Photo TR: Adventureland Iowa - 8/1/2015

Earlier today during my trip to the Des Moines area, I decided to pay my first visit to the local amusement park, Adventureland. It's a small family park located in Altoona, Iowa that has some fun rides, friendly employees, and a very nice atmosphere that exceed my expectations.

 

Adventureland has a nice charm that is hard to find in most parks nowadays. For the most part, the park is clean and good looking despite being a little dated. The Main Street section of the park especially looks nice. The park's employees were very friendly. They always had a good attitude, and they were making an effort to fill all available seats on the rides. It was also nice that food prices here weren't that ridiculous here compared to other places. The rides were a lot of fun, with Tornado and Outlaw being the park's best. Adventureland isn't perfect though. There is a graffiti problem in most of the queues, and the coasters can only run one train at a time, however I very much enjoyed my time here, and I'm looking forward to coming back next summer to ride Monster, the park's new for 2016 Gerstlauer Infinity coaster. I will reserve final judgement until riding, but I think Monster will end up being the park's new best ride. Overall, I think Adventureland is an underrated park that I would recommend visiting if you're ever in Iowa.

 

My thoughts on Adventureland's coasters from worst to best:

-Underground: This just barely counts as a coaster in my book since it is more of a dark ride. No real thrilling moments. It does have some okay theming, although the storyline is a bit confusing and hard to understand. More for families than thrill seekers. 3.5/10

-Dragon: It wasn't quite as bad as I'd been led to believe, but it was still a rough ride despite riding defensively. I will give it credit for having some decent forces though. 4/10

-Outlaw: This was my first experience with CCI and I walked away satisfied. Nice first drop, fairly intense, very good laterals, and several pops of floater air. A little rough in spots, but nothing bad. 7/10

-Tornado: The biggest surprise of the day, Tornado has tons of floater air in addition to nice positive-Gs and good laterals in the turnaround. It's better than most other out-and-back woodies I've been on, and I'm a little surprised it doesn't get more attention. 7.5/10

 

Now onto the photos...

The drive to Adventureland features some of the most amazing landscapes in the world...

Arriving at the park.

Pretty small entrance.

The train station at the front of the park.

The Main Street area.

Park map.

Walking down the street.

Our first ride of the day was Tornado.

Pulling out of the station.

Cornfields and coasters in the same picture. Only in Iowa...

About to experience some nice airtime.

Tornado's station has no air gates.

Entrance to the Outlaw Gulch section of the park.

Up next was Outlaw.

Alright, let's get this over with.

Semi-decent loops.

Manufactured by Hopkins Death Machines, Inc.

Took a ride on the Inverter.

Nerd shot.

The last turn before the brakes.

Noted.

Outlaw train speeding by.

Pretty fun first drop.

Yep, it was a fun ride.

The train going by the Inverter.

One last ride on Tornado before heading out.

Dragon's victims in the figure-8.

Adventureland's Log Ride, which will be removed after Labor Day weekend to make way for Monster.

 

That's it for my trip report. Thanks for reading!

Space Shot. I didn't ride it, but everyone else seemed to like it.

Tornado and Dragon.

Took another lap on Outlaw after grabbing a bite to eat.

About to enter the station.

Creepy animatronic.

The Underground was up next.