Drachenfire

[mmcirvin]

I found out just a few days ago that my favorite roller coaster at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg was quietly shut down and dismantled several years back because people were complaining of neck injuries. That sounds plausible to me. Probably it was for the best.

I get the urge to ride on roller coasters about once every ten years, and I ride on them several times, and that's enough for that decade. Which is good because otherwise I might be this guy. A definite theme starts to dominate his narrative around part 3.

Update: Aha... he has a picture of the defunct coaster in question here, as well as some of the ones they put up later. Sounds like he had a better time that day.

Hey... I guess this means I've ridden a roller coaster that he hasn't!! Ha ha! Ow, my liver!

Comments

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Last time I was at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, it was before they had installed Apollo's Chariot and ruined Fabio's face with an errant mallard. I enjoyed Drachenfire quite a lot, but it did feel like it raised the stakes on previous coasters. (I didn't think it was bad, though, like I might say of the Anaconda at [Paramount's] King's Dominion, which had some turns that gave me tunnel vision at times.)

BG does a good job of covering the spread of coasters, with the classic Loch Ness Monster, the suspended-car Big Bad Wolf, and the standing-while-hanging Alpengeist, as well as, somewhere in the back, a rattletrap buggy number that looked too jerky for me to ride.

Digressing: When I was last there about 5 years ago, I was finally old enough for the brewery tour. (The monorail, Eagle One, is not piloted by Martin Landau.) There's actually some good stuff there these days-- A-B's diversified its Michelob and Bud lines a little to emulate the widely available microbrews (well, let's call them small-batch brews). Not to say I drink the stuff when I'm at home (this is Seattle, where people brew as many beers as coffees!), but not a bit of it was bad drinking on a hot Virginia-Summer day.

Out here in the Pacific Northwest, there are literally no theme parks, only permanent and semi-perm fair-type places with rides of varying complexity and mobility. That includes a couple of rollercoasters, one of them at Seattle Center. But as much as I love a coaster, I feel no attraction to go on it-- all turns and you never drop more than 4-5 stories, right into a turn at that. Owmyneck, I say. I haven't ridden it once in the 10 years I've lived here, even though I live mere blocks away.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I guess there are some significant theme parks in New England, but I've never been to any. There was the water park that samantha2074 dragged me to several years ago only to learn that I wasn't kidding when I said water parks just weren't my thing. Especially when it's not really all that hot and the lines are immensely long, but I don't think I'd like them even under the best of circumstances.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

These discussions always make me feel old. The last time I went to Kings Dominion was a very, very long time ago, I think before the Anaconda even existed, before it was Paramount's anything, and before I was willing to ride on roller coasters. I think all they had back then was the Rebel Yell, the King Kobra (which wasn't so much a roller coaster as a disembodied piece of one) and the Scooby-Doo over in kiddie land.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I'm a big wussy boy. The Scooby Doo was the only thing I rode.

P.S. Go check out J_Brew's journal. Big coaster nut there

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I am pretty wussy as they come, too; not really big on thrill rides except when I'm in just the right mood, and even then there are some I just won't do. Nothing with prolonged inversion while dangling high up, none of those barfulous swinging-boat things, nothing involving extended or repeated periods of free fall; that stuff just makes me wanna puke. Way worse than roller coasters. I'm not sure I'd even like to ride one of those standing coasters like the Alpengeist; never tried it.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, and those Tower of Terror type things where you know you're suddenly going to drop down some hellacious shaft but you don't know when? No frigging way.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

"So, Matt," I hear you thinking, "why will you ride on roller coasters that fling you around upside down and have big drops in them?"

I was thinking about this last night. Part of it is that when a roller coaster has you inverted, there are usually G forces holding you in, and the long drops typically aren't completely vertical, because the coaster and its passengers are supposed to be held down by inertial forces most of the time.

