KBrylczyk

At a quick glance it sounds like a pretty great deal but once you get down to the numbers it seems the town would get shafted. 900,000 Euro per year for the first 25 years paid by the town which would be tax money. 6 Euro per visit for locals. 25 Euro per visit for non-locals. Taking that 19 Euro difference, let's do a little math to see how much it covers the tax money. They claimed that 40,000 locals visited the pool in 2014. 19 * 40,000 = 760,000 Eesh, that's no good. The town is paying an additional 140,000 Euro for a complimentary parking lot. Hardly seems worth it to me. The idea for the park is nice and would certainly be a welcome addition, but this "deal" they're offering is crap. Just make it a standard admission across the board and locals will buy a season pass if they want to go often.

^ Disney just sprays water directly on the motors for California Screamin.

^ You should be fine. IIRC they were aiming for a summer opening.

Fun fact, this coaster is actually a slightly modified cookie-cutter model from Maurer. The only change is the opening bit where you do the quick trip outside before the lift. They're great spinner rides because the layout really allows for the cars to get wild! Disney's themeing and putting it indoors, though, really pushes it the extra mile and makes it very memorable. If you're interested in the layout, look up Spider at Lagoon or Undertow at SCBB.

^ The butthurt is strong with that guy.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that coaster. It's like nobody involved in its inception was even trying.

It still is. But honestly, don't bother. Just use the single rider line. I've never waited longer than 15 minutes and 50% of the time the woman and I end up in the same car together anyway.

My friend's brother who works for Dippin Dots Corporate said he heard in the quarterly conference call that it's hitting 151mph at the base of the drop now. Fastest in the world baby!

Quicktime, whoa. Haven't seen that dinosaur in a long time. Too bad I can't watch them because Chrome doesn't support Quicktime anymore. You've not been to the Dollywood thread, have you?

Oh, Zamperla, you goofy bastards...

^ Overpriced and the food is pretty lousy, IMO. It was cool to see the items zipping along through the web of different tracks, but really that's the only draw. Just walk in and stand around watching for a minute or two, then move on to the tons of better food options throughout the park. Like the Raclette stand.

Well, I WAS planning on spending $300+ on Noma for dinner, but turns out they're closed on Sundays and Mondays and I happen to be in town on Sunday. Maybe the steakhouse would be a nice alternative. Thanks for the tip!

Caligula's Fun Palace.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man, I'm sorry, but this is too good. Don't worry, Kitty will be waiting for you next time. Unless it's down again.

Oh dear sweet jesus god no... It gets worse. And worse. And even worse. There's no happiness here. Turn away and save yourselves. #BringBackAladdin

Bill, I didn't want to be the one to break the news, but the tickets actually are on sale, you're just blocked from buying them.

Let me be clear. While the video looks smooth but it's still got an attitude to it. The retracked portions ride great but it will still kick you around when it wants to. The laterals are insane throughout. Also, that video must have been filmed first thing in the morning with an empty train because it HAULS all the way through to the brakes.

Any updates on this? Thread has been silent for almost a month and I know they were aiming for Memorial Day for the grand opening.

You know, it's funny, but the best crepes I've ever had have been in Germany and not in France.

^ Are you talking about pre-Merlin or post-Merlin. Because post-Merlin should mean they'll force you to exit and re-enter because Merlin is horrible. Anyone been to the Dragon area yet? I'm curious about the boat ride.

#ItOpenedButItllNeverStayOpen

Oh, I'm aware. I'm just in town for a long layover, though. Landing at 1:30 in the afternoon and out at 6am the next morning. Not sure if I want to spend 45 minutes each way on the train.

Tivoli or Bakken. I'm still on the fence about making the trip to Bakken. Tivoli is a definite.

