I visited Holiday World in June for the first time, the last stop on a 4-parks-in-3-days trip. As a 60-year-old woman who has only been riding coasters for 10 years, HW held my greatest challenge so far. I’ve been inching up gradually from Waldameer Comet, adding height, speed and laterals every season. I discovered I had a love of laterals 2 years ago when I worked up to riding Ravine Flyer II and Knoebels’ Twister, so I loved both the Raven and Legend. But, yikes, the Voyage! The height of that lift hill terrified me! And the fact that it was down when we arrived for “wildlife issues” made me almost bench myself. But having come so far and building up to it for so long, I swallowed my terror and cued up for the front seat.
In fact, I only ride front seats. I have to see the fear I’m facing in order to overcome it. Plus, for me, the front seat feels like the smoothest, least spine-crushing ride.
One fear I haven’t quite overcome is the fear of heights over 100 feet or so. At 173 feet, Voyage far exceeds that number. To avoid panicking, all I could do was look at my feet and breathe on the lift hill - and ask my husband to warn me when we approached the top. Once we crested that hill, I was good to go! I love an intense and muscular coaster and this was the pinnacle. I loved it and made myself re-ride it, even though, being the fourth park in three days, my spine was feeling it. As such, I skipped re-riding Raven and Legend. My favorite coaster element in general is a double helix, so I really would have loved another ride on Legend. I guess there’ll have to be a next time.