REPOST: 2013 Trip Report, Part II (Busch Gardens, Holiday World)

[zombieninja]

Repost. The original was lost with the server change. Recreated lovingly from the original rough draft.

Busch Gardens, Williamsburg: June 3rd, 2013

During my trips to Busch Gardens and Holiday World, I had a biased opinion in my head about what both of those parks might be before I ever walked through the gate. I anticipated Busch Gardens turning out to be like a stripped down version of Disney World with a couple of thrill rides thrown in to please the thrill seekers. Holiday World somehow stuck in the back of my head as the small family-owned amusement park that gets way too much attention just because of The Voyage. I was dead wrong. Originally our planned Virginia trip was to be two days at Kings Dominion and one day at Busch Gardens. We were only halfway through the day at Busch Gardens when it was decided that we'll spend two days there instead.

You haven't even entered the front gate of Busch Gardens yet. Chances are you'll notice how beautiful the area looks and how well planned everything is laid out. You only need to take a short walk to get on one of their generously sized trams. Ticket sales are quick and painless. The staff is incredibly friendly throughout the park. There is shade everywhere, and every structure seems to blend in with the natural landscape. Upon entering the park, everything you knew the day before no longer matters. You are now in a world where everything is a curiosity and all you want to do is explore it. I haven't seen a single ride yet and my fascination with the place has already soared.

The Loch Ness Monster wins my vote for most photogenic roller coaster.

We rode a few rides along the way, but I'll cut to the chase and say the first object of our attention was Apollo's Chariot. Four across or four stadium style, the trains still feel as comfortable as Diamondback's. The chain lift seemed to take forever being at a shallower angle. Like an idiot, I put my hands up and prepared to drop at the crest of the hill, only to drop a few feet and coast forward. The rest of the ride is very tame compared to Diamondback, but I really enjoyed the shock at the end when a hidden drop appeared after a quick bunny hop!

There seems to be a line drawn between fans of Intamin and S&S Drop Towers. This feud will probably last an eternity, but I'll go ahead and say I like the S&S design better. I absolutely can't stand Drop Tower at Kings Island! Busch Gardens has Mach Tower (not by Intamin, but a similar design). I immediately cringed in anticipation of painful restraints and a hard braking system. It turns out this one was actually quite comfortable. I like how they give you more time to look around at the top of the tower, but they totally blow the anticipation by counting down the drop.

Now being in Germany, the first attention-getter was Verbolten. I had very low expectations for this ride, but it ended up really impressing me! The amount of detail put into everything from the queue to the trains themselves is astonishing. Pictures cannot properly capture how gorgeous Verbolten's trains are. It's like someone took a real European Roadster and transformed it into a roller coaster. Kudos to the people responsible for this rolling work of art. This is definitely a family roller coaster. The acceleration and turns are moderate, and smoothly executed. The dark portion of the ride was very trippy. The black light effects don't feel cheap at all, and are quite disorienting. Then you slow down to a stop for a short audio sequence and... WHAM! When the whole track drops it's very startling. This is not a high thrill coaster but a unique experience that kids and kids-at-heart will enjoy. Put away your Google facts Mr. Thrill Ride Junky and take some time to go be a kid again!

Alpengeist is a good invert, but unfortunately another attraction has stolen the spotlight here for this trip report... the Festhaus! Throw everything you associate with King's Island's Festhaus out the door. Prepare stimulate your senses with a great dinner and a show! Busch Garden's shows are pretty top notch, and the one in the Festhaus is no exception. Nothing feels cheap or like someone cut corners in here. It's all excellent performance complete with acrobatics and absolutely amazing German food. It was all so good we did it again the next day. The price was good too. Cheaper even than the Philly cheese steak abomination at Kings Dominion the day before. So the lesson I learned here is a Festhaus is a Festhaus! Not a Chinese restaurant with Karaoke singing.

Just as festive on the outside.

Where there's food and entertainment, there's celebration!

Oh, the wasted years. If I only knew of how amazing Griffon is beforehand I would have came here much sooner. It has managed to become one of my favorite coasters alongside Maverick and The Beast. At a glance, Griffon seems to really draw out the moment of of anticipation and perform the same two tricks two times in a row along with a gratuitous splashdown effect. Boy, does it ever! It's absolutely ingenious. Someone who seemed to know the psychology behind what makes roller coasters thrilling to begin with trimmed out the fat and enhanced the rest. You are forced to wait. There is no escaping the thought of how high you are and the moment of your release as you stare at the massive track in front of you. When it happens, you go facing straight down and into a ridiculously high inversion. When that's over, you have to do it again.

That first drop is much bigger than it appears.

This is my off ride video. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

It's kind of hard to leave Busch Gardens. Suddenly your escape from reality has become your new reality. You want to mop it up into a bucket and dunk your head into it every time you get stressed at work. Every time your bills goes up. Every time your mom calls with bad news. Every time your kid attempts to drink milk through a crazy straw up his nose. This is that place.

It's hard to take a bad picture at Busch Gardens.

