What do you think of this unique attraction?

When I rode this I did not know there was a freefall element! Scariest moment of my life!!

Was not expecting to see anyone talk about Canada's Wonderland, so this was definitely a big shock to my Canadian self.

17:27 when someone from Europe says a ride is weird, you know it is really weird

Cedar fair legit out here acting like their real first dark ride never existed WOW. F for respects for Disaster Transport.

Such an odd ride, I go on it at least once a year to watch its progression of disrepair! Definitely create more Canada’s Wonderland & Canadian content! 🥰

Having lived in Toronto my whole life, Canada's Wonderland has been my home park since it's opening. The Guardian was a much hyped darkride/coaster hybrid and unfortunately as you've mentioned, failure to keep the ride in top shape has hurt it BIG TIME. The worst part of this ride is the DIMNESS of the projection screens. I know a little something about projection units, and based on my experience in the ride show rooms it appears that either the projectors are underpowered lumens-wise OR the park doesn't replace the bulbs when they start to deteriorate (usually projector bulbs don't just die, they generally lose roughly half of their initial brightness) So the resulting screens are barely visible throughout the entire ride. Couple this with the fact that MANY of the lightguns are inoperative or defective and you have the makings of a MEH ride. The sudden drop at the end is fun, but that's not saying much. Horrible ride really...The problem with Canada's Wonderland these days is that Cedar Fair seems to just let regular maintenance and annual touchups fall by the waste side. And food wise, C.W. has THE WORST theme park food I've ever had. You're paying DisneyWorld prices for Hospital cafeteria food at best. My daughter and I had the Eat all Day food passes for a couple of years with our season passes and how we didn't get food poisoning I don't know. Pure luck! When I look at the food offered up at other Cedar Fair parks like Knotts Berry Farm I know that Cedar doesn't USUALLY do food badly, but really the food is horrible here! As for the Guardian, the recommendation to give it a try should come with an asterisk...ONLY if it's late and the line is SUPER short. The line queue is deceiving and what you THINK will take about a half hour actually takes at least triple that! And it's not worth an hour+ wait, EVER!

The other major issue is that this coaster has absolutely no storage on the platform for guests, unlike every other coaster in the park. They force you to rent a locker if you have anything larger than a purse or small messenger bag. If you don't want to spend money to wait in line, then no ride for you.

Anyone else think dark rides have their place in theme parks. As the industry moves more and more towards roller coasters roller coaster roller coaster I really think that if dark rides are needed to make a park, And I’m scared of them dying out completely

This attraction could have been next level with an animatronic dragon

there's a big smile on my face anytime the 13 & Desperado clips show up

6:50 did anyone else pump the brakes when they saw “Rock Band LIVE?” When’s the episode on *that*?

Oh man, I await to see how Knott's Bear-y Tales will turn out since things have long changed since this ride.

When I rode this, I appreciated everything that went on INSIDE the mountain, but what you see on the OUTSIDE amounts to a huge bait and switch, and that made Guardian very disappointing to me, because I expected a coaster, and got a dark ride shoot 'em up instead. At the end of the day, for my daughter and I, the ride was technically impressive, but it wasn't worth the wait time. Finally, a big THANK YOU for featuring Canada's Wonderland, a park that is near and dear to my heart.

Thank you SO much for covering something exclusive to Canada's Wonderland! I feel like our park gets shafted the most in King's Island discussions, and it really made my day to see this in my inbox!

Any excuse to use the 13 news report and that yell. XD

I live 2hrs from Canada's Wonderland so I love to see videos about it.

Oh hey neat, I was in this video! Also... Yeah, it was very short, but it was so much fun. It was really weird- We were there for our own special event (I think my club's anniversary?) and it just so happened to fall on opening day. Eventually we got tired of waiting and we wound up going on it at the end of the day, which was really great! Then again, I'm probably biased because as much as you say it's "Weird" and "not good", it's the best we have in Canada.

