Great Adventure 5/12/13

No volleying.

No discussions.

One very uncomfortable El Toro ride in the back seat.

One very rough Kingda Ka ride in the back seat.

Four very good Nitro rides.

Three excellent Bizarro rides.

First rides of the season on Blackbeard and Superman.

Hung with my friend Jennifer and her Mom. Jen got her in free with a SP Passbook coupon.

Best amusement park corn dog ever. Nathans.

Reminder of why I rarely, if ever, take the Jersey Turnpike to GrAdv..$7.55 toll.

Thanks for reading.

This is my kind of TR!

Wow. I have so many questions... lol

Ask away, Krause!

I'm confused.

I can't fix that, Tyler.

I do have a question; is Nitro better or worse than Diamondback?

Why was Toro uncomfortable in the back this time? Did someone try to make you move up, and your head spun around Exorcist style? ;)

Tyler, Nitro's better than almost every B&M speed coaster I've ridden, Diamondback included. Silver Star and Leviathan are probably the only two that are either as good or better.

Your mileage may vary.

What are you talking about? Nitro is like a Wacky Worm compared to Diamondback.

Of course, I haven't rode NyQuil in a very long time, and KI is my home park, so my opinion could be just a little biased. lol

I like Intimidator, Carowinds, better than Diamondback. It feels shorter, but Indimidator is way more intense. How does Nitro compare to that?

Tyler, as mentioned earlier, Nitro's in my top three B&M speed coasters with Silver Star and Leviathan. Breaking my nine up into three groups of three, Intimidator is in the middle set with Behemoth and the OG Goliath. Honestly, I couldn't begin to tell you what the order is there. All three are pretty much equally awesome.

Travis, I remember being very surprised by Diamondback. Traditionally, I'm a front row guy, especially on the B&M speed coasters. On Diamondback, though, it was a back-row lap at the end of the night that wound up selling me on it. That first front row lap made me wonder if everyone here had lost their minds. Granted, the back wasn't enough to push it higher in my rankings, but at least I finally "got it."

To be more specific, I'd still rank it just above Apollo's Chariot and Raging Bull, placing it in the seventh position out of nine. Is it a bad ride? Far from it. Seventh of nine in the B&M speed coaster category is still WAY up in the overall standings. It just doesn't run as hard as the Nitro/Silver Star duo in my book.

It is interesting to think about, though. Here I sit claiming that Nitro is at the upper end of the B&M speed coaster intensity spectrum and yet many on here place it in the completely opposite corner. I'd like to think our rides on it have been fairly similar, but still, it's just interesting to think about how much our mileage really does vary.

Actually I don't think it's interesting at all. :-)

At some point, everyone has got to accept that ride experiences are going to vary by person, by day, by frame of reference, by mood, and by general riding preference to name just a few. There are no comparison points really.

If you really want to know how your experience stacks up against others or how your favorite coaster compares to other coasters, then check out the CoasterBuzz top 100. These comparison discussions just get old. And is it me, or do we keep comparing the same coasters anyway?

You're right. B&M hypers, TTD vs Ka, and Toro vs Voyage.

WHY THE CONTROVERSY?

First of all, it's "you're" right. Second of all, you don't need to shout. And last, but certainly not least, you started the comparison discussion again this time around:

Tyler Boes said: I do have a question; is Nitro better or worse than Diamondback?

Oh, I know that this is in danger of getting into one of those x-ride-is-better-than-y-ride discussions, but I couldn't resist the urge to share my scientific fact of an opinion with all the others who disagree, utterly wrong though they are.

And, as I've not sucked up in a while, I rather think that the Coasterbuzz 100 is probably the best poll out there, as the base method of collecting data with its rating-rides-in-tiers method as opposed to outright this-is-better-than-that comparisons is probably the only way I can accurately offer my opinion for a poll.

And Carrie, you are correct. Here I thought lap ten on Steel Force would remain unforgettable, but alas, it did slip my mind.

bunky666 said:

Why was Toro uncomfortable in the back this time? Did someone try to make you move up, and your head spun around Exorcist style? ;)

No, they just stapled me in unusually tight with the lapbar. I've found the Soul Train to be a little less forgiving in that seat, and that's the one I was on.

Soul Train? It was "unconfortable" because you were in Don Cornelius's seat!

Soon you're gonna have to wait for the non-Soul train and the back seat as well! Heh...

I like coaster rating and comparisons, but not so much from one B&M hyper to another and things like that. What I mean is, if I've never ridden a certain type ride, I like to have some sort of comparison to know what to expect. When I first came to this site, I was petrified of Kingda Ka and was trying to figure out how bad it would be. People compared it to Storm Runner but just bigger, and it was helpful for me. Comparing two of the exact same sort of rides for airtime and intensity definitely gets old though.