With really modern coasters that's not necessarily 100% true, I suppose. But even then, the emphasis is different from the other rides; you're strapped into a crazy vehicle and the thrill is in the question of where the crazy vehicle is going. Whereas with some non-coaster rides the thrill is in the implicit, if idle, threat that your seat might drop out from under you entirely or drop you out into space. That puts even really wild coasters just barely on the right side of my limit, whereas the swinging boat is not. Roller coasters make me scream but they don't make me nauseated.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I was wary of Alpengeist, too, but it was perfectly fun. The trick is to get the whole rig adjusted from the get-go, including the angle of the "Seat" which is, I regret to say, bicycle-seat-like, though you don't really sit on it.

And I can tell you that Kings Dominion's "Berzerker," (I think) which is a swinging boat ride that does, in fact, stay inverted (SFX: lots of coins falling) for a few seconds in the on a couple of occasions during the ride, is going way too far for me. However, I do like Busch Garden's "Battering Ram," which is a less X-treme and more traditional swinging boat ride. I also get nauseated by "Da Vinci's Cradle," which is a kind of boat ride that moves up, down, fore and after on a pair of circular arms. It stays level the whole time, but it tends to be nauseating for me. (SFX: coins sliding and sheet metal, then falling)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I rode the Battering Ram once and was instantly convinced that I didn't want to repeat the experience ever again, let alone try the upside-downy version. I haven't ridden Da Vinci's Cradle, but did ride a rattletrap outdoor version of the same thing at Elitch Gardens (I think it was called the Rainbow) that was unpleasant enough to turn me off those forever, too.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the Hanna-Barbara days. Well, last I checked (over 7 years ago, I think) it's better than it used to be, and the King Cobra is long gone, but it's been replaced by some pretty cool rides, IIRC. Rebel Yell's still there, and so is the wooden coaster, the Grizly.

The last time I was there, I had just moved to Norfolk from Bremerton, WA, and about 4 months later, my next-door neighbor from Bremerton made the same move, to down the street. (This isn't as weird as it sounds-- in both cases we were living on major naval bases, and our fathers both got transfers.) We drove up one day to Kings Dominion and who did we run into in line for the Anaconda but another guy who lived 2 houses down from us in Bremerton-- his dad was transfered to the Pentagon and he and his sister had driven down for a day of coasters. Yaay.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

BBW was pretty good... a similar ride at S Flags Magic Mountain, Ninja, was really dull. My favorite roller coaster was Viper, also at SFMM. I haven't been to a theme park in years, though, not even the ones nearby (Paramount's Great America, Six Flags Marine World, Raging Waters). Gotta do that this year, i think.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Oh, you reminded me that south of Seattle there's "Wild Waves," which started as a water park (I think I have about the same dislike of water parks as Matt, with the added bonus that as a redhead, I'm guaranteed to get a sunburn out of the deal), but has in fact added on the "Enchanted Village," which is, come to think of it, a real theme park with rides and everything. They might even have a coaster or two, but that I could forget the place exists close by should tell you, at least, that it pales when compared to Busch Gardens. But it was a bit of an oversight on my part, doh.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I burn easily too, but I can deal with sun exposure as long as I put on tremendous amounts of factor 30 sunblock, and keep putting it on frequently. I think I'm about one step below redheads in vulnerability, but up half a step again from baldness if I don't have the opportunity to wear a hat, which is not convenient at water parks.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Also, the Loch Ness Monster and Big Bad Wolf are sentimental favorites just because I think I've ridden them more times than any other coasters. The Loch Ness was initially the only coaster in the park, but it's a pretty good one (even without the enhancements to the tunnel bit that were tacked on later), so it wasn't a bad start. But I only got up the nerve to ride the things after the Big Bad Wolf opened, and I think the Big Bad Wolf was actually the first steel coaster I ever rode (I'd ridden some profoundly scary wooden ones at Denver's Elitch Gardens earlier; that coaster freak doesn't like Elitch Gardens at all).