Photo TR: Kings Island, Holiday World, and Indiana Beach

[CenturyFlyer]

From July 22-24, I got to go to three parks for the first time that I had wanted to visit for years. This will be long-winded, but if you're up for it, I hope that you enjoy the read.

 

Holiday World Link

Indiana Beach Link (Blue skies resulted in the best pictures of the trip.)

Cedar Point Mini-Report Link

 

Day 1: Kings Island (Wednesday July 22)

 

To begin our trip through the Midwest, we made the drive to Kings Island and got there at 10:15, just as they were opening the parking lot. We quickly made our way into the park by passing through the temperature screening, in which we had an employee tell us to stand inside a set area.

The operators were really pushing the numbers, dispatching the next train when the previous one had just cleared the speed hill. I had heard from a few places that Orion was a front row ride, but I personally prefer it in the back. There is little better than the first drop, airtime on a giga is good, and the helix is intense.

Orion has become my #1 steel coaster and #3 overall (out of 131). Of note is the fact that Orion was not unloading one row at a time, and I heard a supervisor explaining something to the effect of “if you let everyone out at once…” as I was exiting my second ride.

With rain in sight, I went to Beast, and it started to drizzle while I was in the partially-covered queue. There wasn't any rain while I was actually on the ride, though. It was hard seeing the big plot of land where Vortex used to be knowing that I missed my chance to ride it.

 

Cedar Point has ditched live spielers on the ride platforms this year in favor of pre-recorded ones, but Kings Island still has the panel operators say the spiels live. I was hoping I would love the Beast but wasn't expecting much, and the “glorified mine train” idea was definitely reinforced by my first ride. The coolest part and the thing that made the ride worthwhile was cruising through the woods, and it’s hard to imagine what this ride would be like without that feature. And of course, the helix did not disappoint.

There was rain in the forecast, but we still got in line for Mystic Timbers, which closed with us about halfway up the stairs. We waited for only a few minutes under the Brewhouse overhang (clumped together with other people - this is one moment where it’s impossible to social distance!) then headed over to Boo Blasters (don't think that there's supposed to be guns, but one in our car worked) before getting lunch at Skyline Chili. Some people might think that it's gross, but I enjoyed it.

Even when we were done eating, all the rides were still closed, so we continued to wait out this two hour+ delay by waiting in a 30-minute queue for Flight of Fear. It’s a shame that social distancing means you can’t switchback in the flying saucer room more, as it would be fun to take in the whole preshow and the effects that go along with it. Even with Cedar Fair’s enhanced theming lately, it’s safe to say that they will never build something as elaborate as this. The launch of Flight of Fear was the best part of the ride. Everything after it was a big rattly mess to me. I remember liking Kings Dominion’s version a lot more. I wonder what’s wrong...my memory or the ride?

Orion in a rain delay later in the day

 

One of the biggest surprises of the day hit us right when we arrived at Area 72 at park opening. Orion opened way before the park, at around 10:40. Orion never distributed access passes the day we visited. Even with everyone in the park seemingly at the same attraction at once, it only took us 20 minutes to board the train.

Diamondback was next, and I got stuck in line with an annoying group of kids flailing around and bumping into me. Diamondback was running two trains with the third one nowhere in sight. That’s the right decision to make, though, when you’re unloading one row at a time! (Orion was the only ride that didn’t do this.) Diamondback was awesome and is definitely #2 in the park now for me, but it was probably slightly less enjoyable to a first-timer that had already experienced Orion. I felt some mist as we glided across the lake.

It was very cool walking into a new park, especially one as iconic as KI, for the first time. I’m unsure if I would’ve liked it more when there were bigger trees along International Street. The forecast was calling for rain later in the morning, but it was still clear at this point and would be for a little longer.

The Bat entrance was deserted, but once we made our way into the ravine we found a healthy number of people in the station, probably due to the 1-train operation (which isn’t helped by the slow lift hill). The wait took 20 minutes, but the ride was better than I thought it would be. Riding in the back row, we got great airtime on the first drop, and while the rest of the course was over in a flash, it was my first "real" Arrow suspended (not Iron Dragon).

