Coney Island
5/22/04
Crowds out of Weather: Medium out of Warm-Sunny
Mike's trip summary
The last "pre-day" of our trip took place this last Saturday. We met up with my parents at Nathan's so we could say goodbye (until with meet them in Las Vegas, that is) and rode pretty much everything worth riding at Coney Island from 1PM-6PM. We could have marathoned on the Cyclone more, but we had a goodbye party for us to rush off too, which is for the best anyway. With the park packed and on a pay per ride basis, the Cyclone is not at it's best. Better for us to wander over at a weekday night one day during the summer.
Cla's Park Review
4.85/5
Coney Island is beautifully ghetto. We feel right at home - and we kinda still are home! CI rocks! It's a very charming park like Knoebel's or something, but it's also a very urban park. It belongs in NYC. The ride ops are obviously from N YC, too. Make sure to bring your attitude, you won't ultimately need it but it's nice to have. Oh and there's the beach! You can go body surfing in the pristine NYC coast. Ok, it's kinda gross, but really, if you come and it's hot, you're an idiot if you didn't bring your bathing suit. At least get your feet wet, the beach is and attraction too.
Its strange, hanging upside down in the top spin restraints hurt my thighs but not mikes, hanging upside down on the zipper hurt mike but not me. I'm sure that was because of our differences in body type, but i can only rationalize why the top spin hurts and not why the zipper hurts (the otsr are no where near my shoulders on the top spin). If anyone has any ideas, i'm curious (it might help to know that I'm a full foot shorter than Mike).
Coney island in general racks up the bonus points for letting people on rides virtually alone. My phrase about Coney island is "charming and decrepit"
Mike's Park Review
I love Coney Island. My home park, I try to visit 3-4 times a year in addition to trying to make it to the always fun Mermaid Parade and the uber hip Siren festival (Tons of indie bands, always a great lineup, and free!).
The park is flat out expensive on weekends but the weekday $24 POP (pay one price) is a good deal if you're a fan of nausea inspiring flats. The Cyclone, Breakdance, Top Spin 2 and Bumber Cars (you can only ride it 3 times) make the POP well worth it, though you'll be spending extra to get on some of the other attractions you may feel are a must ride (B&B Carousel, 2 more dark rides, Wonder Wheel and Zipper are all separate "parks" not included in the above POP).
Coney Island is one of my favorite parks. Period. Unique, thrilling, soaking in ambience and history and utterly hardcore. What more could I ask?
Mike's Park Rating: 5 out of 5
Top spin 2
Cla's Rating 3.7 out of 5
Comments: Its fun! It's a double axle kinda ride thats sends a bunch of seats up in the air that then spin on their own axle. It's the kinda ride I usually dread because of my vomit phobia, however we hadn't eaten yet & also got to ride by ourselves assuaged my fears. There was deafeningly bad music, not the hip hop you usually get at Coney Island and the operator controls both axles' spin. There is also a fountain at the bottom-front of the ride which the operator controls as well. He wet us! Later on in the day he completely soaked people . He even taunted us by saying "you wanna drink some water?" Taunts by ride ops are always fun! Some might say this ride is too intense and I say to those people, "Don't ride it, pussies!" He made us hang upside down and spun our chairs around repeatedly, I squealed in delight the whole way through. This is supposedly a new ride, and it may be a new ride for Coney island, but its not a new ride. The head rests were FILTHY!!!
Mike's Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Comments: I should preface that we rode this on a pay per ride day (the weekend) and that it's manual operation so the operators greatly influences the ride. With that said, what a great ride we had. The operator spends time holding you upside down, teasing you (and soaking you) with fountains he's controlling, and climaxing by taking you through so many spins you won't know which way is up when you leave.
El Dorado (Bump yo Ass Off)
Cla's rating: 3.5 out of 5
Comments: this is the 'el dorado' of bumper cars 'ha, its called el dorado' its a completely enclosed, dark bumper-car with disco lights and pumpin' hip hop. It would have been more fun if there were more people. the cars are teeny el dorados with pretty sweet steering, the ride ops wear those reflective orange vests - and they were sharing a cigarette in the ride and one of the rode standing w out of a little boy. They ejected us out the back through an arcade "I wonder if they're affiliated" to get back to where mikes' parents were waiting for us we had to walk through an alley which was fragrant with piss. Boy, i love Coney island.
Mike's Rating: 2 out of 5
Cyclone
Mike's Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Comments: I got on the Cyclone planning on giving it a 5 but our 3 rides weren't worth that rating. The very last car has gotten even worse since last year, use the 2nd to last. Our third ride in 1.2 was pleasant if uneventful. I still worship this coaster, it just wasn't the best day for us to ride it.
3.85/5
The cyclone is Coney Island's crown jewel. There is a sign that tells riders to hold onto their glasses and wigs; yes ladies, make sure your weave is secure. This ride is picturesque and old, it looks very nice with its new paint job. Before the trip we heard a rumor that they retracked the coaster and its much smoother now. Thats m\not a rumor, its a flat out lie. With this information, i excitedly rode in the back seat and risked severe spinal damage. seriously, the back seat is painfully intense but the penultimate seat is pleasantly intense. The second seat is nice too, (we didnt get the front seat because rerides take prevalence) Rerides are $4 each $! less than regular admission; most ride ops will give you a deal for re rides (we're pretty bonfident that both the rider and the ride op make out well on thse deals)Big boobied woman alert! If you want to keep both hands in the air, wear a sports bra.
