TR: Seaside parks 06/27/2008
Dave Althoff, Jr.
on the World Wide Web at:
http://capital2.capital.edu/admin-staff/dalthoff/adventures/tr2008/shore.html
Check it out! 5 parks, 25 photos, and two QuickTime movies all
documenting a single day at the beach!
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Trip Report: Seaside Parks
Seaside Heights, NJ; Brooklyn, NY; Rye, NY - 06/27/2008
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"I didn't know Miler track could do that!"
Friday morning, we got up early, had a quick breakfast at the hotel, and
got back on the road. On this particular morning, the road in question
happened to be Interstate 80, down to the Pennsylvania Turnpike
Northeast Extension and then off at Levittown, PA, at the New Jersey
border. We stopped at the hotel where we would spend the night, dropped
off the car, and the whole crew of us piled into a van for our trip up
the shore. The "whole crew" in this case consisted of myself, April,
Pete, Duke, Lisa, and Ron. Between fuel, parking, and tolls...especially
tolls...grouping up like this would result in substantial cost savings.
At the end of the day we figured the total fixed travel expenses to be
about $90. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Casino Pier - Seaside Heights, New Jersey
Our first stop was the town of Seaside Heights, New Jersey. We parked
next to Jenkinson's Breakwater Beach and stepped into the arcade and
carousel building on the street side of Casino Pier. With temperatures
in the upper 90's and extreme humidity, even the ocean didn't provide
much relief, but lunch in an air-conditioned pizza shop was a good
start. Then we were off to the rides. We started by buying a 20-ticket
sheet, but that proved to be inadequate for even the limited amount of
riding we were planning to do. Tickets are $0.75 each with rides
requiring between 3 and 8 tickets.
Pirate's Hideaway - 6 tickets
We worked our way around the pier in a more or less logical fashion,
starting with the new Pirate's Hideaway ride. It's a small steel roller
coaster built in an open enclosure...a building configuration not
entirely unlike a Himalaya. It starts with a spiral lift very similar to
the system used on the Zamperla Volare flying coasters, and finishes up
with a series of small hills folded over to fit a very small footprint.
It's an entertaining ride, anyway, but nothing particularly extreme.
Star Jet - 8 tickets
At the end of the pier is the relatively new Star Jet, presumably a
replacement for an old Jet Star or something of that type. Anyway, the
ride is from Miler and bears more than a passing resemblance to the
Scandia Screamer which I rode back in January. Like that ride, this ride
looks at first glance like an overgrown Miler kiddie coaster, complete
with the C-channel track and the train with the goofy looking pin-set
lap bars. But this ride is different. While the Scandia Screamer has a
very classic design, with dips in the middle and high, flat turns on
either end, the Star Jet has a whole lot more in common with Herr
Schwarzkopf's Jet Star. Miler has managed to somehow solve the problems
that Disney couldn't and that Arrow never bothered with, the problems of
bending a flat steel track in three dimensions and still keeping the
rails oriented correctly. That was the reason that Arrow developed the
round-tube coaster track: because with a circular cross section, it
doesn't matter which face is 'up', the wheel will roll on it the same
way. Miler apparently decided that doing things the easy way is for all
the other manufacturers, and with the Star Jet demonstrates that even
complicated track bends can be done with square rails. The ride runs
like an overgrown Jet Star and I actually liked it quite a lot. The only
real problem with the ride is that there is no roof or sunshade over the
loading area and as the train sat waiting for riders, the seats got
really really HOT!
Stillwalk Manor - 7 tickets
Pete claimed that the dark ride was one of his favorites, and with a
ride on Stillwalk Manor we found out why. It's a two-story ride-through,
filled with a whole variety of stunts. It also contains an elaborate
surveillance system, including not only the usual collection of
infra-red cameras, but also an attendant stationed inside. Just inside
the door, there is a quick snap from a blast of compressed air right
under the car, and this caused a sudden reaction in April. The attendant
clearly witnessed this and proceeded to *ahem* make his presence known
in at least four locations within the ride, which more or less
completely freaked April out. To add to the effect, I didn't even see
the guy the first two times, so when she asked me if I had seen him, I
truthfully answered, "See what? No." Obviously he had targeted our car;
none of the other people in our party had seen him. Anyway, as Pete had
promised, it was a good dark ride.
