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Hello Coaster Fans Who Are Waiting For The Snow To Get High Enough On Thier Houses To Make A Great Bobsledding Chute,
Let me be the first to say this was a GREAT weekend to enjoy the holidays in Ohio. As many people know, I'm a big Holiday fan...I celebrate pretty much everything. If you like celebrating also, than get your keesters to Ohio!
I'll try to make this short and sweet so as no to bore everyone, and if you want, click on the link down below to check out a video I threw together of WinterFest.
The trip consisted of me, my wife, my daughters first weekend trip (she's now 7 months old), and three of our friends (Vicky, Aunt Tess...who's around 80, and Vicky's son, Justin.) We first made trip the night before to Columbus Zoo's Wildlights. WOW!! Now if you want to see Christmas lights...this blew away EVERY zoo I have been too for Christmas lights (and I have been to A LOT.) We didn't know how PKI would ever compete with that. I think my eyes are still burning from all those lights!
We arrived at PKI threw the ice storm that shut down pretty much all of Columbus. PKI had all the pathways cleared off but benches, trees, etc. were covered in ice! It made for some pretty cool pictures though. Everything PKI did was awesome! I didn't know what to expect, but the actors were great all throughout the park! We did it all.
We arrived at the park before the tree lighting and headed over to Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle. We were suprised to see that you could take a baby on it. So it got to be Sydney Lynn's first theme park ride ever! She loved it and loved holding the laser gun! It also was Aunt Tess first theme park ride in around 40 years...wow. They also had the carousel, and a few other rides open over in that part of the park. We made our way back to the tree lighting ceremony which was awesome to watch. It was very Dr. Seus oriented. To watch the park come to life was a lot of fun. The ice skating rink is AWESOME! To actually get to skate on the fountain after all this years of throwing coins in there...priceless memories.
We walked past Scrooge's house and had some really good laughs, whoever this guy was, he did a REALLY good job playing Scrooge. He had a very big crowd gathered around him laughing constantly. We made our way back towards the train and had to stop at the Wreath basket game. Let me give everyone a small hint at this one, by ONE ball. It's almost a gimmee with the Wreath around the basket, unless you really dont' know what you're doing. I won Sydney a Gingerbread man, which she LOVES now. We can barely pry it out of her hands around the house now.
The train ride had a good story line and was fun to sing Christmas carols on it. I liked how PKI changed many of thier signs to the Holiday spirit. We went in and out of the gift chops and craft stores having fun talking to all the people enjoying the night and made our way over to the Holiday Illuminations show. This show was so unique for any place up here. It's something I would expect to see in Florida. The lake was frozen over so it made for some great reflections and held the fog good. The lights were timed perfectly with the music, and the music was some good choices. The only thing here, I would actually have made the show longer...but it is outside in the cold. Speaking of cold, the park has heaters all around the park to keep yourselves warm when there are no buildings to be found.
The parade was next, and I was quite impressed with the float designs. Characters were all coming up to us, and getting the whole crowd into it. The Giant tree also dances to the parade music. We went over and took a family ride on the Big Carousel which had some fun Christmas music playing. Sydney needed a diaper change so we headed quickly over to the Festhaus. PKI did a great job decorating in here and the entertainment was awesome! Lot of fun, warm times, to be had by everyone.
It was soon time to see the big show, Santa's Toy shop. I was BLOWN away by PKI's job on this. I can't find one thing to suggest to make this show better...Which in Ohio theme parks it's hard to find something that good. PKI is definetly on the right track here. The crowd, kids, everyone was loving it. I heard nothing be great reviews from everyone when leaving the show!
We went over to see Santa...of course Sydney's first visit with Santa. She loved him and his real beard, but wanted nothing to do with the camera man, and was not happy when he interrupted her baby talk with Santa. Very cute none the less.
The park was closing at 9pm so we had to get some stuff from the stores of course. Speaking/typing of which, PKI had a TON of WinterFest stuff. I was impressed with all the variety of things they had to buy. We bought some long sleeved shirts, and some ornaments for the tree and headed home for 3 1/2 hour trip.
Overall, we are DEFINETLY coming back next year and telling everyone this is a MUST for the holiday season! This was a class act PKI put on for WinterFest. The only thing overall that would make it even better is Christmas lights EVERYWHERE!! They have lights, but it would be even more cool to have them in all the trees, and have certain scenes throughout the park.
Like I said earlier, I have a video below of it. Don't mind my daughter, this was actually made from a DVD I put together of her first trip. Like I said though, get your Keester to WinterFest!
-RollerCoasterGod
"The Future of Roller Coasters"
PKI WinterFest Video
*** Edited 12/20/2005 5:33:13 PM UTC by RollerCoasterGod***
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