Racer was only running the red side, although we had seen them racing trains earlier in the day. Racer was another ride that was unexpectedly solid. In the front row, it gave more airtime than I remember KD’s racer giving, and while it’s the worst woodie in the park, all three here are very good.

 

I checked to verify that the “$10 Slingshot” didn’t allow single riders and split up with Dad; he went to do the Eiffel Tower while I went to Backlot Stunt Coaster. This was a walk-on, and I rode in the back row. Where Flight of Fear disappointed me, Backlot wowed me. For the third time that day, near-clones of coasters at Kings Island and Kings Dominion left me with completely different opinions. The fire effect wasn’t working, but this is a fun, zippy ride with some drops that I wasn’t expecting to be so deep.

There are no turnstiles this year - not sure if it's been like that

Cedar Fair doesn’t know how to maintain carousels. It seems like too often there are spider webs on the band organ (apparently this one has operated more recently), and pre-recorded music is never the same!

... but Cedar Fair gets an A+ for their floral clocks!

These were running. Good to see

We now walked over to Action Zone for our first foray into the north side of KI. Banshee was a ride that I was curious about, and it was a walk-on. Like Diamondback, Banshee was missing its third train, and my first ride was in row three. While this isn’t an intense invert by any means, I’m not a fan of sustained positive gs on steel coasters, so it is actually my favorite of the inverts I’ve been on. (Raptor, Alpengeist, Great Bear) It’s nice to be on an invert on which you can just enjoy flying through the sky without constantly bracing for the high g-force. Again, this is just my opinion. The in-line twist at the end was neat.

There was still almost an hour left before the park closed, so I headed over to Orion. To my amazement, it was a walk-on. I boarded row four and had an incredible ride once again. I was pumped that I could probably get several more laps before the park closed if the line stayed short. However, this was quashed when I got stuck on the brakes for twenty minutes. I was hoping for an evac from 80 feet up in the air but instead, maintenance arrived on the scene, speeding their pickups along the dirt road to the coaster. The two trains in front of us slowly backed up before we were eventually released into the station.

I took this picture later in the day when it got sunny. There's a train in there.

 

Mystic Timbers is relentless, and I was hoping that I would become a GCI fan after riding what’s widely considered one of their best coasters. However, no matter how many crazy directional changes and pops of airtime Mystic throws at you, it’s a bit too smooth for me. That’s just what I thought of it after three rides. I’m a huge Gravity Group fan and love wooden coasters, but the GCIs that I’ve ridden just don’t have the edge that I look for in a woodie. The shed was actually one of my favorite parts of the ride. It’s kind of ironic, but I was not expecting it to be as good as it was based on the disappointed reviews I had read. The radio that plays on the brake run is clever and makes you not realize that the train is stacking. Mystic Timbers barely misses my top 20.

I met with Dad at the Beast entrance and took a back row ride. This was too brutal for him, but I liked it more in the back. We were dismissed row by row this time.

Even with the long lines at the Bat, crowds were light, so I went over to Invertigo to get the credit. The panel operator was also calling the ride Face/Off and said that we should go check out Fury, as it’s “taller, faster longer and has a more interesting layout than Orion! It’s a real great yee-haw ride!” Someday I will... Invertigo is the only ride in the park that almost knocked my glasses and my mask off and is a ride that is one and done. Kids on the train with me voiced their surprise when itwent backward. Huh???

I'll spare you a picture of the Son of Beast station for this one of the old Skylab queue house!

 

Adventure Express was next. This was the biggest surprise of the day for me. Arrows are janky in a good way that Vekomas never are. The wooded setting is a nice touch, and the tunnel with the spears moving on the walls was something that I didn’t know was coming.

Looks like a fun flume...

 

The two kiddie coasters were open again, so I started out with Flying Ace Aerial Chase. It was pretty terrible, and I want to know how a Vekoma coaster can even rattle on the flat turn out of the station. Woodstock Express was much better but nothing special, and they were running two trains here.

To finish out my day, I decided to get a final ride on Mystic Timbers because I really wanted to love it but just wasn’t a superfan. This time, I tried holding the lap bar with two hands for the entire ride. This is more effort than it’s worth, so I’ll ride this coaster in the future holding the lap bar up a little bit but not with all of my might, as riding for half of a course stapled is a small price to pay.

