Vortex is a Fabbri manufactured ‘Junior Booster’ owned by Powers Great American Midway. The ride is one of the many spin offs of the largely successful Sky Scraper originally manufactured by Gravity Works. Much like their namesake, Sky Scraper is a very large ride standing at 160 feet. Due to its large size, the ride is mostly installed at amusement parks where the cost of moving such a beast is not applicable. Soon after, Fabbri jumped on board with their 128 foot portable version called Booster. The success of Booster finally resulted in the design of Junior Booster, a more compact version that stands at roughly 98 feet.
It’s that time of the year again! Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Awards were held on the 11th to celebrate the best of the best in the theme park industry. Unfortunately these awards are voted upon by a panel of amusement park experts which is why Cedar Point has won best amusement park for the past thirteen years. However, Superman: Ride of Steel/Bizarro finally ended its three year reign of best steel coaster…although Millennium Force was voted #1 this year…l0lwut?
As an answer to the Golden Ticket Awards, TheDoD3 hosted the first ever Lead Ticket Awards in 2009 to find the worst in the amusement park industry. And unlike the Golden Tickets, you get to vote for your least favorites!
The voting form will be open until October 31st, 2010 and will officially close at 11:59:59:59:59PM. Have fun voting and check back in November for the results!
The Rules
- You may choose from any park or attraction in the world (ie. Ring°Racer has just won multiple categories.)
- Please only choose from currently operating parks/attractions.
- 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.”
- 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!
It’s officially official now; Six Flags Great Adventure has announced that Green Lantern will be coming to the park in 2011. The Great Adventure website details Green Lantern as on of the tallest and fastest stand up coasters in the world, “standing 154 feet tall and reaching speeds of 63 mph.” The page also includes a No Limits video featuring a mock up of the coaster. Of course most of us already know the details and layout considering that we know about the Green Lantern’s interesting past life!
There is news with this announcement however; we now know that Chang will indeed be themed as Green Lantern as opposed to something not comic book related.
(go ahead, click him!)
You can stop that at around 15 ;). I really shouldn’t complain about the name because I wanted it to be named Shockwave as an homage to Great Adventure’s past stand up coaster! If that was the case, could you imagine how many people who haven’t been to GAdv in years would think that the new stand up was still the old Shockwave? Hell, some people might still think that, after all some park goers think that El Toro and Rolling Thunder are the same ride!
I’ll be posting updates on the construction of Green Lantern throughout the rest of the season and into the off season, so stay tuned!
The NJ State Fair, also known as the Sussex County Farm and Horse Show, is the Garden State’s official state fair. It lasts for one week towards the beginning of August (yeah, this trip report is kind of late) and features a horse show, 4H events, free shows and of course a carnival midway provided by Reithoffer Shows. The fair had…
- Wild Claw (KMG Fireball)
- Power Surge
- Zipper
- Super Himalaya
- Yoyo
- Sizzler
- Orbiter
- Tidal Wave (Chance Thunderbolt)
- Fireball (Larson)
- Big Wheel
- Tornado (Wisdom)
- Avalanche (a Moby Dick type ride)
- Pharaoh’s Fury
- Starship 2000 (2x)
- Bumper Cars
- Super Slide
- Haunted Mansion
- A bunch of fun houses
A few things were missing from last year, most notably the Sky Flyer which was too bad since it was pretty good ride. Also missing were Storm, Slingshot (a shot/drop tower) and Tilt-a-Whirl. No biggie I guess, there still were a bunch of decent rides and the fact that wristbands were like $25 kind of made up for it.
The first ride we (two of my cousins and I to be exact) rode was Avalanche. It’s pretty much an older model Moby Dick type ride. One thing I never liked about these types of rides is that they all use shoulder harnesses…and not comfortable ones either! These types of rides could surely get away with a lapbar, couldn’t they? The ride we got was ridiculously long in both directions. Those paying with tickets actually got a pretty damn good cycle!
Next up was Haunted Mansion, which by all accounts is pretty much just a haunted pair of trailers. It was pretty average by carnival standards with a handful of props, some buzzers, and lots of darkness (save for the few cracks of light coming between the seams.) This is totally a wristband ride.
Afterwards it was time for a spin on Yoyo, the Chance swing ride. I have to hand it to Reithoffer, this ride looked GREAT with all LED lights and a clean paint job. If all Yoyo rides looked like this one, it wouldn’t be a WTCR! The cycle was a bit short, but whatever, we had wristbands. Zipper was our next stop which now had the required four riders it needed to run. My cousin and I attempted to flip the car while others were loading but it just didn’t want to flip; the cycle itself provided a dozen or so flips however.
Our final ride before grabbing something to eat and checking out the farm stuff was Power Surge, which for the second year now did not have the added rotation of the support arm; the resulting ride was pretty sub-par. I hate to say it but it’s not nearly as good without the extra rotation of the support arm.
As for food, I grabbed two slices of pepporonni pizza for $5 bucks a slice. Interestingly enough, the cheese slices were also $5 per slice…hmm. While away from the rides we checked out a few shows, including the Pig Races and Kountry K9 dog show headed by this dude that sort of looks like a mustache clad Carl Pavano in 15 years. We also took a walk through the vast concession areas and club sponsored spaces. Some sponsored spaces of note were the NRA, Pro NJ Hunting, Tea Party Crazies, and the Creationist Ark complete with dinosaurs; yep…we’re in the boondocks of NJ all right.
We also stopped by at the art exhibit and made fun of the scribbled drawing that won 1st place. I mean, it was part of the 5 year old entries, but still…the macaroni and glue art should have won! The photography entries that had the time stamp visible on the photo were also smirk inducing. Of course we checked out the animals as well. The fairgrounds had rows of stables containing cows, pigs, goats and other barnyard animals. They also had a section with rabbits and guinea pigs; one rabbit was bigger than my chihuahua I think.
