Holiday World (HW) Discussion Thread

[PAL]

We're hoping to pop into the park around 5:30 on Saturday, sticking around until the park closes at 9:30. Any suggestions? We'll be happy if we can get a lap or two on the woodies. Bonus if we can manage the water coasters too. They are open until 7:30.

[prozach626]

^like someone else said, do the water coasters as soon as they are available. Don't worry about getting laps in on the coasters. You'll have plenty of time for that.

[glouthan]

^^Also, if you don't mind riding with other people that you don't know, the single riders line is significantly shorter and you will get on faster. (I believe Mammoth has one.)

[Kyle Coleman]

Wildebeest has one too. Turned a twenty or so minute wait into a walk on for me two weeks ago.

[PAL]

We arrived around 5:45 pm for a 9:30 close and walked straight to Wildebeest, passing a crowd of people heading home. In an hour and a half we managed 7 rides between Wildebeest and Mammoth. Such great water attractions! Mammoth was more fun than we expected, and Wildebeest was as thrilling as we remembered. Our last ride of the night two of us had a raft to ourselves. The magnets threw us over every hill crest.

 

Voyage in the dark - wow! The outbound section through the twists in the woods ran well. It wasn't until the return that the rattle picked up. Speaking of, The Legend was down when we arrived. It opened around 7:30 and gathered a crowd. We waited 20 minutes at 8:40. Ugh. It isn't running well. We ended with a couple pitch black laps on Raven. Great visit!

[Fear&Loathing19]

My bet is on something very similar to Maverick/Cheetah Hunt.. Perfect.

[tororific]

My bet is on something very similar to Maverick/Cheetah Hunt.. Perfect.

 

agreed, but those launch coasters are very expensive (comparatively) and maintenance headaches, particularly for a smaller park, I would think?

[ZeroGravity55]

^ Going to a park that has one of the biggest maintenance nightmares in The Voyage in terms of re-tracking the ride every single year, I don't think a steel launched coaster will phase them one bit. If the coaster uses LIMS then the park already has plenty of experience with them in Wildebeest and Mammoth.

[Vonni]

I doubt HW will go with Intamin for this project, especially after removing PP (Giraffica) for its maintence issues.

[Fear&Loathing19]

Really? Are they maintanence nightmares? Maybe i have not paid too muchh attention but it seems like i have never seen a CP trip report where Maverick was down frequently.

 

I know these "packages" and "discounts" people whisper about are unrealistic for the most part but somethigg tells me that because Pilgrim's Plunge was more of a concept.. That maybe Intamin would want to do right by the park? Maybe that is ridiculous? But it seems like the park is very hospitable and has great relationships with all different types of companies.. (Shrugs)

[ZeroGravity55]

^ I've read a couple of things on the Holiwood Nights FB page where someone said that they brought up Intamin to Dan Koch when he was Park President and he acted like he wasn't too high on them or something like that. There probably really isn't any truth to that, more so now that Dan isn't running the park anymore. Honestly, in this industry, it seems tough to really gauge who has a good relationship with who. I mean we all thought that the Gravity Group had a great relationship with HW until the whole Timberliner thing last year, then we all assumed that they have a horrible relationship. Do we really even know? Of course not, because nobody is going to come out and say it. It's the same thing with Intamin. We think we know, but do we really know?

[neil009]

Really? Are they maintanence nightmares? Maybe i have not paid too muchh attention but it seems like i have never seen a CP trip report where Maverick was down frequently.

 

How many have you read? Maverick is not known for its reliability.

[Diamondbacker27]

From a friend who visited the park today.

[thrillseeker4552]

Both B&M and Intamin have their good days and bad days. On my Cedar Point trip in 2012, Millennium Force, TTD, and Maverick all ran flawlessly, but Raptor got stuck on the lift a few times and had to evacuate riders.

 

But back on topic, I feel that Holiday World would truly benefit from a family launch coaster. Something like Manta at SWSD would be excellent. Even if they went the little more extreme route to a Cheetah Hunt-esque ride, it would still be a great addition. After teasing us for 66 days, I hope it will be something worth the wait. *cough* Full Throttle *cough*

[CPSFMMCW]

From a friend who visited the park today.

