Spinning Wild Mouse Coasters.... opinions wanted

Some recent chatter with a fellow coaster enthusiast left me sort of intrigued about a certain type of coaster.

Specifically, I am curious about spinning wild mouse coasters. I have ridden Exterminator at Kennywood and the versions at Disney, but honestly that is the extent of my experience with this type of coaster.

I know that Mall of America just installed Timberland Twister, which I hope to experience sometime soon, and DelGrossos has a new spinner.

I guess my questions are really directed at those who have ridden different examples by different manufacturers. I know that some models offer face to face seating, while others offer four across seating. I also know there is a model out there that features four passenger cars, but riders sit two-abreast… back to back.

Basically, I am curious as to which offers the best overall experience. Does any model offer more spinning, and does the seating pattern significantly improve/affect the ride?

Hopefully I’ll add some to my count this year, but truthfully the older I get, the less I can tolerate spinning, spinning, spinning.

So what are your thoughts about the versions you have ridden? Any you say are not to be missed? Any you say avoid?

Shaggy

I have ridden two - but they were both the "four across seating - but they were different manufacturers (Reverchon-KW Exterminator and Zamperla/SFGAm Ragin Cajun).

I liked them both, but I prefer Exterminator. The theming and the darkness make the ride that much better....

I've only ridden the ones at Disney. I really realy enjoyed them but some portions of the ride seemed very very sudden and jerky. I realize that that's kinda the point of a wild mouse, obviously, but it seemed like it was all just "bang! bang! bang!" at every turn. I see the model like at WoF and Mall of America and really want to give it a try, just because it looks like a good combination of tight turns, but with some more flowing lines thrown inbetween. Either way I look forward to seeing more being built, and can't wait to get details of SFNE's.

In my experience Shaggy (same as you as far as coasters ridden, 'cept for SFGAm's near-identical model), YES, the seating arrangement DOES make a difference...

I'm relatively intolerant of spinning on flats, but for some reason it doesn't bother me nearly as much when the car is *tracked*, I presume it's because there IS a clear direction of travel. I've had more than a couple *tame* rides on the Reverchon/Zamperla models, but the few REALLY wild rides were with heavier riding partners, usually seated on the outside of the car. Other than that, I think there's a considerable amount of luck involved, just *hitting* those corners at the right speed...:)

REALLY looking forward to June/MoA....for "the original spinning non-mouse coaster", AND for *my Hexentanz*...:)
*** Edited 2/7/2005 3:24:55 PM UTC by rollergator***

Mauer Sohne has the best spinning mouse in my experience so far - the models like the ones at Animal Kingdom can be extremely boring if you don't get a good spin. And they are pretty 'jerky' as mentioned above. I've never been on a Gerstlauer, but I have heard great things and they look like fun. Having ridden Spider at Lagoon (a Mauer Sohne), it was ridiculously fun no matter how much our car spun - and it's even fun just to look at since it has some wicked-cool looking stunts on it.

I dont like the Maurer Söhne mouse coasters spinning or normal. They brake as soon as the coaster starts to get moving. Steel Dragon at Waldameer does it after every element. It seems like they could be engineered better.

So far Exterminator is my favorite and that has the four across seating. I am not so sure weight or arrangement has much of an impact. But I have had some wild rides on it.

Exterminator is the best I have done because of the theme and the fact that it is in the dark.

I've done the portable Reverchon spinning coaster, which I thought was pretty bland.

I've been on a portable Maurer spinning mouse which featured back to back seating. It was a spinning coaster, but had a wild mouse layout (with only flat turns, unlike Steel Dragon or Spinball Whizzer). The ride was well done, if a tad bit brutal. It didn't really spin enough, IMO. The seating arrangment was cool, feeling a bit like a boomerang when going up the lift backward.

I've ridden two different spinning coasters.

4-across seating on Exterminator @ Kennywood - I last rode this in 2001, so my memory is a little fuzzy. The dark-ride theming dominated the spinning in terms of thrill-factor. The spinning is very smooth and well balanced -- I don't think weight distribution has much impact on the ride. I also don't remember any spinning on the first half of the ride. I think the cars only spin on the second half of the ride, over a series of standard wild-mouse switchbacks. The best part about my one-and-only ride on this coaster was that my girlfriend (now wife) didn't know that spinning coasters existed, let alone, we were riding one. She started yelling and swearing when we started to spin, and continued throughout the rest of the ride. The three other riders (including myself) were laughing so hard we could barely walk when we got to the end of the ride. :)

tandem back-to-back seating on Whilrwind @ Seabreeze - I rode this three times in one day last season. I don't think the balanacing is as natural as on the 4-across seating styles, so the spin intensity is really depends on the weight distribution. There's also a significant track difference. The car is locked for only the first dive and going through the one-and-only standard wild-mouse switchback. Then the car is spinning and the rest of the track is a lot of swooping, high-banked corners. It's a lot of fun, and the spinning was different on every time we rode it. The spinning was least interesting when the car was fully loaded with 4 heavy adults and almost perfectly balanced. It was most intense, when just slightly out-of-balance (one of the 4 passengers was a child). When two of us sat on one side and the other side was empty, the car tended to rock back and forth rather than spin. As a bonus, going down the first hill backwards was almost as thrilling as the spinning. :)

The new Maurer spinners (the only one I've ridden is Spider at Lagoon) are simply crazy. I loved Spider, I was only at Lagoon for a few hours, but we rode Spider probably 7 or 8 times. The spinning, the overbanks, the lack of brakes (hint to the Eastern Maurer's apparently?), they're incredible. Spider tops many full circuit and much larger coasters in my list.

