Holiday World 10/15/23

[johnjniehaus]

Well I spent roughly 4 hours at Holiday World today seeing as it was going to be my last chance to get it in before they close for the year. Unfortunately I was pretty sick over the weekend and was just starting to improve so I knew that I would probably start feeling bad at the park eventually. My final ride count was as follows - Raven 1x, Legend 3x, Voyage 4x, Thunderbird 1x, Gobbler Gateway 1x. I made sure to walk through all the themed sections even if I didn't stop to ride any rides there (Christmas and 4th of July). Overall I was very pleased with the park and the free soft drinks were AMAZING! 

I started off with The Legend which I would say is a smaller version of The Boss at SFSL. That covered helix mid ride is really really forceful and the rest of the decently long layout provided good airtime and laterals. The slight twist on the first drop was pretty sweet too. I thought it was running pretty smoothly and the ops were amazing on this one. 

Next I made my way to the Voyage. This ride is definitely best in the park. I'm questioning if it's a true wooden coaster seeing as all the support structures are metal (I think it still counts as wooden?) Anyway it was probably the best wooden coaster I've ever ridden. Only had two jolts that were noticeable and was a really long ride. I think it might have topped The Beast for me making it my new #1 wooden coaster however The Beast is going to have a second chance on Fri when I go to Halloween Haunt so we'll see if The Voyage can retain that #1 spot or whether an old favorite will triumph in the end...

After Voyage, I rode Thunderbird which is probably the shortest/weakest winged coaster I've ever ridden. Don't get me wrong it serves it's purpose in the holiday world lineup perfectly but to me, GateKeeper and wild eagle are far superior. 

This is where I started feeling bad. I don't think any of the coasters thus far had been rough or uncomfortable but I think it was me just starting to feel bad from whatever fever sickness I had over the weekend. I started with a headache and got sick to my stomach which is not normal for me at an amusement park so I know the rides were not to blame. My equilibrium had been off over the weekend and I think maybe the rides threw it off and made me feel nauseous. However, if I went to Holiday World perfectly healthy I'm sure I would have been fine and not felt sick or had a headache. So to take a break, I rode Gobbler Getaway. I definitely think that is better than boo blasters for a Sally dark ride. The guns actually worked and I got a great score. 

Finally, I decided I would have to get in The Raven before I called it quits and drove home. The ops were horrible on this one so it took much longer than expected to actually get on. While the raven is a good coaster, it's definitely not the best woodie by any means. The huge turn over the lake and the "5th drop" were both great but the coaster felt very short. Also, it felt rough to me. Maybe this was because physically I was kind of done/ready to leave/not feeling 100% or perhaps it's actually rougher than the other two wooden coasters at HW. 

Anyway, to sum up I enjoyed my visit to the park and while the Voyage and the Legend are both in my top 10 wooden coasters list, I don't know if I'll be back next year... 3 hours is a long drive for two really good coasters whenever you have Kings Island in your home town and Cedar Point is only 4 hours away. However, I will say that Holiday World is definitely better than KY Kingdom so anyone down by Louisville should make the hour trip over there if they haven't already. 

[IndyGuy4KI]

Thanks for walking us through your day. I am sorry you started feeling bad again. That could not have been fun.