I can easily tell you the list of prestigous parks that have 3-4 B&Ms. I look at those parks with respect. When Wes in his recent trip report for Carowinds sarcastically joked about the large collection of Vekomas there I wondered: Which parks at least have 3-4 Vekomas? Is there a King of this B-list group? I realize there are a lot of parks that have a Boomerang/SLC duo at least because Vekoma is the clone-tastic brand. Canada Wonderland has got to be one of the top Vekoma parks in the World with The Bat, Flight Deck, and The Fly? junior coaster. Are there more parks that rank as high? Perhaps a Euro park?

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Thrillnetwork Moderator - Sophomore Original sn: CHILLERLC1
2008 & 2009 TN Coaster Draft Champion
You knew I wanted the other repeat too

Im not singleing it out into the 4 seperate parks, but Walt Disney World has alot of Vekoma's.

-Expedition Everest (Animal Kingdom)
-The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm (Magic Kingdom)
-Rock N Rollercoaster (Disney's Hollywood Studios)

Its a tie all together, unless you want to count them among the individual parks, in that case, 3 of the 4 have one.

It goes beyond Vekoma at these parks though because the Imagineer's take the theming to an unprecendented level. But Vekoma seems to be the "Go-To's" for Disney when it comes to track design.

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Bretten Bailey

This is a very interesting topic. Carosucks, Wild Adventures, and formerly SFA are the only three US parks that I can think of that have been cursed with managements uninterested in quality enough to rack up a collection of 3+. I don't count the Disney's because they seem to basically hold Vekoma's hand during the design process. But, I know some European parks have managed to collect a disturbing amount of Vekomas such as two of the Walibi's with four each, but I can't seem to think of a park with more than that.

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Flamingoland also has 3, a booster bike, SLC and corkscrew coaster

Canada's Wonderland has:
Flight Deck
The Bat
Silver Streak

The Fly is not Vekoma.

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ThrillNetwork Moderator
The user formerly known as WildeFyre
UOIT Mechanical Engineering Student

Beto Carrero World
Bobbejaanland
Disneyland Paris
Dream Park
Former Geauga Lake
Kumdori Land
Movie Park Germany
Six Flags Mexico
Six Flags New Orleans


Walibi World has 4 VEKOMA COASTERS
Walibi Belgium has 4 VEKOMA COASTERS

Cypress Gardens had one of the better duos but I think they were the sitdown and invert of overall the same layout.

I confused Silver Streak and The Fly. Silver Streak was a surprise I discovered when I looked up Behemoth.

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Thrillnetwork Moderator - Sophomore Original sn: CHILLERLC1
2008 & 2009 TN Coaster Draft Champion
You knew I wanted the other repeat too

The fly is made by Mack not vekoma.

I think Ryan pointed it out I had the wrong name cause I confused the Fly with the Silver Streak. Both names are really not used with the rest of the former Paramount/Cedar Fair chain. The Fly would be the wild mouse then from memory.

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Thrillnetwork Moderator - Sophomore Original sn: CHILLERLC1
2008 & 2009 TN Coaster Draft Champion
You knew I wanted the other repeat too

I've ridden more Vekoma coasters than B&M. I've never gotten off of a Vekoma and said "God that was horrible." I can't say that about B&M

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ThrillNetwork Lead Moderator
My neighbor got a big new house, and all I got was his lousy payments

Kings Island has 3.
Rugrats Runaway Reptar (family inverted)
Invertigo (imverted boomerang)
Firehawk (flying dutchman)

I have also ridden more Vekoma than B&M, and I agree. Mantis was awful but I've never said that a Vekoma was awful. Not great, sure (Invertigo and Firehawk are on my 'not great' list), but not awful.

Edit: I take that back. Ninja at SFOG was awful. So that's 1 of each, but Vekoma is still a lower percentage.

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05.16, 05.17, 05.18, 06.05, 06.06: Cedar Point
05.25.09-06.01.09: KD, SFA, BGE, SFGAdv, Morey's & More!
06.18.09: Holiday World
2009 Diamondback laps: 41

Well, it's worth noting (and something the B&M lemmings can hang their hats on) that the B&M that I found to be truly awful (and more painful than all the Vekoma's I've ridden put together) was also Mantis.

