Slaphead's Canada report

[DiogoJ42]

Hilary's best friend, her husband and child emigrated to Canada a few years ago. We've been meaning to pay them a visit for ages. Unfortunately they live in a town called Regina, in Saskatchewan. You cannot fly directly there from the UK, you have to change in either Calgary, Edmonton, or Toronto. So we figured we may as well fly out via Edmonton to hit West Edmonton Mall's Galaxyland, and back via Toronto to visit Canada's Wonderland. It would be daft not to, eh?

We got up to plenty of stuff in the 12 days we were in the land of moose and maple, so this TR is going to include some non coaster related things. As usual with me, expect much waffle and diatribe, although for once I did actually take a few pictures (photo credits are a mixture of mine and Hilary's).

**********

Day one: Flight number one, London > Edmonton, eh?

Nine hours on a 767. Urg.

NOTE: the following was written as I was hitting the nicotine withdrawel wall...

I loath Heathrow with all my soul. I have avoided flying via the place at all costs for the last 20 years, but sadly this time we had no choice. I don't care how shiney the new terminal 2 is, it's still an airport, and thus my definition of hell.

For the second trip in a row I "randomly" set off the metal detector, dispite having no metal on me. The resulting frisk was downright obscene. Hand down my boxers in front of everyone. Junk was touched.

We finally got on the plane, only to have a 40 minute delay leaving the gate for reasons never disclosed.

Airline food is still as dire as it always has been. And why the hell are they waking me up to give me a tub of bloody ice cream? Do I look twelve to you? I swear one day I'm going to print a sign and stick it on my face when flying, "If you wake me up, we'd better be either crashing, or you are going to ask me to join the mile high club. I have no interest in the second rate slop you call food."

Currently gone over 8 hours without a fag and frankly, I'm just about ready to kill. 3 hours until we land.

Now I remember why I haven't flown long distance for 20 years.

**********

We arrived in Edmonton eventually, to be greeted by a very Illuminati looking poster at passport control.

Then there was the ice hockey themed baggage carousel:

Followed by this on the side of a bus outside. Should we tell them?

After one of the best fags I have ever smoked, we jumped in a cab to take us to the Fantasyland Hotel, in West Edmonton Mall. We had booked one of the Hollywood themed suites on the top floor.

The entrance is a bit underwhelming...

But this was what greeted us as we exited the lifts:

The whole floor was lit with nothing but pink neon and UV tubes. It felt more like Amsterdam than canada!

We had a king size bed, bigger than most UK cars. The room was full of colour changing LEDs as well.

And a dancing pole in the corner (you can't really see because of the flash, but the pole is clear plastic with pink neon inside it).

There was also a hot tub in the corner of the bedroom. Through the glass you can see the shower in the bathroom. This is definitely a couple's room!

**********

After checking in and freshening up, we went in search of dinner. There are many places to choose from in the world's biggest shopping mall, but we ended up having a huge pizza and a pint of something Canadian... at what to our body clocks was about half past four in the morning. It had more cheese on it than I thought possible, and I like a lot of cheese.

I quickly realised that the locals had trouble understanding my London twang, despite us supposedly speaking the same language. I made an effort from then on to talk slowly and clearly, which seemed to help.

We retired to our suite to make much needed use of the hot tub before crashing out on the huge bed.


Day two: Galaxyland, eh?

Ride count:
Autosled x 2
Galaxy Orbiter x 5
Mindbender x 9
Sonic Twister x 1
Cosmic Spinner x 1
Haunted Castle x 1
Fun House x 1
Cosmic Revolution x 1
Quirks In The Works x 2
Galaxy Quest x 1


We had a nice lie in this day. Galaxyland is small, and was open from 10:00 - 21:00, so there was no rush. The bed was too comfy to want to leave!

This was the view that greeted us upon opening our curtains:

The large glass roof in front of us is the water park, the smaller glass roof is over the ice rink, and off in the distance on the left, the sloped roof with curved sides fits snugly around Mindbender.

We wandered through the mall, in search of breakfast, and quickly decided to try out Tim Hortons. If you haven't heard of it, it's a Canadian coffee chain. The coffee itself is "acceptable", but the real draw is the donuts. *drools* We sat overlooking the ice rink in the middle of the mall...

...Only in Canada. Onwards to Galaxyland!

It's not a big park, being indoors. But they have some good rides, and two amazing ones.
Upon arrival, naturally we had to take a Mindbender selfie.

The theme is loosely space based, in bright shades of blue, yellow and pink.
The park has very limited staff, so they operate rides on rotation. Thankfully, it was a quiet day, and no ride was closed for more than half an hour. It's quite a nice little place. Staff were all very friendly and chatty. While this had an effect on throughput, it was quiet enough that it didn't affect our day.

There was some token Halloween theming scattered about...

Sadly, Dragon Wagon, their very kiddy coaster, had a maximum height limit that was roughly at nipple level for an adult, so we couldn't get that cred. The same goes for the narrow gauge railway that winds through the park, and includes a dark ride section.

TBC...

 

[DiogoJ42]

Autosled.
A custom Zierer Tivoli. While nothing much to write home about, a nice kiddy coaster nonetheless. There were a couple of flat straight sections where the track passed over other rides, but they were taken at a reasonable speed for this type of coaster. And given how intertwined the rides are, I won't mark it down for this.

Sonic Twister
The smallest "spin and swing" you will ever see. Because of the tightness of the swing, the airtime was extreme. Rather good fun, actually.

(photo credit to www.themeparkarchive.com)

Cosmic Spinner
A slightly smaller version of a sombrero ride. Not bad, but not remotely intense.

