Cannibal is the signature attraction at Lagoon Amusement Park in Utah. Despite being almost
entirely built and designed in-house, this ride is a powerhouse. It has the height of a hyper
coaster and it’s gigantic beyond-vertical drop broke multiple records upon opening.
So I have a question? Why don’t parks hire Lagoon to build rides for them? That’s how good Cannibal
is and I’ll explain why in this review. Unlike many parks that rely on outside
companies to design their coasters, Lagoon does things differently. Lagoon’s Vice President of
Engineering is Dal Freeman, who previously was the Director of Engineering for Arrow from 1986
through the 1990s. Freeman had coaster design experience, having previously worked on rides
like Cedar Point’s Magnum XL-200. So he has designed Lagoon’s latest coasters.
His first project for Lagoon was Wicked, the vertical launch coaster in 2007. Freeman and
Lagoon designed the ride themselves, but they partnered with Zierer to fabricate the coaster.
After Wicked was delayed due to 90% of the support columns having defective
weldments, Lagoon decided they’d handle the manufacturing of their next coasters as well.
So in 2011, the park designed, sourced, and built Bombora themselves. This family coaster
has a lot of neat features such as on-board audio while also providing a glass-smooth ride.
It was clear Lagoon knew what they were doing. And in 2015, they attempted a much more daring
project in Cannibal. This project would be daring for any company,
let alone an in-house project. Let’s look at all the records this ride would break.
It would be the tallest and fastest coaster in Utah. The ride would be a hypercoaster,
standing 208 feet or 63 meters tall while reaching speeds of 70 mph or 110 kph.
It would also have the steepest drop in America upon opening at 116 degrees.
And this would also be the world’s tallest beyond-vertical drop.
Freeman and Lagoon again designed the ride themselves. The track and supports
were fabricated by the nearby Intermountain Lift. Lagoon assembled the ride themselves.
If you look at RCDB, you’ll see that ART Engineering is credited with the ride.
They helped with the design and provided the trains, but Lagoon did a majority of the work.
The ride was intended to be ready for opening day 2015. However, the ride was delayed a few months.
But outside of that, the entire process seems to have gone swimmingly for Lagoon.
Cannibal has been an extremely reliable and highly popular attraction ever since opening. And the
park is once again in the process of building another coaster in-house with Primordial.
But back to Cannibal. This ride dominates Lagoon’s skyline. You can see the giant
brown tower from miles away. And the layout looks downright insane. That
record-breaking drop is one of the most visually stunning elements on any coaster.
It just looks wrong to see a beyond-vertical drop of that scale. Then you also have a tangled mess
of inversions. For as large of a ride Cannibal is, it features a surprisingly compact layout.
Plus the ride looks sleek. The bright red track really pops, especially when view from
the parking lot and you have the mountains in the distance. Then the ride also has some
nice theming around the attraction. It’s rare to see a ride of this scale themed so well.
The first drop plunges into a stone temple and there are animal statues around it. The final
helix wraps around a giant rock structure with a massive 50 foot waterfall, although this feature
isn’t too visible from publicly accessible areas. The giant tower and station building feature
pillars. Then the loading area itself features some tribal theming including statues and a
giant mural on the wall with some fiery skulls. And whenever a train dispatches a horn blares.
Then entrance features a giant sign and two lion statues, which fun fact, previously sat
on the steps of the Utah State Capital Building. Lagoon acquired them at an auction years ago.
Now on most days, the ride’s line will start well beyond that entrance. If you are unfamiliar with
Lagoon, you should know that the physical queues for their coasters can only hold 10-15 minutes
worth of people. This is a deliberate move by the park since they think the midways are livelier if
the lines spill into them. So if you visit on a busy day, Cannibal’s line may stretch way back.
This is the park’s most popular ride by far. In my most recent visit, Cannibal’s line went back
to the Catapult Slingshot at one point. Thankfully Cannibal, like many of Lagoon’s coasters,
have incredibly fast operations. So even a line that looks as daunting as this will just keep on
moving. This line ended up taking 45-60 minutes, which isn’t bad for a signature ride on one of the
park’s busiest days. I imagine you’ll wait less if you aren’t visiting on a Halloween weekend.
Before you enter the physical queue line, you need to put any bags and
loose articles in a locker. Nothing can be stored on the ride platform. Fortunately,
these lockers are 100% free, which shows Lagoon is doing it in the name of fast operations.
Cannibal features a single rider line. You used to be able to access this line immediately,
which made it more appealing. Now, you cannot access the single rider line until you’ve waited
through the portion of the queue extending onto the midway. By the time you reach the point where
you branch off for the single rider line, you only have another 5 minutes. So it doesn’t make
sense for a group to split up at that point. As a result, I saw very few people using it.
At the end of the queue line, there is an employee who assigns your row. Most employees will not
let you wait for or request a specific row. I don’t think the row matters too much on this
ride though, so it’s not a big issue for me. Cannibal features a dual loading platform. It
has been in-use in both my visits to the park, but it sounds like they sometimes will only use one.
