originally posted on 5/17/2020
ACE members shared some of their most difficult coaster credits to attain. Want to share yours? Send your story to acenews@aceonline.org, and we will include it in a future article. (Photos are appreciated too!)
Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
Photo: Jonathan Hymes. View full-sized image.
My most difficult credit was probably Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal’s Islands of Adventure (Orlando, Florida) because in order to avoid the never-ending lines, I had to get to the park EARLY. Then, I had to straight up run toward the ride and put everything in the locker right away. I didn’t get to get on it until the last day of my Florida trip; the first attempt it broke down. I actually thought I wasn’t going to ride it at all, but fortunately, I did, even if I just got one ride on it.
Jonathan Terry
Dallas, Texas
Top Thrill Dragster
Photo: Dan Feicht. View full-sized image.
I live 50 miles from Cedar Point but only go a few times a year. When Top Thrill Dragster opened, the lines were incredibly long, so I decided to wait until the following season. The next year, the first day I went, it was windy, and the ride was closed. The next time, the launch mechanism was broken.
I finally rode it the following year. It was worth the wait.
Jim Knepper
Bowling Green, Ohio
Kiddy Coaster
Photo: Mark Rosenzweig. View full-sized image.
My elusive credit story takes place at my home park, Playland Park in Rye, New York. I visited the park for the first time after I had passed the 56-inch maximum height for the park's 1928 Kiddy Coaster. Every time I visited, I would politely ask the operator if I could ride, and I would receive the same "no.” Finally, in 2018, I attended Coasters on Rye II, which featured an hour of ERT on the coaster for enthusiasts to finally ride it. The coaster ran really well for being 91 years old, and I got to see the presentation of an ACE Landmark Plaque, which was something I'll never forget. Who knows if I'll ever ride the coaster again, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to, thanks to ACE!
Matthew Sullivan
Old Greenwich, Connecticut
Wiener Looping / Bullet
Photos: Brian Peters. View full-sized image.
My hardest credit would have to be the ride known as both Wiener Looping and Bullet. I missed out on multiple United States locations in both semi-permanent and traveling mode.
I finally got to ride it during the 1996 ACE U.K. trip. This was the final coaster of the event, and well worth the wait. It was the only day of the 13-day trip that the sun shined. Most of the group took one check off ride and bid it farewell. I could not get enough, even after almost 60 coasters in two weeks.
So many quirks. The station is built on an S-curve, so when boarding, the front of the train leans right, and the back leans left. It is such a compact, twisted structure! It’s very intense! I must have logged as many as 15 trips.
Robert Reagan
Ft. Worth, Texas
Wild Wind
Photo: Vincent Palazzolo Collection. View full-sized image.
My most difficult coaster credit was Wild Wind at Circle of Fun in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. I had previously heard about the Wild Wind model that was installed at Playland Park in Rye, New York, and how it never opened to the public because of the intense G-forces. Ever since, I had been curious about this weird, impossibly small looping coaster model. For an upcoming trip to the Philippines, my family asked me if there were any amusement parks worth visiting. I went to Roller Coaster Database (RCDB) to check to see if there was anything new since our last trip and was shocked to find that a Wild Wind had opened up at a small park called Circle of Fun in the heart of Metro Manila. At the time, there were no pictures of the coaster on RCDB. There was no official website or social media page for Circle of Fun. The only information I found was a tourist webpage on the park that looked like it had not been updated in years.
I told my family about the park and the coaster and that I was skeptical the park even existed. One of our planned days put us relatively close to the supposed location of the park, so we decided to go for it. After braving the atrocious Manila traffic, we pulled up to the park … and there it was! It is jarring seeing a loop on a roller coaster that small, but I was excited at the opportunity to try a coaster that was allegedly too extreme for American audiences.
We paid Circle of Fun’s very cheap entry fee, bought our ride tickets and soon enough we were in the front row and climbing the short lift hill. The first drop was nothing special, but that infamously small sidewinder was incredibly forceful. The helix seemed to go on forever and shook the car viciously before the final brakes slammed the train to a stop. It was one of the most brutal coasters I had ridden, but everyone on the train was laughing giddily as we rolled back into the station.
