PTR : Blast Across the Midwest

Just returned home to the UK from a not-quite 2 week blast across the midwest.

 

Places hit were;

 

Worlds of Fun

Silver Dollar City

Six Flags St Louis

Holiday World

Beech Bend

Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom

Kings Island

Indiana Beach

Six Flags Great America

Wisconsin Dells

 

 

And this is roughly the tale!

 

Day1 : Sunday 31st May

 

Starting out here;

 

 

 

Was inspired to pay this place a visit, mainly because of the new woody but also because

I never hear much about it and it seemed to have a few coasters that I tend to like (B&M

inverts and big hyper types).

 

My hotel was just over the road from the park so I managed to negotiate walking along the

highway and grass verge to get to the park (Americans don't half make it tricky walking anywhere,

no wonder that they are all **insert trite overweight-American quip here**).

 

Park was pretty quiet all day, wandered first off to see Prowler for a couple of stress

free first rides of the day;

 

 

Very good indeed this. Great first drop and then into heaps of speed, no more big hills

but lots of little dips and rises and banks and speed and stuff. Really good ride.

Very hard to photograph though (a common theme with the day) as you can't really see

much of it from the park unless you are riding it! The park railroad gave a few views

as well tho';

 

The drop, no train available at the time tho'

 

Next up (purely for the credit) was the boomer. I really dont like boomers. I recall the

first one I went on I really enjoyed.... how times change. Anyway they are always quite

photogenic though;

 

 

Then up to that big ride I could see from the hotel, Mamba the nice big hyper.

 

 

I like nice big hypers. I like the big Morgans (SD2000, Steel Force, Steel Eel) and I

liked this too. Not anything like as impressive as SD2000, but hey its still pretty

nice although I think out of that list above they would all edge Mamba for some reason

or another.

 

 

Continuing the loop of the park, I happened upon Detonator - these are always fun.

 

 

Next up was the old woody (20 this year) - Timber Wolf. This was not good. 20 is clearly

not a good age for a wooden coaster. Not the roughest old wood I've been on (I think

Predator at Darian Lake might win that), but still far too much rattling and rough riding

for my likeing. (No pix either!)

 

Now this is more like it, the B&M Patriot. Almost very good - probably an element short

of that, but the good old B&m formula (Loop, ZeroG, Immelmann, banked turn, airtime hop,

wingover,twisty bit, finish) does the trick. Good stuff.

 

 

 

Last coaster (since I didn't lower myself to the Wacky Worm!) was the Spinning Dragons

which was installed as the replacement to the old signature ride Orient Express...

 

...well I think the punters were somewhat short changed as this was not great!

 

 

OK I suppose, but a bit of a filler!

 

Overall a pretty nice place - kinda Busch Gardens Williamsburg-Lite.

 

A lot of the flats are showing their age a bit I think, and theres a bit of repetition

in their styles. The coasters are a fair selection though, enough to keep me entertained

for most of the day.

 

.

.

.

.

 

Oh yes, by the way, don't go in this building; its a trap.

 

 

 

Day2 : Monday 1st June

 

No parks today

 

Drive down from KC to the next port of call, which will not suprise you to

know is Branson.

 

What an odd place this is. If I was feeling un-generous I'd describe it as a

hillbilly Vegas... (sorry!)

 

Theres a "main drag" through all the motels/hotels/food places, but most of all there

are theatres EVERYWHERE, all putting on shows from people I've never heard of (I suspect

I'm NOT the target audience tho') and like they are top-billing on Broadway....(Blackpool

pier summer show more like).

 

I am being very uncharitable here though, whatever floats your boat really...

 

At the end of the strip is Celebration City. This would have been a good place to kill

a few hours instead of being disparaging about the town; but as you well know the place

is shut at the moment.

 

This ride will not operate today;

 

Shame, this looked pretty good;

 

More SBNO;

 

Went for an explore, there is a rather nice lake a couple of miles out of town

which I did enjoy pottering around taking a few pix thereof;

 

Nice lake though;

 

A tree at the nice lake;

 

The lack of coaster action today means you now get a picture of the hire car.

 

No prizes for guessing what tomorrow brings then!

