Park Review
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Las Vegas, Nevada October, 2001 This has been an interesting two weeks for me. I have, in eleven days, ridden more coasters in a shorter time span, on opposite sides of the country, than ever before. The middle of this was the coaster weekend that George has already summed up well enough for me to skip. Thanks guys - I had an awesome time!!! After our trip, I took George back to the airport and hopped right on out to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My friends picked me up and we headed right to the Excalibur to check in, what's right across the street? The New York, New York Casino and the Manhattan Express coaster. Knowing what I wanted, my friends agreed that we would go there right after we got some In-N-Out burgers (forgive me for my awkward priorities: In-N-Out rules!). We made our way through the wonderfully-themed casino (better than the real city anyways, which is a festering, garbage-ridden, sh**hole) and they want $10.50 to ride this thing - for only one ride! I almost turned and walked away, but I thought it was my only opportunity to experience the heartline twist. Besides, staying across the street, I would have caved in anyways, so might as well do it. We sat in the back and, with those high seatbacks, I couldn't see anything. But I could sure feel it. The straight pull-down OTSR's I have only seen on one other coaster, Texas Tornado at Six Flags AstroWorld, and they banged the crap out of my neck. (At least my ears were high enough to escape!) . The layout: giant lift hill, drop halfway down and back up, turn, large drop, turn, vertical loop, and then to the only saving feature of this ride, the hella� sweet heartline spin into a diving loop. From there it�s into the midcourse brakes, followed by an oval of small bunny hills which didn�t give much air. Then it's back inside to unload - and for $10.50, they wouldn't give me a re-ride, but would happily take another $5 to ride again. All I can say about this coaster after spending that much cash on it is: "If you pay $10.50 to ride this, you must be.........ON DRUGS!!!!!!!!!!" The next night we went up the strip to Stratoshpere ($15 to go up and ride High Roller and Big Shot once each). High Roller makes three circles, they send you around twice, and it's really high up. The Big Shot, on the other hand, is incredible! Although not very powerful and not very tall, it's one hell of a ride, especially when you leave the OTSR as loose as possible. I really felt like I was going to fall all the way down to the strip! I loved it so much, I happily paid the $3 to do it again. The next day we drove out to Buffalo Bill�s for Desperado ($6). It�s a pretty decent Arrow hypercoaster and, at one time, the tallest, fastest in the world. The first drop is similar to Magnum into an underground tunnel. You�ve all seen it on the Discovery Channel so I wont bore you It�s a good ride but rough (duh!). I sat in the middle row of the last car, while my friends sat in the last row (I learned my lesson on Magnum already!). They stopped us in the station on the end of the ride to do a quick inspection before they moved us up to the unloading. They had warned us about this before we loaded, and even said we could get a re-ride. Afterwards, when we stayed in the car, one girl said we could ride again, but the other kicked us out. Oh well, only got one ride. We also did the log flume ($5) with the light guns that you shoot at targets - they sent us twice. The last thing before heading to the airport for the red-eye home, Speed: the Ride, which is easily the best ride in Vegas. The pricing is $8 for two rides, back to back. There are no options for single rides, but they do give you the opportunity to get off if you don't want to go again. It has a very powerful launch (0-45 in two seconds) into a 90-degree left turn banked well past 90 degrees. This turn dives into a tunnel out into a vertical loop and then another set of LIMs (35-70mph in two sec), a small right bank, then a left turn into vertical spike. Then it�s all in reverse, with noticeable braking by the midcourse LIMs. The only head banging came in the overbanked turn right after the launch (both forward and backwards). It�s a great ride, and very re-ridable � a very, very, very close second to Mr. Freeze. One thing I missed was the LIMs on the spike pushing you even higher. (on Mr. Freeze, not Speed). First of all, if you go there planning to ride the coasters, when you ride Desperado (40 miles outside of the city) you get a coupon for buy one get one free rides on Manhattan Express. If you decide you need to ride Manhattan Express, at least do Desperado first and get two-for-one on it. As for the proposed Stratosphere drop ride, they had an awesome seven foot-or-so tall model of it in the casino and also a model of what the cars will look like. The cars will be enclosed (for the high speed, I'm sure) and will feature stadium style seating just like in the newer movie theaters. There will be three rows � the first row seats three, the second seats four, and the third seats five. The cars will be carried at a level attitude up a separate elevator next to the drop track and pointed out at about a 45-degree angle from it (so if the track drops east, you will be facing southeast on the trip up). At the top, it will make the swing onto the track, still level, and then push out a few feet or so (it's a small model, so scale is hard to determine) and then there's the drop! It looks like a pretty tight radius drop off, much like a B&M dive machine, but I�m not sure if it will hold you there or not. The entire track is boxed, so it's attached at the top as well as the bottom. It does the fishhook thing and then at the bottom it exits the track much the same way a first generation freefall does. On the model, there's a small bunny hill-type thing on the exiting track, which makes me wonder how fast it will exit the main track, as well as whether it will be braked coming back down the fishhook and exit directly, or be allowed to valley naturally. There was a box by the model with a slip you could fill out and sign, which acted as a petition to build it. The last question was something like, �If built, will you come back to Las Vegas to ride the world�s tallest and fastest thrill ride?" You then had the option to circle yes or no. I changed the simple "yes" into a "HELL YES!!", circled it, and dropped it in. Overall, Las Vegas was a great city to visit, but it�s so obvious that the main goal is to suck you dry of all your money. Luckily, we were able to get away and visit Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, as well as Valley of Fire State Park. There is a lot of entertaining stuff you can do at night that doesn't cost a thing - just be prepared to walk a lot (and I mean a LOT!). Between walking barefoot at Wet �n Wild for four hours, the day at Islands Of Adventure, all the walking on our little coaster weekend, and then Vegas to top it off (with hiking at Lake Mead) I have countless blisters and my feet were literally on fire for most of Vegas. But it's been a great two weeks and I'm now ready for two months of very hard class work and training. AFLAC!!! -Brian F. (Who is hella� mad wicked pissed that he didn't get any CHOST!!!!!)
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