IJST: 'Mini' Review

Awww man! I can't wait to ride this, I've actually never been on a "themed" coaster before. Since I'm going to PKI this summer, I should get my turn.

Chris,

It was cool seeing you again even if it was just for a few seconds. I believe the on-ride cameras are located at the end of the launch.

Over the last 24 hours I took 20 rides on IJ and noticed some things. The fishtailing effect is on, but you have to really pay attention to feel it. You really don't feel it while sitting in the front of a car, but I could clearly feel it while sitting in the back while going through the police car scene. I didn't pay attention to see if it happend in both trains. I was also amazed with the airtime while in the front car. Nice! What surprised me the most was the force of the helix. I didn't know it was going to be that strong.

I am not sure if the stair effect will add a lot to the ride as the train is moving pretty well during that time and the effect would have to be very strong to feel it.

I also am not certain if the billboard LIMs were working or not. At times while riding in the back I thought I could feel them every once in a while, but that may have been the rest of the train pulling us down the drop. During test runs yesterday morning we watched a train coast on its own out of the show scene and the train barely made it to the final brake area. Those LIMs could very well be to assist the train if it doesn't get launched out of the show area, although the park has said they wanted to give the billboard scene a small boost to enhance the drop.

With the exception of two, the final magnetic trims can move out of the way depending on the speed of the train. On colder days like yesterday, the trims were constantly moving. This morning they weren't.

The audio wasn't very loud yesterday but at least one train was louder this morning. Overnight, the park installed numbers in the station to help folks know where to stand.

The show scene is done well IMO. I wasn't aware it was going to get me that wet at times. Other times I didn't get a drop. Night rides are amazing and really highlight the visual effects.

PCWCoasterBoy,

I will be riding the Canadian version next weekend and expect the rides to feel almost the same. If it runs anything like the PKI version, I will be excited.

I think the ride will do very well for the park and I look forward to more rides.

-Sean

. *** Edited 5/2/2005 12:27:21 AM UTC by Sean Flaharty***

Numbers - great. That is one thing we said they should do while we were there on Saturday. People were very confused by "1st row of the blue car" when there wasn't always a train sitting there.

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Sean Flaharty said:
Chris,

It was cool seeing you again even if it was just for a few seconds. I believe the on-ride cameras are located at the end of the launch.

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Ditto, Sean. If work didn't suck up a lot of my time, I'd be out more (and I thought working for an airline would be BENEFICIAL to coaster riding.... :) ).

A couple of other things...

- I did manage to see the hidden camera in the garage structure on my two rides yesterday (and since everyone in the photos were looking towards their right, I should've guessed that).

- I noticed on the 'restrictions' sign that there is a 300lbs weight limit for riders, so I need to lay off the Oreos I guess.

- There isn't a test seat for the ride (yet?), so go in with the estimate of 6'5" or shorter and less than 300 lbs, and you should be good to go.

- I think PCW's version might be better for first time riders, due to the aforementioned lack of view of the ride structure. PKI's is so wide open that you really know what to expect, except for the tunneled part. From the above photo of the PCW queue, I really like it better that PKI's version (of the queue since the ride is the same) already.

- If there is any part of the theming that is going to break down (and maybe stay down, depending on how willing they are to fix it) it's the helicopter. It's the only theming portion of the ride that either A - can't be quick fixed, or B - doesn't seem trivial to the ride experience (IE if a water gun in a barrel isn't working, you won't notice, but if the helicopter doesn't spring up on it's platform while you hear gunfire, you'll notice). As a matter of fact, on my rides yesterday, the helicopter stayed in the 'up' position the entire ride cycle (when it's supposed to 'pop up' when you enter its scene).

I didn't get to see it in the dark yet, but I suspect that this is really a nighttime showcase ride. It's vibrant to look at in the day, but with all the show elements that use light to effect (fire, police car lights, head and tail lights, illuminated billboards and road signs) I suspect it'll be a photographer's friend after dusk.

Chris,

A few of us noticed the posted weight limit on the sign as well. We joked a bit with Maureen about it and pictured the park moving the "Guess Your Weight" scale from the Flight of Fear area to the loading station of IJ. Could you imagine?

Out of all the rides I took on it, only one time did the helicopter scene fail to work. There wasn't any fire nor did the helicopter "fly" into place.It was almost hidden from view. I don't believe there was water being shot around either. I haven't seen the chopper moving into place but I did notice that when they were testing the ride a couple of weeks ago, the helicopter would move into position before the train was all the way up the hill leading to the show scene. Speaking of that scene, I think the audio is very effective during that section.

While riding Drop Zone today, I was trying to see if I could tell if IJ was running or not. The ride is hidden from view from a lot of the park but you could clearly see fire shooting up into the air as we were riding Drop Zone.

-Sean

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Sean Flaharty said:
Speaking of that scene, I think the audio is very effective during that section.

-Sean

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Sean,

Now THIS should be closer to the volume that the trains should be at (the trains should be slightly softer than the helicopter scene... not to where you need earplugs, but not at its current volume either). I'm almost positive that the helicopter sequence runs on external speakers in the oil drums, and the various set pieces, because it's so much louder than what you hear in the train.

What I don't know is this: does the interior speaker switch to this external set for this scene and then back to the train for the rest of the ride?

From the 5 times (and granted, it is only 5 times) that I rode it, I felt like I had cotton in my ears, straining to hear the soundtrack, until I got to the helicopter scene. That's the only time it gets to be audible (and rather loud, almost Universal Studios attraction loud) before I hear 'Cut' at the end.

