Holiday World & Beastbuzz!
Associated parks:
None
We were in bed by midnight or so and up around 8 AM to get ready for our big trip and long drive to Santa Claus, IN. A little after ten, CPLady, Ian and I picked up Donna at her house and we hit the road. It was mostly smooth sailing all the way to Indiana via I-75 to I-71 and then to I-64 (into IN). The only construction we hit was the ominous “No shoulder lines” signs. Haha. The couple either slept, played cards or watched DVDs from the back seat while I read and chatted with CPLady. We stopped for Taco Bell in Kentucky and it was pretty funny to hear country music playing in there – I guess simple things amuse simple minds. :P
We were staying in Dale, IN about 10 minutes away from Holiday World at a Baymont Inn. Nice new hotel. J Ian suggested we “go find a bowling alley” for something to do Thursday evening (since we’d arrived after 5 and the park would close at 8 PM). After CPLady found directions to one, we went off on the trek for entertainment. It turned out the bowling alley was really small and they were having league night, so bowling was out. We drove through town searching for something else to do. However, there were no movie theatres, no other bowling alleys and seemingly nothing to do! Out the corner of my eye on the return trip to the hotel, I spotted a mini golf course, so we had a re-match. Not too surprisingly, I lost but kept trying the “Highest score wins” rule. It didn’t work. ;) Still, there was the “19th hole” that you played that sent your golf ball back into the storage bins; if you happened a bulls’ eye on the 19th hole, you won a prize. I started calling myself Rainman: who won? I did. LOL Turns out I’d won a free game of mini golf, a ride on the mini race cars or, as the attendant explained, I “could save it for another time.” That latter choice was obviously out, so I went zooming around the race track. It was fun!
Late Thursday night, everyone re-taught me how to play Euchre. More or less, that went pretty well. I only screwed up a couple of times on the same mistake I’d made for years in trying to play that game. My mysterious strategy I developed on the fly seemed to work too, much to Ian’s surprise.
Holiday World -Friday
Friday morning, we were up and breakfasted by 9 AM in order to drive over to Holiday World. We were running a little late but were there in plenty of time still. Simply put, I was SO IMPRESSED with the park! Before I go into some of the highlights of our day in particular, let me explain why I liked Holiday World so well:
1. As I remarked to CPLady, it reminded me of Walt Disney World in its hey-day as far as quaint theming, cleanliness and staff friendliness goes. I found the park very peaceful and relaxing.
2. I really appreciated the moral values angle to the park with it being family-owned rather than corporate. What? For instance, there were signs saying they wanted people’s bathing suits to be tasteful and not showy or suggestive. They didn’t care if you went into the water park in shorts and a t-shirt so long as you were covered: that was the main thing. I appreciated that.
3. The Legend.
4. The Raven.
5. Free pop!
6. Theming! I loved that Holiday World had its themed areas with music and decoration appropriate to each area. That was just so cool.
As far as the day went, we were in the park all day long. The Legend and the Raven were great. As some who read this know, they are ranked as some of the top wooden coasters in the world. While – for me – they didn’t beat The Beast, they were still great. I also enjoyed the Eagle Flyers ride since CPLady knew how to catch the wind right. The bumper cars were themed for Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, complete with buffalo and horse styled cars. It was too cool. While we were in line, I also noticed that part of the ambient music was from a Star Wars film so that was a humorous moment for me. LOL
We had lunch in Santa Claus land then decided to hit the water park. Now, this was a VERY big thing for me since I hadn’t been in a water park in 12 years! The main reason I went was because a bathing suit wasn’t required. LOL So, I was reduced from that excuse and decided to be brave. I “begged” to do a group water slide first to get my courage up – safety in numbers, ya know! Heh. Well, I alternated between screaming, laughing and crying all the way down! It was hilarious really. I was facing backward on the slide, which was what had scared me most; I just couldn’t see which way we were going! Ian and Donna especially seemed to get a kick out of my antics but I did survive and had fun.
So next, we waited for a bigger group slide that was a dark ride. CPLady and I rode it together as it was two adults to a raft, and Ian and Donna went on their separate one. For me, this one was a breeze. J I think it was because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see where I was going regardless, so there was nothing I could freak out about. We were even able to chat in this one as we went down the slide.
