Worlds of Fun 2021

Worlds of Fun

Kansas City, MO

May 30, 2021

Whew, last nite was a late nite. I slept in a bit because my drive to Worlds of Fun was one of the shorter drives of the trip. Eventually, though, I did get up, get ready, and get going south once again.

I arrived around 11:30 AM and I could tell it was going to be far busier than I’d have liked. Cars were pouring into the parking lot. And I really didn’t want to spend money on Fast Lane for such a small park. How bad could it be? Well, again, another Cedar Fair park with poor operations. I noticed through out the day, just like the prior day at Vallyefair! that they only allowed one train on a track at a time, were super slow dispatching, and even the smaller coasters with multiple single cars only ran one on the track at a time. This was not conducive to a super fun vacation, but I was determined to make the best of my first post-COVID trip.

So I finally got parked and headed in. I know they rebuilt their entire entrance a few years ago. I didn’t know it was so far away from the car park. And my camera wasn’t cooperating at all at this point. I decided I would use my phone, which is adequate, and then get a cheap new SD card in Branson. I headed in to the already busy park. I wasn’t familiar with the layout, but wanted to ride something fun to start off so I went for the park’s highly recommended GCI wooden coaster. It was in the parks decently well done Africa section.

Prowler (409)-Wow. I knew it was supposed to be better than Renegade, which I liked. But I didn’t know it would be this good. I only regret not getting a nite ride, which would have been impossible with the 7 PM park closing. While I give the first drop to Renegade, the rest of Prowler was amazing. Lots of small bumps of airtime as you fly out in to the woods, then some very fun laterals. The return trip is just hill after hill after hill. It was great.

Renegade was great. Next up I figured I’d ride the park’s hypercoaster. I almost stopped at the boomerang, and that was probably a better idea, which I’ll get in to later, but instead I went with my first choice.

Mamba (410)-The first drop was very good, much like Wild Thing the day before. Then there was a large floater airtime hill before heading into the massive swooping helix and turn around. It reminded me of it’s bigger sister in Japan, Steel Dragon 2000. Then you hit the mid-course brakes before heading into a succession of bunny hops back to the station before reaching the end brakes. Another credit in the books and another fun ride.

At this point I could (and should) have gotten in line for Spinning Dragons, the park’s spinning coaster. But I didn’t. Instead went to get in what the park’s app said was another shorter line, the park’s B&M inverted coaster, which would now leave me with only one more B&M invert in the country to ride, and only 2 in North America.

Patriot (411)-Ugh. The app said the line was about 40 minutes. It was actually 90 minutes or longer. But this was a unique ride and I wanted to try it out. Eventually I made my way on. Patriot is a cookie cutter B&M, and thats fine. It was middle of the pack for me. After the first drop you fly up into a vertical loop and then a 0G roll. The turnaround is an Immelmann that leads into an inclined helix and then an airtime hill similar to Afterburn. You finish with a corkscrew, helix, drop, and then up into the final brakes. It was a fun ride, even if I did have to wait 90 minutes.

I headed out to my car to drop stuff off, then headed back in and got in line for Panda Express to grab some lunch. This was about a 40 minute wait. At this point I had decided to skip Spinning Dragons and Boomerang. But there was one coaster I wasn’t going to skip. So after resting for a bit after lunch I headed over to the park’s other wooden coaster.

Timber Wolf (412)-The ride was recently changed with a large helix taken out and an overbanked turn put in it’s place. I didn’t know much about the ride other than that. The queue was actually nice and shaded. The wait was about 45 minutes. Eventually I was on the train and ready to go. I thought the ride was a lot of fun. The first drop was great. The hill/turn/drop that came next was fun. Then you hit a few bunny hops and the overbanked turn before heading back. Next is a bunch of hills and turns that eventually lead to the final brake run. The ride was fantastic. I’m glad I went in not knowing much, because it was an awesome surprise.

I had seen an indoor ride I wasn’t familiar with, so I texted a friend who told me that it was an indoor wipeout. I rode an indoor trabant for years as a kid (a very similar ride), so I wanted to try Cyclone Sam’s out. It looked fun. But as I was in line, it broke down. Then they emptied the line. So with that, I felt like I should call it a day.

Worlds of Fun was kinda fun, but the operations were just terrible, sadly. And they didn’t have to be. So I was off on my nearly 4 hour trip to Branson for the night. But not before stopping at Fazoli’s, a cheap fast food Italian chain I loved as a kid. But I did make my way to Branson, and the worst motel of the trip. They’d changed the name on me (likely a bait and switch to list on Hotwire). There wasn’t much I could do, though, at 11 PM at nite. Oh well. Tomorrow would definitely be better.