Rode Finnegan’s yesterday. Great experience, lots of fun. The ride itself is terrific - I boarded facing the queue and really enjoyed staring down at the water from the height of the back swing. Restraints are interesting with their two degrees of freedom, one rotary and the other translational. My first Screaming Swing.
The automated queue line spiel was aggravating to many in line, since it repeats immediately and you never get a break from it. Surely that goes away with time.
...So. Finally seeing the vista in person from the bridge -- the area under the ride looks terrible, and I’m not sure what would really remediate it visually, absent a substantial do-over of the gravel surrounding the small stagnant-looking pond. Plantings uphill from the water will make those areas look nicer once they fill in, and it looks like the park has done some of that already. But the bulk of the area, framed by a gravel service access and the huge air tank not-hidden beneath the platform, is pretty sad.
I caught myself thinking, “Maybe I’m just being too harsh here. Aside from the willow that came out, was it really that nice?” If you find yourself in danger of falling for the same self-doubt, do what I did: just stroll over to the other railing of the bridge, ignore the fountain (‘cuz that’s a bit unfair), and dare yourself not to marvel at how beautiful it looks down there when there are lush plants and trees in abundance.
Now cross back over to the Flyer side and behold the gravel pond once more. Doubt, be gone!
Other BGW rides really raked a hillside or valley clean, and then saw it grow back nicely. I don’t think people tend to appreciate how bare Alpengeist’s surroundings looked when it first went in. Verbolten has been growing in better than I initially expected. These things take years, of course. But they happen. By contrast, I don’t see how the Ireland bridge vista will have any chance to do the same, absent some major improvements down in that little ravine. The current treatment seems purposely designed to prevent regrowth from occurring in the first place.
