Thunderbolt Mountain Coaster — Attraction in Charlemont

This was a beautiful little ride. Came during great sunny weather and everything was lush and green. Nice breeze. Long ride up but it is calm and serene, as you go by the brush and trees. It is so fun going down and really thrilling. You can control your speed by the hand brakes the operator helps instruct you on, before you go up. There are alarms for when you are going to catch up to the person in front or if your seat belt gets taken off. The cart auto brakes as well, so you don't crash into the person in front of you. It only sucks that you're limited by the person in front of you. Unfortunately, I happened to get stuck behind someone who was going extremely slow and that partially ruined the ride for me honestly. Funny thing, she bragging to her husband in line that she always does mountain coasters, it was easy and she wasn't scared. She'll probably catch up to him, yada yada. Then she got scared and kept braking 💀 So about a third to mid way down, I just got stuck constantly auto stopping bc she was constantly braking and going. My boyfriend was wondering if something was wrong, but we were just all backed up behind this lady. All in all, it wasn't really the rides fault, and it was still a great experience and beautiful scenery. Getting to coast a bit through the trees was still nice, no matter how fast or slow you were going. I wish it could've lasted longer. (That's what...

The mountain coaster itself gets 5 stars - a ton of fun. Unfortunately, the entire experience is ruined by the abysmal operations / logistics. The wait for each ride is often 1 hour or more (even on weekdays). Weekends are up to 2 hours + wait per ride. The most frustrating part is -- this is so so easily fixable! Currently, the mountain coaster is only open Thurs-Sun 12pm - 6pm. Simply extend the hours, opening an extra day and/or at 10am instead of 12pm to provide a 10x better experience for everyone! The hours just don't make sense and cause a huge backup. If you're looking to make a day out of ziplining / mountain coaster, wait to buy your coaster passes. The hours just don't work out. Zipling is 1-4pm -- why wait until 12pm to open the mountain coaster? All this does is create crazy lines and make it next to impossible to combo zipling and the mountain coaster in one day. You save pennies buy purchasing your mountain coaster passes online -- just wait until you get there to purchase, so that you can see the line and make a decision on if you have any chance of getting more than one ride in. Berkshire East is so great -- a beautiful compound, great mountain coaster, biking, ziplining etc. As the other reviews have mentioned, a super simple logistic tweak could make this experience so much better...

Disappointed Experience Despite Great Potential

I really wanted to love the Thunderbolt Mountain Coaster. The ride itself was a lot of fun—and under different circumstances, this could have easily been a five-star review. However, I had a frustrating experience that left me, and the three friends I brought from Utah, extremely disappointed.

As a YouTuber and content creator on a tight schedule, I clearly explained at the ticket booth that I didn’t have much time. The staff strongly encouraged us to purchase three rides each, assuring us it would be worth it. After waiting in line for over an hour and a half, I was only able to go down once—and my three guests didn’t get to ride at all.

This wasn’t just a matter of lost time and money—it was my reputation on the line, and now those friends may never get the chance to return. I understand that crowds happen, but over-promising and under-delivering left a very bad taste.

The ride itself is great—but the poor time management and misleading ticket sales cost this review three stars.

Warm regards, Dennis Schleicher YouTuber with over 90K subscribers and content creator...