 

And with that, my first ever Kings Island visit was over. Despite the rain delay, I was still able to do everything I wanted to do and had a very enjoyable experience. Something that stuck out to me at Kings Island was the lack of hand sanitizer stations. It felt like Indiana Beach had more sanitizer stations per square foot than KI did. Overall, Kings Island has the feel of a Cedar Fair park but has an outstanding ride collection that will make me want to return again and again. It was awesome to be able to ride both new B&Ms that have opened in the US in 2020!

 

Next up we visit Holiday World, the home of my new #1 coaster...

[CenturyFlyer]

We continued our summer 2020 road trip by going to Holiday World, our first of two parks in Indiana.

Making our way to Thunderbird, I was impressed by the large vertical loop and also noticed that Crow’s Nest was closed. Once we walked through the queue, we were boarding the seats of this wing coaster very quickly. We were on the right side, I think in the second or third row. I was not expecting the only B&M launch to be as good as it was, and the forces through the loop and following turn were particularly good. My favorite part was definitely the “barn” that you fly through at the end and the hangtime that you get on the accompanying in-line twist. Voyage and Thunderbird were the only rides in the park running two trains, and we ended up stacked on the brake run for a few minutes in the sun.

For whatever reason, the Voyage queue is listed as having no wait time (ride right now!) for the last hour or so of park opening, which is kind of an issue because it makes everyone from Splashin’ Safari come over and ride it. Combined with slow operations, this resulted in a 30 minute wait at the end of the night, but I was still able to work the inLine system to allow me to get one final ride after the long wait. But even with this, I got about 15 rides on a weekday.

But wait! We can't forget the star attraction of Holiday World!

If you go the lower level of the station, you can get some nice shots of the train flying by.

This was my first time being in a different time zone, which was nice because it bought us an extra hour since we were coming from the east. As soon as we got out of the car, the first person that we saw was wearing a mask, but that trend would certainly not continue throughout the day. It's really hard to imagine any of the people that we saw at the park wearing a mask without objecting! We did wear them.

*2000 through 2003* It will be a sad day when Holiday World takes this sign down.

We joined the line for bag check and to enter. This process moved very swiftly and was quite impressive for a park like Holiday World. They did not take your temperature at the entrance. Once we entered the park, we received our inLine reservation wristband, and I entered those into my phone.

Peeking through the trees

This Wave Swinger is better themed than the one at DCA.

It was awesome to be walking into the Thanksgiving area for the first time. Voyage was our first ride of the day.

We waited for our time to come up, entered the queue, and were assigned the front row. This was a smooth ride to start our day, and wow, was Voyage good. There definitely was an edge of roughness, but like Ravine Flyer II, this only made me enjoy the ride more. In fact, Voyage was pretty much a bigger, better Ravine Flyer II. Voyage is my new favorite roller coaster. I'm repeating everyone else, but I have to say that it’s a fast, completely out of control experience that never lets up. The roughest spots that I could notice were the area following the second tunnel, some of the 90 degree banks, and the heavily banked turn that dives underneath the bridge to the Thanksgiving area. I recommend row 11 of train B.

Leaving Thunderbird after what would be my only ride of the day on it, we reserved a time in 50 minutes for Raven.

This was one of the roughest spots of Voyage.

Legend has a unique first drop.

This is a quaint entry plaza that I think was partially redone recently.

After lunch, it was time for Raven. Dispatches were slower than they probably usually are because there was never a line in the station, so the crews had less motivation to hurry. The virtual queue system had hour-long wait times in the morning which decreased to less than 20 minutes by the mid-afternoon. However, the nice thing was that you could reserve another ride as soon as you were scanned into your current ride’s line. Anyway, I knew that Voyage would be a standout ride at Holiday World, but I was not expecting Raven (and eventually Legend) to be stellar rides as well. The airtime on the first drop was awesome. The turnaround over the lake was very rough, almost to the point of being unbearable. I was excited about the fifth drop, but even after a ride in the back seat, I didn’t think that it was as good as the first drop. I thought that the turns coming back to the station would be boring, but instead, they provided some great lateral forces. Raven ends while Legends throws a few more dips at you, but I was very impressed by my first CCI nonetheless. I actually like Raven more than Mystic Timbers.

