Into the Hartland and the Land of Holidays- silver2005's KK and HW TR and Planning Thread

[silver2005]

Live from Dale, IN it's Saturday Night!

Wait...

Also, BeastGal- cut it out.

[silver2005]

Legend, Voyage and T-bird all awesome, about to make Raven #70.

[silver2005]

Need to get back here to complete the water park for the raft slides. Very impressed with it. Wildebeest and Mammoth were great (Mammoth is better).

Raven was amazing.

Food service blows away Kings Island by a mile.

[Oldiesmann]

Also speaking of food, if you have time on your way back, swing by Leavenworth and hit up The Overlook Restaurant for food (exit 92 off I-64, head south on 66, keep left at the fork, then turn left onto 62). Amazing views and great food as well.

[silver2005]

Will be posting my TR a bit later tomorrow.  Super tired from doing 3 consecutive days at amusement parks with a 196 mile drive between Santa Claus and Kings Mills.  

 

And there be some shananigans involved. 

[silver2005]

Holiday World and Kings Island Announcement TR- July 25-28

 

I left Cincinnati at 1 pm Eastern time.  The drive went smoothly until I started leaving the greater Louisville area.  A big rain storm just dumped water on the road from there until I was only a few miles out of Dale, IN (which is a good 70 miles or so).  It came down so hard that I was forced down to 20 mph in a 70 mph zone.  Super hard rain.  Pulled up to the hotel around 3:30 Central time, relaxed for a bit there, and headed down to Owensboro, KY to check out Moonlite BBQ that Terp recommended.  Fantastic food there.  Definitely worth the 40 mile drive.  

 

I headed back and went to check out Dale and Santa Claus to see what there was.  I'll describe them briefly-

 

Looks north- corn fields

looks west- more corn fields

Looks south- a few buildings and corn fields

Looks east- a clump of trees, more buildings, and more corn fields

 

So yeah, not much else to do in the area.  Went back to the hotel for the night.

 

HW Day 1

 

My main breakfast source was a Denny's down the road from my hotel.  After that, I just headed straight for Holiday World.  Upon going up to the park, it has a pretty quaint little entrance, I'm guessing part of its days when it was a smaller park, especially telling in the way the parking lots were set up.  My thing for the first part of the first day was just to grab a locker ASAP, hit all the coasters once including making Raven #70, and making a bee-line for Splashin' Safari.  I started at Legend for #67, went back to the Thanksgiving area for Voyage #68 and Thunderbird #69, then power walked to the entrance to get Raven #70.  Crowds were a bit heavy early, but they lightened up later in the day for the dry park.

 

As a single rider, I was a bit limited to what I could do at Splashin' Safari.  The Pro-Slide raft rides like Bakull and Zinga were avoided as they had tremendous waits and I didn't want to wait out being a single rider there.  Wildebeest and Mammoth were more situated for single riders and Jungle Racer is a mat racer where its only one person so I did those.  Hyena Falls was down all day unfortunately.  I also went a cycle through the lazy river.  I do hope to go back with a group to hit the slides I missed.  I rather liked SS.  The surfaces don't get as hot as KI's or Beach's does.  It was comfortable to walk there.

 

After exiting Splashin' Safari, I went up to Kringle Kafe for a late lunch.  One thing I noticed is that the ice machines for all the drink kiosks had trouble making ice mid-way through the day.  I think HW should invest in better ice machines for the free drinks operations they run.  Other than that, it was nice to know I could just grab something to drink on a whim.  Upon exiting, I found Raven and Legend closed, and they would remain closed for the rest of day 1, so Voyage and Thunderbird were my only coaster options.  Went up to Mt Thunderbird for one ride there and grabbed a few rounds on Voyage.  I took a lot of breathers with how hot it was as well.  Later in the day, I managed to get in rides on Liberty Launch, Frightful Falls and Raging Rapids.  Liberty Launch is probably my favorite non-coaster there.  Its a S&S Double Shot which pushes you up and down with the compressed air that they use.  It was very fun.  

 

I kept making rounds through the Halloween section to check on Legend and Raven with no luck.   I didn't feel much like spinning rides so I held off the flats until day 2.  As it grew darker, I just kept going through Voyage.  Got 7 rides in as it got dark out.  Probably not my best decision with how intense it is, but it was still a great experience.

 

HW Day 2-

 

My plan initially was to just go on a Raven and Legend marathon, but to my disappointment, they put up on the sign in front that Raven and Legend were down.  It felt like a punch to the gut as they were part of the main reason I went to HW.  I tried to make the most of it until they would hopefully reopen.  The dry park on day 2 started out much more crowded than day 2.  By the time I got off my first Voyage ride, they opened up the lower queue and it jumped to an hour wait in a hurry.  I got one in on T-bird early before it had its queue explode as well.  I then did HallowSwings, Scarecrow Scrambler, Liberty Launch, Frightful Falls, and Gobbler Getaway.  Storms were nearby all day, but we only got a drizzle at best.  The radar showed bigger storms to the north and south, and apparently they were close enough to have the park pull the trigger on closing all the outdoor rides for a few long periods, one early in the day and one close to park close.  For the early one, I ate lunch at The Smokehouse located on the top of Mt Thunderbird.  The food there was pretty good.  I like how they give you decent portions, not too big, but not too small.  The food prices were very reasonable.  