Centrifuge - 8 tickets
April inquired about the Centrifuge ride and learned that it was an
indoor Scrambler. We entered the building and inside we found not a
Scrambler but rather a fun-house, featuring a short dark maze, and a
revolving barrel trick. This all led to a dark room with a door with a
sign that read, "Door opens only after the last ride has finished." We
waited a few minutes, and the door opened. Inside a dark,
air-conditioned room we found an Eli Bridge Scrambler. We were the only
riders on this cycle, which featured a dark room with a light show and
music that was just a little bit too loud. Let me clarify that, just so
you don't think I'm "just too old--" the music was a little bit too loud
because it was just loud enough to produce distortion. Yes, it was
uncomfortably loud, but I can forgive that if it isn't distorting. The
other thing I noticed was that there were at least six park employees in
the building to operate this ride. I don't know if they were taking
air-conditioned breaks from other parts of the pier, or if it really
takes this many people to operate a Scrambler. If that's the way
staffing is in New Jersey, perhaps that's why they are charging $6.00
for a ride on a Scrambler!
Wild Mouse - 7 tickets
There were two more coasters on the pier for me to ride, and since most
of the others in the group had been here before, it was just me and Ron
riding them. The first was a Miler Wild Mouse called the Wild Mouse.
It's a traditional Wild Mouse layout with some extra curving and
twisting treats thrown in. It uses the long nosed cars as on the Star
Jet and again it does things that I didn't think Miler's trackwork was
supposed to be able to do. The more I see of these Miler coasters the
more I wonder why we don't see more of them.
Hot Tamales - 6 tickets
The last ride of the pier for me was the 6-ticket Hot Tamales, an L&T
steel kiddie coaster. Not much to write home about; the operators gave
me 6 circuits on the ride. I wondered if they could have just given me
one circuit for one ticket instead.
Funtown Pier - Seaside Heights, New Jersey
We finished up at Casino Pier and walked on down the boardwalk. There is
a fee for beach access in Seaside Heights, so we stayed on the
boardwalk. Past a large collection of shops, storefronts, storefront
games, and small restaurants is another amusement pier, Funtown Pier.
After running out of tickets twice at Casino Pier, I started by walking
through the whole ride collection at Funtown Pier. I figured out what I
wanted to ride, counted the tickets, and made my purchase accordingly.
The pier has a large collection of rides, but most are fairly standard
carnival fare or kiddie rides. I decided to limit myself to the three
major coasters.
Mighty Mouse
Like Casino Pier, Funtown Pier has a Miler Wild Mouse coaster called
Mighty Mouse. Unlike the mouse at Casino Pier, this Mouse is a very
early Carl Miler model which was retired from carnival service in 1959,
returned to service at another park in 1995, then installed at Funtown
Pier in 2005. The ride is very similar to both the Wild Chipmunk at
Lakeside and the Tree Top Racers at Adventure City. It's a cool little
ride and while it wasn't as surprising as the Star Jet down the coast,
it was a neat little ride.
Looping Coaster
But Funtown's surprises don't end there. On the edge of the ocean is a
looping coaster that at first glance looks like a Pinfari ZL-42 Looping
Star. But the ride is much larger than a ZL-42 (58 meters instead of
42), seems to be a bit taller, and has no ballast tanks under it. It
turns out that this is an Interpark Loop Coaster. It's still Italian,
but it turns out that this is a much better running ride than the
Looping Star. It's simple, it's noisy, it is a little bit rough, but
ultimately it's quite a decent ride. Don't be put off by the rust, they
did a nice job with this one.
Family Coaster
The third coaster at Funtown Pier is the simple Family Coaster, and like
most of the coasters in Seaside Heights, it comes from Miler. It's an
oval with a small helix that is just tall enough to get over the rooftop
of the adjacent building. Each ride is multiple circuits, and the ride
is a lot like the Ravine Flyer 3 at Waldameer or Bear Trax at Seabreeze.
Having knocked out our coaster credits, we finished up our afternoon in
Seaside Heights with a scenic ride on the boardwalk-side Sky Ride. Then
we piled back into the van for a ride up into New York City.
