Holiday World (HW) Discussion Thread

[ShaneH]

^I haven't been yet this year, but last year people rushed to thunderbird in the mornings so well as Raven and Legend. Voyage is the only coaster that is a walk on in the morning. Surprisingly thunderbird is a station wait in the afternoon. Unless you're dying to ride Thunderbird then I would wait until the afternoon.

[HolidayWorldFTW]

^I haven't been yet this year, but last year people rushed to thunderbird in the mornings so well as Raven and Legend. Voyage is the only coaster that is a walk on in the morning. Surprisingly thunderbird is a station wait in the afternoon. Unless you're dying to ride Thunderbird then I would wait until the afternoon.

 

This right here^^ I know it's been said many times but I cannot stress enough how important it is to do Splashin Safari AS SOON AS IT OPENS and head very quickly straight to the Mammoth and Wildebeest first. Then hit up the major slides like Zinga, Bakuli, ect. Doing it any other way will cause you to have a bad time... ESPECIALLY on the weekends. The water park is extremely clean, efficient, and well run when it's super busy, but you WILL be waiting in long long lines for those water coasters and the major slides. If that does happen to you though, don't leave the line for the water coasters, you will regret it because they are both WELL worth the wait.

 

I'm enjoying all these pictures and talk of the park I'm seeing in here! HW is only about a 30 min drive for me but due to financial reasons I'll probably be unable to go this year. =( it will be the first year I don't go in a very long time. So I'm going to be living this season vicariously through you all and taking many POV rides on the coasters,lol.

[Voyager6442]

With HoliWood Nights coming up, I'm trying to brush up on my understanding of wooden coasters. Would anyone happen to know where I could find a picture that shows an antirollback device and a chain dog? Thanks.

[coasterbill]

With HoliWood Nights coming up, I'm trying to brush up on my understanding of wooden coasters. Would anyone happen to know where I could find a picture that shows an antirollback device and a chain dog? Thanks.

 

Here you go...

 

Anti-rollback

 

Chain dog

 

If you need any further assistance just let me know.

 

In all seriousness I've had no luck finding a wood coaster image, but here's a good shot of an anti-rollback on a steel coaster.

[ilrider]

^I haven't been yet this year, but last year people rushed to thunderbird in the mornings so well as Raven and Legend. Voyage is the only coaster that is a walk on in the morning. Surprisingly thunderbird is a station wait in the afternoon. Unless you're dying to ride Thunderbird then I would wait until the afternoon.

 

Sounds good! Thanks! We'll hit Voyage first then. We missed Mammoth last time because we hit the waterpark a little late due to riding Raven first. We have two days this time thankfully.

[ZeroGravity55]

I visited the park today. It was kinda of a weird day. A lot of school kids were there, which I expected. Voyage was down until about two. That caused all the lines for Thunderbird, Legend and Raven to be sort of longer than they should have been. They were running two trains on everything, but were really late in opening up the extended queues, which was causing Raven and Legends lines to spill way out past the entrance.

 

We were in line at Thunderbird around 11:30 and the person who was sorting people to ride right or left wing in the bottom of the station left and nobody replaced her. They had almost the whole bottom queue open except for part of it around the wagon and it was completely full. For some reason this caused mass confusion as no one could make up their mind to which side they wanted to ride and they were holding up the line in trying to make a decision. If you didn't understand why they assign which sides you ride on and which row you sit in, that's why.

 

I also was in line when Wildebeest had two of it's boats get too close to one another (which I'm pretty sure was cause by someone taking their sweet time getting out the raft) and caused the whole ride to shut down. I gotta give props to the crew on Wildebeest. Those girls were sprinting up the hill to get the riders out of the ride where the boats stalled and then walking them down and running back up to manually re-start the boats so they could re-set the ride.

