magnifique here, right? We’re lucky to get something palatable for triple the price of some McDonalds down the road from the park. However some parks just fleece the hell out of patrons while serving up rat burgers in return. The park with the worst food for the value is…

Cedar Point! Well, I can’t say I’m really surprised but at the same time I’m hoping this isn’t the start of another torrent of hate on the Golden Ticket’s perennial top park winner.

  1. Cedar Point: 46 votes
  2. Six Flags Great Adventure: 30 votes
  3. Six Flags Magic Mountain: 16 votes

Most Unhelpful Staff

Control panel photo by {link url=

There’s some parks that pride themselves on having top notch staff but sometimes, especially when parks hire en-masse, you’ll get some employees who are about as good as trained monkeys. The park whose employees go out of their way to nap is…

Six Flags America! While Maryland’s Six Flags America gets the most votes I think the real issue is how Six Flags parks nabbed the top two spots along with Six Flags Magic Mountain and Six Flags Over Georgia following close behind Cedar Point with 15 votes each!

  1. Six Flags America: 22 votes
  2. Six Flags Great Adventure: 19 votes
  3. Cedar Point: 17 votes

Grossest Bathrooms

Bathrooms are there for a reason: they are a receptacle for nasty stuff that you don’t want deposited in the shrubbery, the  pond, or on one’s shoe. Of course bathrooms need to be cleaned every so often and this can be overlooked if the park is understaffed or if the staff fall into the category above this. The park with the worst bathrooms is…

Cedar Point! Not surprised to see this one chosen, not necessarily because the restrooms at Cedar Point really are deplorable but because it’s Cedar Point. It’s worth noting that someone also voted for my own bathroom; I actually should clean it…

  1. Cedar Point: 23 votes
  2. Six Flags Magic Mountain: 14 votes
  3. Knoebels: 12 votes

Most Overpriced Admission

Family of five walks up to an admission gate and after handing over their wallets, they are gained entry to the park. This scene has figuratively (I hope!) played out the most at…

Walt Disney World Parks!  Defending its spot as the most overpriced park, the entire Disney World complex in Florida got your votes once again. Currently the price for a one day admission to any one of the main parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios) is $90.53! One day admission to a Disney waterpark? $52.19!!!! This is probably why no one in their right mind gets a one day admission, springing for a multi-day Hopper Pass instead.

  1. Walt Disney World Parks: 50 votes
  2. Sea World Orland: 15 votes
  3. Disneyland: 12 votes

Worst Themeing

While some parks, like the aforementioned Disney World, have meticulous themeing, some parks simply don’t care to theme at all. Some parks are happy to just serve up a coaster, slap on a station, plant a few trees and grass and call it a day. According to you that park is…

Cedar Point!  Cedar Fair is pretty notorious for their non-theming so it honestly isn’t a surprise to see their biggest park win this category.

  1. Cedar Point: 48 votes
  2. Tie: Six Flags Magic Mountain/Six Flags Great Adventure: 12 votes
  3.  Walygator Parc: 11 votes

Worst Halloween Attractions

Halloween has become a pretty lucrative ‘holiday’ for some businesses. Theme parks began cashing in on the festivities in the late 80s and now most major theme parks in the US have some type of Halloween event such as Six Flags’ ‘FrightFest’ and Cedar Fair’s ‘Halloween Haunt’ and ‘HalloWeekends.’ Some parks really go all out with numerous walk throughs and copious amounts of ghouls while other parks do the bare minimum just to claim that they have some sort of Halloween festivities. The park that falls in with the latter is…

Six Flags Great Adventure! Not so long ago Great Adventure had a respectable FrightFest with multiple (and free) ‘terror trails,’ numerous shows, a haunted hayride, and a plethora of ghouls walking around the park. Today, while the park still offers a number of FrightFest shows, the number of ghouls has gone down drastically and three of the four terror trails currently cost $7 to traverse…now that’s scary.

