SCREAM TEAM
Get your kicks on these new and improved park rides
FOR its 70th anniversary, Six Flags Great Escape in Queensbury, NY, will be going old-school with the debut of a wooden coaster, the Bobcat. But unlike the park’s other “woodie,” the decades-old Comet, the new attraction will feature amenities that should help it deliver a smooth ride.
“While it has all the charm of a classic wooden coaster, it is really a modern ride,” said Rebecca Wood, Six Flags Great Escape’s president. The Bobcat has “the perfect balance of thrills and accessibility,” she added.
Rising 55 feet and hitting a top speed of 40 mph, the family coaster will have a relatively low height requirement of 42 inches and could serve as a child’s first crack at some serious amusement park thrills.
It’s built using a computer-cut, prefabricated track that’s considerably stronger, more durable and more precise than the tracks on older wooden coasters, and features innovative trains, which can mitigate some of the course’s rough patches. (Don’t fret. The park insists the ride will still feel like an out-of-control woodie, just a tad kinder and gentler.)
Six Flags will also reopen its Swan Boats this season, a ride that harks back to the 1954 Lake George Park’s early days, when it was known as Storytown USA.
“We’re committed to honoring our history,” Wood said.
Dorney Park in Allentown, Pa., will be introducing its first new roller coaster since 2005 with Iron Menace. Known as a “dive coaster,” it will climb 152 feet and come to a precarious halt over the edge of a precipice for what will seem like an eternity, before diving down a 95degree drop. That’s beyond straight down, for the geometry challenged. The coaster will rev up to 64 mph and incorporate four inversions, including a tilted loop.
Capitalizing on the area’s industrial past, the loading station for Iron Menace will be designed to look like a steel mill. The ride’s backstory is that a shifty steel baron from the early 1900s developed a rail transporter to quickly move workers and ore at his plant. The decrepit mill has long since closed, but its novel — if suspect — conveyance carrier remains.
The coaster will feature rust-red tracks and exceptionally wide trains, with three rows of seven seats. The seats on the outer edges of the train will extend beyond the track, giving those passengers an especially hairy ride.
One of the most beloved coasters at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, in Virginia, is the Loch Ness Monster, and he’s getting a major makeover.
Featuring two interlocking loops and encounters with its namesake beast in a darkened helix tunnel, the 46-year-old ride had become excessively rough.
The park is replacing much of the offending track and enhancing the storyline with new effects.
Likewise, Pennsylvania’s Hersheypark is upgrading the trains on its 1946 wooden coaster, Comet, which should make for a smoother ride.
A more recent addition to the park’s midway, Skyrush, is also getting new coaster seats and restraints to address the uncomfortable ride it had been delivering to passengers of certain body types.
Yet another old wooden coaster, Wildcat at Lake Compounce in Bristol, Conn., is getting some TLC. The Gravity Group, the same company that’s building the Bobcat at Six Flags, will be bringing its prefab track to sections of the ride, which first began thrilling passengers in 1927.
The park’s other woodie, the highly regarded Boulder Dash, is also getting some high-tech Titan Track, which is made of steel.
Getting to and from the coasters and other attractions at the large and hilly Legoland New York in Goshen can be taxing, especially for the little kids that are the park’s primary audience. Good news: It will be easier this season with the opening of the Minifigure Skyflyer.
Guests will be able to ride in style over and across the park in decked-out gondolas. Before boarding, guests will also be encouraged to gather under the disco ball on the ride platform and bust some moves. The zaniness will continue inside the enclosed Party Pod cabins.