Our last full day of the trip was also one of the crazier travel days.  We began in Vaughan, Ontario near Canada’s Wonderland, then drove to Marineland at Niagara Falls, crossed the border to Martin’s Fantasy Island, and then drove to Rochester to finish with Seabreeze.  To me, it’s a wonder we got to all three places, let alone sufficient time in them.  While it’s sad to see this as the last full day, the upcoming rest will be very welcome as I scrape the bottom of my energy resources.

In 2008, I tried on three separate occasions to ride Dragon Mountain at Marineland.  The first two days it was down for maintenance.  The third day the lady at the ticket gate tells me it’s too cold to run the ride and “why would anyone want to ride a coaster in this weather anyway?”  Clearly she had not met a coaster enthusiast before.  This time we were sure to check before entering, but on confirmation headed into Marineland for the first time.  Straight away, our general opinion was one of confusion and amusement.  The park is huge, and not in a packed full of things way like Canada’s Wonderland.  In fact, you can walk for quite a while encountering nothing but trees and 40ft. wide pathways.  Occasionally the monotony is broken with a medieval looking building containing a food stand, gift shop, or ride queue line.  There is a large kids section in the front of the park and then a sprawling back area punctuated with rides or exhibits.  It feels like they inherited a massive amount of land with the one requirement that it must be built on immediately.  I will need to look up more history on this park later, but it was all very baffling.

After a ¾ mile walk from the entrance gate (literally), we reached Dragon Mountain.  Opened in 1983, this Arrow coaster covers over 30 acres and features an odd custom layout following the terrain of the mountains.  The ride features two vertical loops and the world’s only bowtie inversion.  It also has two fully underground tunnels, which are certainly an impressive feat.  Though the track profile looks like it would be very rough and painful, the ride is surprisingly jolt-free and even a lot of fun.   A twisting queue through rockwork leads to a dark and foreboding underground station that’s also incredibly quiet thanks to no music and very few other guests.  The lift hill is big enough to require two separate chains.  In the middle of the coaster is a helix that was meant to have a volcano façade around it.  This was added in 2006, 23 years after the coaster was built.  The ride was also to have a replica waterfall of Niagara Falls, but that probably won’t happen for another few decades at this rate.  Dragon Mountain is hard to photograph from any angle thanks to the thick trees and overgrowth around it.  On-ride, this adds quite a bit to the experience.

The park’s other rides are largely miss-able (and also really far apart).  They have a Huss Topple Tower that opened in 2008 before promptly closing indefinitely.  The only other ride of note is Sky Screamer, a massive S&S triple tower on top of a hill.  Like all things at this park, getting to the ride is a process… a long walk up a particularly steep path that curves around the mountain.  Up at the top is a plaza with gift shop and food counter.  The tower is one of the tallest of its kind and features both a shot and drop sequence, making the hike up the mountain almost worth it.  If you sit on the correct side, there’s a fantastic view of nearby Niagara Falls.

I was a little apprehensive to visit the park in the first place due to the controversy surrounding its animal conditions.  There have been a number of stories about animal deaths and sub-par care.  While I wasn’t able to see behind the scenes, I was happy to see that all the exhibits looked up to quality and were quite large.  The two large pool complexes housed belugas and Kiska, the killer whale.  It seemed that Marineland has provided quite a large amount of space for the animals, and they appeared to be receiving proper care.  Kiska did look quite sad, though, being alone in her pool and lacking interaction time.  The seal and sea lion pool indoors also seemed a little small, though with the number of animals it was probably about right.  The best conditions seemed to be for the non-marine animals like buffalo, bears, and deer.  The Deer Park section is a large walled area where guests can feed or interact directly with many deer.  I certainly hope that the standard of care for the animals is to an acceptable level.

Marineland is quite a strange park.  It almost seems amazing that they are still in business, but apparently they’re doing something right.  At the back of the park there is a sign advertising the world’s largest aquarium being built.  That was announced way back in 2003 and the most the park has to show is a big section of cleared land.  If they’re going to build it, then it might take quite a while.  The park did take longer than expected, but that was mostly due to having to walk about 4 to 5 miles to complete everything we wanted to see.  Tiring, but strangely enjoyable.

One country and a world of difference away, Martin’s Fantasy Island is a small park on Grand Island above Niagara Falls.  The park is tiny and essentially a fun fair type place with stock rides, no theming, and some picnic groves.  The draw for this park was Silver Comet, a custom CCI wooden coaster.  The park had a strange policy of loading front to back on the train (so the back seat was often left open) and an even stranger operating policy requiring the operators to lower your lap bar.  I’m not sure if Martin’s is overly carious for liability reasons or what, but the rules are on the ridiculous side and mar what is otherwise a very enjoyable coaster with some great spots of airtime.  A Zamperla spinning coaster completes the coaster collection.  While this ride is not worth the admission, a few more rides on Silver Comet satisfied us enough to move on.

 

Seabreeze is one of the oldest parks on our trip.  The small park in Rochester, New York is still family owned and well taken care of.  Jack Rabbit is the main attraction, a 1920 wooden coaster built by John Miller.  I’ve lost count of how many manually operated wooden coasters we’ve seen on this trip, but it’s fantastic to watch the operator still apply braking manually.  The coaster runs trains by Morgan, which run fine though seem to take away from some of the historical feel of the ride.  There’s a number of strong pops of airtime in the front seat, making it the best spot on the ride.  While the coaster isn’t very long, it features a few airtime hills including a double down and a final drop fully enclosed in a tunnel.  While not our top classic wooden coaster of the trip, it’s certainly up there.

