The DoD3

Jersey Shore Excursion pt.2

Posted by DoD3Brian on February 12, 2009 | 3 comments

North Shore points After attending the Golden Nugget event the day before and going on a little self guided sightseeing tour, I left the house in Brick at around 10 am. I picked up a breakfast sandwich and coffee at a Dunkin Doughnuts and ate while driving to Seaside Heights, NJ. I took route 35, a scenic north/south highway to get to Seaside, and was met by only a few cars traveling around as I coasted through the shore towns of Ortley Beach and Lavalette among others. I arrived in Seaside within 15-20 minutes; during the summer, this same trip would have taken a good 45 minutes do to the explosion in seasonal population.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Seaside, NJ (which actually consists of two towns, Seaside Park and Seaside Heights) is a very popular shore point in New Jersey. If I had to name three big shore locales where Jerseans typically vacation, Seaside would probably rank at #3 with the Wildwoods and Long Beach Island as 1 and 2 respectfully. Seaside Heights is packed full of motels and typically caters to a younger crowd with an abundance of bars and clubs.

I parked in a large parking lot in Seaside Park and was flagged down by a dude just leaving his spot who had about 40 minutes left on the meter (yes you still have to feed the meter here in the winter!) I put in a quarter to make it 55 minutes (15 minutes per quarter too! I’m still young but I remember when a quarter would get you an hour!) It was about 50 degrees out, so there were quite a few people on the boardwalk; as opposed to Saturday when only a few crazies (like myself) braved the boardwalk. Here’s the first set of photos from around Funtown Pier.

Aside from more people on the boards, everything else was about what you’d expect from a winter day ‘down the shore;’ most of the boardwalk stores were closed (except for one or two) many of the arcades were open, and barely anything was going on off the boardwalk. I ended up walking from the parking lot, to the very north end of the boardwalk and back. Along the way I stopped in both of the pier owned arcades, Funtown Arcade and Casino Arcade. Here’s the photos from the end of the boardwalk to Casino Arcade.

Casino Pier arcade had a decent amount of people in there, and they actually had their indoor carousel running with someone behind the controls, but I didn’t see anyone get on…then again I was only there for like five minutes. Funtown Arcade also had a good amount of people around, and their carousel was also running but with no takers. Something I like about Funtown Arcade is that it has an entire section devoted to 80s arcade games. Some of the games included Super Mario Bros, Kung Fu, Pole Position, Pac Man, like 12 pinball machines including one called ‘Hercules’ which is about twice the size of a normal one! This next set of photos are from the arcades…

… Jersey Shore Excursion pt.2

Hard Rock Park Finds Buyer

Posted by DoD3Brian on February 11, 2009 | Add a Comment

Hard Rock Park 2009 Am I joking? Did Myrtle Beach’s own Hard Rock Park actually find someone to buy the park? No folks, I kid you not, FPI MB Entertainment is offering to pay $25 million for the whole kit and caboodle, with the company so far posting a down payment of $2.3 million. The buyers hope to have the deal done by February 20th and actually want to be able to have a soft opening before Memorial Day. That’s going to be interesting since at first no one knew the place existed and now everyone thinks it’s gone! However, since the park was at the brink of having a wrecking ball smash into it, (seriously, like a giant crane holding a park sized wrecking ball was waiting outside the park) perhaps the media attention of it being pulled from certain doom will spur some interest.

According to the article below, the buyers would need about 90 days to prepare the park to open. This would include such tasks as revamping rides, designing new shows and, oh yeah, promoting the park, something the previous owners never grasped.

Source: Myrtle Beach Online – Hard Rock Park Could Ride Again in Spring

Ride Review: Hydra: the Revenge

Posted by DoD3Brian on February 10, 2009 | 3 comments

Hydra: the Revenge At one time, a coaster called Hercules dominated the skyline of Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom in Allentown, PA. The Dinn Corp manufactured and Curtis Summers designed Hercules even held the grand honor of having the worlds largest drop on a wooden roller coaster at 151 feet! It would hold that record for two years before being supplanted by Mean Streak at Cedar Point, another Dinn Corp/Summers wood pile. However, due to low ridership, possibly brought on by the fact that the coaster was rougher than being pummeled by Hercules himself, the ride was knocked down in the 2003 off-season in preparation for a new coaster.

Fast Facts
Height:	95 ft (28.9 m)
Drop:	105 ft (32 m)
Top Speed:	53 mph (85.2 kph)
Length:	3198 ft (974.7 m)
Inversions:	7
Opening Date:	May 7th, 2005
Manufacturer:	Bolliger & Mabillard

In 2004, the spot where Hercules once stood was the new home of…dirt. The new ride would open in 2005. Damn you Dorney!

In 2005, the spot where Dirt once stood was the new home of…Hydra: the Revenge.

Hydra: the Revenge, or simply Hydra, is a Bolliger & Mabillard manufactured steel, floorless looping coaster. The name comes from the story in Greek mythology where Hercules slays the Hydra. Unfortunately, in this case, Hercules celebrated a little too early and was dispatched by the serpent before he could even take a sip from the cold one he had just opened up.