Haunted Castle and Fun House
A pair of small walkthrough attractions next to each other. The Haunted castle was OK. No actors, but a few basic animatronics gave one or two predictable minor jump scares. It would be scary for kids, I suppose. Nice enough theming for something clearly built on a budget. Hils clung on to me through the whole attraction, not enjoying it one bit, and I couldn't help but wonder how on Earth she was going to cope with Wonderland's Halloween Haunt event a week later!

The Funhouse was not what I expected. It was little more than a UV maze, and reminded me of some of the rooms from Carnival of Screams. Again, kids would probably love it.

Both attractions exited through the same trommel tunnel.

Cosmic Revolution
A strange snow jet type ride, with hills that closer resembled a music express. Slow, dull, and for some reason, it took ages to park at the end of the cycle. Why a circular ride needs to park in a specific place rather than just stop is beyond me.

Quirks In The Works
The park's interactive shooting dark ride. Odd round cars seat four people facing outwards, each with a blaster. The cars move very slowly round the simple rectangular track layout, but also rotate. This means you get to shoot each target several times over, and rack up a massive score.
The good thing is that almost every target activates some kind of prop or pop up alien. They all seemed to be working as well. A rather nice little ride overall.

Galaxy Quest
This attraction is billed as a "7D experience!" I'm not too sure about that. It's a 3D film with wind effects (4D), laser guns (5D) and seats that move slightly (6D). Unless they count the pitch and roll axis of the seats as two seperate "Ds"...?

Actually, look past that, and you'll find a rather good attraction. The film is pretty much a rip off of Starship Troopers, only instead of shooting giant arachnids it's giant locusts. The film is good, the 3D works well, you get to ruthlessly murder invertibrates... it's all very entertaining. We only did it once, but there are three different films that alternate every fifteen minutes.

Galaxy Orbiter
I have not been on any other Gerstlauer spinning coasters to compare it to, but if this is any indication of what they are like, then I have only one question: WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANY PARK IN THEIR RIGHT MIND PURCHASE A MAURER SPINNER OVER THESE?

Our first ride was good. But we quickly realised that we had got the "stiff" car that time. Put two adults in the rear seats (facing forward) and leave the other two empty, and you will end up with one of the most intense spins I have had on any ride, not just coasters. The first 180' hairpin at the top of the lift starts you off, then as the car enters the first drop we swung round like a horizontal trebuchet. After that, inertia did the rest and we did not stop for the whole ride.

There are two or three (honestly hard to tell, we spun so much) mid course kicker wheel lifts that act as block brakes. We didn't slow our spinning on those either. The finale is an extremely tight figure 8 in the middle of Mindbender. The ride photo is here, but oddly, the camera is directly above the car, so all you see is the tops of heads.
The car hits the brakes and keeps on spinning like crazy until you reach the station, where a kicker wheel slowly rotates the car back to the right orientation. Much better than being slammed with a spring loaded metal bar!

Honestly, the only thing I have ever been on that even comes close for continuus spinning on one axis is the waltzer at Winter Wonderland. It's my new favourite spinning coaster.

Mindbender
This was the real reason for coming here. Supposedly one of the most intense coasters ever built, as well as the daddy of all death credits, this Schwarzkopf triple looper certainly lives up to that reputation.
They were only running one train. Two on track, but with one sandbagged. This, combined with the stupid restraints (more on that later) meant that a train of riders would dispatch at best every five minutes. Luckily the queue was never more than a train and a half worth of guests.

We were told by one of the friendly hosts that the train in use was known as "the devil's train", not only for it's red and orange colouring, but it was train number 6, and runs so uncontrolably fast that it pulls 6.6G on the loops.... 666! I sure wasn't complaining.

The restraints are sadly also the product of the devil. First of all there is a lap belt, then an individual lap bar. Finally - and this is what caused us pain - a pair of shoulder clamps attatched to the headrest that are mannually ratcheted down by the host. Unfortunately these can cause some nasty head banging. However, after a couple of rides we worked out how to minimise pain, which I will now share with you in hope that you can enjoy the ride one day:

1) Do not sit in the middle car. The front and back cars are fine, but the middle car jolts like crazy.

2) The seatbelt should be tight, and the lap bar only just touching you.

3) You want the shoulder clamps to be pretty tight. On our first couple of runs, we instinctively raised our shoulders when they were being lowered to give us some wiggle room. WRONG! If anything, slouch and lower your shoulders as much as you can when they are being lowered. You want them as far away from your head as possible.

4) Keep your head forward for most of the ride, but put it back against the headrest for the loops. They are so tight, and so intense, that if your head is forward you will end up ruining your neck.

5) Hold on. It's not physically possible to raise your arms anyway due to the restraints, so hold on to the bar in front of you and brace yourself.

If you obey these rules, then headbanging should be minimised. Of course, you'll still bash your outer limbs on the side of the car. And your back will be shot from the extreme G force pressing it in to the ridge where the solid seat meets the shoulder clamps...

"But what about the ride itself?" I hear you ask.

Quite simply, it's amazing. I do like a nice intense ride, and I'm a big fan of old Schwarzkopfs. The ride feels a bit claustrophobic, not just from the small cars and restraints, but because this section of the mall was custom built to fit exactly around the coaster. The top of the lift (complete with pedobear doodle on the right hand side) passes through a very narrow apex in the roof, and the train constantly zooms through tight gaps in supports.

