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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon - 2018 Mack Double Launch Coaster

As I said, it is a fantastic and thoroughly enjoyable ride - it’s just not the ‘coaster sent from God’ that everyone makes it out to be.

For the record I’m not being biased, part of me hopes Icon isn’t as good as Nemesis as it means BPB will have to build another new coaster to try again!
 
Temleh said:
Nemesis is a fantastic coaster but it can’t be just me who thinks it is overrated?
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No, I think that too. In fact you can say the same about Wickerman. I have opposed people who say that is the best woodie in the UK, it' then assumed that I hate the thing, quite untrue. For me Nemesis is the best steel coaster in the UK, but better exist elsewhere. As for WM, it' good fun, but a lot better can be found in the UK in my humble opinion.
 
I'm tempering my expectations fo Icon, but I'm confident that it will at least be a good ride. As with GCI wooden coasters using Millennium Flyer trains, the Mack Megacoaster is an excellent ride system (my favourite, in fact) that I've only ever had great experiences of, so I can barely imagine a poor example being built. What I think might hold this one back in my personal rankings though is the pacing. It could well surprise me, but from watching POVs I'm not sure about the prospect of the two inversions being lumped together between the sweeping first section and hoppy second section. I'm expecting to think another inversion later in the layout would have been nice, much as I do with Black Mamba which also fires off its inversions in quick succession.
 
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MakoMania said:
It'll easily beat Nemmy for those who prefer lap bars, smooth transitions and airtime. I'm one of those people and Nemmy is nowhere near the top coaster in the country for me. It's like with food, not everyone likes the same thing. Icon is looking like my kinda ride :p
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shakey said:
I also think there is something to be said for the visibility/views you get from a coaster, which is pretty much zero on nemesis unless you are on the front row. It's one ride aspect that most PB coasters do very well at due to the majority of them snaking through the park and around other rides.
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Temleh said:
Nemesis is a fantastic coaster but it can’t be just me who thinks it is overrated?
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Here here. <lights the blue touch paper> I appreciate that saying this on a Towers forum will go down like a lead balloon with some Nemmy fanboys, but personally I've never been a huge fan of it. Before you attempt to burn me at the stake, I do think it is a superb feat of engineering, the way it fits in that terrain, but as @shakey has said, only the front row gives any kind of view. We all like different things in coasters & other rides, and lets face it the forum would be rather boring if we didn't, I have just never been a fan of inverted coasters. I don't see the point in a ride that has you looking at the back of the seat in front whilst being thrown from pillar to post, hardly being able to see anything. Maybe I'm claustrophobic or something. I like to see views from a coaster, not the back of a seat hanging down before me. Its a good ride, but not a great ride as far as I'm concerned <dons tin hat and ducks for cover>. But then some people hated the Wild Mouse, which was my favourite ride, so each to his own!

Anyway, no point in turning this into a Nemmie bashing thread (not that I 'bashed' it anyway, I'm just not a fan!), for me the interactions with the other rides are what will make Icon a hugely fun ride. I'll wager that some people on here and/or other coaster forums haven't even seen Icon in person, and experienced first hand just how closely it weaves over, under & through other rides to great effect. Towers and other UK parks mostly have rides that just stand in their own footprint, you don't get that kind of isolation as much at BPB which is a big part of why BPB fans love the park so much.

Icon will be (and already is, for those of us who've been during testing) great to watch from other rides such as Steeplechase, The Big One, Big Dipper, Pleasure Beach Express, Grand Prix, Skyforce, etc. For example how cool will it be when the Icon train goes over the airtime hill when The Big One's train goes by on its lift hill, goes over your head near the end of your Steeplechase ride, snakes beneath you after Big Dipper's turnaround, or goes through the immelmann turn as the PBE train passes by?
 
Shame on you dippy!
Now that mousey is no more, I would put nemesis at the top of my list.
I think a lot of it is being around at the time it was being built, and watching the stone being dragged round (the whole of Staffordshire!).
Couldn't agree more about the limited view, but it is quite easy to bully your way onto either end of your row for a good view...and very easy if you are a single rider.
It was a good time to be a coaster fan, like this year.
 
Didn't breed, but I think the 25th is the start, so about ten days later should be safe.
By then you get the student visits, then straight into school weeks hell, and a lot of the little blighters had speedypasses last year, (some were given as school awards!)...be warned.
Don't think Icon queue will get reasonable until the middle of September, but time will tell.
 
rob666 said:
Didn't breed, but I think the 25th is the start, so about ten days later should be safe.
By then you get the student visits, then straight into school weeks hell, and a lot of the little blighters had speedypasses last year, (some were given as school awards!)...be warned.
Don't think Icon queue will get reasonable until the middle of September, but time will tell.
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I'm going on holiday for a week 1-8th June wanted to go before then god damnit might just need to go 29th/30th and be done with it

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Dipper_Dave said:
....goes over your head near the end of your Steeplechase ride, snakes beneath you after Big Dipper's turnaround, or goes through the immelmann turn as the PBE train passes by?
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You are making an almighty assumption that Icon and Steeplechase are running together. I have heard reports that this may not be the case (for any length of time anyway) of course I could have been fed misinformation...time will tell.
 
There was s day where Icon started testing at a point Steeplechase was closed. Icon stopped testing and Steeplechase opened. It was almost certainly a coincidence though, as Dippy says there’s been plenty of times when they both run together. In fact pretty much all the time.

Maybe the coincidence on that day is where that information came from though?
 
Ash84 said:
You are making an almighty assumption that Icon and Steeplechase are running together. I have heard reports that this may not be the case (for any length of time anyway) of course I could have been fed misinformation...time will tell.
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You mean dispached at dirrerant times or Steeple being shut when Icon is open?
 
venny said:
It was shut, but like I say, a coincidence.

In other news, Icon’s VIP Boarding Card holders have been given times for their exclusive ride starting the Saturday before official opening.

https://www.facebook.com/parkupdates/posts/1991185757798820:0
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Ah, so the first confirmed rides will be on Sat 19 May. Anyone know how many of those Boarding Cards were sold? I wonder when we'll first see human testing on the ride and what the chances are of soft opening for 'non-VIPs'
 
Do we think we are gonna see a video of Nick and Amanda riding 'the most exciting ride in the world'? Lol

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