[gabed]

Part 1

I spent the last half of last week in Manhattan with my family while doing as many touristy things as possible. I had never been before so you could definitely say I was excited about this trip. One of the things I really wanted to do while here was ride the subway to Luna Park and see what Coney Island was all about.

Now I had low hopes for this park because expecting too much out of it would just be silly. It's kinda like the Zamperla version of Europa Park except there are only Zamperla rides and Zamperla really doesn't give a crap half the time here. However, there were still several coasters I had never ridden as well as a flat rides I had never tried. So setting aside the park's unwillingness to care, I still wanted to visit.

The first coaster of the day was...

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Soarin' Eagle. I was genuinely terrified of this because of the wave of bad reviews Zamperla's flyers receive on a daily basis. After only having the endurance for one ride, I can honestly say that out of now 93 coasters, this is the absolute worst coaster I have ever ridden. I never thought anything could top Mantis but this thing just managed to do it. Congrats.

There are so many problems with this design in general that I honestly wonder if Zamperla had any clue what they were doing. The bird cage you are strapped into does nothing but beat you to death and force all air out of your lungs. Not to mention the worse-than-Ricochet curves that slap your body all over the place.

I really hate to sound so negative, but this coaster is simply awful. It depresses me to think thousands of people are unfortunate enough to ride it each year. Truth be told, I like to imagine there was a celebratory parade in Denver when this thing left Elitch Gardens.

Trying to force that traumatizing event out of my memory, I headed over to the park's newest coaster.

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This was another coaster I was dreading due to all the negativity circulating around it. In one Coasterforce video, you can actually here a passenger say “That was awful, absolutely awful. How can that be so bad it's brand new!” That was in 2014. Who knew how bad this death trap had gotten in two years. Well I was about to find out.

Let's get one thing straight, no matter who you are this ride will rearrange your skull. Weirdly though, I actually found it enjoyable. Like Carolina Cyclone, it's painful and fun wrapped into one. Not to mention to strong ejector airtime near the end of the ride.

So a little fun fact I didn't know about until I visited, the Wonder Wheel is actually on an entirely different park that sits in the middle of Luna Park. Unfortunately it was closed so I didn't get to ride.

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Steeplechase was next and after the last two rides I really wasn't sure what to expect.

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I was pleasantly surprised with this one. It's by no means a world-class thrill machine, but it's really good for what it is. It's fairly smooth with a pretty powerful launch.

To be continued...

[gabed]

Part 2

Next I headed to ride a few of the park's flat rides. The first one was Air Race. Definitely one of the more interesting flat rides I've ever ridden.

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Afterwards I went towards Luna 360, one of those mini frisbees you see ever now and then. Unlike other frisbees, this one actually made a full 360 degree rotation over the structure. Though fun, I mainly just rode it because it was there.

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The fourth coaster of the day was The Tickler, the park's spinning coaster with the most unsettling name ever. There really isn't much to talk about here. It goes up, it spins, it stops.

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Luna Park's kiddie coaster was closed which made the Cyclone the last one of the day. Along with being my 93rd coaster, it is also the oldest coaster I've ever ridden. The ride itself was okay, what made it great was being slammed (In a good way) all around the car due to a lack of seat belts or modern safety features.

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As soon as you step into the station, you discover that this ride has been stuck in the 20s. There are no gates... anywhere. Rather than using one of those nifty control panels, the ride is controlled by large levers operators move to dispatch and stop the train. Whether or not this ride has purposely not been renovated or if Zamperla is just too lazy to do so, I have no idea. Neither of those would really surprise me. Either way, I found it to be very cool as it added to the historic aspect of the ride.

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All in all, I'm glad I visited the park. Yeah, it's by no means the best park in the world but I would definitely visit if you get the chance. Unfortunately it was freezing outside which shortened my stay at the park.

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That's all the new coaster credits for me until this summer where I'll be visiting multiple parks. Thanks for reading!

[Jonathan]

Steeplechase is a lot of fun. I wish more parks would install those. Great family rides. If you hated Soarin' Eagle, make sure you never go to Rye Playland. I swear the one at Rye Playland is SIGNIFICANTLY worse. A true torture machine.

I haven't been down there yet this year (congrats on beating me even though I live a 30 minute bike ride away), but last year Thunderbolt was actually better than opening year. In the offseason after it opened they worked on smoothing out the track and corrected most of the roughness problems. Now it's just insanely intense. One of the most intense rides I've ever been on.

The Cyclone actually just had a $5.5 million rehab completed over the last five years (might still be ongoing, I'm not sure). It was an entirely different ride before, much wilder and more intense than it is today, but also very rough, ESPECIALLY on a wheel seat which was absolute torture. Now it is no longer the wild ride it used to be, but it's so smooth so I think I enjoy it more. There's a lot of debate over that one. It's also a NYC Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places, so hopefully a lot of the cool historical details like the manual braking and the old trains stay for years to come. I know there has been some controversy over it potentially getting new trains that are lighter and do not damage the track so much.

Ultimately I'm torn on the renovation/sanitization of Coney Island. It's great that they've managed to get people going there again, but most of the character that it had has been traded in for stuff like Applebees. And while I very much appreciate Zamperla giving a nod to the past in the names of its rides and the entrance gates off Surf Avenue, it really could be so much more, and is a sad reminder of what it used to be like. Going to Tivoli really spoiled me on what an urban amusement park can be like with enough money and attention to detail. The Brooklyn Museum recently had an awesome exhibit on Coney Island.

On a side note, Stillwell Terminal is one of my favorite subway stations in the system. Very European looking. It is also the most energy efficient transit facility in the country.