Oldiesmann

I've never had that problem, so it's probably just you. Hard to say what could be causing that though. Sounds like the video itself isn't loading.

Tony Clark has tweeted that there will be a "major announcement" on Tuesday at noon... https://twitter.com/TonyClarkCP/status/505369013418221568 Should be interesting to see what this is about.

I definitely did have a great time. The crowds didn't really bother me too much (though waiting over an hour for Legend was a bit annoying). I'm definitely going to plan things better for next year (I'm hoping to make it to the event next year as well).

As promised, here are some pictures. I only took 34 pictures as I was mostly too busy riding things... Maintenance getting ready to install a new seat on Legend: IMG_3019 by oldiesmann, on Flickr The awesome entrance part of Gobbler Getaway: IMG_3022 by oldiesmann, on Flickr The roof of Voyage's photo/gift shop seems to be the Holiday World equivalent of Beast's train shed roof: IMG_3024 by oldiesmann, on Flickr Scooters IMG_3027 by oldiesmann, on Flickr Thunderbird teaser sign: IMG_3031 by oldiesmann, on Flickr Thunderbird station: IMG_3035 by oldiesmann, on Flickr Coaster track, a backhoe and corn all in one spot. What's not to love? IMG_3042 by oldiesmann, on Flickr Full album at https://flic.kr/s/aHsk2u73TX

That's pretty sad really. Apparently people just don't do their own research these days.

Wait... Blackfish is "highly acclaimed"? Highly controversial perhaps, but only "highly acclaimed" by the likes of PETA, which isn't saying much at all.

Thanks for the info about Voyage. Either I'm misunderstanding snapping or you've heard wrong. Neither I nor several other guests I saw had any trouble making them swing wildly out of control and nearly hit the ride op station. My service at Denny's was great. I wasn't aware of the breakfast option at HW. I'll have to keep that in mind next time.

