My Experience at La Ronde

On August 5, 2016, I visited La Ronde in Montreal for the first time. While I agree that Six Flags needs to show this park some love, my time spent here was positive and I don't think this place deserves as much hate as it often gets.

Overview

My family visited La Ronde from opening until 6:30PM. We stayed in downtown Montreal, so we took the metro and a shuttle bus to get here. The day was moderately crowded and sunny. I got one ride on all of the roller coasters except for Marche du Mille-pattes, a kiddie coaster. Wait times ranged from 5 minutes to an hour. This was my first experience where the language of choice for most guests was not English, but we had already spent a week in Quebec so we were used to many people speaking French. Overall, La Ronde was run down. Their landscaping was especially pitiful and there were several abandoned spaces and buildings around the park. However, all of the roller coasters were operating and (in 2016) there was a decent selection.

Coasters

There is not much to be said about Toboggan Nordique, a Zamperla wild mouse clone, Le Boomergang, a Vekoma Boomerang clone, or Dragon, an indoor Intamin family coaster.

La Ronde's B&M Batman clone, Vampire, did not open until late afternoon. When I was there, the train was running backwards. The "reverse" ride was a fun and different experience that I appreciated having ridden so many Batman clones forward. Although I'm not overly impressed with this invert model and how common it is, I always welcome its intense and inversion-packed layout. Riding Vampire backwards was a highlight at La Ronde.

I thought Ednor L'Attaque, the recycled Vekoma SLC from Six Flags AstroWorld, was alright. My dad and I rode it in the back row and it was bumpy, but still enjoyable. This coaster was partly located over water, which added extra thrills to an otherwise mediocre ride. Ednor's bulky restraints gave an expectable amount of headbanging.

The park had yet another Vekoma, a looping coaster called Super Manege, which was not very good. It desparately needed a new coat of paint, and the layout after the corkscrews was weak and slow. Even though ride operations were terrible and the queue/station provided no shade, I was happy to ride Super Manege since it is now defunct. It helped round out the collection of coasters at the park.

La Ronde's Intamin stand-up coaster, Le Cobra, was decent. It ranks near the bottom of the stand-up coasters I've ridden because it only had one inversion and wasn't quite as long or smooth as newer models. This coaster was photogenic, and it's a shame that the park scrapped it. Once again, I'm glad that I had the chance to experience this ride before it closed. Although stand-up coasters seem to be a dying breed due to awkward/painful restraints, I've yet to ride one that I consider bad.

Surprisingly, the only coaster that left me disappointed on the day of my visit was Le Goliath, a B&M hyper coaster that's not really a hyper coaster because it's height and drop are only around 170ft. However, the height is not what disappointed me. Goliath is the one and only coaster that I've ridden while wearing a virtual reality headset. My VR quit working (the screen turned off) on the lift hill and stayed that way. So for the duration of the ride, I could not see anything. While I did not feel nauseous, I disliked my "blind" ride on Goliath. This coaster did have good speed, smoothness, restraints, and floater airtime, which is why it is solidly in my Top 50 Coasters. However, I'm guessing that I probably would've liked this mini-hyper a lot better if it hadn't been for the VR disaster.

Getting re-rides on Goliath and Le Monstre would the only reason I'd consider heading back to La Ronde. Monstre looked like a beast and it delivered. This wooden racing coaster was only running one side, but it was arguably my favorite ride of the day. I was surprised by its speed. I cannot recall exactly what, but I later learned that this coaster holds some sort of records for length and speed. Monstre is a fantastic coaster with a unique layout, a great length, and a charm that I can't quite explain.

All in all, the coaster collection at La Ronde was well-rounded and typical for a Six Flags park, but somewhat lacked in quality. This park could really use a good launched coaster.

Other Rides

In addition to coasters, La Ronde has a pretty standard collection of flat rides plus a log flume and shoot the chute. I did not ride any of them. I did take the transportation ride, Minirail, several times. It stopped at the front and back of the park, which provided relief for sore feet as well as nice photo opportunities.

Food & Merchandise

My family only ate lunch at La Ronde. We chose Subway, located near Ednor. The quality of our food was normal for Subway sandwiches, and we only waited in line 10 minutes or so. I did buy a souvenir t-shirt with the park's skyline and major coasters on it. The gift shop had a good selection of merchandise for Six Flags, La Ronde, and the coasters.

Cost

We got discounted tickets for La Ronde by turning in Coca-Cola cans with coupons on them when we entered the park. Therefore, we paid CA$40 per person, which was $15 or $20 off the gate price. Food and drinks at the park were marked way up, as to be expected. My t-shirt cost CA$17, which I thought was fair.

Photos

These photos were taken by me. Please credit this website if used.