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(Review and Photo Credit: Ember)

 

California Screamin’ is quite a landmark. The large lift hill (and obvious giant Mickey Mouse-head silhouette behind the loop) can be seen from most places in Disney’s California Adventure— and because this happens to be one of the longest roller coasters in existence (with a track length of 1.15 miles!), you also have the opportunity to walk under much of its structure while exploring (part of it even encircles the Maliboomer, another California Adventure attraction).

As you head over towards its large frame, one way you can choose to come at it is by crossing a lake over a bridge into ‘Paradise Pier’. Here, you’re able to witness the very odd-looking start of the ride. For people who are not acquainted with the ride or its technology, it’s even more puzzling: The train leaves the station, moves to a long, flat, straight section of track over the lake, and then completely stops! (Note: A few years ago there was no warning for what happens next— bringing a deliciously startling element of surprise to the launch. Now, unfortunately, they have a quick countdown. ) The track that the train is stopped on contains a Linear Induction Motor (LIM) launch system, a way to electromagnetically propel coasters. It’s great technology.

So, after you’ve wound around the line and reached the double-tracked loading platform, settled into your seat (any of the rows on this ride are good, although if you can finagle yourself into the back row you should), and the shoulder harness is down, you’re ready to ride one of my favorite steel coasters (and one of my favorite coasters, period).

The train winds to the left for a few feet, then stops, and you stare down that long straightaway to the first hill. [Note: The water does lap at the track here, and depending on its wave height and where you’re sitting, it may give you a bit of a splash; however, having been on this ride literally too many times to count, I believe that only happened to me once.] Then the LIM’s begin to hum and you hear the countdown…

…And the train leaps forward from zero to 55mph, accelerating fast and powerfully. Before you really know it, you’re at the base of the first hill; soaring up and over, you feel utterly weightless for just a tiny split-second, but the speed takes over again immediately. Diving down, you bank up to the right, make a tight U-turn, then bank to the left. The train then speeds up the tall lift hill, climbing and slowing to a near stop before engaging the chain about halfway up. It’s a fast chain, and there’s not very far to go, so look to your left in the time that you have— the bird’s-eye view of the park is awesome.

Soon the front car tips over the edge, and that 108-foot plunge is cleared so fast that it almost feels shorter than the first drop. You tip back up and then around a big, banked U-turn— and now the Vertical Loop is straight ahead! Dipping down and then soaring up and around the smooth loop, you curve up onto a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it platform before diving down into the third drop… which is really a tightly right-banked U-turn that curves up as it reverses your direction. You then have a pause of a second or two as the train rides over another platform, followed by a few last, fun bouts of airtime with several great bunny-hops. And for the finale, the train dives, circles around twice in a fast horizontal spiral, and comes to a stop.

Oh, and a bonus? The great music that plays during your ride is perfectly synchronized to every turn, drop, and lift!

 

Disney’s California Screamin’ is one of the classic steel coasters of our time, and I highly recommend it.

Our rating for California Screamin’: 5 & 1/4 Stars.

(Review and Photo Credit: Ember)

 

Soarin’ Over California is a very cool, very unique ride. More specifically, it’s not a ride— it’s somewhere between an open simulator, real flight, and not going anywhere at all!

The story is that you’re going on a hang-gliding trip over CA and the surrounding areas. After you’ve wound around inside the large building, gazed at the cool pictures and read some neat flight history, watched the humorous “pre-flight” instruction video, and the door has opened, you’re led into a vast room filled with six huge hanging rows of seats. Once everyone’s settled and buckled in, the lights dim, the music becomes more prominent, and then the rows move smoothly forward into the mist… but wait, what is this? If you calculate the movement, you’ll find that you only moved a few feet! The beauty of this ride is that you never actually go anywhere, yet the illusion of smooth, soaring, hang-gliding flight feels real.

