Photos Courtesy of John Gray
Influential Coasters of My Childhood is an ongoing series on We Were Inverted showcasing the rides I grew up enjoying in the 1980’s & 90’s. Some of these rides sadly no longer exist and some are far from what I would deem as a “good” coaster nowadays. Nevertheless, these are the coasters that hold a special place among my memories and helped make me the enthusiast that I am today.
Just two days after riding my then-favorite roller coaster in 1991, Kings Dominion’s Anaconda, I experienced two more coasters worthy of being featured in this series. Both Loch Ness Monster and Big Bad Wolf from Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW) joined the Pantheon (pun intended) of some of my favorite coasters at the time. While Loch Ness still stands today, I am leaving that for a future installment in the series. In this entry, I want to focus upon the Big Bad Wolf, an Arrow Suspended Coaster that gave its last rides in 2009. That’s going to make for an interesting “Modern Take” follow up, but I’ll tackle that problem over the next few days.
I sure do miss 80’s commercials, like this one for Big Bad Wolf.
Hearing of the Legend
While I had visited Kings Dominion with my Aunt Cheryl in the mid-80’s, BGW was entirely new to me. It was my neighbor, Andrea, who first told me about this legendary coaster. According to her, Big Bad Wolf hung underneath of the track.
“Wait? What?” I’m sure I asked her at the time.
She wasn’t lying either. She had some photos to prove it. At that time, there was no internet and commercials like the one above for the ride weren’t playing all the way up in the Baltimore region. Well, if they were, I never saw it. I just remember listening to Andrea tell me how the coaster hung underneath the track, went through a town, and then zipped across the water. It sounded legendary.
It took my family a year or two after hearing Andrea’s stories for me to go to BGW for the first time. It happened during the same trip when we visited Kings Dominion for my first rides on Anaconda. I spoke of that experience in the first installment of this series, “Influential Coasters of My Childhood – Anaconda.” Now it’s time to share with you my first experience at BGW riding the Big Bad Wolf.
The Fog Before the Queue
Unlike the day I experienced Anaconda, I can’t remember much of anything prior to getting into the line for Big Bad Wolf. It’s like everything was a fog. I know we approached the ride coming from down from the Festhaus in Germany. I know we didn’t walk over the bridge until after our first ride. That I do know.
My memories pick up with us walking into the queue, much like the people in John Gray’s photo above. There were met with what was probably a 30-40 minute wait. While waiting, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the swaying trains returning to the station. It just looked so different and those trains appeared to be hauling when they returned. I know they weren’t, now that I’m older, but as a kid, they sure looked like it. I couldn’t wait for my turn.
Taking Our Unusual Seats
Eventually after weaving through the queue, I climbed into the weird train with my dad. My mom sat with my brother, Brian, right behind us. I looked around and just studied everything. The polls holding us to the train above, the bright red track, the black pouches above each train, and the ride operators sitting above the track. That was neat. They had their own little room up there. I couldn’t recall anything like that with any other coaster I had ridden up to that point. I was a sponge, taking in everything around me.
Then, it was time…
A 2009 POV video of Big Bad Wolf from the YouTube channel, CoasterForce.
Experiencing the Legend for Myself
Pulling Out of the Station
Once our train made its way out of the station into that first turn, it felt like the ground was a mile below us. Again, I was a kid and this experience was just larger than life. Nevertheless, I was trying to take in everything even so early in the ride.
I had no idea what was coming and how much more amazing my ride was about to become. I hadn’t seen anything yet. Just a bunch of trees and bushes way down below and I was already wowed.
The First Lift
Once the train came out of the turn, we began climbing the first lift hill. “This thing is going to go higher?” I thought to myself. I tried so hard to peek up and see what was ahead with no avail. Those trains didn’t leave much of forward view, especially for my 12 year old self. Then however, I saw it.
The Village
Andrea had told me all about this part of the ride. Leaving the lift hill, our train began buzzing past house after house throughout a village. The carts swayed up and down as we banked left and right. It felt like we were coming so close to the structures.
Little did I know, back then, the level of theming this ride would feature. I was used to coasters like Anaconda and Rebel Yell at Kings Dominion, or SooperDooperLooper and Comet at Hersheypark. Sure, they were awesome rides, but let’s be honest though. None of them feature a freaking village!
I’d venture to say Big Bad Wolf was my first true thrill coaster with theming. Outside of Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in 1989, I had never seen a thrill coaster given that much detail. While still not on the level of those two Disney coasters, I always considered them of the family variety. I preferred the larger, more thrilling coasters such as Big Bad Wolf and Loch Ness Monster.
The Second Lift & Iconic Drop
It felt like Big Bad Wolf flew around the village forever, but eventually we escaped. That’s when the coaster began climbing again! I couldn’t believe we were about to go even higher. Little did I know, we were approaching that over the water element Andrea had described to me.
The train made a slight turn and that’s when I saw the track above me bending down toward the ground. I grabbed my restraints and the coaster plunged down, swaying up over the Rhine River below. I was in awe. It felt like I could have stuck my hand out and touched the water. I tried my best to take it all in, but it was all over so quick. Nevertheless, it was pretty cool and an amazing way to wrap up an already memorable ride.
We made a few more swaying turns, wrapping up our ride right where I began this memorable ride just 40 minutes ago. This time, however, those people were watching me. I wonder if there were any other first time riders waiting in line just like I was, who saw my train come swaying back into the station?
Enjoying that Finale Again and Again
My first ride was over. We climbed out of our seats and left the station. This was when I was I got to admire the infamous view of Big Bad Wolf dropping over the river from the near by bridge. We sat there for a good 5-10 minutes just watching train after train take that drop. All I knew was that we were going to ride Big Bad Wolf again and I couldn’t wait. However, it was now time to go ride that yellow one that had those locking loops Andrea told me about. She said that one went down over the river too. I couldn’t wait, but for that’s a story for another time, another installment.
Over the course of this first visit, we took two more rides on Big Bad Wolf. We ended up riding Loch Ness Monster three times too. While neither of them could dethrone Anaconda as my favorite, I knew it was going to be my turn to tell the legend of these two coasters to all my friends.