Wild Wind is a wild coaster for sure. It is unlikely I will get to ride another one of these funky coasters again. But the undertaking we endured tracking down this obscure coaster in the Philippines made for an excellent family adventure and an incredibly fun memory.
Vincent Palazzolo
Casper, Wyoming
Expedition Ge-Force
Photo: Gary Slade. View full-sized image.
In 2003, I decided to make my first major coaster trip to Europe. I had missed ACE's European Coaster Odyssey the previous year, so I wanted to try to follow in some of those footsteps on my own trip. My only previous trip to Europe had been to the U.K. and Ireland, but never to the European "mainland." Germany was one of the primary destinations for this second trip and Holiday Park in particular because of Expedition Ge-Force. It almost became the most disappointing day of the trip.
I was traveling primarily by rail, and the 55-mile trek to the park from my hotel by train and bus was fairly easy. I took a later train hoping to catch some additional sleep following a long day. The train was late as well, but at least I didn't miss the bus connection to the park. I had a few hours available at the park before I had to travel back to my hotel since travel connections were limited. Otherwise I would be stuck in another city, likely for the night. These were the days before plentiful cell phones and ride share apps! But I should have had plenty of time to do what I wanted to do at the park before I needed to leave.
I entered the park, enjoying the surroundings, but immediately making a beeline back to Ge-Force. As I approached, I noticed it wasn't running and a group of people were checking out a coaster car in the brake run. Uh oh! Battling the language barrier some, I talked to the guy posted at the entrance to the coaster, and he said it was down and didn't know if it would open that day! I was heartbroken, and I unfortunately let it color my attitude for most of the day. I rode a few other rides, as they had a decent collection for a somewhat small park, but the coaster never opened. I kept being drawn back to Ge-Force's area and continually migrated back there, wanting desperately to ride. Having run out of other things to do, and almost out of hope, I decided to take a nap in the wooded picnic area underneath the coaster, surrounded by coaster track. In a weird way, I hoped that somehow my presence nearby and strong desire to ride would help make it so.
Finally, the time came to leave where I needed to catch my bus. I decided to extend my stay, continuing to hold out hope that it would open. Two hours later, still nothing. Finally, after spending all day at the park, 45 minutes before I really had to leave to catch the final bus or else I would be stranded, the coaster started testing on the lift hill. Thirty minutes before I had to leave, the queue opened! After waiting all day, and few people left in the park, I was first in line and got a front row seat ride. The guy who had been stationed at the coaster entrance and had watched me wait all day was now one of the ride ops and smiled at me when he saw me in the front seat. I immediately got back in line because the ride hadn't fully filled up yet as word (and the coaster noise) got out that it was running. This time I waited for the back of the train. I didn't have enough time to wait for the very back seat, but as luck would have it as I got to the front of my line, a single rider got in the back seat. Needless to say, I was off like a bullet to fill that second seat! So, in the last possible half hour of my visit, I was able to get two rides — one in the front seat, one in the back seat. Expedition Ge-Force became my #1 steel coaster, and I was able to leave blissfully happy.
Jerry Willard
Long Beach, California
And then there is THIS take …
This is a major "twist" on your most difficult coaster credit request. My son was home one summer from high school, and we decided to drive from our home in Springfield, Illinois, to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee — a drive of about four hours-plus through the early morning rush hour traffic of Chicago.
I asked Jeff to check online to confirm the opening time, which he said was 10:00. We left home at 5:15 a.m. to make sure we could get to the front gate before the 10:00 opening. We arrived just before 10:00, and there was a line of eight or 10 cars at the gate in front of us. We waited past 10:00 with the gate still closed. Around 10:15 an employee appeared and announced that we were there the week in August when the park was only open weekends! Somehow, both of us missed that information. Jeff confirmed on-line that they were open at 10 a.m. but didn't notice that it was weekends only.
We began the trip home. Suddenly, my son screamed, "Pull in here!" We were passing a White Castle, and he had never tried one. I hate them, but having been in the car almost five hours by then, I was willing to stop. After about a nine-hour round trip through the crazy Chicago freeway system and a White Castle that I hated, we arrived home. There were no coasters ridden, but it was the most difficult White Castle burger I ever purchased. That’s a story that I could hold over my kid's head for years — priceless!
Jim Rogers
Indianapolis, Indiana
@#$%&!
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