The only ride I can think of for comparison is the Men In Black ride. The idea of going on a coaster and fight fantasy monsters do sound fun though, but I'm not surprised that this didn't become a major success.
Such an odd ride, I go on it at least once a year to watch its progression of disrepair! Definitely create more Canada’s Wonderland & Canadian content! 🥰
Having lived in Toronto my whole life, Canada's Wonderland has been my home park since it's opening. The Guardian was a much hyped darkride/coaster hybrid and unfortunately as you've mentioned, failure to keep the ride in top shape has hurt it BIG TIME. The worst part of this ride is the DIMNESS of the projection screens. I know a little something about projection units, and based on my experience in the ride show rooms it appears that either the projectors are underpowered lumens-wise OR the park doesn't replace the bulbs when they start to deteriorate (usually projector bulbs don't just die, they generally lose roughly half of their initial brightness) So the resulting screens are barely visible throughout the entire ride. Couple this with the fact that MANY of the lightguns are inoperative or defective and you have the makings of a MEH ride. The sudden drop at the end is fun, but that's not saying much. Horrible ride really...The problem with Canada's Wonderland these days is that Cedar Fair seems to just let regular maintenance and annual touchups fall by the waste side. And food wise, C.W. has THE WORST theme park food I've ever had. You're paying DisneyWorld prices for Hospital cafeteria food at best. My daughter and I had the Eat all Day food passes for a couple of years with our season passes and how we didn't get food poisoning I don't know. Pure luck! When I look at the food offered up at other Cedar Fair parks like Knotts Berry Farm I know that Cedar doesn't USUALLY do food badly, but really the food is horrible here! As for the Guardian, the recommendation to give it a try should come with an asterisk...ONLY if it's late and the line is SUPER short. The line queue is deceiving and what you THINK will take about a half hour actually takes at least triple that! And it's not worth an hour+ wait, EVER!
@@ExpeditionThemePark Yeah on a hot summer day it's an absolute nightmare queue...humid and stuffy...by the time me and my daughter got on the ride, we were just happy to finally be sitting down!
I think, in general, Cedar Point has been bad for the park. I get that they want to make money, and have the shorter operating season, but it seems as if everything they do is based on short-term profit. And customer service is generally quite poor. I've already vowed to never go back, even though I love roller coasters. I have to also say that I despise Fast Lanes. It seems like the sort of the thing an evil moustache-twirling trillionaire like Mr. Burns from the SImpsons would concoct after failing in his endeavour with blocking the sun failed.
@@delta8kitty491 no. it was at Cedar Point. started out as a bobsled style coaster but it was kind of lame so they enclosed it and gave it an outer space theme. it was still kind of lame but the queue was indoors and air conditioned which was perfect on a hot humid summer day. the other advantage was it was only a 42 inch minimum height so it was a good first "big" coaster for kids
Haha.. if the upside to an attraction is a queue line to stay cool might as well have stayed home. 😂 But seriously.. yeah it was lame but I was spoiled by Universal.
Anyone else think dark rides have their place in theme parks. As the industry moves more and more towards roller coasters roller coaster roller coaster I really think that if dark rides are needed to make a park, And I’m scared of them dying out completely
Well, Disney is certainly not moving away from dark rides any time soon - basically every ride is one, and the newest Star Wars ride really pushes to concept to it's limit. As for other parks I'm hopeful that the slow move away from every ride being "record breaking" in some way means that companies will look for other ways to make their rides stand out, either by reconsidering dark rides or simply just spending more time on landscaping and aesthetics instead of bare metal rollarcoasters in a parking lot. At the very least, I would rather parks take cues from Alton Towers instead of Six Flags. The whole Disney thing casts a huge spectre over the dark ride concept though. No matter what a park does, *any* dark ride will be compared to Disneyland's output and will almost certainly come short in quality in some way - parks simply don't have the budget to spend 100's of millions on state of the art animatronics or set design, nor do they have the expertise that Disney & Co have. Universal is the only one that really comes close, but they also have a huge media film and TV conglomerate to back them up. Quite a different situation compared to Cedar Fair and such.
The other major issue is that this coaster has absolutely no storage on the platform for guests, unlike every other coaster in the park. They force you to rent a locker if you have anything larger than a purse or small messenger bag. If you don't want to spend money to wait in line, then no ride for you.
You just described about every new ride at Universal Studios Hollywood/Florida when it comes to having to put all your stuff in a locker. My understanding is that The Hulk coaster in Florida NOW has a similar rule, not to mention all of the attractions at Harry Potter land. I know it's sacrilege to mention Canada's Wonderland and Universal or Disney in the same paragraph, but you get my drift.
@@Mrtfarrugia My wife regards Wonderland days as "Father/Daughter Days" so we don't have the benefits of a bag monitor unfortunately (She might get on me for a 'pack mule' reference so I'll save myself some strife there!) Wonderland has a lot of Draconian rules when it comes to on ride baggage and camera usage too so it is a bit of a pain. Wonderland actually prevents people from filming on the Carousel...YEP you heard that right. They also have a "Flying Dumbos" like ride that they enforce using a seat belt on. Disney doesn't have seat belts on Dumbo or Aladdin's Flying Carpets, and if there was an organization that knows about liability and safety, it's Disney so this is always a sticking point with me. All original opening Wonderland coasters now have lap bars AND seat belts now. They didn't through the early years and under Paramount's ownership. I'm fine with either/or but why totally kill a wooden coaster with both? On Thunder Run too, which is one of the most docile coasters in the park. Choo Choo!
Thank you SO much for covering something exclusive to Canada's Wonderland! I feel like our park gets shafted the most in King's Island discussions, and it really made my day to see this in my inbox!
@@ExpeditionThemePark Funny enough, I've never actually been on the Guardian! Hopefully after this chaos is all over, I can give it a try. Thanks for the reply! :)
The guns are actually infrared cameras. If you look at on ride videos you'll see little red dots. These are little tracker dots for the cameras. A "light gun" would be something like what MiB or Buzz Light-year is.
The thing is the removed the dragon from Thunder Run after they opened this ride. So it made that ride suck now cause there's nothing really to see on it.
