Associated parks:
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Part 2... still August 6th, 2005
Soo, after a fun few hours at Adventureland, Kris and I decided that since we were already dealing with time travel, why not go ahead and try to completely screw with the space time continuum, and pick up Kansas City's Worlds of Fun in the same day and essentually BUY ourselves another day, creating a void that could destroy the world as we knew it. We must be doing ok because I haven't disappeared from my driver's license picture as of yet. (Note to self : don't watch Back to the Future before you go on trips). In any event, being out of Altoona Iowa at about 2:30ish, according to Mapquest, we could be in KC by 7. WoF wouldn't close until midnight, so realistically, 5 hours should be plenty of time for what Joe C. calls a 3 hour park. Fine by us, if we can double up Adventureland and WoF in one day, we've bought ourselves another day entirely. That makes a day at Holiday World much more feasible now.
Just for reference sake, here was the plan for our trip, and you'll be able to see how much a little bit of luck would change things :
Saturday : Adventureland
Sunday : Worlds of Fun
Monday : Silver Dollar City
Tuesday : Magic Springs, Arkansas/Celebration City
Wednesday :SFStL
Thursday : Fly home AM
So, we're looking very promising at this point. I was typing up the trip report for Adventureland, when I realized that Kris was actually obliterating Mapquest's 4 hour trek to KC. We made it in something like 3 tops. Not sure how. I was typing away. DIdn't look at spedometer. Sorry. But we did. Bonus.
Checking into our hotel right across the street from WoF at the Crossland Extended Stay (roughly 40 bones on priceline.com), we dropped our gear off, and changed shirts and took off across the interstate to...
WORLDS OF FUN (or according to Joe C, Worlds of not so much fun... so WONSMF?)
Kansas City, Missouri
Again, for continuity's sake I will be using the Eric Griswold scale for coasters
-3 to +5 with 0 being positive, but only slightly
It's strange. Someone like me, who's pretty tuned into the coaster enthusiast's take on parks I've never been to, was totally expecting Worlds of Fun to be filler. The meat of this trip, after all, was the Branson parks. Worlds of Fun couldn't be more literally ON THE WAY from Iowa to Branson. We both had CP passes. It made all the sense in the world. But you know the rub on this place, right? Only 5 coasters. Stupid Morgan hyper, rough piece of crap woodie Timberwolf, a freakin' boomerang, a spinning low capacity mouse, and for pete's sake, a kiddie Wacky Worm coaster. Plus we're a year early. Patriot and it's B&M goodness would come the following spring, and I'm not a weirdo who obsesses about the future. How in the world could THIS park be fun?
Easy.
Go in with zero (or less than zero expectations), and have the stereotypes demolished for you.
Bonus that we bulldozed our way over the parking attendant and got free parking with our CP passes whether we were supposed to or not. We parked 60 miles away and walked. Even at 630 pm, there were 10 people leaving for every 2 going in. You know it's funny. Worlds of Fun is a lot prettier of a park than I expected. I was thinking it would be Dorney West with black asphalt and zero trees and hills for days. I couldn't be more wrong. Worlds of Fun is a VERY pretty park with some very unique settings for rides. We took a left upon entry and I got a park map and busted it out doing my best touron imitation. Moving to our left, the first coaster up would be the Boomer. Great. I was really surprised to see the level of theming for it's "Worlds". Boomerang at this point was looking like it was sporting the newer trains, which comforted me a bit, but not much. It was also, at this point, sporting what looked to be about a 30 minute wait, at best. Sorry, no dice. This would have to wait. At this point, it didn't look like we'd be able to get all the credits in. Which meant that we might have to swing back through in the AM and pick up a few credits. Not the end of the world, but if Boomerang was like this, what could everything else be.
Up the hill we went to Mamba. Yay. This part certainly looked the whole "Dorney West" part. Same color scheme as Steel Force with green trains to be the whole snake thing. Impressive? Not really, but hey, it's a hyper. It should be at least kinda fun. Mamba has 3 sections of switchbacks and the first and third were empty but the second was jammed up, but they WERE running 3 trains. Kinda nice of them. The ride attendant standing out front predicted about a 20 minute wait and also threw in the this was the busiest day he had seen all year. The line moved steadily, and soon enough we were in the station.