Hydra’s station

When approaching Hydra, the most noticeable features are the ride’s various rolls; Hydra contains seven inversions and all but one of them is readily visible. This is in contrast with Hercules, which looked more like a giant wooden wall with its signature feature, a big ass drop and turn, hidden from view. Hydra’s queue line has one long set of switchbacks but I doubt they’re ever used all that much considering that Dorney never really gets too crowded; especially during the summer when the crowds flock to Wildwater Kingdom.

The station on Hydra is very open with a large curving roof and fluorescent lighting; it’s sort of like a station that one would make in a Roller Coaster Tycoon game, it serves its purpose. Unlike Six Flags, Dorney allows guests to stash their belongings into lockers situated at the far end of each car. Once everyone is secured, the train slowly rolls out of the station.

The Ride

Hydra drop After exiting the station, the train immediately enters a ‘jojo roll,’ a heartline roll taken at 10-15 mph. The result is a couple seconds of hang time along with any loose articles falling beneath the roll; I wonder how much money Dorney has made from change falling to the ground under the roll? Afterwards the train swings around a turn and proceeds up the lift.

After the brief ascent, the train enters a steep drop that provides some good airtime in the back seats. However the drop is pretty modest at only 105 feet, so the airtime is short lived as the train quickly levels out. The drop sends the train up to a swift 53 mph before negotiating an ‘inclined dive loop’ as RCDB calls it. This element has been a point of contention between coaster fans as the element barely flips riders upsidedown.

One of Hydra’s corkscrews

Following the second ‘inversion’ is a legitimately inverting zero-g roll followed by a corkscrew in the opposite direction. I don’t know about other first time riders, but on my first ride these inversions threw me off a bit since most coasters perform back to back elements in the same direction. The train exits the corkscrew and drops down low into a ravine in preparation for a cobra roll element. This particular cobra roll is kind of oddly shaped with the bottom portions very close to each other while the top portions are spaced some distance apart.

The cobra roll

After exiting the cobra roll, the train navigates a curved airtime-ish hill followed by a more traditional airtime generating bunny hop before racing into another corkscrew. I think it was at this point on one of my more recent backseat rides where the car seemed to shuffle around the track as it traveled up and out of the ravine; it’s kind of like Hydra inherited some of Hercules’ ‘Dinn Shuffle’ phenomena! Finally, the train rounds a 270 degree turnaround, makes a right, and hits the brake run.

Conclusion

All in all, Hydra: the Revenge is a decent coaster. I wouldn’t say it’s great or bad, but it falls into the above average range. The coaster has a lot of cool elements like the roll before the lift, the steep drop, and the back to back zero-g roll/corkscrew, but the layout consists of mostly inversions and just doesn’t seem to use the terrain as well as it could have. Inversions aside, the layout is basically of an ‘out and back’ design which is a bit boring unless it’s a tall speed coaster like neighboring Steel Force. One thing I found interesting about Hydra was that it’s actually a little rough for being a newer B&M. It had about the same shakiness as your typical Batman: the Ride coaster. Although The roughness doesn’t make the ride uncomfortable or anything, it may even make it more intense actually. But the next time you go to Dorney, ride Hydra and then Talon right afterwards and you’ll see a marked difference in smoothness.

If I had to rate Hydra, I’d give it a 7 out of 10. What about you? How would you rate Hydra and what are your favorite parts of the ride?

Crapstravaganza Week 14: Morey’s Piers 2005

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

This past week at the DoD3 seems to have had a Wildwood, NJ theme with the Golden Nugget ceremony photos and the trip report of my jaunt around the Jersey Shore that included Wildwood extensively.While I could serve up a sweet Disney park map, that would just break the entire theme! It would look out of place, like a rectangle added into a Jackson Pollock painting! So this week’s Crapstravaganza features a not-so-vintage Morey’s Piers brochure/map from 2005. Let the scans begin…

On the left we see Morey’s Piers’ schedule for the 2005 season. Looks like they took pride in fine tuning their schedule as they had a record eight different opening/closing times making their calender look like a stain glass window with all the colors.

On the right is AtmosFEAR, Morey’s Piers’ new ride for 2005. They make it look very intimidating with the lightning and the car rushing down the tower at somewhere around 300mph.

A Five Star Experience is what Morey’s touted itself as this year. Notice that they use street names to differentiate the piers in this brochure. Indeed the piers do have actual names:

25th Ave Pier = Surfside Pier
Schellenger Ave Pier = Mariner’s Landing
Spencer Ave Pier = Adventure Pier

Of course most of the general public drop both names in favor of:

The pier with that bumpy white coaster where your feet dangle
The pier with that big ferris wheel
The pier with that wooden coaster/that game where people shoot the boats with tennis balls/the giant human slingshot.

Also notice that the two Morey mascots are at the bottom right, Sunny C. Gull and…uh, I guess Curley Fry. Come on, that’ ain’t no damn curly fry! That’s a crinkle cut fry! Who are they trying kid?

