Associated parks:
None
ARRIVED: At 2:00 AM at Lake Rudolph campgrounds. Set up camp and were more than ready to hit the pillow. Woke up to the sound of the Raven (very good way to wake up) and noticed the turnaround over the lond (it was more pond than lake). Decided to hit the volleyball around grab some quick breakfast and walked over to the park around 1:00 PM the first day and 12:00 PM the second day.
LEFT: 8:00 PM on 7/4 and 5:30 PM on 7/5. Left early on the 5th so we could be home a decent hour and the 4th we came back to the campground so we could eat and get ready to shoot of some fireworks down by the waters edge. Some big money must have been spent my some of the other camping families because we saw quite the firework display right from the campsite.
PARK APPEARANCE/ATMOSPHERE: Impeccable. It was nice to see extra attention given on the overall cleanliness of the park. (Thus justification to their # 1 rating in this area by the Golden Ticket) Great family-oriented atmosphere. It was quite warm (90-95) both days, but at HW you have free drinks, a water park, and misters to combat almost any exhaustion you have. It was a great change of pace from coasters to water slides during the hottest time of day.
RIDE QUEUE TIMES: Hardly existent on the 4th, but the 5th was a little more crowded. Unfortunately on the 5th the Legend had to go down to one-train operation midday. I did see maintenance talking to someone across the way while we were queuing through the station. Wouldn’t you know it turned out to be Wil Koch. He was getting the lowdown on what looked to be a sensor issue. Ride times for the Legend went from 10-15 minute waits to 35-40 minutes. Raven on the other hand was still at 10-15 minutes.
The waterslides were very bearable with the longest wait being for Zoombabwe, which was 25-30 minutes. The crews were working very hard in the heat making sure to give as much airtime as possible for each ride.
BEST EXPERIENCE: Raven in the rain! Although Legend ended up winning out in the battle for 2nd behind Papa Beast (more on this later) these rain rides were absolutely insane.
WORST EXPERIENCE: Car battery died on Friday morning causing a slight delay in checking out from the campgrounds and putting us a little behind schedule in getting to the park.
MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE: The price of food @ Holiday World. It was nice to have a chicken salad for what I can get it at any ordinary fast food restaurant.
BIGGEST DISSAPOINTMENT: No night rides just dusk rides on both the Raven and Legend. I guess this just makes it more obvious that I should start planning today to attend next years SRM.
COASTER RANKINGS:
WITHOUT FLAW:
The Legend: What can I say that hasn’t been said before? This thing is relentless from the tail-whip in the back of the train on the first drop to the turnaround before the brake run. I loved the head chopper under the new slide and the insane airtime on the hill after the turnaround by the cabins/woods. The double helix is one element I absolutely love and this is one is no exception. I don’t think the Headless Horseman could even keep up with the way this thing seemingly speeds up throughout the course. Laterals, air, intensity this thing is the package. The only reason that it falls short of the dubious title of my # 1 wooden is honestly because I didn’t get a night ride I think. Papa Beast is just too good at night.
REALLY QUITE GOOD:
The Raven: Who says there aren’t any stand-up woodies? I for one would have to disagree because I could have sworn I was standing up for most of my rides on this thing. One question for Raven Maven did the seat belts happen to come from Buick? :) The nice and loose Buick seat belts :) gave us plenty of room for airtime galore. The Raven is like Zues on steroids. The rain on the second day and our choice of taking the back seat rocketed this coaster to # 3 on the list. This thing just needs to be longer that is its only flaw. The first drop, the second drop, the turnaround, the 5th drop, the wooded turn where speed seems to increase where can I sign up to get one of these? :)
MAJOR NON-COASTER ACTIVITIES:
Splashin’ Safari- Was a bit disappointed with Zoombabwe; I thought there would be more steep drops like Dark Voyage @ Noah’s Ark. Overall though no complaints, any time I can hit coaster and a water park in one day I’m set. Enjoyed the wave pool and the rest of the slides this side of the park has to offer. Like I said before a great way to cool off from the heat and relax before hitting up more coaster action.
Frightmare Falls- a nice log ride, although hit my funny bone on the way down the hill.
Roaring Rapids- Another nice addition to the park. Not a big flat ride fan so we spent most of our time either at Raven, Legend or on the slides.
The Dive Show – Thoroughly enjoyed this show, every dive was completed and good finale. Saw this show more than once as we waited in line for Raven. Only wish they would move those trees.
The Discovery Institute- I honestly thought this was going to be a guy showing us some neat science experiments. Instead it was an actual scripted show. Unfortunately it was just too much of a kiddy show for us. We were going to stick it out, but the experiments were few and far between (we only stayed until right after the bigger is better lemon juice experiment).
The cute sidekick Sci although trying her best to play the part had a voice that was quite hard to understand. It was rather annoying and half the time it was hard to hear what she was saying. I can only imagine what the script looks like with all the squeaks. I think to help this show out I would make it more down to earth and less scripted.
OTHER COMMENTS: Not much else to say but that I’m definitely going to try my best to get down there for SRM next year. It was great to see so many smiling faces and great ride ops (props go out to Gretchen @ Raven). It was a 30 bucks well spent for two-day admission (thanks to membership in our own Coasterbuzz club).
It was nice to be able to walk right up to the park from the campground we will definitely being doing this set-up again. The discount tickets there were better than what I could get Matt in for with my card. A great trip overall and thanks go out to CoastaPlaya for the format which I will be using for future trip reports. Thanks for reading.
*** This post was edited by rollercoast01 on 7/6/2002. ***
You must be logged in to post