Holiday World 6/26

[Diamondback_Is_King]

I got the chance to visit Holiday World for my 6th visit this past Thursday. As usual, I had a blast and enjoyed this amazing theme park! It had been 2 years since my last visit, so there were a couple things that were new. For this trip report, I will just talk about each part of my day:

Opening-There were not many crowds at opening and it was super easy to get through security (HW now has these new metal detectors like Disney does. It boxes all of the metal items for the security guard to see and they can decided whether they want to look at it or not. Makes the process so much faster). We were like the first 30 groups in, so we made our way to the the Halloween entrance for rope drop. You can also go to 4th of July rope drop, which is better if your trying to ride Voyage, T-Bird, or Good Gravy! But we wanted to get a locker first in the water park because the last time we were there, there was only one spot to order the lockers and get a wristband and the line was sooooo long. Which leads me to my next section:

Lockers-There is no longer one singular place you have to get lockers-you can now buy a locker at each individual station and just enter your code instead of the previous wristband. You also had to enter your locker number before entering your code.

First Hour of Ops-Before the water park opened (11:00) we had an hour to get as many rides in as we could, so we headed for Voyage. The line was a super crowded station wait (there is no attendant telling people which row so it's just a massive crowd of people) but wasn't that bad at all. Rode T-Bird before heading into the water park at 11:00.

Splashin' Safari-After getting our bathing suits on, we headed straight for Mammoth because it usually always has the longest line. We waited roughly 45 minutes for it before getting on and having a really fun ride. Not all the boats/rafts were on at first, so that contributed to our wait time. We then went to Wildebeest and waited probably 35-45 minutes or so. BUT, it should have taken 10 minutes because the line was short. BUT, there was this group of teenage kids who were riding the slide and they valleyed or something and the safety check came on. So the ride broke down and it took a good 15 minutes to start it back up. But when someone valleys they let them ride again. So these teenage kids get on the ride again and when they're on the ride THEY BREAK IT AGAIN!!! Somehow they ended up backwards???? Don't ask me how you do that on Wildebeest...Anyway, the ride got running again and we got on it. I remember it having more airtime than when we rode it recently, but it was still great. After that, another water coaster: Cheetah Chase. This one was like 30 minutes long and I really enjoyed this and it's speed after riding RIverRacers Rode a couple tube slides with little waits and went on Cheetah Chase before it broke down too. Waited like 35 minutes this time. By this time it was dinner time, so we headed back over to the dry side to eat and do some more coasters.

Dry Side At Night-We went to Plymouth Rock Cafe, which is a great option. Kinda like Coney BBQ, just Thanksgiving food. The food was a little dry, but I forgot to ask for gravy...I thought it came with it automatically! Otherwise pretty good! After dinner we went to Legend to ride that and it was smoother than I remember. Not as loud too. Decent ride, although not as good as Voyage. Next was Raven, which had just opened when we got there. Went towards the middle to hopefully get a smoother ride....WRONG! Every seat on this ride is terrible. I used to be able to tolerate Raven, but holy cow THIS WAS BAD! This needs RMC or some miracle treatment or else it SHOULD be torn down. What a terrible ride! (I didn't think it was too bad my last few rides in previous years, but this ride was BAD) Anyway, went back to Thanksgiving after ice cream and a stunt show. Rode Voyage, then the rest of my party went to Gobbler Getaway. I like Gobbler Getaway, but it was getting close to close and I wanted the credit, so I went and rode Good Gravy! Smooth, fun family ride, I think it's better than Soapbox Racers, but that's just me. The queue Is what does it for me. Rode T-Bird 2 more times (no line) and then 2 more rides on Voyage (no line. In fact, you could just stay on). I learned that Thanksgiving rides actually don't close until 9:00 that night (8:00 close, 8:50 drone show) so if you didn't care about the drone show, then you could ride longer.

Drone Show-The drone show was Holidays in the Sky, and it was pretty good! HW has the best drone show out of everyone, and they care much about the show. Spectacular how they program the drone to do what they do. A few even shot firework out of them, which I thought was really cool! One drone did fall out of the sky though...

Overall Thoughts-Very fun day at Holiday World and enjoyed almost every moment...besides the breakdowns. Water park was very refreshing. I'd rate the whole day a 8.5/10

[IndyGuy4KI]

Thanks for the PTR, I enjoyed reading it.