Gordon Bombay

Ok, so I first heard about Holiday World while reading this site back in 2004 when someone mentioned how much better The Raven and Legend were than any of KI's wooden coasters. At first I thought that it must be just a bunch of over-hype from some local HW enthusiast but as I started trekking various coaster sites I found that Legend and Raven were alaways mentioned as the best the country had to offer in wood coasters and how Holiday World had a reputation for being one of if not the number one friendliest and cleanest park in the nation. I wasn't able to fathom how any woodie could be better than The Beast or the classic Racer at KI (I was able to imagine however how any coaster could be better than old Sonny). As I became friends with Boddah, Dane, RZ, and Zoso from this site I started going to KI a lot more in 2005 and especially in 2006 and hit up CP and GL for the first time in 2006 but still considered The Beast to be better than any wooden coaster either of those parks had to offer. Finnaly this year a friend from school and I decided to hit up Holiday World. So, as a graduation present to ourselves we planned a one day trip to visit Holiday World and its 3 highly acclaimed coasters. The day before Jon and I went to Kings Island with our Maxx passes to hit up Beast, Firehawk and some of our favorite rides so we could compare them to what Holiday World offered the next day. While riding The Beast I met KIC user FanOfBeast and his wife, it was very nice meeting you guys, hope to see you at the park again soon! The next day we met up around 7am and got on the road, after light traffic we got through Cincinnati and eventually to Louisville. We stopped at a Mcdonald's for some breakfast burritos and orange drink. We gained an hour going into Indiana and reaching Holiday World so we got to the park about half an hour before they dropped the ropes. First thing we went for was Voyage of course: It was running two trains so the waits to ride were'nt too bad at all. I had heard how good this coaster was but calling this thing "Awesome" or "Great" is truly, truly an understatement. The Voyage just does not let up at any time, much like Millenium Force except longer. The airtime is incredible, we first rode in the back seat, well let me re-phrase that: Our first ride was in the back of the train, you'r rear is hardly in the seat at any time. The mid course break is not enough time to catch your breath, immediately afterwards you hit that triple down and go flying back to Thanksgiving land. Such an amazing ride just how a wood coaster should be: Airtime, forces, fun, and not overly rough. After our first ride we went to a Pepsi oasis to grab some water, sit down, and try to fathom what we just experienced. The Voyage is hands down the best coaster I've ever experienced, and from what I hear El Toro at SFGADV is even better, I can't imagine how amazing that must be if it in fact is better than Voyage. We grabbed a front seat ride next, which was good but not as good as the back, and then headed to try out The Legend. As we got to Legend we noticed the wait was considerably longer than the Voyage and the line started at the bottom of the stairs. No worries, since neither of us had ridden it we didn't mind waiting. However, this is where I got my first annoyance by Holliday World, the day ended up being something like "5th grade appreciation day" and the morning crowds were considerably large. Legend and raven ran one coaster all day even when queues were filled, the Legend queue line is absolutely awful. They ran one train so the wait took about half an hour for the back which isnt too bad but everyone in the station is right on top of eachother and sweating. The raisl are very small for the lines and the fans hardly work, it was the most miserable experience I've ever had at an amusement park, luckily though the intense lateral forces of that amazing coaster made up for it. Legend was a blast, definently one of the better woodies out there. Each turn throws you to the side and the airtime is very good, it's like riding a scrambler. It's Double Helix is far better than The Beast's or Son of Beast's just for the fact that you feel the g-force, where as on Beast and SOB you just get roughed up. -After the annoying and hot queue at Legend we took a ride on the park's log flume to cool off. This was a pretty neat ride, you didn't get too soaked but I hated the beginning where you go through the tunnels in complete darkness, water at night scares the hell out of me for some reason and you get a very un-easy feeling in these tunnels. Having worked at amusement park's in the past before starting my new job I've always respected employees at parks and had heard about how awesome Holiday World's staff was. I didn't think they were that great. When our log came back on the flume the boats ahead of us were backed up and we bumped into the boat in front of us which caused our baot to lift up on the back of their boat. The ride stopped, the employee looked at us, frowned, said nothing, then went and got on the phone. Our boat was half in the water, half on the conveyor and she didn't tell us if we could move or not so after about 5 minutes of just sitting we just stood up, stepped on the platform and walked to get our stuff and headed to Raven. -This smaller coaster doesn't look to intimidating but it sure packs a punch. We waited about 10 minutes for the last seat, it too was running one train and beginning to fill up its queues behind us as we waited. While in line for the back the girl who had been operating the log flume came and relieved the gentleman working the Raven controls and when she saw us said to us: "Next time you need to listen to operator instructions before you just get up off the ride, what you did was very unsafe, you two need to make sure you abide by all park rules, do you understand?" When I tried explaining to her how I though we were in the station and received no instruction from her she walked away to go check height and we were loaded on with no response from her. Raven sure packs a punch, not so good in the front seat, but in the back its a very good ride. I loved the helix out over the lake and that last airtime hill, a short but very sweet ride. Jon over heard one of the teachers say to one of the various school groups at the park "Remember we meet at 1:30 and leave at 2" So we figured it owuld be a good time to check out the waterpark and do the rest of the park later when the crowds died down. The waterpark is very, very nice and locker prices are reasonable. I loved how they had two wavepools and two lazy rivers, this really kept crowds down, the lazy river was just about the best thing there, we just kept going around and around relaxing on their new lazy river. I dont particuarly like water parks because I dont usually feel like taking a bath with hundreds of other people but I gotta give Holiday World credit, their pools and water are VERY clean. However, besides