As someone who really loves theme park theming and would really love to see more in Canada's Wonderland, Guardian was a major disappointment to me. It's so short for the time you wait on it, the guns never seem to work, the story is hard to hear, both in the que line and on the ride itself, and it's overall not worth the trouble of having to rent a locker for your items. The most it really has going for it is that final drop, but after that takes you by surprise once it never will again. Is it the worst Canada's Wonderland ride? No, but it's really mediocre to the point it doesn't leave much of an impression. At least bad rides stick with you.
@@melissaharris3389 Thunder run? That's still running if so, and I agree. Both of Wonder mountain's other coasters feel way more fun and make it feel like you're really around the mountain better.
I've ridden it before not knowing what to expect what I didn't expect was it just being a mediocre interactive ride game which isn't what I go to theme parks for
When I rode this, I appreciated everything that went on INSIDE the mountain, but what you see on the OUTSIDE amounts to a huge bait and switch, and that made Guardian very disappointing to me, because I expected a coaster, and got a dark ride shoot 'em up instead. At the end of the day, for my daughter and I, the ride was technically impressive, but it wasn't worth the wait time. Finally, a big THANK YOU for featuring Canada's Wonderland, a park that is near and dear to my heart.
I think building it up as a coaster and delivering not a coaster guarantees disappointment. I'll give the park credit for trying something novel though.
Offhand Disney did a video a year or so ago detailing his ideal Disney park. Would you consider doing something similar? Designing your ideal theme park? It’s a super interesting topic that not many people have covered !
Made me smile to see Canada’s Wonderland in one of these videos. It was my closest amusement park growing up. I even worked there one summer as a performer. This ride is fun, but it always takes ten million years to get on. Even when the line is short!
Oh hey neat, I was in this video! Also... Yeah, it was very short, but it was so much fun. It was really weird- We were there for our own special event (I think my club's anniversary?) and it just so happened to fall on opening day. Eventually we got tired of waiting and we wound up going on it at the end of the day, which was really great! Then again, I'm probably biased because as much as you say it's "Weird" and "not good", it's the best we have in Canada.
Lagoon in Utah is supposedly getting something like this later, which I’m excited for because it’s my home park and it combines two things I love about theme parks, those being dark rides and roller coasters!
It doesn't seem like it would be a stretch to remove the "roller coaster" and use VR ride tech. I work with VR at home and honestly? It's a really good experience!! (Oculus and PS4 VR) you can add physical elements like little fans and Dolby Digital speakers to enhance it. Much cheaper and far more reliable honestly. Also you don't need a lot of space.
Thanks for this. I’ve been on it a few times. Seems out of place at Wonderland for sure. To be honest I didn’t even knew it existed bc it was never really promoted. Thanks for this video! As always...awesome job!
Hey! I just wanted to let you know how appreciative I am of your channel as a whole. After watching your videos for a few years, they’ve influenced me to go into the field of engineering and possibly even roller coaster design. So yes, your videos have basically influenced me so much that I figured out what I wanted to do in life because of them XD (Also, good video as always! I live for dark rides ^^)
Hey, do you think you could do an expedition on A Day in the Park with Barney at Universal Studios Florida? They closed it this year and I’m not really happy about it.
A similar scene at 15:50 on the Halloween version of this ride was used on a 2016 attraction they made called “Zombie Attack”. Consider that 2016 ride a longer version of the Halloween version. Both use the same score system. Both are zombie based. Basically take the blasters from the coaster and put them on the seats of the “Wild West Coaster” (also made by the same company) in the Great Canadian Midway (The arcade on Clifton Hill) and you made a new ride. Both of these rides are in Niagara Falls, Canada.
No one ever covers Canada's Wonderland, please do more! As for the ride, I've visited CW every year before and after the ride opened and have only ridden it twice, the wait line is just wayyyyyyy too long but when I do go on it is a fun ride. The first time we went on in opening year we didn't know about the drop, lets just say it was quite surprising
Just want to say love this channel! As a former Disney Cast Member and now Universal Orlando Team Member (thanks COVID 🥺), I know a lot about the parks, but love learning about other parks and their attractions, both domestic and international. Your HHN history videos were my study tools when I was preparing to train for HHN29. Keep up the amazing work and thank you for your dedication!
I like the idea of combining a coaster with a virtual shooting gallery, but I feel like the concept could be done better using modern technology. Imagine a Star Fox ride with each car resembling the inside of an Arwing and each of the windows replaced with lightweight LCD panels, or a VR flying coaster based on NiGHTS: Into Dreams/Journey of Dreams!
The ride shut down when my train was stopped before the drop. It got spoiled for me when an attendant warned us we were gonna fall when they started it back up. It was still a really memorable time though.
Went to wonderland around 1994-5ish? Rode the Vortex, was amazing! Smooth and fast... First time on a suspended rollercoaster... Good one to cover if talking about the mountain coasters. Love the channel, thank you!
I visited Canada's Wonderland in 1988 and I remember riding Thunder Run SO many times that day. It was such a fun but odd little ride. I thought it was so cool to be riding through the mountain (kinda like Big Thunder at Disney, but not really).
Wonderland is my home park and my family rode Guardian right when it opened. We’re big coaster people but wanted to give this one a chance. I don’t remember much of my actual ride experience, other than being taken aback when the drop happened. As far as I know none of my family has even been back on it, for 2 reasons. The stupidly long wait time, and the stupid lockers. My brothers would wait 4 hours or more for Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, and that’s a 30 second ride, but won’t wait more than 30 minutes for Guardian, that should tell you everything.
Primordial at lagoon opened just recently on September 15th and its pretty similar to wonder mountains guardian but it’s a whole lot better. it has interactive screens, a small helix that you go backwards through inside the mountain and at the end it has two drop towers that each have their own ending right before the drop, it also has a switch track inside the mountain that chooses which drop tower to send you down. And it has blasters that are mounted onto the ride restraints and the seats rotate to face the interactive parts
This is on the right path for the type of ride I've always thought would be PERFECT for a Metroid ride at Super Nintendo World! Obviously, they should just focus on fixing any technical issues that may come with it, find a better balance between roller coaster and dark ride, and *hopefully* feature animatronics instead of (or at least more primarily than) screens.
