Silver Dollar City

Visited: June 24, 2023

Attending: Just Brian

If Worlds of Fun had been a drop-in, Silver Dollar City was a plan. It’s a three-hour drive from Kansas City to Branson, but I’m pretty sure it’s a three-hour drive from anywhere. Branson certainly depicts itself as a tourist town; there were signs advertising cave tours almost from the moment I left Kansas City, and innumerable billboards for various shows once I got closer. It’s a Tourist Trap with two capital T’s. So I was reminded of Pigeon Forge right away. The traffic wasn’t bad until I got to the last few miles, after which it was nearly a dead stop. Although I got there nearly at opening, it was already pretty crowded getting in. I parked close enough that I could feasibly skip the tram, but it was a hike. I pretty much resigned myself to the idea that it was going to be a hot, crowded day. The forecast was in the mid-90s, although I was hoping for a shower to cool things off and clear out the crowd. That didn’t happen, so I just made the best of it. I still had some thought of getting Time Traveler as my #200 credit, so as a result, I made some choices that I normally wouldn’t.

Thunderation

One of those odd choices was starting with the mine train, even though it was the first thing I came to, and right next to Time Traveler to boot. Then again, mine trains often draw long lines because it’s a family ride, so maybe better to get it out of the way first. I met a nice young person named Casey in the line, along with their mother, so I was at least entertained throughout the wait. The ride is odd, by mine train standards, but everything at SDC is unique somehow, so it seemed fitting. It drops out of the station and makes good use of the terrain, the same area that Time Traveler uses. It’s got some curves, a helix (of course), and a couple of tunnels. Then the lift hill happens at like the 80% mark, after which it does more or less nothing. Mine trains are everywhere, but this is one of the more unusual ones.

Outlaw Run

Although I knew I was burning daylight, I took a quick walk down to the Grand Exposition section to discover that yes, the coaster there is a real kiddie coaster, and I wasn’t about to ride that just to manipulate a milestone number. So I walked, and walked, and walked over to Outlaw Run, which is a good distance away. I got lost doing that (because I still don’t take printed maps), which allowed me to see that the line for Fire in the Hole was pretty nuts, so I decided I wasn’t going to do that, either.

But Outlaw Run is an RMC, and RMCs are consistently good, so no worries. And it is very good, although within the context of RMCs, it’s not top-tier. This is a very early RMC, and one constructed from scratch with topper track, so it’s not quite as wild as later I-box models. It makes excellent use of the terrain, and it’s all back in the woods, so that’s great. It looks like the signature RMC element at the time was the wall stall, because Outlaw Run has a couple, and they’re great. In a lot of ways, it’s a prototype for Lightning Rod. The double barrel roll was the one part I knew about, which actually wasn’t terribly impressive, but I’m sure it was in 2013, on a wooden coaster. So a good ride, definitely re-rideable, but not superlative.

Wildfire

I then stood in line for Powder Keg for quite some time, but unfortunately it went down as I was literally standing at the air gates. If I hadn’t waited for the back row, or taken the single-rider offer, I might have been stuck on the brakes or the transfer track. Regardless, we all got chased out of the queue, so I went to ride Wildfire, which is nearby.

Wildfire is another odd duck, but far from the oddest in the park. It’s a B&M sit-down coaster, which basically means “a B&M floorless, but with a floor.” It’s another terrain coaster, so it’s 120 feet tall with a 155-foot drop. It’s got all the standard elements: an Immelman, a vertical loop, a cobra roll, a corkscrew, and a helix. None of them are particularly unusual, although the views are pretty darned good. It reminds me of Dark Knight at SFNE. It’s fine, it’s a B&M, but again, not superlative.

Time Traveler

Powder Keg was still closed after I got off Wildfire, so I had a brief look around for lunch options, discovered they were all mobbed, and then decided to bite the bullet and go stand in line for Time Traveler.

The line was quite long, probably over an hour, but there was still plenty of queue that went unused, which is impressive. The queue-house is well themed with clocks, steampunk decorations, and other doodads that tell the story of this 19th-century inventor’s attempt at a time machine. And it’s got fans, so that’s a good thing. But the best thing is the soundtrack: on the way in, I realized that I was listening to a bluegrass version of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” which amused me. Although it’s harder to hear when the queue is full, I caught Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” and of course, Pink Floyd’s “Time.” I would absolutely buy the soundtrack to this ride; sadly, it wasn’t for sale anywhere I could find. Eventually, I reached the head of the queue, where the grouper honored my request for row 7, as recommended by Larson (she was going to put me in 6, so it wasn’t a big ask). It’s kinda odd that you get grouped before going up the stairs to the platform, but it makes for a neat reveal.

Time Traveler is hard to describe in words, but here goes: each train has four cars, each with two rows of two seated back-to-back, so I was in the last car, facing forward. Each car can rotate freely, not “spin” like a Gerstlauer, but a slow-ish controlled turn, so you never know which way you’ll be facing at any given time. The row 7 recommendation was because the vertical drop happens right out of the station with no lift hill, and the cars start to turn while they’re still in the station, so row 7 is guaranteed to take the drop facing some direction other than forward, usually sideways. Which is the experience that I got, and I admit I grabbed the bar while that was happening. The ride does a loop before the official first launch, where it stops dead for a few seconds before going. Like many others, I wish that was done as a rolling launch, but it is what it is. The second launch is a boost, but that’s not until the ride is nearly over. As for the experience itself, it was confusing, but not nauseating. I didn’t feel comfortable going hands-up too often, but I do remember facing the inside of a big wide curve as we went through it. The terrain where the coaster sits is varied, and I suspect once it becomes more forested, the ride will be even more disorienting. When it was over, I was wondering what had just happened, which is one of the best roller-coaster feelings to have. I wish the day had been less busy, because I absolutely would have gone around again.

Powder Keg

It was mid-afternoon, it was getting hot, and I was well aware that I was dehydrating. But I had to take a last try at Powder Keg, and to my relief, it was open. There was slightly less queue than my previous wait, so I took a chance and waited for the back row.

Powder Keg is possibly the oddest duck in a park full of odd ducks. It started out as a Premier Rides water coaster, but apparently the water features weren’t working out right, and they got S&S to convert it into a compressed-air launch. I had no clue which parts of this used to be in the water; there was no way for me to tell. After the strange restraints are locked, you roll out onto a transfer track, which carries you up the hill to the launch section (which is apparently prone to breakdowns). Then there’s a reasonably forceful launch, followed by a couple of big elements, after which, it turns into a terrain coaster, like just about everything else in this park. Then there’s an unexpected lift hill, a little drop, a turn, and back to the station. I guess it makes sense, when most of the ride is down in the valley, you have to get back up somehow, but it feels weird, just like it does on the mine train. As it is, I really have no idea whether I liked it or not.

And then, although it was midafternoon, I bailed. I had a three-hour drive in front of me, and my flight the next morning was absurdly early. I hiked back out across the scorching parking lot, left Branson, and then stopped at the first fast food place I could find. On the whole, the experience was strange. SDC is a carefully crafted, well maintained park in a town that’s deliberately a cheesy tourist mecca. That seems unique, but Pigeon Forge is the same. Even though there were fewer coasters than Worlds of Fun, these were much more memorable, and of better quality. I’d happily go back there again, preferably on a lighter day, but I have no idea when I’ll have the opportunity.