Vaughan, Ontario – Saturday, September 15th & Sunday, September 16th, 2012
Up next in the park tour... SkyRider!
SkyRider was removed at the end of 2014 (the very first coaster to ever be removed from the park since it opened in 1981), yet I took this photo two years prior in 2012. So this next part will at the very least be a somewhat cool time capsule.
Like every stand-up coaster, the boarding procedure is a tad complication, and the Togo restraint system could appear particularly scary at first glance.
Yet once I was inside it wasn't as terrible as I remembered. The butterfly restraints are surprisingly non-intrusive once they're in place, as they can be better adjusted to your shoulder height.
Climbing the lift hill in such as seemingly ad-hoc contraption can be a bit terrifying, giving you way too much time to contemplate the potentially bruising ride you're about to be on.
SkyRider nears the crest.
A brief pause and aerial turnaround while standing up...
And then you're off down the 84 foot drop.
Through the single vertical loop...
And then into perhaps the scariest portion, the camelback airtime hill that leads into...
...the 90 degree banked spiral helix.
Amazingly I got through this maneuver in alright condition!
More sharp airtime on a stand-up coaster, which is actually kinda freakin' awesome and terrifying at the same time.
And then another sharp turn into the brakes. You know, I actually really liked SkyRider, maybe even within my top five favorites in the park. Intense but never painful.
I can see why it's no longer a good fit for a major 21st century park like Canada's Wonderland, but I'm glad it found a second life in a smaller obscure park, where coaster enthusiasts can hopefully still discover its unorthodox design from a bygone era for another couple of decades. (And yes, there's also a trick-track along the layout.)
SkyRider and WindSeeker against the clear blue atmosphere.
WindSeeker was added to the park in 2011 and was the first of the Cedar Fair installations to open.
WindSeeker with its kinda awkward vertical banner sign.
The thing I like most about WindSeekers is that they're high capacity with 64 passengers per cycle, with usually fairly short waits. The thing I like least about WindSeekers is that they sometimes explode or get stuck in the air for hours on end. Overall it evens out.
I don't particularly mind Cedar Fair spamming WindSeekers across their parks, since a big part of the experience is the aerial view which naturally is different in each location.
LampSeeker
This large grassy area between the Mountain and Vortex that's open to the public gives this area of the park a very European feel.
Prior to Cedar Fair's takeover, Vortex was generally seen as being the best ride in this park.
Vortex is an Arrow Dynamics suspended coaster that opened in 1991, and with rides like Big Bad Wolf and Eagle Fortress now gone, Vortex is arguably the most thrilling of the five remaining.
Most suspended coasters offer the most dynamic ride in the front row. Because the ride consistently loses speed throughout the layout, the back on average is "slower" than the front.
Vortex and a rich blue Canadian sky.
Vortex is technically the same layout as Top Gun/Flight Deck/Bat at Kings Island. The big difference is that Vortex was originally custom designed for Canada's Wonderland while the Kings Island ride was copied off of Vortex, so the Vortex actually fits the park well, with this lagoon portion, the first hill atop Wonder Mountain, and a station that isn't a 1/4 mile hike from civilization.
Vortex also features slightly shorter six car trains, which for whatever reason seems to cut down on the drag and creates a ride that really hauls around the course from beginning to end.
The Fly is the park's Mack-built Wild Mouse. Still not a great ride, but at least the graphic branding and identity is a bit more fun and original than a typical wild mouse.
I had previously ridden this coaster in 2005 so I took a pass on it this year.
Jeremy,
Good to see you update the website; I enjoyed reading your work long before meeting your at GCI’s FREDx all those years ago.
As for the random owl sculpture in the roof of Behemoth’s station, I think that it is intended to scare away wildlife from trying to roost in the building; I have seen these non-lethal deterrents for sale at outdoor stores. If you must quote me on this, please include my uncertainty.
Hope things are well with you.
Respectfully,
Ethan T. Benedict, BSME, EIT
P.S: Do you know if Thinkwell is looking to hire engineers in a plausible future?
Hey Ethan, good to hear from you again! Your theory about the owl makes perfect sense, though I have to wonder why it was only in use at Behemoth.
Things are going as well as can be expected for me, I hope you’re making it through these times okay.
Unfortunately Thinkwell had to reduce its staff not so long ago, and as you can imagine I can’t expect many new job opportunities coming along in the foreseeable future. However, I’m optimistic it will soon be a good time to be on the lookout for less traditional or start-up companies especially as the industry starts to return and there’s lots of new stuff forming to re-fill the voids created.