There’s a gargantuan, circular, wrap-around screen in front of (and on the sides of) you; there’s beautiful, thrilling music playing; the rows of seats move gently but realistically; there’s wind blowing on you; and— what really gets me— there are the smells of what you’re seeing! I’m not kidding— as you zip past an orange grove, you’ll smell their citrus tang… soar over the pines and you’ll catch their sweet, outdoorsy fragrance… dip slowly down to the surf and you’ll experience the scent of the sea. It’s amazing.

In addition to being a really cool ride, Soarin’ is also a relaxing one. So, if you want to take a very nice break from all the adrenaline of the other rides and go on something truly unique, I would definitely recommend that you board Soarin’ Over California.

Our rating for Soarin’ Over California: 5 Stars.

(Review and Photo Credits: Ember)

 

Now here’s a perfect example of something that could have been just a great freefall ride, but was made infinitely more enjoyable by its story, decoration, and other embellishments.

Quite possibly the most visible landmark in Disney’s California Adventure, as you head over towards “The Hollywood Tower Hotel” you’ll notice the blown-off look of a portion of the building. You’ll also notice, as you come closer, that there are three ‘window’-like areas that periodically open, showing you a glimpse of the ‘elevators’ as they drop.

Once you enter the ‘hotel’ lobby, take a good, long look around: the detail is incredible (the dull and old look of the wall hangings, paintings, statues, and even some neglected plants— and you haven’t seen anything yet!). When the library doors open, the ‘staff’ ask you to move all the way in (“…but stay on the carpet!”). You have only a fleeting moment to notice the again-amazing detail in here before a lightning bolt outside turns off the lights and turns on the TV, and you get to watch a very special episode of “The Twilight Zone.” Because in this episode, as Rod Serling so aptly puts it, “you are the star.”

After this you file through a bleak corridor and enter the boiler room, possibly the most detailed room in the building. Look around, and be amazed at the authenticity: water-leak streaks down the joints of a nearby boiler; rust on the machinery wheels; an old lunchbox, newspapers, and running radio at the workman’s table; rough, dirty, used cloth tying off a pipe joint; rags lying on the rungs of a ladder; a broken pipe draining real, unappealing-looking liquid into a makeshift funnel; and more. The realistic settings are truly awesome.

From there, you either stay on the lower level or are directed upstairs across the catwalks. Either way, you are led to one of the three ‘working’ service elevator shafts, directed to stand on a row number, and wait. Finally, after a few minutes, the door opens and you enter. (You’ll notice the grating in the floor of the car— you can’t see through this during the ride, but it will let fresh air through from below, heightening the falling sensation.) Once seated and buckled in, the op bids you farewell (in various different ways ), the op’s door closes, the lights go out, and then you’re off.

Your ‘elevator’ moves backwards, its doors still open, and Rod Serling’s continuing narration echoes around. The scene in front of you changes to stars and a purple swirl, then your doors close, turning everything pitch black. You rise— gently— a short way to suspenseful music, and the door then opens to a hallway with a mirror. Rod tells you to “…wave goodbye to the real world,” and as you wave (or not), your images turn swirly and many-colored. Then a blast of lightning hits. The doors close, you move (again, calmly) either up or down a floor, and they open again to a different hallway. The people who had originally vanished appear, ghost-like; then they become electrically charged and send that charge down the hall to you, jolting the car. The hallway turns to stars, and a ghostly elevator with the five phantom-ish figures inside it appears at the end of the starry hall, floating…

The image drops.

Now the ride starts in earnest: A second after the phantom image falls, so do you for a few floors, a short and fast shock. It stops, then almost immediately falls the same short distance again. After another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pause, it shoots upward at high speed, going all the way up to the top ‘window’. You can see outside, and the car pauses for a second or two while they take your photo, then drops two floors to the third outside ‘window’. After a very short pause you continue to drop fast with the lights off, then suddenly you find that you’re speeding upward once more— never having felt the transition. You’ve risen to the same height you were a few seconds ago, but this time the doors are closed, and as soon as the car loses momentum you drop again. It pauses, then rises up a bit, slowing down and speeding up slightly several times as it continues back up to the top ‘window’, now open once more. You hold there, the car shudders a few times, and then you drop one last time, back to the main floor.