 

The lines for the food were also very long, at least in the waterpark. They only had Zoombabwe Grill and Jungle Jakes open and it took us about 30 mins standing in line to get our food. They were really getting killed with big orders. Everyone else who had one or two items was getting their food in about 1-2 mins. Just my perspective as someone who is a manager in a restaurant, but I honestly might try implementing an "express checkout" for anyone with less than 4 items and then have two or three seperate line for those people with big orders. I know it would be difficult to get people to follow rules and HW would try to accommodate them if they broke the rules anyway because HW is known for being "friendly". From my perspective though, if people can't read the sign, send them to the back of the other line.

 

I also noticed that Scarecrow Scrambler was completely dismantled. ZOOMbabwe also didn't have any water filled up in it's splash pool and there were no boats for it anywhere.

 

As for ride reviews

 

The Legend: Here's my play-by-play. The first drop has to be the smoothest drop I've ever experienced on a wooden coaster. Everything after that to helix is the same as before, if not even a bit more intense. The ride feels so much faster now. As said before, the first part of the double-down has no airtime whatsoever. The second part has decent airtime in the back. The turn after going under the lift has what I would call a "jolt" of laterals and then you get airtime coming out of it as you dive under the tunnel. The next turn has been engineered into a GCI "bam-bam" airtime turn where you get airtime going into and coming out, but there are no laterals at all. The final turn starts out with "bam-bam" airtime and then you get a nice jolt of laterals as the turn flattens out. I think it's an improvement as I'm more of a airtime person myself. Those who loved the laterals,you still have the helix and spiral drop by Zinga, but you probably won't like the finale at all. One other thing, they're starting to complete the tunnel at the bottom of the drop and add netting to the track by the station. Also, what's with the howl on the lift? It wasn't on all day and the randomly around 4ish, it was on for one cycle.

 

The Voyage: As I said, it opened up around 2. It looks like they were replacing top steel/running boards on the first camelback. It was running great! However, whoever said that the ride is no longer braked at the MCBR must have been on a very light train. A full train is getting braked, but it's not bringing it to a complete stop. The brake is grabbing hold as the first car starts to enter the triple down. It's enough the kill the momentum on the first two hills of the triple down.

 

The Raven: I thought it was running great as usual.

 

Thunderbird: I fall in love with this ride more and more every time I ride it. It's such a great ride and I know this has been said many times already, but HW absolutely nailed it with this addition.

 

Mammoth: Yes, I'm reviewing Mammoth because it has new boats! If you listened to the podcast, you would know that these new boats are supposed to be lighter and give guests more support along with more leg room. I feel like since you're sitting lower and have more support, the ride doesn't feel as out of control as it did with the older boats. In the older boasts you were more exposed and it felt like you were riding on the edge if that makes any sense? You do get more leg room, although when the boats go through the turns and bend, you kinda awkwardly touch legs with the people next to you. I really wish I could have ridden an old boat and tried the new boat right after so I could have a better comparison.

 

Overall it was good trip. It got better after 5 when all the school groups left. Everything was either a walk-on or had a short wait after that. Also, I'm thinking we're gonna be getting some video of The Legend soon. They had a sign in front of the ride saying that by riding, you were giving them your consent for them to use your likeness in videography or something like that.

Edited May 24, 2016 by ZeroGravity55

[SFOGdude25]

It was me. On opening day none of the Voyage rides I did were slowed down at all. It was a fairly cold day so I guess the trains were running a bit slower. Either that or maintenance had yet to re-program the midcourse.

 

When I was there last Thursday, I did notice the new brake pattern on the midcourse and was surprised that they braked you as the front of the train was hanging on the triple down. Still not a complete stop, but definitely braked. Anyways, I just didn't think about posting about it while I was there.

[ZeroGravity55]

^ It's all good. It took me by surprise as well. I literally looked at my friend as we entered the MCBR and said "no brakes this year" and then it grabbed us lol

[Ape]

Heading to the park for my second visit on Sunday June 5th. Fingers crossed that it is not packed that day. I am considering a Cabana rental as well will have babies there (actual babies not people afraid of riding thing) but damn that price would jump by $80 that weekend. I can't wait to try out Thunderbird and hopefully get my first rides on the water coasters.

