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Indiana Beach (IB) Discussion Thread


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Is it possible to do Indiana Beach in one day, or suggest scheduling more than a day?

 

It's easy to hit everything once. But be warned, this is the first year for the new company, and the park is still putting itself back together. On our visit a few weeks ago, closed rides included Tig'ger, Lost Coaster, Giant Wheel, Shafer Queen, Log Flume and the new Super Loop... Operations are still as bad, if not worse than in past years. And the previously wonderful Hoosier Hurricane was still full of painful potholes. I hope the new company can pull it all together in the next couple years.

 

If you are going out of your way, or pulling time away from another park, I would say hold off to see if the park improves next year.

 

Indiana Beach used to be the sort of place we wanted to spend more TIME and MONEY, because it was so fun. The atmosphere, the rides, the lights at night, everything. Sort of a smaller Knoebels on the lake.

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Is it possible to do Indiana Beach in one day, or suggest scheduling more than a day?

 

It's easy to hit everything once. But be warned, this is the first year for the new company, and the park is still putting itself back together. On our visit a few weeks ago, closed rides included Tig'ger, Lost Coaster, Giant Wheel, Shafer Queen, Log Flume and the new Super Loop... Operations are still as bad, if not worse than in past years. And the previously wonderful Hoosier Hurricane was still full of painful potholes. I hope the new company can pull it all together in the next couple years.

 

If you are going out of your way, or pulling time away from another park, I would say hold off to see if the park improves next year.

 

Indiana Beach used to be the sort of place we wanted to spend more TIME and MONEY, because it was so fun. The atmosphere, the rides, the lights at night, everything. Sort of a smaller Knoebels on the lake.

 

We aren't planning on going until next summer, we were planning on going from Holiday World to Indiana Beach to Six Flags Great America. I have always heard great things about Indiana Beach, although maybe I should hold off another year, and move our trip to go across Pennsylvania towards Six Flags Great Adventure.

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On our visit a few weeks ago, closed rides included ... Log Flume

What, they have a log flume? How did I miss this?

 

But yeah, it's easily done in one day, and it's definitely worth a visit (Cornball, Steel Hawg and the Drop Tower are worth the visit by themselves). I went in 2015 and had a great time.

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We aren't planning on going until next summer, we were planning on going from Holiday World to Indiana Beach to Six Flags Great America. I have always heard great things about Indiana Beach, although maybe I should hold off another year, and move our trip to go across Pennsylvania towards Six Flags Great Adventure.

 

If you are going across Pennsylvania, they have a BUNCH of parks that are light years better than any Six Flags or Indiana Beach (but Holiday World IS awesomeness!) I would also add that the time it used to be at Indiana Beach is at night... but I haven't been there at night in years as we have always left early due to the crumminess since the Spackman's sold it 8 (??) years ago. It went down the tubes so fast.

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  • 3 weeks later...

News of an accident involving Cornball Express from yesterday where a mechanic was struck by a moving train.

Employee injured by roller coaster car at Indiana Beach

 

MONTICELLO. Ind. (WLFI) — An Indiana Beach employee was injured Saturday after he was struck by the car of a roller coaster.

 

According to a release from the Monticello Fire Department, crews responded to the amusement park around 1 p.m. for a report of a male struck by a roller coaster car.

 

Officials with Indiana Beach told News 18 the employee is a mechanic and was working on a platform of the Cornball Express roller coaster.

 

The release says the man suffered multiple injuries. He was taken to IU Health White Memorial Hospital and later airlifted to Indianapolis.

 

News 18 will continue to follow this story and provide updates as they become available.

 

Source: WLFI

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  • 5 months later...

No more ski show, and reduced fireworks this summer. This came from the parks Facebook page.

 

Dear Indiana Beach Fans,

 

We appreciate the enthusiasm you all show for this park and we're happy we can count on so many loving and loyal fans. 2016 was the first year under Apex, and though we accomplished a lot, we are far from bringing Indiana Beach back to its full potential. We have had to make some tough choices but we feel we are doing the right thing for both the park and the Monticello community.

 

It is true that you will no longer be able to watch the ski/dive show at Indiana Beach in 2017. The ski show is one of this park's longest standing traditions, so trust us when we say that this was not an easy decision.

 

Fireworks are not going away. We are going back to the same schedule the Spackmans had when they owned the park – we will have three larger, more significant fireworks displays for Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day. Our hope is to make these shows more special and meaningful.

 

The rumor regarding the Shafer Queen going away is completely false. We will continue to host cruises along Lake Shafer on our classic river boat for free or for a nominal fee depending on the length of the cruise.

 

We appreciate those of you who have reached out to us directly for verification versus accepting circulating rumors as truth. We know Indiana Beach is a cherished jewel and we are working hard to bring it back to its glory days. We hope you can remain patient with us as we recalibrate and do everything within our power to keep pushing Indiana Beach in the right direction.

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They have a sweet waterslide complex. Those slides are insane. That lazy river is as well. They need to find a way to expand the waterpark though. Move the S&S tower over by Steel Hawg and expand the waterpark that way. The have a couple crazy slides just not enough of them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

^ My vote would be to pick a nice, sunny day where the high is about 75 degrees as well as on a day when crowds are light.

 

Seriously though...probably any weekday would be pretty light as this is more of a local weekend resort than a season-long, every day resort. We went there on a weekday and pretty much everything was a walk-on.

