The DoD3

Double TR: Seaside, NJ

Posted by DoD3Brian on October 11, 2009 | 1 comment

So I was in Seaside Heights, NJ yesterday after another trip to Six Flags for Fright Fest (which will have a trip report coming soon) and I started thinking “hey…I never did that original Seaside trip report!” Considering that I have gone twice now, I’m going to merge the two trips together into a rare double trip report!

September 26

I left for Seaside Heights, NJ from the ‘shore’ house in Brick, NJ at around 12:30pm. The ride to Seaside took about 15-20 minutes only being about 12 miles away. As I got into town I noticed that there was a street fair going on at Grant Ave; I’d later find out that this was the Que by the Sea event, a barbecue competition. I parked by Funtown Pier in Seaside Park and fed the meter a bunch of quarters; 25 cents for 10 minutes.

I noticed that Funtown Pier was actually open so I walked around that park first. Funtown Pier has seen quite a few different rides over the years including a massive Log Flume at one time. Today the pier is home to Seaside’s only looping coaster, an old ass Wild Mouse coaster, the state’s tallest drop tower ‘Tower of Fear,’ a decent sized Ferris Wheel, a few extreme rides and a bunch of flats.

Looping Coaster

The looping coaster, aptly named ‘Looping Coaster,’ looks to be a Pinfari looping model with a single loop flanked by a pair of helixes. I’ve been on it once awhile back; nothing really to write home about but it did add to my (pitiful) coaster count I guess. Funtown seemed to have been getting ready for the off-season already as their Wisdom made Arctic Circle Himalaya ride sat in pieces on the pier (picture). The old Wild Mouse also had its cars sitting on the pier, ready for winter storage.

At the other end of the boardwalk was Casino Pier, which had several rides at the front of the pier in operation, including their Sky Scraper upcharge which commanded $10 bucks to ride. The park’s Wave Swinger ride was the only ride up front that was closed; it looked like they were getting ready to pack it away for the season. I strolled around Casino Arcade for a few minutes, home of the Looff Carousel, and decided to head back before the meter ran out. Good thing I did too, I only had a few minutes left and the meter cops seemed to be out in full force! (picture)

October 10

This time I left for Seaside at 1pm and once again I found that Seaside was holding another street fair at Grant Ave, this time it was an Italian Festival for Columbus Day. Again I parked in Seaside Park, fed the meter and was off. This time around Funtown Pier was closed with many rides packed up or getting ready to be put away for the season. The stores around Funtown Pier were in end of season sale mode, however some of the ‘sales’ were still pretty bad.

Casino Pier had the front of the pier open again, only this time the Wave Swinger sat folded up on the pier with a blockade of benches in front of it. I guess the park stayed open due to the street fair occurring on the road in front of the pier. I decided to check out the festival, the Ocean County Italian Festival to be exact. The festival went on for two or three blocks and sort of reminded me of the San Gennaro festival. Being an Italian festival, there was lots of food including sausages, gyros, zeppolies, calzones, and that weird torrone candy that looks like concrete blocks. At the far end of the festival was a stage with a singing quintet. There was also a lot of stereotypical ‘New Jersey Italian’ stuff like “Italian Princess” and “Sopranos” shirts among others.

I went back to the car and notced that I had 20 minutes left on the meter, so I walked the southern boardwalk in Seaside Park. I also went onto the beach where a few people were surfing; I stuck my hand in the water and found that it actually wasn’t too bad! Should of brought my swim trunks along! Nah, it wasn’t that nice. Anyway, I left Seaside at around 3pm and took the long route along the shoreline to north Jersey.

Trip Report: St. Philomena’s Carnival

Posted by DoD3Brian on October 7, 2009 | Add a Comment

After missing the Great Allentown Fair in early September, I quickly searched for another fair to go to; I wasn’t too keen on the fact that I had missed what was likely to be the last fair of the season. I eventually found a little ad on CraigsList for a fair in Livingston, NJ at St. Philomena’s church. The fair would be happening in mid-September so I had over a week until the event.

Fast forward to mid-September (or rewind in this case.) The drive was quick and parking was ample at the adjacent high school, I’m starting to like this fair already! The fair itself had a modest lineup of rides and attractions:

Scat
Gravitron
Octopus
Scrambler (Eli Bridge model)
Bumper Cars
Ferris Wheel
Fun Slide
A myriad of kiddie rides
A plethora of games
Various foodstuffs

Ok, I was a bit ticked at this carnival just because Campy’s Amusements provided the rides and didn’t bring their Skydiver or Cobra! If there’s any two rides that I’d love to realistically see around here, it’s those two; especially since their rides are so darn good looking. For instance the Octopus, while it did make some funky noises that many older rides are accustomed to, looked incredible with lights along the sweeps, newer center ornament and nice sleek black and green paintjob. Unfortunately I couldn’t get too many good pictures of it due to the darkness.

Scrambler also looked cool with a non-chippy paint job, working french fry lights (as I like to call them,) and little lights at the ends of the sweeps. I was able to get some nice trailing shots of this ride after playing around with my camera settings. A little down the midway was a very nice white-ish Gravitron with pastel lights lining the outside of the UFO. I think I like the look of this Gravitron better than Amusement’s of America’s green colored version actually. The bumper cars were in front of Gravitron and pretty much sat dormant all night.

