Silver Bullet: The Review

Actually, I like the prerecorded stuff better...when it's done right. For example, SFA recently put prerecrded announcements on all of their rides, but last year they started redoing many of them to better fit the ride and improve what little themeing there is. Batwing is the first to come to mind. They have a guy speaking in a deep voice that sounds pretty close to Val Kilmer in the third Batman movie...but it isn;t the voice that makes it so cool, it's what's said. I don't remember the whole speil, but parts included "please exit to the center of the hanger," "you can be assured that Gotham City is a safer place because of your efforts," and "the flight crew will be around shortly to secure you into your crime fighting vehicle." I really can't do it justice, but when you hear the whole thing, it just adds a lot to the whole experience.

Some other truely memorable prerecorded ride announcements are the one on Volcano at PKD with the Jamacan lady, "Welcome to Volcano the Blast Coasta"; the one on the loading platform for Millennium Force with the lady in the monotone, almost mechanical, tone, especially when the music is going at night; and of course the prerecorded announcements on ALL Disney attractions.

I guess either way can be effective and enjoyable if done correctly, though the prerecorded theme seems to work to the advantage of themed rides, especially in the case of Disney.

As for Silver Bullet...where are some more ride reviews and especially some more pics of it open? Getting a little anxious here on the East Coast!

Hahahahahaha. I was actually going to bring up Volcano. The only thing worse than a recorded spiel is one done with a really bad accent. We were there I think in 2001, and Steph still says "loose ahticles" every time she sees or hears it in a park!

My favorite pre-recorded speil is the one for Thunder Run at Kentucky Kingdom where it says something about how Thunder Run is the scariest, tallest, and fastest coaster EVER. Its weird wild stuff.

The human speils are generally MUCH better than the pre-recorded jibberish that a lot of parks use now. Although... they can get very annoying. I.E. Deja Vu at SFOG. While waiting in line, we must have heard "Do not pull down the green shoulder harnesses!" a thousand times, and idiots were STILL doing it. This probably has more to do with the incredibly dumb loading procedure for that ride but wow, it was very very annoying. On top of that a woman who was smoking in front of me in line threw up all over the path lol, and when we came back to ride Deja again 45 mins later, it was still all over the path. UGH!

Well I just got back from Knott's and I have to agree with most of what CoasterFanMatt said. It is the smoothest and quietest B&M for sure. My two favorite parts of the ride were the overbank and the little turn between the 2nd and 3rd "wingovers".

That is where our opinions differ. Of the inverteds I have ridden, only Raptor (sorry CP fans) was worse, but just barely. Don't get me wrong, it is still a fun ride, just didn't really do it for me. My opinion may change after it has some time to break in or maybe I just wasn't in the mood today. Either way it is still a great addition to Knott's. Most of the people getting off the ride seemed to enjoy it.

In a nutshell I guess I would say they got a great family inverted looper.

Frank, who still thinks Monte is their best looping coaster.

A little off topic but at Ghost Rider they were taking a page out of SF's book and running 2 trains but only loading one.

I personally love the human speils (especially Raptor) however the pre records when done right are great as well.

Pre-recorded hall of fame:

3. B:TR @ SFGAm, love the deep voice

2. MF, do-a-do-do...gotta love the song and monotone voice

1. BTMR, This heres the wildest ride in the wilderness!

I have to say TTD's speil is the only one that really pumps me up for the ride. The music goes along very nice. This could also be because the ride is my all time favorite. Just thinking about it gets me excited. I'm crazy, I have to wait 4 months to experience that rush again. :(

When done correctly, a pre-recorded spiel is awsome. Take M:S and TTD for examples. But when you just have a random employee record them (case in point, Hypersonic's) they sound bad.

Definitely human. I know where Jeffrey is coming from in regards to gibberish, but I think that is a management/training issue. I don't think it should be done away withon account of bad implementation.

Recordings make the wait go so much slower. The be like Chinese water torture.

By the way, cool report! I'll be there soon. *** Edited 12/8/2004 4:42:14 PM UTC by janfrederick***

When I got to the park opening day the first thing I hit was Ghostie and they were loading both trains, but as I was leaving they were only loading gold whichs was odd.

But as far as Silver Bullet is concerned Matt was dead on about everything. I prefer the 5th row because I felt I got more air on the minor elements such as sparky's fav part, the dogleg between the flatspins. That part of the ride reminded me of riddlers where if you get a good middle seat you can get some air on the hill before the first corkscrew.

My fav elements were the overbanked turn, zero-g and the helix. The train really creeps through the zero-g for some awesome gs. Someone I was talking to related the helix to Raptor. I wouldn't know =(.

The headset thing was cool but I do get a little tired of the stats repeats. Although some may think it's lame, there's this one ride op that when he's on the mic he'll say Hi-yo silver! and the peeps on the train say Away! every train dispatch. I thought it was a nice touch.

Any way. Great ride. In my top ten. So check it out. lates *** Edited 12/9/2004 3:47:50 AM UTC by lbwmobster*** *** Edited 12/9/2004 3:49:30 AM UTC by lbwmobster***

Pics from yesterday over at ACN:

http://www.americacoasters.com/KBFConstruction/120704/Pages/pg1.php

---

CoasterFanMatt said:
This is in my opinion, but I prefer it over Raptor, Batman and Top Gun (at PGA). It really comes down to personal preferece though, but for me the scenery and interaction with its surroundings gives it that little something extra. Its considerably longer than both Batman and Top Gun, which is certainly nice. As for Raptor, it really comes down to personal opinion. But between the scenery, the forceful ending, the overbanked turn and the great zero g roll, I prefer Silver Bullet over Raptor.