Holiday World & Splashin' Safari: June 17th, 2013

You would drive three hours just to ride a roller coaster?! Shame on you, there's a whole park here to explore! Holiday World & Splashin' Safari is a book you can't judge by its cover. You have to read the whole thing to get it. Somehow the authors of this incredible piece decided that they would spoil and lure in the consumer by revealing the climax without giving any details to the plot. We set forth on our journey into the park...

...And then we B-lined straight to The Voyage. Oh, the humility! I am such a hypocrite! I mean, come on! It's one of the world's best roller coasters! So you approach The Voyage with it's ridiculously tight queues in the sun and wait patiently. It's easy to be intimidated by its massive lift hill. Trains just seem to mysteriously disappear into the woods never to be seen again, just like our much beloved terrain-hugging wooden coaster at Kings Island. Finally reaching the station, I watched in amazement at how efficiently the staff seemed to operate. It was like clockwork. I stuffed my belongings into a free keyed locker in the station feeling safe that they would still be there when I return. This is so great! Why didn't Kings Island adopt a locker system like this? Anyways, down and up we go! Even from atop the first hill, you cannot see more than than the two large hills in front of you. It's really messes with your mind and catches you off guard after the second hill when you dive into a tunnel and are soon bombarded with forces from seemingly indecisive direction changes. It's all a blur. This ride behaves like a powerful ocean tidal wave being forced down a windy creek bed. It's completely unrelenting until you get halfway through and hit a modest straightaway. It was here I realized I was holding my breath the whole way. I gasped for air as we descended down what seemed to be a staircase of roller coaster track then continuing back to the station. I like to ride roller coasters because at the age of 32, it makes me feel 22 again. This day after The Voyage I felt like a 62 year old. You have to be nuts to want a re-ride. That was fun. Let's do it again!

Upon exploring the rest of the park anyone with a 5 year old like mine will quickly come to appreciate the variety of flat rides here. He can ride all of them. I can ride almost all of them with him. This reflects the parks thoughtfulness as you observe it's humble demeanor throughout. Everyone here is so gosh darn nice. I think I might have made a wrong turn into Canada. Employees continue to work like clockwork in a friendly and efficient manner unprecedented by anywhere on this planet I have yet seen. Even their restaurants operate with good communication at an efficiency level that would make well organized fast food places jealous! Free soft drinks. Free sunscreen in the water park. You have to really pay some places to get good hospitality. That's also free! But upon looking around this park you really notice what's still missing; shade and theming. The park is very sparse in some areas without a tree or tarp in sight. The sun is your enemy here. Theming is so laughable. The holidays are more like area indicators than true themed zones. I laughed so hard when I saw the frightful theming on Frightful Falls. It had a graveyard of cardboard tombstones on large popsicle sticks! I guess they missed the sale on Halloween decorations at Wal-Mart.

The most terrible thing about this park, as I have said earlier, is that The Voyage really steals the thunder from everything else. I really must emphasize that Holiday World has the best water park I have ever been to. If you come here, please plan the bulk of your day at Splashin' Safari. There's plenty of room for everyone. From a generous selection of water slides, two really fun water coasters, private changing rooms, chairs, life jackets, and intertubes, it's really hard to go wrong. Save that ride on The Voyage for after the water park. Save a hot bath for after The Voyage.

Holiday World's other two coasters also seem to lose a lot of their thunder to a certain ride, which for the sake of eliminating redundancy, I will refuse to name for the remainder of this report. All 3 wooden roller coasters at this park are a mesmerizing experience. All three have a unique story to tell. No story is so short and sweet as The Raven's. Just like Magnum at Cedar Point, I almost want to shed a tear at the empty queues. The Raven tells a story of fun and joy from simpler times when all that mattered was acting like a kid. It has plentiful curves and airtime that define what a proper wooden roller coaster is supposed to do in all of it's simplicity. You don't need to break records to enjoy life.

The Legend. How appropriately named. The lateral g-forces on this thing are truly legendary. When you start hitting so many twists and unbanked turns at absurd speed, you leave the station amazed that your skin is unscathed. Certainly some strange physics are at work on this coaster. I never knew a boxy little train could take so much. It's really hard for me to say anything but "whoa" after riding this.

Upon leaving Holiday World I couldn't believe how much fun such a quaint little park could pack. I was so entertained that I totally forgot to take pictures! Hopefully I will return next year and get to enjoy the water park to its fullest. Save "that ride" for last.

The Voyage! The Voyage! The Voyage!

I'll go to my corner now.

Now that this is back up, I can finally start working on my Ohio State Fair trip report. I must say it's going to be fun writing that one!

[TheCrypt]

Just as good the second time around. Thanks...again!

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

Great report. Love your descriptions of the rides. Going to BGW for the first time in September and this made me more excited.

[zombieninja]

Great report. Love your descriptions of the rides. Going to BGW for the first time in September and this made me more excited.

I hope you have a great time! The Curse of DarKastle and all of their water rides are very good too.

[APE]

I've been spending my time reading through this and other trip reports about BGW and KD. If people want to direct me towards more I'll read those too!