Elitch Gardens/Glenwood Caverns

[johnjniehaus]

So due to extremely cheap flights on frontier, my partner and I met up with two of our friends in Denver for a short two day weekend trip to hit up what was originally supposed to be Elitch Gardens and Lakeside Amusement Park. However, turns out lakeside's last weekend was the weekend before we were scheduled to go so our group decided we would rent a car and drive out to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. 

Elitch Gardens - I had heard horror stories about this place to be honest. Lots of closed rides, bad staff, bad food, anything bad you can think of, I've heard it about this park. Funny thing is while I'm sure others have had horrific experiences at Elitch, we had quite the opposite! So to be fair 2025 is the first time all over the coasters at the park have been operational for over 3 years. With the reopening of both Twister and Sidewinder we couldn't not go to the park and we were surprised that most everything was operating that day (the Drop Tower, breakdance, and water rides and water park were closed). We hit up all 6 coaster credits and walked away with mixed impressions. The half pipe and SLC had some pretty bad headbanging but their boomerang is definitely one of the better ones. The kiddy coaster was decent and the two big credits (twister and Sidewinder) were both running great! Sidewinder was my first shuttle loop coaster and I enjoyed the airtime on both drops and got a grey out on the loop. Twister was also fun albeit not quite as good as the Knoebels version but definitely the #1 coaster in the park for me personally. Elitch has a solid flat collection including a beautiful PTC carousel, an Eyerly Spider, a giant wheel with a fantastic light package, arguably the best troika we've ever ridden (got airtime on that thing), Tilt-A-Whirl, and a super rare Vekoma Wave Swinger. We also rode the MeowWolf Kaleidescope ride and it was probably the worst permanent dark ride I've been on to be honest. Overall the ops were not super fast but the dispatches were decent and everyone had a good attitude which goes a long way sometimes. The food and beverage places were all open and everything we purchased in terms of food tasted good. I actually liked Elitch Gardens so much that I'm afraid to go back because I don't want to ruin my wonderful memories of the park if in fact it sucks on other days or years. As I said, I was shocked when everything at the park went basically perfect because of how much hate I've heard about it through the years. 

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park was one that I have mixed feelings about. First of all the pros is that it has a stunning setting and some solid flats including the Crystal Tower (indoor underground Drop Tower ride). The coasters however were not all they had been cracked up to be. The Cliffhanger coaster was the underrated gem of the park that we lapped about 4 times. Defiance unfortunately was quite a headbanger and very uncomfortable. The kiddy coaster was fine but the mountain coaster had a lot of trims and was definitely not as good as the ones down in pigeon forge. The park in general is pretty expensive but it does include cave tours which we participated in one. The tour we took was Kings Row and while pretty it was much shorter than some other tours I've done done at other caves. Even one of my friends said that it was a lame version of the cave tours at SDC. So all in all we are glad we visited Glenwood Caverns but none of us are in any hurry to return. 

Well that's a wrap on our short but sweet trip to Colorado. I have heard rumors that Lakeside might get the Cyclone running again next year so I might be heading back there for those credits in 2026! 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

I'm hoping to get back to Elitch once I get myself back to a point where I'm comfortable with flying out there! I'm glad you all enjoyed your time!