Hybrid roller coaster Zambezi Zinger opens at Worlds of Fun

Pause. You said that they just opened a RMC hybrid, it’s a GCI tho..

Where does it say RMC?

Idk how to post a pic😭

The linked article calls it a steel-wood hybrid and goes on to say it comes from GCI. There’s no mention anywhere, there or here, of RMC.

There is tho😭 I swear😭

He fixed it

Still don't understand the upside of marketing these as hybrids. I guess "hybrid" = cool/futuristic/environmentally friendly, although I don't think the word has the same cachet that it did 10 years ago, and anyway these coasters have nothing to do with hybrid vehicles. And they are no more of a hybrid than Gemini, Adventure Express, etc.

I happened to get lucky and ended up visiting Worlds of Fun for my first time yesterday on it's public opening day.

I arrived there about a half hour after park opening and decided to walk over and see how long the line was, and was surprised to find out they were handing out boarding passes for boarding groups in half hour timeslots. I ended up getting a 4:30pm-5pm timeslot to come back.

They didn't have any signs saying you needed boarding passes, so people were walking up all day finding out they couldn't ride it unless they got a boarding pass earlier in the day or if they purchase Fastlane +. I thought that was a pretty crappy move by the park, also opening the coaster with only 1 train operation seemed like a poor move as well.

My overall thoughts of the ride were pretty negative. The lap bars on it are not very man friendly. The lap bar gets really tight throughout the ride and the bar in the middle gets very very uncomfortable. Imagine the tightness on the chest that you get on the B&M wing coasters but between the legs. Not fun at all. The layout of the ride seems decent. However it's a weird move for the park putting it right next to Prowler. The ride also seemed much louder then normal, I'm not sure if that's because of the Titan track or not.

I left the park thinking it's probably the 5th best ride in the park, as I had good ride's on Mamba, Patriot, Prowler and Timber Wolf.

Wow, scathing review! That's too bad, as it's my #1 must-ride of the year and I was thinking of planning a special trip to KC just to ride it. Probably still will, but I think I'll wait for the operations to get consistent, based on your report of how it's going now.

Yeah I would wait until they have 2 trains running on it. It would probably be a pretty decent ride if the lap bars weren't so bad, but lapbars fit everyone different so others might not have the same problem....although my wife also said it was uncomfortable for her as well.

It's the first new coaster in years that I got off saying that I don't think I need to ride that ever again.

Is the restraint any different than any other Millennium Flyer?

This uses GCI’s new Infinity Flyers, which do have different lap bars.

Ah.

Bakeman31092:

...And they are no more of a hybrid than Gemini, Adventure Express, etc.

I'd argue if you're going to throw around the word "hybrid" when referring to a roller coaster, the Zinger has a better claim to it than most, as it uses both steel and wood track, not just a blend of wood track and steel structure or vice versa...steel Titan Track for the lift hill and a couple of other spots while the rest of the ride uses conventional wood track.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Based on a review sample size of 1, I am not a fan of the decision to use Infinity Flyers here. Those trains were designed for inversions and other “extreme” elements and as such the restrictive restraints seem like overkill. I assume they needed their greater articulation for the spiral lift hill, but did we really need to kill the ride experience so we could have a novelty lift system?

Considering the ride is supposed to be paying homage to the OG Zambezi Zinger, yeah, kind of.

...yeah, but, like, they made the entire ride worse by doing so. No one was busting the door down for another ride with a spiral lift at the park.

It’s ridiculous, dare I say insulting, to think that fans of the original ride, like myself, are going to be fooled by this. In one of the reach-iest reaches ever, they have marketed this ride as a remake of a favorite. I’m calling it “Raging Wolf Bobs Syndrome”, because clearly it isn’t. They even had the audacity to reuse the original name. Ugh.
But, having said that, I was willing to set it all aside and was anxious to give this ride a go. I thought it looked interesting and had a decent layout for a smaller wooden ride. Now I’m not so sure. Visitors to this park have waited a long time for a new installation, and I’ve been waiting for an excuse to try to get there to collect it and other credits I’ve been missing. I think I’ll go with Virginia instead.

PhantomTails -- I certainly wasn't defending the decision to do so. But if their intent was as clear as it was, then recreating the most iconic/memorable part of the ride makes sense, even if it's a fools errand. And while I hate the general public moniker, I'd be hard-pressed to believe that many outside of the enthusiast circles will be as disgruntled by the Raging Wolf Bobs Syndrome as we are.

It does feel like there should've been an adult in the room to stand up and say, "Just because we can, doesn't mean we should" during the design and planning phases.