Lagoon in Utah is supposedly getting something like this later, which I’m excited for because it’s my home park and it combines two things I love about theme parks, those being dark rides and roller coasters!

Canada needs more amusement parks, theme parks, aquariums, And zoos that stand out

8:29 happy for her

Made me smile to see Canada’s Wonderland in one of these videos. It was my closest amusement park growing up. I even worked there one summer as a performer. This ride is fun, but it always takes ten million years to get on. Even when the line is short!

My fav as always, the clip of that guy riding 13. Wish I could have it set as my ringtone

whoa talk about a lost memory... I remember loving the commercial with the knights but has since long forgotten it till now xD

I love videos about weird rides/attractions! I think this beats Dragon Mountain at Marineland by a longshot

Loved having Canada’s Wonderland represented on your channel! Love to see more!

Offhand Disney did a video a year or so ago detailing his ideal Disney park. Would you consider doing something similar? Designing your ideal theme park? It’s a super interesting topic that not many people have covered !

The guns are actually infrared cameras. If you look at on ride videos you'll see little red dots. These are little tracker dots for the cameras. A "light gun" would be something like what MiB or Buzz Light-year is.

600 riders per hour?!?! That’s worse than all of the Fantasyland dark rides!!!

As someone who really loves theme park theming and would really love to see more in Canada's Wonderland, Guardian was a major disappointment to me. It's so short for the time you wait on it, the guns never seem to work, the story is hard to hear, both in the que line and on the ride itself, and it's overall not worth the trouble of having to rent a locker for your items. The most it really has going for it is that final drop, but after that takes you by surprise once it never will again. Is it the worst Canada's Wonderland ride? No, but it's really mediocre to the point it doesn't leave much of an impression. At least bad rides stick with you.

This makes me think of Voyage to the Iron Reef. I know it’s no Knott’s Berry Tales or Kingdom of the Dinosaurs, but I enjoyed it. I’m excited to see the Knott’s Berry Tales 4D experience that’s supposed to replace it. Great video as always, Sam!

Would love to see more Canada’s Wonderland content! You did a great job on this.

The last time I was this early, Dragon Challenge still existed

How to make it instantly better: animatronic dragon, another coaster section after the drop, being able to see your score as you're riding.

This has me excited for the new coaster coming to Lagoon that's similar to this. Thankfully, it will feature more coaster elements.

The 3D, guns, and scoring system has been broken on this ride for years and its still one of the longest lines in the park. I don't get it.

A similar scene at 15:50 on the Halloween version of this ride was used on a 2016 attraction they made called “Zombie Attack”. Consider that 2016 ride a longer version of the Halloween version. Both use the same score system. Both are zombie based. Basically take the blasters from the coaster and put them on the seats of the “Wild West Coaster” (also made by the same company) in the Great Canadian Midway (The arcade on Clifton Hill) and you made a new ride. Both of these rides are in Niagara Falls, Canada.

Yes, I would love to see more videos on Canada's Wonderland.

Thanks for this. I’ve been on it a few times. Seems out of place at Wonderland for sure. To be honest I didn’t even knew it existed bc it was never really promoted. Thanks for this video! As always...awesome job!

No one ever covers Canada's Wonderland, please do more! As for the ride, I've visited CW every year before and after the ride opened and have only ridden it twice, the wait line is just wayyyyyyy too long but when I do go on it is a fun ride. The first time we went on in opening year we didn't know about the drop, lets just say it was quite surprising

Hey! I just wanted to let you know how appreciative I am of your channel as a whole. After watching your videos for a few years, they’ve influenced me to go into the field of engineering and possibly even roller coaster design. So yes, your videos have basically influenced me so much that I figured out what I wanted to do in life because of them XD (Also, good video as always! I live for dark rides ^^)

I like the idea of combining a coaster with a virtual shooting gallery, but I feel like the concept could be done better using modern technology. Imagine a Star Fox ride with each car resembling the inside of an Arwing and each of the windows replaced with lightweight LCD panels, or a VR flying coaster based on NiGHTS: Into Dreams/Journey of Dreams!