At the right time, we went to Legend in the Halloween section of the park. Entering the queue, I once again noticed the park’s trademark narrow switchbacks. With the ringing of the bell, we started out on the first of my four Legend rides of the day. And Legend was another smash hit for me from Holiday World. I had never thought of CCI as a company that could design rides this good, and I am now a bigger fan of their coasters than GCI!

As with Voyage, Legend uses tunnels to perfection throughout its layout, and while there are a few rough spots – most notably some of the transitions into the recent trackwork and like Raven, the turnaround – Legend had all of what I look for in a great wooden coaster. The unbanked helix is long and sustains great forces, and the GCI-like finale is an awesome way to end the ride. My mask actually flew off and into the seat behind us, but it was caught in the seat divider, so I was able to instantly reach back and grab it. Again, just as I wasn’t expecting much of Raven, Legend exceeded my expectations in every way possible. Again, I liked it more than any of the woodies at KI, and it’s currently my #5 wooden coaster overall.

As soon as we had gotten in line for our first ride, I signed up for a second one, so I jumped back in the queue shortly after we disembarked the train. However, someone threw up before lunchtime, so I was stuck listening to fiddle music (It could’ve been worse!) for half an hour. I dunno, but that seems a bit on the longer side just to clean up a mess. Maybe it was a really big one. As you can see here, they advanced the train on to the lift hill to clean it. This worked out, however, as I waited in the virtual queue for Thunderbird during the delay (and barely made it there after my second Voyage ride).

I loved Holiday World, but the virtual queue system was a huge pain in the butt and is what made me skip Kentucky Kingdom in the morning. It was a pain seeing trains with several empty rows go out and knowing that you still had to wait 10 minutes (although this was the exception rather than the rule). I hope that when things get back to normal here they will bring back standby as an option and not continue the entirely virtual system. That was really the only con of our day, though! I didn’t mention the free drinks, but we definitely used that all the time throughout the day. Ever since I had seen it on Great Old Amusement Parks and heard about the Voyage, Holiday World had been probably the highest park on my bucket list after Cedar Point to visit, and I can now happily say that it has one of the most exemplary collections of wooden coasters, too, including my all-time #1. Let's hope that I can come back soon.

 

Indiana Beach is our next stop, a park that I didn't expect to visit in 2020...

I love the history behind this Calypso, but the ride itself is pretty boring, especially when compared to the forces of the Cedar Point model. This ride just felt clunky.

Gobbler Getaway was one of the “don’t-miss” attractions on Dad’s list and mine, so we walked down there, got in the “Ride right now!” line, and I made a reservation for Voyage. I found it interesting that the cars were the same body molds used by Sally for the Mystery Machine ride vehicles for the old Paramount Scooby Doo rides. I was disappointed by the lack of a laser sight on the guns, but it honestly just made me want to ride again to try and improve my skills. This ride is just great fun! I really appreciate how there are scenes at the beginning and end of the ride that drop the interactive component entirely and are there for you to just enjoy. Gobbler Getaway is by far the best interactive darkride I’ve ever been on and is the perfect thing for one of the best theme park sections in the world! It even takes your picture, a rarity in a non-Disney darkride.

Edited July 31, 2020 by CenturyFlyer

[SharkTums]

Very nice, detailed trip report, thanks for sharing! Excited to see Indiana Beach next.

[CenturyFlyer]

^ Thank you!

 

Indiana Beach has been in the news this year for a wide variety of reasons, and while pretty much every park isn’t having the season they wanted to have in 2020, Indiana Beach just might be getting their wish. Of course, the elephant in the room is that there’s barely any measures being taken related to slow the spread of the virus, and my dad and I got lots of looks for wearing masks, although it’s not hard to tune other people out when you’re focused on the Cornball Express!

Leaving our hotel near Louisville (considered hitting KK and would’ve if it opened at 10), the four hour trek to Monticello, Indiana took a long time, but once we finally reached the park at noon after driving through lots of backroads filled with corn, it came out of nowhere. It’s awesome how the trees pretty much shield all views of the park from the south parking lot until you come out onto the suspension bridge. This is definitely what you want to do if it’s your first time visiting.

