The Mack Rides Musik Express is a common Flat Ride model. Parks around the world added them. They tend to be well received, but I have never understood how people can enjoy these flat rides.
First, I want to give a bit of background information here.
The first time I rode one of these was in late May of 2019. Back then, I was still terrified of thrill rides. I only became an enthusiast a couple weeks after that and only lost my fear in late July 2019.
In 2019, there were 4 rides that I rode and didn't like. In 2020, I got back on 2 of them (Bayern Kurve and SwingShot) and they are now some of my favorite flat rides. Now that Bayern Kurve is gone, I thought I'd try out the similar ride that was in literally the same area of the park. I thought that, since Bayern Kurve was really good, that I'd enjoy Musik Express. As you can tell from the title of this article and a recent YouTube video I made, I absolutely hated the ride.
I do want to mention that this review would've come out earlier, but I wanted to give the ride another chance since I disliked it for reasons regarding forces. I had no issue reviewing Raging Rapids since I disliked it for it having no forces and it failing completely at its one job.
For this, I am going to do my regular Flat Ride Review system, but then I am going to talk about why the ride is so bad, since it looks really good on paper. I'll also talk about how this exposes the flaws in my review system.
Forces:
The forces on this ride are just insane. This ride looks like it would provide airtime and positives, but it is actually focused on laterals. The forces are, on paper, great. On paper, it gets a 10/10 because of the strong, sustained laterals.
Restraints: These restraints are really comfortable. These are a locking, single position lap bar. They are difficult and annoying to lock and unlock, but you can get used to them. They have a lot of space, so you can move around some if you want. There are these straps that seem to separate 3 sections, but those are not that bad and, on most rides, would barely take away from the experience. Restraints will also get a 10/10.
Re-Rideability:
This ride is very rerideable. It is very smooth. For me, as long as the ride isn't painful, it is rerideable. This also gets a 10/10.
So, in the end, the ride gets a 10/10. If it gets a perfect 10, why do I consider it to be the worst ride at Kennywood? It's simple. Some things just don't go together.
The ride passes all of the categories, but some combinations of good things lead to awful things. In this case, the restraints and forces work together to make this ride a horrible experience.
Let's talk about the restraints. Notice how I said that the straps would cause no issues on MOST rides. Musik Express is the exception to that. The straps are there to help separate the large seat. On a Roller Coaster, there will just be Seat Dividers, like what PTC puts on their trains. PTC trains are comfortable since they just use a seat divider. The restraints on Musik Express have the divider on them, though. When I rode, my leg wrapped around the seat divider. That wouldn't be an issue on rides that focus on literally anything other than laterals, but this ride focuses on laterals.
The restraints wouldn't be painful if the ride focused on anything else, but the straps just hurt. The straps dig into your legs and just hurt with the laterals. That was one of the worst possible choices for seat dividers.
One more thing to mention is how strong the laterals are. The laterals are very strong, but they are just too strong. These strong laterals are strong enough to ruin the ride. They cause discomfort and make the ride feel genuinely dangerous. I usually like it when a ride feels like it's gonna kill you, but only when the forces are still fun and when the ride is still comfortable. On Musik Express, the ride feels like you are about to be thrown into the walls around the ride.
The last thing that makes the ride bad is the side bar. On the far right side of the car, there is a bar. It looks like it is designed to be held on to. The ride tries making you hold on, it seems. The operators have to say several times per ride to not touch the bar. It just seems wrong for that to be there.
So, what do I actually rate this ride? I give it a 1/10, the lowest possible score. This ride is the worst ride at the park by far. I hope that the park removes it and puts back Bayern Kurve.
Comments