As many of you know, I finally made my first visit out to Holiday World this past Saturday and Sunday both to enjoy all the park has to offer and because of their annual Holiday World Rocks The World Christian Music Festival on Saturday. Since I was already staying overnight on Saturday, I took the advice of others here and made a trip to the park on Sunday as well. (Note: I'm writing this TR at work. Pictures will follow when I get home later tonight). I left here Saturday morning around 8:30 and arrived at Holiday World a few hours later. The drive itself was rather uneventful, save for some heavy fog around the Verona area in Kentucky and the construction in Louisville, which wasn't any worse than what's going on here on I-75 right now. Following the signs, I parked in the Legend lot and was surprised to see how packed the park was despite it being just over an hour since they officially opened. I was also surprised at the sheer size of the lot, but relieved to see they have trams. After catching the tram and walking through the tunnel under the highway to the main entrance, I was greeted by a huge mob of people. 30 minutes or so later and I finally made it into the park (yes, it was that busy). Although others had told me to hit the back of the park first, I was just in the mood for coasters and hit Raven first. The line for Raven was about 30 minutes. Fun but rough. After Raven, I hit Hallowswings since there wasn't much of a line. Fun ride, but nothing much more than a typical swing ride. After that, I wandered off to Legend, which had the longest line of the day, in part because the 2nd-last row was blocked off. I believe I ended up waiting a little over an hour for it, and got to see maintenance replace the seat in the back row while I was waiting, at which point the row re-opened. Legend could really use a second train. Following Voyage it was off to the biggest and baddest coaster in the park. As I got close to Voyage, I saw that the main stage for the night's concert was near there, so I decided to trek back to the car to get my chair. After returning with my chair, I was informed that my event ticket had to be scanned at the front entrance so I could get a wristband (I had purchased a two-day ticket and the season pass/"already have admission" event ticket), so I left the chair and once more made the hike back to the front gate. 20-30 minutes later, I returned yet again, completely exhausted from the long walks, and went to set up my chair before hitting Voyage. Finally I got in line for Voyage. Surprisingly, this coaster had the shortest wait of the three. I'm not sure if it's because of its location at the back of the park, or because of its roughness. It's a fun ride, but a bit too rough for me to want to ride it more than once a day. Quite a nice coaster, and I can see how they have the station set up for the Timberliner trains they decided not to use. There are two more rows for the line than available rows on the car. These two were blocked off for obvious reasons. Following Voyage, I hit the other two rides in Thanksgiving - Turkey Whirl (a Tilt-a-Whirl with custom Turkey-shaped tubs) and, my favorite, Gobbler Getaway, a well-themed Sally dark ride in which you use a turkey caller to help find Farmer Van Snootle's escaped turkeys. KI could really learn from Holiday World here about what a "family friendly" dark ride is and how to properly maintain said ride. Only one target was broken and the turkey callers seemed to work just fine. The pre-show was also very well done. After this, I wandered around the park some more and went for a quick ride on Howler simply to get another coaster credit. Since the line was so short they sent us around a 2nd time without having to get off. Fun little ride. Surprisingly, nobody seemed to find it odd that I was riding it (since I was the only one there without a kid). By this time it was mid-afternoon and quite hot/humid. I wandered around Fourth of July some and made good use of the freely-available drinks. Seeing Eagles Flight, I immediately got in line, and was quite happy to see a kid going wild with the snapping. Nothing better than parks that don't seem to care at all about you snapping the scooters. I waited about 5 minutes for this and had a lot of fun. I still wish KI would bring them back (either the originals or a new set). The next ride was Rough Riders, an old-west themed bumper cars ride with cars shaped like horses and bison. This reminded me a lot of the bumper cars at Coney Island - highly maneuverable and quite fast. Shortly after I got off Rough Riders, they announced that storms were moving towards the area, so I skipped Liberty Launch and Sparkler, thinking storms would be on the way soon. In the mean time I went to Plymouth Rock Cafe to cool off and get some food. The food was delicious, and $15 for turkey, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and a slice of pumpkin pie is a great deal. I hung around the cafe for a while to cool off before making a return to Gobbler Getaway (did I mention how much I like that ride? ). The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. The heat and humidity made things quite miserable and I wasn't in the mood to walk all the way back to the car to get my swimsuit out of my suitcase, so I mostly just hung around Thanksgiving. I rode Mayflower and took some pictures of what's left of Giraffica/Pilgrims Plunge as well as construction of Thunderbird. There is a lot of track on site and the station is taking shape quite nicely. Mayflower is a fun ride, but the cycle is too short. You only get a couple of full swings before the ride starts slowing down again. Around 6:30, the storm clouds were starting to roll in and I went to go retrieve my chair, only to find that they weren't letting people back to the event (they deflated the portable entrance gate thing as well for obvious reasons). Most of my time the next couple of hours was spent crammed into Plymouth Rock Cafe with hundreds of others, watching the storm. It brought in an impressive lightning show and quite a bit of rain. Some groups started singing worship songs during this time, and many others joined in. One video even made it to the event's Facebook page. Finally around 8 the rain was starting to let up and they began letting people back into the event. I hung around the merch tent for a while waiting for the rain to finish (I had brought an umbrella but left it in the car). The field was a mess and my chair was soaked, but at least the temperature was much more reasonable at that point. Shortly before things started up again around 9, they announced that they were going to try to get everyone on stage and they'd probably be done around midnight local time. I wasn't entirely thrilled by this announcement because I'd already been up for 14 hours at that point and was exhausted from wandering around in the heat. After watching One Girl Nation and Sanctus Real perform, I ended up leaving the concert for my hotel room around 10pm local time (ironically around the same time the concert was supposed to end). My shoes were soaked and muddy and my chair was soaked, but I'd had a lot of fun and was looking forward to the next day. Sunday morning I got woken up to the sound of a hot rod roaring to life outside my window around 7:30 local time. I had noticed the cars the night before but didn't want to go out and take a picture of them since it was already late anyway. Feeling refreshed from a good night's sleep, I decided to get up early (I had set my phone alarm for 8) and drove down the road a short distance to Denny's for breakfast. When I came back, I packed everything up, checked out of the motel and drove 15 minutes to Holiday World through downtown Dale and the heart of Santa Claus. I arrived at the park around 9:15 local time and parked in the main lot this time. The park was busier than I expected it to be at that time, but not nearly as busy as it had been the day before. Once inside, I paid for a locker rental wristband and wandered off to ride things that I hadn't gotten to ride the day before. I was originally planning to ride Lewis & Clark Trail (antique cars) first, but then saw the signs saying "Minimum two riders per car", so I got out of line and headed for Sparkler. Fun ride, but I do have to wonder why they need two different swing rides. Following Sparkler, I hit Liberty Launch (an S&S Power Tower) and Revolution (a round-up). At that point I was ready for water rides, so I headed down to Splashin' Safari, got my locker and walked back to Frightful Falls. Pretty typical log flume ride. I then hit Raging Rapids, which is similar to White Water Canyon. After that, most of my day was spent wandering around Splashin' Safari, enjoying the many rides they have to offer. Once again I realized that the park is much larger than I thought it was. I stopped riding to re-apply sunscreen occasionally, and took a break for lunch around 3 (chicken bacon ranch warp at Wildebeestro). I finished up the day with two re-rides on Wildebeest before the water park closed. After retrieving my items from the locker, I went back to Thanksgiving for rides on Voyage, Gobbler Getaway and Turkey Twirl again before walking down to Hallowswings. I had also planned to catch another ride on Rough Riders before I left, but was starting to get tired again and wanted to get home before it got to be too late, so I ended up leaving around 6:30 Central time. Total ride tally for the weekend: Saturday: Eagles Flight - 1, Gobbler Getaway - 3, Hallowsings - 1, Howler - 2, Legend - 1, Mayflower - 1, Raven - 1, Rough Riders - 1, Voyage - 1 Sunday: Eagles Flight - 1, Frightful Falls - 1, Hallowsings - 1, Liberty Launch - 1, Mayflower - 1, Raging Rapids - 1, Raven - 1, Revolution - 1, Sparkler - 1, Star Spangled Carousel - 1, Turkey Whirl - 1, Voyage - 1; Bakuli - 1, Hyena Falls - 1 each on all four slides, Mammoth - 1, Otorongo - 1 each on all three slides, Wildebeest - 3, ZOOMbabwe - 1 Overall I was quite impressed with Holiday World. Great park, lots of things to do, well-themed and quite clean. I'm looking forward to visiting again, hopefully next year. Also, KI and CF really need to take a good look at Gobbler Getway. That is how you do a family-friendly dark ride. Well-themed, well-maintained... KI should also consider investing in the locker system that HW uses (Locker Link from Smarte Carte). This would all but eliminate the problems people have reported with locker theft since you need to scan your wristband at the appropriate set of lockers to open it. And, contrary to what someone said in another topic, I still think KI needs a good water coaster at Soak City. Mammoth and Wildebeest were a ton of fun. That's all for now. Pics will be added when I get home.

