We decided to get to the park really early just to do it, these are some people camped out and ready to ride at about 6:45
Didnt take long for more people to show up
Crowds eagerly wait for the park, and new coaster, to open
A news crew was there filming the crowd, everyone was pumped!
We were joking with some people that since it's made by Intamin it would not open on time. Of course, we were right. We get to the ride and the staff there informs us that the ride is having technical difficulties and they hope to have it open later in the afternoon, surprise! That huge crowd that was electric with anticipation just a few minutes ago turned into an angry mob very quickly.
This guy with a fan made B&M shirt and a B&M hat was not hesitant to constantly yell what he thought of Busch Gardens, their staff, and Intamin. Eventually people had started to get really annoyed with him and told him off.
The crowd that ran to Cheetah Hunt first thing to find out that it's closed. We waited for maybe 30 minutes and the ride was making no progress, the ride was pretty much dead so we went to Montu to see a completely full queue and 60 minute wait posted. Skipped that and went around and did the other coasters in the park.
No thanks, moving on here
Not operating
Really wanted to try this out so we waited in line
One side operation on a very busy day and the same day a new coaster opens
These peoples t-shirts say they were hopping out of here, and they were hopping out of line!
With one side operation and extremely slow load times, Gwazi's line was not the highlight of my day. 90 degrees / FL humidity + no fans + extremely loud middle school school groups everywhere =
1 1/2 hours later we were on the ride
A very nice looking train. Would look even nicer if it was operating!
Found it kind of funny these kids unknowingly had Arrow shuttle loops on their shirts
The girl in the pink got startled by a butterfly and gotup and threw her soda (that had no lid) at it! Really, what is wrong with these kids?
At around 1:45pm Cheetah Hunt had started to cycle and lines formed quickly
By this time they had started handing out free bottles of water to those waiting in line
It's alive!
The crowd cheered loudly as the ride opened, much excitment
The queue/station is huge and in the skyride building which they added some details and props to
After opening about 4 1/2 hours late, the ride operated for maybe 15 minutes before it broke down
Sandor (the president of Intamin) was patrolling the platform trying to resolve any issues that were hapenning with the ride, and believe me there were a LOT
So after that, the ride re-opened, operated for about 10 minutes, then broke down again
This exact same scenario hapenned to me in 07 in line for Maverick where I was in the queue house and it was constantly breaking down
It re-opened again, operated for about ten minutes, then broke down AGAIN for about a half hour
Almost there, upper level of the queue
Eventually it re-opened, we were about to get on the next train, and it broke down AGAIN! Heres another picture of Sandor watching from above.
At this point I ran out of battery because I took more video than I expected to. Eventually we got on the ride and to be honest it was very dissapointing. I wasn't expecting it to be a top 20 or anything, but I went in with low expectations that were not met. The first launch felt about the same speed as Pony Express at Knotts Berry Farm's launch, and the turn out of the launch into the first tunnell was just boring. The second launch into the tower was decent, then the ride once again looses all steam at the top of the tower and becomes like a kids coaster. The elements and turns were super-slow, even the S curve portion had little to no intensity (it's true, Maverick puts it to shame). The whole ride I was thinking to myself "wow I really hope this picks up speed" and after the third launch, also pretty weak, I had given up hope. We coasted through the rest of the circut and into the brakes and we all looked at eachother with similar dissapointed looks.
By no means am I the guy complains about everything, I love all kinds of coasters, but Cheetah Hunt is just not a very good coaster. The ride is supposed to be themed around speed but it is just slow. It looks fantastic, the area is themed very well and the ride is well placed, but all five people that I was with agreed that the ride was lame and the car ride back was almost silent.
Also on a random note, one of the songs thats played in Cheetah Hunts queue is part of Disney's Adventureland BGM loop. I don't know if they did this to be funny or if they thought it sounded good, but it was clearly this exact song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqoibEsn ... 2E345A2CA8
Wow they should've went with B&M. Awesome pics sorry about the long wait it look like you had a great day even with the long wait , extreme heat and crowds.
I am going to Sarasota next week and just bought a couple of cheaper tickets to Busch Gardens so that I can do something OTHER than lay on the beach for 7 days.
The heat might suck, but I plan to hit it on a Monday/Tuesday which i hear are typically the slowest days?
