PTR/VTR Holiwood Nights 2012

[Hendrick]

I know it's about a week late, but with finals at school, I haven't had enough time to write everything down. Now that they've finally ended, I've been able to put together a small trip report of Holiwood Nights.

Four years ago, my girlfriend and I decided that our goal is to visit a new park together every year. One that I've been eyeing for awhile has been Holiday World, and this year we've finally been able to go. I figured if we were going to spend the 5+ hour drive from Columbus, we minus well make the most of our visit and go for Holiwood Nights.

The day started out at Ohio State. Final day of classes, and I decided that I would skip my final one in order to get to Santa Claus 3 hours earlier then originally planned. It started to rain right as my class was ending, so it made for a fun drive through downtown.

For whatever reason, Columbus does not have a Denny's. I know their food isn't the greatest, but they're cheap and being a college student, I love them. There is one by the Jacksonville outlets (exit 69 on I-71), and almost any trip to Kings Island ends with a stop there on the way home. We decided that it would be a great place to stop for an early lunch.

One of the first stops along the way was Kentucky Speedway. I'm a huge NASCAR fan, but I've never been to Kentucky Speedway. I had to stop and take a couple of pictures. Kentucky is owned by SMI, who is the same corporation who owns Charlotte. I've been to Charlotte quite a few times to know that there is always a gate that is left open for fans to enter. I found one at Kentucky, but my girlfriend was too afraid that it wasn't suppose to be open, and wouldn't let me in. Below is the tunnel to enter the infield of the speedway, which oddly enough, was not blocked off.

A few hours later, we finally made it to Santa Claus IN! We checked into our hotel at Santa's Lodge, which was literally a 2 minute drive from the park. I learned the night before we left that last year, people were allowed in at 5:30pm Friday night. Much to my delight, it was the same this year. But, there still was a few hours to kill, so we made a trip over to the Candy Castle, which is about 5 minutes away from the park.

Here's a picture from the Hotel Lobby. There was a group rate discount that was posted on the Holiwood Night's Facebook page, so we had a nice discount that made it affordable.

5:30 finally rolls around, and off we went. I didn't bring my camera the first night, I was too excited about riding the coasters. My girlfriend and I immediately headed towards Voyage. Much to our surprise, almost any row was a two train wait. We choose the front row of the last car, and we set sail. All I can say is wow! That ride NEVER lets up. After reading the review from last year, I was afraid it would be too rough, but it was very smooth. I didn't notice any jackhammering, and I thought the spaghetti bowl was one of the smoothest parts. When we got out of the train, we both knew we had to ride it again. After our two rides, we headed to ride Sparkler, which was fun. I'm not one for heights, so Sparkler was the perfect size for me. We took a quick ride on Liberty Launch, and then went over to Legend and Raven. I though Legend was great. I've never been a huge fan of lateral G's, but I think Legend is making me change my mind. There is one point in the helix where is seems like the track has no banking at all, at one of the fastest parts of the ride, which pretty much pasted you to the left side of your seat. Raven was fun, but I felt like it had a very generic layout. We then went over to HallowSwings for two rides, and then went back to Voyage.

At this point it was time to go meet over at the pavilion for the introduction to Holiwood Nights. With the theme being Ghost Busters, Mrs. Koch, dressed as the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, shot marshmallows at Dan Koch. After a bit of talking, we were sent out. We got two more rides on Voyage, two on Sparkler, then stopped for our Pizza and Fudge. We then went to Raven, two rides on Legend, Voyage, Turkey Whirl, and Voyage again. At this point in the night, my stomach was bothering me. I'm used to waiting an extended period between rides, so with all of these rides back to back, it became a little too much. We ended up heading back to our hotel an hour early.

Saturday started at 8am at the front gate for water park ERT. We rented a locker to put all of our stuff in (including my camera, so no water park pictures), and headed for breakfast, which consisted of muffins and a ton of fruit. After breakfast we headed straight for Wildebeest. We must have beat the crowd, because it was only 3 or 4 raft wait. I loved Wildebeest, it's by far my favorite water ride I've ever been on. But the water was freezing! I heard a few people say the air temp was 55, which made the water feel like ice. We were able to get another ride before the crowd started to come. Because the line was pretty long, we were going to go ride Bakuli, but we noticed that a few people were heading towards Mammoth, so we decided to follow. Sure enough Mammoth had just opened, and we were one of the first few rafts out. Mammoth was a lot of fun. The spinning raft pretty much gave a different ride every time through. We were about to go board again when one of the rafts didn't quite make it up a hill. Apparently when this happens, everyone on the slide must walk off, and each raft has to be "towed" back to the station. According to the ride op, it happens about once an hour on busy days, but only counting the times I was at Mammoth (about 6 rides), I saw it happen three times. Because of this 10-15 minute delay, the line got pretty long, so we decided to head to Bakuli after our ride. Bakuli was fun (the first ride I was going backwards, and had no idea where the drop was), but nothing special after riding both Mammoth and Wildebeest. We headed back to Wildebeest for six more rides, a walk on each time. We finished the ERT on Mammoth, but I lost count on the number of times we rode it, as it was a walk-on too. One thing I found interesting is that my girlfriend and I had two rides with the same person. We were in a different raft both times. Once time we literally didn't spin at all, yet the other time we spun like crazy. We sat the same position, so while weight distribution might effect the spinning, I feel the rafts matter as well.