 

 

Day3 : Tuesday 2nd June

 

Its Tuesday, I'm in Branson (::shudder: that means it must be Silver Dollar City day

 

Nice place, one of the few places that peeps seem to go to just to go to it (so kinda like

Disney and Universal at a push, there is just loads of peeps there just to be there. Am I

making sense? The place was full of OAPs, just wandering around (slowly, and its pretty

hilly in places, not so easy on the age-challenged). There are loads of shows and shoppes

and olde-west type stuff going on that the non-riding public could enjoy.

 

Anyway I certainly don't fit into that category, I wasn't there for the country nor the

western music... the olde-worlde-west shoppes held little interest... I can find cheaper

($50 entrance!) ways of wasting a few hours in the heat... but I was there for the coasters!

 

First up was the B&M looper Wildfire. Deceptively hard to find (the whole park is a little

hard to navigate to be honest) and interestingly located on the side of a hill, I was

looking forward to this!

 

Here they go;

 

Lifty hill

 

Upsidey down

 

Some idea of the view from up here, rather splendid

 

Certainly the location of this ride is excellent, top of a hill looking

down into the valley and lake below. The ride is pretty darned good also,

big drop into an immelmann, loop, big cobra roll, corkscrew, little helix

thats the lot. What it does have is really good, but a bit like Patriot

the other day, feels kinda "an element short". I liked it though lots,

definatley worthy!

 

Just next door (well down the hill a bit) is Powder Keg, the rebuilt ride.

I'm going to have to dig out a Buzzsaw Falls POV that I have at home to see

how much of the old ride is left.

 

 

Again I liked this a lot. Really odd setup where as soon as you leave the

station you move sideways (the whole track moves, like a transfer track)

up to the launch straight. The launch is good, not stupid fast but fast enough

and there is plenty of airtime over the top hat and the first hill - nice.

 

 

Thereafter its gets all fast and swoopy and ends up with a conventional lift

hill and drop right at the end (odd in itself, but not unique to this park -

see later).

 

Nearby is an old "classic" (ie "rubbish") coaster Fire in the Hole - basically

a cheesy dark ride with a couple of drops in it. Not great.

 

The other serious coaster (there is a kiddy one as well) is an Arrow minetrain

type called Thunderation, and that was pretty fun too - 2 cars face backwards

which is an odd sensation on this sort of ride - no pics of this though as it

is out in the woods somewhat!

 

They have a themed S&S swing - themed like a giant barn!

 

 

Self powered Giant Drop?

 

And the usual smattering of other rides

 

 

But what they do have which is pretty non-usual is the reason that the park

is where it is in the first place - a giant underground cave system that

you can go on an hour's trek through - pretty groovy, and not for those

with vertigo as you start out at the top of a huge cavern;

 

 

I tried to take some shots in the trek but suspect they may not come out

very well.

 

 

 

Overall a good place, they could do with a better park mascot though

 

 

Day4 : Wednesday 3rd June

 

I was going to go to Six Flags today, byt the weather was rubbish, I was feeling

rubbish and so I postponed until the next day (I had capacity in my schedule

to do this, luckily!). So I just drove up to St Louis.

 

Day5 : Thursday 4th June

 

So after yesterday's bad weather imposed delay (I went off to the flicks instead

and saw that Terminator film - "meh"), it was off to Six Flags over Mid-America

for me (I do prefer that name somehow?).

 

I've been here before, back in 2003, but they have kindly added a couple of new

coasters since then, so it was worth a looksee. And to be fair, the time I

went here before I really enjoyed the place so was well up for a revisit.

 

First up was theire new (to me) GCI woody "Evel Knievel". Not quite as

imposing as WoF's Prowler, but still pretty sweet. Was a really good ride,

smooth, fast, floaty, twisty, excellent! Them GCI guys are really getting

into the swing of this coaster malarky!

 

Evel

 

Knievel

 

I did notice these signs all over the place as well... a reaction to that

stupid Georgia incident from last year? These signs were every few yards

on a lot of the fences around the place.

 

Electric Six (Flags)?

 

Next up was the other new (to me) ride - quick digression; how many other

coasters are named after real people rather than superheroes or film

tie-ins? And here I am going on two consecutively, bizarre.

 

Tony Hawk

 

This was a bit "meh" though, better than the similar Spinning Dragons at

WoF, but nothing too great.

 

The big woody here is The Boss, which I remeber being a bit evil (but fun),

today it was still a bit evil but running well - one of the better "big

woods" I think.