[rollin_n_coastin]

Interesting to hear about the new boats on Mammoth. That ride really was out of control insane in a great way with the old boats. Looking forward to trying it again with the new boats.

[ZeroGravity55]

^ Don't get me wrong, its still an insanely great ride, especially when you're riding with friends. I just feel there isn't as much of an "oh sh**" factor as there was before. I think part of it is the way you sit, but I also think part of it is how the boats bend easier now. I don't think the old boats were as flexible, so when you went over the hills, the back end of the boats would sort of get flung in the air. Now that they bend more, that doesn't happen as violently as it did.

[KBrylczyk]

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'!

[Ape]

Excellent report ^

 

Question for the regulars. I am curious at what point the water park starts getting crowded based on temps? Say the high stays as its saying for my trip in a week at 79 will people be swarming the park or will it still be too cool for them? We are trying to get a game plan together and plan for a cabana if needed.

[neil009]

^^Man... I need to go back to Holiday World. Reading your trip report was like reliving my first trip last year. I wish it wasn't so far away!!

[Nrthwnd]

^^^ Holiday World has always been on my Bucket List.

But I think your TR just "upped" it a few spots, lol.

Reads like you had a great time at both parks!

Thanks for sharing the trip.

[tykunkel1031]

Excellent report ^

 

Question for the regulars. I am curious at what point the water park starts getting crowded based on temps? Say the high stays as its saying for my trip in a week at 79 will people be swarming the park or will it still be too cool for them? We are trying to get a game plan together and plan for a cabana if needed.

The crowds aren't as dependent on the temp as they are rain or sun from what I've noticed. It's mainly the month, which you're going rather early, so you should be okay. There will be a decent amount of people there but it shouldn't be too overwhelming. That is as long as you go on a weekday, preferably not friday either.

[Ape]

We will be there on Sunday June 5th.

[kyleparks77]

We will be there on Sunday June 5th.

Sunday is generally lighter, but June is peak season. It's all a matter of perspective. A Sunday in June might be lighter than the rest of a June week, but busier than any day in late August.

 

By the way, I see that your favorite woodie isn't The Beast. How are you allowed to live in Cincinnati?

[Ape]

While I grew up with the Beast and love the thing to death at night after being blown away by Voyage and riding both in consecutive days the day rides on Beast just became boring.

[kyleparks77]

^ maybe that's why I've never understood all the hype about Beast - I've only ridden it during the day. I need to try it at night sometime. But then again...the Voyage is even more epic at night

[neil009]

This might be sacrilege but as much as I loved the Voyage, I didn't think it was all that at night. There were huge floodlights lighting up almost the entire spaghetti bowl, and the rest of the coaster runs close enough to the midway to keep it from ever getting truly pitch black. Maybe I was spoiled by Boulder Dash but Voyage really pales in comparison. In fact I thought Raven also gave better night rides.

[kyleparks77]

^did you go during construction of thunderbird? I've never been on it at night when anything past the second hill is lit up

[DefeatistNation]

^ maybe that's why I've never understood all the hype about Beast - I've only ridden it during the day. I need to try it at night sometime. But then again...the Voyage is even more epic at night

 

Yeah, I rode The Beast at night for the first time last month and it was a life changing experience. And I've ridden voyage a ton.

[neil009]

^did you go during construction of thunderbird? I've never been on it at night when anything past the second hill is lit up

 

Holiwood Nights last year. Got in a bunch of night rides, it was all the same. I'll revise my previous statement to say that there may have only been one floodlight on the speghetti bowl but it was bright enough that I could always see the track in front of us.

[ZeroGravity55]

I think last year was a full moon or pretty close to one if I remember correctly from some of the pictures from the event. We just had a full moon so there shouldn't be any light coming from the moon for this years event. It is interesting to hear about the flood light though.