Totally forgot to weigh in with my thoughts from my first ever visit last week! No photos because I was too busy having a ton of fun to even bother. We landed in St. Louis at 5:50am and had no problems getting off the plane and to the Alamo rental location. Hit the road around 6:20am. Blew straight out of St. Louis and avoided any rush hour traffic! Once we were across the river, though, I realized how much it must suck to live in Illinois and work in St. Louis. The road was a parking lot. Not as crazy bad as places like NY and LA, mind you, but still pretty darn bad. Sucks for them, but we were going the other way! The way with NO OTHER CARS ON THE ROAD! While not outright admitting to any illegal speeds, let's just say there are no cops on I-64 east of East St. Louis. It was lovely. Now, you might be asking yourself, "Kyle, wait, you flew in and landed at 5:50am and intend on doing an entire day at the park? How will you ever have the energy?" Well, my good friends, that problem was solved by the wonderful Chuck Wagon Charlie's! Just a small, middle of nowhere gas station with surprisingly good coffee and breakfast sandwiches hand made by the nice lady working there. That coffee and sandwich gave me just the right amount of kick I needed to make it the next hour-ish of driving before the coasters could wake me up more. We arrived right around 9:30am, a half hour past opening, and saw at least ten school busses in the parking lot as well as a sea of the same colored shirts meeting in the picnic pavilion. We quickly jumped out and got in front of them to go under the highway. Much nicer than waiting behind them all at bag check and the ticket counters, haha. Thanks to Club TPR we got an even better rate than the Summer Kickoff ticket price and we were in the park ready to party! Unfortunately Raven wasn't open yet because they were still doing their morning checks. Oh, well, we'll come back. I hear a bell ringing down the way, though! Legend - Hooooooo boy, this is one hell of a way to start your day! Again, this was my first ever visit to Holiday World so I can't compare New Legend to Old Legend. I will say, though, that this ride is FRIGGIN NUTS! We jumped in the front row and then got a second ride in the back row without ever leaving the station. This thing is big, mean (in a good way), and long! I've seen the POV vids but for some reason the length of this one never really came across to me. It just keeps on going! Crazy intense laterals, good pops of airtime, a fantastic ride from start to finish. I don't know why everyone is knocking the new double down as I felt like it was giving some great airtime all day! Moving on through the park towards the back, we quickly banged out the two back there - Thunderbird - Meh. Nothing against the park as they did a great job with the themeing and it is a solid crowdpleaser, I'm just not a big fan of Wingriders except for Raptor at Gardaland and I'm pretty sure that I only love that ride because of the crazy themeing all along the ride. Busting through a guard tower, being shot at, having geysers erupt in front of you, smoke effects, etc, all create for an incredible ride. On this one it's a cool launch sequence but after that it's a themeless ride except for the one and a half keyholes at the end. I will say it's better than Wild Eagle at Dollywood! We ended up riding in all four corners throughout the day and it's definitely a front seat ride. Voyage - Holy flipping crap, greatest wooden coaster I've ever been on that's not an RMC. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. This ride is flat out nuckin' futs from beginning to end. Absolutely zero chance to breathe, never lets up on speed, has airtime and laterals out the yin yang, a bunch of tunnels, holy wow this thing is awesome! I had some people warn me that it'll beat me up but I didn't get that at all! We rode in the front and back throughout the day and never had any roughness issues. I know they've been working on retracking here and there so it seems that it's certainly helping because this coaster is a national treasure! I want to find the guys who engineered it and find out what magical powers they harnessed to make it run so fast all the way into the final brakes! They've clearly broken the rules of physics! I can't say enough good things about this ride. I love it. Love love love love LOVE it! Back row I felt was slightly better than the front but I think that's mainly because I was getting giddy watching the train snake through the course in front of us. We did the Turkey shooter ride that has the most annoying gun sound in history, spun around on Turkey Whirl, braved the seas on Mayflower, then made our way back towards the front of the park. The space shot had some very intense airtime! After that it was getting to be lunch time