The ride reminds me of the old short rollercoaster at Joypolis in Tokyo, Japan that had the whole 3D shooting game and the part where the the ride goes out. It didn’t have the big drop but yea this game/coaster is almost like that ride, if anyone has ever ridden that one before.
Yea, over the years the ride has changed to different themes and they even took out the game part element or the part that the coaster goes outside. Not sure what the theme is now or if it’s still operational due to lockdown.
I’ve been to Canada’s Wonderland countless times but we never bothered doing the line for this ride, defs gonna have to give it a ride when our province opens up finally and we can get to Wonderland again!!!!
I remember being so excited for this. I had ridden the Transformers darkride a few months earlier and had expected something similar. After being in line and hyping up my siblings for two hours, we sat in the dark and was suddenly dropped into the end. It is the worst ride at Wonderland.
@@ExpeditionThemePark Canada's wonderland is my home park. (Darien Lake is closer, but it's trash) So, Wonderland, it is! If they would update the projectors and maybe add more practical effects/scenery, this ride could be pretty cool. You're right though. Every time I get off this thing, I just feel "meh".
@@ExpeditionThemePark I heard that in one of your videos along the way! I love Toronto so so much. I'm in Buffalo, just a short 80ish minute drive up to Toronto for me. Just moved back here after 14 years in Las Vegas!
I’ve gone on this ride every years since opening, and every year it becomes more and more clear that they did not create this ride with longevity in mind. The guns no longer work as intended (sometimes stop working mid ride, etc), it goes down at least twice a day because of some sort of issue with the ride, and they no longer play the video with the lore in the waiting area. I went on after it had been fixed and the final screen was being projected wrong (the dragons head was not connected to its butt). It’s a shame because I was in middle school when the ride first opened and it was one of my favourites, but now it’s underwhelming if not disappointing
@@ExpeditionThemePark worth mentioning with the dungeon that the highwayman segment is taken from York with dick Turpin and the boat ride is from sawney bean in Edinburgh
I would love to visit canadas wonderland one day, the rides look so exciting to me! Ive never really been on many rides outside the UK, and even then ive only been to pleasure beach and alton towers. My time at busch gardens tampa was incredible and it got me hooked on the larger, more intense american style roller coasters
I have only been on it once but I really enjoyed this ride when I took it in 2019. It had been down most of the day and I was the second ride cycle through after it reopened. I am not a big thrill seeker, and the surprise ending scared me in a way that I still felt safe while getting a little adrenaline rush.
Great video as usual! I never had rode this ride. I absolutely love that initiative to go for dark thrill ride. I feel smaller budget parks not Disney or universal are criminally lacked of dark rides. But I understand why. Flight of fear and those type of primer rides at other cedar fair rides do a great for a boxed spaghetti bowl. But that’s just that a boxed coaster. It’s very hard to tell a story at a fast pace and make it thrilling and keep a small budget. And I’m not a huge fan of shooter rides ala MIB , buzz light year , justice league ( although I feel this ride fills a great need for a lot of six flags parks for theming and family with animatronics) . But I’m general they just don’t appeal to me. In my opinion the pinnacle of dark rides / coaster is Revenge of the mummy at universal Orlando. That ride blends it all so great. One of the biggest dark rides disappointments for me was the dark knight coaster at six flags great adventure. One of my missed dark rides I never got to ride and is gone is the Gremlin ride at movie world Australia/ Germany ( but that was just a themed dark ride) there are just few great thrilling / coaster dark rides in my opinion and I’d love to see many more of them. I love the drop track part of this ride though and if I’m up at this park for sure will check it out. ( sorry this comment is long af)
Wonderland is my home park. This ride is definitely weird. It you want to make it more fun take a friend on who’s never been. Don’t tell them about the drop track at the end. That’s what I did lol. It’s cool to know the history behind it though. Wonderland is an interesting park and Cedar Fair definitely likes to experiment with it.
I remember attending the Breakfast Television announcement in 2013! If you go back to that footage, you an sort of see my friend and I standing near Snoopy. I enjoyed the ride at first, and I have to commend it for what it was. This ride came before Six Flags made all the Justice League rides, so it was a great first step for major dark rides at a regional park. I'm a huge fan of the drop-track at the end, but I was always so disappointed that there wasn't more coaster elements within the mountain. Again, they did what they could with the space. I think my biggest disappointment is the lack of immersion, especially when you ride on the backwards-facing seats. The transitions on the continuous screen are good (you got a good sense of the illusion of vertical movement when you dipped into the lake or down a staircase), but on both sides, it was obvious you were looking at a giant screen. Even when you first enter the mountain, the screens aren't even on for the first few seconds. For the past few years, a lot of the guns haven't been working. They seemed to fix the issue towards the end of 2019, but they removed the glasses and turned off the 3D effects. I think the ride is still salvageable, but it needs a lot of TLC and a better, clearer storyline.
I have never been on it but it’s interesting idea though I do think the limit of the budget is one of the many issues. Though I wish more theme parks would try to do a dark ride as I love them
The park was once called Paramount Canada's wonderland and had Parmonunt owned properties themed character rides like Hanabarbara land with Yogi bear and ScobyDoo and a TopGun coaster. The mountain was called Paramount Mountain on park maps until Paramount sold the park to Cerderfair
What a great video dude! It actually looks like a lot of fun! I'm also confused by the coaster bit. Very low capacity. Btw... When are you going to do that awesome Vekoma Boomerang story? I can't wait!😀
You should cover the history of the 39-year old Darien Lake Viper - the first full circuit roller coaster to feature five loops or at least the 'Loop Wars' which preceded the height wars of the 1990s. To this day, the Darien Lake Viper contains one of the most unique arrow looping elements - the Batwing. The Carolina Cyclone (4) had the Loop Record '80 - '81, Viper (5) had it '82 - '86, then Kings Island Vortex (6) had it in just 1987, then Shockwave (7) at 6 Flags Great America the following year. The height wars started a year later...