The first drop is a classic Schwarzkopf "psycho dive" from the very top of the building right down to the basement and back up agin, and feels incredibly tall and steep. Another dive takes you in to the pair of loops, taken at an insane speed. The Gs here are like nothing I have ever experienced before. Climb back up to the top, followed by another "psycho dive" back to the bottom and back up again. A slightly gentler sloped curved dive then feeds in to the third loop. This is tiny, and by far the ride's highlight. Such a tight, almost circular loop, at such high speed, has to be ridden to be believed. A wide walkway passes through the middle of it, providing one of the best headchopper effects I have ever seen. Climb back up to the vertical stack of block brakes at the back once more, this time with a couple of small air time bumps thrown in. Finally, you dive down to the basement one more time, S bend your way across the ride's footprint at high speed, before a fast intense helix round a mirrored drum that makes it look as if another train is hurtling towards you. A final S bend feeds in to the brakes, leaving you speechless with your eyes watering, and your body in shock as it tries to work out what part of you hurts the most.

Phenominal.

If you're the kind of person who thinks The Swarm is "a bit rough"... if you want to glide forcelessly round a perfectly smooth track with a bit of floater air time... don't bother coming here.
But if you want to really push your body to it's limits, and experience one of the most insanely intense positive G rides ever built, then I strongly recomend booking a nine hour flight to Edmonton.

Our Mindbender ORP. I'm not “pulling” that face. I simply relaxed my facial muscles, and what you see is purely the result of G force.

TBC...

 

[DiogoJ42]

Of course, there is much more to do at West Edmonton Mall apart from Galaxyland. And with a whole day there we had plenty of time to kill outside the park.

Right next door to Galaxyland is a blacklight mini golf course. It has a vague "ye olde wizards" theme. Some rather funky painting along with statues. My phone was useless in the UV light, but Hils managed to get a couple of photos.

We found a couple of great comic / geek shops. It's infuriating that we don't have these at home.

Pirates of the whatnow?

Life size chocolate skulls.

Oh yeah, they have a pirate ship.

Dinner was a slap up feast of pasta. Hils spotted on the menu that they seemed to have a glorified parmo, so she had to order it.

After a very long day, we returned to our suite and soaked our Mindbender-bruised bodies in the hot tub, before hitting the hay.


Day three: flight number two, Edmonton > Regina, eh?

Our small internal flight was my first ever trip on a turboprop. I've flown piston engined trainers when I was in the ATC, and obviously flown on many types of jet airliner. But I'd never been on a turboprop before.

WestJet Bombardier Q400 NextGen. Look at it, it's CUUUUUTE!

This plane was so small, that it had no evacuation slides on the emergency exits. The safety instructions simply said “jump out”.

Despite seating only 78 people, it still had more leg room than Ryanair or Easy Jet.

We arrived an hour later in Regina, strolled straight from the apron through one door to the baggage carousel, got our luggage and strolled straight out of the terminal without seeing a single security official. Now this is my kind of airport (obviously, internal flights are a bit more lax).

Carl and their daughter met us in their car for the ten minute drive to their house. Oh yeah, THIS is his car:

(In Canada, you only need to have your number plate on the rear of the car, you can put whatever the hell you like on the front!)

We dropped our bags at their house and headed down town, to meet Bel at the market.

Down town Regina is shiny.

Her passion is coffee. She has a PHD in coffee. She lives, breathes, eats, sleeps with and sometimes even drinks coffee. So while she currently works a mundane job while saving up to open a proper coffee shop, she also runs a stall at the weekly market selling.... coffee. It's the least I can do to give her a plug.

Much girly hugging was done as Hils and her best friend since childhood, separated for over two years, were finally reunited. We hung aboot the market for a few hours waiting for it to close, before returning to their lovely wonky wooden house. Not a single wall is vertical, nor a single floor horizontal. I love it!

Friends reunited. N'awwww.

After exchanging gifts and catching up, we went out for dinner at one of many local watering holes. I had a half pound bacon and cheese burger.

Canadian beer is not too bad, but pretty expensive. A lot of people over there brew their own, and Carl had been brewing like a mad man in advance of our visit. Every night there was plentiful ale of various types to keep us well oiled. I even got a bottle to bring home with me. Cheers, old bean!

Day four: Pumpkin Hollow, eh?

Being "fall", the local customs at this time of year are a curious mix of Thanksgiving and Halloween. And given that the town of Regina is surrounded by farmland for hundreds of miles in all directions, there are plenty of corn mazes and autumnal events going on at local farms.

Pumpkin Hollow is a very child friendly example of one of these. Obviously, with a four year old girl in tow anything remotely scary is out of the question. Not that our friends are in to that kind of thing anyway.

They have few random farm based attractions, such as hay rides on a huge trailer behind a tractor, a kiddy land train made from oil drums towed by a lawn mower, a chance to pet some animals, giant bouncy inflatable pillow... And an air powered cannon that fires corn cobs in to the woods.

We met up with some of Bel and Carl's local friends, and stood about chatting while the kids played.

The corn maze itself was OK. It would be better in the dark with zombies though.

**********

That evening we put on our glad rags and hit the town, having dumped the child off with some other unfortunate local parent.

Bel had insisted that Hils bring something corsety for a night out, so I felt obliged to wear a shirt as well. We entered one of the few bars that was open on Thanksgiving eve, and I immediately felt overdressed. Everyone else seemed to be a metal head in T shirt and jeans. But the music was good, so I won't complain.

Myself, Hils and Bel.

After a few drinks and a chat with another local friend, we moved on to an Irish bar. Tequila slammers all round! A couple more drinks were consumed, before we realised it was almost midnight and the child needed picking up. Shame really, as by this point I was merry enough to want to go clubbing.
... Though by the sound of it there is only one thing that comes close to a club in town, and it's a gay bar.

After returning home and putting the kid to bed, we stayed up drinking and chatting. Carl and Bel had presented me with a bottle of local vodka, so I cracked that open and... I don't remember much after that.

TBC...

 

[DiogoJ42]

Day five: Thanksgiving, eh?

Canadian Thanksgiving falls a few weeks earlier than the more famous American holiday. Bel was up at a stupidly early hour, and spent most of the day working in the kitchen, to produce what can only be described as a sumptuous feast.

