LiveForTheLaunch
CF Legend
Day 1- My Birthday & La Ronde
I was suppose to leave around five in the morning on the fourteenth, which is my birthday, but instead we left at about eleven at night on the thirteenth. The drive was ten hours to Montreal, and since most of the drive was done during the night, I slept for a lot of it. We had a hard time getting around Montreal once we got there, but eventually we found the bridge that goes over the St. Lawrence, and to my left I could see the park! We arrived in the parking lot at a little after ten, but it didn't actually open until eleven, so we had quite a while to wait. There was quite a bit of crowd, and I almost got trampled when the gates opened, but luckily almost everyone ran toward Vampire and Cobra, so I made my way to the back of the park where Goliath was, and to my surprise, it was literally a walk on for everything but the front row. So, I took back row, and soon enough we were off.
Goliath
Uhh, well it has more airtime hills than the newer B&M hypers, but unfortunately the airtime is just not very strong. The first drop was actually pretty fantastic, but the rest of it was just average floater over every hill. There are a few hills on the return trip that kinda give decent airtime, one hill of which I lost my phone on, but otherwise I think the coaster lacks a hammerhead turnaround which are really cool, as well as a helix. So overall, it's in my top twenty somewhere, but probably somewhere more towards 15-20 than 11-15. As for where it ranks among the hypers I have been on, it's second last to Raging Bull.. If the trims were off, that might be a different story, but sadly the trims were some of the most noticeable trims on any coaster I've ever been on.
7/10
After my first ride on Goliath, I noticed it was still a walkon, so I went on one more time and that was when my cell fell out of my pocket. So it was a pretty upsetting ride, but as for the actual quality of the coaster itself, it was a bit better than my first ride but still nothing amazing. I bought an on ride photo though, which I'll share whenever I get it scanned.
Since Monster was right near Goliath, I decided to go on that next. I went on this by myself because my dad decided he was gonna sit out with my stepmom.
Monster
Luckily, I went to the far side which had almost a walkon, compared to the closer side which had a huge line. I waited about five minutes, and I ended up sitting next to some French guy who kept trying to talk to me in his language. Eventually we were on our way down, and ummm, I have no idea how this beat El Toro in the Tournament of Thrills. It was about on par with Mean Streak as far as roughness goes, but little did I know that this side was going to be a ton smoother than the other side. It doesn't do anything really, just a bunch of turns and maybe a pop or two of airtime, but that was it. Definitely not up there as far as wooden coasters go.
5/10
Corkscrew was right next to Monster, so me and my dad hopped in line for it.
Corkscrew
What can I say? Something I noticed a lot throughout the rest of the day, this ride had absolutely no shade over the line, and no awning over the station, and mixed with 90+ degree weather, it really sucked. Good thing the line wasn't more than ten minutes, or I probably would have liquified. You didn't get to pick your seating, it was mostly just first come first serve, so we ended up second from the front. The ride itself was okay, basically what you would expect from a corkscrew coaster only with a few more random turns.
5/10
I'm pretty sure after this I went back to Monster to get my second credit on it, but this is where I realized how poor the operations are in this park. One train operation, with a line of maybe 50 people (seriously it was on the ramp leading to the station, so you figure maybe twenty minutes at the most), and I ended up waiting almost an hour for it. Not to mention I had two French kids in front of me talking ****, so that kind of annoyed me. At least the queue was covered, so I can't complain too badly, but finally I got on the ride, and yeah, it was terrible, and very rough.
Boomerang was next on the agenda..
Boomerang
No covered line anywhere once again, and it was a fairly long line. It was actually only maybe a 20 minute wait, but there were so many Flash Pass people and they kept just letting them on, and taking forever to load and check a train because they were too busy chatting and eating their stupid freezies. So finally we got on, and though it was a bit rougher than the other two I have been on, they're still fun rides in my opinion, and can be fairly intense.
6/10
I really wanted to do a water ride after this, but after looking at the line, we decided to skip it and much to my dismay, do the observation tower instead. It gave a good view of the park, and good thing we did it, because I totally forgot about the Dragon credit, until my dad said "What's that haunted castle thing over there" and I realized I completely missed it. So after we got off the observation tower, we went over around the Goliath area of the park again to pick up our Dragon credit.