 

T'Boss

 

Their drop ride is new-ish to trhe park, but not new to me since I rode it

when it was in Houston, themed to Olde-England there, Superman here.

 

ex-Astroworld

 

Also on the menu is a nasty old Arrow looper, which I think has one of the

best head-choppers going; when you twist underneath the chain return bit

about halfway through the ride, gets me every time!

 

Ninja

 

When you ride all these coasters, its always good to take a moment to

realize how utterly brilliant the original B&M invert is. Revolutionary

at the time and stands the test of time fantastically. St Louis's is odd

in that it is a mirror image of all the other clones, but still an

excellent ride; far superior to many that have come afterwards.

 

ediR ehT:namtaB

 

The last coaster I rode for the day (also rode the mine train ("meh") and

the old woody Screamin Eagle which hurt me badly 6 years ago, but I

made it through OK today) was Mr Freeze. I do like Mr Freeze's, I recall

riding Texas's in the dark once and that was wonderful being lauched straight

up into the stars. No start today though (bright sunshine) but still a

great ride.

 

Mr Freeze

 

 

Rest of the day spent pottering around the park;

 

Colossus

 

Park

 

Final "best buy" tip - if you are Brit, and off to these places on holidays

then try to get an "out of market" season pass (you'll have to ask for one)

as these are HUGE discounts - $45 for a Six Flags pass that will get me into

any other SF parks I may encounter in the next few days, and just because

I'm foreign-like! Cool!

 

---

 

So all in all; really good.

 

The park was clean, employees (in their bright new day-glo uniform) were

generally good, and despite the park not being busy they were running 2

trains on all the rides even with mininal lines - well done Mr Flags.

 

This is a really good park which (to me) just doesn't get the credit

some of its (slightly) bigger brothers get. This place was the third Six

Flags park (after Texas and Georgia) and was purpose built as such. Its not

quite as big as those two (or the other big Six flags "purchased parks")

but still very worthy! Me like.

 

And just some messing about on the way out

 

 

Day6 : Friday 5th June

 

Another day, another park Well actually two, but more of that later...

 

I'd stayed about 40 miles away from the next place since the next place

is in the middle of nowhere, Indiana... yes its Holiday World today!

 

 

When I got to the (free) car park, it was the easily the busiest one I'd

seen yet on the trip, clearly family-friendly parks in the middle of

nowhere Indiana are popular - the park itself was also the busiest I'd

seen so far this week.

 

I'd been here before in 2003, but since then they had gone and built a new

monster of a ride, so first up it was a brisk walk down the hill to the

rather imposing Voyage.

 

 

Clearly this ride has been lauded by the coaster-geek community, but that

isn't always a good sign (take Raven for example, coaster-geeks love it, to

me its "ok", a bit "so what" in fact) so I wasn't quite sure what I'd think

of it... well it was bloomin' FANTASTIC!

 

Big scary lift hill - check. Lots of airtime hills - check. Lots of

suprises - check. Lots of speed - check. Not too rough - check(ish).

 

This is a truly amazing ride, loads of air, loads of tunnels, drops in the

tunnel, and the most amazing thing to me was that it just gets faster and

faster. The end third of the ride is truly scary stuff, racing back into

the station complex picking up speed all the time when any sensible coaster

is griding to a halt. Utterly utterly impressive. Loved it.

 

Downsides - you can't take many pictures of it as most of the ride is off

in the woods and its a shame its a hybrid structure and not "all wood", but

I'm quibbling a bit here.

 

---

 

Now it takes a special moment for me to start to do water rides - it has to

be hot and they have to look good... now HW had gone and built a new "worlds

tallest", so I had resigned myself to having to give this a go...

 

 

But it seems HW have other ideas...

 

 

Anyway, not sure I missed much, it looked a bit weedy in the shadow of the

mightly Voyage next door - didn't look much "worlds tallest" to me, I'm sure

a few normal splash rides are that big, and how about things like the Mack

supersplash? But who am I to question park marketing?

 

Other "worlds tallest" at HW include their shot tower;

 

 

And other coasters are the aforementioned Raven

 

 

 

Which is good, just not fantastic like you are lead to believe (and too

short and they were only running 1 train, slowly).

