El Toro: A Landmark Roller Coaster Is Born
Ladies and gentlemen, the future is here! Riding El Toro is something any coaster enthusiast, heck, any person with a pulse should do. Especially if you think you know what wooden coasters have to offer. El Toro is going to turn your world upside down. The El Carnival section is appropriately themed with a Spanish flare. The look and feel is definitely a step above cheesy or contrived. Right down to the sandy desert-like landscaping with chill pepper plants. Even the smell of the food reminded me more of restaurants in Mexico than Taco Bell. The Viper's old southwestern station fit into the area perfectly. The trains are themed somewhat like mine train cars and have a very comfortable, next generation look and feel. Loading the trains is a bit slow, but the trains are longer than normal holding 36 riders compared to 24 on Thunderhead and 28 on The Voyage.
Intamin's Prefabricated Wooden Coaster Delivers
The ride starts with a quick climb up a relatively quiet lift hill. Already the ride has been uncharacteristically wooden. As I crested the top I looked
over and down at Medusa. The height of El Toro gets forgotten, just because it's not a record breaker. You quickly turn around and drop down the 176 feet of steep track at 76 degrees. This is easily the best first drop of any wooden coaster I've ridden, it provides some air and you really feel the steepness. You cross under some track and rise into the first airtime hill. You're ejected north to the sky, even though you've been stapled in by the ride ops. The next hill offers more of the same blissful airtime. The swooping banked turn is next. It's great especially if you're seated on the right side of the train. Thanks to the prefabricated track, the ride is glass smooth so far and it's even more apparent during the swooping turn. If you closed your eyes you'd think you were on a B&M hyper or some other type of steel coaster. After the turn, there's another fun drop and a smaller, shorter drop that offers the least air on the ride.
Extreme Ejector Air & A Twisting Finale
Next the track quickly banks to the left which sets up coaster AIRTIME BLISS. The track finishes the turn then rises up and you drop straight into the twisted finale. This innocent looking hill has the sickest airtime on the planet! It's so forceful that you feel if the restraints failed you'd end up being flung into the tiger exhibit over in the Golden Kingdom. After that El Toro finishes strong with a twisting section close to the ground reminiscent of another bull, Raging Bull at Six Flags Great America. This twisting section is much more satisfying. You finish the twisted finale and eventually reach the breaks. All the riders I rode with returned with the euphoric feeling of heroin. People aren't used to riding something so thrilling and comfortable. I had 3 rides on El Toro, but I could've re-rode 10 or 20 times if I could've. You're not shaken, slammed, bruised, beat up, beat down, jolted, or smacked around the entire ride. Yet it's thrilling from the beginning to the end.
There's nothing that I would particularly change with El Toro (hence the perfect score). But I would've like to have seen a tunnel or two. It would only add to the ride. I'm a sucker for tunnels, terrain coasters, and the like. But let me be clear in stating that El Toro is missing nothing! It doesn't unseat S:ROS at SFNE as the best coaster on the planet or Kumba as my personal favorite, but it comes pretty darn close. El Toro easily passes Hades, Thunderhead, and even The Voyage and n
ow sits at number 3 on my Top Ten Coasters. This is why I try to save 10's for rides that really deserve them. El Toro deserves one of my few 10's and then some. I'm sure GCI and Gravity Group are doing push-ups if they've ridden this coaster. Intamin's on its way to world domination. Final Rating - 10.0 (Superior)
Check out the rest of my rating scale here.
Also, check out this great roller coaster video of El Toro. Note the speed of the lift hill and smoothness of the ride. You can really here those riders scream on those airtime-packed hills.
Questions or comments about El Toro? Leave 'em below.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
El Toro @ Six Flags Great Adventure | Coaster Reviews
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3 comments:
you misspelled heroin.
Thanks. That's not a word I use too often.
I hate wooden coasters. Or rather, when given the choice between wooden and steel coasters, I will almost always pick steel. The roughness of a wooden coaster always leaves me feeling like I need a chiropractic adjustment. Still, I had heard SO much hype about this coaster, and I wanted the credit. I took one look at this coaster and thought I was going to die on it. It looked so intimidating, and the drop looked so high and straight down....
So I boarded El Toro with many reservations. We flew up the hill pretty darn fast for a woodie, rounded the corner, and took that drop like....well, a speeding bull. I grabbed the guy next to me and shouted a string of expletives as we sped through the course. He was laughing at my ecstatic terror so hard that I think he almost peed himself. Smooth as silk, this ride blew away everything else I rode in the park, and even when I got stuck on the lift hill on my third ride, I (along with my fellow riders) swore I wanted to stay on until we could ride the bull. I always said if I got stuck on a lift hill or anywhere on a ride, I would never ride it again. Yeah, I rode El Toro twice more after that unfortunate stall. This ride is my favorite coaster on the planet at this time. There are not enough words to describe the merciless bliss of this screamer. Maybe unrelenting, packed with airtime...nope, I can't do it. Too great.
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