  1. Six Flags Great Adventure: 14 votes
  2. Six Flags Magic Mountain: 13 votes
  3. Cedar Point: 9 votes

Worst Overall Park

This sport is reserved for that one park that encompasses all of the categories above along with many other aspects not touched upon in the Lead Tickets. The top winner in the theme park categories is…

Six Flags America! Unseating the 2010 winner, Chicago’s Six Flags Great America, is Maryland’s Six Flags America. With nearly twice as many votes as any other park, SFA won pretty soundly as well. All the ire may stem from the park’s coaster lineup, which hasn’t seen a new coaster since 2001. Never fear though, the park announced that it is adding Apocalypse, a B&M stand up, for the 2012 season! Uh…oh wait, what that? Oh, it’s just Iron Wolf from Six Flags Great America…

  1. Six Flags America: 29 votes
  2. Cedar Point: 16 votes
  3. Walygator Parc: 11 votes

Coaster Categories

Worst Coaster Name

Roller coasters need good names today. Not only will the name define the ride to a degree but will also be the focal point of any marketing campaign. A good name could elevate hype while a bad could potentially kill it. For instance, Nemesis is a cool name while a bad name is…

Cheetah Hunt! Busch Gardens Tampa’s newest coaster is supposed to simulate a cheetah hunting some prey. Unfortunately the name sounds more like we’re hunting the cheetah, like we’re poachers or something! But hey, at least they didn’t name it Cougar Hunt!

  1. Cheetah Hunt (Busch Gardens Tampa): 25 votes
  2. Flight Deck (Various Cedar Fair Parks): 18 votes
  3. Gotham City Gauntlet Escape from Arkham Asylum (Six Flags New England): 16 votes

Most Pathetic Attempt at Theming

Remember when you’d play Roller Coaster Tycoon and to get the excitement stat up on a coaster you’d just toss in some statues, a colored box and a wall? Well unfortunately that doesn’t work in reality. However a coaster that someone thought it might work on is…

Disaster Transport! Cedar Point wins again with their indoor bobsled coaster. According to the Cedar Point website “Disaster Transport takes you through time and space – and in complete darkness!” That’s basically another term for “it’s indoors and that’s it!” According to the reviewers at Theme Park Critic, a common complaint is that the themeing is the “pinnacle of cheesy 80s”..I don’t know, that actually sounds pretty cool…pretty rad.

  1. Disaster Transport (Cedar Point): 15 votes
  2. Scream! (Six Flags Magic Mountain): 13 votes
  3. Bizzaro (Six Flags Great Adventure)/The Monster (Walygator Parc): 7 votes

Slowest Moving Queue Line

Sign photo by {link url=

Sometimes a seemingly short wait turns out to be deceptively long. This could be due to capacity, ride crew experience, if it’s an Intamin or not, along with a plethora of other reasons. The coaster that you all skip even if only half a switchback is full is…

Kingda Ka! Six Flags Great Adventure’s premier attraction has a couple of things going against it: first, if one side of the duel loading station is not open then the wait time shoots up drastically. Second, it’s an Intamin…yeeeep!

  1. Kingda Ka (Six Flags Great Adventure): 25 votes
  2. X2 (Six Flags Magic Mountain): 11 votes
  3. Superman Ultimate Flight (Six Flags Great Adventure): 7 votes

Roughest Steel Coaster

Steel coasters are smooth…at least they’re supposed to be. Sometimes a steel coaster gets a little rattly over time while others are rough right off the bat. Occasionally you’ll get one that could realign your spine in ten seconds flat; throw in a shoulder harness and the ride may as well have aspirin dispensers at the exit. The steel coaster that beat most of you into submission is…

Vortex! Kings Island’s six looping Arrow coaster grabs the award this year in a very close race. Arrow Dynamics manufactured coasters are notorious for being rough; this coupled with Vortex’s 55mph top speed results in some pretty wicked bumps and jolts. Personally I think these old school Arrow coasters really give a hell of a ride and hope Vortex doesn’t meet the wrecking ball anytime soon!

  1. Vortex (Kings Island): 13 votes
  2. Ninja (Six Flags Over Georgia): 12 votes
  3. Goudurix (Parc Asterix): 11 votes

Roughest Wooden Coaster

Well, wooden coasters are rough…unless it’s an Intamin laser-cut special. Typically, being rough is part of the wooden coaster experience, giving the ride a more out of control feel. However you’ll also run into wooden coasters that are so rough that one might wonder how the damn thing even rolls anymore. The wooden coaster that’s made of beatsticks is…

Mean Streak! Three years now…the Dinn Corp/Curtis Summers lumber beatdown has cemented its spot as the roughest wooden coaster every year since the inception of the Lead Ticket Awards. Mean Streak didn’t just win either…it killed the competition. Many of the votes even had annotations with them like “Mean Streak pleasetearitdown,” “Mean Streak OUCH” and “MEAN STREAK MEAN STREAK MEAN STREAK.”

