[2024] Voltron Nevera | Mack Stryker Coaster

[Benzin]

I understand why vloggers and media in general want to give a positive spin so that they will be invited back again. But from your or my perspective as the consumer of their content why should we accept that! Isn't that basically saying 'I'm OK with being lied to, if it means someone I don’t know and can't trust gets to keep going to special VIP events'?

Again, people shouldn't just willingly follow other's opinions. Alas this is not the world we live in where many people blindly follow the word of their favourite influencer/artist/author and form their entire life around their views rather than have their own.

When Taron first opened everyone was calling it a 10/10 coaster, but I (having visited on opening day) thought it was lacking in layout to be such. But I don't have a following of people to force that opinion onto. So the Mrs will have to do.

Does Lost Gravity have a rattle problem on it these days? Don't recall it doing so 5 years ago.

 

[venny]

Lost Gravity is a little bumpy/rough on the outside seats. There is apparently additional bracing on Voltron’s wing seats in an attempt to address this. Seemingly that hasn’t worked and that is very surprising.

I’m struggling to understand how Mack have ended up delivering a product that has such a pronounced roughness issue. The most viable explanation seems to be that it’s attributable to this apparent last second wheel change. If that’s not the case then that suggests something more fundamental with the design, which I’m guessing will be difficult (if not impossible) to resolve. Let’s hope it is the wheels.

As for the honesty of vloggers, it seems to be a mixed bag. There are some who seem to be almost nakedly positive to the parks they don’t want to upset. There is a basic conflict of interest occurring in lots of these cases. That sways the opinion of some, and if you’ve been given a load of free stuff and not had to wait 3 hours to get on a ride, it’s very clear why that’s an effective strategy for the park to drum up positive reactions.

The more egregious instances however (annd I’m not talking about the channels mentioned above) are some channels whose output seems to be entirely effected by this conflict of interest - they will churn out consistent and overtly positive spin for some parks. Unsurprisingly there is a direct correlation between the positive spin and them being given free stuff or organising an event with said park, You’ll often see less positive output for the parks who they haven’t organised an event with or handed over free stuff.

 

[Martin]

This might be controversial, but I'm not sure how much I buy that it's an issue with certain trains. This whole phenomenon of trains riding significantly differently to each other seems to have started very recently. I never remember hearing this comment about new rides in the past, and now suddenly Nemesis and Voltron have the same problem.

I remember this being said about one of the trains (purple?) On Nash for about as long as I've been reading forums. It's definitely more common since The Smiler crash, but I'm sure that as least started the other way around, that the replacement train was smoother. Maybe it's just something people look for more now, or maybe it's a psychological thing. For like 95% of the time though I'm still unconvinced there's going to be that much difference unless something mechanical isn't right.

 

[Matt N]

I’m struggling to understand how Mack have ended up delivering a product that has such a pronounced roughness issue. The most viable explanation seems to be that it’s attributable to this apparent last second wheel change. If that’s not the case then that suggests something more fundamental with the design, which I’m guessing will be difficult (if not impossible) to resolve. Let’s hope it is the wheels.

For what it’s worth, the park POV posted a few days ago appeared quite noticeably rattly, and that subdued review I read on CoasterForce was also from the pass holder previews, before the stall. So I’m not sure that it’s necessarily down to the wheel change post-stall, or at least, I’m not sure that it’s entirely down to that wheel change.

It does seem like manufacturers other than B&M have really struggled to make 4-across seating work properly in terms of smoothness, though. Intamin’s 4-across seating on rides like Hyperion has often been said to provide a notably rougher experience on the outside seats, Gerstlauer coasters like The Smiler can often provide a notably rougher experience on the outside seats from my own experiences, and between Lost Gravity allegedly not having the smoothest outside seats and Voltron apparently being plainly rough in the outside seats, it seems like even Mack is struggling to replicate B&M’s success with 4-across seating.

 

[AstroDan]

I was never expecting a Blue Fire-smooth coaster after my experience with Lost Gravity and the layout on Voltton being so much more aggressive, but it is disappointing that this seems to be an issue - especially in those outside seats.

Voltron was always going to my an 'ooft' sort of coaster, there are a number of coasters that I do rate highly but either because of the forces or comfort, I couldn't ride more than 2 or 3 times in succession. Rides include Skyrush and Steel Vengeance.

Hopefully the issues with Voltron will be improved over the coming days. The idea that some trains are worse than others just seems plain stupid on the face of it.

 

[Josh555]

I understand why vloggers and media in general want to give a positive spin so that they will be invited back again. But from your or my perspective as the consumer of their content why should we accept that! Isn't that basically saying 'I'm OK with being lied to, if it means someone I don’t know and can't trust gets to keep going to special VIP events'?

I'll be honest in light of more recent reviews I'm starting to suspect EP cherry picked the people they invited for this very reason.
Lift hills and thrills was a bizarre choice. You can tell he doesn't know the park well (referring to Austria as Australia, and never having ridden those rides before the fire). He even acknowledged multiple times in the video that he wasn't sure why he was invited when so many people with long standing connections to the park weren't.

It’s always been thus.

Restaurant openings, hotel openings etc etc.

People get invited and treated like royalty so that they leave good reviews, VLOGers are just the new version of that.

 

[Rob]

The reports of roughness on Voltron are of course disappointing. This doesn’t seem to be universal though, this discussion on the German forums for example is very different to the discussion in this thread, and more of them have ridden it. So that does give me some hope that there are some trains where it’s much less of an issue, and EP will be able to sort it across all trains in time.

I think any coaster with wing seats is going to suffer from those outer seats being a little more uncomfortable that the inside seats. By nature of their design, those seats are not as well supported. And even B&M wing coasters are can be quite bouncy in outside seats.

And then there is Mack rattle to contend with, which is a thing on most of their coasters (Blue Fire being a rare exception). Often this rattle is fairly un-pronounced and doesn’t impact the ride experience much, but I guess a combination of potential Mack rattle on Voltron and wing seats could be a cause for some roughness.

I’m still looking forward to riding it next month. And maybe having my expectations checked a little won’t be a bad thing!

 

[Matt N]

In TPW’s updated vlog and review with more rides on Voltron, Shawn states that he spoke to a staff member, and the roughness is isolated to 2 trains and is due to them “not having had the full suspension fitted yet”. They are apparently safe to operate, but currently lack the suspension of the other trains, hence the rougher ride experience:

Shawn stated that his second ride was much more comfortable, so hopefully when they get the full suspension fitted on those trains, the experience should be much smoother.

 

[Sazzle]

Does Lost Gravity have a rattle problem on it these days? Don't recall it doing so 5 years ago.

I rode Lost Gravity in 2017 & 2022 and noticed the outside seats were rattly on both visits, noticeably more so in 2022.

Even when riding AlpinaBlitz, which had the same trains as Blue Fire, only few weeks after it opened I noticed a considerable rattle which made it a little uncomfortable (personal opinion only, I know many of the group didn’t feel the same!).

I am going to set my expectations low for Voltron, and hope they can be beat…!

 

[Dave]

The variability in reviews suggests different trains are on different wheel compounds so hopefully it’s something they can work on balancing comfort for the speed profile they want.