Wonder Wheel
Mike's Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Comments: The Wonder Wheel is more fun then a regular Ferris Wheel and provides much needed cool breaks on a NYC summer day. Taking people on who don't know about the moving cars is fun, and the thing just LOOKS SO DAMN GREAT.
Cla 3/5
I love the fact that the ride ops smoke cigarettes while loading you on. REal charm, you'll never see that at 6 flags! The swingy cars are what makes the wonder wheel special, otherwise its just a ferris wheel. when you're in a swingy car be sure to keep all appendages inside the cage! I like to stand up and 'pump' the car. I'm not sure if it really makes that much of a difference. I like to think that it does, it probably will in a cage full of 'big' people.
Breakdance
Mike's Rating: 5 out of 5
Comments: Yes, a 5 out of 5 for a flat ride. The Breakdance goes to 11. An endurance test as much as a nausea test, the CI Breakdance now has the added feature of a guy randomly squirting a hose at people while they go shrieking by. Our ride finished with one victim, I mean, park guest, left bent over on the platform the ride op saying "Uhoh, she gonna throw up?" Yes, it's that intense.
Cla 3/5
"I don wanna go on the breakdance, it hurts."
this is Coney Island's death ride. Another manually operated ride (rawk on!). they operate this ride at 13! Being one of the more 'normal ' rides in the park, they added a down home ghetto touch with a guy in a wife beater, on a cell phone, randomly wetting you and you spin by so fast you don't understand what's going on. you get spun by so fast you don't understand what's going on after you get off the ride (only for a little while. a break dance is one of those spinny rides that rotates on 3 axles, you know, the scrambled eggs ride in rollercoaster tycoon. the ride ops grace you with insane ride time and insane speed. They kindly stop it 1/3 of the ay though the ride cycle to let people off. If you have any doubts whether or not you can take it, GET OFF NOW! Other breakdance caveats, keep your head back with neck and back fairly rigid, if you don't, expect mild brain damage from your head slamming backwards onto the plastic seat. The ride ops also make you check your own restraints. Check them, they are necessary. The ride ops also let you on the ride with anything you want to bring with you, my purse kept flying out of the car, fortunately it was wrapped around my wrist, even more fortunately, it didn't catch on anything. I'm dizzy...blaag...i don't really like this ride.
B&B Carousel
Mike's Rating: 3 out of 5
Cla 4/5
Its got real charm! The ride op was a multi pierced, heavily tattooed mulleted woman with a high probability on being a lesbian wear ing a visor backwards and upside down - she looked surly. the carousel goes really fast and the horsies go up really high, just like they should. pussies an young kids ride the stationary horses or benches. its old and charming and slightly decrepit.
Bumper Cars (Astroland)
Mike's Rating: 3.75 out of 5
Comments: God I love these bumper cars. Even with only 4 riders it was sheer violent anarchy. Multi-direction operation makes all the difference for bumper cars, and really violent hits (where the cars occasionally lift up) along with hip hop playing and fellow fun riders make these bumper cars great.
Cla 3.5/5
There is decent music - there are only 4 of us on the ride, even with that, its still fun! The feature that makes this attraction a gem is that there is no divider! you can hit other people head on to your heart's content. of course there are signs saying you can't.
Zipper
Mike's Rating: 4.25 out of 5
Comments: This thing is sick. Like a German torture machine you are locked in coffin like cars and spin so much your stomach your stomach enters your mouth. Extremely long ride cycle adds even more to this kickass ride.
Cla 3.8/5
This is another type of ride that i normally fear, but we got to go on it alone! And again we had a very surly ride op - the ride ops at Coney Island are either exuberant or surely, there's no in-between. you're pressed in a cage that flips upside down on an axle. and then there's a bunch of these contraptions mounted on an an oval that rotates on an axle as well. While you're in the cage, DO NOT stick your fingers out! (if you value them) they could be broken, or broken off. it was fun! i really liked the part where we were flipping and flopping and turning so much that we didn't understand which way was up. another warning DO NOT EAT B4 this ride. Even I, the self proclaimed mistress of hardcore, was dizzy when i got off. There is a pretty view from this ride, watch it flip by...
Dantes Inferno
Mike's Rating: 1 out of 5
Cla 2.4/5
Has mousie coaster qualities, which is a good thing, there are hills and whip around turns, the animatronics, aren't spectacular, except for the guy getting buzz sawed in half! I can only hope that the many animatronics that didn't work were great! The outside of the attraction has gotten a paint job since last year, there are no more naked ladies painted on the front of the ride (i think the outside features new animatronics. I really hate conservatives, they try to take the charm out of everything...look what they did to 42nd street. CONSERVATIVES! Get out of Coney Island!!! do not Disneyfy my home park!
Ghost Hole
Mike's Rating: 3.25 out of 5
Cla 3.9
A surprisingly good dark ride given its general decrepitness and musty smell. I was truly scared in here - do not send young kids here by-themselves unless you know they can take it. its completely dark in here, i mean pitch black and the animatronics are very close to you...i wont give you any spoilers (please note the heavy restraint) but some really cool stuff happens. this is a classic Coney Island ride.
Spookorama
Mike's Rating: 3 out of 5
Cla 2.2/5
Riders sit in cute little clamshell cars - perfect for doing naughty things in the dark. The animatronics were really close, and very very chintzy. They have a sense of humor there though, one of the skeletons held a cigarette between his teeth. the track was very windy, in a big empty warehouse. At least 50% of the animatronics weren't working, maybe to compensate for that, there was a guy inside the ride who jumped out at us and said BOO! He scared the shit out of me! I got scared at least once (not counting the guy). This ride is wack, but it gets points for charm.