Yayyy! That's good news! That's gonna be epic! To me this sounds like its definitely gonna be a steel inverter. Possibly launch. Probably Mack. But it sure does make sense and would be a Great fit!

[OneOfTheWills]

*drops in*

 

Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster like Karacho.

 

*zips back out*

[glouthan]

I think something like Helix or Bluefire would work wonders for this park. Long layout possibly, and inversions and launches to provide something different and new to the park.

[mikeykaise]

Based on today's clue, it may not be popular with coaster enthusiasts on what they're building:

 

"A growing number of passengers whisper concerns that we made a poor choice in joining this voyage. How do we help them find courage? - See more at: http://www.holidayworld.com/66days/#sthash.StEW6xFR.dpuf"

 

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's my whole interpretation. Just like the year they were building up to the Mammoth announcement which turns out to be a bigger version of Wildebeest.

[OneOfTheWills]

^I think you could be right...partly. Maybe this is talking about how most of the earlier postings on this thread kept repeating the same "So-and-so coaster doesn't fit Holiday World," or the "I really don't want so-and-so coaster because I think it doesn't fit into what the park has done before." Maybe Holiday World IS doing something bigger and more extreme than they have ever done?

 

 

Or...maybe they are doing something that to some of the enthusiast community might not seem worthy of 66 days of clues in hindsight.

[cfc]

^Just my two cents: The park will do what ever they think is necessary to best please their guests, which are mostly families, not coaster enthusiasts. That's why they've been concentrating on their water park so much over the last few years.

 

Enthusiasts are important to Holiday World (there's no mistaking that), but their primary audience consists of families.

[Shavethewhales]

^Definitely. There are so many options the park could be pursuing based on what market is more lucrative. Are they trying to bring in people from out of state, broaden their appeal to families, or even make a play for national attention with a creative new gimmick? I really try not to speculate on what I think would "fit" a certain park anymore, because that rarely plays into what they are actually trying to do with new attractions.

 

Consider (for example) the benefits of a fairly sizable B&M coaster: you get great capacity, minimal downtime, a smooth and broadly-appealing ride experience, and lots of great regional and even national attention. I could see that being highly appealing for a park like HW seems to be on the verge of breaking into more competitive markets. Lots of things to consider outside of what best suits coaster lovers. I'm still leaning towards the launched family coaster though, they just seem like a highly marketable attraction right now.

[mikeykaise]

I'm thinking the possibility of something similar to the Seven Dwarves Mine Train ride. I could see how they could model individual cars as ships and it would have the rocking motion like a ship would have and hasn't been thrown out there yet.

[tororific]

^ Going to a park that has one of the biggest maintenance nightmares in The Voyage in terms of re-tracking the ride every single year, I don't think a steel launched coaster will phase them one bit. If the coaster uses LIMS then the park already has plenty of experience with them in Wildebeest and Mammoth.

 

Completely different levels of complexity and costs. An LIM coaster like Maverick is significantly more complicated to deal with than retracking Voyage or the simply LIM systems on Wildebeest and Mammoth. Now, observe as they announced a Helix-like ride .. . ....

 

If I were Holiday World's general manager, I would do an Intamin mega-lite or something that is reliable, a crowd pleasure, and relatively maintenance-lite (in the steel realm).

 

And for all these Holiday World won't work with intamin again thoughts, Cedar point went right back to intamin after the nightmare that was Top Thrill Dragster.....

[coasterbear30]

^Haha, you said Intamin and reliable in the same sentence.

[OneOfTheWills]

^Just my two cents: The park will do what ever they think is necessary to best please their guests, which are mostly families, not coaster enthusiasts. That's why they've been concentrating on their water park so much over the last few years.

 

Enthusiasts are important to Holiday World (there's no mistaking that), but their primary audience consists of families.

 

Exactly right. I'm not at all worried about the decisions a nearly 70 year old park is making I'm only stating that the enthusiast community could be the ones to suffer because so many have had certain hopes. Holiday World will do just fine no matter what they decide to to.