Canada's Wonderland May 25, 2019

I wasn’t certain of being able to make the trip until the last minute, as I’d been sick for two weeks and wasn’t completely recovered but didn’t want to waste a holiday weekend so I went anyway. When I arrived in Vaughan it was raining hard and not wanting to go to the park in a downpour, I hung out at my hotel until the rain stopped at about 1:30 pm. (Thanks to whoever recommended Aloft in another thread on CB; this was the perfect place to stay for the purpose of this visit.)

I was hoping that the weather would keep people away from the park so that I wouldn’t have to purchase Fast Lane Plus but this was not the case so I forked over the money. (Fortunately, the exchange rate is favorable to USD.) First ride of the day was on Leviathan, which would certainly be on my top ten list if I had one that was up to date. This coaster blew me away when I first rode it 4 or 5 years ago and that hasn’t changed. After Leviathan I headed in the direction of Yukon Striker and passed The Fly along the way. I really wanted to get the credit for The Fly but there was a wait and that coaster doesn’t have Fast Lane access so I kept on walking with the intention of catching it later in the day.

Now for Yukon Striker. The purpose of my visit to CW was to get enough material to write a review so I took a lot of photos and rode it three times. The view from the top was spectacular, the drop was awesome and the inversions were super. It was only after the inversions that the ride seemed to lose momentum. All in all it was good enough that I considered riding it many more times but came to the conclusion that 3 rides were sufficient to get a good take on it; after all, there were other coasters to ride. Although the track of Vortex is in the foreground of YS, I skipped Vortex b/c I didn’t really enjoy it when I rode it on my one previous visit to CW. (I didn’t much care for The Bat at Kings Island either; I guess I just don’t appreciate suspended coasters.)

With nearby Mighty Canadian Minebuster stuck on the lift hill, I was spared having to ride it so headed to Behemoth, which was excellent as usual. I skipped Flight Deck, having ridden it and hated it; there are few coaster models I dislike as much as Vekoma SLC’s. It was on to Backlot Stunt Coaster, which I found to be a lot of fun. I’d forgotten the dual launch. From there it was The Bat, which I’d skipped on my previous visit and probably should have skipped on this one except that I wanted the credit. The cobra roll was awfully rough.

At about 5pm there was more rain followed by thunderstorms which forced the closing of all rides. By this time I was so determined to get the credit for The Fly – I had become obsessed with it - that I sat under an umbrella in a designated smoking area across from that coaster and waited out the storm. An hour later the big rides had reopened but no Fly! So I walked over to nearby Wonder Mountain’s Guardian, another ride with no Fast Lane access, which is why I skipped it the last time. There was hardly any wait so I picked up another credit. As far as interactive dark rides go, I thought that this was good but not as good as Justice League. After the ride I went back to The Fly, which lo and behold was open. Mission accomplished. And yes, I liked it; for some reason I’ve recently developed an appreciation of wild mouse rides. I then subjected myself to Wilde Beast. There really is nothing fundamentally wrong with the layout; it’s just too rough to be enjoyable, at least for me. Wilde Beast was followed by 4 nearly consecutive rides on Leviathan; can’t get enough of it.

By this time I was tired and thought that I had ridden all I wanted to ride but after a dinner break – the pizza and ale were excellent – I decided to get the credit for Time Warp. The restraint system on Zamperla flyers is so different from that on B&M flyers that I was somewhat taken aback. Because you can’t see the ride ops secure the restraint, you just have to take it on faith that they know what they’re doing. In any case this ride would have been OK were it not for the fact that it was murder on the legs. Throughout the ride but especially during the two inversions, my legs were being pressed against the rungs of the ladder I had to climb to get into riding position. I thought about trying some flat rides but wasn’t really feeling up to it and when I went back to Riptide (a Mondial top spin) it wasn’t operating so I called it a day.

Sounds like a fun time. I'd love to go there someday. Yukon Striker looks awesome!

Sounds like Yukon Striker is gold (ba dum psssh). CW has always struck me a park with a top 3 or 4 as good as any park and then a whole bunch of just total garbage/torture devices. After Yukon Striker, Leviathan, Behemoth, and maybe Vortex and BLSC the quality drops off so sharply.

It's a really nice park with a decent collection of rides. The powered Train "coaster" is a ton of fun and IMO, totally counts as a credit.

Glad you had a great time, despite some rain.