Astroland - Brooklyn, New York
Inbound traffic was not as bad as it could have been during the outbound
rush hour. We made our way into Brooklyn and found a parking space on
Surf Ave., literally across 10th St. from the world-famous Cyclone. We
piled out, paid our $8 per person, and filed through the chain-link
fence. I had noticed rampant overstaffing at Casino Pier, but that was
nothing to what I saw at the Cyclone...the ride was being operated by no
less than nine people, with only one train operating. We arrived on the
platform just as the train was leaving, and stood by waiting for it to
return. When the train returned, Pete climbed into the second seat,
April climbed into the third seat, and I went to join April, but the
operator indicated that we were too big to ride together. So I moved
back to the fourth row, which is the rear axle seat of the lead car. The
operator pulled the lap bar back and it locked at both ends into the
front edge of the undivided seat. This is where the problems started.
The lap bar on the Cyclone was originally a simple metal bar, meaning
the seat was similar to that on the Coaster out in Vancouver. Astroland,
or someone, has seen fit to not only add a thick foam pad to the bar,
but to add another huge foam pad under the lap bar, then wrap the whole
thing in a sleeve similar to the way the lap bar is constructed on a
Larson Ring of Fire. Unlike the lap bar on a Ring of Fire, this bar is a
lot stiffer. The pad on the bottom of the lap bar is so stiff and comes
down so low that in order for the lap bar to close, my legs were pinned
very tightly to the seat, so tightly, in fact, that the generous seat
cushion had to compress completely under my legs. You see what this
means: it means that any reactive motion is basically impossible, and
with the seat cushion and lap bar padding fully compressed, there might
as well be no padding at all on either the lap bar or the seat bench.
And there I am, sitting in the fourth seat of a 4-bench car.
The train rolled out of the station and up the lift. To the right is
Astroland Park; ahead is Raritan Bay and a view of the second hill. The
first drop is steep, and might have a little airtime, and it is followed
by a rise into a cool fan-turn. The problem is that at the bottom of
that first drop, the train starts hammering away with more violence than
Son of Beast was ever able to muster. Combine that with the
way-too-tight lap bar, and the effect is worse than riding Son of Beast
in its original Premier train. This isn't good old fashioned wood
coaster violence, this is the brutality of a ride that is simply in poor
condition. Unfortunately for me, this continued for each subsequent
drop, with the train hammering through the drops with such force that it
felt like it was trying to smash my lower GI tract out by sheer physical
force. Because my upper body was unsecured, my back, neck and head were
able to react to the ride, but my lower body could not, and by the time
it was over, everything from my waist to my knees, inside and out, was
sore. We pulled into the station. Pete pulled out a double and handed it
to the attendants and told me and April to get in the front seat. Well,
April went to the front seat, but I could only move up to Seat #3. The
ride there was a little better by virtue of not being right on the axle,
but it was still a brutally rough ride. April and I agreed that the ride
was virtually unrideable. April declared that she was done with it; I
noted that the ride is a good one and is almost certainly very fixable,
the profile is good, but the condition is poor. Pete, meanwhile, who
normally has a very low tolerance for a ride in bad condition,
proclaimed his love for the ride. I don't get it.
When the ride was over, we headed over to Astroland proper. Considering
how long the park has been there, it seems kind of shocking that the
park's rest rooms consist of a filthy outhouse trailer. Fortunately, the
rest of the park is in a little bit better shape. From Surf Ave. back to
about the halfway point in the block, at the gap in the fence across
from the Cyclone, is a collection of adult rides including a very nice
looking Break Dance, a Top Spin, and a flume that looks to be something
like a Reverchon White Water. On the beach side of the park is an
extensive kiddieland, which includes the Big Apple kiddie coaster. That
coaster is basically a Fajume (although RCDB.com credits this particular
installation to Pinfari) Wacky Worm coaster, but the large apple is
located over the back corner of the ride instead of over the crossover
as on some other models, and I think the apple is larger than on some of
the other Wacky Worm rides. What's really cool about this one, though,
is the turntable. At the front of the ride, in the loading area, there
is a large turntable, with a second track section on it. The ride has
two trains, and one train sits facing backward on the front edge of the
turntable. Passengers are loaded onto that train, presumably while the
other train is running the circuit (it was a slow afternoon, so
everything was stopped). Once the train is loaded, the turntable is
rotated to put the track section in position to match the rest of the
ride, and the ride is started up. That then leaves the second train in
position to be unloaded and reloaded. It's really quite clever, and I am
actually surprised that I have never seen a system quite like this on
any other ride. Well, that's not entirely true; conceptually I guess
it's the same as the Giant Wheel that Hersheypark used to have, with the
two Ferris wheels mounted on opposite ends of a large boom; or the
sliding loading tracks used on Mr. Freeze at Six Flags St. Louis.
