Opened in 2009 Manta is the third B&M coaster at Seaworld in Orlando. Manta is the second flying coaster I have ridden after Air at Alton Towers in the UK. I really enjoyed Manta and at the time of year we visited in September the ride had hardly any queues.

For anyone who hasn’t rode I would recommend the back seat, its very intense and enjoyable.

I don’t really have that much more to say about Manta other than if your in Florida and you get the change to ride it, enjoy it

Manta at Sea world Lift Hill.

Manta’s stats, courtesy of http://www.rcdb.com

Length : 3359ft

Height : 140ft

Drop : 113ft

Max speed : 56mph

Duration : 2:35

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New for the 2009 season at Lightwater Valley is a rapid ride rented from Showman James Mellor. The ride will be at the park for the 2009 season after which point both parties will review it’s suitability for the park.

I visited the park in April on a warmish day and the ride has a constant queue with at least 15/20 minute wait times, I can imagine this will get alot bigger over the coming summer months when the temperatures rise in the UK.

The ride has took the place of the Pinfari Grizzly Bear coaster which stood at the park from 2004, this ride has since been sold. I certainly wont miss it.

This update contains approximately 25 photographs taking during April at the park.

I have been requested by a few visitors to include some pictures from my trip to Florida last year and if im honest Ive been a bit lazy posting some of these, one request is for Journey to Atlantis at Sea World.  I didn’t get to ride this due to an ear infection picked up earlier in the week on some water other water rides. For anyone planning on visiting Seaworld in the near future from the reports Ive had its not a ride to be missed.

Originally installed in 1998 by Mack rides Journey of Atlantis is clased as a water coaster or as some enthusiasts title liquid coaster.

Top of the ride.

View looking from the bottom of the final drop.

Trains climbing the lift hill of Jounrey

 

Heres a couple of video showing some POV views.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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opened in 1994 Nemesis at a cost of ten million pounds quickly became a favourite coaster amongst enthusiasts and the public alike.

I dont count coasters or number of rides on a particular coaster but if i were to look back over the years to 1994 my count would be well into the hundreds if not more.

A trip to Alton towers just isnt the same without a ride on Nemesis for me and many other enthusiasts. I hope you enjoy the photographs.

Some ride stats.
Height 43ft
Drop 104ft
Length 2,349ft
Max speed 50mph
Inversions 4
Duration 1m 20secs.
Capacity 1,400 riders per hour.

We were fortunate enough to have a behind the scenes tour of the ride in July 2007, this was an organised tour arranged by the park and these are the pictures taken on that event.

Bottom of the Nemesis lift hill looking up.

Bottom of the Nemesis lift hill looking up.

Part way up the Nemesis lift hill.

A picture taken from part way up the Nemesis lift hill.

Looking back near the top of the lift hil..

Just about at the top of the lift hil.

View from the top of the Nemesis lift hill looking down. It was all too much for Andy.

Nemesis loop taken from the top of the lift hill.

Looking at the station from the rear of the ride entrance.

From in front of the control desk looking back.

Something for the wheel geeks.

Nemesis Control panel/ops seat.

Outside the rear of the entrance looking at the train storage/maintenance area.

Ready to go in the maintenance area.

Looking back at the final brakes, notice the track has moved.

Thanks for looking.

l would like to thank a freind of mine Gordon Clinton-Lindop for allowing me to use these photographs of American adventure.

They were taken during the 1990 season and I know from comments to the site and emails its a park allot of people have missed.

I only got to visit the park once during its operation and that was the year before it closed.

The Vekoma boomerang coaster featured on the left  hand side was once classed as Britains best coaster after it opened in 1989.

For anyone that have never been to American Adventure theme park, it was built on the site of an old open cast coal mine and centered around a huge lake in the middle of the park. Some people believe the demise of the park came in 2005 when they re-themed the park as a family park and got rid of the white knuckle rides  including the Vekoma Boomerang coaster they named “the missile’.

Bottom of the first hill, beginning the slow pull back.

Buffalo ride.

I’m guessing this photograph was taken from the wheel. In the distance the log ride and balloons (far left)

Helter Skelter.

A view across the huge lake.

Thanks again to Gordon Clinton-Lindop for the use of the photographs.

To see my previous trip report from American Adventure click here.

If you want to comment on this please use the comment form, contact form or join the ridemad discussion forums.

Thanks for reading.

Top Thrill Dragster was introduced to Cedar Point in 2003. It was made by Intamin and has a height of 420ft, at one point it was the highest coaster in the world, only to be overtaken in 2005 by Kingda Ka at Six flags great adventure, New Jersey at 456ft.

The ride has a top speed of 120mph which is reached in a breathtaking 4 seconds.

For those that requested here’s some of my pictures taken during this trip. I hope you like them.

A couple of the ride entrance.

The Queue line, really feeling the heat about a 1 hour wait.

finally inside the entrance.

The Trains.

Waiting to Launch.