 

and the Legend (which I prefer to the Raven anyway)

 

 

Its a popular place this, loads of family groups - queue patterns are weird

here as well, I waited probably 30 minutes for the Raven in the morning,

but an hour later it was almost walk on (same for the Legend).

 

Nice enough place, but a bit limited in its offerings (since I don't do the

water park).

 

So after a few rides on all the wooden beasts the park doesn't really hold

much else for me...

 

 

So hop in the car, drive 2 hours, make it to the next place for twilight

(half price) admission and here I am at Beech Bend!

 

There is clearly only one good reason to come here (if you are not a local

as it did seem like a good enough place just to "hang out" at) and that

reason is another GCI masterpiece, the Kentucky Rumbler.

 

 

Not quite as excellent as Prowler was and maybe lightly behind EvelK but

still an excellent ride indeed.

 

 

An interesting thing about it was that the station is buried right in the

middle of the ride, so waiting for the train (there is only one) to come

around you get three station fly-pasts, wonderful stuff.

 

 

But the park is so quiet, that I only every get to stand and wait for the

train once!

 

 

The rest of the park is a bit dull to be honest - its really a whole lot

of travelling rides plonked down on some tarmac. But so what, nice

enough atmosphere, the staff were all pretty friendly, the place is clean

and it is cheap!

 

They also have one of those common spinning Wild Mouse rides;

 

 

And a truly evil looking Pinfari looper;

 

 

(and a Dragon kiddly coaster (which was a bit rough (oops let slip that I

rode it, never mind (+1))))

 

So by no means a full day park, I laboured to spend 2 hours there, but it

was empty so eveything was walk-on. I had originally planned to go here

tomorrow (Saturday) when it might be busier I guess...

 

So now I'm running ahead of my schedule.... hmmmm.

 

 

Day7 : Saturday 6th June

 

So today was a "bonus day"; because I went to Beech Bend yesterday, I now

have an extra day. I usually try to avoid big parks on Saturdays (hence

why BB was planned) as they are always heaving, but today was a "bonus" so

off I went.

 

[ Bonus = not planned

Bonus = place with coasters

Bonus does not necessarily = a GOOD place with coasters though ]

 

to here;

 

 

I'd been here before as well, and this time they have managed to

REMOVE rides since then - the park has a whole section fenced off which

contains the Twisted Twins dual coaster and the shoot the chutes water

ride. Very poor Six Flags IMHO.

 

Because of this (and the fact that I didn't really rate the place anyway)

I was not planning to stop in, but given my "bonus day" I felt that at

least the old Schwartzkopf deserved some love.

 

 

Good ride as always from these machines, this one only slightly spoiled

by being right next to the road that runs RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE

STUPID PARK;

 

 

Oh well, no accounting for park design then?

 

The only other decent coaster here is the big B&M stand-up Chang, which

is pretty good in fairness.

 

Chang

 

They just don't make 'em like they used to.

 

 

I guess this must have been the BIG SIX FLAGS investment to drag the park

upscale a dozen or so years ago when Six Flags were going for broke!

 

 

Anyway its quite pretty and a decent enough ride - I've done all the B&M

standups and this one is one of the better ones.

 

 

The park also has a little waterpark slap bang in the middle of it (!!)

 

 

which is popular with the locals on this hot summers day!

 

The other coasters inculde an early SLC named T2 (not Terminator themed

at all though)

 

 

This isn't great, but as with all SLCs they are a bit better to photograph

than actually ride (back seat, bouncy head = bashed ears).

 

 

And stupid single train ops on this mean I have to queue for an hour for

the priviledge of getting my ears bashed

 

And they have a Hurler-like woody called Thunder Run, which is also not

good, when the pre-lift hill bit shakes you up you do start to worry for

the rest of the ride. Ouch.

 

 

The closed off section is just behind this woody, so as you race around

the one ride you get a great view of the other rides that they have closed

off. Boo!

 

 

You can clearly tell from a lot of those photos that there is a large

big wheel here as well, which I take my customary shot of;

 

 

Not a lot else to report really. Slow ops, busy park, (poor park to be honest)

but it was an agreeable enough way of spending a few "bonus hours". If you

are passing by, don't have the credits and have a spare couple of hours then

the place is worth a visit. But I wouldn't be recommending it as a

destination of any kind since it really does not have any stand out features!