Dragon
Besides someone letting out a horrible egg smelling fart in the enclosed part of the line and almost gassing everyone to death, it was a fairly short wait at about ten minutes, and the ride itself was kinda cute. It's pretty short, as it just goes down, around a few turns, and into a helix type thing, but it goes around twice and has a few lighting effects, so it turned out to be a fun kiddie coaster, almost like Skull Mountain or Thunder Run.
6/10
At this point, we absolutely needed to find some kind of water thing to cool us off, so we went around to Tobboggan Nordique, which had a long line so I just decided to skip it and go up to the kiddie area of the park to the little water fountain they had and played in that with my dad for a few minutes, haha. Hey, it beats waiting in line for more than an hour for a water ride!
We headed around to the Vampire and Cobra section of the park, where I was about to have the most horrible coaster experience I think I've EVER had.
Cobra
I had heard bad things about it, but I thought hey, people say Mantis is rough and it's really not too bad so this should be okay too. Okay, so it was one train operation yet again, and no covered lines yet again, but eventually after about twenty or so minutes (when it should have been ten at the most, horrible operations) we were boarding the train. As soon as we were about halfway into the loop, I wanted off. I was seriously swearing every word you can pretty much imagine, with lots of "OW" thrown in there. Basically what you should imagine is a Son of Beast in the form of a stand up coaster, that had the capability of causing my earrings to actually pour out blood and gave me an on and off headache for the rest of the night and into a bit of the next day.
2/10
I was pretty discouraged because before I went on Cobra, I saw Vampire wasn't running anymore, but luckily it began to operate once again!
Vampire
Okay, so a covered line, and two train operation; we're off to the right start, and kudos La Ronde for getting something right! I waited about ten to fifteen minutes for the back row of this, where I sat on the far right. Then I realized they made everyone keep their shoes on, whether they were flip flops or not, which is pretty stupid in my opinion, but whatever floats their boat. We were soon descending the first drop, and wow, definitely just as intense as the other Batman clones, only this was absolutely glass smooth.. My head didn't go anywhere near the restraint the entire time! This also has a cool, misty trench in it, which gives a neat effect and is good for cooling off in the hot weather. Overall it's my favourite Batman clone and I ended up riding twice.
9/10
I had all the credits I wanted, so the last thing we wanted to do was get a ride on the log ride. We waited only ten minutes, surprisingly, and the ride was pretty fun. We didn't get wet at all, except for a tiny splash or two, but still, it was a short wait, and it was a decent ride.
After that, it was only about four or five, so I decided I should just pick up some souveniers and head out, because at this point there wasn't anything else I could really get from the park. I didn't care too much about missing the two credits, one of which I would not be allowed to get anyway. It was too hot out, and the park operations were horrible that I was ready to leave and go eat somewhere.
The Park Itself
Yeah, it's a Six Flags park but it's definitely the worst one I have been to. Compared to Great America, and Great Adventure, and heck, even St. Louis, it should be very ashamed of itself! The ride operators weren't great at all, park operations were terrible with most things being one train operation with very slow loading and unloading, and there was no shade, anywhere. The atmosphere was very lacking in a lot of areas as well.. Some areas were a bit better than others, but overall nowhere I'd go back to.
6/10
Now, here's stuff you guys probably wanna see.. PICTURES!!. Keep in mind a lot of things were hard to get shots of, ESPECIALLY Goliath.
Bridge that the park is right under.
Yay for more bridge.
We're here! A ten hour drive and my poor dad hadn't slept at all for over thirty hours.
The entrance... Probably the nicest part of the entire park.
Entrance yet again.
Oh look, a nice water feature.. It might give guests the impression that the park might be nice. Sadly, that impression is false.
Another thing in the entrance plaza.
Snapped a random picture of the Pirate ride on my way to Goliath. Come to think of it, the park doesn't have many good flats.
I SEE IT!
Grr why did they have to plant trees in such a bad spot. I could barely see the coaster!
Yay, it's a brake run!
