Worlds of Fun 7/27/24

So this won’t be a typical trip report, because this was not a typical trip. This was the highlight of a “boys trip” with my brother and 4 year old 45” nephew. Now, in addition to being the biggest Snoopy fan around, the little guy is up and willing to do any ride out there, sadly, he could only do two roller coasters at WOF and the goal of the day was to give him his best day ever so Daddy and Uncle Touchdown limited our coaster riding to maximize our time with him and his riding time. That said, thanks to my 2 Prestige Bring a Friend Free tickets and the fact we were there on a Saturday Daddy sprang for Fastlanes for us all to make the day easier. Since a majority of my day was spent riding flats and water slides I’ll start my comments on the general state of the park:

It’s been over 10 years since I have visited this park and from my memory I thought it was a lovely, abit small little park with some good but not great coasters. Approaching the new gate I was struck by how charming this park really is, with the exception of the area surrounding Mamba it really does a good job with theming and is mostly tree covered. It really is one of the prettiest CF parks out there. It also has a solid amount of flats, the little guy loved the Fyord Fling, Scrambler, Sea Dragon and especially loved the Mustang Rider (Troika.) We also rode the log flume multiple times as that’s one of his favorite ride types.

I had completely forgotten how large Planet Snoopy is here, there was over a dozen rides in there! It had some super unique rides as well, the most impressive of which was a suspended whip themed to planes that would swing out around the 180 turns. It looked really fun, and I wish that someone would make an adult sized version. We also all got to do the Flyers and Monorail.

My nephew also got completely star struck when we went and saw (in glorious air conditioning) the Camp Snoopy show. It was adorable how shy and quiet my usually outgoing loquacious nephew got as soon as Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and Snoopy hit the stage. I also made sure he left with a new Woodstock plushy to join the Snoopy he already had at home.

After that we hit the waterpark that is on the small side, and we got hit with a lightning close (it was sunny but storms were firing just to our west) which limited our time there but we still managed to hit the wave pool (his first, he loved it) and used our Fastlanes to get all of us on the Downhill Racer racing mat slide. It’s the longest mat slide in the world and is a series of twists instead of the typical undulating straight drops, it pulled some serious Gs that impressed my brother and I. My nephew wanted to immediately ride it again but by then it was clear a storm was coming so we packed up, went back to the hotel changed and had dinner.

Thankfully, the skies cleared and my nephew was still being a really good listener and was in high spirits (I know I’m biased but he was an absolute angel) so we went back for a two hour night riding session. We hit the ever fan favorite train ride (his Breo tracks are his most played with toys) Antique Cars, rerode Mustang and the log flume, before ending with a special ride I’ll mention later. He ended up conquering pretty much every adult flat ride he could ride, and was constantly asking to go on the ones he couldn’t, so it’s great to see another enthusiast in the family. This is just a really solid park, and I wish it was a little more popular so as to warrant more capex but the park has done a fine job adding when they could. It’s rightfully overshadowed by SDC and not on the itineraries of most east coast enthusiasts due to its location but next time you are in the area be sure to hit up this gem of a park. Anyways onto the coasters I managed to ride (which thankfully were the 4 I wanted to do the most):

-Zambezi Zinger 4 stars-As this was my brother and I’s only new credit since we’ve been there this was the only time we child swapped my nephew and have him wait in the shop with each of us. He was disappointed but handled it like a champ. Anyways the ride, the new trains are comfortable but the restraint tended to keep tightening on me during the ride to the point sensitive parts were close to being crushed by the end. Thankfully this was a fairly tame ride so it never got painful but imagining these things on a ride like Mystic Timbers or Thunderhead leaves me a bit worried. The spiral lift was a great retro moment and the lift flyby that has the steel bottom deck was so smooth! The rest of the ride is a nice but realitively tame standard GCI. Great addition for this park though. Also gotta give a shout out to this crew that had this ride barely stacking with two train ops.

-Timber Wolf 3.5 stars-While Daddy and the little guy rode the antique cars I snuck off and got a lap on this one. I remember really liking this one back in the day, and knew it had been retracked. It’s a ride that comes close but can’t achieve greatness, the hills always seem just a hair too tall to give solid air but the ride was super smooth so still enjoyable. Also have to mention that this was the one crew that wasn’t that great, while they did all the essential safety stuff and were friendly they were also a little too preoccupied with talking to each other and engaging in some private jokes. This resulted in some serious stacking with two train ops.

-Mamba 5 stars-I then took the little guy for another spin on Mustang while Daddy got his lap on our favorite ride at the park and then he took him back to the log flume so I could get my lap. I knew ahead of time they had turned off the trims and my brother’s quick review after he got off it put expectations incredibly high, and yet the ride exceeded them. It’s been awhile but I remember thinking Steel Force was the best of the Morgan trio by a sizable margin and Wild Thing coming in second because it had tunnels, but wow not anymore. The out portion on Mamba has always been great with solid and plentiful floater air on all the hills, the turnaround head chopper is also great but with those trims off I was not prepared for the bunny hills on the way back. The airtime starts out floaty but then intensifies to ejector air at the end on every hill, I had to put my hands down and hold on because I could not accurately anticipate what was going to happen. Mamba is going way up on my rankings after this trip and if you havent been recently I highly suggest you make a return to ride it now. It’s threatening a top ten spot, seriously.

Spinning Dragons 5 stars-Normally Mamba would have been the highlight of the trip but as I said this was no normal trip. This ride was down most of the day, but we saw it testing as we reentered and then we heard it reopened. So, we decided to make this our final and only night ride. The little dude was super pumped to be riding a coaster with us, especially since this would be his first night coaster ever. The crew treated him like a prince giving him a special first rider sticker and hyping him up even further with tons of high fives. They loaded my brother and I on the same side and my nephew was on the same bench as my brother. This resulted in us spinning like a top for most of the ride and sending my nephew into fits of giggles. It was such a special ride and an end to a wonderful day. It was hard to say which one of the three of us was more pumped. I look forward to more visits here in the future and can’t wait to go to another theme park with the little guy.

I haven’t been to WoF in probably 3-4 years.

But it was a much better park when I was a kid during the 80s. When it was more family run. I do want to check out the new Zambezi Zinger.

I thought ops for the most part were good. Not to mention everything they have added since I last went (new enterance, Mustang, Zambezi Zinger, Downhill Racers) has been a solid edition that fits the theme. You should go back.

This was an exceptional trip report. What a successful day for you and your party.

When I was a little kid, I remember the first time I saw rides lit up at night. I remember thinking... "THEY CAN DO THAT?" Don't we have to be home?

You made a life-changing experience for the little guy...and a new enthusist was unleached!

Touchdown:

I thought ops for the most part were good. Not to mention everything they have added since I last went (new enterance, Mustang, Zambezi Zinger, Downhill Racers) has been a solid edition that fits the theme. You should go back.

I plan to! Thanks for the report!