I know it's a kink, and I understand there's a lot of tweaking before May to do (as good a reason for tech. rehearsals as any), but this has to be a high priority item on that list. It's part of what 'makes' this attraction different.

-Chris

The audio from the helicopter scene is indeed coming from speakers mounted in the walls of the backdrop up there. You can hear the explosions and gun fire if you're anywhere near the queue area while it's running.

Random thoughts from my 18 or so laps:
- I really couldn't feel the fishtailing. I'm wondering if it was active, or if those who felt it were just sliding around the seat due to the laterals

- The headlights of the trains are imperative for the tunnel sequence. The action of the trains (s-curves, banks, etc.) are truly enhanced when the only thing you can see is the back of the car in front of you. For the front seats, they really need to get some high beams installed so you can get a similar effect up there.

- With two trains, it was difficult to see how the station blocking and advancing is going to go. What I did see was that a train would sit in unload much longer than it needed to be. With three trains, a train presumably would be loading at that time. Hopefully we'll see that third train in the coming weeks.

- I'll agree with Chris Rettig about the roominess of the trains. The front seats offer a whole lot more room than the rears, but it's not horrible in the back.

All and all, IJST is a great little ride. My only fear is that a lot of the bells and whistles will disappear during the season. The two things that they really need to concentrate on keeping functional are the helicopter scene and the headlights. Everything else IMHO is nice to have but not imperative to the experience.

I was at season pass preview night at PCW as well. We got there later though, so couldn't ride IT:ST. Well we could have, but I wasn't waiting 3+ hours for it.

But I did see something interesting.

When we got to the park we went straight over there. When we saw the line we decided to skip it and get in line for Minebuster instead. As we went through the much shorter Minebuster line I started to notice that IT:ST hadn't moved in quite awhile. Sure enough it had broken down.

So we got in line for the back seat on Minebuster. And I kept looking over and wondering where IT:ST 2nd train was, as the first train hadn't moved an inch.

Then I saw security and maintenance people leading all the people around the back of the ride and back to the midway where they were handed what I assume was front of the line passes.

Then I got on Minebuster and got a good view of an empty train sitting at the chopper scene.

Kind of feel bad for those people. Wait like 3 hours for a ride and then only make it through 3/4 of it.

PCWCoasterBoy: Capacity nightmare indeed. My last ride of the night was Skyrider. It was pretty much a 30-40 minute station wait as they were dispatching every 5-10 minutes.

That is a pretty funny idea about moving the "Guess Your Weight" scale over to the IJ entrance.

If memory serves, I think the markings on the Guess Your Weight Scale also max out at 300#. Thereofre we could install a metal peg where 301 should be.

Person steps on scale, and if the scale pegs out, an electrical current flowing through the pointer will flow through the peg and complete a circuit seting off flashing lights, and buzzers and bells and klaxon alarms and basically anything else to be overly annoying.

Then again, Flight of Fear is much less accomodating than IJ, so I guess we should leave the scale where it is...

Carnage... Skyrider isn't the best indicator of capacity. It's always run terribly as far as cycle time is concerned. When will PCW realize you can't cycle a Togo Stand-up with those restraints with only 2 ops on the platform and one in the booth.

But overall you're right, the park was jammed, and I think we're in for a long, long summer of waiting in lines.

^ Yeah, Skyrider has always been pretty slow loading. But this was quite a bit worse then I've ever seen.

Though I'll give them a bit of credit for being early in the season. It was pretty obvious the crew was new.

The person in the booth was constantly buzzing that horn to get ride ops attention(not sure exactly what that thing is for). And on multiple times she said a ride ops name over the loudspeaker multiple times before getting any reaction.

Hopefully the capacity will improve. But I'm not sure how much. I've always found PCW to have one of the worst capacites. All of their lines seem to move so slow. Well maybe except some of the flat rides, they cycle those fairly quick.

Got to do a tech. ride on Sat. They said it had had several breakdowns throughout the day, but we got lucky, during our time in line. Plus, despite what I had heard, it was easy to get rides on IJST.

A lack of communication led to us having a really difficult time doing a parent swap. But supervisor Kevin did a great job taking control and working things out. As for the ride, it was great to me.

- As mentioned before, nice touch with the working doors on the cars, and the rear view mirrors.

- The weaving/turning ability of these cars was great too.

- The triple spiral off the start was clearly the stand-out move.

- The turnaround following the police chase scene was pretty sweet too, and was the only point where I experienced any bumpiness.

- The second half, was nice with the pitch black tunnel section. This ride, as a whole, I think will excel at night with the police lights, explosions, and other effects.

- If there was any complaint I had about the ride...it was a bit too short, but overall, PKI, you did great on this baby!

What shocked me most the whole day was seeing Jeff Seibert...taking a day off! I don't think I've ever seen him in street clothes before. My wifes comment, "He takes a day off, and comes to work anyway...sounds like Jeff Seibert." (J/K) *** Edited 5/10/2005 2:45:41 PM UTC by Floorless Fan***

I rode the Canada version just a couple of days ago and was surprised to see its location in the park. While the actual coaster portion felt exactly the same, Wonderland's version didn't have a lot of effects working but they did have more fire. They also used different colors in some of the themeing such as the tunnel walls and large containers next to the launch area. They also have a different (and more effective IMO) placement of the on-ride cameras.

The public was loving this ride as was shown on the smiles of the people walking down the exit.

-Sean