The four of us hit the wave pool which was pretty fun. I couldn’t stand the idea of hanging out with the 4-year olds and their mothers in the shallow end, so CPLady and I did venture into the over 4’ deep section of the pool when the waves turned on. Ian and Donna were out in the 6’ deep section.
Our last ride in the water park was Zinga which was a fast-moving water slide that dumped you into a big “cone” shape. The raft sloshed back and forth in the cone until it finally zoomed through to the final pool. Ours seemed to have a lot of velocity and we were sloshing around quite a bit!
We rode The Legend and the The Raven a few more times each with them warmed up and zooming along, then decided it was time to go; the park was closing and we had a long drive back to the Cincinnati OH area to get to Paramount’s Kings Island. CPLady did purchase a photo of us on The Legend which was a surprisingly good one – have a look here.
The drive to PKI and our hotel was arduous. We were tired, hungry and bored with the ruralness. Plus, it was dark now. We kept looking for a Cracker Barrel to stop at in Indiana, but there weren’t any to be found. Then when there was, we drove past its exit, not having seen a billboard to know it was there! Oops. As time was drawing close to 11 PM when Cracker Barrel’s close, we saw a sign for one east of Louisville. It was a race against time to get there! We pulled in at 10:40 and hurriedly took our seats and ordered “dinner.” The staff at CB was still friendly and polite with us even though we were in there well after closing time; I left a good tip for our waitress for inconveniencing them with our late arrival.
Back on the road, we ended up making it to Cinci around 1 AM. Good thing CPLady had called to say we’d be a late arrival! Ha!
Paramount’s Kings Island – BEASTBUZZ! – Saturday
We were back up early on Saturday morning to get our tickets for the third park in our Coaster Odyssey, Paramount’s Kings Island, the home of Coaster Buzz’s annual Beastbuzz event. While we stood in line to get our tickets, we met up with Heyisn'tthatRob?, Kristen, Coasta Playa and Sarah Jackson. I’d already met everyone but Playa at least once in person before; very nice to be seeing them again!
Though there was a morning walk back to The Beast, our group opted to head toward Face Off to ride that instead. However, there were a lot of people waiting to do that and we realized we wouldn’t make it to behind the scenes at Tomb Raider: The Ride. So, we skipped Face Off and started walking to the back of the park anyway. (In hindsight, we probably would have had time after all.) Tomb Raider’s behind the scenes was cool but not all that super-exciting. ;) The ride was still great though and it was fun to see Ian’s reaction to it.
We cruised around the park, riding coasters and having lunch at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Shack, themed and inspired by Forrest Gump. They had shrip; I had chicken fingers. LOL We then met up with a friend of CPLady’s, sweethonesty75 and rode Adventure Express and Top Gun with her before making our way to the picnic area.
2nd lunch in the picnic area was great ;) and the guest speaker was pretty interesting to hear; he’d worked on the trains for The Beast 25 years ago.
Since we’d blown off the idea of doing the scavenger hunt in the park, we went back to finding things to ride… right on down to a kiddy coaster, The Runaway Repator. It was cool! All in all, we rode just about everything we wanted to, having caught Face Off with Coasta Playa and Kickthesky (Bob). With Kicksthesky, we rode Son of Beast and got our butts’ kicked on it. :\ Way too rough. It wasn’t fun like it was in 2003. :(
By 10 PM, after more snacking, walking and riding in the park, we made our way to the Paramount Theatre for the awards ceremony for the scavenger hunt participants. They also had a video on the making of The Beast, which was pretty neat to see. Amazing to think it was built without the aid of CAD really!
Just after 11 PM, as the park was clearing out, our PKI hosts took us on our ERT of Delirium, Drop Zone, Flight of Fear and The Beast. A great night! We had 2 rides on Delirium, one on Drop Zone (much to CPLady’s continual dismay – poor her!), one on Flight of Fear and 3 on The Beast. FoF’s queue line was so awesome; we hadn’t seen it before. There was a UFO in there!
