Ohio amusement park and “roller coaster capital of the world” Cedar Point is two weeks away from opening Rougarou, a roller coaster themed after a swamp-dwelling werewolf from francophone and Louisiana folklore.
Rougarou is a re-brand of Cedar Point’s Mantis coaster, which held world records for height, speed and steepness when it opened in 1996. It closed in October 2014 and has been undergoing its transformation into Rougarou over the last six months. The new version will retain Mantis’s ride characteristics, which include a 137 foot drop and four inversions over 3,900 feet. This might be a good time to mention that I hate roller coasters.
When it opens on May 9th, it will be Cedar Point’s first floorless roller coaster, which sounded insanely dangerous until I realized that any werewolf attempting to chew riders’ dangling legs off will end up decapitated by an inadvertent toe-punt. So instead of insanely dangerous, I’ll classify this ride as merely extremely dangerous.
Cedar Point has dedicated a large portion of their YouTube channel to the re-brand, although the videos mostly show the empty track in various types of weather. I was hoping to see some bayou-inspired scenery and some werewolf imagery beyond eyes and claw marks, but they haven’t set that stuff up yet. Perhaps they’re not planning to add details like that at all – are you really going to notice those kinds of details when you’re travelling upside down at freeway speeds?
If you’re close enough to Cedar Point that it’s your go-to amusement park, I hope you enjoy Rougarou. I’m going to settle for this rendered point-of-view video, which was enough to make my stomach turn over when I watched it at full screen. I’ll stick to haunted house experiences, thanks.