Phantom's Revenge opens to anxious coaster fans

I had the pleasure to experience the Phantom's Revenge twice yesterday. I must say that this "new" ride is an improvement over the Steel Phantom. The ride is 100% smoother, and feels significantly faster. The coaster maintains quite a bit of speed throughout the ride and comes into the station surprisingly fast. The bunnyhops after the Thunderbolt trench are a lot of fun. The one right after the headchopper caught me off guard each time.

The cars are interesting. The seats I rode in (towards the back) all seemed to have quite a bit of leg room. However, they are a bit tricky to get in and out of. When the lap bar is up, you have to squeeze around it, which can be tricky.

It seems that there still is quite a bit of work to be done on and around the ride. The second train was nowhere to be seen. The automatic restraint release system was not working. The employees had to manually release the restraints car by car. The trench under the Thunderbolt still looks unfinished. And, the Thunderbolt itself is still missing sections of the track.

All, in all, it was a great ride and I am happy with what Kennywood has produced. I can't wait to make it back in a month or so and see the improvements.

I got the chance to ride PR Saturday evening and I was glad that I rode it. Phantom's Revenge has some of the best airtime out there, personally, I think it has better airtime than Magnum XL-200 and PR is now my favorite hyper out there. The one camelback features a double dip which surprised me and caused some out of the world airtime. The ride is smooth and very fast, features awsome and unpredictable airtime, and the big drops are better than ever before...what more could one ask for in a coaster?

Wow, that's great to see it running. Hard to believe it was less than a year ago I rode the same, yet a different coaster. :)

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Joe
Lifetime Force Count-28

When is the T-Bolt scheduled to reopen??

The Thunderbolt has no date of its re-opening...by the looks of it...it may be at least a month if not longer until it re-opens. The ride is pretty much all torn up and needs to be put back together again and this isn't gonna be an easy job for Kennywood to do.

KPGuy

It's great to see Kennywood get a new coaster.I can't wait to ride it.I wonder if I'll think it is better thne Apollo,Hulk or MAgnum

I've only went on Magnum and Millenium Force and I think it beats both out in terms of a great ride. It's not the longest coaster out there for sure, but the monster airtime, speed throughout the entire ride, and overall smoothness cannot be surpassed by any other coaster out there. Not to mention one of the best drops out there...235 feet under the Thunderbolt. It's just a great coaster and everybody thinks the same thing when it's over...."WOW!!!"

KPGuy *** This post was edited by KPGuy on 5/21/2001. ***

Does PR have a short ride time? I was looking at the specs and saw that it was only 3000 something feet long. Does the ride seem short?

Are there any noticeable transitions between the Arrow and Morgan track?

Hope to get out there sometime this summer to check it out.

X Factor

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SFWoA: An Unofficial Guide
http://sfohio.tripod.com

No, I didn't notice any transitions when riding, I couldn't tell at all that there were two separate tracks that met. The turing drop produces some great airtime also now since there are no longer horsecollars. The whole ride felt smooth and Morgan really improved the transition at the bottom of the big drop. The ride is officially something like 3,400 feet long, which is 400 feet longer than the original Steel Phantom. The ride doesn't seem that short even though it's 3,400 feet long, but it is short compared to other hypers. The cool thing is that the ride maintains its speed and doesn't slow down and it's still going something around 50-55 mph at the end of the ride, and the fast speed really makes the bunny hops a lot better and more fun.

KPGuy

If you know what to look for, you can SEE the transition between Arrow and Morgan, but you can't feel it at all.

Look at

http://www.gregleg.com/coastershrine/Kennywood/images/prevenge/4-2-track-difference.jpg



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--Greg

http://www.pobox.com/~gregleg/