Ride Check Special - 10 Years El Toro - Anniversary @ Amusement Park Plohn

This blog is a transcript from my review video of this new rollercoaster. If you don't want to read, but want to see a motion picture, you can scroll to the end of this article. But you'll miss some nice pics :-).

Introduction:

In 2019 the amusement park Plohn has not only to celebrate the grand opening of the new Dynamite roller coaster. Also another big roller coaster celebrates its anniversary. Exactly ten years before Dynamite, El Toro was the first bigger roller coaster to enter the small theme park and was also the first wooden coaster build by Great Coasters International in Germany.

El Toro – A Classic Rollercoaster:

I will gladly take this as an opportunity to deliver a Ride Check Special. El Toro still deserves attention and has lost absolutely none of its qualities, even after 10 years. Before we go into detail, as always, we take a quick look at the data sheet.

Before we can go on the wild ride over the 725 meters long track, we are brought to a height of 24.5 meters by a chain lift. The following descent goes down 21.5 meters and accelerates the Millenium Flyer train, which holds 24 people in 12 rows, to almost 75 kilometers per hour. What follows is a wild course through tunnels and curves.

The Theme:

In the case of El Toro, when we talk about themeing of the ride away from the logo or lettering, then it concentrates basically on embedding the coaster in the surroundings of the park. There is no real theme or story, but it hardly needs it anyway.

Even the short waiting zone simply runs straight along the station exit of the roller coaster. This gives some interaction, but is nothing worth mentioning. Much more important and absolutely successful is the integration of the ride into the park. El Toro plays here strongly with the already existing Log Flume ride and leads the track in two tunnels underneath it. In the further course it goes through a lot of green and the wooden roller coaster looks almost like poured into the park.

At this point it doesn't bother any more that the ride hasn't been given a more elaborate theme.

The Layout:

After the station exit follows a small pre-drop to enter the lift chain with some momentum. This takes us straight up to the almost 25 meters before the track bends down to the ground. The First Drop starts straight, but goes quickly into a right turn over directly down into the first tunnel which follows a slight turn to the left . In a short airtime moment the train leans to the right again to make a wide curve over a lake.

Another short airtime turn follows and brings us with a slight turn to the left back through the second tunnel into another left turn which leads us parallel to the lift hill into three airtime hills.

The third of these airtime hills leads us slightly to the left and then directly back to the right. A climb at the same time leads us into a wide panorama curve which descends us in a drop past the photo point.

We continue through another long right turn to ascend in two more airtime moments, thus the figure-eight section is finished and only one more wide right turn follows into the final brake which is placed just straight in the back of the station.

The wild ride on the bull is finished.

The Ride Experience:

El Toro is undoubtedly a typical GCI fun machine from start to finish, despite its smaller size.
It starts with the comfortable, very soft padded leather sofas of the Millenium Flyer trains, continues with the typically wild and yet harmoniously tuned ride through the slanted transitions of the curves and inclines, to the pleasant "Shake, Rattle'n Roll" that many love so much on wooden coasters. Of course, such a wooden construction rides completely different from a steel roller coaster, but the engineers at Great Coasters International almost always find a great balance between all the elements that make a wooden roller coaster good. Short crisp airtime alternates with wild changes of direction and sudden drops.

El Toro places a lot of emphasis on suitability for a wide audience and also manages to entertain those passengers who want a bit more action. You don't notice the ten years of operation of the ride at all and the more experienced look reveals that the park cares for the ride with a lot of love and is immediately on the spot, even if only one beam could be renewed. El Toro is still an experience not to be missed and the high quality standards have been maintained to this day.

Conclusion:

El Toro is a fun machine for everyone beginning from the age of six years. Between the ages of six and eight, however, an adult must accompany them on their journey. From the age of nine and a minimum height of 1.20 metres, the ride on the bull can be experienced alone. Not without reason, you can see here particularly often also the really young passengers leaving the ride with joyfull eyes. This is also underpinned by various awards that El Toro has received over the years and absolutely rightly so.
With this wooden coaster they've build have a little pearl in the area, which doesn't have to hide from bigger coasters of its kind.

El Toro owes this to the successful integration into the existing landscape, the well balanced layout which offers a good amount of variety and the typical GCI characteristics which make the ride on these American carpenter works something special.
Even if you might think that the big new "Dynamite" roller coaster would perhaps outstrip the rank for El Toro , I can only recommend to also climb on the wooden bull, absolute must ride in the amusement park Plohn and even after 10 years, still very far from belonging to getting old or something like this. El Toro goes on strong.

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All of this, as Video:

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