Seconds later.

End of the launch for the hydraulic geeks.

Some general shots of the ride.

Ride Structure.

Ride Exit.

And finally one of my favourite shots took about 8:30pm as the sun was going down.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used.

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The Incredible Hulk was a coaster I was really looking forward to riding in Florida, located on the Marvel Super hero island themed area in Islands of adventure the hulk dominates the skyline, it can also be seen from most other areas of this superbly themed theme park.

Built by B&M in 1999 and with a top speed of 67mph the Hulk is still entertaining thousands of visitors daily.

Huge Cobra roll.

On our visit in February 2008 the park was quite busy so we decided to buy fast pass for all the big attraction to save queuing for most of the day. Our party was 2 adults and 2 children with only 1 adult and 1 child wanting to ride the coasters. The queue lines were showing upwards of 40 minutes for most rides so although costing another 140 dollars the fast pass worked out for us and it saved the good old arguements between the kids about how many rides each of them had.

Like everything at Universal the hulk is brilliantly themed some of it over water and in the evenings Universal take advantage of this and light up the coaster.

For anyone who hasn’t ridden the Hulk its a launched coaster so you don’t have any of the click, click when going up the first hill. The hulk is propelled by tyres up to its max height of 110ft the launch is in a tunnel so you have the feeling of not knowing what is coming next and before you realize it your at the top of the launch hill and daylight is coming fast. One of the great elements of the hulk is at the top of the launch rather unlike a traditional coaster of going down the hulk flips you 360 degrees so your right into the action which continues over the full 3700ft of track.

My daughter who is 11 complained about the ride quality of the hulk and she suffered some quite bad ear bashing to both sides of her head, it was completely opposite for me but i am taller and her ears were right in between the restraints. Its worth bearing this in mind if you havent ridden it before It could put some children off, my daughter is a hardened rider and although she didnt want to ride the hulk again it didnt put her off wanting to try the other coasters.

Heres the pictures.

from a distance.

Bottom of the launch hill.

Another shot of the cobra roll.

And some general shots and a video.

Video i found on youtube. Theres loads of on ride videos but this seem to have the best quality.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.

A bit of History about the ride. The Black hole is a Schwarzkopf Jet star 2 coaster with a length of 1919ft, Height of 44’3 and a duration of 1min 50 seconds. It was originally brought to Alton Towers as the Black hole in 1983 before going through a couple of name changes, New Black Hole, Black Hole 2 and finally back to Black hole again. The ride was closed in 2006.

So finally heres a set of photographs taken in July 2007 from inside the Black Hole Tent at Alton Towers.

From outside, some of the old artwork.

Some of the original theming still hanging about

A bit dark but showing the full dome.

Track lying across the floor

Shot of the cars.

Clearly showing the supports still in place.

The ride cars.

Control systems

The loading bay, still pretty much intact.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.

If there’s one thing that annoys enthusiasts more than wasps at theme parks it’s queue jumpers, the people that can’t read the huge “NO QUEUE JUMPING” signs and the ones at the back of the queue when god handed out brains. These people young and old seem to have no morals or respect for other people.

Even worse are the parks that plainly refuse to do anything about this annoying, rude and disrespectful practice that happens so commonly, even though its spelt out on the signage queue jumping will not be tolerated.

I have experienced this all over the world and heard numerous excuses for this behavior.

I needed to go to the toilet.

Well why didn’t you think of that before entering the queue, allot of parks display queue times and the ones that don’t; well you can get an idea of how long a queue is just by taking a couple of minutes to study a queue line, its no excuse.

I saved a space for someone.

Why didn’t you just wait for them to do what they were doing and then join the queue line, as a group 99% of normal people would do this?

One of my local parks Camelot, UK has a no queue jumping policy, which the staff either don’t know about or have very little respect for there employer’s that it’s not enforced. I joined the line for Camelot’s latest coaster Knightmare today (which incidentally was running one train, on its busiest day of the season for far) a short queue line today took 57 minutes from start to finish, which would have been allot more if I and a number of other visitors hadn’t challenged some queue jumpers intent on pushing to the front of the queue to join friends.

I’d seen a queue jumper challenged by a member of RCCGB a young lad who was intent on climbing over a fence to be with friends until he was challenged then he tried to sneak past me instead. The response ‘do you have a problem’ Well actually no I don’t as you aren’t going to get your weedy 7 stone ass past my 15 stone of ‘paid for’ blubber, there isn’t a problem.

The same queue line moments later I witnessed a dad in front of me trying to get his 3 daughters past me in the queue, what was even more surprising was the huge 3ft x 2ft Sign behind him saying ‘no queue Jumpers’ he either couldn’t read or had very little respect for fellow visitors.

I’m going to write to Camelot about this, as it shouldn’t be tolerated why should the paying public have to put up with this as IT is clearly tolerated by the park or they don’t have enough staff to do anything about it. If the later is the case then just drop the signs and lets have a free for all.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has experienced problems like this at parks, not just Camelot I know they are all the same, do you have an opinion on this if so please get in touch and ill publish your comments. The easiest way to get in touch is via the contact page above or drop me an email paul@ridemad.com.