  1. Mean Streak (Cedar Point): 56 votes (!!!)
  2. Bandit (Movie Park Germany): 16 votes
  3. Rolling Thunder (Six Flags Great Adventure): 15 votes

Most Overrated Coaster

Some coasters just don’t fit all the adulation being spewed on its behalf. While fanboys may defend it with adjectives such as ‘incredible’ and ‘exciting’, others will see it for what it is…just ‘okay.’ The coaster you find to be excessively lauded is…

Millennium Force! Surprise, surprise, the multi-time winner for best steel coaster in the Golden Ticket Awards has once again been spurned in the Lead Tickets. Like its buddy Mean Streak, Millennium Force has also won this spot since the inception of the Lead Tickets. Perhaps this category should just be turned into “Coaster that is as Overrated as Millennium Force” to get some variation for once.

  1. Millennium Force (Cedar Point): 55 votes
  2. Kingda Ka (Six Flags Great Adventure): 13 votes
  3. The Voyage (Holiday World): 12 votes

Worst New Coaster of 2011

It’s always exciting to see a new coaster coming to your local park…well, unless it’s a Vekoma SLC. However that excitement can quickly sour if said new coaster has a ton of problems right off the bat, just simply doesn’t live up to the hype, or both! The top winner of the coaster categories is…

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avNEAMbqOLw[/youtube]

 

Green Lantern: First Flight! Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Green Lantern variant gets top dishonors this year after being hyped mercilessly in the offseason for being the US’s first Intamin ‘ball coaster.’ Complaints about the coaster seem to revolve around it being way too short as well as being a slightly painful ordeal. The coaster seems more like a glorified flatride really.

Six Flags’ other ‘new’ Green Lantern coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure also fared poorly in this year’s Lead Tickets, possibly because Green Lantern isn’t really ‘new,’ rather a transplant from the old Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom where it resided under the name ‘Chang.’ I’m sure some also have a disdain for Green Lantern since it replaced the Arrow megalooper Great American Scream Machine.

  1. Green Lantern: First Flight (Six Flags Magic Mountain): 23 votes
  2. Green Lantern ( Six Flags Great Adventure): 21 votes
  3. Cheetah Hunt (Busch Gardens Tampa): 18 votes

And there you have it! The definitive list (insert sarcasm) of worst parks and coasters of 2011! Once again I want to thank all of the voters in this year’s Lead Ticket Awards; it’ll be back in September of 2012, updated with newer categories so we don’t get the same damned results over and over again!

Trip Report: 2011 UC MusicFest

Posted by on October 9, 2011 | 4 comments

Blondie performing at MusicFest

Music Fest is a free concert/festival held annually in September at Oak Ridge Park in Clark, NJ. The event features rides, games, vendors, food, and of course performances by an assortment of bands; from local artists to big name acts. This year Blondie headlined the MusicFest on Saturday night (Sept 17th) along with Collective Soul on Friday and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes on Sunday.

I decided to head over on Saturday night to catch Blondie, not that I’m a fan of Blondie or anything but at least I know some of their songs unlike the other two headliners (I have a feeling I’m going to get some flack for that haha.) I got to the area around Oak Ridge Park at around 7:45pm and searched around for street parking. They do a pretty good job of denying street parking in the immediate area of the festival but I eventually found some open spaces nearly 3/4 of a mile away…then I walked! Just an aside, there was the option to park on-site for $10; personally I’d rather get the exercise than be out 10 bucks!

As I walked into the festival, Neon Trees were just finishing up so I headed over to the carnival midway and side stage. The carnival, run mostly by McCafferty Enterprises, had:

  • Casino (Chance Trabant)
  • Sizzler
  • Round Up
  • Chair Jet
  • Gondola Wheel (closed)
  • Gravitron
  • Fun Slide
  • Dizzy Dragons
  • A myriad of kiddie rides
  • A couple of funhouses

Doesn’t look too bad at full spin

I was a little let down with the lineup because last year because along with the rides listed (save for the Gravitron), the midway also had a drop tower and Eyerly Sidewinder; the latter of which you just don’t see everyday and I was hoping to get a video of it this time around. Now I really hate to be an outright knocker of carnivals (unlike how I used to be) but some of these rides looked pretty rough. I honestly don’t remember them looking all that bad last year. The Gravitron, which actually looked like Blue Sky Amusement’s old Gravitron, looked like some of the paint had been sandblasted off the panels and never re-done; most of the lights didn’t work either. It wasn’t the most pleasing looking but was in good operating condition and I guess that’s all that really counts.

