Encheanted Village / Fun Forest, Aug 23, 2005

Great Northwest Coaster Tour
Day 2 - Enchanted Village
August 23, 2005
Weather - Early clouds, then sun, mid 70's

Due to lack of time and sleep, I am not including the pictures within this report. If you would like to see them, you can find them here:

http://cyclonic.smugmug.com/gallery/757435
http://cyclonic.smugmug.com/gallery/754331

This morning was our late morning, as we headed out to Enchanted Village, a mere three miles from the hotel.

Enchanted Village is a nice park, if not very large, but it does have a fine wooden coaster in Timberhawk. We got to the park at about 9:00 for a 9:30 ERT session on the ride. at about twenty after, park PR greeted us and lead us back to the coaster, which is on top of a hill at the back of the park. It is a pretty looking ride surrounded by tall evergreens.

They had one train running, which was enough to fit everyone in the group. The seats seemed a bit tight, they were nicely padded, but the seatbelts were really tight, and varied from seat to seat. Also, the belts had poorly placed buckles, they ere inside, right up against the seat divider, which made them difficult to fasten. But, the crew was very good, they were friendly and enthusiastic. They did a nice job for the ERT.

The ride itself? I like the ride. It is not very intense, but it is fun, with some airtime and lateral G's. The front gave a decent ride, with one hill giving massive ejector air, but I liked the ride better in the back, where they forces were spread out along the entire course. I pretty much stayed in 3.3 for most of the ERT.

After ERT, most folks stayed to get a few more rides before the GP reached the back of the park, be I decided to check out the rest of the park. Nearby was the paratrooper, but oddly, hey did not allow single riders, so instead I headed down the hill and to the Wild One

The Wild One is an Arrow loop screw that originally started its life at Rocky Point Park in RI. After about a 15 minute wait, I got into he station and found Tony waiting near the front. I hopped in line with him, and after the next train we were on. The do something interesting here, they give double rides. I don't know why, but when you come into the station, they ask anyone that wants to get off to raise their hands, and after a quick recheck, they run it through again. Does this make it a six inversion coaster? In any case, the ride was not back at all, not smooth, but I did not get banged up, which made the reride enjoyable as well

Tony and I headed back up the hill to the Ring of fire. I think this is the first time I have ever seen one in a park. It is also the first time I have ridden one in at least 15 years, but they were not hanging you upside down, so I figured why not. Tony and I squeezed into this tiny little seat (again, no single riders, they had a lot of that at this park) and we were off. the ride was actually pretty enjoyable.. Across the walkway was a Falling Star, so of course I couldn't pass that up. It was run pretty well, with decent speed that threw you around a bit with some ai time as well.

We walked toward the back corner of the park. Tony had already ridden the Kiddie Coaster, but I hopped about. It is a little Zamperla powered coaster and was relatively fun Next to it was the giant slide, which is built upon the hill. Several of the other folks from the tour were on it now, racing down it, so Tony and I rode it as well. I lost :(

Further back in the park we found the mouse coaster, but it was closed at the moment with a mechanic feverishly working on it. I would open up later in the day, and it is one of the better mice I have been on. It is a Zamperla as well (there seem to be a bunch of Zamperla rides in this park), and had no braking on the course, only at the end, the the turns were fast and sudden, and he hills vicious. I really like this mouse, wish more were run like it.

In the far corn of the park is their splash own ride, the only water ride in the park outside of the waterpark attraction, and Timberaxe, a Zamperla Hawk with just one arm. Tony hopped in the front seat, and I headed for the other side. The ride was also run pretty well, a decent cycle, and not too much hanging, but just enough.

Tony wanted to ride again, but I decided once was enough for me, and instead did a little walking tour of the park and the water park. I regret not bringing my bathing suit, as the water park looked pretty good, with some really neat looking body slides and some unique attractions like zip lines. The waterpark was much more crowded then the ride park, but the lines did not look too bad.