I can see why they chose to go with the same theme as the dragon to tie into thunder run. The best part of that coaster. Miss the path up to the top of the mountain thought.
They need dark rides at these parks for the adults and small children. My dad wont go to cedar point anymore because they made all the coaster seats super small and hes a bigger guy. Also most of the coasters he doesnt even want to ride because of his back. They need to put somthing that adults can enjoy.
@@ExpeditionThemePark My new logo for it was so badass! I added a vortex shape underneath and the letters swirled into it. I took the overhead bobsled swing track and put the mountain in the background and the water flying up in the foreground. If anyone finds one out in the wild, I want one too.
I agree that the ride could have benefitted with some more rollercoaster type elements in-between the interactive portions. I assume there just wasn't the space inside the mountain. What they could do to improve/refurbish the ride now if they wanted, in my opinion, is replace the screens with brighter and sharper 4k projectors, upgrade the coaster trains with VR motion seats that tilt and move like rides like Spiderman at Universal Studios, and replace the videos with updated CGI, and maybe make it 3d with 3d glasses. I think that would do a lot to make the experience much more fun and immersive.
Awesome video, and an intriguing conceot! Though, mind if I ask if we'll see other interesting dark ride entries? Would love to see your take on Maus Au Chocolat at Phantasialand and the classic Duel at Alton Towers!
I'd want an Expedition Canada's Wonderland on Leviathan, the first-ever B&M Giga, which helped create one of the greatest coasters in the world; Fury 325.
A great change of pace is a "good" dark ride at an amusement or themed park. It creates a good balance and If done right can have a "fan following" You know the ones. Pirates, Monster Plantation, Knott's Beary Tales. Well, at least they tried!??! LOL! This one didn't even make it to the re-do stage, like Spee Lunkers Cave or Tales of Okee Fenokee turned Monster Plantation.
I worked at Triotech's Ninjago ride for a few years and we ALWAYS talked about wanting a halloween overlay. Its cool they did it with this ride! Jealous!
What do you think of this unique attraction?
So this is what happens if you put “Escape from Gringots”, “Expedition Everest” and “Buzz Lightyear” in a blender...
My son and I got stuck on this ride for almost an hour, predrop. lights on and music blaring. Only ride I ever got stuck on
I got ideas for kennywood park Garfield’s nightmare one of the worst dark rides in history have any amusement park add in 2004 to replace the old mill
Odd ride long wait times.
The only ride I can think of for comparison is the Men In Black ride. The idea of going on a coaster and fight fantasy monsters do sound fun though, but I'm not surprised that this didn't become a major success.
When I rode this I did not know there was a freefall element! Scariest moment of my life!!
Hahah yeah it is a surprise !
I was prepared by Verbolten.
I rode it about 3 years ago and the CGI has not aged well.
I bet! I would be freaked out if I went on it and didn’t know.
@@melissaharris3389 too be fair it didn't look very good in 2014 either
there's a big smile on my face anytime the 13 & Desperado clips show up
Such an odd ride, I go on it at least once a year to watch its progression of disrepair!
Definitely create more Canada’s Wonderland & Canadian content! 🥰
Right?!
Was not expecting to see anyone talk about Canada's Wonderland, so this was definitely a big shock to my Canadian self.
I lived in Toronto for 2 years
@@ExpeditionThemePark where's the Centreville vid? 😆
Aqme
@@ExpeditionThemePark cool. where about did you live in Toronto?
@@Mrtfarrugia the time lapse at the start of Downtown in this video is from my old window
Having lived in Toronto my whole life, Canada's Wonderland has been my home park since it's opening. The Guardian was a much hyped darkride/coaster hybrid and unfortunately as you've mentioned, failure to keep the ride in top shape has hurt it BIG TIME. The worst part of this ride is the DIMNESS of the projection screens. I know a little something about projection units, and based on my experience in the ride show rooms it appears that either the projectors are underpowered lumens-wise OR the park doesn't replace the bulbs when they start to deteriorate (usually projector bulbs don't just die, they generally lose roughly half of their initial brightness) So the resulting screens are barely visible throughout the entire ride. Couple this with the fact that MANY of the lightguns are inoperative or defective and you have the makings of a MEH ride. The sudden drop at the end is fun, but that's not saying much. Horrible ride really...The problem with Canada's Wonderland these days is that Cedar Fair seems to just let regular maintenance and annual touchups fall by the waste side.
And food wise, C.W. has THE WORST theme park food I've ever had. You're paying DisneyWorld prices for Hospital cafeteria food at best. My daughter and I had the Eat all Day food passes for a couple of years with our season passes and how we didn't get food poisoning I don't know. Pure luck!
When I look at the food offered up at other Cedar Fair parks like Knotts Berry Farm I know that Cedar doesn't USUALLY do food badly, but really the food is horrible here!
As for the Guardian, the recommendation to give it a try should come with an asterisk...ONLY if it's late and the line is SUPER short. The line queue is deceiving and what you THINK will take about a half hour actually takes at least triple that! And it's not worth an hour+ wait, EVER!
I really dislike the queue for this ride. Great advice
@@ExpeditionThemePark Yeah on a hot summer day it's an absolute nightmare queue...humid and stuffy...by the time me and my daughter got on the ride, we were just happy to finally be sitting down!
I think, in general, Cedar Point has been bad for the park. I get that they want to make money, and have the shorter operating season, but it seems as if everything they do is based on short-term profit. And customer service is generally quite poor. I've already vowed to never go back, even though I love roller coasters. I have to also say that I despise Fast Lanes. It seems like the sort of the thing an evil moustache-twirling trillionaire like Mr. Burns from the SImpsons would concoct after failing in his endeavour with blocking the sun failed.
17:27 when someone from Europe says a ride is weird, you know it is really weird
Right
*looks at Efteling* yeaaaah..... Lol
Cedar fair legit out here acting like their real first dark ride never existed WOW. F for respects for Disaster Transport.
Right
That the one in the mall?
