I went on Sunday, August 5th for the 3rd time this year and had my most interesting visit yet. For the first time in my 17 yrs of attending (I'm 18), I went on a weekend. And for the first time on one of my visits, I experienced some breakdowns.(Notice breakdown is plural) We got there around 3 o'clock and headed straight for Apollo's Chariot, but because of the 90 degree weather, we got sidetracked at Escape from Pompeii. As soon as we got into the line, an announcement came on saying "This ride has temporarily experienced a malfunction and will be closed indefinetly." Still excited we decided to continue on and come back here later. We made it to Apollo's Chariot and only waited about 30 min to ride.(Review Below) While in the line however, someone told us it had broken down twice earlier in the day. Next we headed to Roman Rapids which had a 45 min wait. The operators were having trouble with getting the platform to spin, but we finally got out of the station. (Review Below) After that disappointing ride we headed to the festa italia train station. As we passed Drachen Fire, A lot of people didn't know that it was old and thought It was new for 2002! Anyways the station was open but there wasn't any activity. The eagle's nest is still there with a lot of bird crap on the track around it, so I'm guessing the bird's are still there. Next we headed to Alpengeist and hoped it would be working. It was and we were the last train out of the station before we heard the very loud. "CLEAR ALPENGEIST TRACK AREA AND TRAINS" And the ride was closed...(review below). From there we headed to Big Bad Wolf and had an okay ride (review below). Finally we headed to see Pirates( only to pass time so it would get dark) Once the sun set we headed to Big Bad Wolf and Alpengeist to experience them at night. Overall a very interesting visit and I still had fun, now on to the reviews...10 is good 0 is bad


Apollo's Chariot- 9.8: as the only hypercoaster I've ever been on it is also the most intense and is number 2 n my all time coaster list. the head choppers are great and I think if people knew it was higher than it looked they would think twice about going on it! Overall I love it and can't wait to ride it's bigger, badder cousins.

Roman Rapids- 3: we waited a long time for this and we were very dissapointed. We got on our raft and the operator had trouble starting the round table. She thought this was hillarious and couldn't start laughing, while the crowd was starting to call her names and stuff. For the actual review, the fountains were barely working the waterfalls were trickling and we were moving very slow. when we approached the lift we saw about 7 more boats ahead just sitting there. After the boat behind us got back, they told everyone that the pumps had stopped working and had to get us off the ride. We then had to climb up the lift back to the loading area. I thought it was very cool which was why it got a 3.

Alpengeist- 9.9: Great ride, the lift is very loud. This ride isn't about being the scariest but just doing everything right. The drop is about speed, the immelman about disorientation, the corkscrew is great and that's why this coaster is my number 1 favorite. It's even better at night, when you can't see anything.

Big Bad Wolf-8.5: Whoa, this was my first ride on this coaster at night and I think its moved up on my favorites. It seems faster at night and its so awesome to fly from left to right and not be able to see anything but tree shadows and far away lights. Cool.

p.s. we didn't ride Loch ness because we didn't feel like waiting in line for it...

Very good review...very thorough and explanatory, but not so long that you've ended up skimming through the end because you just want to finish the darn thing (See mine...SFA/PKD/BGW Trip Very Long. I had to post twice just to make everything fit ).

If you loved AC so much (I liked it a lot too...rode it 7 times, including back and front), I strongly suggest making a trip to SFGAdv. to ride Nitro. While the park itself does have various faults, Nitro is much more intense than Apollo's Chariot IMHO.

I agree with you on Alpengeist. The only thing I didn't really like about it, which is why it didn't receive an incredibly fantastic rating (And this was also the main reason why it didn't beat AC), was that the brakes were kind of annoying. I got kind of jerked to the side, and then the brakes themselves were very strong...I felt like we were at a standstill. Raptor's brake doesn't do this, which is why I like it a bit better. Maybe this is because Alpengeist is so much bigger that it needs a stronger brake, but if the brake wasn't as strong I would say Alpengeist is pretty darn close to perfect.

I wish I could have gone on Alpengeist again (Only went on once, due to incredibly long lines on Saturday), but I couldn't. It had a 2+hr. line on Saturday, and a pretty long line on Friday too...I was content w/ AC, but after riding it 7 times, it got a bit redudant.

I also agree with you on BBW...that ride was great. I thought it was much better than LNM. (See my review for more details)

When I went Roman Rapids had a half hour wait the first day (Plus I already went on Escape From Pompeii, so I didn't want to get drenched, which RR is rumored to do...) and a 2 1/2 hour wait the next day. Awful lines, which was kind of sad. I settled for Le Scoot on Saturday hehe

Plus I like how you sort of saw good in the bad, particularly in the Roman Rapids case. Most people, including myself, would probably get off kind of pissed and would not like the park because of that incident. But it's good that you stayed in there...

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thanks and I read your review earlier and I think its the best yet...I can't wait to get to some non-Virginian parks but It's gonna have to wait until next year...I'm going in the Air Force this month on the 20th.