[Monty2003]

As a first-time visitor to Edmonton, I made sure to visit to the West Edmonton Mall, which includes 800 shops, 80 places to eat, a casino, a shooting range, a replica of the Santa Maria, a water park, an aquarium , bumper boats, minature golf courses, two hotels, and most importantly... a theme park, Galaxyland. (The park was originally named Fantasyland, but Disney sued.)

The most impressive ride of the park is the Mindbender, A Schwarzkopf designed ride which has a 127 ft first drop (indoors!!), three loops and over 4,000 ft of track. I was aware of the triple-fatal accident which happened in the 80's... paste, but was still eager to ride. From the front seat, it didn't disappoint; it was intense, smooth and exhilirating. From the back seat, however, it was bumpy and painful and removed at least 5 of my IQ points. In fact, I have never experienced a ride that differed so much depending on where the rider was seated.

The Galaxy Orbiter, a spinning coaster, was the newest major attraction in the park, but it didn't really do much, with over 50% of the ride going up the 3 short lift hills.

A third coaster, the Autosled, is a shorter version of Jaguar at Knott's. It had a nice head-chopper and they let everyone have two rides without getting off.

The Space Shot was very intense and sends you right up to the roof. I would like to see one of these at the Adventuredome in Vegas.

Cosmo's Space Derby- bumper cars in the dark... awesome!

Sonic Twister- a teeny-tiny pendulum ride. Intense, but very uncomfortable restraints.

Solar Flair- my second favorite ride in the park... it is hard to categorize... it moves like an inverter, but the passengers pods rotate preventing the rider from going completely upside down. The rider can lock the pod in any position and can choose between sitting down or standing up.

Quirks in the Works is a spinning shoot-em-up dark ride that offers corny fun, but is a bit too short. (I personally liked it better than Buzz Lightyear.) Knott's should get something like this.

All the other rides were similar to ones I had already ridden.

This post has been edited by Monty2003: July 28 2010 - 06:39 PM

[Albert]

Mindbender is one of the record holders for most G's on a coaster, isn't it? Cool that you got to ride it. Nice TR!

[goldenstate5]

Monty2003, on July 28 2010 - 07:35 PM, said:

The Space Shot was very intense and sends you right up to the roof. I would like to see one of these at the Adventuredome in Vegas.

They actually do have one that was installed a couple of years ago.

I've seen photos of Galaxyland (never been to Canada), and at one point compared to the two other indoor theme parks in North America (Adventuredome, whatever the one at Mall of America is called now) it was butt ugly. Unsurprisingly both of the aforementioned parks took all the charm and theming the original designers crafted and destroyed it for rides. Such is the path you have to take in order to expand attraction numbers in such a relatively small area. For what it is now, it's a decent park.

Hey, I'm just surprised it isn't totally themed to hockey. Oilerland. Come ride the spinning puck or the Mind-Penner!