Busch Gardens Williamsburg announces retirment of Big Bad Wolf

Olsor said:
Had a night ride on BBW during Howl-O-Scream in 2003 that was one of the best rides I've ever had on any coaster.

Great ride. It will be missed.

Indeed. I had a similar experience when the ride first opened. Got a fantastic ride after a late evening rain storm. Still one of those "magical" coaster moments that I will never forget.

Really makes me sad to see it go.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I was hoping it wasn't so, but when I read this, I yelled NOOOOOOOO out loud. I'm SO bummed right now. :(

It's not exactly shocking news, but it still sucks. :(

RIP Wolfie!

-Tina

I'm going to BG in a few weeks. This sucks.

Looks like KD is the place to be next year.

I'd love to see some kind of ERT event before now and the close date.

Even on a moderately crowded day, Wolf still had a full queue and one of the ride supervisors told us that ridership is not down.

Well, glad they finally confessed instead of denying it to be only a rumor. Guess I know where I'm going Labor Day Weekend.

Jeff,

To be fair, the day that I went to the park, most rides were a walk on. Griffin had a 5 min wait and that was the only line in the park.

There was another Arrow suspended, removed in 05 that was in Tokyo. Hayabusa was removed after an accident. Too bad... it had a very strange and unique layout, starting with a 124 feet drop. http://www.rcdb.com/ig1203.htm?picture=1

What does that leave us for Arrow Suspended? Ninja, Iron Dragon, KI Flight Deck, CW Vortex and the Vekoma "improved" Vampire at Chessington... Ride them before they're gone...

A statistic of one day here and there certainly isnt a good litmus of what a whole season of a particular rides total attendance would be for the season.

just sayin..

True Ken, but not everyone sleeps with someone that could get their hands on that kind of information. :)

tigellinus said:
I was cool with no Podcast last Sun (I was still behind anyway), however, I want a Podcast this weekend now! Thank you :)

Here's what you'll hear from me:

Whatever. Consider me in the loop (prior to this official announcement) and it wasn't enough to make me plan a visit this year. Then once I got a idea of what KD is doing next year, I'm definitely not wasting my time making a trip to go 'say goodbye' to an old suspended coaster this year. I'll be visiting the area (including a BBW-less BGW) next year.

Hmmm, wow... Such an iconic coaster is going away. Well, what can you do? At least it lasted 25 years.

I am a little surprised that they refer to this as "The world’s first suspended roller coaster." I thought that was The Bat?

Oh, crap.

When I was at BGE in the spring of '08 I skipped Big Bad Wolf as it was the only coaster that actually had a line. It was one train operation and the line was out the door. The other coasters had 2-3 train waits if they weren't walk-on that day. We did ride it a year or so prior to that, and had a pretty long wait then, too. The ride was great, though, and I'd forgotten how much fun a coaster it was.

When Big Bad Wolf was introduced it pretty much took the prize for steel coasters of the day, and was the first truly successful suspended ride. It was such a hit for the park. It's still a rockin ride, and i think to this day holds up as one of the best in name, concept and theme. One of the greatest logos, too. Throw in a thrilling layout that's situated on one of the prettiest, most unique sites ever, and you have an unforgettable ride.

I'm always sad for the loss of a coaster, but it hits especially hard when it's a milestone ride like Big Bad Wolf.

I remember the summer of 1999. Wait for Big Bad Wolf more than half an hour. Waits for Apollo brand new, and Alpengiest less than 10. The whole one day here one day there comparison is true that it can't depict things accurately. It does seem Big Bad Wolf had more popularity than some of the other coasters we have lost lately. It's not a good day, but take the positive attitude and think one day something better will go in its place. The alternative is taking the loading station and turning it into storage like the fate of Drachen.

I tried to edit my post to add:

Macevhicz- The Bat was the first Arrow suspended coaster constructed, but it was a failure, lasting only a few seasons and operating a lot less than that. Next was XLR8 at Astroworld, but I remember there being issues with that ride too. At any rate it was the slowest and the lamest of all the suspendeds. Third, actually, was Big Bad Wolf and it blew the socks off of the other two and most other suspended rides since. I can only consider it to be the first successful suspended ride.

Lord Gonchar said:

Here's what you'll hear from me:

I'm definitely not wasting my time making a trip to go 'say goodbye' to an old suspended coaster this year.

Sweet.. One less person in front of me in line. No love loss there ;)

macevhicz said:
I am a little surprised that they refer to this as "The world’s first suspended roller coaster." I thought that was The Bat?

Yes, The Bat was.

But even so, XLR-8 (another Suspended coaster that was lost to the scrapyard) at the former Six Flags AstroWorld was the first successful suspended coaster. BBW followed it later that year.

^^RCMAC...have to agree about the Astroworld ride. XLR8 was quite the misnomer (of sorts), it was definitely the anti-BBW of suspendeds.

I'm really bummed as I won't get a chance to ride it again...I only got 1 ride on it in 2002. I loved every minute of it, and some of the people I went with even preferred it over Apollo and Alpengeist. Easily my favorite Arrow suspended, and the first coaster being removed that I'll truly miss.

Thanks for the great ride, BBW.

The Bat was not the first. There was a single-car suspeded coaster on Queens Pike here in Los Angeles called Busby's Spiral Airship that opened in 1902. Here is a list of suspended coasters.