Second Chance Coasters

Hyper Sonic XLC

This might be considered blasphemous around here, but I was underwhelmed by Legend (HW) my first time. I thought it was okay, but didn't live up to the hype.

Then I took a ride in the back seat...

The one that comes to mind for me is Phoenix at Knoebels. The first time me and my son rode it in July we came off looking at each other like OK whats next. I was very disappointed after reading so much on here about it. Walked around the park and came back to it a couple hours later, decided to give up front a try this time. First time was near the rear. A quarter of the way though the ride and my seven year old looked at me with a S#$t eating grin and yelled WOW. Up front took us totally by surprise and made it in our top 5.

Blue Streak at Cedar Point...

The first time I rode it was in 2000. I rode it once, and walked away thinking it was a jerky little coaster for its size, and just provided absolutely no thrill.

...then I revisited back in 2003... took the coaster with a grain of salt because of the bad taste it left with me the last time (but has been awhile & I learned to love the little guys)...
...walked away very very surprised. Loved the air-time, couldn't find the roughness I remembered, and just enjoyed the ride so much, that it places it among the top 6 coasters at the park I'd want to re-ride many times.

i would say the knoebel's twister. when i rode it the first two seasons, i was good but not great. now it is almost as good as the original mister twister. i am finding myself riding it more than the phoenix when i visit (at least one a year). the beast was a dissapointment the first time because it was so highly rated (this was in 1989). but now it is a top ten coaster escpecially with the new fin brakes.

Twister seems to improve every year. I never found the ride lackluster but the rides I got in 2004 have far surpassed those that I got in the coaster's earlier years. There are some insane laterals (as should be expected of a coaster called "Twister") and also some good pops of air. Definitely a coaster that doesn't get nearly the respect ti deserves.

Chalk another one up for Blue Streak at CP. Sometime between the 2000 and 2002 season, major rehab must have been done. Nearly as good as Geauga's Dipper.

I'm still hoping third times a charm for Kraken, because when I first saw the ride, it looked damn good. It rode like a silky-smooth Roller Skater. :)

Count me in for Twister also. Rode it at PPP 2 years ago and thought it was boring. This year at PPP I was looking forward to giving it another try and man was I surprised. That thing was just ferocious (sp?). I just couldn't get enough. I almost made Gator skip dinner to keep riding it. :)

Medusa at Great Adventure. In the first year I found it to be too smooth, but in years past, I've liked it a lot more than Nitro (which isn't bad either). Next year I'll find out if I give Talon a second chance.

I'll agree with Knoebels Twister as well. It's performing better this year than any of the previous four years I've been visting the park.

I'm still not a huge fan of Twister, but I will admit it has been giving great rides this year.

One of my second chance coasters has to be the Thunderbolt at Kennywood. I don't know if it was all the hype from tv shows in books and on the internet but after I got off the ride I was just thinking it wasn't that great. I actually wasn't impressed with Kennywood at all the first time I was there. After my next visit the following year I loved everything about the Thunderbolt and the park.

I gotta say, that kind of thing happens with me with CP coasters. It's weird.

Mean Streak first 2 visits I thought it was horrible, my most recent visits I thought it was a fun ride.

Magnum, first time it blew me away (I was only like 9) second time, it killed my back, Ever since then it was insane.

Millennium Force was sorta of weak I thought in 2002-2003. This past summer as well as 2000, I thought it was amazing, and I can finally see why it's better than Dragster AND Superman at SFNE.

I love the Force with a Passion.

Mean Streak is the biggest one though, one summer I came back to the station say "THAT WAS HORRIBLE" and then the following summer "HEY NOT BAD"

Every time I go to Knoebels, I bacome more and more enchanted by Twister...

I still <3 my Phoenix, and always will as long as "that park" keeps it in that same amazing condition , but Twister has gone up in my *unofficial rankings* every time I've made my way to Elysburg...

Hoosier Hurricane also took a LEAP this year in the right direction...

Rolling Thunder I thought was *improved*, but it still has a LONG long LONG long way to go before it climbs out of the "cellar dwellers"...maybe by the 100th visit to GAdv, it will be worthy of a re-ride...but by then, KK will be the third-tallest coaster at the park! ;)

bill, prefers the only Arrow-Morgan over the "second Chance" coaster (or third, or fifth)....Gold Rusher suXors, LOL...

Kennywood's Thunderbolt: First time we rode it we were like "So? What is all the excitement about." Only gave it one ride that day. Less than spectacular. Two years later we returned and rode it again and WOW! My wife who isn't much of a wood coaster fan loves it. She rode it 4 times, I rode it 6 times that visit. Could have been the fact that all day long on our first visit it was down.... and when it did finally open it was a 1 hr wait.

Kennywood's Racer: First time we rode it we were less than impressed. 2 years later found that it is a really fun coaster.

The fact of the matter could have been that our first ride of the day on our first visit was on Steel Phantom... and we were beat up pretty bad and feeling the effects of it (we both had a headache and my wife had a pain in the neck too... and I don't mean me!) On our second visit Steel Phantom was gone and Phantom's Revenge was in its place. We were feeling much better after that ride... plus the lines were longer, the weather nicer... just an over all more pleasant day. Could have been the reason why we enjoyed the other coasters more.

In response to rollergator's post...

Twister actually blew me away. I honestly was not expecting it to be as wonderfully intense and lateral-filled as it was.

And speaking of Phoenix (eh?), there's a somewhat related ride that I badly *want* to be so much better than it is...and I know it has the potential. Hershey's Comet was once my favorite wooden coaster, many years ago (before PKD's Grizzly was born, so pre-1982 I guess). Currently, my two favorite woodies are Schmeck designs, and I can almost envision Comet right up there near the top, if only it didn't have that confounded brake on the second turnaround. Those little hills on the last out-and-back section--so definitive of Schmeck's style--are so stifled right now, and I can only reminisce of when they were loaded with airtime. How depressing.

Anyway, I've gotten way off-topic. This is supposed to be about coasters that used to seem lame...

The one ride that became a favorite of mine that I really wasn't initially impressed with was Apollo's Chariot. I liked it, but it wasn't as great as all the hype made it out to be (I rode it in 2000, so I had a good year of hearing oodles of AC praise). I rode it several times over the next couple seasons, but it honestly wasn't until a back-seat ride on it in '02 that I 'got' Apollo's Chariot.

In contrast, I loved Nitro when I first rode it, but AC has since surpassed it.

Twister is pretty darn ridiculous, especially at night. After the double helix its balls out, that tunnel gets me every time. Good times.

I will actually second the Racer second chance. I didnt like it all that much for awhile, but now I really love it. Especially in the front car.

I had never liked GA Cyclone that much, and I had even rode it in the backseat, and just sort of liked it because of the out of control thing.

BUT this year, on my backseat rides, oh how beautiful. I don't know if I should have it tied with Thunderhead for my fourth favorite woodie, or right above it....

Second drop is the shizz, fourth throws you up so hard it hurts.

Boy, this happened to me alot this year.

MBP's Mad Mouse- My first mouse, I've ridden it quite a few times, but this year, with no breaks, I fell in love. And that was after a year of good mice.

PCar's Hurler- This used to suck big time, but last year it was kinda good. This year, it was way more than good. Thank you, PCar, for making it better!

PKI's Adventure Express & Top Gun- The first time I was so underwhelmed by both. This year, they rose in ranking by alot. I was not expecting so much this time going into Top Gun (Thinking it would be more like a B&M invert for some odd reason), and AEx was also not a let down, since I knew the ending. Now if only they'd bring back the mist...