This, combined with fast restraint checks, lead to multiple trains regularly cycling the course
at once. And this is a good thing because the trains themselves are rather small.
Cannibal’s trains accommodate a max of 12 people in 3 rows or 4. You have a flat lap bar that
rests on your thighs. And I find this pretty comfortable. Then there are shin guards. But
unlike the ones on Wicked, you have a lot more clearance so you barely notice their presence.
And a neat feature about these trains is that they feature headlights. And unlike some parks,
they work reliably day-to-day and train to train. It really enhances the ride’s presence at night.
I don’t think this ride has any major spoilers, but if you want to skip ahead
to the outdoor portion, please click to the timestamp shown on the screen now.
Once dispatched, you roll through a dark room. There are some additional
artifacts and statues on the wall. The music intensifies and then you enter a temple.
This houses the ride’s elevator lift and it looks downright massive if you look straight
up. And it’s pretty disorienting to be honest because of the scale.
The elevator lift is a dual lift system that uses the opposite side as a counterweight,
so as one train raises, the other side is lowered to grab another train.
Once at the top you roll forwards and pause for a few seconds to take in the view. This is much
appreciated since the enclosed lift blocks the view on the ascent. After a brief delay,
you move forwards onto the ride’s iconic plunge. And this truly is one of the world’s best drops.
For one, it’s so steep that you can’t even see the track as you crest it. It’s a terrifying visual,
especially up front. Now the start of the drop is trimmed, but you still get a boatload of airtime
so that doesn’t bother me one bit. You get a good burst of ejector airtime at the start.
Then that morphs into sustained floater. And the drop seemingly lasts forever, so you’re out of
your seat for a few seconds. It’s magical. Then the pullout rockets through a temple.
And you get some strong positive Gs here. I was starting to greyout on all my rides.
Those Gs continue as you shoot upwards into a giant Immelmann. Then at the apex,
you get some lift. Then you get some decent laterals as you uncork towards the ground.
Immelmanns typically aren’t one of my favorite elements, but I really like the one of Cannibal
because of its wide range of forces. The next element is the most underrated
on the ride- the dive loop. This element really shocked me. You get a great ejector pop going
into it. And that’s really surprising since it doesn’t have a clear apex like some of the dive
loops you see on RMCs. Then the descent rapidly twists you 180 degrees, causing some nice whip.
And the exit of the dive loop sort of forms a double down. Rather than going all the way
down to the ground, you stop halfway and then charge over this small dip.
You get a good burst of ejector airtime here and you can’t see it coming.
It reminds me of the step-down on Knott’s Berry Farm’s Hangtime before the cobra roll.
Cannibal does have a set of trims after this dip that do noticeably slow you down.
You then navigate an element that has caused some debate in the coaster community.
Some have called it an overbank while some say it banks severe enough to be a cutback.
It feels more like an overbank to me and to be honest, it’s probably the weakest element on
the ride. It doesn’t have much force to it. You then twist upwards around the tower and
hit the mid-course brakes. And you slow way down. Usually this is a negative,
but it actually helps for the next element, which is the one-of-a-kind Lagoon roll.
It’s comprised of back-to-back barrel rolls, but the direction you invert changes midway
through it. You rotate counterclockwise for the first and clockwise for the second. These
two rolls have incredible sustained hangtime, especially since you have just a lap bar. You’ll
feel all your weight pressed against your restraint. And I like how the second one goes over
a pond, which creates a pretty cool headchopper. Cannibal then twists downwards and enters a final
helix. You regain your speed fast and this element wraps around a giant rock structure.
You actually burrow through it at one point and then are misted by the adjacent waterfall.
This helix is not only visually cool, but it also has some nice force to it.
You then hop into a temple, getting a brief but ok pop of airtime. And then you hit the brakes.
You then head back to the station, ending this 2735 foot or 834 meter long beast of a coaster.
Clearly I’m impressed by the elements, but what about the smoothness. Cannibal is one
of the smoothest coasters out there. There isn’t a hint of a rattle here. Parks should genuinely hire
Lagoon to design and build their rides. That’s how great of a job they did with this coaster.
So what would I rate Cannibal? I would give this ambitious coaster a 9 out of 10. This is
a fantastic roller coaster. The first drop is as amazing as it looks. It’s chalk full of airtime
that seemingly never ends. Then the ride packs in four fun inversions that all lift you out of your
seat with the airtime into the dive loop and the crazy hangtime on the barrel rolls standing out.
The ride also mixes in some spots with positive forces for variety and the
entire coaster is plussed by some theming both on-board and in the general area.
I can’t quite give this coaster a perfect score since the middle does have a slight
lull with that overbank and mid-course but the ride is otherwise near perfect. It’s worth going
to Lagoon exclusively for this coaster. So those are my thoughts on Cannibal at
Lagoon. What are your thoughts on this super unique coaster? Do you think it alone is worth
a trip to Lagoon? Let me know 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!