Welcome to Indiana Beach!

Dad and I got our temperatures checked and made our way across the slightly bouncy bridge. It was especially cool to see Cornball, Hoosier, and Tig’rr all cycling at once. When we reached the pavement of the boardwalk, one of the first things that we noticed was the lack of shade that characterizes Indiana Beach (the Blackpool Pleasure Beach of America?).

It was a hot one that day.

The Flying Bobs from Coney Island was pretty far along in its construction, with the cars being added back on, so it should be up and running soon.

The sign was lit up.

There was a bit of a line, but I wanted to cross Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain off my list as soon as possible. Dad and I were seated in the rear-facing seat of the second car for our first ride (seems like a good spot), and this coaster is wacked out in all of the best ways. I loved all of the little darkride touches and was not expecting there to be as many as there was. There were lots of colored lights inside the mountain and even a revolving barrel, although it wasn’t rotating. Lost Coaster is truly awesome and is a ride that I would’ve ridden many more times while at Indiana Beach if its capacity had been better.

This sign looks newer.

Wanting to do Steel Hawg next, I couldn’t resist my first ever ride on Cornball Express while passing by. Aided by the suggestions of others, I picked the front row for our first ride. I knew that I would like this coaster and was tempering my expectations, but it easily clinches the top coaster spot at Indiana Beach for me. I got four more rides throughout the rest of the day – both benches in the back car, row 1.2, and a final ride in the front. The airtime in the back row is still good, but the only place where it’s really top-tier woodie status is in the very front.

Steel Hawg is all by itself away from most other rides, and to my surprise, they were running two cars. I tossed my camera in the locker block on the platform and set off in the back row of a car. The beyond-vertical drop was sudden and somewhat disappointing, but the hang time on the inversions was awesome, especially the final one. I also got a nice pop of air when coming up into the mid-course brakes on both of my rides that day on Steel Hawg. Frankenstein’s Castle was one of the things that I was most looking forward to checking out at IB, and it did not disappoint. Stopping to look at every detail, it took us twenty minutes to walk through. The room of doors was such a cool concept, and it took us a while to figure it out. My favorite room, though, was definitely the final chamber with the animatronic band and how you passed through it on multiple levels. Frankenstein’s Castle isn’t as fun the second time you go through it, but being a first-timer definitely made it one of the best things at Indiana Beach for me.

There's also this guy.

There's a nice view of some of the flat rides on the water when you come out on the balcony of the walkthrough. One of the arms of the Scrambler didn't have a controlled spin and was only slowly rotating with the motion of the entire ride, if that makes sense - a weird sight!

Leaving the Castle, we got in line for one of the non-wheel seats of Hoosier Hurricane. I found it funny that once your lap bar was checked, you were unceremoniously released to the lift hill; no spiel, no “all clear,” nothing. I was not expecting this ride to be good at all, and while it maintained nice speed throughout, the forces just weren’t there.

Another positive was the anniversary sign and hurricane banners in the station. There was also a large “25” sign on the structure to denote the ride’s anniversary last year.

We didn't ride the log flume because the line stayed long.

Overall, Indiana Beach had some nice crowds and by far felt like the “busiest” of all of the parks we visited on this trip. With only one credit left to ride, we made our way up the ramp to Tig’rr, the only Schwarzkopf Jet Star left in America and one of only three in the world. We stood in line for 15 minutes, watching the cars race around the bend from the unload station to enter the load station. They were moving quite fast. They were also running two cars, which was something I was not expecting to see. There is definitely a Schwarzkopf “sound,” just as there’s a B&M sound, and you really heard that on the low to the ground turns of this ride. So that brings us to what happened next. Indiana Beach has the loudest brakes of any park anywhere. Lost Coaster probably comes to mind if you’ve ever visited, but the fact is that the wooden coasters and Tig’rr also have unusually noisy brakes. And see the boxes that hold them? They don’t exactly impart confidence. But still, you never really expect anything bad to happen when visiting an amusement park, even when that park is Indiana Beach.

