Holiday World

Visited: October 20, 2024

Attending: Just Brian

Holiday World is a park I’ve been wanting to get to for a long while. Several times I’ve made a plan to go to their Holiwood Nights enthusiast event, but something always comes up to prevent me. The park is in southern Indiana, and not at all easy to get to, but if you invest the time to do Kings Island and Kentucky Kingdom, which I just did, then Holiday World is an easy addition.

I was a bit worried about my strategy. I knew that Halloween events draw big crowds at parks nowadays, as evidenced by the mob scene at Kings Island on Saturday. And with a park themed to holidays, I reasonably expected even heavier crowds. Plus, the park is only open from 11 until 5. But there were only five credits to get, so maybe it would even out? Well, it turned out I didn’t need that much strategery. I had a failure of time zone math, so I arrived a little after opening, which worried me, but the parking lot wasn’t crowded at all. (The “Raven” lot, which is technically the overflow lot, but it’s so massive that I’d say it’s the main lot, and the other one is premium.)

A few general comments: Free parking rocks. Free sodas rock even more. I saw so many people wandering around with cups, I figured it was a smart move so guests couldn’t get dehydrated. Which makes what happened to me later very unusual, but I’ll get to that. It’s also an amazingly gorgeous park. The main hill of Voyage dominates the skyline from almost every angle, and just begs you to take pictures of it. Thunderbird is no slouch either, perched up the hill as it is. You just want to have your camera out all the time, but I concentrated on getting the mission done first.

Good Gravy!

As silly as it sounds, this family coaster was my top priority. It’s brand new, and it’s tame enough for anybody to ride, both of which draw crowds. On top of that, it’s a shuttle coaster, so it can’t ever run more than one train. That’s a recipe for a capacity nightmare. However, I didn’t know just how elongated this park is, and how far in the back Good Gravy sits. So it was a station wait when I got there. Which is kind of a shame, because this coaster is so heavily themed…to Thanksgiving. If any park is going to do that, it’s Holiday World, but they really went all-in on the theme. The queue is surrounded by rooms from an American household in the mid-20th century. Could be anywhere from the 50s to the 70s. The ride itself is in the “garage” of the home, complete with a wall covered in license plates. I really wanted a closer look, but there wasn’t any line.

The train cars are shaped like gravy boats, with a big handle on the back car, so of course I took that seat. It’s a “family boomerang” model, so it launches by creeping backward up a hill, just like a regular boomerang. In the back seat, I had some incredible views over the rest of the park. The rest of the ride, well, it’s a family coaster. It’s got a custom layout through giant-sized food products and kitchen utensils, which is awesome, but all it really does is waggle back and forth. There’s an impressive-looking spike, but the train barely gets halfway up before rolling back the way it came. It’s a family coaster for sure, and would be skippable if it weren’t for the incredible theming. In fact, it would probably still be skippable even with the theming, but this is the one park where the theming works and feels natural. So I started my visit with a smile on my face.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird is an odd duck in a few ways. It’s a B&M steel coaster in a park known for wood coasters. It was also the only wing coaster with a launch, at least until the family models started coming out a year or two ago. China really seems to love wing coasters; in America we only built four, this is the last of the four that I’ve ridden, and consensus is that it’s the best one. I find it hard to disagree. Although I don’t know if the launch was really necessary, it’s got a good kick to it, and the immelmann it rolls into is nice and tight. The vertical loop is gigantic and graceful, and provides a neat near-miss with the supports, which I didn’t expect. I’ve been annoying in the past about insisting that wing coasters should have a near-miss element. This one has a shack, which doesn’t have quite the suspense element that Gatekeeper or X-Flight have, but it does go through the shack twice. Also, kudos for having part of the cutout look like a rider’s raised hands; that was funny. The inline twist that comes right at the very end is really strange. It’s really slow, comparatively speaking, so you can feel the direction of gravity all the way through, which I didn’t think would bother me, but it really did.

I did my first ride in the front row, right side, because I enjoy riding wing coasters from the front. I enjoyed it enough that I went right back around to ride it from the back, but there was a ride stoppage before I got on (odd, since the lines were so short). I decided to come back later instead of waiting.

