LA RONDE
Montreal, Canada
Six Flags Theme Parks
Park News - (5/20/09) According to this news article a train on Le Monstre became stuck going up one of the coasters hills. Riders sat in the train for upwards of an hour before rescue workers could remove them all from the coaster.
2010 - Serial Thriller - Semi-Confirmed - (10/1/09) La Ronde has confirmed that they will add the former Serial Thriller coaster to the park, which should be ready to open by May 2010. They just haven’t come up with a new name for it yet.
(9/21/09) As rumored, the first pieces of Serial Thriller track has arrived on site at La Ronde. Pictures have been posted to ThrillZone showing off the freshly painted red track and yellow supports.
(7/18/09) When I first heard the rumor, I told quite a few people to stop smoking crack... because the very idea just seemed insane. Now... I have confirmed it with various Screamscape sources that Serial Thriller, the former Astroworld Vekoma SLC coaster, is being shipped from it’s storage site at The Great Escape to La Ronde for the 2010 season.
While a new coaster coming to any park is typically a good thing, I really do have to question the logis of Six Flags over this particular move. After all, the park has a mighty fine B&M Batman clone already by the name of Vampire. With your park guests already accustomed to the smooth and ultra-intense B&M Inverted coaster experience on Vampire, why would you subject them to a a Vekoma SLC “Hang & Bang” coaster? I could perhaps adding a B&M Inverted to a park that had only had the Vekoma, but going the other way around seems a bit... well.. stupid.
The move is almost a double slap in the face... both to La Ronde, by giving them a used Hang & Bang that has been sitting in a field rusting away since late 2005, and to The Great Escape by clearly telling them they aren’t worth the money to put together a coaster that they’ve been storing and waiting to install for themselves now for 4 years. After all, The Great Escape is the only park in the current Six Flags system of parks that has no inverted coaster design of any kind. Even Six Flags Mexico has one...
While La Ronde is certainly deserving of a new coaster as the last one was Goliath in 2006, I do have to wonder the price difference between shipping in, repairing and installing a used Vekoma SLC and buying a new smaller ride or coaster... like perhaps a copy of Tony Hawk’s Big Spin. Or even something else... a few flat rides, a Splash Battle, a dark ride, etc...
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