 

So ANYWAY… imagine my surprise when a Tig’rr car with two kids failed to stop on the brake run, whipping around the turn at what looked to be 25+ miles per hour and hit the car in the load hard enough to force it to the lift hill. Although they looked distressed, the kids in the car that overshot the station waited for a while before making their escape. Luckily, no one was hurt by this incident, but sadly, I did not get the crash (bump?) on video. As we left the queue, we saw the unload operator frantically explaining to the kids’ parents, and I heard him say something like “He told me not to hit the brakes…” Okay, I’m no coaster programming expert, but there shouldn’t be a way for brakes to be manually released when a ride is operating as normal, or should there? Or maybe Tig’rr isn’t computer operated, and there isn’t a law like Pennsylvania has to prevent two cars from operating on the same track if the ride isn’t controlled by a computer.

 

There is a feeling you get in your stomach when you see roller coaster cars collide. It isn’t good.

 

Tig’rr reopened two hours after this because the new owner is not a fan of downtime. I got coaster credit #131. Back to your regularly scheduled programming….

 

Still shaken up from what had happened at Tig’rr, I rode Air Crow and didn’t get any good snaps whatsoever, but what do you expect on a Larson flyer. The park has a new museum with all kinds of memorabilia and signs as well as some of the pickets residents used to petition to save the park.

It was very neat, and the lady inside was very welcoming and was very willing to explain everything to us, especially once we told her that it was our first visit.

Some of the awards IB has won over the years. Sorry that you can't really see them.

It's in one of the old game rooms.

We did the Sky Ride now, so we boarded our chair with its minimalistic restraint.

A view of Steel Hawg

Since the Sky Ride drops you right at the Ferris wheel entrance, we did that next.

The Water Swings feels unsafe because it’s one of those tilting Chance Yo-Yos, and the tilt on this model makes your swing rock back and forth, so it feels like you’re going to go plummeting to your doom in Lake Shaffer! Don’t miss this if you come to Indiana Beach!

Check out the boat skirting the park!

It wasn’t a must-do for me, but since the line was short Dad and I took a ride on the Antique Autos.

Check out the sick decals on the cars.

We found this funny given what we saw happen to Tig'rr!

Indiana Beach is very photogenic.

While on this ride, I saw Tig’rr going, but when we walked over after it wasn’t yet open and maintenance workers were leaving it.

I got two more Cornball laps in the meantime.

One time in the station I heard this gigantic boom that must have been from a firework, and you could feel it rattle your body. With that over with, we walked to the Den of Lost Thieves. Capacity is not this attraction’s strong suit, as seems to be a theme at this park. Now, this was by no means a great shooting darkride, but you still can’t go wrong with a Sally ride, even if it’s not maintained very well. And even though the interior of this darkride feels dingy, I did get a good number of targets to go off. For park history nerds, I like that the old Bill Tracy “hush puppy” cars (like the Waldameer Whacky Shack) were retrofitted to add the interactive element.

It even includes this infamous target.

On Tig’rr, I noticed that the operator who supposedly caused the collision was back at the panel once again. I escaped unscathed, and enjoyed this zippy – if somewhat forceless – piece of steel coaster history.

Lost Coaster had a shorter line this time for what was my last ride of the day. The ride operator wasn’t wearing a mask and didn’t ask if I was okay riding with another group (I didn’t, but it’s the thought that counts…) But the worst part was when he forgot to check the restraints of the second car somehow and had to e-stop us when we were halfway out of the station. We waited for 15 minutes for a maintenance guy to come up and use a key to send us to the elevator lift. It didn’t help that I was stuck with three annoying kids, one who was coughing up a storm. The op was bopping his head to the music, though, so at least he was having a good time. Leaving the park after seven hours there, we took lots of pictures and video on the suspension bridge before saying goodbye. Indiana Beach was such a cool place. It was a traditional park that I had wanted to visit for years, and although some of the rides felt c. 2000 (not old, not new), the park overall does have a vintage feel. There are several completely unique rides that can’t be found anywhere else in the world, and the way attractions are layered on top of each other just creates the vibe that there’s always something new to discover. And I didn’t even go in the Fascination parlor.

 

As a bonus, we stopped to see the carousel in Logansport, Indiana, which is one on which you can still catch the brass ring.

