Mine Blower is the signature coaster at Fun Spot Kissimmee. Among coaster enthusiasts it’s both famous and infamous as it has an amazing layout that’s wildly fun, but has also gotten a reputation for being rough, even by wooden coaster standards. However, the park has recently attempted to address this issue with an RMC 208 partial retrack. I had the chance to ride it on a recent trip to the Orlando area and here’s my review of the experience along with an overview of the great Gravity Group creation that is Mine Blower.

Mine Blower opened June 23, 2017, replacing a go-kart track previously in the location. The ride is 2,290 feet long, maxing out at 83 feet and 48.5 mph with one inversion. These characteristics make it the longest, tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster in Florida. The first thing you’ll notice as you approach Mine Blower is the excellent theming at the station entrance. This theming continues as you reach the top of the station and see the great looking custom trains with 3D rockets on the front. Mine Blower is easily the most highly themed Fun Spot Kissimmee ride and is probably only exceeded in the whole Fun Spot chain by ArieForce One in Atlanta. The coaster was built and designed by The Gravity Group and famous coaster designer Korey Kiepert. I wrote a whole blog article about Korey’s work and you get the sense that this was a bit of a passion project for everyone involved.

So I’m not going to describe every twist and turn in writing as you can find a bunch of POV’s online to see that, but I can describe the general experience (if you want to see a great Mine Blower POV I recommend this one from Tom’s Road Trippin). You start with an old school chain lift ride to the top where you then do a horseshoe-like 180 degree turn picking up speed and then immediately drop 80 feet straight into the ride’s signature inversion. This coaster is the ONLY wooden coaster in Florida to go upside down! (Iron Gwazi is not considered a wooden roller coaster) This inversion is a zero-gravity roll that goes right over the top of the station that immediately goes into a tight left turn for one heck of a way to open the ride. It’s also great when you can get a little speed before that first drop and makes that 80 feet feel like a lot more.

From there you continue with more twists, turns and bunny hills. The Gravity Group fit a bunch of track into a small footprint and it has that “cyclone” like feel more than an airtime machine. The other two real stand out moments on Mine Blower are a double down with some good ejector airtime and 115° over–banked curve that doesn’t quite count as an inversion, but offers a similar feeling. However, for me the ride’s best moments were that drop, inversion and first turn combination with the rest just being a fun way to complete the ride.

Mine Blower is predominantly a wooden roller coaster (more on that later), so there is an inherent bumpiness and roughness that comes with that. To many that’s part of the charm of a wooden coaster, but others find it off-putting. How much of this you feel is certainly dictated by where you sit, even row one versus row two can make a difference, so be sure to try to sit in multiple places on multiple rides. A couple of years ago Mine Blower underwent a partial RMC 208 RetraK as the ride had gained a reputation and become somewhat infamous for its roughness. It seemed a little unusual merging RMC track with Gravity Group track, but this was on the heels of Fun Spot America Atlanta putting in the highly successful ArieForce One. The park appeared to have a great relationship with RMC and this good will or perhaps a good package deal probably lead to RMC getting the job. I missed being able to ride Mine Blower on a 2022 trip to Fun Spot Kissimmee because of the work, but got some pictures of the construction below.

With the RMC retrack parts of the wooden track were replaced with steel making this now a partial hybrid coaster with parts of it still wooden track. The RMC work was meant to address some of the roughest parts of the ride and most enthusiasts found the Mine Blower RMC 208 Retrak to be a big improvement. However, some of the general public (who may not be used to riding wooden roller coasters) may still find the experience a bit rough when compared to some of the silky smooth steel coasters in the Orlando area.

Like many rides these days there’s a camera that will take pictures you can buy later. On my recent trip they had an excellent deal where you could get your picture AND a t-shirt for $15 so I jumped at it. For work I attended the MinExpo in Las Vegas (which is a gigantic trade show related to the mining industry) and for fun one of the days I wore my Mine Blower t-shirt, I figured it was more than appropriate and I even found a booth dedicated to explosives and took the pictures below.

If you’ve never been to a Fun Spot park they’re old school in how they run their park. Admission is free and you can pay for rides individually or with an all-day wristband. People may not realize that most parks used to take an individual ride ticket approach including Disney until 1982 and is where the term “E” ticket attraction came from. There are two Fun Spot parks in the greater Orlando area, Fun Spot America Kissimme and Fun Spot America Orlando. They both have great rides and coasters, but if you want to ride Mine Blower be sure to head to the Kissimmee location. The parks are often open until midnight, so you can head to ride Mine Blower after a day somewhere else or on a partial day when you’re arriving at or leaving Orlando. The single ride pricing makes heading over to Fun Spot even for just a couple of hours a relatively inexpensive experience.

Every coaster enthusiast should experience Mine Blower with its great layout and intensity. However, that intensity and a few rough patches may make it a coaster that some choose not to ride multiple times on a visit. Fun Spot did a great job with theming on Mine Blower and the coaster lives up to its name as it feels like you’re riding the ShockWave out of an exploding mine. If you’re in the Orlando area be sure to head over to Fun Spot America Kissimmee and check out Mine Blower and maybe their record holding World’s tallest SkyCoaster too!