HeartlineCoaster
Theme Park Superhero
Canada, eh? Though this was dubbed in spirit as the Canada trip, they've only got like 3 parks, so it seemed most fitting to combine it with more US road trip shenanigans. As one of the last major countries for major coasters I'm yet to tick off, this particular adventure been looming on the horizon for some time now. just waiting for that something special that isn't a B&M to seal the deal. Something special that isn't a B&M came along.
And then we all know how this is going to go down...
Day 0
Just an uneventful day of travel, nothing to see here. Flew into JFK and went to pick up a car. The car they wanted to give us had a massive bulge in the side of the tyre, had been crashed into by New Yorkers many times and was clearly dangerous. Told them to sort that out and give us another one.
Second car wasn't a death trap, so headed north and went to sleep.
Day 1
The first real loss of the trip was Playland (NY), as they failed to open much of anything for the year due to negligence. Nothing too exciting, but a woodie and an Old Mill down for the count. Here's hoping they can fix things up.
Lake Compounce
And so the first park of the trip and first task in hand was to collect our season pass for the Palace Entertainment parks that are no longer Palace Entertainment. Most of them are up this way so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to save some money and smash them out.
Technically we hadn't even paid for the season passes however, as most US websites continue to operate on the assumption that the world only consists of America. Though the framework of the forms allows you to enter foreign details, 9 times out of 10 you just end up getting your payment denied anyway.
What we did have was an email chain back and forth with a staff member documenting our struggles and a promise to honour the online price at the time of our struggles, in person. This meant absolutely nothing, as the price has remained the same through at least 4 more 'must end soon' 'sales' since January, but it's the thought that counts.
After quite a bit of back and forth at the guest services window, though with no real issues, we headed in, passes in hand.
There's a pleasant enough vibe in and around the entrance to Lake Compounce, if we ignore the big ugly orange thing, with signs celebrating the statement that it's America's oldest amusement park. Sometimes these claims feel like a stretch when the source is traced back to a man in a field conducting scientific experiments in 1846, counting as an amusement park, but we'll roll with it. My main point is that I'd got the impression this place had become rather rundown. In fact, it was looking kinda fresh.
Wildcat was clacking up the lift upon entering and so the first thing to catch our attention. I'll admit I was oblivious to the state of most of the wooden coasters on this trip, which led to a number of surprises. All that we knew was that some of them had had some work done on them at some point and so at any time we could be killed, or it could be fine.
What we didn't want at least was what happened with the majority of the last 100 woodies in the US, providing nothing more than a sense of 'I am on a wooden rollercoaster'. Sunglasses on, not caring, the usual works.
With short-ass GCI trains greeting us in the station (not the old ones pictured in memoriam), and plenty of visibly fresh wood, Wildcat delivered a slightly above average experience. I'd need a POV to recount the details, but it wasn't rough, had a number of fun moments in either the airtime or laterals department and was a solid start to the trip.
What wasn't a solid start to the trip was walking up to the entrance to Boulder Smash to find a sign saying it was closed. This thing is/was such a legend and I've wanted to ride it for so long now. While doubting that it can still compete with the best of the best 25 years later, it was one of the few big names left out there for me that still had a lot of potential. With visible tarpaulin, nets, ropes, hi-vis whatevers covering up parts of the track up in the trees, it clearly wasn't to be on this occasion. And so it begins.
A terrible consolation to that discovery was that the adjacent ride is the Sky Rocket II. While some may claim that these are better than Helix, personally I dislike them more each time I ride one. The shin guards on Fobia Fear Coaster weren't an instant 'get me off this ride' at the very least, but it's still an uncomfortable experience with no redeeming features. The dominant memory for me is the pain in my shoulders as it slowly rolled over at the top, thinking to myself silly thoughts such as 'is this a mirrored clone?' But hey, +1, this is the game we play.
The other game I play is dark rides, so luckily Ghost House is just opposite. Did a lot of shooty ghost rides on this trip and this was most definitely one of them.
Rounding out the coaster collection, as they don't let you ride the kiddie one here, was a Zoomerang. Oh joy. By my calculation we were going to ride at least 5 of these on this trip, a great motivator for making the effort no doubt, but quite a few of them had been having 'upgrades' which may have eased the burden slightly, or entirely - you'll see soon enough.
This one hadn't though and it was, ok. Probably better than the Sky Rocket.
With not much else of interest to keep us around and further plans for the day, we asked a man who looked like he knew what he was doing about the status of Boulder Dash. Apparently they were working really hard on it (though not visibly) and desperately wanted it to open later that day. Spoilers - it didn't.