After you come to a final stop, you hear the purposefully suspicious sound of some piece of machinery falling and bouncing off of the floor, and then as you move back forward to the op doors, Rod Serling gives you one last final thought to chew on.

 

Personally, if I had to choose to go on one Disneyland ride and one Disneyland ride only, in either California Adventure or the Magic Kingdom, I would choose The Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror. This ride totally, utterly rocks— and I highly recommend it.

Our rating for The Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror: 5 & 1/2 Stars.

(Photo Credit: Larry Pieniazek (Source: Wikimedia Commons),
licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License)

 

(Review Credit: Ember)

 

Well, you get plenty of time to eye Shivering Timbers‘ four huge hills as you drive into the Michigan’s Adventure theme park, because it’s right next to the parking lot, and is basically the only thing you can see until you get to the park gates. Once you’re inside you can either head on over towards the behemoth right away… or work up to it by going on some of the other rides in the park first. (Personally, I would recommend the latter; once you go on this big woodie, everything else in the park will seem like kiddie rides. )

Now, a great feature of all the parks owned by Cedar Fair— you know which ones they are, because they all have the Charlie Brown/Snoopy/Peanuts theme— is that no one ever tells you where to sit! You can just choose whatever row you like best. As you probably know from my other coaster reviews, I typically state that you get the best ride when you’re the back row, or as close to it as possible. However, I have to warn you that for this particular ride, I recommend getting as close to the front row as possible. Shivering Timbers‘ back-row ride is extremely wild, whereas the front-row ride is wonderfully exhilarating. If you want the wildness, go ahead and get in the back; but please, at least try the front rows first.

 

Okay, so once you’re through the line, have chosen your seat, and are buckled in with the lap bar down, the coaster train rumbles out of the station down a little dip to the left and then engages the chain. It’s a long way, so relax for the moment and enjoy the view— it’s actually quite nice. Once you’re 120 feet up, a waving American flag warns you that the brink is only a few short feet away, so get ready to experience the great, weightless feeling of flight!

Blazing down the first, 120-foot, 53-degree drop, the train accelerates to 65mph; then, barreling up the next 100-foot hill and cresting it, you’re suddenly and smoothly lifted high off the seat— stopped only by the belt and lap bar, you feel completely weightless, as close to actually flying as you’ll probably ever get. You’re barely back down into the seat and then you’re cresting the next 95-foot hill, weightless and soaring again. Down another valley, you then soar one last, all-too-short time over the final, 50-foot hill.

Once you’re past those awesome-airtime hills, you enter a huge U-turn, then dive down to meet a plethora of some rather large and fast bunny-hops with a surprise side-to-side-jolting bit of ‘trick track’ hidden among them. And finally, you arrive at a powerful horizontal spiral to close out this excellent wooden coaster.

Our rating for Shivering Timbers: 5 & 1/4 Stars.

(Review and Photo Credit: Ember)

 

This ride gave me two firsts— riding a ‘Flying’-style coaster, and going through a new and special inversion. And I can say that Flying coasters are certainly a unique experience. You sit down, lock yourself in with padded, very comfy over-the-shoulder harnesses (and leg restraints), and then the ‘seats’ either flip back from the top so you’re faceup (if the track is below you) or up from below so you’re facedown (if the track is above you, as it is for this ride). In other words, you end up lying either on or in the seat. And for the rest of the ride, you’ll be in that position— parallel to the tracks, and headfirst— so if you can fight the fear and take your hands off the harness handles, you’ll seem to be soaring like Superman himself (hence the name ).

