B&M Standup to Floorless conversions... Glorious!! (CGA 2017)

Just got to ride the new "Patriot" coaster at CGA... and by "new" I mean "not new." It's the old Standup B&M coaster Vortex, newly converted to floorless trains and just opened. Everyone is very pleasantly surprised how fun it is! And it's funny, it's mostly the picky enthusiasts who are really loving the coaster, and the GP are the ones annoyed that it's not really a new coaster.

The Vortex was getting to be quite a horrible experience, due to the rattling of the trains and the overall discomfort of the bicycle seats you have to squash your groin on top of (sorry). The coaster was built with a pretty small, tight layout, because it had to be carefully designed around several different rides in a small space; there was never anything very exciting about the ride before other than the "never seen" standup trains at the time.

But the floorless trains add some nice new experiences to the ride. For one, the trains are a bit higher off of the track than most floorless coaster (one employee said it was because of the banking elements that the train had to be higher than usual), so it creates interesting forces by being so high off the track. This is especially true on the banked turns after the loop. Also it makes the corkscrew to be a very unique experience. I've been on a couple floorless coasters (Medusa at SFDK and Scream at SFMM) and this one feels a bit different and unique. The whipping drop into the corkscrew and the very very tight corkscrew rotation make it to be a more forceful-yet-smooth experience, especially when riding in the rear of the train.

So even though we got an old rehashed ride this year at CGA, it actually is much more fun than we all expected, and we are definitely excited for the new large attractions coming in the next 5 years!

Anyone have similar experiences on the other B&M conversion (Mantis --> Rougarou) at Cedar Point?

--Josh--

I think Rougarou is fantastic, and ten times the ride it was as a standup. It's the ride I wished it could be since the first floorless was introduced.

I find Rougarou to be boring but an improvement over Mantis.

RE: Rougarou

Improvement over Mantis, yes, but it still rides like a 20 year old coaster. Mostly from headbanging, but the transitions are still just as rough, since obviously the track wasn't changed.

A few rides in the front and middle were all we needed to ignore it from here on out.

Patriot CGA will be my first conversion - keeping my expectations low, and hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Still, it's a non-invert looping B&M, so....I'll give it a ride, then decide.

Jeff said:

I think Rougarou is fantastic, and ten times the ride it was as a standup. It's the ride I wished it could be since the first floorless was introduced.

I agree. It is one of my more favorite coasters at CP now. When it was stand-up, I always thought it was a great layout with nice pacing between inversions after the first 2, and always wished it was a sit-down. It lived up to the expectations when it was converted. It has a great layout and is a re-rideable ride.

So, Patriot was a definite improvement over Vortex...still, weird to ride a floorless with a track length under 2000'. TR (sorta) forthcoming.

I haven't dragged my butt out there yet. How's the pacing? I always felt like Vortex's elements were much closer together than a typical B&M, almost to the point of being too close (I have the same problem with Joker SFDK).