Aside from Jack Rabbit, the only other coaster that was both running and not off limits (kiddie coaster) was Whirlwind, a Maurer Sohne spinning coaster.  I’d never done an Xtended SC 2000 model, so it was interesting to try this more extreme version of the typical spinner.  After three rides the overall verdict is possible, especially when you can sit on the side of the car facing backwards up the lift hill.  Spinning is also largely dependent on weight which makes for wide variations in ride quality.  In general, it seemed that once the car stopped spinning it wouldn’t get going again.  On most rides, though, this happened late enough into the ride to not be a problem.  Our main disappointment came with Bobsled being closed.  This is easily the most unique ride in the park starting life as a junior wooden coaster before having a new steel track and additional structure added to it.  Apparently the ride had suffered a mechanical fault earlier in the day and trains were just being cycled the rest of the evening.  We’d like to try and go back for it tomorrow morning, though a lot has to go right for that to happen.  Seabreeze was one of our favorite of the small parks, feeling very clean and wall cared for.  I hope to see them continue to expand and maybe add another anchor coaster soon.

Up Next: Tomorrow is still up in the air as to whether we’ll do a revisit of Darien Lake or go back to Seabreeze for Bobsleds.  Either way, this will be the finale of a wonderful trip.

Coaster List So Far:

1. Dragon, Wisdom Rides Kiddie Coaster, Bowcraft
2. Sea Serpent, Miler Kiddie Coaster, Keansburg
3. Wildcat, Schwarzkopf Wildcat, Keansburg
4. Cyclone, Keenan Wooden Coaster, Astroland
5. Sea Serpent, Miler Kiddie Coaster, Deno’s Wonder Wheel
6. Soarin’ Eagle, Zamperla Flying Coaster, Scream Zone
7. Steeplechase, Zamperla Motorbike Coaster, Scream Zone
8. Tickler, Zamperla Spinning Wild Mouse, Luna Park
9. Circus Coaster, Zamperla Family Coaster, Luna Park
10. Ladybug Coaster, Zierer Family Coaster, Adventureland
11. Hurricane, S.D.C. Sitdown, Adventureland
12. Dragon Coaster, Church Wooden Coaster, Playland
13. Crazy Mouse, Zamperla Wild Mouse, Playland
14. Super Flight, Zamperla Flying Coaster, Playland
15. Family Flyer, Zamperla Kiddie Coaster, Playland
16. Wooden Warrior, Gravity Group Wooden, Quassy
17. Little Dipper, Allan Herschell Kiddie, Quassy
18. Yankee Cannonball, Schmeck Wooden Coaster, Canobie
19. Untamed, Gerstlauer Eurofighter, Canobie
20. Canobie Corkscrew, Arrow Corkscrew, Canobie
21. Goliath, Vekoma Giant Inverted Boomerang, SFNE
22. Flashback, Vekoma Boomerang, SFNE
23. Pandemonium, Gerstlauer Spinning Coaster, SFNE
24. Great Chase, Miler Family Coaster, SFNE
25. Thunderbolt, Traver/Baker Wooden Coaster, SFNE
26. Bizarro, Intamin Mega Coaster, SFNE
27. Gotham City Gauntlet Escape from Arkham Asylum, Mack Wild Mouse, SFNE
28. Catwoman’s Whip, Zierer Family Coaster, SFNE
29. Mind Eraser, Vekoma SLC, SFNE
30. Batman: The Dark Knight, B&M Floorless Coaster, SFNE
31. Cyclone, Cobb Wooden Coaster, SFNE
32. Alpine Bobsled, Intamin Bobsled, Great Escape
33. Comet, Schmeck/Allen Wooden, Great Escape
34. Canyon Blaster, Arrow Mine Train, Great Escape
35. Steamin’ Demon, Arrow Looping Coaster, Great Escape
36. Cobra, Intamin Stand Up Coaster, La Ronde
37. Vampire, B&M Inverted Coaster, La Ronde
38. Le Boomerang, Vekoma Boomerang, La Ronde
39. Super Menage, Vekoma Corkscrew, La Ronde
40. Monstre (Track 2), Cobb Double Wooden Coaster, La Ronde
41. Dragon, Intamin Indoor Coaster, La Ronde
42. Goliath, B&M hyper coaster, La Ronde
43. Toboggan Nordique, Zamperla Wild Mouse, La Ronde
44.  Monstre (Track 1), Cobb Double Wooden Coaster, La Ronde
45. Leviathan, B&M Giga Coaster, Canada’s Wonderland
46. Dragon Fire, Arrow Loop & Cork, Canada’s Wonderland
47. Vortex, Arrow Suspended Coaster, Canada’s Wonderland
48. Behemoth, B&M hyper coaster, Canada’s Wonderland
49. Backlot Stunt Coaster, Premier launched coaster, Canada’s Wonderland
50. Wild Beast, Summers Wooden Coaster, Canada’s Wonderland
51. Sky Rider, Togo Stand Up Coaster, Canada’s Wonderland
52. Mighty Canadian Minebuster, Summers Wooden Coaster, Canada’s Wonderland
53. Time Warp, Zamperla Flying Coaster, Canada’s Wonderland
54. Dragon Mountain, Arrow Looping Coaster, Marineland
55. Lady Bug Coaster, Zierer Kiddie Coaster, Marineland
56. Silver Comet, CCI Wooden Coaster, Martin’s Fantasy Island
57. Crazy Mouse, Zamperla Spinning Coaster, Martin’s Fantasy Island
58. Jack Rabbit, Miller Wooden Coaster, Seabreeze
59. Whirlwind, Maurer Spinning Coaster, Seabreeze