Exterminator is only fun to me when the people you're with are scared of it. If everyone's been on it before, it's sort of meh - ride it if there's nothing else to ride.

Amen to that. I rank Seabreeze's Whirlwind much higher than many well-regarded steel coasters. We rode that thing at least a dozen times and loved each ride more than the last. Also rode Waldameer's on opening day but the spinning seemed a little slow, probably because the ride had no time to break in.

I also love Crazy Mice- you can get those things spinning really good if the weight distribution is "right". A little jerky but I still want one back here in NJ on a full-time basis (not the one at the State Fair in July).

Waldameer's is filled with too many heavy braking block sections to be considered crazy. Its fun, but never seems to feel out of control like a good mouse should feel. IMO.

The Gerstauler coasters at WOF and the Mall of America are fun. We did get more spinning on the Timberland Twister than we got on the Spinning Dragons though. I really enjoyed both and liked them much more than the regular Reverchon and Zamperla spinning mouse models. I have yet to ride any of the Maurers yet(I should hopefully get to all three this year) but I would like to see one of the extended models get built over here as well. Has it come out yet which model SFNE is looking at putting in? I though that I remembered reading somewhere that it supposed to be some kind of custom layout.

Have to agree in the Seabreeze/Waldameer comparisons. Allow myself to quote...myself:

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Gonch said on 8/22 (in this thread):

Whirlwind (#210) - All I'm going to say is if you've made the trip to Waldameer to ride a Maurer Sohne Xtended SC 2000, then you still have no idea what this ride is about. Waldameer's is a mere shell of the craziness Seabreeze delivers with theirs. How is that possible? My theory is that (not unlike wild mouse coasters) some can be overbraked taking the very fun out of the ride. I thought Waldameer's was fun, but not worth the drive from Pittsburgh. Now in hindsight, the brakes hit hard - very hard - compared to how Seabreeze ran theirs. Is this possble? Whirlwind was faster, spun more (and faster) and was in general a much more intnse ride than Steel Dragon even hinted was possible. On top of this Seabreeze ran more trains and pumped them out like madmen - a full queue was little more than a 5 minute wait. This ride impressed me. Hindsight is always 20/20 and now I see why I left Waldameer feeling so "eh" about the spinning coaster. I think just like Wild Mouse coasters, the way these are run can make or break the ride. (think Dorney's mouse vs Hershey's then multiply by 2)

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Lord Gonchar said:
Hindsight is always 20/20 and now I see why I left Waldameer feeling so "eh" about the spinning coaster. I think just like Wild Mouse coasters, the way these are run can make or break the ride.

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Kinda like wooden coasters there, it's more about the day-to-day ops and upkeep more than the original design and layout....meh, just read the sig...;)

I've ridden the Spinning Coaster at Korakuen, Timberland Twister, Exterminator, and I think that's it.

My favorite by far is Timberland Twister. It had many different elements and really cool interataction with other rides/surroundings in the building. Exterminator is excellent as well due to the darkness/theming.

I've been on most models. I'm voting with the group that likes the Spider ( Mauer Sohne?). I don't really rank coasters (especially steel), but I would guess that this would be right at the top of my list.

I love Exterminator too, but that obviously has to do with theming and setting more than just the ride structure.

I hope this helps.

I have been on PW @ DAK, Ragin' Cajun @ SFGAm, TT @ CS:MOA, and SD @ WoF. I tend to like the Gerstauler better than the other two. However, I did really enjoy Ragin' Cajun.

Pics to compare the 4 coasters:

http://midwestinfoguide.com/gallery/parks/sfgam/ http://midwestinfoguide.com/gallery/parks/dak/ http://midwestinfoguide.com/gallery/parks/wof/ http://midwestinfoguide.com/gallery/parks/csmoa/

*** Edited 2/8/2005 4:47:19 AM UTC by Swoosh***

I have ridden spinning mice from three (or four depending on how you look at it)different manufactures. Mauer Sohne, Gerstlauer, and Reverchon.

The Reverchon models are great fun and are probably the most popular. I believe I have ridden around 10 different Reverchon spinners. While their layouts are all the same, the rides were all totally different, especially with the pin pulled. Sometimes they can be rather uncomfortable at times, but nothing horrible.

The Mauer Sohne versions I have ridden operate in a similar fashion to the Reverchon models meaning they don't star spinning until later in the course. The layout itself has the more twisted layout of the three manufactures I have ridden. The back-to-back seating makes for a strange sensation as you can't see the people sitting behind you and you don't know what to expect when riding backwards. As far as spinning goes, there really wasn't much during my rides, but the twisted layout really made up for it.

The Gerstlauer version I have ridden was the most fun. The layout was a bit like a twisted out and back but with some real surprises. Unlike the other two versions, the spinning starts the second you leave the lift. The cars also have face-to-face seating so you can see the look of others while riding. The restraints were very comfortable as well. The Gerstlauer version is also the only version I have ridden to use magnetic trims at the end and was by far the smoothest.

The way I see it, you can't go wrong with any version but for a pure surprise factor, the Gerstlauer was the one that impressed me the most. The spinning varies from mild to downright crazy, depending on weight and seating arrangements. I rode with someone that doesn't like to spin and he was able to ride it with no problems.

-Sean

Ridden Maure Shone at SeaBreeze Kick but coaster!

Ridden both Exterminator and portable Amusments of America. Rides vary greatly but can be mas fun.

Seabreezes' Whirlwind had me giggling like a Kid. Facing outward and spinning like crazy, never knowing where the track was going next made it very dissorienting and fun.

Chuck, next up, Gerstlauers

He Chuck...I also hear the Seabreeze spinner kicked butt ;-)