Roller Coaster Reviews - Morey's Piers

Here are some of the coasters, and what we think of them, at Morey's Piers.

- This is the first United States installation of the standard Vekoma Boomerang Coaster. Like all boomerangs, this ride begins when the train is pulled backwards up the starting hill. When the train is finally let go, that first drop really gets your stomach flopping. The flips through the inversions are also fun, but they can be a little hard on the side of your head, banging into the shoulder harness, unless you firmly hold your head still. Once you remember to do that, this is a fun, albeit short, ride.

Jon likes to tell the story of the first time he ever saw one of these contraptions:

It was the week before Memorial Day, 1984, just days before the start of the important summer season in Wildwood, New Jersey. I was walking on the boardwalk, about a half a mile north of the new Sea Serpent coaster. Construction was nearly complete, and as they raced to have the ride ready by the big weekend, I watched as they test ran some empty cars through the course.

Now, you have to be aware of the shape of this track. The train starts by being pulled up and back out of the station and up a hill. It is released down this hill, through the station, and up into a corkscrew. There is a small dip in the track (see photo at right, courtesy of Jason Knutson), then it goes through a mirror-image corkscrew on the other side.

Even though I was several hundred yards away, I really had the feeling that the train was going too slowly. I was afraid it wouldn't have enough momentum to make it through the other side of the dip in the track.

That weekend (after I had left Wildwood), the ride did open on time. But the very first night, the coaster got stuck in the dip between the two halves of the corkscrews, and a trainload of people had to be removed, one at a time, with a cherry picker.