Hulk - who's actually doing the track

Had another odd thought about this. Convert Hulk to a wing coaster with hulk-fist themed ends on the cars. Maybe add some "Hulk Smash" theme around the ride.

The bigger takeaway from that article is where the reporter conjectures that enthusiasts who are fans of a particular coaster designer and manufacturer will give bad reviews of another brand, tell all their friends, and negatively impact Orlando tourism.

See guys? We ARE important! We ARE!
(I knew it....)

Jeff said:
Hulk has always been strangely rough to me, the worst headbanger of any B&M. I always theorized that it was because they let the bushings in the guide wheels get too sloppy, resulting in a lot of lateral shaking around. You could always see it happening when you sat in the back and looked at the rest of the train through the inversions.

Yes! The first half of the ride was fantastic, but the back half shocked me with how brutal it was. This was one of two B&M's where I couldn't wait for the ride to be over. I just kinda laid my head on the restraint and closed my eyes until it was over. Probably the closest I've ever come to booting on a roller coaster. I can't wait to ride the new and improved version!

Hulk was far from my favorite Beemer, but some of the complaints make it sound worse than Iron Wolf, Chang, or Mantis....

I'd usually skip Hulk, but hadn't ridden any of the other mentioned for YEARS...admittedly, somewhat surprised by the reaction.

I liked iron wolf more than Hulk...

kpjb said:
B&M confirmed to be rebuilding Hulk.

Although, they do mention that it is not just getting retracked, but "new track designs". Looks like this may end up a new credit after all, cre-hoes.

Note also the word "reimagined". That's not the same as refurbished. At first I thought this was just train/launch replacement, with queue and theme refresh. Then we moved into track replacement, but assumed it was just 16 years of non-stop use replacement.. Now we've moved into "reimagined" territory, with a ton of track at the recycler and what appears to be supports as well. Now I'm looking back at the quote about the ride coming back with the same "personality", but yet a totally different carcass. There's much more here than we had initially thought.

I might be opening a can of worms, but what is the beef between Coasterbuzz and "that other site," if there is one? I must have missed it.

I wouldn't say it's a beef between this site and that site so much as anyone that isn't a part of that site tends to dispise *****************.

Personally, I don't like ex convicts that continue to treat people like crap. Oh, and he gave my personal information out to a drug addicted psycho.

Tekwardo said:

Personally, I don't like ex convicts that continue to treat people like crap. Oh, and he gave my personal information out to a drug addicted psycho.

What? OK never mind I don't care, I don't wanna know. Stuff got heavy.

Edit: Ooh, look at that, it got censored. Whatever still don't care, too much drama.

Really not interested in having conversations about other people from other sites who are not well liked.

Back to the original topic, Hulk in the last few years truly had become rough to a level where I generally skipped it while in the park. Dragons have become just as bad as well. The only "worse" ride I have ever had on a B&M was Riddler's Revenge at Magic Mountain, which caused headbanging at a level that rivaled my worst Steel Phantom rides at Kennywood back in the day. Which always disappointed me because I love the layout and I always genuinely enjoyed Mantis.

Kumba at BGT hasn't necessarily aged well either. I'm not sure if it's lack of care or simply lack of an offseason. Even with an occasional month long shutdown every couple of years, I wonder if the parks just can't keep up with things the same way a seasonal park can. Either way, whatever Universal does with Hulk 2.0, I have no doubt it will be good and will be an improvement over the way Hulk has been riding the last 5 years or so.

One thing to think about. The rides in Florida generally run 12 months a year. Most of the other parks basically run 4 months per year (May - September, weekends here and there outside of those times.) So, while Hulk is only 16 years old, relative to the other parks, it is "48 coaster years" old. Aside from Matterhorn and a couple of mine trains, there really is no other steel coasters approaching that kind of age.

Went to Universal to check out the progress. The station is gutted and all the external facade removed. All the track after the corkscrew has been removed. Turns out they are only changing the trains, the launch mechanism and the second half of the ride. The iconic zero-g, cobra roll and loop combo will stay (yay!) The station will have better monitors, different interior design, and most importantly, better ventilation. That station can smell like a stable on an August afternoon.

Off Topic, Kong..looks AMAZING! Universal is really turning it up with the theming. Word on the street is that both parks will get significant capital improvements up to 2025.

Not that I don't believe you delan, but isn't it possible the scope of the project will extend to other pieces of the track other than what they have taken down already?

Stopped by Fun Spot on the way home from OIA today around 4pm (hunger led us to Sweet Tomatoes, WL led us to Fun Spot). Yes, I am an addict - don't you judge me!

The vertical loop on Hulk certainly appeared to be missing (not that it couldn't/wouldn't be replaced). Hard to believe they could have done that much in a few hours....

This is starting to sound like a full-on teardown. They'll replace it with an entirely new coaster, but with similar elements over the lagoon to trick the gp into thinking it's just a redo. That's my guess.

That's like the long way around the barn for.... What?

I'm still at a loss to how Clermont is going to make this track so quickly. Does anyone have any working estimate on average how many pieces of track that they can produce in a week?

Isn't this ride planned to be closed for the better part of 2016? Clermont has plenty of time to assemble track.

bjames said:

This is starting to sound like a full-on teardown. They'll replace it with an entirely new coaster, but with similar elements over the lagoon to trick the gp into thinking it's just a redo. That's my guess.

The premise of that is a little bizarre, because you could produce a clone of the original cheaper than you could produce something similar.