F. I always liked that ride
@@delta8kitty491 no. it was at Cedar Point. started out as a bobsled style coaster but it was kind of lame so they enclosed it and gave it an outer space theme. it was still kind of lame but the queue was indoors and air conditioned which was perfect on a hot humid summer day. the other advantage was it was only a 42 inch minimum height so it was a good first "big" coaster for kids
Haha.. if the upside to an attraction is a queue line to stay cool might as well have stayed home. 😂 But seriously.. yeah it was lame but I was spoiled by Universal.
My fav as always, the clip of that guy riding 13. Wish I could have it set as my ringtone
Anyone else think dark rides have their place in theme parks. As the industry moves more and more towards roller coasters roller coaster roller coaster I really think that if dark rides are needed to make a park, And I’m scared of them dying out completely
I do
Do kids have the attention span for them anymore lmao
Well, Disney is certainly not moving away from dark rides any time soon - basically every ride is one, and the newest Star Wars ride really pushes to concept to it's limit. As for other parks I'm hopeful that the slow move away from every ride being "record breaking" in some way means that companies will look for other ways to make their rides stand out, either by reconsidering dark rides or simply just spending more time on landscaping and aesthetics instead of bare metal rollarcoasters in a parking lot. At the very least, I would rather parks take cues from Alton Towers instead of Six Flags.
The whole Disney thing casts a huge spectre over the dark ride concept though. No matter what a park does, *any* dark ride will be compared to Disneyland's output and will almost certainly come short in quality in some way - parks simply don't have the budget to spend 100's of millions on state of the art animatronics or set design, nor do they have the expertise that Disney & Co have. Universal is the only one that really comes close, but they also have a huge media film and TV conglomerate to back them up. Quite a different situation compared to Cedar Fair and such.
so are we just going to pretend Disney doesn't exist the king of Dark rides
I live 2hrs from Canada's Wonderland so I love to see videos about it.
The other major issue is that this coaster has absolutely no storage on the platform for guests, unlike every other coaster in the park. They force you to rent a locker if you have anything larger than a purse or small messenger bag. If you don't want to spend money to wait in line, then no ride for you.
I really don’t like the line for this one
Yeah. I've had friends tell me that they just hide their stuff in the bushes wen they enter the que
You just described about every new ride at Universal Studios Hollywood/Florida when it comes to having to put all your stuff in a locker. My understanding is that The Hulk coaster in Florida NOW has a similar rule, not to mention all of the attractions at Harry Potter land. I know it's sacrilege to mention Canada's Wonderland and Universal or Disney in the same paragraph, but you get my drift.
My wife doesn't really like the rides so the becomes the "Pack Mule" when I go on this with our son or other family members.
@@Mrtfarrugia My wife regards Wonderland days as "Father/Daughter Days" so we don't have the benefits of a bag monitor unfortunately (She might get on me for a 'pack mule' reference so I'll save myself some strife there!)
Wonderland has a lot of Draconian rules when it comes to on ride baggage and camera usage too so it is a bit of a pain. Wonderland actually prevents people from filming on the Carousel...YEP you heard that right. They also have a "Flying Dumbos" like ride that they enforce using a seat belt on. Disney doesn't have seat belts on Dumbo or Aladdin's Flying Carpets, and if there was an organization that knows about liability and safety, it's Disney so this is always a sticking point with me.
All original opening Wonderland coasters now have lap bars AND seat belts now. They didn't through the early years and under Paramount's ownership. I'm fine with either/or but why totally kill a wooden coaster with both? On Thunder Run too, which is one of the most docile coasters in the park. Choo Choo!
6:50 did anyone else pump the brakes when they saw “Rock Band LIVE?” When’s the episode on *that*?
😂
So glad I wasn't the only one noticing!
Thank you SO much for covering something exclusive to Canada's Wonderland! I feel like our park gets shafted the most in King's Island discussions, and it really made my day to see this in my inbox!
Hope you enjoy! As someone who lived in Toronto I’m a fan of the park
@@ExpeditionThemePark Funny enough, I've never actually been on the Guardian! Hopefully after this chaos is all over, I can give it a try. Thanks for the reply! :)
The guns are actually infrared cameras. If you look at on ride videos you'll see little red dots. These are little tracker dots for the cameras. A "light gun" would be something like what MiB or Buzz Light-year is.
Maybe the name is misleading, but the guns actually being cameras lines up perfectly with the original light guns like the NES zapper.
Oh man, I await to see how Knott's Bear-y Tales will turn out since things have long changed since this ride.
Going to be interesting for sure
I'd say I'm Bear-y interested to see how this one plays out... 😂
This attraction could have been next level with an animatronic dragon
Would be amazing
The matanace of it would be crazy, I mean look at the yeti at Disney
The thing is the removed the dragon from Thunder Run after they opened this ride. So it made that ride suck now cause there's nothing really to see on it.
@@Mrtfarrugia No they didn't. I went on Thunder Run in October of 2019 and the dragon was still there.
As someone who really loves theme park theming and would really love to see more in Canada's Wonderland, Guardian was a major disappointment to me. It's so short for the time you wait on it, the guns never seem to work, the story is hard to hear, both in the que line and on the ride itself, and it's overall not worth the trouble of having to rent a locker for your items. The most it really has going for it is that final drop, but after that takes you by surprise once it never will again. Is it the worst Canada's Wonderland ride? No, but it's really mediocre to the point it doesn't leave much of an impression. At least bad rides stick with you.
I agree
The CGI has not aged well either. The old mine themed coaster that used to run in the mountain was better.
@@melissaharris3389 Thunder run? That's still running if so, and I agree. Both of Wonder mountain's other coasters feel way more fun and make it feel like you're really around the mountain better.
I've ridden it before not knowing what to expect what I didn't expect was it just being a mediocre interactive ride game which isn't what I go to theme parks for
When I rode this, I appreciated everything that went on INSIDE the mountain, but what you see on the OUTSIDE amounts to a huge bait and switch, and that made Guardian very disappointing to me, because I expected a coaster, and got a dark ride shoot 'em up instead.
At the end of the day, for my daughter and I, the ride was technically impressive, but it wasn't worth the wait time.
Finally, a big THANK YOU for featuring Canada's Wonderland, a park that is near and dear to my heart.
