Boardwalk Bullet - Kemah Boardwalk (July of 2009)

I did something different...really different. Having travelled the country and ridden 401 roller coasters, there was still one area that I had not visited.....Texas. After returning from vacation this year, I decided to meet up with a travel group called Theme Park Review and spend 5 days in Texas at a very reasonable price. This was a superb experience that I will discuss in a later post, but the main reason I went was to ride this coaster.

Having two Gravity Group woodies in my Top 10, I had high hopes for this creation and was not disappointed. Now don't get me wrong. The Bullet is very intense and has suffered some ridiculous abuse in the form of Hurricane Ike. No coaster should go through what it has faced. Yet still, the coaster has character and I thoroughly enjoyed my 10 laps in two days.

What is character? Can we give human characteristics to inanimate objects like amusement park rides? Here at Coaster Reviews, we do. To us, the ride is an experience. Some may be smooth, some rough, and some intense. The key thing is that we like rides that give us memories and the Bullet does that.

The first section of the ride is typical Gravity Group intensity with a very twisted track which takes the riders within 30 feet of the water. There are a couple of very intense sections of track which border on roughness. It is common knowledge that the faster this thing goes, the smoother the ride. I think my better rides were the night rides we took following the storm that blew in. I also enjoyed the morning rides but they seemed a tad rougher.

But what the heck, the ride is fun. It has a gorgeous backdrop, a great layout, and some intense airtime segments and laterals. It is not the greatest coaster in the world but still gives an unrelenting ride. That is what a wooden coaster is about......and oh yeah....it has character.

It gets a solid 8 from Coaster Reviews.

Hades Review - Wisconsin Dells (July of 2009)

Hades was arguably the coaster I was looking forward most to riding this entire summer. I currently have 11 coasters which I have given a 10 ranking to and fully expected this Gravity Group creation to make it # 12 and mix up my top coasters. When we pulled into the parking lot, these feelings rose a couple of notches to near certainty.

The park was very crowded but most of the people seemed to be headed for the water park so we got in all the smaller woodies first and then doubled back to Hades hoping the line had shrunk a little. We were wrong as a 45 minute wait awaited us since one train operation is all the park offers on each of its coasters. We ended up getting a next to the back seat ride and off we went for what I hoped to be an unbelievable coaster ride.

I was wrong.

To begin with, the pre-lift hill section is very overrated. It is cool dropping out of the station, but there is not any airtime and the train just seems to meander along to the lift. The drop off the lift hill and through the tunnel is superb. The typical Gravity Group forces are present as you speed under the parking lot, out into the turn around, and back down through the return trip. However, I faced another issue here which totally destroyed the ride experience for me: the lights in the tunnel were on! I could not believe it. I had heard rave reviews about the total blackness and the out of control feelings one faced when navigating the 90 degree banks in pitch blackness. Alas, that was an experience I missed out on.

Finally, we crested the hill exiting the tunnel and dove into a very long curve in which the train jackhammered so violently that I took an instant headache. The jackhammering continued around the entire curve and up into the final section leading to the station. It was among the roughest sections of any coaster I have ever experienced.

Needless to say, I was disappointed. We left the area, finished the other coasters in the park, bought a few souvenirs, and then ambled back to Hades. I decided to wait through the hour long ride again and get another ride near the front of the train to see if the experience improved. I'm sorry to say that it did not.

Still, despite these negatives, Hades is a good coaster. It is by no means one of the top 10 coasters on the planet as it consistently ranks in the Golden Ticket Awards. I think the enthusiasts who continue to rank it so highly rode it many years ago and have not been back to see it in it's current state. It scores a solid 8 but is well below every GCI woodie I have ridden and it ranks at the bottom on the 4 Gravity Group coasters I have been on as well. The tunnel sections are great with that wonderful swooping motion that good woodies have. However, the addition of the lights, the weak pre-lift section, and the horrible curved section drop it a couple of notches in my book.

Shivering Timbers Review - July of 2009

Whew again! I just finished two unbelievable coaster journeys and am need of some serious rest. Guy and myself travelled over 2,000 miles hitting some great parks up the east coast with our main goal of trying out the new Bizarro themed coasters. I will write up that trip as soon as I can find my zip drive with our pictures on it. In the meantime, I'll review the best ride I had on my trip with Julia through the midwest: Shivering Timbers at Michigan's Adventure in Muskegon, Michigan.

It has been said on my websites previously, but this coaster is one of the most aesthetically pleasing rides in existence. It runs virtually the entire length of the parking lot and is all you see when you first pull in. Unfortunately, it is the only reason for visiting the park as all the other coasters are clones or very poorly designed. Fortunately, Shivering Timbers is good enough to be considered a destination coaster.

The layout is very simple with lots of huge hills and some very strong airtime. This ride is not super smooth like some of the newer woodies out there, but is instead a powerful ride along the likes of Ghostrider out at Knotts or The Beast at King's Island. It is not rough, but the forces it puts on your body are very strong. I rode the back seat once, three times in the middle part of the train, and lastly on the front car. The front is by far the best with both the most airtime and the smoothest ride. The back was good as well but a little rougher, particularly at the bottom of the first hill. In addition to the large hills, there is also a very fast helix at the end of the ride and a section following the turnaround called a "Trick/Track" which is unique to this coaster. It is a very effective element where each side of the track dips at alternate times causing the train to sway back and forth. This is one of the best segments on the ride and fits in well with the other elements.

In conclusion, Shivering Timbers deserves its top 10 ranking among woodies. I rate it as a solid 9 and place it at #18 overall out of my 400 coasters ridden. It is well worth the effort it takes to get to the park.