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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
An official from Memphis, the home of the original Zippin Pippin also said a few words, thanked Green Bay for keeping the Zippin Pippin alive and told them to cherish the roller coaster and Bay Beach. The city of Memphis used to have a family friendly amusement park named Libertyland that was closed in 2005.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
Then there was a ribbon cutting ceremony and the first riders were allowed into the ride.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
Before these riders were allowed onto the coaster they did two empty train test runs.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
This got the crowd excited, everyone applauded and cheered as the trains completed their circuits.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
From our vantage point in line I was able to capture some footage of the first ride, click on the embedded video below to see it.
The first ride was followed by a second train full of special guests, I'm assuming they were some of the donors to the project but I don't know for sure. I snapped this picture as the train was heading to the out and back just above the entrance and the rides sign.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
While waiting in line our local ABC affiliate briefly interviewed my son Ryan and he was on the local news, you can see his quote here. It was great to see all of the people young and old enjoying the coaster this morning. I spoke to some small children barely tall enough to ride who loved the ride and also saw a couple probably in their sixties riding with their arms up. This truly is a perfect coaster for Bay Beach and anyone who meets the requirements and wants to ride it can.
About 9:30am they opened the ride to the first paying customers. We were among the 30 people to be on the first train full of paying customers. Lines stayed reasonable through the first couple hours of the morning so we rode the coaster 5 times. Twice in the middle (early in the day they were filling the trains front to back), once in the front seat, and twice in the back car. I'm happy to report all areas of the train give a great ride and good airtime, although the back is the most fun in my opinion.
This coaster really is all about the air time, every hill on the out and back in any section of the train lifts you up out of your seat and against the seat belt and lap bar. If you look at the panorama below you can see after the drop off of turn 3 the hills are quite a bit shorter than that first drop after turn three which creates a lot of momentum and speed as you crest these camel back hills. For reference the drop after turn three is on the far right of the picture with the camel backs following it as you move from right to left.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
My seven year old daughter and I ended up in the front car for our third ride, we took the opportunity to get a POV video.
Some other random pictures of the morning's fun are below.
Waiting in line near the base of the loading platform.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
My son and daughter waiting at the gates for one of their five rides of the morning.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
My seven year old daughter and I at the loading gates waiting for one of our five rides of the morning.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
A train being loaded up for a ride.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
My son and daughter sitting in one of the original Zippin Pippin cars.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
The souvenir stand by the ticket booth.
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| From Zippin Pippin Construction Album #2 |
As we were entering the loading platform for our final ride of the morning I asked the person taking tickets and counting riders with a clicker what the counter was at, she said 720, this is after approximately two hours of riding. Obviously this is the first day and crowds may have been larger than average but 200,000 paying riders doesn't seem out of the question with approximately 100 operating days a season.
We finished off our visit with some turns on some of Bay Beach's classic rides include the swings, the Scrambler, the Tilt-A-Whirls and the giant slide. As we got back in our car and rolled down the windows the roar of the coaster along with the screams of excitement poured into the car. My daughter Karlie commented that it was unbelievable that this was happening in Green Bay and I have to say it does seem too good to be true. Thank you Mayor Schmitt for having the vision to bring this gem to the citizens of Green Bay and any people visiting from out of town. As the Mayor said this morning, this ride will outlive all of us!