Already back to being dejected about the whole hobby, collected our free drinks cups that came with the platinum pass, filled them up for the road, and headed off to
Quassy Amusement Park Ticket Booth
There's a lot of lakes on this trip, this was perhaps one of the nicer ones.
Continuing the trend that no one can open a rollercoaster in 2025, this slab of concrete was new for 2025.
But Wooden Warrior was behind it, and that's all that mattered.
Edging ever closer to the global Gravity set, these baby ones are all about finding out how much of a surprise punch they pack. This one packs it.
The first half is pretty fantastic, with a whippy first drop and some great hills to follow it, playing on the terrain a little to head down into the tunnel turnaround.
On the way back up the hill and over the station however it loses a little too much steam to maintain the power of the earlier elements, a seemingly common factor with a number of these, big and small, at this point.
There is one basically triangular hill in this final sequence to provide a final kick and a smile on the face however. I'd put it somewhere middle of the pack for baby Gravitys, in other words an excellently fun and rerideable ride.
Elsewhere in the park is this adorable old steel thing. There's some plaque up about its significance and it also rides like a beast for its size, with a great view to boot.
Success.
Six Flags New England
Last up for the day was the collection of another season pass, this time the epic Six Flags Cedar Fair combo that has recently come into being, at an absolute steal of a price for this inaugural year. This one was purchased with no issues and, hoping they hadn't St Louised us and printed the wrong pass, allowed us to head in for a sweet start.
The start wasn't so sweet in that the only +1 we needed in the park was the Boomerang, and it was open, so that makes 2 in a day. It was ok.
The other spite was of course Quantum Accelerator, a reasonable draw to the region for us this year, which was sitting pretty looking almost finished, with staff being trained and test laps being sent. At that moment, it was scheduled to open later in the week and we had already made plans and sacrifices to our schedule, hotels and drives to be back for it.
Funny.
Just to keep things on a sour note, we headed to Wicked Cyclone for some rerides with much excitement, only to find a guy at the entrance saying it was down. Flashback 6 years to being turned away from our afternoon rerides because they had to 'clear the area'. Still never forgiven the park for that.
Thoroughly dejected once more, we sat on a bench to recollect our thoughts. Then Wicked Cyclone cleared the lift with people on it.
Straight back to the guy again, who was standing there confused and scared. It was clearly back in operation, as he agreed, but no one had called him to officially confirm that he could let people into the queue once more. After a few more guests showed up, asked the same question and, steadily more angrily, got the same response, I humbly suggested that he call them.
He did, and in we went. Have a bad photo from 2019:
This led to the ride being an instant walk on, and an instant smash hit once more. Deep down I've always loved Wicked Cyclone, but it's been hard to maintain a level of objective praise for it, what with riding it so long ago, so relatively early amongst the RMCs and of course the lack of being able to get fully acquainted with it on the fateful first visit.
Well no more, I love Wicked Cyclone more than ever. There's only a few of them, but it contains some of the most brutal and violent moments of any RMC, one of my key measures for how much I enjoy this particular style of coaster.
Beyond that, and something we grew to appreciate further during the trip, is that the rest of the layout is an eloquently crafted symphony. What some may consider downtime between the highlight elements, I see more as a tasteful build of suspense towards those particular hard hitters. For instance, the way it weaves and wobbles through the structure, gaining speed into perhaps the most vicious off axis hill in the business, which you can't see, is simply glorious.
I much prefer this design style to several other RMCs which are just so chock full of elements that a number of them simply end up being dud moments, and the flow of the coaster suffers as a result.
Elated, but wanting more, we went to knock off a few other things before closing the night on it.
First up was the Houdini Madhouse. Not sure why it didn't happen before, was either closed, didn't know it existed, or didn't care at the time.
I had surmised that experiencing it in English would help the narrative make a little more sense than it does at Bellewaerde. I can now confirm that it did not. I still don't understand who the other kid is, why he goes evil, or what the conclusion is.
Highlight of the experience was a staff member bigging up El Toro and beginning the ride sequence with a nobly acted proclamation along the lines of 'keep on ridin coasters'.
Gave Superman a token lap, having never understood the fuss for it. I still don't, but the trim in the airtime hill finale had me in tears of laughter by the brakes, clearly already losing my sanity for the trip. The perfect setup of it inexplicably being the best thing ever at one time, reaching what should be a glorious climax, the train juddering and slowing immensely such that all other sensation is lost, along with the momentum to finish the job. 10/10 for entertainment, but the trains suck, it doesn't do anything exciting for me, moving on.
Gave Batman a token lap for some reason and it was decent. A reminder that some old B&Ms kicked ass both in forces and being smooth. It's sad that some old ones are just plain rough, and that some new ones are too.