MAMBA (Morgan steel hyper) +3 rating (+4 at night)
I have every reason in the world to hate these coasters. The trains are just not very interactive and you sit waaay to far down in them. The layout never seems very inspired either. We took a 1-3 first ride. At this point, I found the FIRST surprise coaster of the trip. I really wasn't expecting any airtime. Joe had told me on the phone that Mamba was really quite good, but he likes Hurricane Cat. 5, and I'm also familiar with his penchant for Gerstlaur trains on woodies, so is opinion, while educated, is taken with a grain of salt. In this case though, he was right. Mamba's first drop was very good and the second camelback was floater's bliss. Nearly 4 full seconds of floating air. Then the helix of doom. Man, between the headchoppers and the g forces this helix pulls, I felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under me. What was I on?? Crazy. Airtime into the MCBR?? Wow. This coaster was a solid, solid effort and stomped the guts out of Steel Force. A SOLID +2 rating when I felt it wouldn't get anything more than a 0. Great way to start out the park.
Off of Mamba, we headed towards Timberwolf to it out of the way. We passed Detonator, their S&S double shot, but the line was still kinda ridick, so we moved on. WoF IS a confusing park to navigate, period. Walking by Camp Snoopy, we figured we'd try our luck with their Wacky Worm. It took a bit, but we finally found a couple of young gents who let us ride with them. Kid renting isn't for the faint of heart, and it nearly bested me, but we hung in there like the champs we were. Haha. After that 30 seconds of delight, it was time to go right after that crazy forest wild canine. Got lost, but we eventually found the entrance to Timberwolf, after running into a deadend down near Thunderhawk, their TopSpin with water geysers. No thanks, with KW's still fresh in my memory, I passed.
TIMBERWOLF (?? wooden double out-n-back)
When a coaster sign in front of the station basically says "This ride offers a severe jostling experience. If you're a big baby and can't take a whooping, do us a favor, don't ride" I started to worry. Joe actually said this was a lot of fun in the back, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, we made our way back to the back. Then, the magic happened. 2 trains from getting on, you hear the dreaded words "Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, your hopes of getting all the credits in tonight are dashed, as we're going down for an indeterminable amount of time for an unspecified reason. Sorry... kinda" So what do you do? You're 10,000 miles away from home at a park that, at this point, while pretty, have no desire to get back out here in the foreseeable future even though they ARE getting an invert next year. We decided to wait. 4 mechanics show up and there's a small pow-wow. I was able to pick up a bit of the conversation that apparently there was a problem with seat 7. However, they didn't know if it was ROW 7 or SEAT 7, which would be row 4, left side. While they were deciding that, they made a second announcement that they would PROBABLY be down a long time and everyone should basically roll out cause it would be a while. Everyone else did. Two dolts from back east didn't. A few minutes later, a ride op stopped in to talk to us and REALLY encouraged us to leave. I asked him what was up with seat 7. He volunteered that apparently someone had went to Guest Relations and complained that they had a really, REALLY bad ride in seat 7 causing them to leave the park in great discomfort. So naturally, WoF reacted by shutting down the ride, and apparently making maintenance come out. The ride op at THIS point told me something I had never heard. The carpenters would have to walk the ENTIRE track to look for any sign of delamination, or track failure of some kind. Amazing. We were then told that his ride supervisor ordered everyone must leave the station. Hmm.
Well, where do you go next? The capacity monster known as...
SPINNING DRAGONS (Gerstlaur steel spinning mouse) 0 rating
It was about 8:30PM, and the line was immense like we figured it would be. But we passed the time chitting with a guy and his girlfriend who actually started talking to me because I was taking pictures. Good people these Kansans. We easily waited 45 minutes or so, but it was ok. At this point, the sun was fading and the temps became MUCH more doable. This coaster ran maybe 6 trains, but it constantly stacked 4. Not really the attendants fault. It is a rather short coaster, and getting people buckled in wasn't an easy feat. In any event, we were on finally. We didn't spin a whole lot, and that was just fine by me. Odd little coaster. Certainly not anything a Cedar Point could ever pull off, but neat anyway. Time to go get that Boomerang since it didn't seem Timberwolf was feeling froggy yet.