 

Some of the ride attendants looked happy to see us just so that they would have something to do, while others looked annoyed because we were pulling them away from their smartphones for five minutes.

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  • 2 months later...

I plan to stop there on the night of Saturday May 27 when I am in the area. Being Memorial Day weekend, I am guessing this could be one of the busier days at the park.

 

I'd be coming from Michigan's Adventure and expect to arrive no later than 7 pm. Is 4 hour enough time to hit all of the coasters once plus get a few rerides on Cornball Express? Based on older posts, it looks like the Lost Coaster (if open) and Steel Hawg will be my worst two waits. How bad is the worst wait for these rides typically (30-45 minutes)?

 

If I have extra time, I want to hit the two dark rides, the flume, and Double Shot but the coasters are my top priorities.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I see what you mean about rides not opening. Tig'rr and the kiddie coaster were down all day.

 

I was able to get on the other four coasters despite them going down. Steel Hawg got stuck on the MCBR and went down for the night after riders were evacuated in a cherry picker. Lost Coaster got stuck about a half hour before closing. Cornball was down most of the night and maintenance was looking at the trains. Hoosier Hurricane was the only coaster that ran uninterrupted. For the non-coasters, Double Shot and Den of Lost Thiefs were both closed.

 

My feelings on the park were mixed. The park's location and ride selection is fantastic. However, the number of closed or broken attractions were frustrating. This park has the potential to be special if those can be remedied

 

I absolutely loved Cornball and the strength of the airtime caught me off-guard, especially with the buzz bar. Hoosier Hurricane was pretty good with some air and good laterals. Lost Coaster was so messed up that it was awesome and the drops really packed a wallop on that one riding backwards. Steel Hawg was a lot of fun though the drop wasn't as intense as I had expected.

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My feelings on the park were mixed. The park's location and ride selection is fantastic. However, the number of closed or broken attractions were frustrating. This park has the potential to be special if those can be remedied

That's pretty much how I feel about it too. It's a really fun park, and the frustrations are minor, but there are just so many minor frustrations throughout the day that it adds up. The giant positive that is Fascination balances those negatives, but it does leave you with a less than glowing impression. If they can improve ride reliability and get every ride open on time, this park would be fantastic.

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My feelings on the park were mixed. The park's location and ride selection is fantastic. However, the number of closed or broken attractions were frustrating. This park has the potential to be special if those can be remedied

 

As a fan who's been going to IB since 1990, it's been pretty much heartbreaking to watch the perfect little park on the lake go down the tubes. It was a family owned park for something like 8 decades. When the park opened in 2009 under new ownership, the fall was fast...

 

Imagine all those rides running perfectly, at full capacity. A live band playing by the restaurant. Happy people everywhere. It was a guaranteed good time to go to IB. I always thought it was a smaller version of Knoebels, but on the lake. In some ways, even better. I used to go 2 or 3 times a year. Many times, my friends and I chose to drive the 3 hours to IB instead of the 45 minutes to SFGAmerica.

 

Morgan (who purchased IB in 2008 before driving it straight into the ground) sold the park a couple years ago, and it seems the new owners/management (who I heard used to be Six Flags folks!?? that would help explain the condition of operations) just aren't cutting it.

 

So many of us would LOVE if the Kochs of Holiday World got ahold of it. I just hope there is a bright future for the park. It was perfect for decades.

Edited by JT325
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I went before the new ownership bought the park, and quite enjoyed my day there! (It was also before Steel Hawg, unfortunately...) It sounds like it's not the same park as it was then, sadly... Cornball Express is still one of my favorite wooden coasters! That thing was so unexpectedly NUTS!!!

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I have never been to IB, but it sounds like it was a really cool park, and still does really. However, as I always say with these smaller parks, Go, Visit, spend money there, and most of all, enjoy the place for what it is. Who knows how long they will be around before getting torn down and turned into condos or some other silliness. The list of parks now gone in the last 25 years is staggering.

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I have never been to IB, but it sounds like it was a really cool park, and still does really. However, as I always say with these smaller parks, Go, Visit, spend money there, and most of all, enjoy the place for what it is. Who knows how long they will be around before getting torn down and turned into condos or some other silliness. The list of parks now gone in the last 25 years is staggering.

 

YES! Thank you for saying that. This is one reason I go to Conneaut every chance I get. I was never there in it's heyday, but I believe the park can bounce back eventually. Not to mention having a classic coaster with classic rolling stock - that style is sadly disappearing way to fast. And I thought the early 90s was bad for parks and coasters when it came to "upgrades."

 

I'm having a hypocritical thought, to be honest. I'm all YEAH, go to the small parks. But I really don't want to go back to IB until I know - at a minimum - all the rides will be functional. I haven't ridden Lost Coaster in YEARS. I loved that ride. Even when Morgan RV got the ride open, it would only run one train. When it was new, it had 3 trains. The second train on Hurricane has been in pieces for years.. and Tig'ger only runs 2(!!!?) cars these days.

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^^ Completely agree and that's just what we did!

 

Luckily, all of the coasters were open during our visit so we got to ride all of those - some without any wait at all. I think that there were only a couple of rides not operating....the train, the flyers and the 1001 Nachts-like ride (which was literally in pieces).

 

Really hope that the park can get things turned around before it's too late.

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