Thanks for reading.

After riding it, I think what it suffers from most is simply mediocrity. I sat in the back, knowing full well that it would be rougher back there, but hoping for some floater air on the hills. While it was rough, it certainly wasn’t painful; in fact, it seemed to send a weird vibration through me that was….well, weird. When I got off the ride, I didn’t feel beaten up as I would on Mean Streak or Son of Beast, so I’ve definitely been on more painful rides.

My main criticism is that the ride just doesn’t deliver thrills. As you crest some of the hills, you know that they were intended to deliver airtime, but it just doesn’t happen. Since the ride doesn’t really offer anything else, the lack of this, along with the lack of any solid drops, keeps you wondering just what the designers intended.

In short, it wasn’t a painful ride for me, just painfully ho-hum. I didn’t have time to ride it again, but if I were at the park all day, I’d probably take a second ride, as the line was pretty short.

*As a side note, I found the ride operators at Darien Lake to be very slow in getting trains out. No ride was running more than two trains, but the amount of stacking on the brake lines was pretty unacceptable in almost every instance.

But yesterday? I thought I broke a rib, punctured a lung, or worse… It was so painful that I didn’t even get to enjoy the ride. I put my hands up for the first drop; realized how painful it was, and then decided it would be best to use my arms and hands to shield the impacts.

Six Flags sold Darien Lake to PARC, and they’ve really made the park fun again, hopefully they’ll revamp the predator, so it lives a little bit less upto its name.