Kinda suprised that Six Flags have not got rid of the place to be honest,

can't see what it adds to their portfolio!

 

 

Day8 : Sunday 7th June

 

Right then, the serious stuff is on now.

 

Its Sunday, it must be;

 

 

 

A top day at a top park riding some top coasters - I've had a

nice time today!

 

Clearly one has to start at the big newbie - so at opening hour a

brisk walk to the new ride (cunningly hidden in the kiddie-zone !?!?!?).

 

 

There is a very convienient single-rider entrance which meant I got to ride

it 3 times in the first 20 minutes of the day, on a busy Sunday with the rest

of the queue-line packed. The single-rider was not running all day, but when

it is I suggest you abuse it!

 

 

So what of this new popular ride... well it was OK, nothing revolutionary.

Certainly not a world-beater, but definately a crowd-pleaser. I think

that Nitro is better in terms of similar rides, but I prefer Apollo's

out of all the B&M hypers I've rode (not been on any of the recent

Goliath/Behemoth ones tho')

 

 

The splash is a bit pointless when you are riding; unless you are on the

back row when you arm will get wet, and if you turn to look at the splash

from the back row, turn INWARDS for a good view because if you turn

OUTWARDS (like I did), then you get a wet face!

 

However the view from the queue line overlooks the splash zone, so it adds

to the queue experience (although I never queued for the ride really).

 

 

So a really good, big ride. But nothing earth-shattering.

 

I grabbed the other credits that had appeared since I was last here (and

a couple of the minor rides I missed last time I was here);

 

The not-Italian Job was fun but a bit lame (I've been on Wonderlands too

and this one seemed a bit better but that could be my imagination!)

 

Any ride that is themed after a multi-story car park is struggling a bit;

 

 

Next up was Firehawk (which I had rode as XFlight in a former life), this

was OK, but rather spoiled as it broke down while I was on it, basically

they could not re-right the train after we got back into the station!

 

So I was stuck in the "down" position in the station for about 20 minutes

while they tried to mend it, eventually they gave up and manually released

us all from our prison (which you can imagine is a bit of an experience

given the rather bizarre restraint system on these things). Anyway that

pi**ed me off for a while, especially as they didn't even apologise

after they released us, thought I'd at least get an exit pass or

something, but they just let us go and sent us off down the exit.

 

Anyway its still a pretty coaster;

 

 

 

After a bit of a stretch and recovery from my ordeal, I resumed on the mine

train Adventure Express, which is fun, then a bit of not-Top Gun, which is

cool too

 

 

And that had got me limbered up enough to attempt what was one of the most

painful coaster experiences ever for me on my previos visit... yes it was

time for the (loop-less) Son of Beast... perhaps its neutered Son of Beast?

 

 

Well it certainkly was not as bad as last time I went, but it is a bit of

a pointless ride IMHO, just big and fast with not a lot of fun.

 

 

Much better is its Daddy, which I really like. Probably my favourite ride

in the park! Not because its a great ride (its rough, has some awful trim

brakes on it), but its 30 years old and still great fun! Hard to take a

picture of though as its all out in the woods;

 

 

Next door to Beast is a mega looper (and mega painful) Vortex, back in the

day when lots of inversions were the vogue, this thing must have been the

business; 2 loops 2 corkscrews a bat wing thingy... today it looks its age

and hurts a bit!

 

 

Loads of other coasters were ridden (they have 14, and I rode all but the

tiny kiddy ride which I did consider for a moment; shame on me!)

 

Invertigo;

 

 

 

Swing thing;

 

 

Gyro-Drop (these do still scare me, not the drop but the climb)

 

 

So overall a great day at a great park! It was busy, but its a big place

and the longest I had to Q for was Firehawk at about 40 minutes (before I

broke it).

 

 

 

 

Day9 : Monday 8th June

 

Next stop was here;

 

 

Didn't quite know what to expect of this place, I had managed to miss it out

the last time I was around here, so it was going to be all-new for me (which

is always a good thing).

 

I thought Holiday World was in the middle of nowhere-Indiana, clearly I was

mistaken, turns out Indiana Beach is REALLY in the middle of nowhere-

Indiana!

 

Anyway it is an odd place - kinda one-part charming, one-part tacky - overall

its a bit like a mini-Blackpool, but nicer!?!

