Spent a weekend in Las Vegas, and decided that I could better spend $14 on a ride than on gambling (Lady Luck had her way with me this weekend), so I ventured to New York New York casino to ride Manhattan Express.
Needless to say, as a Togo, I wasn’t expecting much. But for $14, I was hoping it would have some redeeming qualities.
The seats were comfortable enough, but had weird restraints, a two-piece setup with a lap bar and separate bars over the shoulders. More on those in a moment.
The ride begins and leaves the casino. The lift was right into the sun but had some good views of the Strip and the surrounding areas. The first two drops were pretty nice as well.
Those were about the only standout moments of the ride. The rest was an intertwining layout with a loop, an inline-dive loop kinda thing, and a helix. It was a neat layout; it reminded me of Thunderbolt at now-defunct Celebration City (on steroids).
However, it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t the painful experience I expected (more slow and boring than painful), but it still was pretty jerky. This ride, rather than having just the lateral headbanging, had forward-and-backward rough spots too. Getting ping-ponged between the shoulder restraint and the back of the seat wasn’t exactly enjoyable.
I’d say Manhattan Express is like the steel equivalent of Mean Streak (big, boring, and rough). All in all, it was okay, but there are definitely much better things to spend your money on in Vegas. If you really need a ride fix, go to the Stratosphere. I've never been (it's expensive as hell) but the rides at least look a million times better.
FWIW, the casino was pretty cool though.
