We’ve recently come back from Germany where we returned to Europa Park, and also made our maiden visits to three other parks. Full reviews are on the site. However, during the trip I found myself thinking a lot about different ride manufacturers, and just how different and varied they are in the quality of their rides. I think it was Expedition G-Force (Holiday Park) that started me off thinking about it. Now, many people in the coaster community rate this as one of the best coasters around. It is a hypercoaster made by Intamin. A couple of other similar coasters – Millennium Force (Cedar Point) and Superman (Six Flags New England) – also always rate very highly in polls of coaster enthusiasts. But in my view these are not even a patch on the hypercoasters made by B&M.
And that got me thinking. So many of my favourite coasters are made by B&M. And not just the hypercoasters like Shambhala (PortAventura) or Nitro (Six Flags Great Adventure), but other types. Our favourite hanging coasters are B&M, as are our favourite floorless coasters. I think that B&M really get two important things:
Their harnesses are brilliant. Never more substantial than they need to be, always comfortable, and always holding you in by the right part of the body.
Nobody does smoothness of coasters like B&M. They really understand airtime.
Whilst I’m on the subject of manufacturers, I think it’s only fair that I acknowledge the massive improvement that Vekoma have made. A lot of people (me included) have been very critical of Vekoma in the past because they have a well-deserved reputation for making rough, uncomfortable and downright painful coasters. We experienced one of the them last month – the positively evil MP Express at Movie Park in Germany. But if I’m going to be critical, then it’s right to acknowledge improvement. It started with the new cars added to Space Mountain at Disneyland Paris, which significantly improved the quality of the ride. But with F.L.Y at Phantasialand, Vekoma have really nailed it. It was SO SMOOTH I could barely believe it was Vekoma. In fact, I can give it no higher praise than to say that if I didn’t know beforehand who the manufacturer was, I would have assumed it was B&M.
Comments