Wonderland is my home park and my family rode Guardian right when it opened. We’re big coaster people but wanted to give this one a chance. I don’t remember much of my actual ride experience, other than being taken aback when the drop happened. As far as I know none of my family has even been back on it, for 2 reasons. The stupidly long wait time, and the stupid lockers. My brothers would wait 4 hours or more for Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, and that’s a 30 second ride, but won’t wait more than 30 minutes for Guardian, that should tell you everything.

The ride shut down when my train was stopped before the drop. It got spoiled for me when an attendant warned us we were gonna fall when they started it back up. It was still a really memorable time though.

Would love to see more Canada's Wonderland videos as I just live down the road from the park :)

I’ve been to Canada’s Wonderland countless times but we never bothered doing the line for this ride, defs gonna have to give it a ride when our province opens up finally and we can get to Wonderland again!!!!

I’d love to see more videos on Wonderland, especially something covering its wooden roller coasters.

I can see why they chose to go with the same theme as the dragon to tie into thunder run. The best part of that coaster. Miss the path up to the top of the mountain thought.

Just want to say love this channel! As a former Disney Cast Member and now Universal Orlando Team Member (thanks COVID 🥺), I know a lot about the parks, but love learning about other parks and their attractions, both domestic and international. Your HHN history videos were my study tools when I was preparing to train for HHN29. Keep up the amazing work and thank you for your dedication!

I’ve gone on this ride every years since opening, and every year it becomes more and more clear that they did not create this ride with longevity in mind. The guns no longer work as intended (sometimes stop working mid ride, etc), it goes down at least twice a day because of some sort of issue with the ride, and they no longer play the video with the lore in the waiting area. I went on after it had been fixed and the final screen was being projected wrong (the dragons head was not connected to its butt). It’s a shame because I was in middle school when the ride first opened and it was one of my favourites, but now it’s underwhelming if not disappointing

Would love to see more canadas wonderland videos I grew up in Toronto and going to that theme park every summer thanks for the awesome contenr

Primordial at lagoon opened just recently on September 15th and its pretty similar to wonder mountains guardian but it’s a whole lot better. it has interactive screens, a small helix that you go backwards through inside the mountain and at the end it has two drop towers that each have their own ending right before the drop, it also has a switch track inside the mountain that chooses which drop tower to send you down. And it has blasters that are mounted onto the ride restraints and the seats rotate to face the interactive parts

Oh hey Triotech. Great people!! I work with em every day!

I love the end of this coaster / the overall experience is pretty great thanks for covering wonderland it has a lot of cool history and rides !

The ride reminds me of the old short rollercoaster at Joypolis in Tokyo, Japan that had the whole 3D shooting game and the part where the the ride goes out. It didn’t have the big drop but yea this game/coaster is almost like that ride, if anyone has ever ridden that one before.

I remember being so excited for this. I had ridden the Transformers darkride a few months earlier and had expected something similar. After being in line and hyping up my siblings for two hours, we sat in the dark and was suddenly dropped into the end. It is the worst ride at Wonderland.

This is so interesting! I would love to ride this. I really like when videogames mix with rides

That looks like a real fun ride.

Ohhh so it's the Buzz Lightyear shooting ride + Verbolten + Beastlie Kingdomme's Dragon Tower NIIIIIIIIIIICE. 🦇🎢 ❤

Yesss! More Canada's Wonderland content 😍

This is on the right path for the type of ride I've always thought would be PERFECT for a Metroid ride at Super Nintendo World! Obviously, they should just focus on fixing any technical issues that may come with it, find a better balance between roller coaster and dark ride, and *hopefully* feature animatronics instead of (or at least more primarily than) screens.