At the end of the midway was a Big Eli Ferris Wheel, or at least it looked like one. This was the only ride that wasn’t as great looking as the others, but not bad either. Unfortunately the tube lights caused hell for my camera so the shots didn’t come out too well. Finally we have the coup de grâce, the Scat. This was so well maintained that it made me feel bad for calling it a WTCR! The Scat featured lots of white and blue lighting and even had those decorative light trellis looking things over the platforms. The ride also featured a center ornament; I think I’ve died and went to WTCR heaven! The ride ops gave a long ride as well, which is a definite plus.

Games consisted of the standard fare: hit the x with y, chance wheels, probably a watergun game, and more. Food was also of your typical carnival variety with sausage, burgers, zeppolies and other artery clogging treats. All in all this was a fun little late summer fair that wasn’t overly crowded either.

Video: Fireball

Posted by DoD3Brian on October 4, 2009 | Add a Comment

The KMG Fireball (aka Afterburner if you’re in Europe) and its variants seem to be very popular rides nowadays. I remember when I first saw Fireball back in the late 90s or so at the State Fair Meadowlands; it went under the name Cyclops and I thought it was just insane! Today many fairs carry a Fireball, Freak Out, or Technical Park’s 1 trailer Street Fighter while several amusement parks sport the larger Revolution models by Chance Rides. A Fireball running at full tilt is probably one of the more intense rides around with a ton of Gs at the bottom of the swing; couple this with a ride op happy to run it for minutes on end and Fireball turns into the pendulum ride from hell!

KMG Fireball 2009 from The DoD3 on Vimeo.

Song is ‘Timeless’ by Goldie

Trip Report: GAdv Fall Family Fun Night

Posted by DoD3Brian on September 29, 2009 | Add a Comment

Fall Family Fun Night occurred this past Friday (September 25th) at Six flags Great Adventure; it’s basically a code name for ‘season pass night’ as only passholders can get in that day. I decided to make it an overnight trip by hitting Six Flags on Friday, staying over at my families sparsely used ‘shore’ house in Brick, NJ, and then stopping by at the Seaside boardwalk and other shore points the next day.

I tried to get to GAdv a little after the 5pm opening, but of course I was stymied by relentless Garden State Parkway traffic. I usually take the Turnpike to Six Flags but I opted to stop at the house first to drop off my stuff and make a pit stop so to say. I made it to the house by a little after 5pm…so much for getting there just after the opening. Luckily the trip from the house to Six Flags took a mere 20 minutes or so. When I arrived I was met by a modest amount of cars in the lot, I parked pretty close to the gigantic ‘VIP parking’ area which is extra. While walking in I got my first view of the newly painted Parachute Jump…not bad looking!

I headed for El Toro first, however before getting there I noticed that Houdini’s Great Escape, a Vekoma Mad House, was open! This ride had been closed inexplicably by GAdv this past year taking away another flatride that the park desperately needs. The ride also had a nice queue line formed; great for the ride, but not for me! Instead I continued my march to El Toro which ended up having a nice short station wait; I think I waited only one trainload.

Next I headed for Bizarro which also had a station wait. I decided on the back row, which only has two seats, and waited one train. I still cannot make heads or tails out of the audio being played during the ride, mostly because it’s hard to hear over the roaring of the train. It’s not a bad ride though, I think I like it a bit more than Medusa despite all the crap I gave the proposed change during the offseason.

Bizarro world

Afterwards I headed to the other side of the park and rode Skull Mountain, Nitro and Batman: the Ride; all three being ‘air gate’ waits. Dark Knight had a line, so I passed and walked over to Fantasy Fling, the park’s Round Up. Unfortunately that was down with a couple of employees checking out the underside, so I went to Great American Scream Machine instead. As expected, Scream Machine had no wait and since there weren’t many people in the station when I came back around, I simply got up and moved to another seat for a second spin!

Afterwards I headed to Kingda Ka where I got to cut most of the lines since they were looking for a single rider. Kingda Ka wasn’t bad at all, especially considering the 2 minutes or so that I waited to ride. Next I went over to Rolling Thunder which actually had two trains ‘racing’ each other; incredible…I should have taken a photo for hard proof. I took a ride on the left side first which wasn’t too bad, then I headed around to the right side where I was soundly pummeled by the horrific roughness. They really need to do something about the right side, it’s just wildly awful due to the bumps.

Not a whole hell of a lot of people in line for Rolling Thunder...

Finally I headed over to El Toro for another one train wait. Let me tell you, El Toro absolutely flies at night; I was sitting near the back and the airtime over the drop was insane. Also, I must have been bent over a little when the train leveled out because I suddenly found my face near my knees after the drop; nothing says a good coaster like being forcibly scrunched into a ball position!

I left the park at around 9:20pm, picked up a couple of pepperoni slices at my favorite pizza place, and was back at the house at around 10:00pm. The next day I’d be off to Seaside and a a few other shore spots.

Video: Sea Serpent at Morey’s Piers

Posted by DoD3Brian on September 23, 2009 | Add a Comment

With one look at Morey’s Piers’ Sea Serpent, you might quickly identify it as a Vekoma manufactured Boomerang. While this is indeed a common Boomerang model, much like the 40+ others around the world, this one is a bit more notable as it was the first Boomerang in the United States. Sea Serpent debuted in 1984 along with three other Boomerangs around the world; the others being in Belgium, Canada and Mexico. This particular model had it’s original trains replaced sometime in the late 90s resulting in a much smoother ride than with it’s previous train. So, without further ado, here’s the Sea Serpent!

Sea Serpent @ Morey’s Piers – Wildwood, NJ from The DoD3 on Vimeo.

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