This page is mostly dedicated to AtmosFEAR (yes correct spelling with the capitalized FEAR.) The description is a little small so if you can’t read it, it says: “The tallest, fastest, most intense drop tower ride in New Jersey.” Ok, this may be a bit of false advertising because Tower of Fear at Funtown Pier in Seaside Heights, NJ is billed at 225 feet high, which would dwarf AtmosFEAR especially since the next paragraph says: “Featuring an exhilarating free fall from 140 feet with speeds reaching up to 50 mph!” The description also adds that the ride features a “vertical acceleration of negative 3Gs!“Morey’s also added an S&S manufactured Screamin’ Swing to Adventure Pier, as noted by a minute paragraph under the AtmosFEAR description.

Again, the page features an incredibly tricked out photo of AtmosFEAR with the lightning and motion blur. I don’t know, that kind of makes the ride look dangerous! Or at least it looks like they’re violating some type of safety law by running the ride in a severe thunderstorm!

This particular page shows off some of the ‘extreme’ rides and attractions on each pier. At first I thought it was showcasing the major rides on each pier until I noticed that the Giant Wheel wasn’t listed with Schellenger Ave Pier, yet the ‘climbing wall’ was. To the bottom right of this page is an image of Great Nor’Easter’s original track/support color. That color faded greatly over time to this weird ‘salmon’ color before being painted completely white. The coaster now uses various lights to illuminate the track at night, allowing the ride to have multiple color schemes; of course during the day it’s just white.

There’s something I want to note about this list however: they list Sky Scraper as being on 25th Avenue Pier. The giant propeller looking up-charge ride is actually located on the old Hunt’s Pier, right next to the 25th Ave Pier. It’s like Morey’s doesn’t even acknowledge the ‘other’ pier anymore!

I cannot believe that Sunny’s Lookout Lighthouse gets a page but Screamin’ Swing doesn’t! Sunny’s Lookout Lighthouse is a really odd family ride that looks like a light house with four or so, two passenger, outward facing seats attached to the sides. The seats have a pulley system and rope attached to the car. The ride itself simply rotates at a slow speed while passengers grab hold of the rope and pull their seats to the top, only to fall slowly after reaching the pinnacle. It’s fun, but it would be even more fun if the cars fell with no resistance! Then again, it wouldn’t be a family ride in that case!

Ah-ha! Here’s the page featuring the other rides! And right beside the list of rides is the mighty Giant Wheel of Morey’s Piers; possibly the ride that symbolizes the Wildwood boardwalk. Prior to 2006 or so, the wheel featured long banks of large lights along its sweeps which had a red/yellow/orange color scheme if I remember correctly. They were replaced by LED lights along the sweeps that can combine to make many different colors and patterns. The wheel cycles through a light show that lasts around 10 minutes that can be seen up and down the boardwalk.

This final page features a map…like we need it. It’s only real purpose is to show where the new rides are as it doesn’t list any of their notable rides like Sea Serpent, Great White, Great Nor’Easter, etc. Also, this map proves that Sky Scraper is NOT on 25th Ave Pier! Instead the map portrays the old Hunt’s Pier as a tiny pier, 1/8th the size of all the others; in reality it’s as long as all the others and contains a bunch of stuff on the back including the Golden Nugget.

Back to Theme Park Crapstravaganza

Trip Report: Jersey Shore Excursion pt.1

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

Wildwood to Ocean City On 1/31, I went to the Golden Nugget farewell ceremony in Wildwood. However my trip down there turned into basically a weekend long trip. While I could have just driven all there and all the way home (a nice three hour drive each way…) I decided to stay at my family’s summer house in Brick, NJ on Friday night, which is about an hour and a half from Wildwood. On Saturday morning, I headed down to Wildwood and then decided to stay over at the summer house on Saturday night again. It was kind of like a mini weekend vacation! So, with all the time I had to screw around, I decided to take a little off-season sightseeing tour up the Jersey coast!

After leaving the old Hunt’s Pier, I took a walk down the boardwalk to Mariner’s Landing only to find some orange construction signs and a chain link fence blocking the way. Apparently they’re doing some boardwalk replacement in front of Mariner’s Landing and the old Midway pier (photo). From what I’ve seen in the past, this section doesn’t really need to be fixed up as much as some areas between Mariner’s Landing and Surfside Pier; some of the boards there are all loose and would rock up and down when traveled across.

$Marinier\'s Landing$

With not much of an option, I turned around and proceeded to walk down to Sportland Pier. This side of the boardwalk is never as crowded as the other ends in the summer, and the same was true in the off-season…actually, no one was there! I probably could have wandered about the pier since it wasn’t locked off or anything, but I decided not to. Here’s a few pics near Sportland Pier and Surfside Pier!

Next I went back to my car and drove up through Wildwood Crest. To my total non-amazement, the place was absolutely dead; I only saw a few cars the entire time while there. Then I decided to stop once more at the boardwalk, on the other side of the construction, to see if anything noticeable was going on at Mariner’s Landing and Wild Wheels. I didn’t see much activity save for a person taking pictures of the boardwalk construction; here’s the pics of the Crest and the boardwalk!

… Trip Report: Jersey Shore Excursion pt.1

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