Tomb Raider: The Ride (PCW)

Finally, months after the announcement, Canada's Wonderland has given their new Zamperla Volare a name - Tomb Raider: The Ride. From the "Data Sheet":

“Tomb Raider: The Ride begins with a journey through a foreboding ancient temple, mysterious chambers, engraved ruins and the debris of failed expeditions. As a sense of impending doom grows, and the realization that only seconds remain before certain calamity, budding adventurers are strapped into the only possible vehicle of escape. Immersed in the scenes from the motion pictures' awe inspired surroundings the would-be adventurers are launched on the ride of their lives, soaring through the air in a spectacular flight, face first, with rolling inversions and high bank curves.”

If the themeing is half as good as it sounds, this could be a pretty decent ride - especially if the modifications Zamperla made to the track and trains make the ride a little less painful. Even if, its pretty much a guaranteed success with the GP – “A flying coaster - wow!” (considering SkyRider [stand-up] sill gets this type response and it’s 20 years old.) Now, on the other hand, how the colour scheme works with the name? That’s anyone’s guess.

See the construction photos and stats here: http://www.canadas-wonderland.com/corpinfo.jsp

It's about time they released some construction photos and officially named the ride! I've been checking the site constantly waiting to see when they'd add something to the media centre. Thanks for posting that.

Yikes. I don't think they could have picked a better color scheme for the ride.

I'm happy PCW is finally getting a new coaster. Yes, I would have picked a higher capacity ride than 600 pph (they've already got a boomerang and wild mouse) but I have no doubt the flying concept will boost their attendance. It'll be hard to get into the themeing with the color scheme that came out of left field, but theme or no theme, I'll be anticipating my first Volare this summer.

Screamscape posted the below link to their "work in progress" new website, shows the logo and all:

http://pcw.paramount.viva-technology.com/

I agree, with the right theming, could be a pretty interesting ride. *** Edited 3/25/2004 4:19:37 AM UTC by jomo***

I hope Zamperla got rid of those ghastly cages. They looked scary.

While I don't know how much you can read into promo stuff, the picture in the link that jomo posted does not have cages on the car.

Ooh, ooh!

Is it a Zamperla in a box?

I honestly don't know if the color scheme is that fitting or not.

What does yellow & tiel have to do with Tomb Raider? I think that if I were to go with a true tomb-raider theme, I would have chosen more darker & menacing colors to represent the movie better, such as brown, silver, or black. That is... depending if this ride is supposed to be taken place in a cave-like setting or outdoors.

I'd like to know what kind of theming they are going to place around the ride. Hopefully, it'll be more than just a giant sphere like BORG.

I'm sure it'll be great, and I know that people will be going ga-ga for it (Which is good becase it'll lighten the load off of other coasters that are normally packed on a typical day there!)

http://www.canadas-wonderland.com/i/assets/construction2.jpg

does that turn look a little lopsided and potentially painful?????

CC Drew, I think you're right....the picture (while obviously an artist's conception), shows a restraint system *markedly* different from the Kite Flyer, and the other Zamperla Flyers...has Zamperla taken our advice to heart and fixed the cars? We can only hope!

Turbo....the place where the track abruptly ENDS looks even more painful, LOL...;)

There are pictures of the original Volare floating around without the cages on many sites. I suspect those were taken when the ride was in its original location in Italy before the ride was put in the actual park setting. This is also before the Zamperla logos were ripped of the ride and the decks on the trim stations were added.

The cages and the stupid clear plastic thing are shown in pictures of the new ride at Prater Park. Personally, I have issues with that plastic thing as I am one of the fortunate souls that has the pleasure of cleaning vomit on the original. The plastic catches it and the its curvature makes it terrible to clean when the car is in the load position. Of course this issues is more of an ops concern than a rider's concern.

I don't remember how much of a detriment the cages are to the ride experience as I have only ridded TFC about five times in 2002.

Has anyone here ridden this yet? I am heading up to PCW and Darien Lake sometime in June or July and I was wondering what to expect from this ride.

There's one Trip Report right here...

...but I would seriously like to get others opinions on this ride before making the trip up there. Although I'd visit the park regardless... I just want to know if it's truly worth it to ride, or if it's just a friggin joke, just like the Elitch version.

From what was told... it's very elaborately themed, but only the entrance & the queue... but the rest of the ride, when actually on it, doesn't have any theme, and the color scheme seems to not fit the ride at all (from his TR).

Any other opinions? There's gotta be more 'buzzers from the Greater Toronto area!

Let's just say that it's not a good thing when one of your sales reps is getting hate mail from coaster enthusiasses. Read more in these RRC threads:

Zamperla Volare Coaster Comments Wanted

PCW - Tomb Raider: The Ride

Enjoy the reading, because I can guarantee that you won't enjoy your ride.

Sounds pretty negative....

...I honestly just wonder if anybody is going to seriously ***** to management at Canada's Wonderland, or just ***** on the forums on-line.

I mean, if one has to voice their opinion, I'm pretty sure that PCW is all ears and want to hear the displeasure of how the ride is panning out.]

If this turns out to be the case... then maybe it could be the next Wind-Jammer & get replaced by something much better all that much quicker.

At first, I was looking forward to going to PCW this year if not for Tomb Raider, then to just ride the other rides... but I'm seriously reconsidering now. As tempting as a new ride might be... it's kinda sad that it's so bad, it hurts!

They posted pix on RCDB: http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery2516.htm?Picture=2

I haven't had the pleasure of riding it yet, but I smell Flashback (in that it looks super cool, but the transitions look pretty sharp).

Hey, do you think this might lead to a case of enthusiasts actually begging for trims? ;)

^I think trims would do nothing to enhance the experience. The ride is not very fast to begin with. You are tossed around in your cage during curves and inversions regardless of the speed.
I think the cars, the ergonomics and the four-across "lying" are the problem here. Its certainly not the track design. You can see that the cars are gracefully traversing the course. The problem is somewhere inside the car.

Thanks for those links. I had started to consider coughing up the 30 bucks or so and drive the hour to visit the park. Figured I'd give it a shot.

But after reading reviews I'm going to avoid the park like the plague. I'm still feeling great after a weekend trip down to Cedar Point.

I think I'll continue to make the 5 hour trip to CP instead of the 1 hour trip to PCW.

Look at the pictures for Psyclone and Shockwave on the Thrill Rides page. What in the world?

WTF?

Who designed that site?