Thank you so much for watching!
I think building it up as a coaster and delivering not a coaster guarantees disappointment.
I'll give the park credit for trying something novel though.
Loved having Canada’s Wonderland represented on your channel! Love to see more!
whoa talk about a lost memory... I remember loving the commercial with the knights but has since long forgotten it till now xD
Offhand Disney did a video a year or so ago detailing his ideal Disney park. Would you consider doing something similar? Designing your ideal theme park? It’s a super interesting topic that not many people have covered !
Maybe one day but prob not something i would do anytime soon!
@@ExpeditionThemePark I would love to hear your “dream park”
Any excuse to use the 13 news report and that yell. XD
😂😂
Made me smile to see Canada’s Wonderland in one of these videos. It was my closest amusement park growing up. I even worked there one summer as a performer. This ride is fun, but it always takes ten million years to get on. Even when the line is short!
Love wonderland!
I love videos about weird rides/attractions! I think this beats Dragon Mountain at Marineland by a longshot
Haha I will do that soon too!
Would love to see more Canada’s Wonderland content! You did a great job on this.
Oh hey neat, I was in this video!
Also... Yeah, it was very short, but it was so much fun. It was really weird- We were there for our own special event (I think my club's anniversary?) and it just so happened to fall on opening day.
Eventually we got tired of waiting and we wound up going on it at the end of the day, which was really great!
Then again, I'm probably biased because as much as you say it's "Weird" and "not good", it's the best we have in Canada.
Lagoon in Utah is supposedly getting something like this later, which I’m excited for because it’s my home park and it combines two things I love about theme parks, those being dark rides and roller coasters!
Primordial, supposed to open next year hopefully
600 riders per hour?!?! That’s worse than all of the Fantasyland dark rides!!!
Pretty low
It doesn't seem like it would be a stretch to remove the "roller coaster" and use VR ride tech.
I work with VR at home and honestly? It's a really good experience!! (Oculus and PS4 VR) you can add physical elements like little fans and Dolby Digital speakers to enhance it. Much cheaper and far more reliable honestly. Also you don't need a lot of space.
More like 600 rides per day or two
This has me excited for the new coaster coming to Lagoon that's similar to this.
Thankfully, it will feature more coaster elements.
Bro Sammmee
Thanks for this. I’ve been on it a few times. Seems out of place at Wonderland for sure. To be honest I didn’t even knew it existed bc it was never really promoted. Thanks for this video! As always...awesome job!
Thanks for watching !
Hey! I just wanted to let you know how appreciative I am of your channel as a whole.
After watching your videos for a few years, they’ve influenced me to go into the field of engineering and possibly even roller coaster design.
So yes, your videos have basically influenced me so much that I figured out what I wanted to do in life because of them XD
(Also, good video as always! I live for dark rides ^^)
That is awesome! remember me when you make some amazing stuff
Hey, do you think you could do an expedition on A Day in the Park with Barney at Universal Studios Florida? They closed it this year and I’m not really happy about it.
Yes I will for sure
Yes, I would love to see more videos on Canada's Wonderland.
Would love to see more Canada's Wonderland videos as I just live down the road from the park :)
Good to hear!
The 3D, guns, and scoring system has been broken on this ride for years and its still one of the longest lines in the park. I don't get it.
It’s the capacity really
A similar scene at 15:50 on the Halloween version of this ride was used on a 2016 attraction they made called “Zombie Attack”. Consider that 2016 ride a longer version of the Halloween version. Both use the same score system. Both are zombie based. Basically take the blasters from the coaster and put them on the seats of the “Wild West Coaster” (also made by the same company) in the Great Canadian Midway (The arcade on Clifton Hill) and you made a new ride. Both of these rides are in Niagara Falls, Canada.
No one ever covers Canada's Wonderland, please do more!
As for the ride, I've visited CW every year before and after the ride opened and have only ridden it twice, the wait line is just wayyyyyyy too long but when I do go on it is a fun ride. The first time we went on in opening year we didn't know about the drop, lets just say it was quite surprising
I’d love to see more videos on Wonderland, especially something covering its wooden roller coasters.
Okay!
Canada needs more amusement parks, theme parks, aquariums, And zoos that stand out
Marineland is supposed to be expanding.
Same with Colorado
Canada really needs any type of tourist attraction aside from "places seen in Scott Pilgrim that still exist today"
Just want to say love this channel! As a former Disney Cast Member and now Universal Orlando Team Member (thanks COVID 🥺), I know a lot about the parks, but love learning about other parks and their attractions, both domestic and international. Your HHN history videos were my study tools when I was preparing to train for HHN29. Keep up the amazing work and thank you for your dedication!
I love the end of this coaster / the overall experience is pretty great thanks for covering wonderland it has a lot of cool history and rides !
How to make it instantly better: animatronic dragon, another coaster section after the drop, being able to see your score as you're riding.
Yeppppp
The last time I was this early, Dragon Challenge still existed
Ha poor DC
8:29 happy for her
Ahah was waiting for this
I like the idea of combining a coaster with a virtual shooting gallery, but I feel like the concept could be done better using modern technology. Imagine a Star Fox ride with each car resembling the inside of an Arwing and each of the windows replaced with lightweight LCD panels, or a VR flying coaster based on NiGHTS: Into Dreams/Journey of Dreams!
The ride shut down when my train was stopped before the drop. It got spoiled for me when an attendant warned us we were gonna fall when they started it back up. It was still a really memorable time though.
Oh wow haha
Went to wonderland around 1994-5ish? Rode the Vortex, was amazing! Smooth and fast... First time on a suspended rollercoaster... Good one to cover if talking about the mountain coasters. Love the channel, thank you!
Love Vortex!
Would love to see more canadas wonderland videos I grew up in Toronto and going to that theme park every summer thanks for the awesome contenr
This is so interesting! I would love to ride this. I really like when videogames mix with rides
A fun time!
I visited Canada's Wonderland in 1988 and I remember riding Thunder Run SO many times that day. It was such a fun but odd little ride. I thought it was so cool to be riding through the mountain (kinda like Big Thunder at Disney, but not really).
