The Beach- holidayfest!

[Coney_man]

Well this trip started yesterday, while i was getting my money, i was getting calls from coaster enthusiast friends, Karen Talley and Adam Wallisjov. Well the time i got to Mason, i decided to check out great wolf lodge. Boy, they did a great job on the whole hotel and water park. Amazing on what they did, the arcade was very elaborate...i tried to play DDR for the first time in five years...FAILED! But the one thing i liked about the water park IT WAS AWESOME LOOKING!! Then it was on to the beach, Paid 9 bucks to get in, It was Worth the money, i tried to ice skate....FAIL....i kept falling on my butt...they had a toboggan ride i rode it like 3 times...awesome!! they had a petting zoo...animals looked depressed...long away from the Cinci Zoo. Last but not least, they had beach balls fall @ 9:00 watched it and was tired....

I will have pics and a little video soon to come!!

[brick52]

Their tobogan ride, is it on one of the slides or how do they do that. I've never been and have always wondered.

[Beast79]

The toboggan slide is just a regular slide but they do not use it during the summer season.

[Delirium13]

I actually went to Holiday Fest at the Beach in mid-December, I believe on Saturday the 12th, and I might as well post my report here rather than start a new topic. I had a rather different experience:

I was fortunate enough to receive two free tickets so I figured I might as well give Holiday Fest a shot. I got there and the first thing I noticed was how empty the parking lot was, especially with it being a Saturday night. I went up to the gates and was informed by the extremely friendly staff that I got two free ride passes per ticket, so between my girlfriend and I we had four passes. Basically you walk through the gates and into a long temporary building which was pretty warm and a nice break from the extremely cold weather. The building itself was almost empty, and when we finally went out to the main park area I was completely underwhelmed. I don't know if I was just expecting too much, especially since I hadn't been to the Beach in years, but from a Holiday event that I had heard about for years I expected more.

All of the lights looked pretty aged and once again the place was a ghost town. It was pretty sad to see, especially with how friendly the staff was and with the Beach being a little family owned venue. The first thing I saw was the train display which was pretty nice, and then I made my way down to the toboggan slide. I was actually somewhat worried about riding it after watching several kids fly forward when their sleds would hit the hay bail walls, and a couple broke through the walls and they had to stop the flow of people to fix the walls. But I finally decided to give it a shot and had a blast although, I found it unsafe that they had no worker at the top of the slide guiding people. Rather, the people would just go when the light at the top of the slide turned green. But the slide itself was fun enough and I didn't find the end to be as intense as it looked. Total throughout the night I got to do the toboggan 3 times because my girlfriend wasn't as eager to do it and only did it once.

Other than the toboggan slide we had a hard time keeping ourselves occupied. we didn't do the ice skating, as we had gone downtown just the weekend before and we could not find the carriage ride that was advertised. All we found was the pony ride (we didn't do it), which was depressing to look at because the pony were just sitting there in the cold with no riders, and the petting zoo area which ended up being the entertainment for the next 15 minutes of the night, mostly because of the variety of animals, but I agree with Coney_man, the animals did seem sad.

After that there was nothing left to do but leave, and this was at most, only two hours later and we had done a lot of sitting in the warm building. The event itself was nice I guess, but did not seem as if it had been being done for years, it seemed more like amateurs trying to put on a holiday event for the first time. And I say that with a heavy heart because I really wanted to enjoy myself and I felt for the staff, but the event was lacking. We left and I was disappointed, but happy that I hadn't spent any money to get in.

Overall I found the event to be lacking in not only people, but also in activities.

I really wish it had been different though. Anyone else have thoughts on this? Am I being to harsh? Was I expecting too much?

[XGatorHead 8904]

^If you haven't seen it already, you should check out my TR from there last year: 2009 Holiday Fest at The Beach. It's a pretty humorous read.

We spent our New Year's Eve there this year and had a much better experience. I'll tell that story in my planned "How We Survived the Off-Season, 2009-2010 Edition" TR whenever I get around to posting that (which will hopefully be before April which is when I posted last years!).

[Delirium13]

^If you haven't seen it already, you should check out my TR from there last year: 2009 Holiday Fest at The Beach. It's a pretty humorous read.

We spent our New Year's Eve there this year and had a much better experience. I'll tell that story in my planned "How We Survived the Off-Season, 2009-2010 Edition" TR whenever I get around to posting that (which will hopefully be before April which is when I posted last years!).

I thoroughly enjoyed reading that trip report! Did you ever end up reporting that to the Department of Agriculture?

It does seem that they did away with the paddle boats (which have no place at an event in the middle of winter in my opinion) after that season.

[pi_kapp_shack]

^If you haven't seen it already, you should check out my TR from there last year: 2009 Holiday Fest at The Beach. It's a pretty humorous read.

We spent our New Year's Eve there this year and had a much better experience. I'll tell that story in my planned "How We Survived the Off-Season, 2009-2010 Edition" TR whenever I get around to posting that (which will hopefully be before April which is when I posted last years!).

To funny Gator. As soon as I saw this trip report I immediately flashed back to your tale from last year. Guess some TRs just have that lasting impression!

[XGatorHead 8904]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading that trip report! Did you ever end up reporting that to the Department of Agriculture?

It does seem that they did away with the paddle boats (which have no place at an event in the middle of winter in my opinion) after that season.

I never did report it to the DoA. Come to think of it, I never did get my refund that was promised me either. But that's okay, we ended up getting three free visits to The Beach last year. Two from the tickets they gave us from our Holiday Fest fiasco and one from when we went on a day where they had heavy rains the night before, so they had to keep half of their attractions closed while they drained/worked on/refilled them because of all the dirt that had gotten into them. They gave all visitors that day tickets to come back again as we exited.

There were two reasons that I gave Holiday Fest another chance:

1. They got rid of the peddleboats

2. Someone in our neighborhood gave GatorGirl a free ticket to go to it during trick or treating at Halloween. They were giving those out instead of or in addition to candy!

To funny Gator. As soon as I saw this trip report I immediately flashed back to your tale from last year. Guess some TRs just have that lasting impression!

Thanks! It certainly stuck in my head too. It'll be a night I never forget!

[RailRider]

Ahhh Yes the sinking of the S.S. Gator, one of the best trip reports ever done.