With that it was time to finally get those final rides we had been so cruelly deprived of so long ago. Back row, in the dark, barely another soul on the train, it was everything this hobby is all about and made absolute mincemeat of our bodies. God damn, Wicked Cyclone.
Up next - sunburn and sufferance
And then we all know how this is going to go down...
Day 0
Just an uneventful day of travel, nothing to see here. Flew into JFK and went to pick up a car. The car they wanted to give us had a massive bulge in the side of the tyre, had been crashed into by New Yorkers many times and was clearly dangerous. Told them to sort that out and give us another one.
Second car wasn't a death trap, so headed north and went to sleep.
Day 1
The first real loss of the trip was Playland (NY), as they failed to open much of anything for the year due to negligence. Nothing too exciting, but a woodie and an Old Mill down for the count. Here's hoping they can fix things up.
Lake Compounce
And so the first park of the trip and first task in hand was to collect our season pass for the Palace Entertainment parks that are no longer Palace Entertainment. Most of them are up this way so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to save some money and smash them out.
Technically we hadn't even paid for the season passes however, as most US websites continue to operate on the assumption that the world only consists of America. Though the framework of the forms allows you to enter foreign details, 9 times out of 10 you just end up getting your payment denied anyway.
What we did have was an email chain back and forth with a staff member documenting our struggles and a promise to honour the online price at the time of our struggles, in person. This meant absolutely nothing, as the price has remained the same through at least 4 more 'must end soon' 'sales' since January, but it's the thought that counts.
After quite a bit of back and forth at the guest services window, though with no real issues, we headed in, passes in hand.
There's a pleasant enough vibe in and around the entrance to Lake Compounce, if we ignore the big ugly orange thing, with signs celebrating the statement that it's America's oldest amusement park. Sometimes these claims feel like a stretch when the source is traced back to a man in a field conducting scientific experiments in 1846, counting as an amusement park, but we'll roll with it. My main point is that I'd got the impression this place had become rather rundown. In fact, it was looking kinda fresh.
Wildcat was clacking up the lift upon entering and so the first thing to catch our attention. I'll admit I was oblivious to the state of most of the wooden coasters on this trip, which led to a number of surprises. All that we knew was that some of them had had some work done on them at some point and so at any time we could be killed, or it could be fine.
What we didn't want at least was what happened with the majority of the last 100 woodies in the US, providing nothing more than a sense of 'I am on a wooden rollercoaster'. Sunglasses on, not caring, the usual works.
With short-ass GCI trains greeting us in the station (not the old ones pictured in memoriam), and plenty of visibly fresh wood, Wildcat delivered a slightly above average experience. I'd need a POV to recount the details, but it wasn't rough, had a number of fun moments in either the airtime or laterals department and was a solid start to the trip.
What wasn't a solid start to the trip was walking up to the entrance to Boulder Smash to find a sign saying it was closed. This thing is/was such a legend and I've wanted to ride it for so long now. While doubting that it can still compete with the best of the best 25 years later, it was one of the few big names left out there for me that still had a lot of potential. With visible tarpaulin, nets, ropes, hi-vis whatevers covering up parts of the track up in the trees, it clearly wasn't to be on this occasion. And so it begins.
A terrible consolation to that discovery was that the adjacent ride is the Sky Rocket II. While some may claim that these are better than Helix, personally I dislike them more each time I ride one. The shin guards on Fobia Fear Coaster weren't an instant 'get me off this ride' at the very least, but it's still an uncomfortable experience with no redeeming features. The dominant memory for me is the pain in my shoulders as it slowly rolled over at the top, thinking to myself silly thoughts such as 'is this a mirrored clone?' But hey, +1, this is the game we play.
The other game I play is dark rides, so luckily Ghost House is just opposite. Did a lot of shooty ghost rides on this trip and this was most definitely one of them.
Rounding out the coaster collection, as they don't let you ride the kiddie one here, was a Zoomerang. Oh joy. By my calculation we were going to ride at least 5 of these on this trip, a great motivator for making the effort no doubt, but quite a few of them had been having 'upgrades' which may have eased the burden slightly, or entirely - you'll see soon enough.
This one hadn't though and it was, ok. Probably better than the Sky Rocket.
With not much else of interest to keep us around and further plans for the day, we asked a man who looked like he knew what he was doing about the status of Boulder Dash. Apparently they were working really hard on it (though not visibly) and desperately wanted it to open later that day. Spoilers - it didn't.
Already back to being dejected about the whole hobby, collected our free drinks cups that came with the platinum pass, filled them up for the road, and headed off to
Quassy Amusement Park Ticket Booth
There's a lot of lakes on this trip, this was perhaps one of the nicer ones.
Continuing the trend that no one can open a rollercoaster in 2025, this slab of concrete was new for 2025.