Deno's Wonder Wheel Park - Brooklyn, New York
Astroland is built on a level lot, but that isn't really the case for
that chunk of Coney Island. At the back of Astroland's lot, a staircase
leads up about 10-15 feet up to the boardwalk and beach. We climbed the
stairs and noticed that the NYPD had a section of the beach roped off
with yellow tape, and was doing something down near the water. Rather
than investigate ourselves, we walked next door to Deno's Wonder Wheel
Park. Located right next to AstroLand, the beach side of Deno's is level
with the boardwalk. Like Astroland, the back half of the park is
dominated by an extensive kiddieland, featuring some old rides that look
to be in excellent condition. The Mangels fire truck ride is a
particularly nice piece, and its condition reminds me of the
mint-condition Roto-Whip at Kiddieland in Chicago.
I failed to ride the Sea Serpent, which is yet another Miler family
coaster. So I passed up the chance to ride five different Miler coasters
in a single day. Instead, I walked down the ramp at the center of the
park and immediately approached the Wonder Wheel ticket booth.
Now, I have seen photos and video of the Wonder Wheel. I have even seen
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins in which the title character hangs
on the outside of a Wonder Wheel car. I have even ridden the
Waagner-Biro copy that runs at Disney's California Adventure. And I am
well aware that the Wonder Wheel has been around since 1920, making it
older than the venerable Cyclone. Virtually every description I have
ever read or heard of the Wonder Wheel describes an ancient, noisy,
dilapidated ride that scares most of the people who see it (let alone
ride it), usually for all the wrong reasons. And after seeing the
condition of the Cyclone and the general conditions at Astroland, I
thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. I bought my tickets
from the ancient ticket kiosk and proceeded to the line for the
"swinging" cars.
My first surprise came when the car stopped in front of me and the door
slid open. As is usually the case with a gondola Ferris wheel, there are
two seats in each of the gondolas. What is unusual about this Wheel is
that instead of being perched on the leading and trailing walls of the
gondola, facing each other, the seats all face in the same direction,
with a partition down the center of the gondola formed by the back of
the 'front' seat. My second surprise came after the door slid shut and
the wheel started to move. It turns out that just about everything I had
ever been told about the condition of the Wonder Wheel seems to be
completely false. The wheel has a set of teeth around its outer rim,
which engage with the drive sprockets near the base of the wheel. In
other words, it's a big gear drive system along the same lines as on
Ferris' original Wheel. This is not common today, as friction drives are
much more common, using pneumatic tires against a friction strip. This
is because gear drives require a certain amount of precision all the way
around the wheel, a distance in excess of 470 feet. This is also because
gear drives tend to be noisy and to cause harsh vibrations. Well,
whoever came up with those limitations forgot to tell the Wonder Wheel.
The ride is virtually silent, quieter even than Cedar Point's comparably
sized wheel. The gondolas are rock-steady even though they are sitting
on flanged steel wheels on lubricated steel tracks. Oh, and about those
tracks...when the wheel goes around and hits the tipping point where the
cars start to roll, the cars roll quietly, smoothly, without any kind of
rumble, bounce, or jolt. I dare say the rolling action of the flanged
steel wheels on the L-channel steel tracks on the Wonder Wheel is
actually smoother than the rolling action of the plastic wheels on the
tubular steel tracks on the Sun Wheel at California Adventure. I can't
imagine that the Wonder Wheel ran any better on the day it opened back
in 1920 than it runs today. It makes me wonder how much better the
Cyclone might be if Deno's were in charge of it as well.