relaxing in the lazy river the rest of the waterpark is pretty boring. Zinga, the worlds longest enclosed water slide, had about a half hour wait. We waited and got to the top, up here everytime a raft would reach the top of the conveyor an alarm would sound to notify the life guard, the alarm was similar to the siren of a fire truck and was very aggrivating and loud. Zinga was the biggest let down of the water slides, its very boring and sluggish. The racing slides were pretty fun but hurt certain male anatomy coming down the bumps in the hills. -The waterpark offers some great views of coasters like Legend and how it intertwines through the structures of Zinga and OttoRonGo which creates some cool head chopping illusions. However while photographing legend from the park... ...I was standing with a pool to my back when an employee sweeping trash tapped me on the back. The employee informed me that a woman had complained I was photographing children in the pool. I had done no such thing, but I did have a pretty large DSLR camera out with a full zoom lense on and was just photographing the Legend. I offered to show the employee my memory card to show her all I had were pictures of Legend and my little sisters birthday party, she said: "Theres no need for you to do that, im sure your not doing anything wrong, but I do need you to return your camera to your locker or exit Splashin Safari." I was pretty ticked, there was no rule against cameras in the water park, mine is just big and a more professional camera, I pointed out to her that she hadn't asked any other guests to put their cameras away and that they even sell waterproof cameras in the gift shop. She told me I should probably just leave the water park and I just said I would give up this spot but would go else where in the waterpark to shoot my pictures and she left me alone. None of the other slides we did were very thrilling so we changed and dropped off our wet clothes in the car and re-entered the park to ride some more rides. We did Gobbler Get-away which has a very nice queue line with hardwood floors and very powerful air conditioning. Despite a few animatronic charecters on the ride, its not much better than SDATHC. It uses many of the same blacklight effects and flat wooden cut out charecters. Overall its fun but what really sets it apart from SDATHC is that the lazer guns work and just like a classic dark ride you burst through doors and take some sharp turns that really whip you around. Overall its very fun. We did a few more classic rides like their flying scooters which you can not snap no matter how hard you try. Once I was able to kind of get it snap a little bit but they are very slow and very un-eventful, I would kill to have KI's back or to go ride Stricker's set. Next was the Revolution, thier centrifuge ride. I liked how the ride operator after checking restraints comes into the middle of the ride to tell eveyrone the rules to keep their rope restraints in place and not to move or hang on to the wires. That ride is a blast and still makes me somewhat sick. During the ride I lifted up one of my legs and placed it against the the cage of the ride since i was leaning so much it was getting to be a little bit painful of a ride. Once the ride came down we heard one again: "You two, over here, right now!" The ride op pulled us aside to tell us:"During the ride I saw one of you two lift up both your legs, that is a major safety violation and will not be tolerated, DO YOU UNDERSTAND!" One of the things I've learned from working for places like Best Buy and having to deal with catching people stealing is that even when someone is being rude to you or in the wrong you can usually make the situation possitive with good body language and keeping your voice calm, she was waving her arms around and yelling. I explained to her that I didn't mean to disrespect the rules and was just trying to re-position myself on the ride, I mentioned that I had worked for Paramount's Kings Island in the past and would not come to another park to disrespect their employees or rules and when I said that she rolled her eyes and looked away and started to tell me the policy for them to remove us from the park should we break another rule again. At that point I had had it with the employees in this park and told her there was no need to explain it to us and that we'd find out at Guest Relations. Not once during the day did we have an employee ask us how or day or ride was or if they could help us find something. Even at Guest Relations, they didn't seem to care about our problem and just told us to make sure we werent rude first. The only employee to approach us and offer us help to find something and ask us about our day was the owner Will Koch who was walking around sweeping trash. That guy is a class act and totally made up for the lack of respect the other employees seemed to have for guests, he spoke highly of Kings Island and asked about Cincinnati, he was a really cool guy. After talking with him we hit up the Raven and Legend, which now had 1 train wait evening lines, and we even got to stay on a few times in the evening. Both are very good coasters. -The Legend is yet another coaster that doesn't let up in intesity untill its over. -While walking back to The Voyage in the evening we noticed a show going on. I dont want ever hear anyone give KI hell for having a Karaoke show in the past cause Holiday World did the same thing too. This photo reminds me of the ending scene of the film Spinal Tap. -The two main highlights of Holiday World: The amazing Voyage and VERY clean waterpark. We rode the wonderful Voyage (which was brought down to 1 train operation, much to our annoyance) a few more times before leaving. I still cant get over just how fun that ride is and I think it may definently be my favorite rollercoaster. It's going to be hard for Gravity Group and HW to top this bad boy, although some claim SFGADV has with El Toro, but now thanks to gas prices I wont be heading the way anymore sadly. We ended the day by getting some Sweet Tea at a Pepsi oasis and saying goodbye to Holiday World. The three rollercoasters are all excellent and the waterpark is clean (but pretty boring), but other than those things theres not much else to do in the park and no really good quiet areas to just sit back and relax besides smoking sections, which neither of us need to use. Will Koch made up for the bad experience we had wtih those employees and the park was very clean. However, with gas prices, I dont think I'll be going back this summer despiate how good the rollercoasters are, theres just not much else to do. The drive home was pretty bad, on the way there it felt like it was quick because we were so excited, but now all we had to look forward to was work the next day so the drive home seemed to last forever but overall it was a great trip and a great way to start off the summer. We pulled over after we left and I snapped this picture from the road:

