Trip Report: Holiday World (7/14/2006)

[Cameron]

What a week .. visiting my two favorite parks: Indiana Beach AND Holiday World!

 

So after hearing me blather on and on about Holiday World, Voyage and Raven, a friend of mine (who lives in Kalamazoo, MI) told me that he and his family would be stopping off at the park on their way home from their two week camping vacation. How could I possibly say no?!

 

This was my third visit to Holiday World this year, and it was great fun. A friend of mine on another coaster board recently commented that the atmosphere at Holiday World has changed quite a bit in the last few years. His comments were slightly negative in nature, which I disagree with; but I do agree somewhat that the park doesn't have the same feel as it did in 1999 and 2000. However I think this change is inevitable .. In a log entry from earlier this year, Paula wrote that they hired 1,500 seasonal employees this summer .. three times the number they hired in 1992.

 

I don't think it's bad necessarily, although part of me does miss the "good old days" from before even Legend.

 

Anyway, on to the report...

 

I met with my friend Mike, his wife, and three kids (14, 11 and 9). His wife and the younger two kids spent most of the day in the water-park where they had an amazing day. While Mike, his oldest (Josh), and myself spent our time in the regular park and also had an amazing day! Josh was a little coaster-timid initially (especially for Voyage), but ended up loving all three .. although he likes Raven the best .. smart little man!

 

At about 6pm a huge, (HUGE) storm blew through .. we took shelter under an overhang near an employee break room opposite the glass-blowing shop. For about an hour we stood there and were really part of the storm .. it was so awesome. There was lightning all around is .. often with less than one second between lighting and gut-wrenching thunder. Fortunately we'd met up with the rest of Mike's family just before the storm hit .. and during the storm we convinced Matt (9 year old) into trying Raven. He'd ridden Corkscrew and Zoomer at Michigan's Adventure and loved them both.

 

The rain cleared up at about 7, and the sun started to come back out. Since it would take some time to get the coasters running, we heading down to Gobblers as the younger kids had yet to try it. Gobblers was closed down during the storm, but it opened shortly after we arrived and we hit it up several times in a row. Mike, Josh and myself were a little bored with it after several rides, but the younger kids loved it .. which was really nice to see.

 

Matt was itching to try Raven so we headed up there. They were still walking the tracks, so we chatted with the cool ride-op/gate-keeper. She was in good spirits, even though she had to say "it should be opening soon, but I don't know how long" about 7000 times a minute! However she soon got the word from above, opened the gate, and we proceeded to have three of my best rides on Raven that I've ever had.

 

The tracks were slick with over 60 minutes of rain, after a sickeningly hot day .. plus there was a beautiful, fiery-red sunset to the west, and thick, black storm clouds WITH A RAINBOW to the east. Freaking unreal!

 

Then we broke the ride

 

It seemed that little Raven just didn't have enough air-pressure, and the computer got mad. We sat on the brakes for about 15 minutes, then inched our way into the station. I don't know if the compressor was shut off during the storm along with the rest of the ride and it just hadn't built up yet, or if something was actually wrong.

 

Anyway Matt *loved* Raven (he rode it all three times), and wanted to try Voyage (!). Sadly Voyage wasn't too happy after the rain, and the lovely ops standing at the top of Thanksgiving (near the Rapids entry - thankfully we didn't have to walk all the way down) told us it probably wouldn't open for the rest of the day. It was already 8:20, and the park closed at 9.

 

This left us with Legend .. which we boarded at about 8:45 after a few bathroom breaks and a bit of a line. It was dark by now, and Legend gave it's best rides I've had in years. Matt rode Legend and loved it too .. Even Mike really liked it (he hadn't likeed it too much earlier in the day).

 

We also hit up the Bumper Boats, Liberty Launch, and countless walk-on rides on Voyage (still kicks ass). Matt was bummed he couldn't ride Voyage, but (as Mike put it) they now have a reason to return!

 

This was the second family of five I've dragged to the park, and they've both had a wonderful time. So who cares if the park doesn't feel quite as much like riding coasters in someone's backyard as it used to .. it's still a terrific way to spend a day. Despite the 750 mile round trip drive, I hope to get back down there at least one more time this summer.

 

Cameron.

[derwood]

One of my favorites. Trying to talk Robin's neices to come for a visit so I can break them in on some real coasters. Not sure if we will do IB or HW.

 

d

[Cameron]

Do both!