A coaster that is amazing in almost all ways save for one, Maverick is easily one of the Top 3 coasters at CP for me. With better restraints, I can'.t help but feel that this ride would be sitting solidly in my personal Top 10.
I got 2 rides in on Maverick on my recent trip to CP, and as many have already attested, my second ride was far better than the first. Maverick'.s layout is excecptionally unique, as it doesn'.t really follow the mold of anything before it. The ride'.s interaction with the ".terrain". (quotations only because in this case, the terrain is man-made) is very cool, and actually adds a lot to the ride experience here (for whatever reason, I have had experiences on other rides that looked like they would have far better terrain interactions than they actually did - not so with Maverick). I will not attempt to recreate the ride experience in text format...many others have already done that more effectively than I can anyway. But suffice to say that the coaster is extremely intense, smooth for the majority of its course, and simply a fun coaster to ride. Now, of course, I must mention my one glaring issue with Maverick, and I regret that I must do this: the restraints are simply not comfortable. Unlike some others, I had no problems with head-banging or anything of the like. For me, it was simply a case of the restraint continuing to tighten down on my legs throughout the ride, so that by the end, I was in significant pain and more eager to return to the station than I usually am on a coaster, simply so that the harness could be released. I will grant that on my second ride, I wised up and placed my hard-shell sunglass case in my pocket, thus creating a spacer between my leg and the restraint. This strategy worked quite well, and it is in no small part due to this less painful ride that I enjoyed my second trip on Maverick so much more.
All in all, Maverick is a fantastic coaster, and certainly one that provides a very unique, intense, and fun experience. I still dislike the restraints on these Intamin launched loopers, but I will continue to ride them at any park I visit that has one, and I would certainly take additional rides on Maverick if given the chance. A final kudos should go out to CP, who finally broke from their mold of building coasters that fill the pages of the record books, and instead creating a coaster that is unique and simply fun to ride.
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