i cant accept "the voyage" as the title to this wild coaster. "voyage" may imply a tumultuous sea crossing on the mayflower to the owners of the park, but to me the word also conjures up something quite more drudging like an interstate station wagon passage to a family reunion. imo, "voyage" the noun does not insist absolutely on frantic turbulence enough to evoke the shocking final 45 seconds of this coaster, nor the angry gravities of the confusing far turnaround, nor the noisy suction of the many tunnels. this coaster may be the most intense, dense and seemingly endless roller coaster alive today. it needs an appropriate title that must also, unfortunately, fit the goofy theme of a british puritan colony. my two suggestions: first- "heathen attack", because as the PTC train races from the savage banking of the turnaround it yells and screams like a plummed and painted militia down to the station, which could be themed like a squalid colonial village, then surrounds it menacingly, carrying on like a pack of deft warriors. a less controversial title but imo a very satisfying name nonetheless would be the "rabid turkey" because the rides spastic, energetic downhill slalom after the mid-course reminds me of the time i stayed a weekend in the hills of rural massachusetts and saw huge gaggles of wild turkeys running and squawking downward through the forests like demonic poultries. i know that my own thyroid gland was oscillating madly along with the seriously stressed out track and wheels of this coaster much like the goiter of a psychotic dinner bird would while the creature is spinning itself into oblivion.but some questions have emerged in the year the rabid turkey has been open - "yes the rabid turkey is fast, intense and lengthy...but is it a great coaster ride? does it deliver on the hype? is it doomed by its very nature as a PTC train bearing wood tracked coaster to roughness and eventual obsolescense?" on the first i can say that it is easily a momentous coaster ride. the physical beauty of pushing three huge drops into a hillside and thereafter letting all of that momentum unravel back down in ground hugging quantas, one burst of ferocious energy after the next, is pure mathematic wonder. i dont think any coaster has optimized its environment and energy so impressively. gravity groups engineers and computer design software have both been clearly slipped insights from the secret masters of the universe. the appalling, cosmic jiggling my brain got on the curve just before diving under the station was probably not unlike what the space shuttle crew feels like re-entering earths atmosphere. the train is easily going 50mph at that point, and that is probably 4500 feet AFTER the first drop. preposterous! but what of the hype? is it the ultimate jammy jam of all jams? well.......yes and no. there for sure is no precedent for this ride. the rabid turkey can laugh off any steel coaster and 97.7% of wood coasters in the intensity department. but it was noticably missing one thing that really engages me on ANY coaster ride...good old threatening negative G goddamn ejector air. my adrenalin glands turn the pots to "11" when i experience a good ejector launch. even one or two violent pops on a coaster will send my neuroreceptors into the ninth dimension of the crystal cathedral. this IS NOT nit picking, ladies and germs. i simply cannot reach the ultimate nirvana state without ejector air. no sir, i will always sit a little shy of the rouge band on the voltometer no matter how virtuistically splendid the coaster. on the rabid turkey, after the midcourse there is plenty of potential energy to uncork at least one gut-dropping ejection. it would have been the straw to break the camels back and eject me into a unflinching 10. but alas... that said, there is no question that brilliance shines down on earthlings from the voy...er, rabid turkey. when pondering the future of the ride,<
|