KBF 5/25, La Revolucion - A definite skip

After hearing that La Revolucion had opened this weekend to guests at Knott's, I decided to take a brief trip down there to check it out. One of my favorite times to hit Knott’s (aside from winter weekdays) are days when they open at 9am. For whatever reason, the crowds never seem to hit the back of the park for a few hours which allows for very small wait times, if not complete walk-ons. First stop was Xcelerator, which was running great. I got two rides, on in the back and one in the front. The rear of the train had a shuffle which while not rough did surprise me. It seems to have gotten worse, and this was in the "new" red train but as long as it doesn't affect the ride experience I won't worry about it.

Skipping forward 30 minutes after rides on Supreme Scream and the classic Timber Mountain Log Ride (my favorite flume)....

La Revolucion was my 4th Frisbee-type ride and unfortunately it is my least favorite. I've been on one real Huss Frisbee, Taz's at SFMW and two of the 24-peep KMG Afterburners. One was at the San Diego fair, which at the time I thought was under whelming due to the lack of much spin until the last few swings, basically saving the fun until the last 15 seconds. The other one is the Fireball at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. That one packs a punch. It gives everyone a chance for a swing at the top and then goes into a great spin/swing cycle. Knott's La Revolucion however...does neither.

My first of two rides began with me being directed over to one of the few remaining seats which were on the opposite side of the ride entrance. If you're going to ride this ride, you don't want to sit in these seats. The spin is very slow and never changes speed throughout the ride which resulted in always being on the lower end of the swing. Knott's has the ride programmed so that half of the riders always get to be at the top of the swing while the other half are always at the bottom. So I thought ok, I got gypped this ride, I'll try it again. This time I knew which seats to head to and got one of them. While the swings at the top are much better, and you do get some airtime, in my opinion this isn't what this type of ride is supposed to be. The spin isn't fast enough to plaster you into your seat at all. Basically Knott's has purchased another swinging ship ride, much like their Dragon Swing, located just a few steps away, which goes a bit higher and only gives half of its riders a good time.

My remaining hope is that Knott's will re-program the ride to something more like Santa Cruz's Fireball. For those of you that have been on other 32-peep KMG/Change Afterburners, how is the programming? I've yet to go on PGA's but will get a chance later this summer. I guess for now I’ll keep having to take those trips to Northern California to get on decent flat rides.

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Karl
http://www.twistedrails.com

Wow, that's kind of a bummer. I would think it would require a lot of fine tuning to really make the ride so one-sided like that. Why would you intentionally want the ride to not vary for every seat?

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

Vortex, the first park built Afterburner I must add, is also on this setting. If your at the bottom of the first full swing you will stay there for the whole ride and it's pants. However everyone rates Vortex very highly here as if you at the top of the swing it offers an amazing ride!! I personally love Vortex !

The top of the swings are fun but it's such a shame that only half of the people riding get that experience. If I had waited more than 10 minutes for a ride only to get the "bottom" seat I would be pissed! Honestly, I can't believe that other parks would have this setting as well. I was hoping it was because the ride had just opened and they hadn't had much time to tweak it yet. Wow!
*** This post was edited by Karl DeAngelo 5/26/2003 4:03:32 PM ***

It's a pity to hear this about the new ride, especially since it's such an easy fix. Just turn up the rotation speed to twice it's current rate or more and the problem is solved! From these descriptions it almost sounds like a normal swinging ship is the better ride, since both sides of the boat get to enjoy the high swings.

As evidenced by the Fireball running at Santa Cruz these rides can be run well. Why they aren't is beyond me. After spending a few million on a new attraction, wouldn't you want it to actually thrill people?

For me while that Santa Cruz Fireball is a lot of fun, nothing tops a Frisbee.

-Ride_Op

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Ride_Op Coaster Productions: http://www.twistedrails.com/ride_op

PGA's is the same way! Thats a shame, I was really looking forward to KBF getting another headline flat ride to push (like Hammerhead a few seasons back), but it looks like its going to be a bust. Thats a bummer, although I'll still make sure to ride it sometime this week when I have time.

N Inferno is right - Vortex at Thorpe tends to be the same, If you're at the bottom of the first full swing, then you will be like that for the rest of the ride. However when you got used to riding it more, you knew what seats were going to be the best ones so it was'nt too bad. However recently thorpe have sometimes been running it slighty different where they would spin the ride constantly for approx 10-20 seconds and then they would start the spinning meaning It would be pot luck weather you got the good seats.

You say you have yet to ride the one at PGA, Well providing they are still running it on the same program this year, then you dont need to be worried. The one at PGA has some really nice spinning techniques where it will spin quite fast constantly all throughout the ride which means that everyones gets the chance to be at the top for a few swings at least. I found this a great program as it is much fairer to everyone riding.