Were getting there at around 10am when the park opens on monday, my friend made and paid for the reservations so we're supposed to check in at 10:30p.m. that night and checking out I think the next morning. I've been working like crazy so my friend has been planning the trip, will we still be able to do the Joe Cool thing like that? We were planning on using Joe Cool for tuesday.

Great report Todd! Reading that makes me really pumped for next week. As a graduation present to ourselves myself and 4 friends will be going up to CP on Monday and Tuesday. I knew Maverick was going to be good, but wow I had no idea it would be as good as everyone says it is. We're staying at Breaker's Express and on our 2nd day at the park we get some Joe Cool pass or whatever to get into the park early, does anyone know if Maverick has been opening on time or early for Joe Cool?

Rode yesterday after I got up to the park around 5 and met up with some friends, waited about 3 hours and it was well worth it. Definently a great addition to KI and still my favorite rollercoaster of any park. The ride runs a lot smoother than it did last year up North, and the station/ride area look great. The photo booth was very nice too. My only complaints were how loud the lift hill still is and the lack of shading in the queue area. Lot's of KI ride ops working who were all very friendly to the guests, saw Greg Scheid up there talking to guests and helping to keep the ride clean. Great addition to KI!

hey none of us have crystal balls nor do we work for the park or provide estimates. There are many factors that contribute to the line and crowds, your going on a saturday, odds are like most saturdays it will be crowded, be prepared to wait a LONG time.

That's what I was thinking when I first read Boddah's post but after dining at the wings buffet iwth Boddah last sunday I can say I'd much rather spend the money on Panda Express. The wings buffet may be all you can eat but theres not much of a selection at all, the bottomless beverages are nice and a good way to cool off, but the selection is horrible. You can spend 10 bucks at Golden Corral and get plenty of things, even midway market at CP can be somehwat pricey but has a pretty good selection.

haha, congratulations on getting your license tubaman! Yeah, a 4 hour drive by yourself could be pretty boring. I'm driving myself to North Carolina in August, staying the night, going to Carowinds the next day, then heading to Hilton Head Island in my wonderful Corolla to meet the rest of my anti-carowinds family. I'm going golfing tommorow morning then meeting zosobeast, and RZ up at the park to shoot some pictures and maybe ride if we feel like going in the wait, say hi if you see us!

