Lagoon 6/27
Associated parks:
None
My new home park, Lagoon. In one of the best settings I've ever seen for a park, Lagoon offers beautiful scenes of mountains, hills, the Salt Lake, grazing sheep, and, lagoons! Their coaster selection isn't exactly world-class, but they have a couple of insane flat rides, Samurai and the new Cliffhanger to make up for it.
First of all, let me say that Samurai is my new favorite flat ride. It's a mondial something, not quite sure yet, but if you visit the park, you MUST ride this. The way the arms and seats swivel makes for vertical dives, fast swoops, and tight spins without getting you dizzy at all. Cliffhanger, while not quite as good, is world-class as well. If it's a hot day, this is the ride to ride! You get absolutely drenched on this ride, so if you have valuables, leave them with a non-rider, or just don't ride. There are some interesting moments, but when the seats lock and plummet head first into a wall of water jets, it's all you can do to keep from freaking out!
Rollercoaster (Lagoon's Great White Fossil) - (Front a lot, back a lot, back of front a lot)
Although I despise the name, Rollercoaster was still my 100th coaster. This, like Raven, had a wildly different quality from day to night, although this is clearly the lesser coaster. There are some righteous moments of ejector air when riding in the back, or especially the ejector seat (back of front car.) At night, the ride really puts those lap bars to the test!
Collossus the Fire Dragon - (Assigned seating, but once in the front)
After getting over the ridiculous assigned seating policy, even when the queue and station are empty, I found that I adore Schwarzkopf loopers. The drop and 2 loops are very fast and intense, and without the horsecollars, you feel incredibly free as you invert. The turn following the second loop isn't banked quite enough to counteract the laterals when it first turns, so riders are slammed into the right side of the car. After threading the 2nd loop, the ride dives into a 900ยบ helix, which sets the ride as slightly longer than Dorney's Laser.
Wild Mouse - (Front, Back)
Slightly better than SFKK's Roadrunner because of the added tunnel on the camelback, but still way behind the likes of Exterminator..
Jet Star 2 - (Front, Back)
Although I was told to keep my hands down, I still found this production coaster VERY intense. The tilted helix midway through the ride has got to pull at least 4.5 g's.
Well there's my short review of my new homepark. I heard from several employees the park is getting an inverted next year. All that would make sense in my mind would be a small ArrowBatic, but we can all hope for something mighty, can't we?
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Musician, snowboarder, member of ACE and the ECC
First of all, let me say that Samurai is my new favorite flat ride. It's a mondial something, not quite sure yet, but if you visit the park, you MUST ride this. The way the arms and seats swivel makes for vertical dives, fast swoops, and tight spins without getting you dizzy at all. Cliffhanger, while not quite as good, is world-class as well. If it's a hot day, this is the ride to ride! You get absolutely drenched on this ride, so if you have valuables, leave them with a non-rider, or just don't ride. There are some interesting moments, but when the seats lock and plummet head first into a wall of water jets, it's all you can do to keep from freaking out!
Rollercoaster (Lagoon's Great White Fossil) - (Front a lot, back a lot, back of front a lot)
Although I despise the name, Rollercoaster was still my 100th coaster. This, like Raven, had a wildly different quality from day to night, although this is clearly the lesser coaster. There are some righteous moments of ejector air when riding in the back, or especially the ejector seat (back of front car.) At night, the ride really puts those lap bars to the test!
Collossus the Fire Dragon - (Assigned seating, but once in the front)
After getting over the ridiculous assigned seating policy, even when the queue and station are empty, I found that I adore Schwarzkopf loopers. The drop and 2 loops are very fast and intense, and without the horsecollars, you feel incredibly free as you invert. The turn following the second loop isn't banked quite enough to counteract the laterals when it first turns, so riders are slammed into the right side of the car. After threading the 2nd loop, the ride dives into a 900ยบ helix, which sets the ride as slightly longer than Dorney's Laser.
Wild Mouse - (Front, Back)
Slightly better than SFKK's Roadrunner because of the added tunnel on the camelback, but still way behind the likes of Exterminator..
Jet Star 2 - (Front, Back)
Although I was told to keep my hands down, I still found this production coaster VERY intense. The tilted helix midway through the ride has got to pull at least 4.5 g's.
Well there's my short review of my new homepark. I heard from several employees the park is getting an inverted next year. All that would make sense in my mind would be a small ArrowBatic, but we can all hope for something mighty, can't we?
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Musician, snowboarder, member of ACE and the ECC
I love the name the Rollercoaster. You have to remember how old the ride is.It was the first rollercoaster in Utah, maybe even the west, and people just called it what it was. (i.e. if you talk to someone in the park, not an employee, about the Skyscraper they will have no idea what you are talking about untill you refer to it as the ferris wheel.) That is just how some people are, who aren't as into rides as much as us. Besides it is original if you think about it, how many other coasters are actually named "The Roller Coaster," there must be something special about ride a ride that has the balls to be called that. Sorry I am just a very big fan of this classic coaster, it has more history than most coasters combined.