The turkey came from a local Hutterite colony (think: "Canadian Amish"), and was huge.

There was sweet potato and pumpkin soup...

The main roast itself...

And pumpkin pie!

We went for an evening stroll round the park with the kid to digest, and even had a go on the swings ourselves. On the way we saw some rather funky halloween decorations in front gardens...

While walking home, we came across an old geezer collapsed on the sidewalk, with a walking frame beside him. He was right under a lamp post on the main street (the only road in Canada), yet no one else was stopping to help. So much for Canadian friendliness.
He was conscious, just. It was one of those situations where it was impossible to tell if he was drunk, or had had a diabetic seizure. He was groggy and said he had hit his head. We called 911 and stayed with him until the paramedics turned up. I'm sure he'll be fine.

The evening was rounded off with an epic board game sesh.


Day six: Moose Jaw, eh?

Today we visited the town of Moose Jaw, aboot an hour's drive west along the only road in Canada. They have a giant moose at the side of the road to welcome people.

As well as a Jet Provost, as this town is the home of the Canadian airforce display team.

We stopped for a some doughnuts at Tim Horton's...

I tried a “Chocolate Chill”. It looks like a milkshake, but all I could taste was sugar and chemicals. I gave up after a few sips and binned it. Yurgh!

The town's main claim to fame is that as Canada never had prohibition, it was the source of all the illegal booze that Al Capone smuggled in to Chicago. There are loads of tunnels running between the buildings on main street that housed this operation, and you can take a guided tour lead by character actors. A bit like the Dungeons, or any other such attraction, photography is not permitted. But you are too involved in the story to have time to take photos anyway.

Without giving too many spoilers, you are met by "Miss Fanny", a nightclub owner, who assumes you are the newest recruits to smuggle booze across the border. You start in her club, which has a few cringeworthingly bad animatronics in it. However, the actor playing Miss Fanny did a commendable job of interacting with them.
She then hears that Mr Capone is on his way any minute now, and he doesn't like to meet the people at the bottom rung of his empire so he can deny all knowledge of it.

You are taken through Capone's private quarters, down in to the tunnels to hide from him, and meet "Gus", a Chicago gangster, who leads you through the rest of the tour. The tunnels include some incredibly well hidden secret doors.

Gus: "Now den. Does anyone here know what dis is?"
Me: *face lights up* Ah, a Thompson sub machine gun!"
Gus: "Eh, you look like a guy who knows his stuff. Here, why don'tcha try it out?"
*Hands me the Tommy gun. I take it in both hands (observing proper firearm protocol and keep it pointing down and away from people, of course)*
Gus: "Yeah, t'anks for da finger prints buddy!"



It was really interesting as well as fun. Both actors were right up there with some of the best I have ever seen at a historical attraction. Just the right mix of interaction with guests, historical information / legend, and comedy. If by some incredible chance you ever find yourself in Moose Jaw, go check it out.

**********

Following this we paid a visit to the Moose Jaw Spa. They have a pool fed with hot, salty spring water at about 40'C. It's partly outside, and they stay open no matter how cold it gets. I'm told that last year our friends visited when it was -40'C, and your wet hair would freeze in seconds!

We spent an hour or two relaxing, before heading home and relaxing a bit more in front of a few films with some homebrew.


Day seven: Hows aboot some poutine, eh?

Not much to report for this day. Bel and Carl had to work, so we spent most of the day mooching round town, checking out yet more geek paradise shops. That makes a total of four comic and game stores without even looking for them. There was so much we wanted to buy, but there was little point with limited bag space. Besides, most of it can be ordered online in the UK anyway, but that's just not the same as impulse buying while browsing a shop.

All the Pathfinder (the RPG we play) books!

In the evening, we went to a local diner, and got to try poutine. It's essentially chips drowned in gravy and cheese, though more upmarket places use cheese curds.

Day eight: Mooseum, eh?

Our final full day in Regina included a visit to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. It's not that big, and only takes an hour or two to walk round. The have exhibits on local geology / ecology, natural history, "first nations" (IE: natives), and of course, dinosaurs.

I took a fair few pictures, so I won't bore you with too many, but here are some highlights:

Diorama depicting natives hunting a moose.

Me with a giant bison skeleton.

Massive prehistoric scary fish thing.

The lamest animatronic T-Rex I have ever seen. This thing is the museum's star attraction. Bless.

Our final evening was spent drinking homebrew and playing the Discworld board game.

TBC...

 

[DiogoJ42]

Day nine: Flight number three, Regina > T'raano, eh?

We got up early in order to say our goodbyes to hosts before they left for work in the morning. It also gave us a couple of hours to round up all our possessions that had been scattered round their house over the last week. Much hugging was done.

Our flight got off to a good start with a very happy cabin crew making jokes during the safety demo. Our 737 taxied to the runway threshold, then sat there for a few minutes, before taxiing along the runway and turning off. Apparently there was a minor caution light in the cockpit, so we had to wait about 25 minutes while it was fixed, before trying again.
I think the problem may have been something to do with cabin pressure, as once we got up to cruising altitude (40,900 feet) I started to feel very ill. But as soon as we descended I felt fine again.

We got to our hotel in Vaughan, on the northern edge of Toronto and flomped on to the bed for an hour or so, before heading to Canada's Wonderland for the evening's Halloween Haunt event. We had purchased a season pass for the Haunt, which came to $56.40 each. That works out to £31.19 for access to every single night of their scare event, which includes no less than ten mazes, three scare zones, and three shows!

Canada's Wonderland review coming soon. Watch this space!

 

[DiogoJ42]

Evening nine: Canada's Wonderland, eh?