It is cool!
I had no idea they had theme parks in Canada except for the one in the mall! I really enjoyed this!
They do!
Please do more Canada’s Wonderland videos! I grew up on this park!
okay!
Wonderland is my home park and my family rode Guardian right when it opened. We’re big coaster people but wanted to give this one a chance. I don’t remember much of my actual ride experience, other than being taken aback when the drop happened. As far as I know none of my family has even been back on it, for 2 reasons. The stupidly long wait time, and the stupid lockers. My brothers would wait 4 hours or more for Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, and that’s a 30 second ride, but won’t wait more than 30 minutes for Guardian, that should tell you everything.
Primordial at lagoon opened just recently on September 15th and its pretty similar to wonder mountains guardian but it’s a whole lot better. it has interactive screens, a small helix that you go backwards through inside the mountain and at the end it has two drop towers that each have their own ending right before the drop, it also has a switch track inside the mountain that chooses which drop tower to send you down. And it has blasters that are mounted onto the ride restraints and the seats rotate to face the interactive parts
This is on the right path for the type of ride I've always thought would be PERFECT for a Metroid ride at Super Nintendo World! Obviously, they should just focus on fixing any technical issues that may come with it, find a better balance between roller coaster and dark ride, and *hopefully* feature animatronics instead of (or at least more primarily than) screens.
Hope to see a more fleshed out version
The ride reminds me of the old short rollercoaster at Joypolis in Tokyo, Japan that had the whole 3D shooting game and the part where the the ride goes out. It didn’t have the big drop but yea this game/coaster is almost like that ride, if anyone has ever ridden that one before.
I forgot about that one!
Yea, over the years the ride has changed to different themes and they even took out the game part element or the part that the coaster goes outside. Not sure what the theme is now or if it’s still operational due to lockdown.
I’ve been to Canada’s Wonderland countless times but we never bothered doing the line for this ride, defs gonna have to give it a ride when our province opens up finally and we can get to Wonderland again!!!!
I remember being so excited for this. I had ridden the Transformers darkride a few months earlier and had expected something similar. After being in line and hyping up my siblings for two hours, we sat in the dark and was suddenly dropped into the end.
It is the worst ride at Wonderland.
Yeah it isn’t great
@@ExpeditionThemePark Pour one out for my darkride loving heart. 💔At least we got Yukon Striker.
Yesss! More Canada's Wonderland content 😍
Okay
@@ExpeditionThemePark Canada's wonderland is my home park. (Darien Lake is closer, but it's trash) So, Wonderland, it is!
If they would update the projectors and maybe add more practical effects/scenery, this ride could be pretty cool. You're right though. Every time I get off this thing, I just feel "meh".
@@theprinceofdrummers I recently lived in Toronto for 2 years
@@ExpeditionThemePark I heard that in one of your videos along the way! I love Toronto so so much. I'm in Buffalo, just a short 80ish minute drive up to Toronto for me. Just moved back here after 14 years in Las Vegas!
I rode this the summer it opened. It really is a weird ride! Great video, as usual!
Thank you!
I’ve gone on this ride every years since opening, and every year it becomes more and more clear that they did not create this ride with longevity in mind. The guns no longer work as intended (sometimes stop working mid ride, etc), it goes down at least twice a day because of some sort of issue with the ride, and they no longer play the video with the lore in the waiting area. I went on after it had been fixed and the final screen was being projected wrong (the dragons head was not connected to its butt). It’s a shame because I was in middle school when the ride first opened and it was one of my favourites, but now it’s underwhelming if not disappointing
When’s the history of the Alton Towers Dungeon coming out? Just really want to know cause I cant wait!
I’m taking a break from Alton Towers Expeditions at the moment but I will do it
That will be fun because I work in the Alton Towers Dungeons 😊
@@ExpeditionThemePark worth mentioning with the dungeon that the highwayman segment is taken from York with dick Turpin and the boat ride is from sawney bean in Edinburgh
Great, a ferocious dragon, and no Donkey to seduce it for us!
Exactly
I would love to visit canadas wonderland one day, the rides look so exciting to me! Ive never really been on many rides outside the UK, and even then ive only been to pleasure beach and alton towers. My time at busch gardens tampa was incredible and it got me hooked on the larger, more intense american style roller coasters
I have only been on it once but I really enjoyed this ride when I took it in 2019. It had been down most of the day and I was the second ride cycle through after it reopened. I am not a big thrill seeker, and the surprise ending scared me in a way that I still felt safe while getting a little adrenaline rush.
Yeah good fit then!
Ohhh so it's the Buzz Lightyear shooting ride + Verbolten + Beastlie Kingdomme's Dragon Tower
NIIIIIIIIIIICE. 🦇🎢 ❤
Yepppp
Great video as usual! I never had rode this ride. I absolutely love that initiative to go for dark thrill ride. I feel smaller budget parks not Disney or universal are criminally lacked of dark rides. But I understand why. Flight of fear and those type of primer rides at other cedar fair rides do a great for a boxed spaghetti bowl. But that’s just that a boxed coaster. It’s very hard to tell a story at a fast pace and make it thrilling and keep a small budget. And I’m not a huge fan of shooter rides ala MIB , buzz light year , justice league ( although I feel this ride fills a great need for a lot of six flags parks for theming and family with animatronics) . But I’m general they just don’t appeal to me. In my opinion the pinnacle of dark rides / coaster is Revenge of the mummy at universal Orlando. That ride blends it all so great. One of the biggest dark rides disappointments for me was the dark knight coaster at six flags great adventure. One of my missed dark rides I never got to ride and is gone is the Gremlin ride at movie world Australia/ Germany ( but that was just a themed dark ride) there are just few great thrilling / coaster dark rides in my opinion and I’d love to see many more of them. I love the drop track part of this ride though and if I’m up at this park for sure will check it out. ( sorry this comment is long af)
More Canada's Wonderland please!!
Okay!
Wonderland is my home park. This ride is definitely weird. It you want to make it more fun take a friend on who’s never been. Don’t tell them about the drop track at the end. That’s what I did lol.