Wonderland is my home park. This ride is definitely weird. It you want to make it more fun take a friend on who’s never been. Don’t tell them about the drop track at the end. That’s what I did lol. It’s cool to know the history behind it though. Wonderland is an interesting park and Cedar Fair definitely likes to experiment with it.

I agree that the ride could have benefitted with some more rollercoaster type elements in-between the interactive portions. I assume there just wasn't the space inside the mountain. What they could do to improve/refurbish the ride now if they wanted, in my opinion, is replace the screens with brighter and sharper 4k projectors, upgrade the coaster trains with VR motion seats that tilt and move like rides like Spiderman at Universal Studios, and replace the videos with updated CGI, and maybe make it 3d with 3d glasses. I think that would do a lot to make the experience much more fun and immersive.

When’s the history of the Alton Towers Dungeon coming out? Just really want to know cause I cant wait!

I got to go on this ride this summer. Went on the side that misses the story. My gun only worked on certain screens. The photo at the end of the ride either didn't take or missed us completely, so we couldn't tell what our scores were or our reactions. The TVs at the end that are supposed to show all the scores for the day didn't work either. Didn't hate it though. What a strange little ride!

Hey, do you think you could do an expedition on A Day in the Park with Barney at Universal Studios Florida? They closed it this year and I’m not really happy about it.

More Canada’s Wonderland videos please!!

love itt!!!! iv been there 100 times but not in the last 10 years i had no idea they made a new ride there

The commercial they used is at Knotts Berry Farm

I never rode Voyage To The Iron Reef, but Knott's Bear-y Tales is unBEARable.

I have never been on it but it’s interesting idea though I do think the limit of the budget is one of the many issues. Though I wish more theme parks would try to do a dark ride as I love them

Went to wonderland around 1994-5ish? Rode the Vortex, was amazing! Smooth and fast... First time on a suspended rollercoaster... Good one to cover if talking about the mountain coasters. Love the channel, thank you!

More Canada's Wonderland please!!

Can you please keep that Alton Towers Thirteen joke in for every video in the future? I love it whenever that clip starts to play

The park was once called Paramount Canada's wonderland and had Parmonunt owned properties themed character rides like Hanabarbara land with Yogi bear and ScobyDoo and a TopGun coaster. The mountain was called Paramount Mountain on park maps until Paramount sold the park to Cerderfair

I visited Canada's Wonderland in 1988 and I remember riding Thunder Run SO many times that day. It was such a fun but odd little ride. I thought it was so cool to be riding through the mountain (kinda like Big Thunder at Disney, but not really).

We rode it this week, luckily the line was 20 minutes but the pre show was not playing so made it even more confusing 🤪 The shooting section was a bit boring with no 3D but enjoyed the drop at the end, glad to have done it for the credit though 😃

I'd want an Expedition Canada's Wonderland on Leviathan, the first-ever B&M Giga, which helped create one of the greatest coasters in the world; Fury 325.

A great change of pace is a "good" dark ride at an amusement or themed park. It creates a good balance and If done right can have a "fan following" You know the ones. Pirates, Monster Plantation, Knott's Beary Tales. Well, at least they tried!??! LOL! This one didn't even make it to the re-do stage, like Spee Lunkers Cave or Tales of Okee Fenokee turned Monster Plantation.

They also removed the 3D part in the 2019 season so it was just looking at screens and it felt much more like a warehouse from that point forward.

When I went on it my first and only time, our coaster got stuck at one scene. We kept shooting not knowing better, but after a couple minutes, even I was like "..this scene feels very long and repeatitive" 😅 Eventually our guns were turned off, they made the announcement that something was wong....was there for a little longer, and then they sped us through the other scenes, unable to play....and then free fall 😅 Extra terrifying when you think your ride is broken haha. But I got the highest score by a long shot cause we were in there for so long 🤭 I think they offered us a chance to ride again, but we spent so much time in the line and on the ride already, and didn't think it was worth another go

More videos on Canada's Wonderland, please!