The first drop isn't exactly steep, like you mentioned. However, the drop is pretty long and does build some great speed as you get towards the bottom. Its certainly different from other inverts, but not too bad really.

---

Thank you very much, certainly a great review, and glad that you enjoyed it. I just wonder how it compares to Montu, which is the best Invert to me ;)

---

Jeff said:
And that's worse than the pre-recorded stuff how?

---

I thought the kid doing the Mantis stats was rather annoying, but otherwise its cool. *** Edited 12/9/2004 6:21:57 AM UTC by RamblinWreck***

I had a chance to spend a few hours riding SB Thursday afternoon. It's nice to finally have an invert so much closer to my house and even nicer that I don't have to go to crappy Magic Mountain to ride one now. LOL

My thoughts on Silver Bullet are that it has got to be the quietest ride I have ever been on. It barely makes any noise at all. Even the brake run is fairly silent.

It's certainly not the most intense inverted out there, and it's not at the top of my list of inverts. I am not even sure I'd say it's worth a trip out to Knott's for JUST that credit. But, that all being said, it is a fun ride. And very re-rideable. I got in 6 rides..1 in back, 1 in front, 1 in next to last row and the rest in the middle. Wait time was a short 10 minutes (or less) each time with one train operation.

My favorite part of the ride was a surprise to me. It turned out to be something that I don't care about on other rides....the Cobra Roll. It is fast, feels really high when you are on it, and the great location at the main gate can't be beat. I thought my favorite would be the overbank, but it really didn't seem to do much of anything. It felt pretty forceless to me.

The flat spins were GREAT as well. I love the turn one way and then the other. Very cool. The helix was fun, and powerful, but riding made me wish it was going down towards the water instead of up away from it.

All in all a good addition to Knott's though there were some things that bothered me not related to the ride itself:

TOO much concrete. It is everywhere. And worse, they made the former boat route a path as well! So I guess when they bring the boat back up it is just going to go around in small circles in Camp Snoopy? That makes it even more lame then before! Why they think they need parallel paths from the front gate/camp snoopy is beyond me. It makes the area look terrible and again...the boat ride gets made even worse in the process!

They also shortened the train route. There was no need for this either. There is plenty of room to follow it's old route. The drawbridge is still there, but since the old boat route is filled in with path and rocks it is not needed anymore either. It was up yesterday but I think they will probably just leave it down when the train comes back up ruining yet another piece of atmosphere at Knott's.

Finally I am sure others will think this minor, but it really bugged me that they put these great light fixtures in the Silver Bullet station, but put fluorescent lights in them which I think look too modern for an old west theme. It reminded me of Magic Mountain. I don't expect them to flicker like Big Thunder (although Knott's HAS used this effect before so they know how to do it) but having lanterns actually look like lanterns, would be nicer. After all...what would the calico mine ride look like with fluorescent lights? There's a resason they are incandescent!

I liked the microphone use a lot. But I have to wonder, running the panel (especially on a B&M ride with one train running that day) has GOT to be the most boring job ever. This poor person sits isolated in a booth and doesn't even get to do the spiel? Not much for this person to do at all actually! Two train op will be better, but on days there is just one, I'd be pulling my hair out. :)

I was very impressed by the ride ops on this ride. They were doing a great job. Stapling a little much perhaps..(come on it's a B&M not an Intamin!) but overall I was impressed. Especially with this one grouper who was looking down the stairs to find single riders to fill up the rows. She recognized me when I came back later and shouted down to me asking if I was riding single. That impressed me as I had gone off to do other things and it was quite some time between my rides.

The boat isn't coming back, AFAIK.

---

Jeff said:
Hahahahahaha. I was actually going to bring up Volcano. The only thing worse than a recorded spiel is one done with a really bad accent. We were there I think in 2001, and Steph still says "loose ahticles" every time she sees or hears it in a park!

---

You forgot to say "thaaank you". I think the Volcano announcements are cool, it certainly kept me amused whilst in line.

Do remember not everyone visiting theme parks in the USA is from the USA, and pre-recorded speils are far easier to understand than someone speaking down the mic faster than the ride goes, which is what I found at Cedar Point. Now Dollywood's announcements on Thunderhead were awesome, they were a lot clearer and the staff actually put some character into it. *** Edited 12/11/2004 1:57:56 AM UTC by Grant***

Actually, I always wondered why other parks have the operator spiel. There was always enough to pay attention to when operating controls not to get bored. The few times we had to spiel because the wireless mic was out were actually a pain.

Blaster 1578, I know what you are saying.

On Silver Bullet when they are running 1 train I bet it's not that hard to operate, but Raptor is a different story.

Trying to do the controls, and the spiels while running three trains with about 25 second dispatches is not an easy thing to do. It would be even worse on Mantis (although it doesn't run three trains.)

To top it off, Raptors midcourse has been off for the past 2 season making it even harder. But the Raptor crew is great, friendly, helpful, fast and fun.

You go to a SF park they have one person at controls and one person checking restraints.

On Raptor there is a person at the entrance, a person at the freeway merge point, a person controlling station flow, about 8 people checking restraints and 1 person in the operators booth. That's like over 11 people vs. 2 at a Sux Flags park.

---

Mamoosh said:
The boat isn't coming back, AFAIK.

---

Well...It's on the NEWLY painted(printed?) park map signs that are posted inside the park. Showing just the little circle of water and the shorter train route. Who said it wasn't coming back?

The holes in the track for SB after the cobra roll ... are those there for trim brakes or just there?