When I came back in mid-afternoon, it looked like the ride was still down, but while I was taking photos, they cycled a couple of empty trains, and then one with riders. So I figured I’d try for a back-row ride. The line was longer, but the park was more crowded, and it still used less than 10 percent of the queue. However, when I got to that inline twist at the end, something went badly wrong with my equilibrium. I felt a strong sense of vertigo and had to close my eyes on the brake run. I didn’t think I was likely to hurl, but I’ve never hurled on a coaster, so I don’t know what it feels like. I got most of my composure back, but I was still a little wobbly even after walking down the hill several minutes later. I figured I must have been dehydrated, but I really didn’t feel that way. I helped myself to some free sweet tea, figuring the sugar might help. But the feeling never went away entirely. And although I very much wanted to ride Voyage again, I decided it was too risky and cut my day off there. But that’s what happened at the end of the day. Before that…

Voyage

I normally don’t worry too much about spoilers for roller coasters. I don’t watch POVs and try to memorize the layout, but I also don’t bother trying to maintain perfect suspense. It’s possible that with the Voyage, I would rather have remained unspoiled. Because I had very high expectations going into this thing. I had considered delaying and trying to make this my #250 coaster, but given that I didn’t know the crowd dynamics, and having seen Thunderbird just go down, I decided not to risk it. The line was a touch longer, but really no more than 15 minutes or so, and I extended it by waiting for the back row. Not sure if that was a good idea, in retrospect, and I had planned to do my second ride from elsewhere in the train, but, well, see above.

The basic description of Voyage is accurate, in that it’s like a B&M to start out with, featuring big airtime hills, but the airtime wasn’t super-spectacular. Then it turns into a GCI in the back, twisting around and confusing you about where you are. And on the return stretch it’s somehow an RMC. I knew the trims would be turned on for this ride, and I felt them hit, but we still kept up an absurd amount of speed rocketing back down the hill. By the time we got back to the station area, it was like we’d lost no speed at all. And the ride just keeps going, and going, and going, when you think it’s over. That’s why I may have regretted the back row seat. The Voyage is extremely well maintained, but it’s still a wood track, and it’s still got massive PTC trains without the greatest restraints, so I did get banged up a bit in the back. When it finally came to an end, I did feel like I’d just been through a car wreck. I wanted to sit down and take a break more than I wanted to re-ride. Could be my age, could be the seat, could be whatever underlying condition affected me later on, I dunno. Anyway, I do and did want to ride again, just not at that exact moment.

Raven

I headed back up to the front of the park, where Halloween-land is, mostly with the intent of finding something to eat. After, I discovered that the Legend was temporarily down, leading me to think this is something that happens frequently at this park. So I turned around and found the Raven instead. I expected long lines with its nearest neighbor closed, but instead it was a walk-on. The trains weren’t even running fully loaded.

Raven is the oldest and shortest of the Holiday World coasters, but that’s not giving it its due. This would be a fantastic coaster in any other park. It uses the terrain brilliantly, and it’s back in the woods where you can barely tell what’s going to happen next. I have to imagine a night ride on this would be completely terrifying. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as smooth as I would like, but I did choose the back row again, so that’s on me. It’s not like I don’t know PTC trains when I see them. So again, it was fully satisfying, but I felt a little beat up after…so I took a break and just sat around for a bit.

Legend

After a rest, I decided to see what was up with Legend, and found it running, so I guess there wasn’t really much of a problem. There was a little bit of a line, but almost entirely within the station, and again, I did it to myself by waiting for the back row. As a side note, there’s an old bell on the roof of the station that rings when they dispatch a train. It’s actually a manual bell that’s pulled by the ride op standing at the rear of the platform. I don’t know why that’s cool, but it is.

Unlike Voyage, I had no idea of Legend’s layout, and it’s also hidden in the woods, so I had no clue what I was getting into. This thing has twists, and more twists, and tunnels, and more tunnels, and a helix that seems to go on forever, to the point where I was wondering just how long this ride was (over 4000 feet, if you’re keeping score). The lateral forces on this thing were strong, and didn’t let up. As with GhostRider a couple of years ago, I was glad I was riding solo, so I didn’t fall all over my seat-mate. In any other park, this would be the headliner, and it probably was, until Voyage was built. It’s still pretty stunning, and once again left me feeling somewhat beat up.

Overall, Holiday World is a fantastic park with outstanding theming and great views. Unfortunately, it’s in the middle of nowhere and has fairly short operating hours. I’d love to get back on these rides, but I don’t know if I’ll prioritize it now that I have the credits. Riding at Holiwood Nights with other enthusiasts seems very appealing, so that will probably be sufficient motivation.