Park Review
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Phoenix, Arizona July, 2001 After a seven-hour drive through the California desert with two kids in the backseat of the car, we were more than ready for a stop as we reached Phoenix. Thankfully, Castles n' Coasters was waiting for us right off of I-17, and after some ducking and diving around stop and go traffic, we were able to pull into the parking lot and get out and stretch our legs. The park is, in essence, an overgrown amusement center, with two miniature golf courses, a main building themed like a castle with a huge arcade inside, and a ride park in the back of the castle. The park was clean, employees were generally friendly (though there were a couple of exceptions), and the air conditioning inside the castle was wonderful! They also did a very nice job of having misters blowing and lots of shade around the park, which helped to make the 100+ degrees that it was outside bearable. Because of some confusion over their pricing and what I had seen on their website (which has since been updated), we were able to pay $10 each for unlimited ride, which worked very well for the couple of hours that we were there. The ride park consists of several rides - a nice go-cart track with several double-seat cars (very nice for taking the kids with us around the track), a carousel, some kiddie rides, a Himalaya, a pirate ship and a few others. The bumper boats were among the wettest I've been on, with good splashes, and a nice dripping cave/waterfall that you could steer under to get yourself wet. And the log-flume, while a typical portable layout, also had scenery (a cave) added to it, was nice and full, and gave us a good dousing. We only had time for one ride each on the two coasters, since the wife was tired and not feeling well, but I was happy to make due with what I had. First up was the Desert Storm, a steel double looper built by Hopkins, and one of only five coasters that they have built (one of the others also being here). They give rides either every 30 minutes or when they have at least 14 passengers. Thankfully, we filled up pretty quick, hopped into the second seat from the front, pulled down our lapbars (no OTSRs!!), and were ready to go. After going up one of the slowest chain lifts I've ever seen, it takes a twisting dive down to the first loop, makes a couple of turns to come back around and hits the second loop parallel to the first, then does some more twists and turns back to the station. Not a long ride, but not a horribly short one either - especially considering the size of the park. There were some definite bumps that if we had shoulder restraints might have hurt, but as it was they weren't to bad. But I can imagine that they were probably much worse in the back of the train. Not a bad coaster. Not great, but not bad. If I had to grade it on a scale of 1-10 it would probably get about a 5-6. Their second coaster is a Hopkins junior coaster called the Patriot. My 6-year-old daughter was more than willing to hop in the back seat with me for this one. Going up the tire-propelled lift hill there are several panels on the power banks of the hill painted with all sorts of characters "riding the coaster." The ones of Bill Clinton and Al Gore were particularly amusing. After the hill, the Patriot takes a short twisting drop to the right, follows a kind of twisting figure-8 with a bump or two in it, comes out of the figure-8 around another turn, and then hits the brake run. A short ride, but made better when they had us roll through the station for a second trip around. My daughter had an absolute blast on this, and I found it a good ride also, at least as good overall as Desert Storm. Overall, it was a nice stop, and I would have liked to have more time. While it is not a major park in any way, it is really the only park within a decent day's drive with coasters, and I found it a very nice local park/amusement center. While maybe not anything to brag about, it is definitely not something to be ashamed of, either. By way of comparisons, when I talked about the parks in Bogota that we visited back in April, Castles n' Coasters compares pretty favorably with them, being about the same scale, size, etc. And definitely a nice place to visit and play.
Keep on ridin',
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