Joel
Founder of CoasterCritic.com. My favorite coasters are B&M hypers and gigas. I'm also a huge fan of terrain roller coasters.
SeaWorld Orlando Announces Ice Breaker for 2020
SeaWorld Orlando’s Ice Breaker Roller Coaster SeaWorld has announced Ice Breaker, a new launch roller coaster that will open in 2020. It will boast the steepest beyond-vertical on a roller coaster at 100 degrees. Ice Breaker will also be a rare multi-pass launch coaster meaning that riders will travel forward and backward with the aid of several launches. When it opens it will be the park...
Iron Gwazi Roller Coaster Announced for Busch Gardens Tampa
Last week, Busch Gardens Tampa announced Iron Gwazi. Rising from the ashes of the defunct Gwazi wooden coasters, Iron Gwazi will be a hybrid roller coaster featuring a wooden support structure and steel rails. The steel rails will be the key in creating a whole new experience for riders. Whereas before, Gwazi’s dueling course was pretty typical of wooden coasters with drops and turns youR...
Pantheon Roller Coaster Coming to Busch Gardens Williamsburg in 2020
Pantheon Roller Coaster Launching in 2020 Busch Gardens Williamsburg will be opening an exciting new multi-launch roller coaster in 2020. Pantheon will be built in the park’s Italy section and will be themed around the pantheon of Roman gods. It will feature a variety of elements and boast quite a few stats making it a one-of-a-kind roller coaster. The Pantheon roller coaster will include: T...
Do You Like Seeing Hyper Coasters and Giga Coasters at the Same Park?
Cedar Fair’s Recipe: A Hyper-Giga One Two Punch Hyper coasters and giga coasters represent two of the more popular steel roller coasters over the past few decades. Hyper coasters reach a height or have a drop of 200 to 299 feet and giga coasters reach a height of or have a drop of 300 to 399 feet. Way back when I reported on the announcement of giga coaster Leviathan at Canada’s Wonder...
Orion Giga Coaster Announced for Kings Island | 2020 Roller Coasters
In 2020, Kings Island will launch its 15th roller coaster with its tallest yet, Orion. On this new steel coaster, riders will be lifted to a height of 287 feet only to plummet down a 300-foot drop. With a drop this large, Orion will join the ranks of the rare, sky-scraping giga roller coasters. It will feature 5,321 feet of track and reach speeds of 91 mph. Orion Teaser Video What to Expect on Kin...
Copperhead Strike Almost Ready to Launch at Carowinds
Earlier this week, I joined a construction tour of Carowinds new roller coaster Copperhead Strike. The track is complete, but the station, launch barn, and area around the ride are still far from complete. Steve Jackson, Director of Maintenance and Construction led the tour and did a great job answering questions. Seeing the ride’s orange track, even from a distance I could tell that this is...
Review: Talon at Dorney Park
Dorney Park is a smallish theme park located in Dorney, Pennsylvania. If you’re not from Eastern PA or New Jersey, you may not have heard of it. Part of the Cedar Fair chain of parks, it currently has a roster of 7 roller coasters with three real eye-catching standouts: a Morgan hyper coaster (Steel Force), a floorless B&M looper (Hydra: The Revenge), and a B&M inverted coaster (Talo...
Review: Canyon Blaster at Adventuredome
On a business trip to Las Vegas a few years ago I was excited to try out the city’s roller coasters. After taking a rough ride on the Manhattan Express/Big Apple Coaster, and seeing that it pretty much was as bad as I’d heard I was eager to get to Adventuredome, an indoor amusement park attached to the Circus Circus casino. The experience of walking through an older casino with all of ...
New Roller Coaster Copperhead Strike Launching at Carowinds in 2019
This week Carowinds announced Copperhead Strike, a new steel roller coaster, that’ll open in 2019. The new ride will be the anchor attraction in a new area called Blue Ridge Junction. As rumors suggested, Copperhead Strike will be a multi-launch roller coaster, rocketing riders through a twisted path of loops and turns. In all, the ride will turn riders upside-down five times, include two la...
What We Know About Carowinds’ 2019 Roller Coaster
Good news for fans of Carowinds. All signs point to a new roller coaster for 2019 and the park has started to tease the new attraction with a series of tweets. A sign of things to come? 🚜👩🌾🌽 #Carowinds pic.twitter.com/UecGe4b9kA — Carowinds (@Carowinds) June 29, 2018 We’ve sourced only the best timber for the mystic expansion of Byrd Farm. 🌲 #C...
Our Most Unusual Roller Coaster Experiences
With hundreds of roller coaster rides under our collective belts, we thought it’d be fun to share our most unusual roller coaster experiences. We figured since we’ve visited as many parks and strapped in to ride roller coasters as many times as we had, there’d be some odd experiences we could share. Just in time for April Fool’s Day, here are a few of those experiences. Get...
What’s Your Dream Theme Park Trip?
Is there a park that you’ve been dreaming to visit one day? For me it’d be England’s Alton Towers. It’s a unique theme park located in the English countryside on the grounds of a massive Stately Home (American Translation: A Castle!). There’s also a huge garden and the park itself is beautifully landscaped and very green. The park’s foliage and rolling topograph...