griffon

This is incredible...



A floorless dive hypercoaster...talk about combining three awesome things into one. Griffon could very easily be the best coaster on the planet -- come to think of it, I don't see how it couldn't be. And it's within three hours of my house. Yeah, the chances of my owning a Busch Gardens season pass this year just went way, way up. I can't remember being this eager to go on a coaster trip and ride a new coaster since Millennium Force and Son of Beast opened back in the day. (I think SoB opened in 2000, I'm sure MF did.)

This is a real coaster too. Unlike Cedar Fair, which slipped a bit from previous rides and let us all down tremendously with Cedar Point's one-trick-pony Top Thrill Dragster, or Paramount, which seems to like straight-down coasters that don't do anything else except destroy your skull, Busch lived up to its reputation of putting in only high-quality coasters. Griffon is a B&M jewel with multiple elements, so it's a complete ride and not just a climb and drop. It will even have that excellent Busch Gardens theme work, too. To me this undoubtedly puts them on top of the heap when it comes to the best park owners for building coasters. These guys don't mess around and don't mind spending gigantic loads of money on good rides. (Griffon cost $15.6M, exceptionally cheap for such a high-powered B&M coaster.)

For those of you who aren't dial-up dinosaurs, check out the virtual ride. And even you dial-up folks should at least watch long enough to see how it hangs at the top of the drop for a few seconds before falling...priceless. It's safe to say that puts Griffon in the elite as far as scary coasters. And the stadium seating should mean all three rows get a nice view of the ground 205+ feet below. The video is also realistic enough to include a nice view of Alpie from the top of the lift hill -- very nice.

Looking ahead, depending on how work goes, I could have a convenient three days off during the first week of April. That's also the first week BGW will be open during the week for the 2007 season. Enough blogging, I need to go look for campgrounds...

UPDATE: Check that. According to BGW's own Griffon page, the monster "will debut at Busch Gardens May 25." Bullbleep!!! That sucks worse than anything has sucked for a long time. By then I'll be back to doing the regular schedule thing at work. And that could prevent me from hitting BGW for at least the first few weeks Griffon is running. So I guess it'll be that much harder every weekday this summer to not quit on the spot.