At Holiday World today I heard someone talking about the Six Flags park "down there near Charlotte". Either he was confused about which chain owned said park or Atlanta is now "near Charlotte".

My post was more a gripe about CF's lack of effort to update their sites, not really complaining due to concerns with the security of Flash. In fact, the website for accesso's Passport system even brags "It’s now just as simple for guests to plan their visit on their smartphone as it is on their desktop." and "your guests will enjoy a shopping experience that is consistently beautiful on any device". It's clear that accesso now has the technology, but CF isn't taking advantage of it.

"To renew your 2014 season pass, please visit our website on your computer with Flash enabled.". Sigh. It's 2014 already. Why is it so hard to find a solution that allows us to do these things from mobile devices?

One word of advice to anyone planning on visiting. Plan on getting there early - especially if visiting on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday. During peak times it gets very busy down there, and they will make you wait if necessary (though I understand this policy does not apply to passholders).

I can also read that Orlando Sentinel article. It's possible that they're like the Enquirer and similar papers, where you can view x articles for free each month without paying. If that's the case, clearing any cookies set by that site (or viewing that article from another browser) should allow you to view it just fine.

I've been challenged by one of my managers at work, who was challenged by our site manager. We'll have to see how things go at work tomorrow.

Sigh... Once again, please cite the source for any photos you post which are not yours.

When you consider that midway rides are at least $20 (depending on whether you purchase tickets or a wristband, and what day you go), it makes sense that the "only at Kroger" restriction may have been a last-minute decision, and the "you can still get the discount while the fair is going" thing would be a compromise. If you were running the midway rides, how would you like it if the group responsible for hiring you was allowing someone to directly compete for your business, but at half the price? It will be very interesting to see how this works out. I feel sorry for the folks who will have to deal with angry guests who don't want to pay $20 to get in when it was originally advertised at $10.

Impressive. It's great to see them putting so much emphasis on families of all ages, rather than the typical "put in a new family coaster" type thinking that so many parks are doing these days.

That makes more sense. I still haven't made it up to CP yet, so I assumed it was like KI where the merge point is actually in the station.

I'm also a bit skeptical at the whole "limiting how many FL passes are sold" thing they mentioned doing. One recent Saturday (I think it was last weekend), I heard that there was an hour's wait for MF at CP with Fast Lane (compared to 3 hours in the regular line). Considering that a regular FL gets you skip-the-main-line access on 23 rides at CP, something just doesn't add up here.

More info here... http://www.meadvilletribune.com/local/x197385225/County-moves-park-from-tax-sale-to-sheriffs-sale

Should be interesting to see how this works, but as it stands right now, the prices are quite steep compared to the area's other popular snow-tubing place (Perfect North Slopes in Lawrenceburg, Indiana): Non-Holiday/Non-Weekends: $25 per person unlimited tubing ($20 for groups of 15-99, $15 for groups of 100+) Holidays/Weekends: $25 for 2 hours ($20 for groups) $30 for 3 hours ($25 for groups) Also note that for the holiday/weekend prices, you can add additional hours for $5 per hour at time of purchase or $10 per hour after session ends.

There was definitely a lot of technical jargon in there, but considering it's an industry magazine, that didn't really surprise me, and Google's always good at giving you info on what all that means. Probably made more sense to someone like you though

Same here. If it were permanently closed they'd likely just block off the entrance with a chain or garbage can instead of having a "temporarily closed" sign.

I'm more impressed with the fact that they've actually kept track for 42 years considering they didn't have computers and spreadsheets to remember all that info for them when the park opened in 1972

On top of that, there are far fewer people living in that area. According to Wikipedia (based on 2010 census data), there are more people living in Mason alone than there are in all of Spencer County, Indiana.