Sizzler looked to be an older model with white florescent light tubes for lighting instead of turbos or LEDs. Interestingly the ride ran with both the main and secondary sweeps running in the same direction (video below.) Casino didn’t look too bad but they decided to shine a large, ugly spotlight on the ride deck which gave it a more construction site aura than carnival flair; by day it probably looked much better. To the rides credit they did run it on a really long manual cycle. Round Up, also didn’t look too bad with multicolored turbos on the cages. Chair Jet also looked nice with wildly flashing lights; it also ran at a pretty good clip. The gondola wheel sat unlit.

Let me just clarify something, I’d rather have rough looking rides that run properly than nice looking rides that are poorly maintained.

While I was there I checked out the Crossroads stage next to the rides. Some band called Chocolate Bread were playing who were actually pretty good; they kind of had a jam session type of sound to some of their songs which I just eat up. I eventually made my way over to the main stage to see Blondie, who started at 8:45 that night. I kind of squeezed my way to about 200 feet of the stage where I found a pretty clear spot towards the left side of the field. I stayed for about half of the set before getting out of the closely packed crowd; no joke, there must have been about 10,000 people there…although I heard last year, when Train played, there was even more.

I stuck around for the rest of the set, grabbing some zeppolies in the meantime, before leaving as Blondie was just finishing Heart of Glass…because there was no way I could leave before hearing that without upsetting the New Wave gods or something.

Hopefully the county will continue to have MusicFest; I know it’s been under fire recently for questionable accounting practices, with some county residents calling for its discontinuation. It’s a fun event, and probably the only big thing Union County has each year, it would be a shame to see it cut.

Here’s the rest of the photos

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And a video of that Sizzler

It’s been over a month since I went to this fair so I think it might be about time to give a trip report. So, on Sept 2nd, I headed over to the 159th Great Allentown Fair in Allentown, PA. I didn’t have my GPS (I need a GPS to find my GPS…) so I was thrown for a loop when the bridge I normally traverse in Allentown was closed. Luckily Allentown is a grid and I eventually made it to a parking lot near the fair. Admission was $6 and the rides were provided by Powers Great American Midways; the fair had:

  • Vortex (Fabbri 30m Booster)
  • Vertigo
  • Freak Out
  • Swing Buggy
  • Wave Swinger
  • Orbiter

    Note the height restriction, they weren’t kidding either!

  • Cliffhanger
  • Super Shot
  • Zipper
  • Spider
  • Sizzler
  • Pharaoh’s Fury
  • Fireball (Larson)
  • Zero Gravity
  • Starship Exodus
  • Scooter
  • Giant Wheel
  • Haunted Mansion
  • Crazy Chopper
  • Several funhouses
  • A load of kiddie rides
  • Several freak shows
  • An incredible amount of greasy treats
  • Vendors and 4H exhibits
  • Concerts

When I arrived at around 6pm the ride midway was sort of dead while the two streets containing food and vendors on either side of the midway were packed. The grandstand near the center of the fairgrounds was also starting to fill up for the Sugarland concert that night (other days saw 3 Doors Down, Journey, Marc Anthony and others.) Up until it was dark out I pretty much just milled around, taking pictures and video, checking out the animals and 4H exhibits.

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By 8pm the crowds began to pick up on the midway. I decided that I wanted to hit some rides as it would probably be the last big fair I go to in 2011, so I picked up a POP wristband for $20 along with 4 tickets to ride Vortex (the ride was either 8 tickets or 3 tickets with a wristband…but Powers only sells 4 tickets at a time…) I hopped on Swing Buggy first, a Bertazzon Matterhorn type ride; usually you see these things named Rock & Roll. The ride ran for probably 3 minutes, forwards and backwards. Nice looking ride with LEDs all over the place plus strobes that were used occasionally.