With the machine at Kings Island not in the best of shape, it was nice to get at least one classic carousel on this trip. This carousel is from the late 1890s/early 1900s and was made by Dentzel.

After Indiana Beach, it was nice to have some order with most of the people wearing masks, and the carousel was maintained very well.

Highly recommended for a quick stop if you’re in the area! We actually didn’t even know that it existed until we entered the town and saw that their sign had a picture of a carousel horse and said to “catch the brass ring.”

 

Thanks for reading! I hope that you enjoyed the report.

[CenturyFlyer]

I initially hesitated from putting up these pictures because my phone camera quality is pretty bad, and I left my "real" camera (though it's not perfect either) in the car. But I figure that there might be someone out there who enjoys them, even though we've all seen the same pictures of Cedar Point a million times. I'll be sticking to the captions here, but I wrote a few paragraphs over in the discussion thread if anyone cares.

I wasn't meaning to but caught one of the new eateries in this pic.

Here's what someone meant about the trees by the Saloon being gone. Now you can see Millennium Force as clear as day.

I didn't get a chance to ride Steel Vengeance this trip because it was a Saturday.

But I did get lucky enough to ride the train!

Rougarou was testing.

I was thrilled to see TTD running, so I got to ride it for the first time ever!

Up...

...and down the tower

I was not expecting it to be so intense for some reason. Silly me.

There's a new exit path that loops you around GateKeeper and gives an opportunity for some nice pictures.

Obligatory shot

[anonymouscactus]

Great reports and pics! I always like to hear a first timers account of Holiday World (for whatever reason, I think it surprises people) and glad you had a good time at all 3 parks.

 

Pretty crazy about the collision, though. Glad nobody was hurt. I don't know how the braking system works for that ride but it's my guess that they were holding the brakes open at the panel instead of letting it stop on it's own and then releasing. I know when I used to work Silver Comet (completely different manufacturer, ride type, and everything) the panel had to release the brake at the final brake run after it stops but for whatever reason people think during training you need to hold the button to stop the ride... luckily there was only one train on that ride but taking that last little dip into the station at full speed is scary too. Point its, people who don't normally operate rides sometimes seem to think they need to "do" something to make it stop.

 

Anyways, thanks for the time typing all that up. lol @ being impressed by the shed

[thrillseeker4552]

Great reports! Dang, I miss traveling. I am looking at doing a similar trip next summer that would include SFGAm, Holiday World, Kentucky Kingdom, Kings Island, and Cedar Point.

 

Mostly because I NEED to get on Voyage sooner or later. That is by far my biggest bucket list coaster in the U.S. that I haven't ridden (even moreso than Steel Vengeance). We seem to have similar tastes in woodies. Mystic Timbers didn't do much for me when I rode it in 2017.

[CenturyFlyer]

Anyways, thanks for the time typing all that up. lol @ being impressed by the shed

 

It's no problem since I write the reports for myself anyway - just add the pictures and post! And what can I say... people made the shed sound bad, but I appreciated the nice theming.

 

^ I hope that your trip works out next year! Voyage was my biggest bucket list ride too, and it didn't disappoint.

[prozach626]

This is a great thread. I like your TR style. Perfect combination of pictures and captions to keep you entertained.

 

Tig’rr reopened two hours after this because the new owner is not a fan of downtime. I got coaster credit #131. Back to your regularly scheduled programming….

 

You saw it crash and still rode it twice!! "Hold my beer."

When in Rome(Indiana)!!

[CenturyFlyer]

Thanks for reading!!! You're right; a wall of words is monotonous, and all pictures can be too easy to scroll through.

[grsupercity]

Have you ever been to Kentucky Kingdom?

[CenturyFlyer]

^ Nope, but it is definitely on my bucket list and from what people here have said, I expect that I'll enjoy it when I eventually visit. I didn't want to try to squeeze too much into one day with the virus procedures in place and have no qualms about waiting a bit to go there!

[Condor]

Nice photos and reviews! Indiana Beach, Holiday World, and Kings Island were all supposed to be on my aborted road trip last month. I'm always glad to see new people learning to really appreciate Voyage and Legend. They're two of my all-time favorites, but seem to have declined in popularity recently.