Ride count:

Leviathan x 1
Wild Beast x 1
Vortex x 1
Behemoth x 1
Back Lot Stunt Coaster x 1


We got out of the taxi and headed for the entrance. This place is essentially Canada's “Thorpe”; a no nonsense thrill park.

The place was heaving. It seemed that every teenager in the whole of Ontario was here. Yet despite this, the crowds were polite and well behaved. Not once in our three days here did we encounter anything that even came close to chavs. Almost no queue jumping, no fighting, everyone was just there to have a good time.

We headed straight to Leviathan, with it's rather nicely lit water feature, with the intention of kicking things off with a front row in the dark.

Guess who Hils brought along with us just for this ONE photo?

We got to the batching point and realised there was no front row queue, but all I had to say to the host was,
“Hi there mate. We've come all the way from the UK and just got here, can we...”
I didn't need to finish, he pointed at the front row airgates and wished me a happy ride.

Leviathan

This ride was, along with Mindbender, one of the most highly anticipated of the trip. Clocking in at 306 feet high, it is the tallest coaster I have been on to date.
… And pretty much confirms my theory that once you get over 150 feet, any extra doesn't make much difference. Not in a bad way, it's just that the brain looks down and thinks “wow, that's a long way down”, and leaves it at that.

The operations are incredibly efficient, almost on a par with Europa's Silver Star. The queue is nearly always moving. In busy periods, there is a simple yet effective method to deter queue jumping. As you enter the cattlepen you are given a numbered ticket. When you reach the merge point that number is checked. Anyone with a number higher than it should be is kicked out... Not that anyone dared to “cut the line” as they say over there.

The station is manned by an almost excessive number of staff. There is the op, the batcher, four platform hosts, and a fifth host who's sole job is to pace up and down the platform with a headset mic, barking loading instructions and hyping up the crowd.

I was expecting to be stapled in, as I always am on Shambhala or Silver Star, but amazingly, they rely on LEDs to confirm that the restraint is locked. Not on the train as at EP though, these ones are on a panel at the front of the station. I was frankly shocked to be dispatched with such a loose clamshell. It made the usually uncomfortable ride I have on B&M hypers a pleasant, if slightly scary, one.

From the bottom, the lift hill seems to stretch up to infinity in the night sky.

But the ascent is swift, and before you know it you are plummeting towards the ground. This first drop just keeps on getting steeper. The airtime starts off as gentle floater, but gets stronger as you pick up speed. The final steepest part before you level out actually feels like you are going to fall out of the train (thanks to the loose clamshell).

The ride that follows is a wonderful high speed dash round the car park, with some Shambhala style speed hills and strong floater airtime. The turn around should frankly count as an inversion in my book. It's all over far too quickly though, and you hit the brake run at an altitude higher than most UK coasters, before the ludicrous inclined brakes to bring you back to the station.

Despite our first ride being at the front, I would say this is a back row or nothing coaster. And first drop aside, Shambhala is better. But this has the advantage of proper, old school 4 abreast trains, which counts for a lot (see Behemoth, below).


Wild Beast

Next to Leviathan sits one of the park's original (1981) woodies. Arguably the better of the two, Wild Beast still suffers from horrendous roughness in places. It's not bad, by any means. The layout is solid and the trains are inoffensive. It's just old and knackered.

It does have this funky artwork outside it though.

Vortex

My only previous knowledge of Arrow suspended coasters was Vampire, and I was keen to see if the original Arrow trains are still as good as my rose tinted nostalgia thinks they were...

… They are.

Vortex turned out to be a wonderful, if disappointingly short, coaster. The first drop down the side of Wonder Mountain picks up some good speed, and with a right hand turn at the bottom sending the cars slamming in to their shock absorbers, I have to wonder if this is a taste of what the legendary Big Bad Wolf was like?

The trains spend most of the journey skimming over water at high speed. Front or back, day or night, no matter where or when you ride, this baby ticks all the boxes for good old fashioned fun.

Throughputs are kept high with three trains, and unlike Vampire they have no trouble parking in the station. They simply glide in and stop in the right place first time.

A very satisfying ride that turned out to be one of the highlights in the park for me.


Behemoth

The other B&M hyper. The one with stupid trains. Stupid trains fitted with stupid seatbelts.

The queue moves quite a bit slower than Leviathan, despite the same excessive number of staff doing their best. And it's all because of those seatbelts. Why? Why have they done this? It's not the only ride in the park that has had unnecessary lap belts fitted, almost every non-OTSR ride has them, including the Mack powered coaster and wild mouse. Even some of the gentle spin rides.
Of course, attempting to add seatbelts to a ride that was not designed for them always ends up with awkward faff loading, and an uncomfortable ride.
Thankfully, just like Leviathan, the clamshells are not stapled. If they were rammed down on top of the seatbelt buckles, I dread to think how painful that might be.

At 230 feet, it is slightly lower than Silver Star. The layout feels almost identical up to the block brake, save for turning right at the bottom of the first drop instead of left on the rise in to the first hill. Then after the MCBR, it's just a couple of helices and a final two bunny hops, into yet another comically long inclined brake run.

There's no denying that of the two B&Ms, this is the more forceful. The airtime is better, and it has some reasonable positive Gs at the bottom of the valleys. It also rattles. Not “rough”, no B&M is. But it doesn't feel like a Beemer when you ride it. To some people this is a good thing, and many were overheard in queue lines saying this was the better of the two. But personally, I prefer the much more interesting layout and proper trains of it's younger sibling on the far side of the park. Of the four hypers I have been on, I'd rank them Shambhala > Leviathan > Silver Star > Behemoth. (Just think how much better Shambles would be if it had proper trains on it like Leviathan?)