We really had more time in the park then we needed, and by noon I had done pretty much everything there was to do, save the mouse which didn't open until about one, so I just wandered about, catching a reride here and there, and just enjoying the day, sometimes with the company of others in the group, and other times alone.

t three we left the park n went for a little surprise visit to Puyallup. The fair there was closed, so we just parked and took some pictures from the outside. unfortunately the fair opens at a time when the rest of the area parks are on a weekend schedule, making the fair unfeasible. The Coaster there looked pretty fun though, with a neat double down (or is it a double up?) and a pretty tightly knit course.

The tour headed back to the hotel for a short layover before getting on our way for downtown Seattle and he Space Needle and Fun Forest, a small carnival area located at the foot of the Space Needle.

A group rate of $11 each gets you to the observation deck, 520 feet above the ground, and offering a stunning view of the area. I pent about 15 minutes up there gazing at the surrounding city before heading down and browsing the steeply overpriced gift shop, where I settled on buying nothing, so I headed for the rides.

I ran into Dan and Meredith contemplating on what rides they wanted to do, and bought tickets, 20 for $17, and then the three of us headed for the Windstorm. This is a nasty little monster, not really painful, at least not to me, but it has some brutal curving drops and strange transitions. One ride is all any of us needed.

Dan and I decided we wanted to do the booster, and small skyscraper type ride. It was fun, but the girl running it did not know how to rive it, so she was just running it full blast, instead of varying the speed to get some spinning action going

Also in the area was an Orbitor, which was pretty good, but not nearly as good as the one at Playland the day before. We used up the last of our tickets on the little kiddie coaster they also had.

We roamed around Seattle Center for a little bit and decided to get on the Monorail and go downtown to look for food. The Monorail is a simple affair, it has just one stop on each end of a mile long track. The train was clean and comfortable, but aging, and you can tell the locals don't use it at all. It is a shame really that they have not done anything with it in all these years, and it has a much more airy feeling then an el, and it is fast and quite.

When we got on, we found Ron with some local folks. They were Tara and Alex, who are ACE members and Ron had meet at CoasterCon this past summer. They were very nice folk, and the six of us went off in search of a meal. Problem was, the whole downtown area seems to close down early, and even the restaurants down at the market were all closing. We finally found this little Turkish place and settled on that, being that there was nothing else to settle on. We ate and quickly made our way back to Seattle Center for a 10pm bus pickup.

Well, next up will be a threesome, Thrillville USA, Enchanted Forest, and Oaks Park. Hope you enjoyed.

Did the park still have their Tip Top spinning tea-cup type ride? It used to be across from the mouse and shoot-the-chutes. AFAIK it is only one of two still in operation. I loved it!

What's cool about the ride is the disc holding the ride vehicles is mounted to a hydraulic lift. As the disc spins it is suddenly raised and allowed to freefall back down, creating massive airtime as you twirl.

It was there last year, Moosh, but I myself don't know if it's still there. I imagine it is, though. What a great ride. A real keeper!

Glad you had a good time on Timberhawk, Cyclonic. To me it's far too tame, but I can see how you could ride it over and over again. It's pretty forceless. According to Dan (coasterpunk), it's tracking quite well, though. That's nice to hear. He didn't mention any squeaking like it did in its opening season.

Maybe it's time to get back to the park? :)

The Tip Top was still there, but unfortunately it was closed (from the looks of it, all season? It was covered in dry leaves). I have ridden the one at Slvan Beach, and it is a fun ride.

Timberhawk certainly is not intense, but it does have a few nice moments and fits into the park very well. Personally, I liked it, not top ten liked it, but it is certainly better then some I have been on. I don't know how it was last season, but maybe it just needed a little bit of time to break in.

The corcksrew coaster is called Wild Thing, not Wild One, but glad you enjoyed that park. Its one of the best little parks out there. Even if it is run by SFI.

Good TR. :)
Nice to hear TH was a good ride. I have commented before how I thought season two was a better ride than in it's debut.
Maybe third season is the charm?;)