Wooden roller coasters aren’t as common as steel coasters. So even though Coastersaurus is a smaller ride that some would categorize as a junior woodie, I was excited to check it out. As a big bonus, my oldest daughter (almost 5) was up to the challenge too. Coastersaurus used to be known as Triple Hurricane [...]

Cedar Point announced today that the WildCat roller coaster is going to be removed before opening day. As is often the case in ride removals, the park cites “low ridership and increased maintenance costs” as reasons for its demolition. WildCat is a small Anton Schwarzkopf-designed roller coaster. It has been at Cedar Point since 1979. Here’s [...]

On my recent trip to Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure, my family’s focus was on Seuss Landing. My oldest daughter is a Dr. Seuss fan and loves The Cat in the Hat TV show. We enjoyed rides like the Caro-Seuss-el, One-Fish, Two-Fish, and of course The Cat in the Hat dark ride. As our evening [...]

Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast Coasters Are Coming to Six Flags The Six Flags Makeover Era continues as the Mr. Freeze launch roller coasters are being revamped for 2012. The Mr. Freeze coasters at Six Flags Over Texas and Six Flags St. Louis will now be known as Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast. Now, riders will be [...]

Popular Mechanics wrote an article about the wing rider revolution that’s reaching our shores this summer. Okay, so two roller coasters doesn’t really count as a revolution, but it’s definitely a trend. The article also covers Hersheypark’s Skyrush. Not to be left out, the Intamin hyper coaster has wing-ish trains. Well, they’re really more like Apollo’s [...]

As I reported last December, Rocky Mountain Construction, the people who brought us the New Texas Giant, have a few new roller coaster projects in the works for 2013. According to Screamscape, one of these projects may be the woodie that’s under construction at Branson, Missouri’s Silver Dollar City. Lance reported that the park hasn’t commented [...]

Europa Park’s Wodan – Timburcoaster has to be one of the best-themed wooden roller coasters I’ve ever seen. The queue looks amazing with plenty of detail bringing the Norse world to this German park. One image I came across referenced “bifrost”. If you saw the Thor movie, then you might remember that was the name [...]

6th Anniversary of The Coaster Critic’s Blog The Coaster Critic’s Blog turned 6 this week. It’s been fun covering my adventures at theme parks and writing coaster reviews all these years. To date, I’ve published 885 posts (including dozens of reviews) and the blog has received over 10,000 comments. There was a time that I [...]