Back Lot Stunt Coaster

My first Premier coaster, and one I was rather looking forward to. Formally known as “The Italian Job”, this is just one of many leftovers from the park's days under Paramount.

The trains consist of three “Minis” which feel like a customised wild mouse car. The restraints are very odd, a “lap bar” that makes contact with your body not on your lap, but high up on the chest, allowing for significant air. They also have the annoying Premier shin bar, but at least it is covered in thick padding.

The ride starts with a LIM launch out of the station with no warning. It's a gradual acceleration but picks up a decent enough speed by the end of the short launch track. You are then thrown in to a tight right hand upwards helix, supposedly to represent the spiral ramp of a car park. This is the highlight, and is surprisingly forceful. A drop feeds in to some smooth, graceful S bends between parked police cars, before a small over banked turn.
After a short tunnel you arrive at a place where you are supposed to stop and see a helicopter erupt in to flames. Unfortunately this was all either broken, or turned off to save money. The latter, I suspect, as the train didn't stop at all, and simply received a slight boost from the second set of LIMs in to a long dark tunnel.
The exit from this tunnel also has a LIM “kicker” to give a boost in to a short but steep, mouse like drop. A left turn later it's all over.

Track and train, it's good. A very smooth ride with some nice forces. But it was very disappointing to not see the effects in action.

**********

That's all we had time for on our first evening. We also stopped at an all you can eat buffet, since the last food we had was a doughnut in the airport that morning.

There is a taxi rank right outside the entrance, so we flagged one down, returned to the hotel and slept like drunken babies.

TBC...

 

[DiogoJ42]

Day ten: More Canada's Wonderland, eh?

Ride count:

Wonder Mountain's Guardian x 3
Vortex x 2
Silver Streak x 1
Ghoster Coaster x 1
Boo Blasters on Boo Hill x 2
The Bat x 1
Wild beast x 1
Nightmares x 1
Leviathan x 1
Spinovator x 1
Riptide x 1
Dragon Fire x 1
Back Lot Stunt Coaster x 1
Sledge Hammer x 1
Psyclone x 1
Time Warp x 1
Flight Deck x 1
Behemoth x 1
Mighty Canadian Minebuster x 1
Thunder Run x 1
Fly x 1


We got up early, if not so bright, to be at the park for opening. Based on the assumption that a Saturday would be busy, we had prebooked “fast lane” wristbands for this day. They turned out to be unnecessary, as the day time was possibly the quietest I have ever seen a park. Thankfully, they were still valid in the evening, so we did get our money's worth in the end.

I've seen worse vistas upon entering parks.

Wonder Mountain forms an impressive centrepiece to the park.

The park has some nice Halloween theming.

While nothing near the scale Europa's pumkin fest, there were still plenty of vegitables dotted around. Some of them were painted.

Overall, the park could be discribed as lacking in theming by some. But one gateway off the mainstreet was the exception to this:

To the right of the bridge sits an animatronic troll that can be activated by a button.

**********

Given it's low throughput, we started off with...

Wonder Mountain's Guardian

Yo dawg, I heard you like gimmicks. So I put a gimmick on your gimmick, so you can gimmick while you gimmick.

This ride is everything Morewenna could have dreamed of. The two car trains seat 8 in back to back pairs. Each lap bar has a laser gun attached to it! You have to wear 3D glasses! It starts of with a coaster section! Then becomes a dark ride! The cars rotate so you travel sideways! You get to shoot at screens! It ends with a freefall drop track!

It's not too bad, in all honesty. I guess it's one of those “well, it's nice that someone tried it, now no other park has to” rides.

The drop track feels more forceful than th13teen's, though nowhere near as intense as an ABC drop tower.


Silver Streak

A Vekoma SFC (that's “suspended family coaster”). A nice fun ride that would be perfect for so many UK parks. It doesn't swing like an Arrow, but I won't hold that against it. It's a good mid point between kiddy coaster and thrill ride.


Ghoster Coaster

The PTC junior woody. Again, a fun family ride that makes you realise how bad the UK park scene is for anything to fill the gap between “Big Apple” and “Vampire”.


Boo Blasters on Boo Hill

A formally Scooby Doo themed shoot-em-up, from Sally Corp, who brought us Laser Raiders at Legobland. Not bad as shooty rides go. It's mostly UV paint and simple props, but most targets actually do something, which counts for a lot.


The Bat

My third Vekoma boomerang turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I was braced for a headbanging that never came. The old style trains must have had a lot to do with this, as I have always found them less painful than the newer Vekoma trains.


Nightmares

A Huss UFO. I'd never been on one before, but found it disappointingly forceless compared to the smaller “meteors” that used to be abundant at funfairs when I was younger.


Spinovator

An odd cross between a drunken barrels and a twist. Annoying seatbelts and a slow program.


Riptide

Did you know Mondial made topspins? Neither did I. Rather than a single gondola with two rows, this has two separate gondolas on the end of forked arms. The program was utterly pathetic, making Rameses look intense. We didn't even invert. Next!


Dragon Fire

An ageing Arrow looper, and one of the park's original coasters. The double loops felt bland after Mindbender a week earlier. To it's credit, the corkscrews were impressively headbang free. Instead, the rough part turned out to be the helix following the MCBR.


Sledge Hammer

Ah, the infamous Huss Jump 2. Possibly one of the rarest flat rides on the planet, and one that almost everybody wants to try.

The seats and restraints are comfortable. The spinning motion was slower than I had hoped, though still fast enough to be fun. The real highlight is the “jumps”. You are flung upwards and outwards with no warning, and once you are up there it's surprising how tall it is. After a few revolutions taking in the view, you are thrown Earthwards once more. Though nowhere near freefall speed, it's a very nice amount of airtime nonetheless. You get three jumps in a cycle, and before you know it, the ride is over.

