Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts…Farmingdale’s Adventureland amusement park is going to be hitting a little Turbulence.
Turbulence, a new $5 million roller coaster, opened to the public on Memorial Day Weekend. It replaced the park’s long-standing Hurricane roller coaster, which had previously occupied Adventureland for 22 years.
Turbulence is indeed a grand sight to behold; a 55 foot-high criss-cross of green and yellow metal. Comprised of three banking turns and one immelmann turn, the coaster is designed to give the impression of a ride that is faster than it really is.
According to Adventureland co-owner Steven Gentile, the ride is more accessible to the general public. “We felt it was time for Adventureland and Long Island to have something special, and I think that we delivered that with Turbulence. We are very excited,” he said. “During the design phase, we wanted more family members to be able to experience a roller coaster together. It has a total speed of 45 miles per hour, but the idea behind Turbulence is that you’re getting a different ride experience every time.”
Indeed, Turbulence utilizes a unique gimmick that ensures that Gentile’s statement regarding “a different experience every time” is anything but idle boasting.
“The unique part of the ride is that each car is spinning independently of each other, and how they spin is different each time depending on who is sitting in the car and how much they weigh,” Gentile said. “There are three cars per train, and there are two trains, each weighing five tons. We have 1,210 feet of track—about 200 feet short of the Hurricane—but you get a better ride with 1,210 feet.”
Turbulence has been a two-and-a-half year project; while doing their homework, Gentile and other Adventureland staff traveled to California to examine a roller coaster very similar to the one they would eventually adopt for themselves. After that, it was time to travel all the way to Germany to consult with the manufacturer and get the ball rolling.
“We went to see it, we rode it, we experienced it, and that was pretty much a convincing factor for us,” he said. “We then made our trip to Germany to the Mack Rides Company and we saw the construction of our particular roller coaster. We were very happy with what we saw, and it was a really great experience.”
After construction of Turbulence was completed, the individual pieces were shipped over to the United States, where they were assembled in Adventureland under Mack supervision. However,
before that could happen, Gentile noted that there was one important piece of business that needed to be taken care of first; the disassembly of the Hurricane. Once that was completed, construction of Turbulence began in earnest, despite some opposition from mother nature.
“We started to take down the coaster Hurricane on Columbus Day weekend in 2014, and we proceeded on building Turbulence up to May 18,” he said. “We had a very tough winter. It was very brutal and that did hold things up a bit. We were supposed to be open six weeks ago, but we got through it. Overall time of completion was still rather quick considering how much we had to do.”
Adventureland hosted a special press-only preview of Turbulence on Monday, May 18, and while members of the media were not allowed to ride the roller coaster at that time, several members of the park’s young staff members took a test spin. Christina Merrill of Levittown said, it was a one-of-a-kind experience.
“It was awesome…I usually don’t like rides, but that was a lot of fun,” she said. “This was kind of scary, but fun, if that makes sense. It’s a really smooth ride, and I usually get dizzy easily, but I didn’t get dizzy at all. It’s such a cool ride.”
Anthony Pelliccia of Hicksville agreed, adding that Turbulence’s spinning feature really added an element not usually found in your average theme park ride.
“It was amazing…the constant spinning makes it a different ride each and every time,” he said. “It’s a very unique, very smooth ride. It’s just an amazingly good ride. I would totally go on it again and again.”
Adventureland is located at 2245 NY-110 in Farmingdale. For details, visit www.adventureland.us.
