分类: 2016 Attractions

4/22/2016

Media Preview of Skyhawk and Flying Eagles at Canada's Wonderland

We have a special treat for you today as our friends at CWMania have sent us some more great pictures and video from media day of SkyHawk and Flying Eagles.

Check out the great pics and video below and be sure to check out CWMania for all of your Canada's Wonderland needs.

ALL Pictures and Video courtesy of CWMania.com

Hey everyone! Jeff and I were invited to a special preview event for Skyhawk & Flying Eagles today. Both rides were a great time. Skyhawk took some practice to get the hang of but will be a huge hit this season. The current record is 59 flips in one cycle. I was only able to hit 24. Flying Eagles are a larger version that have larger gondolas allowing for two full-sized adults to fit comfortably. It's amazing how well it interacts with the Treetop Adventures (formerly Chopper Chase).

This is the view looking down the path from the Mountainside Bakery & Cafe (former Cookie Cafe).

And this is the entry plaza to the ride. Queuing to the left of the operator booth & the exit gate is immediately to the right of the booth. And those big TV screens are where you'll see your "flip stats."

Be sure to check out the preview of Skyhawk and Flying Eagles complete with POV of both rides. Can Jeff and Nick beat the flip record? See below.

The marquee sign/logo looks fantastic! Are you ready to "Earn Your Wings?"

The covered queue looks great and will provide much needed relief from the hot, summer sun. There will be signage in the queue area that shows aspiring pilots how to maximize their flips when riding. And don't worry, the railings will all be installed for the first public rides coming up soon.

The entire ride area looks great.

Here are the red seats.

And here are the blue seats. The decals look fantastic!

A view of the base of the tower.

And of course, the cables have been run & attached.

It was a bit cloudy today but everyone that rode Skyhawk agreed that it's a great addition to the parks awesome lineup of flats/thrill rides.

And here's a reverse POV shot the park provided us from a nicer day a couple days ago.

After checking out Skyhawk, we made our way over to Kidzville to give Flying Eagles a spin. The entire area looks much better than previous seasons. Flying Eagles fits right in

Snoopy & the Peanuts gang were all waiting for us.

Thanks again to Nicholas and everybody else at CWMania.com for allowing us to piggy back on their already awesome coverage. Be sure you give all their social media a "like" or "follow".

If you enjoyed this update please share with your friends and make sure you "like" us on Facebook and "follow" us on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

If you have any comments, please share them below

3/22/2016

Offseason update from Canada's Wonderland

Our friends over at CWMania.com sent us over some great offseason pictures of Canada's Wonderland and their two new additions Flying Eagles and Skyhawk.

Be sure to give CWMania a follow on Facebook and Twitter and thanks again for the awesome pics!!

Also be sure to check out video of the tour below.

Let's start off with a look at Flying Eagles!!

The concrete pad & ride structure has been installed and soon to follow is the operator's booth & queue.

In order to allow for paths around the entire ride, Chopper Chase had to be modified. Seven new footers were poured, supports moved over & 40 meters* of track manufactured to shift the track over.
* Meters = a unit of measure that makes way more sense than feet that the USA flatly rejected in the early 80's setting us back from the rest of the civilized world.

It will be a great view from both Flying Eagles and Chopper Chase as they whiz by each other

Always nice to have another awesome Flyer ride and these gondolas look AMAZING.

Let's move over to Skyhawk

A look at the final tower, the only thing left to be placed is the masthead that we'll show a bit more of below.

The mechanical room (left) and operator booth (right) separate the entrance and queue area.

One of the cool things about this ride is the entire tower will rotate, not just the arms. A look at the drive motors that will spin the tower.

This is the masthead and is the highest point of the ride.

The masthead contains the motors and pulleys that will raise and lower the hub up and down the tower. This also includes a weather station and lightning rod.

This is the cable that will be wound around the sheaves & connect to the hub to lift/lower it

The counterweights that will be connected to the center of the tower.

Flood lights on the masthead that will light up the ride at night and below that LED lights that will light up each arm.

This is a front view of where the seat arms connect to the hub

Let's take a look at the seats which look ultra comfy.

That backside of the seats for all you seat enthusiasts. We're pretty sure you're out there.

Ride seat porn ...

Thanks again to CWMania for sending us these amazing pictures. We are so happy you thought of us to share the great pics. We look forward to seeing more from Canada's Wonderland on your site this year!!!

3/21/2016

Knott's Ghostrider update and opening day of the Boysenberry Festival

This past Saturday was the opening day of the Boysenberry Festival so we were of course out at Knott's to partake in all the boysenberry goodness.
It was a pretty busy day at the park since along with media day for the festival it was a Saturday, the start of Spring Break and there was some kind of Cheerleader event going on.

Even with the crowds we had an amazing time at the park as always.

Written by Gregg Condon

Welcome to Knott's Berry Farm!!

Knott's always puts on great media events

Did you know that Knott's now has park-wide free WiFi? We used it all day on Saturday and even with the large crowds had no issues at all.

We'll start off the update with a quick look at Ghostrider. We also have a quick video update below.

Even from outside the park you can see the difference between the old and new wood.

Not too many changes from our tours a few weeks ago. If you missed that update you can see it here.

Inside the park, not a whole lot has changed since our tour a few weeks ago.

As you may have heard last week the opening has been pushed back from Memorial Weekend until sometime in June. As soon as we get a specific date we will let you know.

The MCBR-less turnaround.

Even though it was a Saturday they were still working on the ride to get it ready.

You can see below they are starting to put the lighting back on the pre-lift.

The pan for gold is looking great and it will be nice to see this back at the front of the park.

But of course the main reason for our visit was the Boysenberry Festival.

If you missed our preview of the festival from last week be sure to check it out here.

Boysenberry Trifle.

Panna Cotta and Cannoli

The Alligator Bites were back this year. And we have to say, these were great the first year but the last two years they just haven't done it for us. I think it's time for them to retire this item after this year.

Of course, no Boysenberry Festival is complete without yummy beer and wine. For a real tasty treat have them mix the Boysenberry Beer with the Berry Cider. Very refreshing.