Reliability does seem to be an issue, sadly. Every time we queued for it, it broke down.


Psyclone

A generic Mondial spin and swing, this manages to be so dull that it makes Vortex at Thorpe look good.


Time Warp

My first Zamperla Volair. Oh dear. I'm not sure if I even need to tell you how unpleasant these things are. The vibrations (if not actual headbangs) were second only to Baco for me.


Flight Deck

Vekoma standard SLC. Slightly less painful than Infusion. Formally “Top Gun”, this has left it with one of the blandest paint jobs in coaster history. “Light gull grey”, I believe is the term for the boring shade of dull that US Navy planes carry.

It did have a large F-14 in the queueline though.

Mighty Canadian Minebuster

The sister woody to Wild Beast manages to capture all of the roughness of Stampida, and apply it to one of the dullest woody layouts I have been on. Poor Hils' lap bar got ratcheted in so far on the first drop that the pressure on her bladder almost caused an accident. We had to run to the nearest toilet as soon as we got off.

Rides like this are why people in the UK hate wooden coasters.


Thunder Run

Token Mack powered coaster making use of Wonder Mountain. Supposedly a modified Blauer Enzian, according to RCDB. But the layout bares no relation to one. It features an extended helix in pitch black. Woo.

The trains have stupid seat belts added for no reason. Roland would weep.


Fly

Standard park model Mack mouse, like the former Jungle Coaster at Legobland. Again, unnecessary seatbelts cause unnecessary faff. Other than that, it's a generic wild mouse.


**********

The park closed at 5pm, and with a two hour wait until it reopened for the Halloween Haunt event, we headed over the road to a bar. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something familiar about the name...

A few pints (I love that such a metric country still serves beer in pints) and a slap up feast of pulled pork and onion fries followed.

TBC...

 

[DiogoJ42]

Evening ten: Halloween Haunt, eh?

We returned to find the entrance plaza heaving with crowds, this night was even busier than the previous one.

The park looks stunning at night, with some of the best lighting I have seen (none of which, naturally, looks good on a phone's camera.)

The front of Wonder Mountain has projection mapping.

There is some visual diatribe on the pond.

Roaming actors everywhere.

@gazag... Is that you?

Hils makes friends with some of the actors in the Steampunk scare zone.

My personal highlight was “the Dixieland Zombie Band”.

These guys dressed in black and stuck to the shadows, making photography nigh on impossible. But they were slow marching round the park non stop every night. I attempted to capture their mournful funk on video, but it was too dark to see anything. You can hear a taste of their sound though.




A special mention for the lighting on Windseeker.

**********

Ride Count:

Zombies 4D x 1
Streets of the Undead x 1
Terror of London x 1
Behemoth x 1
The Ruins x 1
Louisiana Scream x 1
Vortex x 1
Toxicity show x 1
Scifi House x 2

The following is true for all ten mazes on park, so I will say it here once: The theming can't be faulted, it's all to a very high standard. The main problem is that the mazes are not batched, it is a constant line of people walking through. At least it's not a conga line, I guess, but the constant flow means scares are almost non existent.
Actors naturally go for the teenage girls, who scream at the sight of them with no need to do anything further. And each and every room in each and every maze had at least one, sometimes more, security guards in it. They wore black, but rarely made any attempt to conceal themselves. This meant that often, you would see a security guard before you saw an actor, thus ruining any potential for a jump scare because you knew an actor was nearby.
There was no shortage of actors, however. Some rooms had four or five at once. But the scare factor was very low indeed. They did very little at all, as most of the teenagers didn't need further scares other than simply seeing an actor.


Zombies 4D

This is little more than Wonder Mountain's Guardian with a different film. A nice touch, but not worth the 45 minute queue.

Streets of the Undead

The first maze we hit was the classic zombie themed one. Nice sets, including walking through a full size subway car. One of the faster moving queues, as well.


Terror of London

A Jack the Ripper themed maze, and one of the more gory ones, even featured a scene with “Jack” slicing up a body on a bed. Again, very good sets featuring a lot of dark, narrow streets, it gave the London Dungeons a run for it's money.
Had a good bit of banter in the queue for this when one of the actors refused to believe that we were, in fact, from London.


The Ruins and Louisiana Scream

A pair of mazes located inside Wonder Mountain. The exit of the Ruins feeds directly in to Louisiana Scream.

This had by far the worst queue of them all. An hour and a half in total (for a pair of mazes that between them were not even ten minutes in length), not helped by a breakdown and the fact that the queue cut directly across one of the main paths, requiring staff to literally form human chain barriers to allow the queue to move, then hold the queue back while thousands of people rushed past.

I have taken the liberty of sketching the route we queued. It starts in the bottom left down by Psyclone, and ends not at the entrance to Wonder Mountain, but quite a fair way inside it.

Both mazes make use of existing walkthroughs inside the mountain. Whether or not they are still open for the rest of the season, I couldn't say.

The Ruins had a jungle theme and was the better of the two, while Louisiana Scream was swamp / bayou / redneck vibe.


Toxicity show

We weren't planning on seeing any of the shows on offer, but the sheer number of people on park, combined with the biting cold forced us inside. It was a perfectly good bit of theatre, on a par with EP's Luminosity. The highlights for me were the creepy contortionist mutant girl, and the guy who had a whole routine that was nothing but playing with lasers. It was very well timed, and for a second you could actually believe he had snatched a laser beam that was coming out of the floor and was twirling it in his hand.


Scifi House

The only maze we did more than once. A very original idea based on 1950's B movies. More comedy than scary, this was worth the reruns just to see how many references to classic films we could spot.

It was also entirely in black and white, a unique idea to say the least, but it worked very well indeed. The only maze to feature any strobes at all, so it gets bonus points for that.