 

After the early rain delay, I was met with a nice bell ringing from the Halloween area, Legend reopened.  I went on a good marathon there to even up my ride total with what I had done on Voyage.  Raven never opened unfortunately and I was super disappointed I never got to get more laps on it.  Later in the day, I got one more on T-bird, a few on Voyage (got 16 rides on it total in 2 days) and a few on Legend as it got darker.  HW then got sandwiched between 2 storm systems where they closed everything down, and at that point it was 8 pm so I called it a day.  

 

KI Announcement TR

 

On my way back to Ohio, I hit a nasty snarl of traffic between Louisville and Sparta.  I gave myself an extra hour to travel from Indiana to Ohio, and it ate up that whole hour.  I got to KI right after 4 after eating lunch in Florence, KY.  I did Beast and Diamondback first to bring my hiatus to an end, then met up with malem and company and did Racer, Banshee, Bat, Adventure Express and Firehawk.  Most of the rest is covered in the meet up thread.  Love what 2017 will be bringing to KI!

[silver2005]

Coaster Reviews-

 

Thunderbird- This was my introduction to the B&M wing coaster.  I have to say, its pretty funky.  The forces you feel on the wing extensions are a bit disorienting.  Couple that with the inversions, the semi-fast pacing, and the leg and head choppers, it was pretty fun.  The 0g roll on the outer left is amazing.  Its also weird seeing a vehicle that big just take off so fast.  Its got a nice powerful launch.  Its nothing I would consider a favorite, but it was very fun and had a lot of cool moments.  The trains are gorgeous to look at.

 

Voyage- I have a lot of mixed feelings about Gravity Group after riding this.  They have a lot of potential in their designs, and I felt Voyage would have been better if it were about 1,500 ft shorter.  Its just off the wall intense from the first drop until the end with only that MCBR as any sort of break.  It didn't brake too hard, kind of like how Vortex brakes at its MCBR but not quite as hard.  The triple down is the highlight of the ride, especially so in the back.  The first half up until the spaghetti bowl section was also very good.  Seeing those small hills pop out of the ground after descending the third drop was a great sight to see and the air time was top notch.  It did wear me out by the time it was flying over the station though.  Solid ride, just a tad too long.

 

Legend-  Boys and girls, the L in Legend stands for laterals.  The first half had good air time hills and the pacing, though slightly erratic, was pretty good.  The 2nd half is where the laterals lie.  There's one big hill as it comes back towards the lift before going through a tunnel, and there are 2 small hills with super high lateral g's that lead up until the helix.  That's where the lateral-fest begins.  The tunnels around the helix were a good touch.  It has a wonderful finale, even more so now with GCI's retracking of it. The last few hills were very tell-tale GCI shaping and profiling.  I love the layout.  This was my favorite coaster there, though, I only got 1 ride on Raven so I didn't really get a good comparison there.

Raven- This is tough for me to review as I only have the one ride.  It feels like a ride of 2 parts.  The first part is pretty normal, something you'd expect out of a 86 ft woodie.  Decent air time, the turn by the lake was awesome, and you still felt in the park.  

Then drop #5 happens.  

 

Its like if you're in a old police Crown Victoria and are just cruising though a town regularly and just gun it when you get on a highway with the engine it has.  It turns up the intensity 10 fold and the rest is just ground hugging curves and hills.  For a ride only around 2,800 ft, it delivers quite a punch.  The woods are super dense back there and you can see the 2nd half from nowhere in the park.  You can't see the park from there either.  Its very well secluded.   Oh how I wish I had gotten a back seat ride and I long for they day I finally get to ride if after dark.  I probably would have marathoned it the most, it felt very re-rideable, even more so than Legend.  I'm so disappointed I didn't get to ride it more. 

 

Mammoth and Wildebeest- Pro-Slide is amazing.  Both were super fast, had great air time, but I'd put Mammoth ahead.  The way it spins and just sitting there looking massive, plus the fact the boats were less restraining than Wildebeest put it over for me. 

 

One thing I also was sad about was not seeing the Koch's be more active at the park.  When I envisioned going there, I had that in my head.  That's not to say the service was bad.  I saw several 15 year olds just own any of KI's staff in professionalism and every aspect of the staff was top notch.  They have a really good thing going there and I hope they can settle their disputes at some point.  

 

Despite my lack of Raven, I enjoyed the park immensely and look forward to returning.  

[MDMC01]

I just read your HW trip report to weigh in after just getting back from my HW trip; good stuff. I'm glad you liked Thunderbird and Legend. Also, yes, Voyage is crazy. Also, let's agree to disagree about Raven. It was good, but I liked the other 3 coasters better. Also, i liked how you referred to T-Bird's mountain as Mt. Thunderbird