BOOMERANG (Vekoma steel shuttle) 0 rating
Yep, I said it. A positive rating of Boomerang. Here's why. It's quite simple really. See, there was still a line for it, and we resigned ourselves to waiting in it. Oh well. But the line flew. They cranked people through that thing. That's a positive. The trains were the new style, so they had little grooves molded into the back of the seats for my long ass legs and my knees usually are jammed all up in the back of the seat in front of me. Also positive. No headbanging. Another positive, and quite possibly the most impressive part about it. It's still a boomerang, and it'll never be great. No desire to re-ride even if completely empty, but even so, the fact that I'm not dying of a brain hemmhorage, garners it a 0.. which is slightly positive. Good enough for me.
Since we were only missing Timberwolf, no point passing up the surprise coaster of the trip. Mamba was only maybe a 5 minute wait to get into the station, so it was a no brainer. We chose a second to last seat ride, and wow, as nightfall came, so did more speed and more airtime. This coaster really really surprised me. As we flew down the second drop, Kris screams out "TIMBERWOLF IS RUNNING!!!" No time for that as of yet. Mamba was whipping the piss out of me!
After disembarking, we scooted down to Timberwolf for another crack at it.
TIMBERWOLF (?? wooden double out-n-back) +2
This was a coaster that I had seen POV of long ago, but I really had no idea what to expect. I still don't have much of a clue about the layout. Don't have much of a clue about anything, really. Let me tell you the best way to describe this coaster.
This the FUNNEST, rough piece of crap coaster I have ever ridden in my entire life!! Seriously, it shuffles and bumps and kicks your butt, and I've NEVER seen a woodie with sprinklers stationed at least 4 places along turnarounds, but it had them! So, basically you're trying to ride defensively cause it's bashing you left and right and up and down, and at the same time you're trying to shield yourself from a water bombardment. This wasn't like misters here, it was like a LOT more water! Crazy! So it's dark, I can't see, and I'm getting random ejector airtime moments and screaming "Ow!" and yet laughing my ass off! Totally tons of fun. Kris mentioned that if this coaster were smooth, could be top 5 material. How do I argue?? A SECOND surprise coaster of the trip in the SAME park! Crazy fun. It's the best way to describe it.
Time for more Mamba!
At this point it's about 10:10 PM. We were looking at nearly 2 hours of night rides on a really surprising hyper! Bonus! All told, we picked up another 4 rides. We waited it out for 1-1, and the very last car, 1-2 and 2-1. By nights end, I had a new top 5 coaster and Kris had a new #2 which considering both of us have been on over 200 coasters should feel embarrassing, but it doesn't. Mamba is probably THE most underrated steelie in the continental United States.
We left just before midnight and called it a day. Although Boomerang didn't help up acheive our quest, we didn't expect it to. Hopefully Wildfire will help us out a bit tomorrow! A heck of a day, but we felt very happy that we'd done the unlikely and created another day for us to cram in another park! Next up? BAD BOB!! Err, I mean, Branson, Missouri! See you tomorrow! *** Edited 8/19/2005 1:25:31 PM UTC by Homey G.***
Homey G. said:
In any event, being out of Altoona Iowa at about 2:30ish, according to Mapquest, we could be in KC by 7. So, we're looking very promising at this point. I was typing up the trip report for Adventureland, when I realized that Kris was actually obliterating Mapquest's 4 hour trek to KC. We made it in something like 3 tops.Not sure what directions Mapquest gave you but it is only about a 3 hour drive from Altoona to KC.
It was about 8:30PM, and the line was immense like we figured it would be. But we passed the time chitting with a guy and his girlfriend who actually started talking to me because I was taking pictures. Good people these Kansans
Ok, were the people from Kansas I take it because the park is in Missouri? A lot of people think that Kansas and Missouri are the same place.
Skol Vikings
Let's shoot us some deer Joe Joe!!!!
Glad you like my rough piece of crap woodie. It beats me up everytime I ride it, but I still love it. Also this thing was the NUMBER ONE coaster at one time.
I also agree with you on Mamba kicking Steel Force's butt. When we invaded the east coast two weeks ago we stopped by Dorney to see what the fuss was. We got off SF and were like "m'eh." For one thing the second hill is too small and then SF doesn't have a third hill. The helix is boring compared to Mamba's. Not to mention the stupid tunnels detract from the sight of how fast you are really going at the bottom of the hills.
You have to come back next year for Patriot. It is going to be a huge ride!
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