After riding the Wonder Wheel I broke away from the group for a few
minutes, long enough to get some photos of the rides at Deno's, at
Astroland, and at some of the independent amusement installations
nearby, including the Saturn VI I saw the Parachute Tower from a
distance, and I got some nice pictures of the Cyclone. I was able to see
some of the tracking problems on the ride, such as the dip where the
track stack actually leans outward significantly as the train goes
through because it is inadequately braced. I wasn't able to get the
camcorder into a good position to get that on tape, but I did get a shot
showing the rail-bounce in one of the less-brutal dips near the end of
the ride. My phone rang as the rest of the group was ready to go.
Conveniently, the van was right across the street.
Playland Park - Rye, New York
Before too terribly long, and just after night fall, we parked in the
parking lot at Playland Park in Rye, NY. The park is owned by
Westchester County, and like Kennywood, the entire park is a National
Historic Landmark. Apart from that, the only things I really knew about
the park were that they've had incredibly poor luck with their Scrambler
and that the park is the home of the only other Prior & Church Racing
Derby in the United States.
I entered the park to find a set of concrete buildings that serve as
ticketing, and a skating rink. A quick turn to the left and through a
large gate leads to a long midway built as a formal garden. I took a
quick wander through the extensive Kiddieland to my left, and noted that
the NAD kiddie coaster (which I would not be permitted to ride) is
significantly larger than the one at Camden Park, and comes into the
station a lot faster. It also has a wooden structure, so the only thing
it really has in common with the Camden Park ride is the art deco train,
which fits in very nicely with the architecture of Playland Park.
I proceeded down the midway and past the Racing Derby and a midway
extension off to the left that houses most of the food and game joints.
I stopped at the ticket booth and bought a $20 ride pass. Playland Park
uses reloadable bar-code cards and a point system instead of ride
tickets. Luckily for everyone, it is a bar code system and it works a
whole lot better than the magnetic stripe cards at Castles and Coasters.
Our group reassembled, and gathered on the entrance ramp to the Dragon
Coaster.
The Dragon Coaster is credited to Prior & Church, and it is a gorgeous
looking ride. I am generally not a big fan of compact flourescent
lights, but Westchester County has installed the miserable things on the
coaster along the lift hill and upper curves. They produce a brilliant
white light that really makes the ride stand out at night. The ride has
an old Morgan train that doesn't do the ride any favors. It has a
single-position lap bar that locks in a little lower than it really
needs to, and Fiberglas car bodies that don't even sound right on a ride
like this. The one good thing about the train is that it is properly
trailered, so it rides beautifully on the ride's dips and curves. The
Dragon is a Prior & Church ride, but it's no Bobs by any stretch of the
imagination. It is a fairly simple arrangement, made a little more
exciting when the train gets "eaten" by a glowing-eyed fire-breathing
dragon on the back-end turnaround. It's a fun ride, but Playland has a
lot more to offer in a relatively short time before closing.
Tucked in behind the Dragon is the Crazy Mouse. In spite of the name, it
is NOT a Reverchon spinning mouse; on the contrary, it is a neo-classic
Wild Mouse coaster. According to RCDB it is a Zamperla ride. Based on
the track style and the ride, I had incorrectly thought it might be a
rare Arrow mouse, but it does not have the 'tree' style of construction
used on the Arrow rides. It IS a fun ride, though.
Playland has two dark rides (three if you count the Old Mill ride, which
was not operating when we visited). Both were slated for demolition
before this season, but both were spared. The rides have some unusual
seating requirements in that they try to put most of the weight in the
back of the car. The rides are entertaining enough, with some rather
twisted scenes inside. I think I recognized a lot of stunts from the
props displays at IAAPA (I forget the company, but they have the
particularly violent electric chair dude and the especially revolting
puking dude, who managed to get into both of Playland's dark rides).
It's nice to see these rides operating with all of the stunts apparently
in top-notch shape.
Playland's newest coaster is a Zamperla Volare 'flying coaster' called
Superflight. I've ridden these things at Canada's Wonderland and at
Elitch Gardens, so there really is no reason that I have to ride this
one. But April hasn't ridden one yet, and Zamperla really does have the
whole idea of a 'flying coaster' worked out better than anybody else
from a conceptual standpoint, although I'm no real fan of the Volare
layout. Unfortunately, when I reached the platform, there was a bit of
an altercation. It seems that Playland has an inflexible rule that
riders on Superflight are not permitted to wear glasses. Worse, they
were actually suggesting that riders put them in a back pants pocket for
the ride, which is a great way to get expensive eyewear damaged or lost.