I'm no B&M basher, I think they make outstanding coasters. But, they're no higher than 3rd or 4th among coaster manufacturers to me.

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ThrillNetwork Lead Moderator
My neighbor got a big new house, and all I got was his lousy payments

I generally just like the Invertigos the most. Two Face and Invertigo of CGA are just about tied in my opinion in awesomeness. Face/Off I generally found to be alright.

I'm glad Mantis in not in my home park. I withstood it before, lucky to just have a cycle or two. I'll start to take the word or more of the regulars about it.

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Thrillnetwork Moderator - Sophomore Original sn: CHILLERLC1
2008 & 2009 TN Coaster Draft Champion
You knew I wanted the other repeat too

SFKK was in that list for a few years
T2 - SLC
Roller Skater
Vampire - Boomerang

Vampire was removed and moved to SFNE.

SFAm was also on that list till last year with Batwing, Mind Eraser, and Two-face

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Michael C

SFA will just suffice. I can't believe they took the best one out but I bet it would help towards operations. That ride I just realized really was much more on the edge of the park, hardly in any themed land though it was supposed to be Southwest. The name just didn't go with the area. It should have been called Rattler.

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Thrillnetwork Moderator - Sophomore Original sn: CHILLERLC1
2008 & 2009 TN Coaster Draft Champion
You knew I wanted the other repeat too

Vampire used to get stuck at the halfway point, it was on RealTV once and the people on the front and back of the ride were pretty much completely upside down for hours. The Bat (a clone) at CW used to be notorious for down-time. It's an old design, but I was disappointed to see it leave SFKK.

In their defense, their SLC, The Hangman, is an uncharacteristically smooth running example, though the stop at the end used to be a bit hard.

Boomerang is ok, but not a crowd drawer, its just another big fast coaster to ride while you're on your way to the Cheetah or Hangman. Between the two Swamp Things, I'll have to say Cypress Gardens had the best one. Ant Farm is fun, but cosmetically its age is showing, and it's theming has nothing to do with ants( its a shoe!).

I wouldn't mind Ant Farm being replaced by Okkechobee Rampage, since the Rampage is in much better shape, though I've seen one unconfirmed report Bevis and Butthead, aka Land South, are now considering selling Cypress Gardens itself. They sure need to instead of raping it like they were planning. Anyway if this is true, the Rampage might soon no longer be on the market. And I guess a fresh coat of paint will work wonders on the Ant Farm.

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"I'm going off the rails on a crazy train"

I guess I'm a OS X, Windows , Solaris 10 , Linux, and Unix fanboy. Did I miss any OS?

Just to add, I think one thing that B&M has failed to materialize in that Vekoma does well is push the envelope. It's just two different approaches. B&M fine tunes everything but progresses slowly forward into other concepts. Vekoma on the hand creates wild concepts and then goes back and fine tunes the ones that work well. Look at the new Vekoma Stingray, new track design, freshened up trains, I think it will be a great improvement. I love how Vekoma uses a vest rather than a traditional harness. I wish that all Vekoma looping coasters would add the new train designs. While there at it, do the same for many of the old Arrows.

^The Vekoma GIB is a perfect example.

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GAmFanboy said:
Yeah that's a pretty good foreign list, especially how you cite both Walibi parks which really should be deemed the dubious title of Vekomaland.

Personally, I like B&M way better than Vekoma. Sure Vekoma pushes the envelope, but they also induce more pain than any B&M out there for the most part. Some like Everest are simply masterpieces, but others like Mind Eraser and Zoomerang are just abysmal.

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28 parks
21 wood coasters
59 steel coasters
80 total coasters

B&M progress slowly on new concepts simply because they spend years researching a new prototype,or finding ways to improve upon other manufacturer's existing products....it took them 4 years worth of R&D between the time the floorless concept was prototyped & the finished product debutting for the 99 season after all.

Kinda makes you wonder how long they spent on R&D for the inverted prototype since it debutted in 92,some 2 years after B&M built their first coaster.

Wasn't it Alton Towers that shaped up that conversation about going inverted years ago? They had to be talking for awhile then.

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Thrillnetwork Moderator - Sophomore Original sn: CHILLERLC1
2008 & 2009 TN Coaster Draft Champion
You knew I wanted the other repeat too