It does have one of my favourite logos, though.
That is basically the most of what you can see of the ride, unless you're in the observation deck or actually on the coaster.
Sweet deal!
From the observation tower.
A carousel I snapped a shot of while walking to Monster.
There it is! Two credits in one!
Much like Mean Streak, it LOOKS impressive, but it's not.
There she is again!
Some track.
From the observation tower, which did not have clean windows.
As you can see, they paid much attention to keeping the guests cool and in the shade.
Yay, track.
Damnit, I missed the train.
Boomyrangg!
I find these coasters photogenic for some reason.
Wheee!
Not a very unique shot.
Very intense going backwards..
Yay for Canada!
And yay for being eaten by a shark!
But boo for water rides with humongous lines..
BOOO!
Pizza Pizza!
Oh look, a random shot of a ferris wheel. If I were with CFers, they probably would have forced me on this, but since I wasn't with them, I didn't go anywhere near the thing!
Uh.. Yah, it's indoor, that's the only shot I could get.
A swing! Tour de Ville!
Tobboggan Nordique! Which I think means Nordic Toboggan but I dunno.
I spy a Canadian Flag.. And a missed credit.
Ha, McDonalds is stalking me.
The water feature me and my dad played in.. Sadly my lens decided not to open.
I had to take a picture of this kiddie ride because it has probably more trees next to it than the entire park has, total.
Cobra and Vampire, the next stop for me!
I didn't know it would be so bad.. Actually I think I might have rather been bitten by its namesake than ride the damn thing.
You suck.. And you're not photogenic.
Now HERE is a top ten coaster.
Ah yes, two train operation, shade, and a good ride.. Something not found often at La Ronde.
Yay!
A misty trench.. I wasn't tall enough to get the shot from over the fence, booo.
A shot tower that I didn't ride because the line was huge. Actually it wasn't huge, it had maybe fifty people, but with La Ronde 50 people probably is about a two hour wait.
Not nice theming/atmosphere.
A thing.. And my lens failed to open once again.
The log ride!
And then we left..
PART 2 COMING SOON- OTTAWA AND THOUSAND ISLANDS
I was suppose to leave around five in the morning on the fourteenth, which is my birthday, but instead we left at about eleven at night on the thirteenth. The drive was ten hours to Montreal, and since most of the drive was done during the night, I slept for a lot of it. We had a hard time getting around Montreal once we got there, but eventually we found the bridge that goes over the St. Lawrence, and to my left I could see the park! We arrived in the parking lot at a little after ten, but it didn't actually open until eleven, so we had quite a while to wait. There was quite a bit of crowd, and I almost got trampled when the gates opened, but luckily almost everyone ran toward Vampire and Cobra, so I made my way to the back of the park where Goliath was, and to my surprise, it was literally a walk on for everything but the front row. So, I took back row, and soon enough we were off.
Goliath
Uhh, well it has more airtime hills than the newer B&M hypers, but unfortunately the airtime is just not very strong. The first drop was actually pretty fantastic, but the rest of it was just average floater over every hill. There are a few hills on the return trip that kinda give decent airtime, one hill of which I lost my phone on, but otherwise I think the coaster lacks a hammerhead turnaround which are really cool, as well as a helix. So overall, it's in my top twenty somewhere, but probably somewhere more towards 15-20 than 11-15. As for where it ranks among the hypers I have been on, it's second last to Raging Bull.. If the trims were off, that might be a different story, but sadly the trims were some of the most noticeable trims on any coaster I've ever been on.
7/10
After my first ride on Goliath, I noticed it was still a walkon, so I went on one more time and that was when my cell fell out of my pocket. So it was a pretty upsetting ride, but as for the actual quality of the coaster itself, it was a bit better than my first ride but still nothing amazing. I bought an on ride photo though, which I'll share whenever I get it scanned.
Since Monster was right near Goliath, I decided to go on that next. I went on this by myself because my dad decided he was gonna sit out with my stepmom.
