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| Park: |
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Disneyland Paris (travel info) |
| Ride Type: |
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Steel Coaster |
| Status: |
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Operating since 4/1992 |
| Category: |
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Mine Train |
| Designer: |
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WED (Walter Elias Disney) |
| Builder: |
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Vekoma Inc. |
| Visits: |
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128 |
| Rating: |
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| More About This Ride |
Ride Restrictions:
| Minimum height restriction: |
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39 in. |
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| Relocations |
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This ride has not been relocated
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Ad Info
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| Reviews |
Coaster_T
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 8
View Park/Ride Count
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What a trip the Big Thunder Mountain was. We had left it too late in the day to get a Fastpass (this was the most popular ride on the day we visited, with the longest queues all day).
We decided to leave this ride until the evening, when hopefully the queues would be shorter. On arriving at the queue entrance the time announced was 70mins. However, we had to ride this coaster before leaving.
The queue line snaked through an old mine building with lots of mining related gimmicks and points of interest. There were also views across a lake to a rocky island around which glimpses of the coaster tracks could be seen.
After only 40 mins we started descending from the 1st floor queuing area to the loading platform. Having remarked a few moments earlier that the ride attendants in the French park did not match their US counterparts, we encountered a raucous reception on boarding the train. The attendants were goading the passengers from each of the 2 trains on either side of the platform to shout the loudest to determine which train would go first. The atmosphere was wild with chanting, cheering and screaming. This was before we had moved an inch.
Suddenly our train lurched forward, shimmying out of the station and through an 'S' bend before plunging into a pitch-black tunnel under the lake. The train twisted and lurched through the tunnel before a wide swing to the right and into the lift hill, at this point there was a flyby with another train on route further down the tracks (or was it a mirror illusion?).
The lift hill took us up to one of the highest points on Thunder Mountain with fantastic twilight view across an illuminated park. Before we knew it we were plunging down and to the right, over a bunny hop and down to the left. This steep banked manoeuvre was followed by a plunge into a tunnel and several more twists and turns before hitting the second (tick tack) lift hill which was completely enclosed inside the mountain and had some good falling rocks effects.
At this point I thought we must be almost through. How wrong can you be? The train plunged down and up over a bunny hop before banking sharply to the left and out of the tunnel, careening around the edge of the island with view of the Paddle Steamer making it's stately way around the lake. A short drop led to yet another tunnel with a surprise dip.
What followed was a series of twists turns, dips and tunnels. The effect of speeding through tunnels and twilight with a train of hyped passengers was electric. A final tunnel ending in a sharp ascent to a bunny hop brought this train of cheering clapping passengers safely back to the station.
I was expecting a sedate family ride similar to the one at the Magic Kingdom. However, Disney have certainly improved on the Florida version of this ride. Definitely the best coaster at the Paris Park.
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| 12-12-03 15:26:35 |
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