so we wet on a hunt for food. After seeing people on Raven, though, we decided food could wait another five minutes. Raven - There's a reason this was the #1 coaster for so many years. It doesn't look intimidating at all but WOW it's excellent! The first half is a nice, classic-feeling wooden coaster with that beautiful turn over the lake. The second half it becomes a relentless haul through the woods at mach 10! My one complaint would be that the ride is short compared to its big brothers but that makes no difference. This thing is wicked and I love it. I'd rank it as second best in the park behind Voyage. Legend is a great ride but Raven edged it out with it's second half. We ended up grabbing lunch at Goblin Burgers because it was right there and I had to try this Peanut Butter Burger concoction. I'll be honest, it was life changing, but it was definitely something different that I enjoyed. The fried cheese curds were delicious! After lunch we wandered for a bit and then I made the executive decision to hit the waterpark. My better half wasn't too keen on the idea because she said it was too cold for waterslides. I told her anything north of 50 degrees is perfect for waterslides. It being 72 degrees out means it was party time. I'd heard many good things about Splashin' Safari, especially the water coasters. That being said, I was still skeptical. I've been on Master Blaster slides before and I figured the LIM tech would be the same, just less water in my ear on the uphill. Boy, was I wrong, but we'll get to that later. Watubee - First slide of the day, a good way to get the "COLD COLD COLD" shock over with. Nothing crazy, a fun and winding family slide. We didn't spin at all, though, so I spent the entire ride going backwards with the woman laughing at me. Zinga - I've never actually ridden a Proslide tornado or whatever the industry name is for these things. I've only done Wild Surf at Cowabunga Bay which is a similar idea but completely different design. The Proslide version is a lot of fun, though! The drop into the funnel was great and we got a TON of speed, so much that I think we were about a foot away from the water sprinklers on the far side wall! The mini-drop out of the funnel was a nice little surprise, too, especially while we were vertical against the wall, haha. Bakuli - Ahhh, the toilet slide. I've only done a single-rider version of this design so riding in a family tube was a nice change. The drop into the toilet was long and speedy, we got four full revolutions before being flushed. And now the big boys... Wildebeest - Wow, this shocked me with how awesome the LIM technology is! Some good pops of airtime, great steep drops, very very wet, lots of changes of direction and surprise hills! Definitely better than the Master Blaster design for the uphill sections! Feeling the wubwubwubwub of the magnets was weird but cool. Riding in the back definitely provided a more out of control experience and way more airtime, too. Rode this five or six times in total, never waited more than five minutes. Mammoth - AWESOME!!!!!!!! I never rode with the original rafts but these one are just fine, IMO. The ride is super out of control and scared the hell out of me on the drops! The slide just disappears under you! I was screaming and laughing the entire time. Extremely wet and wild, it totally blew away my expectations. Watching videos and looking at pictures it seems like a pretty straightforward ride. Turn, drop, hill, turn, drop, hill, etc. Riding it, though, is one of the craziest experiences I've had in a water park! I especially love the two uphills towards the end that spin the raft on purpose just to mess with you! Also rode this a bunch. We spent about two and a half hours in the waterpark in total before leaving to get a few more rides on the coasters in. I was extremely impressed with Holiday World! Also, let me mention something I've not even touched on yet. The politeness of everyone. Not just the employees, but even the (non-school-group) guests! I've never felt more welcomed anywhere in my life! Not even Disney parks match this level of interaction and politeness! Every single employee I came across was smiling, asking how our day was going, offering advice and jokes, and just loving life! I was dumbfounded by how great everyone was. This place is wonderful. Thank you so so so much, Holiday World, for giving me one of the greatest days at a park I've ever had. You guys are certainly doing everything right, so just keep doing what your doing and, in the words of Billy Joel, don't go changin'!

Raven at Holiday World. It would have been the first ride of the day but it was still getting started in the morning when we arrived. Ended up looping around the park and hitting it right before lunch. As for the ride? Holy crap it's incredible!