Monster
Luckily, I went to the far side which had almost a walkon, compared to the closer side which had a huge line. I waited about five minutes, and I ended up sitting next to some French guy who kept trying to talk to me in his language. Eventually we were on our way down, and ummm, I have no idea how this beat El Toro in the Tournament of Thrills. It was about on par with Mean Streak as far as roughness goes, but little did I know that this side was going to be a ton smoother than the other side. It doesn't do anything really, just a bunch of turns and maybe a pop or two of airtime, but that was it. Definitely not up there as far as wooden coasters go.
5/10
Corkscrew was right next to Monster, so me and my dad hopped in line for it.
Corkscrew
What can I say? Something I noticed a lot throughout the rest of the day, this ride had absolutely no shade over the line, and no awning over the station, and mixed with 90+ degree weather, it really sucked. Good thing the line wasn't more than ten minutes, or I probably would have liquified. You didn't get to pick your seating, it was mostly just first come first serve, so we ended up second from the front. The ride itself was okay, basically what you would expect from a corkscrew coaster only with a few more random turns.
5/10
I'm pretty sure after this I went back to Monster to get my second credit on it, but this is where I realized how poor the operations are in this park. One train operation, with a line of maybe 50 people (seriously it was on the ramp leading to the station, so you figure maybe twenty minutes at the most), and I ended up waiting almost an hour for it. Not to mention I had two French kids in front of me talking ****, so that kind of annoyed me. At least the queue was covered, so I can't complain too badly, but finally I got on the ride, and yeah, it was terrible, and very rough.
Boomerang was next on the agenda..
Boomerang
No covered line anywhere once again, and it was a fairly long line. It was actually only maybe a 20 minute wait, but there were so many Flash Pass people and they kept just letting them on, and taking forever to load and check a train because they were too busy chatting and eating their stupid freezies. So finally we got on, and though it was a bit rougher than the other two I have been on, they're still fun rides in my opinion, and can be fairly intense.
6/10
I really wanted to do a water ride after this, but after looking at the line, we decided to skip it and much to my dismay, do the observation tower instead. It gave a good view of the park, and good thing we did it, because I totally forgot about the Dragon credit, until my dad said "What's that haunted castle thing over there" and I realized I completely missed it. So after we got off the observation tower, we went over around the Goliath area of the park again to pick up our Dragon credit.
Dragon
Besides someone letting out a horrible egg smelling fart in the enclosed part of the line and almost gassing everyone to death, it was a fairly short wait at about ten minutes, and the ride itself was kinda cute. It's pretty short, as it just goes down, around a few turns, and into a helix type thing, but it goes around twice and has a few lighting effects, so it turned out to be a fun kiddie coaster, almost like Skull Mountain or Thunder Run.
6/10
At this point, we absolutely needed to find some kind of water thing to cool us off, so we went around to Tobboggan Nordique, which had a long line so I just decided to skip it and go up to the kiddie area of the park to the little water fountain they had and played in that with my dad for a few minutes, haha. Hey, it beats waiting in line for more than an hour for a water ride!
We headed around to the Vampire and Cobra section of the park, where I was about to have the most horrible coaster experience I think I've EVER had.
Cobra
I had heard bad things about it, but I thought hey, people say Mantis is rough and it's really not too bad so this should be okay too. Okay, so it was one train operation yet again, and no covered lines yet again, but eventually after about twenty or so minutes (when it should have been ten at the most, horrible operations) we were boarding the train. As soon as we were about halfway into the loop, I wanted off. I was seriously swearing every word you can pretty much imagine, with lots of "OW" thrown in there. Basically what you should imagine is a Son of Beast in the form of a stand up coaster, that had the capability of causing my earrings to actually pour out blood and gave me an on and off headache for the rest of the night and into a bit of the next day.
2/10
I was pretty discouraged because before I went on Cobra, I saw Vampire wasn't running anymore, but luckily it began to operate once again!
Vampire
Okay, so a covered line, and two train operation; we're off to the right start, and kudos La Ronde for getting something right! I waited about ten to fifteen minutes for the back row of this, where I sat on the far right. Then I realized they made everyone keep their shoes on, whether they were flip flops or not, which is pretty stupid in my opinion, but whatever floats their boat. We were soon descending the first drop, and wow, definitely just as intense as the other Batman clones, only this was absolutely glass smooth.. My head didn't go anywhere near the restraint the entire time! This also has a cool, misty trench in it, which gives a neat effect and is good for cooling off in the hot weather. Overall it's my favourite Batman clone and I ended up riding twice.
