Acrophobia at Six Flags Over Georgia is one of the world’s best drop towers. It also happens to
be one of the scariest. That’s because of this ride’s seating…or lack there of. You
have stand-up, floorless gondolas. If that’s not crazy enough, you also tilt at the top.
Let’s dive into this review of Acrophobia. Six Flags Over Georgia opened Acrophobia in 2001.
This was the park’s second drop tower. This Atlanta park was already home to Free Fall,
an Intamin 1st generation drop tower, but the park removed it after the 2006 season.
Acrophobia made Free Fall redundant. Acrophobia was taller,
wilder, and offered superior capacity. Also built by Intamin, Acrophobia stands 200 feet
or 61 meters tall. While the full tower is 20 stories tall, the drop itself is only 161 feet
or 49 meters tall. But because of the ride’s placement towards the front of Six Flags Over
Georgia and the park’s topography, the ride feels much taller and offers an incredible view of all
the park’s attractions and the surrounding area. And the ride has a pretty striking, multi-colored
paint scheme. It reminds me of the coloring of a venomous snake, which is an apt comparison
given how much bite this ride has. The ride has no theming outside of some signage in the queue line
discussing the fear of heights. But that’s fine because you won’t be in that queue line for long.
It has always been a walk-on for me when it’s operational and according to Queue-Times,
on average, it has one of the shortest waits of any major ride in the park.
Part of that is the fact this ride holds up to 30 riders per cycle,
which is pretty high for a drop tower. But if you see this ride running
and it’s a priority for you, I’d advise riding it immediately. This ride has been closed in half my
visits to Six Flags Over Georgia. If I’ve just been unlucky, let me know down in the comments.
That may partially be explained because of how Acrophobia was a prototype. This was the
company’s first floorless tilting gyro drop tower. Intamin had previously built two gyro drop towers.
These towers were easily identified by their circular seating around the tower
and rotating seats. This gave everyone a 360 degree view during the ascent.
Acrophobia borrowed this element, but it dramatically changed the ride vehicles.
Acrophobia would become the world’s first stand-up, floorless drop tower.
If you’re wondering how that works, you back into this seat that is steeply angled downwards,
so it’s impossible to sit on. You then are basically straddling a bike seat. It’s weird, but
I don’t have an issue with the set-up for as short of a ride as Acrophobia is. But this is probably
one I wouldn’t want to get stuck on! You are then secured with an over-the-shoulder restraint.
And then you also have the tilt feature. This was another first for Acrophobia. This was the world’s
first tilting drop tower. Intamin would add the same model to Movie Park Germany in 2002, but that
was the only other one built. Intamin would add the stand-up floorless and tilt features to some
of their second generation freefall towers. Some like Apocalypse at Drayton Manor were retrofit to
get these features. Others like Hurakan Condor at PortAventura were built with the feature.
Once locked in, you slowly ascend the tower.
You perform one complete rotation and once your reach the top, your seats lean forwards. It only
tilts you 15 degrees forwards, but that’s enough to completely change the dynamics of the ride.
It forces you to look down for the entire descent, making the drop even more intense.
The suspense for the drop is incredible. The employees like to come over the speakers and taunt
you. Sometimes they tease you about the ride’s height. Other times, they’ll just sing Justin
Bieber to you. There’s no rhyme or reason what you’ll hear, but it just adds to the tension.
There’s no real warning for the drop. It just happens.
And it’s very intense. You get a gut-wrenching stomach dropping sensation the entire way down.
Then you have that world-class visual as you zoom towards the ground.
I always end up clenching my teeth and holding on with a death grip.
Part of that is that the ride tricks you into thinking you’re splatter on the ground.
The ride has ultra-reliable magnetic brakes, but you stop so close to the ground. The other
part of that is related to the ride position. Even though I’ve ridden this ride a dozen or so times
and know it doesn’t hurt me, I still have that fear in the back of my head that my crotch is
going to get squished on the landing. Remember, you are stradding a bike seat with no floor,
so the first point of contact is your groin. I know a few people who find this ride to be a
ball-buster, so I’m not sure if it comes down to luck or how you fit with the restraints.
So what would I rate Acrophobia? I would give this drop tower a perfect 10 out of 10. This is
one of the world’s best drop towers. It’s the full package. It has incredible views. Lots of
suspense. And an incredible drop. It is fast and forceful while also providing top-notch visuals
because of the tilt. And that weird riding position only amplifies the thrills further.
But Intamin evolved the concept further over the past decade with their skyjump model,
which tilts riders a full 90 degrees towards the ground with the first being Falcon’s Fury at
Busch Gardens Tampa. I think most people prefer the skyjumps, but I actually prefer Acrophobia.
Sure you don’t tilt a full 90 degrees, but you still tilt enough to be staring at the ground.
The seating design is more intimidating. And most importantly, the drop packs way more of a punch.
It induces that accelerating freefall sensation. So those are my thoughts on Acrophobia at Six
Flags Over Georgia. What are your thoughts on this world-class drop tower? Do you enjoy this ride as
much as me? Let me know what you think down in the comments. If you enjoyed this review, I’d
appreciate it if you gave this video a like and you considered subscribing since there will be a
lot more roller coaster and amusement park videos here at Canobie Coaster. Thanks for watching!