Nicholas - I like Lagoon's woodie, too, but it was not the first in Utah or the West. There was an old amusement park at Saltair Resort that had a racing woodie long before Lagoon came into existance. FYI, you will find a lot of woodies in the west that predate Lagoon's Coaster as well as quite a few coasters simply called "Coaster" if you do a search on rcdb.com.
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"God bless Atheists!" - Homer Simpson
Samurai is a Mondial Top Scan. I'm not certain if it's a park model or something that was picked up off of the European fair circuit, though. There's a Top Scan less than 20 minutes drive from me, and it's just the most incredible ride. It's right up there with the Huss Jump (The best flat ride that never works.) and the Soriani and Moser Super Loop on Top as the best flat rides I've ever seen.
Cliffhanger sounds like a Mondial Splash Over.
Mamoosh- I know all about Saltair, I have read several books on the resort on other resorts around the west. The Double Racer (Saltair's Coaster) was not built untill the 1930's, was burnt down, then rebuilt with the new resort, and then finally blown over in the early 1970's. I went to the rcdb and did a search for the name "Roller Coaster" and Lagoon's was the only one that poped up. If you could tell me where the other ones that you know of are, and what other western coasters are older I would really like to know so that I can be as accurate as possible. Thanks for the feedback.
Nicholas, rcdb shows 45 coasters with that name, as shown here.
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"God bless Atheists!" - Homer Simpson
*** This post was edited by Mamoosh 4/7/2003 2:56:08 PM ***
Sorry, I swear that when I searched for them it just gave me Lagoon's, I typed in The Roller Coaster (which is it's offical name, but big deal.) But I am still possive that it was the first in Utah, it is almost impossible to find anything on the Giant Racer. What about older coasters in the west? Have you heard about the Spider? It looks awesome, I can't wait to ride it! Thanks again!
Nicholas - having ridden some spinning mice I can tell you you're in for a fun, unpredictable ride. Just don't judge it on one ride alone....sometimes you get a lot of spinning, sometimes not.
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"God bless Atheists!" - Homer Simpson
Mamoosh- I don't know what you know about the Spider, but its not like any of the spinning mice I've been on. Its a Maurer Sohne Xtended SC 2000, way different. I havent seen any spinning mice with a 50 degree drops and an 82 degree banked turn. Plus it looks like Lagoon is going pretty far on it's theming, have you seen that giant spider?!
I was at the park Opening Day(4/12/03). My friends and I waited in line with everyone who was waiting for Lagoon to open The Spider. Untill there was about 1 hour left till closing they finally opened it. We were so excited, however when we got on the ride and pulled down on our lap bars, one of the cars on the track valleyed between the 82 degree turn and the 3rd safty-brake straight-away. We were really disapointed.
Nicholas the theming is awsome, while in the queue you enter a castle were then you wind up some spiraling stairs.
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F.T.B.S.I.T.T.T.D.
Sorry to here about your trip to Lagoon. I didn't go this opening weekend because I knew that something like that was going to happen. I will give it a couple weekends before I go so that the ride is properly worn in. Thank you for your comments.
It's very tough to find anything on Saltair's two coasters (both called "Giant Racer;" my Saltair website on Geocities has some information and postcard photographs. It didn't last into the 1970s; it blew down in a microburst on August 30, 1957. I was there the day before and the day after. What was left of Saltair burned down in 1970 (the current incarnation, a renovated airplane hangar, isn't in the same place, and never had a roller coaster of any kind, just a water slide)
The Racer had two lives. It was put in originally between 1917-19, lasted through the fire that destroyed the rest of the resort in 1925, and then burned up in a spectacular nighttime fire in 1931. Rebuilt in 1932, even larger, it lasted despite a couple of wind damage episodes (including one in 1939 that killed two painters) until the 1957 windstorm that took the whole thing down.
It was much larger than Lagoon's and far more complicated. There are a couple of good aerial photographs of both the pre and post-1931 coasters on the University of Utah Marriott Library's website, as well as other shots (including the 1931 fire).
What I remember most about the Racer is that the whole thing shook when the cars went over it - the hills actually swayed - and most of the paint was gone. The wood was the color of old rotted fencing. Made a helluva noise too. The cars were kind of a turd brown and yellow, like the roll-o-plane and dodg-'em cars.
I was recently at Lagoon and I rode the Spider, and let me tell you, between the themeing and the genius track design, your in for a heck (yes i'm from Utah) ride. And The Cliffhanger is a Mondail Splashover, (just to confirm.) but it has been closed down for over half of the 2003 season because of parts that weren't waterproofed or somthing.
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