I had no idea they had theme parks in Canada except for the one in the mall! I really enjoyed this!

I've been to Wonderland 9x this summer and not once has this ride been operating.

The weirdest part was 9 years later when Lagoon decided to open a copy of this ride...

As always another fantastic video

I remember attending the Breakfast Television announcement in 2013! If you go back to that footage, you an sort of see my friend and I standing near Snoopy. I enjoyed the ride at first, and I have to commend it for what it was. This ride came before Six Flags made all the Justice League rides, so it was a great first step for major dark rides at a regional park. I'm a huge fan of the drop-track at the end, but I was always so disappointed that there wasn't more coaster elements within the mountain. Again, they did what they could with the space. I think my biggest disappointment is the lack of immersion, especially when you ride on the backwards-facing seats. The transitions on the continuous screen are good (you got a good sense of the illusion of vertical movement when you dipped into the lake or down a staircase), but on both sides, it was obvious you were looking at a giant screen. Even when you first enter the mountain, the screens aren't even on for the first few seconds. For the past few years, a lot of the guns haven't been working. They seemed to fix the issue towards the end of 2019, but they removed the glasses and turned off the 3D effects. I think the ride is still salvageable, but it needs a lot of TLC and a better, clearer storyline.

I have only been on it once but I really enjoyed this ride when I took it in 2019. It had been down most of the day and I was the second ride cycle through after it reopened. I am not a big thrill seeker, and the surprise ending scared me in a way that I still felt safe while getting a little adrenaline rush.

I rode this the summer it opened. It really is a weird ride! Great video, as usual!

My video was featured in this video. Amazing!

HOLY SHIT! I DESIGNED A SHIRT FOR THE VORTEX! I have no idea if it ever got sold in the park, and I never got one, but I wanted my shirt so bad.

I would love to visit canadas wonderland one day, the rides look so exciting to me! Ive never really been on many rides outside the UK, and even then ive only been to pleasure beach and alton towers. My time at busch gardens tampa was incredible and it got me hooked on the larger, more intense american style roller coasters

Honestly that clip of the reporter on Thirteen needs to somehow be in every video. What a classic.

There was also Centreville on Toronto Island before Wonderland!

They need dark rides at these parks for the adults and small children. My dad wont go to cedar point anymore because they made all the coaster seats super small and hes a bigger guy. Also most of the coasters he doesnt even want to ride because of his back. They need to put somthing that adults can enjoy.

I think this would of been made so much better if the used physical sets but it is still very unique

Dragon Mountain in Marineland Canada might make an interesting video. Largest steel coaster in the world, built into the terrain; pretty cool concept.

Great video as usual! I never had rode this ride. I absolutely love that initiative to go for dark thrill ride. I feel smaller budget parks not Disney or universal are criminally lacked of dark rides. But I understand why. Flight of fear and those type of primer rides at other cedar fair rides do a great for a boxed spaghetti bowl. But that’s just that a boxed coaster. It’s very hard to tell a story at a fast pace and make it thrilling and keep a small budget. And I’m not a huge fan of shooter rides ala MIB , buzz light year , justice league ( although I feel this ride fills a great need for a lot of six flags parks for theming and family with animatronics) . But I’m general they just don’t appeal to me. In my opinion the pinnacle of dark rides / coaster is Revenge of the mummy at universal Orlando. That ride blends it all so great. One of the biggest dark rides disappointments for me was the dark knight coaster at six flags great adventure. One of my missed dark rides I never got to ride and is gone is the Gremlin ride at movie world Australia/ Germany ( but that was just a themed dark ride) there are just few great thrilling / coaster dark rides in my opinion and I’d love to see many more of them. I love the drop track part of this ride though and if I’m up at this park for sure will check it out. ( sorry this comment is long af)

I was literally waiting for you to use that 13 clip 🤣

Please do more Canada’s Wonderland videos! I grew up on this park!