This has been the best news I've had all day! I cant wait to get up there next week!

^It was relocated from anohter park just a few hours away, so many people who frequent this site and Kings Island have ridden it as they have visited the rides former home Geauga Lake before, such as myself, Boddah, and Dane did last year. I must say X-Flight became one of my absolute favorite rollercoasters and when I heard it was being moved to KI I was overjoyed. Tee Hee, Picard, the day I met you was also the day I found out 'unnoficially' it was coming.

I think you owe me one too when you come up, since you never came last year

They are the same trains that the ride used when it was known as X flight up at Geauga Lake.

Nor do they cover the entire queue like IJST and Deliriums do.

Dunno. There were 2 guys together. They were using I guess you could say some "hi-tech" cameras..I knew that it had to be somebody from here haha yeah, that was probably us, we were waiting around to see if they would send it around a few more times but they didnt. I was the guy in the green shirt with the black camera and Boddah was the taller one with the silver camera. Boddah got there around 4 and saw a few test runs, I got there at about 4:15 and they had stopped, not sure when they started, but those were the last ones for the day.

Me or Boddah? What did the people you saw look like?/What types of cameras were they using?

Just added a few more pictures from today, park was very crowded, Ryan and myself rode Tomb Raider and the train and had a pleasant dinner at the world re-nound Wings Diner on top of shooting some very nice pictures at the park. Really beautiful weather.

Well you could be lying, but atleast if your lying you've made a more creative story than any other member on the forum has come up with so welcome to the forums! I pass by that Batavia plant everytime I head out that way on my drive to OU, they used to have track sitting out in their adjacent field untill pictures of track for The Patriot rollercoaster got leaked onto the net before the ride was announced.

How funny. I like Sean Hannity but have such a disdain for country music that I can't see me going to this event. Just teasing you woofer. Even if you dont like hannity, you may like the music and it goes to a good cause people of all political walks of life can support.

hahah that was such a good night! "howdy do dah sherrif haunt guy!"

So basically this isn't a new paramount park but a new theme park being built by daewoo, and paramount is just giving them licenscing agreements in exchange for daewoo building it?

Marlfox, do you have any pictures?

What? Read the whole topic, no one is saying they did this to just take peoples money or that they're dealying it on purpose, what people are saying is that they are discouraged they've spent the money to take a trip up to the park and now the new attraction wont be open.

People have a right to be upset when a ride doesn't open on time, they are the paying customers and the ones who made the reservations and plans to make the trip up. Granted the rule always does apply: "buyer beware" and guests do need to take into consideration that the rides are machines and at times do break down, but Maverick has been heavily promoted and you can go to Cedar Point.com and find out all the info you want about the rides statistics and features, but untill yesterday, you could only find a small disclaimer saying the ride may not open. I have reservations to for Breakers Express on June 4th and 5th and if Maverick isn't open by then its not a big deal to me, I'm a fan of amusement parks and have worked around rides in the past, so operational delays dont really bother me cause I can see the parks point of view, but a guest doesnt think that way and there may be many paying customers who will be cross with Cedar Point.

Yeah, it looked like an Arrow transition. I'm guessing some execs rode it and had an unhappy phone call with Intamin over it. There was another article that I read earlier that stated the trouble section was the heartline roll following the launch. Gotta admit, after riding Kingda Ka last year with those restraints, I instantly became concerned over Maverick's ride. Its an awesome layout, but Kingda Ka gave my neck a good whack and thats just a simply twist down from the tower. Sorry that it wont' be open on our Monday visit, but better they take care of the problem now before it becomes a larger issue later. - Todd How do those restraints (the ones on KA and Maverick) work out for larger guests? I'm a bigger guy and last summer I was able to ride FOF, TTD, MF, and Wicked Twister without any trouble or struggle but I've put on some weight this past offseason (not proud of that) and was wondering If I may have trouble on Maverick?

^They are, I was furhter up on the exit ramp the weekend before Don took his.

Since all the theming was working, it was brand new, and had silly OTSR's was it worth it?