With a cord on my glasses, I thought I had something worked out with the
attendants, but apparently that wasn't going to fly. And neither would
I. This isn't just a matter of not being able to see during the ride;
the Volare ride system is designed in such a way that there is no way
for me to safely enter or exit the ride without my glasses.
Unfortunately, I'd already scanned four points off of my card, and it
was obvious that I wasn't going to get a ride. What's particularly
annoying is knowning that I've ridden two other, virtually identical
rides without any trouble. Well, it was obvious that this stand-off
wasn't going anywhere, so I proceeded directly to the Customer Service
window and indeed was able to get my points refunded. I noticed that
they verified that I had spent four points on Superflight before they
added the points back on, but at least they didn't give me any hassle
about it. What I REALLY wanted was a ride on the coaster, but apparently
there was no way to arrange that.
I grabbed a bite to eat at a burrito stand on the midway, but then got
hit with a terrible bout of bad timing. I arrived at the Racing Derby,
red Icee™ in hand, just as the ride was starting up, with April on
board. I had hoped she would wait a minute for me. So I boarded just as
she was getting off, and so I didn't understand just what it was she was
gesticulating about. I sat on a horse, put my left foot on the lowest
peg, put my right foot in the highest peg, and held on. As the ride
started, I realized I was the only rider on board. Playland's Racing
Derby runs quite fast; faster certainly than the one at Cedar Point. But
that is a little bit misleading. Playland's ride has only 14 sweeps,
meaning it has only 56 horses. By comparison, Cedar Point's ride has 16
sweeps holding 64 horses. This means that the Cedar Point ride has a
larger diameter, and so goes faster at a lower rotational speed. I'll
have to do some checking to see for sure how much faster the Playland
ride really goes....I know that Cedar Point's ride runs at 4.25 RPM; one
rotation of Playland's ride seems to be about 00;00;10;15 (hh;mm;ss;ff
at 29.97 FPS) on my camera, which is 10.5 seconds; that's 5.71 RPM. I
wonder what the difference in radius is between the two rides... Another
major difference is that while all of the horses race on the Cedar Point
ride, only two horses on each sweep race at Playland. Anyway, it is a
very aggressive ride, and I noticed a nasty 'bump' as my horse ran over
the track near the operator's station. But I didn't have any trouble
with it. Is it partially because Cedar Point's Cedar Downs Racing Derby
was the first major adult amusement ride I ever rode? Anyway, I liked
this one, and when I got off I found out what April was gesturing about:
she had NOT enjoyed her ride, felt like she was going to be tossed off
her horse, and had no intention of ever riding again. Such a shame; I
thought it was a good ride.
Across the midway is the Family Flyer which is a small coaster similar
to the Howler at Holiday World, but without the head, tail and feet.
Getting into the train was a challenge, but it was another coaster
credit, and it almost made up for not getting to ride Superflight. With
one ride ticket point left, and only a few minutes left before closing,
we raced to the ticket booth to get three more points, then raced over
to the Dragon to find...that the line had already been closed for the
night. Well, the good thing is that at Playland, ride points can not be
refunded, but they can be used to pay for concessions (1 point = $1). So
at least I didn't waste my ticket money. But I would have liked to get
another ride on the Dragon.
Playland is a nice park, certainly the nicest of the parks we visited on
this long day, and the lighting is truly magical at night. It kind of
reminds me of Lakeside Park in Denver, but without the overgrown wild
look to the trees. It ranks with Lakeside and Seabreeze as parks that I
truly enjoyed and would love to have in my backyard, and I certainly
hope to return. It would be even nicer if I could get a ride on their
other coaster when I do.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
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NEW! When emailing this account, include the 'canonical magic word' in
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David F
The most annoying thing about this is that for the first few years
eyeglasses were OK. Last year was the first time I had a problem and
didn't bother with Super Flight. At least I had the "incident" with
the attendant at the ticket scanner, not the platform.
I made an official complaint in guest relations in writing about the
policy. Of course, I never heard anything from the park, nor any
explanation for the sudden, and guest unfriendly, change in policy.
Needless to say, I haven't been back to Rye since. I also don't need
my safety endangered by not being allowed to see as I board or get off
a coaster train.
Regards,
David
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