9/10
I had all the credits I wanted, so the last thing we wanted to do was get a ride on the log ride. We waited only ten minutes, surprisingly, and the ride was pretty fun. We didn't get wet at all, except for a tiny splash or two, but still, it was a short wait, and it was a decent ride.
After that, it was only about four or five, so I decided I should just pick up some souveniers and head out, because at this point there wasn't anything else I could really get from the park. I didn't care too much about missing the two credits, one of which I would not be allowed to get anyway. It was too hot out, and the park operations were horrible that I was ready to leave and go eat somewhere.
The Park Itself
Yeah, it's a Six Flags park but it's definitely the worst one I have been to. Compared to Great America, and Great Adventure, and heck, even St. Louis, it should be very ashamed of itself! The ride operators weren't great at all, park operations were terrible with most things being one train operation with very slow loading and unloading, and there was no shade, anywhere. The atmosphere was very lacking in a lot of areas as well.. Some areas were a bit better than others, but overall nowhere I'd go back to.
6/10
Now, here's stuff you guys probably wanna see.. PICTURES!!. Keep in mind a lot of things were hard to get shots of, ESPECIALLY Goliath.
Bridge that the park is right under.
Yay for more bridge.
We're here! A ten hour drive and my poor dad hadn't slept at all for over thirty hours.
The entrance... Probably the nicest part of the entire park.
Entrance yet again.
Oh look, a nice water feature.. It might give guests the impression that the park might be nice. Sadly, that impression is false.
Another thing in the entrance plaza.
Snapped a random picture of the Pirate ride on my way to Goliath. Come to think of it, the park doesn't have many good flats.
I SEE IT!
Grr why did they have to plant trees in such a bad spot. I could barely see the coaster!
Yay, it's a brake run!
It does have one of my favourite logos, though.
That is basically the most of what you can see of the ride, unless you're in the observation deck or actually on the coaster.
Sweet deal!
From the observation tower.
A carousel I snapped a shot of while walking to Monster.
There it is! Two credits in one!
Much like Mean Streak, it LOOKS impressive, but it's not.
There she is again!
Some track.
From the observation tower, which did not have clean windows.
As you can see, they paid much attention to keeping the guests cool and in the shade.
Yay, track.
Damnit, I missed the train.
Boomyrangg!
I find these coasters photogenic for some reason.
Wheee!
Not a very unique shot.
Very intense going backwards..
Yay for Canada!
And yay for being eaten by a shark!
But boo for water rides with humongous lines..
BOOO!
Pizza Pizza!
Oh look, a random shot of a ferris wheel. If I were with CFers, they probably would have forced me on this, but since I wasn't with them, I didn't go anywhere near the thing!
Uh.. Yah, it's indoor, that's the only shot I could get.
A swing! Tour de Ville!
Tobboggan Nordique! Which I think means Nordic Toboggan but I dunno.
I spy a Canadian Flag.. And a missed credit.
Ha, McDonalds is stalking me.
The water feature me and my dad played in.. Sadly my lens decided not to open.
I had to take a picture of this kiddie ride because it has probably more trees next to it than the entire park has, total.
Cobra and Vampire, the next stop for me!
I didn't know it would be so bad.. Actually I think I might have rather been bitten by its namesake than ride the damn thing.
You suck.. And you're not photogenic.
Now HERE is a top ten coaster.
Ah yes, two train operation, shade, and a good ride.. Something not found often at La Ronde.
Yay!
A misty trench.. I wasn't tall enough to get the shot from over the fence, booo.
A shot tower that I didn't ride because the line was huge. Actually it wasn't huge, it had maybe fifty people, but with La Ronde 50 people probably is about a two hour wait.
Not nice theming/atmosphere.
A thing.. And my lens failed to open once again.
The log ride!
And then we left..
PART 2 COMING SOON- OTTAWA AND THOUSAND ISLANDS