**********


By this point the crowds had started to thin out. We went to end our day with Leviathan, only to be told it had been shut due to extreme low temperature. I knew it was cold, but I was shocked when the poor frozen host told us it was 2'C, -5'C with windchill. (Canadians always take note of the windchill temperatures, who can blame them with the crazy winters they get? )

We did a bit of merch shopping before leaving the park. The crowds meant that the carpark was totally gridlocked. After waiting at the taxi rank in vain for 45 minutes, we trekked to the bar over the road and flagged one down the old fashioned way.

Straight to bed upon returning to the hotel. After a nice hot shower, naturally.

TBC...

 

[DiogoJ42]

Day Eleven: More Wonderland, eh?

Given that we did pretty much everything the day before, today was a much needed lie in. We eventually got on park about 12:30pm, to find it even quieter than the Saturday, as well as much warmer.

Ride Count:

Leviathan x 6
Sledge hammer x 1
Behemoth x 3
Back lot Stunt Coaster x 1
Windseeker x 1
Mighty Canadian Minebuster x 1
Vortex x 1

The only ride left to review is...

Windseeker

While it certainly feels safer than the standard chained seats on a Star Flyer, this has very little to offer if heights don't bother you. The rotation was slow, and the ride barely kissed the top of the tower before descending again. If you want to spin round high in the air, then KMG's Mission Space is still the daddy, as far as I'm concerned. It does look very pretty at night though.


We took it easy this day and did a bit of photo faffing.

Skyrider, the park's TOGO stand-up, is no longer SBNO, it is now being demolished. Oh no, however will I cope?

Once again, this time with Vortex being awesome in the foreground.

Leviathan, looking towards the park entrance from in front of Wonder Mountain.

New FB cover photo.

**********

The gap between the park closing and reopening was spent the same way at the day before. Onwards, to the rest of the Haunt!



Evening eleven: More mazes, eh?


Ride count:

Clowns at Midnight x 1
Cornstalkers x 1
The Asylum x 1
Bloodshed x 1
Club Blood x 1
Leviathan x 2
Sledge hammer x 1
Back Lot Stunt Coaster x 1
Vortex x 1
Scifi House x 1


Clowns at Midnight

Possibly the tamest of the mazes, entertaining without being scary. Nowhere near as good as Carnival of Screams though.


Cornstalkers

By far the most atmospheric of the lot, this is an outdoors maze situated within the loop of the park's rapids. We got there early and it was “walk on”. This probably added a lot to the increased scare factor.
A dark corn maze with a few alternative paths available. Scarecrows and people in camouflage blended perfectly in to the thick corn, making jumps impossible to predict.. unless you see the security guard first, of course.
My joint favourite along with Scifi house, for different reasons.


The Asylum

Generic “nutter” themed maze was generic. So clichéd that I honestly struggle to remember anything about it.


Bloodshed

A stroll through a barn full of hillbillies and actors in strange animal masks. Again, good theming, but lacking in scares.


Club Blood

The token vampire nightclub. Pretty good, in all honestly, with some sexy vampire pole dancers and loud banging tunes playing. A couple of minor jumps, but I was too busy raving to be scared.


**********

It was much quieter this evening, and we managed to get the five remaining mazes done in an hour. We had a few final rides, then called it a night at about 22:30, returning to the warmth of the hotel.

Some actors with fire poi at the entrance as we left.

Overall, Canada's Wonderland is a great park for those of us who prioritise rides. I'm sure there will be people bemoaning the lack of immersive theming, but frankly any park with 16 coasters* in it is exempt from such criticisms in my view.

* Unfortunately, Taxi Jam had a maximum height limit, and we were not allowed to ride.

Our merch haul from Wonderland:

Behemoth ORP:

Leviathan ORP:

TBC...

 

[DiogoJ42]

Day twelve: CN Tower, eh?

Our final day in the land of moose and maple left us with a conundrum. Our flight was not until the evening, but we had to check out by 11am. Having been to Toronto as a kid, I explained to Hils that if you only do one thing in this city, it should be the CN Tower.

Twenty years ago when I last came here, this beast was the tallest free-standing structure on earth. It was the tallest tower up to 2010. Now the only record they have to boast about is the world's “highest wine cellar” Not sure how they define “cellar” tbh...

We handed over our dollars and took the speedy glass lift to the top. Many photos were taken, so I won't post them all, but here are a few to give you an idea of just how high it is.

That's a railway museum down there. I know what I'm doing next time I come here!

The world's first (and still highest) glass floor.

Looking down from the “Skypod” halfway up the TV mast, you can see people taking the “Edge Walk”. They put you in a harness and you get to walk round the roof of the main deck, 1,168 feet in the air.

We decided it was a bit cold for that.

Last time I came here, I saw a baseball game at that stadium down there. It was dull.

Of course, you can't go up any tall building without having at least one cocktail at the top.

Back down in the gift shop, this was the only moose we saw on the whole trip.

**********


We had one more errand to run before returning. Hils wanted to pop in to the Girl Guides of Canada HQ and say hi. A quick subway ride and a trek through the rain later...

They gave her many badges. Bless.

The Toronto subway is clean and functional, yet utterly devoid of the soul and character we're used to on the tube.

The only part of Toronto Union Station not covered in scaffolding.

**********


And that was it. We returned to the hotel to pick up our cases, then got a cab to the airport. The less said about the flight home, the better, as I wouldn't want to end on a sour note. Lets just say I was glad to be off that 777 and away from the child.

We jumped in a taxi and were home from Heathrow in 15 minutes. The ratties were all in good health, and pleased to see us. Thanks to @AshleeKel for feeding them

… I then noticed this on our fridge.

**********


Thanks for reading.