Thanks for Reading.

Infusion was brought to Blackpool late last year after the Blackpools sister park Southport Pleasureland closed down. The attractoion was known as Traumatizer when it was based in Southport.

Infusion sits on the site of the old Log flume at Pleasure Beach.

As most of you who read this blog know I have 2 kids and when we visit the Pleasure Beach we are usually thinking about heading home at around 4pm, to make sure we can get them home at a reasonable hour. This weekend was the perfect time to have a look at this coaster, it was about 8:30-9:00pm and all the pictures were took without flash using what light was available and a few slow shutter speeds. I hope you like the pictures.

The main fountains in the centre of the lake.

Bottom of the first drop.

Looks really quick

Looking towards the brake section.

The first drop.

Pepsi Max Big One in the background.

Related Articles.
Behind the scenes, Infusion Blackpool

Thanks for Reading.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

The tour consisted of a number of attractions including Duel, Hex, Air, Oblivion and the old Black hole site. One part of the tour I was looking forward to seeing was Rita the hydraulic launched coaster from Intamin which was introduced to the park in April 2005.

The tour consisted of a look round the maintenance areas, a look into the hydraulic room and the ride control room.

Rita is located in the Ugland area of the park. Here’s some stats courtesy of http://www.rcdb.com

Length 2099ft

Height 68ft 11

Max speed 61.1mph

Duration 0:25 seconds

My collection of photographs taken during the tour.

I’ll start in the maintenance area.

From the entrance to where the trains come in.

Looking back to where the above picture was taken from.

Spare wheels.

More spares, this time for the brake fins.

Recently removed wheels.

Outside the maintenance area under the ride platform are the test dummies Intamin use in the trains, these are normally filled with water when testing.

From outside the maintenance area looking up to the ride platform.

A deserted station following one of the many test launches before the attraction is open to the public.

From behind the barriers near the control box.

Another unmanned test launch.

Tests finished the staff turn up and clean the trains ready to open.

We were lucky and managed to have two rides on Rita before the park opened to the public.

Control box.

As you would expect they use a number of computers to operate Rita, here’s a couple of pictures of the main one in the control box.

And finally from the control box looking at the launch area of the ride.

The Hydraulic room.

You can just make out in the above picture, at the end of the launch area the building directly in front is the hydraulic room for Rita. All the hydraulics and cable drum are behind reinforced glass and the area is secure enough to ensure nobody is allowed in the room when a launch is taking place.

Because of the reinforced glass trying a take a picture of the hydraulics is almost impossible, heres my attempt.

Also in this building is another computer than monitors the launches etc, the engineers told me Intamin can dial into this should any problems occur. Im a bit worried it runs XP

Related Posts.

Behind the scenes of Air.

Behind the scenes of Duel including some ride history.

This is an excellent tour if you get the chance its well worth doing, im our group nobody come away disappointed. I would like to thank Wayne, James and the engineering staff at Alton Towers for a great day.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.

During a recent Club Pleasure Beach event on Monday 14th May we were given the oppurtunity to take a look around Blackpools latest attraction the Vekoma SLC coaster called Infusion.

Infusion opened to the public on the 2nd May 2007 and every visit ive had to the park since has certainly brought the visitors in.

We got the chance to look at pretty much every detail of the ride from the 2nd train and underneath the platform its housed in too the loading bay and ride control panel, here are just a few of the pictures taken during this visit.

The 2nd car.

The transfer track.

Inside the main station.

Ride control box.

CCTV

Final piece of track before the transfer.

The Lift Hill.

Track Photographs.

Id like to thank Club Pleasure Beach, Keith and the management at the Pleasure beach for arranging this tour

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.

Now open, click here to see a complete behind the scenes tour

I love watching new rides take shape and infusion is no different. Ever since pleasure beach announced the closure of pleasureland and the replacement ride for the Blackpool log flume ive been heading up to Blackpool every couple of weeks to check the status at first the log flume demolition up until today when the ride is almost in service. Ive heard today from 3 different ride ops that infusion will open on Wednesday 2nd May 2007.

Apologies for the quality of the photographs, they were all taken with a mobile phone.

Theres been loads of rumours about the water effects, where they will be, how wet you get blah blah. Here’s a brief look at some of the main ones.

Firstly the bottom of the main drop to the right of the photo showing the fountains, although not very clear in the photograph theres about 8 fountains in a line jumping up and down, I suppose the not knowning if you are going to get wet or not is the fun part.

You can also see in the background a load of fountains shooting water up into the air, this is going to look fabulous when you are on the ride.

What is missed from the photographs just to the side of the station is a waterfall effect in the shape of a quarterpipe, I couldnt get close enough to take a picture of this unfortunately.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used(apart from these), to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.