Back to the rides; we hopped on Tidal Wave, a Chance Thunderbolt, first. Every single Thunderbolt I’ve been on has been as bumpy as a really bumpy thing and this one didn’t deviate from the norm at all. I wonder if it has anything to do with the center mount configuration and how the track is right near the center as opposed to farther out, near the cars (like on Reverchon Matterhorns and Bertazzon Rock n’ Rolls.) Super Himalaya was the next stop and in contrast to Tidal Wave, this ride was very smooth and pretty damn fast as well! I think we rode the wheel next, which I think was their Gentle Giant wheel, as opposed to the Century Wheel they had last year (the one we got soaked on.)
Next we took a spin on Sizzler which went fairly fast compared to other Sizzler rides I’ve seen lately. The ride was also very long, probably around 4 minutes. Finally we hit up Avalanche again along with another wild flipping experience on Zippity doo dah. Before leaving I ran through the Cuckoo Haus funhouse. Some of the stunts weren’t working but the barrel at the end was so I propped my feet and hands on opposite sides and rode the barrel until horizontal. You’re probably not supposed to do that, but if I got hurt I wouldn’t be dumb enough to sue because…well, it was my own fault!
Before leaving I grabbed a milkshake, a really good one at that for like $5. We left at around closing, probably 11pm or so. All in all we got on a lot of rides and the crowds weren’t too bad for the Friday opening day.
Last week I was ‘down the shore’ (that’s Jersey speak) in Wildwood, Cape May, Atlantic City, Brick, Ocean City and Point Pleasant, hence the gap in updates recently. I’ll save you all from hearing the fun stories of getting sunburn at the beach, gambling away $50 bucks in AC, and being caught in a torrential downpour in Cape May and get right to the on topic amusement related things!
Wildwood, NJ has sort of had a dark ride resurgence this past year with the addition of three haunted attractions across the boardwalk. The most notable of which is Morey’s Piers’ walk through ride Ghost Ship which took the place of the old golf course on Mariner’s Landing pier. The second haunted attraction is Horror City 3D, a revamp of Zombie World with the most notable difference being the removal of Zombie World’s track, turning it into a walk through. Finally, Sportland Pier, a sparsely populated amusement pier in North Wildwood, saw the addition of House of Haunts which took over the former arcade building. The ride didn’t seem to be open just yet but they did have an electric chair ‘ride’ where people pay three bucks to be ‘electrocuted.’ They also have a website up!
This year was the first that I did not get a wristband for Morey’s Piers, I don’t know, I just didn’t feel it this year after many years of riding the same rides. However my sister and I did get some tickets to go on Ghost Ship and Great White, Morey’s Piers’ wooden coaster. Ghost Ship was an incredible 12 tickets, translating to about $11.40……….! Wow, this one better be good!
The outside of the ride looks much like its namesake, an old, dilapidated ship with a skull-like appearance to the ship’s bow. The boat’s name is Ignus Fatuus, or Foolish Fire in Latin. The name is actually another term for Will-o’ the-Wisp which are those strange balls of light seen in swamps. Another definition of Ignus Fatuus is “something that misleads or deludes.” The outside features a large queue line which was indeed completely filled on some nights.
Upon entering, riders walk left, down a hallway and to the ticket scanner and waiting area. Riders wait until the attendant says they can go in, at which point a short movie will play telling of the boat’s dilemma, something to do with a radioactive spill aboard the ship. Afterwards, riders walk through various scenes of toxic havoc, malfunctioning machinery and about 15 or 20 inhabitants of the boat…who don’t take kindly to the non-irradiated. That’s all I’ll say here about the ride as to not ruin it for potential riders. I might post a ride review later on, once the ride has settled in a bit. It was a fine walkthrough attraction however; it had a lot of neat props and it pretty long as well!
The other ride we went on was Great White, the CCI built hybrid wooden coaster. This one was 8 tickets, which is pretty standard for a large coaster I guess. We rode in the back seat at night which translated to quite a bit of airtime along with a great wooden battering since this coaster isn’t exactly smooth. I made it a point to not hold on at all which resulted in being ragdolled around the seat and into my sister on occasion. Hell, it was my one ride on it this season, I may as well be reckless!
Some other notes about the boardwalk was that the large sky tower structure on Adventure Pier has finally been removed. The tower was left over from the pier’s days as Fun Pier before Morey’s bought the property. No real loss other than the remnant of Wildwood past it signified. Also on Adventure Pier,the Chance Inverter has been taken out. Again, not much of a loss.
Over at Surfside Pier, Condor seemed to have been closed for much of the week I was down. I saw it running once on Monday night but that was it. I’ve been hearing over at Mr. Boardwalk that Condor had a break down one night which nearly resulted in a rope rescue for people stuck on the ride. Not pertaining to amusements, I noticed that the ‘fad’ this year at the boardwalk stores are these stupid ball clackers that use a string. Also, ‘Free Hugs’ shirts and ‘Come at me bro!’ shirts were popular…blah, blah and more blah.
Bonus Trip Report: Some Fair in Brick!
So I went to get some pizza one night while at my families’ shore house and noticed a sign for a fair somewhere in Brick Twp. All right! So I ate and then headed off to the fair. Upon arriving I saw a racked Octopus in a small parking lot. Ok, what the hell is this? Did I miss the fair? Nah, it was just a leftover. The real fair was across the street, set back a little. The fair was basically the same as the St. Philomena’s carnival in Livingston last year, with Campy’s Amusements running the show. Rides included Scat, Gravitron, Scrambler, Bumper Cars, Ferris Wheel, Slide and some kiddie rides.