 

To your left as you enter the park (or to your right as you leave), Superman: Ultimate Flight is waiting. During your walk through the line you can read about the comic book characters, such as Superman (of course), Brainiac, and (*snicker* ) Mister Mxyzptlk. Once you’ve picked your seat, hopped in, lowered your shoulder restraint, and the leg restraints are in place, the bottoms of the seats flip smoothly back and from this unnatural yet somehow quite comfortable position you stare at the platform below you. Then it’s time to fly!

Climbing the not very long but purposefully slow lift hill, you have a while to stare down at the world below you. To those who have never ridden a ‘flyer’ before, it’s been a strange start— but just wait until you see what’s coming up! Once at the lift’s top, you roll down the right-curving drop smoothly, and as you near the bottom the ground seems very close (another purposeful feature of the ride; you’ll soar fairly close to the ground and the coverings over the waiting line several times, heightening the sensation of free flight). Curling up and away from the ground, you soar up again and then down into that completely unique, upside-down Pretzel Loop. Headfirst and your back to the track, it’s utterly wacky and incredibly fun.

Out of the loop you float left into a curving dive, speed low over the ground again, and then fly up and around a highly banked turn. Diving to the right, skimming the earth again, and around another banked turn, the train enters a ‘straight’ stretch of track. Only those in the very front row have the viewing angle to know that this supposedly straight stretch houses an inline Barrel Roll— so it’s a pleasantly unexpected surprise to almost everyone. Twisting around this second and final inversion, the train reaches the brake platform, and then it’s back into the station. Short and sweet.

Our rating for Superman: Ultimate Flight: 5 Stars.

(Review and Photo Credit: Ember)

 

This wild ride is easy to spot; just follow your feet to those two thin, yellow, vertical spires piercing the sky (one straight, one twisted). Once you’re through the line and you’ve picked the seat row you want, you’ll be able to take in plenty of this ride— probably much more than you want to — because each trainload makes two trips up the straight rear tower and three trips up the twisted front.

As you edge closer and closer in line with each load, you begin to hear the mingled roar and screams of the train and its passengers cruising forward and backward through the station. But when you’re at the gate waiting to be let on to the next trainload— then the wall of noise really pounds you… along with a hugely powerful blast of wind.

After you hop into the ski-lift style seats and lock down the harness, the ride’s Linear Induction Motor power system (a way of electromagnetically propelling coaster trains) begins to hum— and then it’s blastoff time!

 

The train shoots forward, hitting 70mph in four seconds. It’s your first time up the front tower, and although you go partway up, it’s nothing compared to the third and last. Gravity pulls you to a stop, and then you sail backward through the station, getting another LIM push. Your train gets halfway up the back tower before slowing to a halt and then falling 90 degrees straight down. Back into the station and getting another push, your train soars up the front tower for a second time and reaches more than halfway up, twisting more heavily as a result. Crawling to a halt, you then fly back through the station and get your final backward push, climbing all the way up the rear tower… and just as the train stops and is about to fall forward, brakes suddenly lock on, leaving you staring at the ground (which is very far below, if you’re sitting in the back row) for a breathless second or two.

…Then it lets go, and you rocket straight down the tower and back through the station, getting the last forward push. And this is where it gets really freaky for those who are sitting in the front row; because this time, as with the previous trip up the rear tower, the train goes up all the way… and the image of the far-too-rapidly-approaching end of the track— the train stopping only a precious few feet from it— is mind-bending. After this close encounter with the top of the spire, the train falls back for the last time, the LIM-current braking slows the train easily and smoothly, and that’s it.

 

Before riding, I had thought that flying backwards at high speed would be weird, but actually it wasn’t weird at all. What gets you are the 90-degree vertical drops down the back tower, and— if you’re in the front row— the last trip up the front. What’s also interesting is that V2: Vertical Velocity was probably the smoothest coaster I’ve been on so far. In all, it’s quite a good ride.

Our rating for V2: Vertical Velocity: 4 & 1/2 Stars.