Might even hit up the $30 all you can eat/drink to take advantage of water bottles and food
It looked like Busch went the typical "ride is not ready to open but it's memorial weekend and we need it running so open it anyway" route. The ride was clearly not ready to sustain full capacity operation on opening day, they were probably running only 2 trains on media day which is how it was running consistently. You can pour money into the construction of the theming and queue as fast as you want to have it ready for opening day, but there is no substitute for lots and lots of testing and adjusting before the ride opens. They were working on it all morning then when it finally came time start cycling full trains it just couldn't do it witout constantly having to bring the ride down to fix issues that were coming up. When it comes to operating rides with multiple launches and that many trains it takes time to test and adjust the sensors and PLCs to get everything working properly. When I was at CP in 07 Maverick was having the same deal and kept going down over and over and over again. Hopefully they have/had a third shift programing and testing team constantly trying to hammer out these issues, otherwise it's going to be a long summer. If that rides not ready to go on its scheduled opening day (memorial weekend in most cases) then the park has to decide whether or not to delay the opening and miss potentially large crowds, or risk having the ride going down a lot. When TDK opened at SFGAm (memorial weekend) it was not ready for full capacity operation so it didn't operate at full capacity up until Mack came back and worked on the ride some more later that year. Another example of that is Hollywood Rockit, that ride was definitely not ready to open but it was taking so long to get it operating properly that Universal felt they had no choice but to open it anyway. It's operation was so inneficient the first few months it was open that they closed it during Horror Nights even though it was their new ride. When the deadlines are set and there is some sort of construction delay or hiccup in testing, then sometimes the operational end doesn't line up with the business end. That's when you can tell that Busch are rookies to the whole Intamin thing, they shouldve known you have to start constructing and testing the ride way earlier than a normal ride in order to have it ready for opening day . Just look at Maverick, that ride was almost entirely built the season before it opened and it still was not ready on time.
BP/19 wrote:It looked like Busch went the typical "ride is not ready to open but it's memorial weekend and we need it running so open it anyway" route. The ride was clearly not ready to sustain full capacity operation on opening day, they were probably running only 2 trains on media day which is how it was running consistently. You can pour money into the construction of the theming and queue as fast as you want to have it ready for opening day, but there is no substitute for lots and lots of testing and adjusting before the ride opens. They were working on it all morning then when it finally came time start cycling full trains it just couldn't do it witout constantly having to bring the ride down to fix issues that were coming up. When it comes to operating rides with multiple launches and that many trains it takes time to test and adjust the sensors and PLCs to get everything working properly. When I was at CP in 07 Maverick was having the same deal and kept going down over and over and over again. Hopefully they have/had a third shift programing and testing team constantly trying to hammer out these issues, otherwise it's going to be a long summer. If that rides not ready to go on its scheduled opening day (memorial weekend in most cases) then the park has to decide whether or not to delay the opening and miss potentially large crowds, or risk having the ride going down a lot. When TDK opened at SFGAm (memorial weekend) it was not ready for full capacity operation so it didn't operate at full capacity up until Mack came back and worked on the ride some more later that year. Another example of that is Hollywood Rockit, that ride was definitely not ready to open but it was taking so long to get it operating properly that Universal felt they had no choice but to open it anyway. It's operation was so inneficient the first few months it was open that they closed it during Horror Nights even though it was their new ride. When the deadlines are set and there is some sort of construction delay or hiccup in testing, then sometimes the operational end doesn't line up with the business end. That's when you can tell that Busch are rookies to the whole Intamin thing, they shouldve known you have to start constructing and testing the ride way earlier than a normal ride in order to have it ready for opening day . Just look at Maverick, that ride was almost entirely built the season before it opened and it still was not ready on time.
Seriously Brad? I know you are better than this. Split the paragraphs!!!!
I finally retired the Sarah Palin signature because she is now 100% irrelevant.
Went to Busch Gardens this past Tuesday. Good times, lines on most rides were non existant EXCEPT Cheetah Hunt. Wait was around 50 minutes all day.
I am sorry, but I didn't want to wait for the ride. It just looked slow and kind of uninspired. After riding (and being able to reride all day) Sheikra, Montu, and Kumba -- I was impressed with the couple of coasters BG had, but this one just looked like a stinker.
The launches are slow, the ride looks like it loses steam in that strange turnabout at the top and looks like a much slower, barely inverted version of Maverick.
I know its probably not intended to be the ultimate thrill seeking ride but being advertised as, as fast as a cheetah? Cmon
. Just look at Maverick, that ride was almost entirely built the season before it opened and it still was not ready on time.