But Wooden Warrior was behind it, and that's all that mattered.
Edging ever closer to the global Gravity set, these baby ones are all about finding out how much of a surprise punch they pack. This one packs it.
The first half is pretty fantastic, with a whippy first drop and some great hills to follow it, playing on the terrain a little to head down into the tunnel turnaround.
On the way back up the hill and over the station however it loses a little too much steam to maintain the power of the earlier elements, a seemingly common factor with a number of these, big and small, at this point.
There is one basically triangular hill in this final sequence to provide a final kick and a smile on the face however. I'd put it somewhere middle of the pack for baby Gravitys, in other words an excellently fun and rerideable ride.
Elsewhere in the park is this adorable old steel thing. There's some plaque up about its significance and it also rides like a beast for its size, with a great view to boot.
Success.
Six Flags New England
Last up for the day was the collection of another season pass, this time the epic Six Flags Cedar Fair combo that has recently come into being, at an absolute steal of a price for this inaugural year. This one was purchased with no issues and, hoping they hadn't St Louised us and printed the wrong pass, allowed us to head in for a sweet start.
The start wasn't so sweet in that the only +1 we needed in the park was the Boomerang, and it was open, so that makes 2 in a day. It was ok.
The other spite was of course Quantum Accelerator, a reasonable draw to the region for us this year, which was sitting pretty looking almost finished, with staff being trained and test laps being sent. At that moment, it was scheduled to open later in the week and we had already made plans and sacrifices to our schedule, hotels and drives to be back for it.
Funny.
Just to keep things on a sour note, we headed to Wicked Cyclone for some rerides with much excitement, only to find a guy at the entrance saying it was down. Flashback 6 years to being turned away from our afternoon rerides because they had to 'clear the area'. Still never forgiven the park for that.
Thoroughly dejected once more, we sat on a bench to recollect our thoughts. Then Wicked Cyclone cleared the lift with people on it.
Straight back to the guy again, who was standing there confused and scared. It was clearly back in operation, as he agreed, but no one had called him to officially confirm that he could let people into the queue once more. After a few more guests showed up, asked the same question and, steadily more angrily, got the same response, I humbly suggested that he call them.
He did, and in we went. Have a bad photo from 2019:
This led to the ride being an instant walk on, and an instant smash hit once more. Deep down I've always loved Wicked Cyclone, but it's been hard to maintain a level of objective praise for it, what with riding it so long ago, so relatively early amongst the RMCs and of course the lack of being able to get fully acquainted with it on the fateful first visit.
Well no more, I love Wicked Cyclone more than ever. There's only a few of them, but it contains some of the most brutal and violent moments of any RMC, one of my key measures for how much I enjoy this particular style of coaster.
Beyond that, and something we grew to appreciate further during the trip, is that the rest of the layout is an eloquently crafted symphony. What some may consider downtime between the highlight elements, I see more as a tasteful build of suspense towards those particular hard hitters. For instance, the way it weaves and wobbles through the structure, gaining speed into perhaps the most vicious off axis hill in the business, which you can't see, is simply glorious.
I much prefer this design style to several other RMCs which are just so chock full of elements that a number of them simply end up being dud moments, and the flow of the coaster suffers as a result.
Elated, but wanting more, we went to knock off a few other things before closing the night on it.
First up was the Houdini Madhouse. Not sure why it didn't happen before, was either closed, didn't know it existed, or didn't care at the time.
I had surmised that experiencing it in English would help the narrative make a little more sense than it does at Bellewaerde. I can now confirm that it did not. I still don't understand who the other kid is, why he goes evil, or what the conclusion is.
Highlight of the experience was a staff member bigging up El Toro and beginning the ride sequence with a nobly acted proclamation along the lines of 'keep on ridin coasters'.
Gave Superman a token lap, having never understood the fuss for it. I still don't, but the trim in the airtime hill finale had me in tears of laughter by the brakes, clearly already losing my sanity for the trip. The perfect setup of it inexplicably being the best thing ever at one time, reaching what should be a glorious climax, the train juddering and slowing immensely such that all other sensation is lost, along with the momentum to finish the job. 10/10 for entertainment, but the trains suck, it doesn't do anything exciting for me, moving on.
Gave Batman a token lap for some reason and it was decent. A reminder that some old B&Ms kicked ass both in forces and being smooth. It's sad that some old ones are just plain rough, and that some new ones are too.
With that it was time to finally get those final rides we had been so cruelly deprived of so long ago. Back row, in the dark, barely another soul on the train, it was everything this hobby is all about and made absolute mincemeat of our bodies. God damn, Wicked Cyclone.
Up next - sunburn and sufferance