It’s cool to know the history behind it though. Wonderland is an interesting park and Cedar Fair definitely likes to experiment with it.
That’s what I was like when I went on it
I remember attending the Breakfast Television announcement in 2013! If you go back to that footage, you an sort of see my friend and I standing near Snoopy. I enjoyed the ride at first, and I have to commend it for what it was. This ride came before Six Flags made all the Justice League rides, so it was a great first step for major dark rides at a regional park. I'm a huge fan of the drop-track at the end, but I was always so disappointed that there wasn't more coaster elements within the mountain. Again, they did what they could with the space. I think my biggest disappointment is the lack of immersion, especially when you ride on the backwards-facing seats. The transitions on the continuous screen are good (you got a good sense of the illusion of vertical movement when you dipped into the lake or down a staircase), but on both sides, it was obvious you were looking at a giant screen. Even when you first enter the mountain, the screens aren't even on for the first few seconds.
For the past few years, a lot of the guns haven't been working. They seemed to fix the issue towards the end of 2019, but they removed the glasses and turned off the 3D effects. I think the ride is still salvageable, but it needs a lot of TLC and a better, clearer storyline.
I have never been on it but it’s interesting idea though I do think the limit of the budget is one of the many issues. Though I wish more theme parks would try to do a dark ride as I love them
Me too!
The park was once called Paramount Canada's wonderland and had Parmonunt owned properties themed character rides like Hanabarbara land with Yogi bear and ScobyDoo and a TopGun coaster. The mountain was called Paramount Mountain on park maps until Paramount sold the park to Cerderfair
More videos on Canada's Wonderland, please!
That looks like a real fun ride.
love itt!!!! iv been there 100 times but not in the last 10 years i had no idea they made a new ride there
Time to go again!
More Canada’s Wonderland videos please!!
They also removed the 3D part in the 2019 season so it was just looking at screens and it felt much more like a warehouse from that point forward.
Can you please keep that Alton Towers Thirteen joke in for every video in the future? I love it whenever that clip starts to play
Would you ever do an Expedition on Pleasure Beach’s sister parks such as Frontierland Morecambe? Love your channel by the way!
Yes I will !
What a great video dude! It actually looks like a lot of fun! I'm also confused by the coaster bit. Very low capacity. Btw... When are you going to do that awesome Vekoma Boomerang story? I can't wait!😀
Thank you!!
i would love to see more from my home park of Canada's Wonderland maybe the history of Frontier Canada my guess.
You should cover the history of the 39-year old Darien Lake Viper - the first full circuit roller coaster to feature five loops or at least the 'Loop Wars' which preceded the height wars of the 1990s. To this day, the Darien Lake Viper contains one of the most unique arrow looping elements - the Batwing. The Carolina Cyclone (4) had the Loop Record '80 - '81, Viper (5) had it '82 - '86, then Kings Island Vortex (6) had it in just 1987, then Shockwave (7) at 6 Flags Great America the following year. The height wars started a year later...
I will do something on Darien in the future
I'd love to see a video on Ontario Place! Went back in the early 90s and again in the mid 2000s
Working on it :)
I can see why they chose to go with the same theme as the dragon to tie into thunder run. The best part of that coaster. Miss the path up to the top of the mountain thought.
Oh hey Triotech. Great people!! I work with em every day!
They need dark rides at these parks for the adults and small children. My dad wont go to cedar point anymore because they made all the coaster seats super small and hes a bigger guy. Also most of the coasters he doesnt even want to ride because of his back. They need to put somthing that adults can enjoy.
They also have shortened all the seat belts on most of the coasters this past off season and didn’t change any of them on any of the test seats.
HOLY SHIT! I DESIGNED A SHIRT FOR THE VORTEX! I have no idea if it ever got sold in the park, and I never got one, but I wanted my shirt so bad.
I want one!
@@ExpeditionThemePark My new logo for it was so badass! I added a vortex shape underneath and the letters swirled into it. I took the overhead bobsled swing track and put the mountain in the background and the water flying up in the foreground. If anyone finds one out in the wild, I want one too.
My video was featured in this video. Amazing!
As always another fantastic video
Thank you
I agree that the ride could have benefitted with some more rollercoaster type elements in-between the interactive portions. I assume there just wasn't the space inside the mountain. What they could do to improve/refurbish the ride now if they wanted, in my opinion, is replace the screens with brighter and sharper 4k projectors, upgrade the coaster trains with VR motion seats that tilt and move like rides like Spiderman at Universal Studios, and replace the videos with updated CGI, and maybe make it 3d with 3d glasses. I think that would do a lot to make the experience much more fun and immersive.
I never rode Voyage To The Iron Reef, but Knott's Bear-y Tales is unBEARable.
Awesome video, and an intriguing conceot! Though, mind if I ask if we'll see other interesting dark ride entries? Would love to see your take on Maus Au Chocolat at Phantasialand and the classic Duel at Alton Towers!
Thank you and yes!
I'd want an Expedition Canada's Wonderland on Leviathan, the first-ever B&M Giga, which helped create one of the greatest coasters in the world; Fury 325.
A great change of pace is a "good" dark ride at an amusement or themed park. It creates a good balance and If done right can have a "fan following" You know the ones. Pirates, Monster Plantation, Knott's Beary Tales. Well, at least they tried!??! LOL! This one didn't even make it to the re-do stage, like Spee Lunkers Cave or Tales of Okee Fenokee turned Monster Plantation.
I was literally waiting for you to use that 13 clip 🤣
You know me well!
😂
I worked at Triotech's Ninjago ride for a few years and we ALWAYS talked about wanting a halloween overlay. Its cool they did it with this ride! Jealous!
Would be cool!
The commercial they used is at Knotts Berry Farm
Honestly that clip of the reporter on Thirteen needs to somehow be in every video. What a classic.
Anytime I can
Yay u uploaded! :D
Btw when can u do Expedition on LEGOLAND (preferably Windsor)? Because I love that
Not sure when yet but it’s in the plans
@@ExpeditionThemePark yaaaaaay!!! Will it be the whole park or the Dragon or something?