It was 2 AM before we crawled into bed. ;)
Our drive home Sunday progressed without incident, stopping for breakfast at Big Boy’s. CPLady asked if we wanted to make a side trip to Cedar Point? Haha – I had brought along my ID just in case that happened, but I think we were all coastered out for now. ;)
--Catherine
"You had a rollback? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Coasting for Kids - "Team Erik!":
http://www.firstgiving.com/process/teamarea/default.asp?did=1785&teamid=147947
TheRealCP said:
While we stood in line to get our tickets, we met up with Heyisn'tthatRob?, Kristen, Coasta Playa and Sarah Jackson. I’d already met everyone but Playa at least once in person before; very nice to be seeing them again!
Hey, I was there too! :)
having caught Face Off with Coasta Playa and Kickthesky (Bob). With Kicksthesky, we rode Son of Beast and got our butts’ kicked on it. :\ Way too rough. It wasn’t fun like it was in 2003.
You're tellin me! I ended up throwing out my shoulder on that ride, it was so rough. I noticed yesterday they were doing some work on the track right at about the point where my shoulder popped so maybe something was wrong over there. They were there pretty much the entire day (well at least until 3pm when I had to leave to catch my flight home.)
It was really awesome meeting you, CPLady, Ian and Donna. I had a really good time hanging out with you guys. I look forward to seeing you at future events!
Certain victory.
We also thought SOB was extremely rough, more than last year, and even more than when I rode a month after it opened. Though it wasn't quite as bad sitting in a middle row. Beast also seemed rougher to us than past rides, depending on where we sat.
Yeah, CPLady and I had thought it was rougher too... but we weren't sure if that was the difference in having had a middle seat on the train car vs. sitting on a wheel. CPLady had also remarked that she'd heard it was a smoother ride. Evidently not!
Kicksthesky,
Oh, yeah! You were there at the time! So sorry! :) That is one thing I hate about trip reports - I always forget important things when I write it up. Haha. At least I remembered you for Face Off and SOB. ;)
It was great to meet you too.
--Catherine
"You had a rollback? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Coasting for Kids - "Team Erik!":
http://www.firstgiving.com/process/teamarea/default.asp?did=1785&teamid=147947
TheRealCP it was nice to see you again, it's been a while since I did an enthusiast event and I'm definitely glad that I did Beast Buzz! Everytime I go to PKI for an event that park outdoes it self! I don't understand how they can top each event every year? I can only imagine what next year will be.
Oh yeah and the scavenger hunt... GO MONGORIANS!!!
~Rob Willi
Yeah, it was nice to see you again too! :)
I was hearing something about Coastermania from CPLady. Are you going to do that one?
--Catherine
"You had a rollback? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Coasting for Kids - "Team Erik!":
http://www.firstgiving.com/process/teamarea/default.asp?did=1785&teamid=147947
I had an awesome time at BeastBuzz also. I just wish I felt a little better that day. Too bad we didn't catch you at Holiday World, that would have been a blast!
112 photos from BeastBuzz *** Edited 6/28/2004 11:18:51 PM UTC by pkidelirium***
Luckily I work in an orthopaedics office and they took a look at me today. Yes, I popped my sholder out of place and have a pulled muscle in my neck from the jolt.LI was lucky it went right back in place. Cant say the beast was worth all that, but up to that point I could have ridden that monster all evening. Needless to say that was my last ride of the evening, and I even sat out as my family went to the park on sunday bofore our long drive home.
I rode SOB in the second seat on the right and I did not find it to be too rough. After being scared to ride it, I absolutely loved that coaster. I was shocked that I liked it so much after hearing so many negative things about it. But I am one that holds a special place for woodies in my heart. I seem to love them all :0) I guess it just really makes a difference where you ride at.
Sarah Jackson said:
It was nice meeting up with you again. But next time, it is YOUR turn to get sick ;)I had an awesome time at BeastBuzz also. I just wish I felt a little better that day. Too bad we didn't catch you at Holiday World, that would have been a blast!
LOL! You know, I mentioned that to CPLady, saying, "How is it that when Sarah met me, I was slumped in the station at Dominator? And now when I meet her again, she's slumped over the picnic table at PKI? What's up with that?"
Sarah dear, we have to stop meeting like this! Let's just make a pact not to be woozy on coaster trips anymore. ;) Deal?
--Catherine
"You had a rollback? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Coasting for Kids - "Team Erik!":
http://www.firstgiving.com/process/teamarea/default.asp?did=1785&teamid=147947
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