Next I went one ride over to the KMG Freak Out. Considering how nearly every other ride on the midway had LED lightning, Freak Out actually looked a bit strange with its multi-colored turbos. The ride itself lasted about 2 minutes, which was much longer than all of the KMG pendulum type rides I’ve seen this season. Some girl sitting across from me didn’t look too well at all during the second half of the ride but luckily nothing happened…swinging into vomit would not have been fun at all.

Next I rode the ARM Vertigo. While loading I noticed that the seats on one side were about a foot off the ground while seats on the other were about 4 feet off the ground; this was no thanks to the slanted parking lot of course. They actually had a stepladder on hand for those who couldn’t jump in. The ride itself was great giving a nice view of the midway and Allentown itself; you could even see Dorney Park form up there which was less than 3 miles from the fairground. I rode Tilt-a-Whirl afterwards and tried my best to keep the car spinning by shifting around in the seat…but aside from a few good series of spins I pretty much failed.

I decided to get on Vortex next. The ride op waited a bit for more riders before revolving my car up to the top to let another pair of riders on. Since I was the only one in the seats, the car was horribly unbalanced and I basically faced straight down while the other car was loading…of course I thought that was awesome! Too bad I didn’t ask to bring a camera on or I would have gotten some pretty nice downward shots. During the ride, namely when it started to slow down, my unbalanced car would tumble around like I was riding a Zipper. At one point the car flipped over the top and then stayed upside down until it neared the bottom; basically all I saw was ground rushing towards me until flipping right-side up. All in all it was a great ride!

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I went over to Wave Swinger next and got a very long ride for a wristband night; probably around 4 minutes. The ride had a great sequenced LED light show which honestly rivaled the nearby Ferris Wheel’s light show. Being a Zierer model it also featured artwork on the scenery panels giving it a carousel-type look. I jumped on Zero Gravity next, one of those updated Dartron Round Up rides. I had actually never been on one before and was surprised to see how fast it picked up speed! I also took a ride on the Super Shot drop tower which, despite its name, simply hoisted the car to the top and then dropped.

I thought about riding Fireball next but decided against it as Zero Gravity got me a tad bit woozy. I really should have though, Powers’ Fireball is without a doubt the fastest freaking Larson Fireball I’ve ever seen. Like, seriously, it was going about as fast over the top as most others go at the bottom and it was satisfyingly loud as a result (check out the video of it below!) After a bit I went on Spider as I hadn’t been on one in years and proceeded to have my car basically spin for the entire cycle. I mean it was fun for the first minute but after that I was like “damn, how do I stop this thing?”

As for the other rides, Orbiter looked really nice with every inch of it covered in LED lights, same with Sizzler actually. As I mentioned before the Ferris wheel also had a nice LED light show, unfortunately it was no single riders like every other wheel nowadays. The fair also had a couple of interesting kiddie rides, one being Crazy Chopper which was pretty much just that, an out of control helicopter! It’s made by CMD Enterprises apparently, could have sworn it was a Zamperla though. They also had a Go-Gator looking coaster with spinning cars; now that’s cool!

I left just before the 11pm closing time and had an easy drive back to NJ.

Photo time! 

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Finally here’s a music video of the fair:

And a video of that fast Fireball I was talking about:

2011 Lead Ticket Awards

Posted by on September 18, 2011 | 3 comments

2011 Lead Ticket Awards results are now up! Check them out!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sot0Ft3NlY4[/youtube]

Hey folks, it’s that time of the year again! With the results in from the  2011 Golden Ticket Awards it’s now time to vote for the nadir of all things theme park related in the third annual Lead Ticket Awards! In last year’s edition of the Lead Tickets, Cedar Point crushed the competition with the park and its attractions winning multiple categories while La Ronde’s Ednör L’attaque was crowned the worst new coaster of 2010. Who’s going to win a nice, fat leaden ticket this year? I don’t know! You have to vote!

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The ballot will be open until October 31st, 2011 and will officially close at 11:59:59:59:59PM. Have fun voting and check back in November for the results!

The Rules

  1. You may choose from any park or attraction in the world.
  2. Please only choose from currently operating parks/attractions.
  3. When typing in your choice, please use the full name of the park/attraction. For example, instead of typing “Great Adventure” please type “Six Flags Great Adventure;” or instead of “TTD” type “Top Thrill Dragster.”
  4. If choosing an attraction with a common name, please put the park name after it. For example, if you choose something like “Viper,” please write it as “Viper six flags magic mountain.”

May the worst park win!

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