After ERT ended we stayed in the water park to ride pretty much every other slide they had. Besides Mammoth and Wildebeest, by favorite ride was Jungle Racer, which is very similar to the burlap slide ride that is common at most fairs, except this had water. It has two "camelbacks", and with the speed that you take the 2nd one, you pretty much don't touch the slide until it evens out at the bottom, which was really fun!

We were going to ride Pilgrims Plunge, but the ride was down. It eventually reopened, but it was long after we had changed out of our bathing suits. Went back to the dry side of the park where I took some pictures that I'll post below. I lost count of my total number of rides on everything, but nothing seemed to have too long of a line. Even Voyage was between 15-30 minutes during the peak of the day.

I LOVE this angle.

We stopped at Pilgrim's Cafe for lunch. For the main course, plus two sides and cornbread/roll, it was $10.00 each. I ended up getting Chicken and Dumplings, with mac&cheese and stuffings as my side. Everything was fantastic. (On the way home we stopped at Cracker Barrel and I got Chicken and Dumplings again. Unfortunately, it wasn't anywhere close to being as good as Holiday World's.)

My camera battery died somewhere shortly before 3pm, which is when the Raven/Legend walk back was. We decided we would skip them, head back to the hotel to get my backup battery, and take a quick nap before the Voyage walk back at 4. I also decided to take some motion sickness pills, which put me to sleep pretty quickly.

Rest of these pictures are from the Voyage Walk back.

Tied for my favorite angle on the Voyage too!

As you can see in the above image, they were selling part of the Voyage track at the auction later in the night. I think the asking price started at $300, but no one placed a bid.

After the walk back we rode a few more rides, and then headed to the pavilion for dinner. After dinner, I ended up falling asleep on the table for half an hour, which was definitely due to the pills I took earlier. I didn't take any more pictures during the ERT, but with an hour to go, it started to rain pretty good. We got one last ride in on Voyage towards the back, and it was flying! I never felt any coaster move that quickly through turns like that before. Unfortunately as the rained picked up, we both knew that the rain would make it too painful to ride, so we decided to head back to the hotel.

I had a blast at Holiday World. My only gripe is that the park is 5.5 hours away. I definitely cannot wait to go again! A couple days later, I was thinking about what we spent at Holiday World, and I realized that I probably spent more money in park then I did all of last year at Kings Island with my season pass. I think since items were more reasonably priced, I felt better about spending the money.

I was playing with my camera throughout the trip, and I ended up taking quite a bit of video, which I ended up cropping together quickly. It's nothing special, but there is some video clips from our drive, a little bit around the park, plus a good amount from Voyage walk-back. It's all from holding my point and shoot camera, so I apologize that it's a little choppy at times.

Thanks for reading!

[jcgoble3]

Nice report! Two comments:

Your comment about Mammoth boats not making it up a hill is surprising. I never encountered that problem. I'm also surprised that they say it happens that often.

Also, in regard to the rain Saturday night, I waited it out, and it stopped around 11:15. Voyage was a walk-on/stay-on for many seats after that.

[Joncars05]

I will say HWN 2012 was awesome. The Voyage at night after the rain was amazing the trains slipped right through the MCBR and that made the final part of the ride just ridiculous! I will agree with you on the Mammoth rollbacks as well. We skipped the morning ERT because of the temps but when we were in line during regular park hours 2 rollbacks happened while we waited. We got through the line in about 30 minutes minus the rollback delays. Overall its a great ride though.

Great report and awesome pics!

[Hendrick]

Your comment about Mammoth boats not making it up a hill is surprising. I never encountered that problem. I'm also surprised that they say it happens that often.

Same ride op said it also occasionally happens on Wildebeest, but much less often, and it's a quicker to get the ride running again.

I will say HWN 2012 was awesome. The Voyage at night after the rain was amazing the trains slipped right through the MCBR and that made the final part of the ride just ridiculous! I will agree with you on the Mammoth rollbacks as well. We skipped the morning ERT because of the temps but when we were in line during regular park hours 2 rollbacks happened while we waited.

In retrospect, not knowing when I'll be able to get back, I wished I had stayed. But I was so tired, at the time sleep felt like the much better choice. I considered skipping the morning ERT as well because it was so cold, but I decided to go. I'm glad I did, especially when I saw the crowd of people approaching once the water park opened.

[TheCrypt]

What exactly is Holiwood Nights?

[ahank]

^It's a coaster enthusiast event held at Holiday World. It usually features ERT on rides and behind-the-scenes (or coaster) tours!

[Joncars05]

http://www.holidayworld.com/clubs

That is the webpage that contains all the info for the event that was held this past weekend.