 

The biggest coaster there is the Hoosier Hurricane, which dominates the park

somewhat, running most of the length of it and what you always see in the

pictures of the place.

 

 

Intertwined with that is the much better Cornball Express, which is a bit

more twisty than the rather out and back Hoosier.

 

 

Neither ride is amazing, but pretty fun - and its quite impressive how they

have squeezed them into rather limited space.

 

Unfortunatley the other woody (The Lost Coaster...) was not running today

so no rides for me this looked a bit interesting as you could see the

older structure that it was built on top of. Bonkers!

 

 

Most of the flat rides are on little platforms out over the lake itself,

this one was groovy;

 

 

And somehow they have managed to squeeze in a Splash Battle in there!

 

 

Aerial shots come courtesy of the skyride or the big wheel (which ain't so

big to be honest)

 

 

And theres a steel coaster (Galaxi) in here somewhere;

 

 

Clearly the major attraction of the place for me was the new (last season)

S&S steel thing - you'll be expecting a load of pictures of that then

will you not?

 

 

Ok after that lame joke, here we go then;

 

 

...I really liked this by the way...

 

 

...I tried not to watch it first so the layout actually caught me unaware

after the first drop...

 

 

...and I particlularily liked the second inversion (counting the first drop

as the first one)...

 

 

...so there you have it, what Flamingoland in North Yorkshire has to look

forward to in the very near future...

 

 

...really groovy!

 

 

Day10 : Tuesday 9th June

 

...count the flags then...

 

 

Yep, its Great America today.

 

 

I've been here a couple of times before, so there was not much "novelty"

involved, but its another GREAT park so how can one resist?

 

I had a bit of a trek up from my overnight stop and the Chicago traffic

was a pain so despite a stupid early start I didn't get into the park

until 11 and the sight of a car park full of school buses gave me some

dread!

 

The place was reasonably busy, lots of school trips (call this an education,

I don't think so, no wonder standards are slipping, anyway get out of my

line you bratty oiks) but the queues seemed to be moving pretty quickly.

 

First up I grabbed the credits that they had built since my last visit,

which were the earth shatteringly exciting sum of TWO mouse coasters FFS.

Firstly wa sthe mouse-in-a-box Dark Knight, which was unsuprisingly just

a mouse, in a box, with a bit (not much) of themeing. The queue was better

themed than the ride. And not a sign of a Batman anywhere (or did I miss

that?)

 

Then the slightly older (spinning) mouse Rajin Cajun. This was exactly the

same as any other spinning wild mouse... apart from it was the only ride I

saw a single rider line on so at least I didn't spend much time on that!

 

Therafter I spend the rest of the day wandering around all the other nice

coasters they have there;

 

V2

 

Got wood? (American Eagle - they were only running one side of this )

 

Got even better wood? (The excellent Viper - the best cyclone clone that I

have ridden)

 

 

 

Raging Bull - has always been a bit of a fave of mine, lots of people dont

rate it much, but I really like it! Different type of mega B&M to

Diamondback so unfair to compare them (think I prefer the Bull to the Back

though)

 

 

 

 

Totally original photo of the old Demon

 

 

A bit of the original Batman (which I have raved about earlier in this

thread - excellent stuff!)

 

 

And some not-yet-Bizarro:Ultimate Flight

 

 

 

 

 

And DejaVu looks a bit different these days...

 

 

(a splash battle sits there now, the shame the shame)

 

And what is this all about, all over the park and on all the PA announcements

at the rides they kept on goping on about the place being the "Worlds

Cleanest Theme Park"? Who says? How did you measure that? Lets see those

statistics please? Are you just having a laugh?

 

 

And then they say the "Hurricane Harbour" is the nations best water park...

I'm not water park expert, but I highly doubt that as well.

 

No wonder the GP are confused when parks feed them such tosh all the time!

 

 

Day11 : Wednesday 10th June

 

Right then, after yesterday's "big huge corporation" park, today was a

trip up to the "family owned but turned into a bit of a monster";

 

 

Mount Olympus at the Wisconsin Dells.

 

Its a bit of a monster as its an older "carts and coasters" park, joined

together with an older "outdoor water park" and another "indoor water park"

- physically they joined it all together by buying the hotel that sat

between them all and demolishing it - cool, theres vision for you!

 

I worked my way "upstream" here, started off with the indoor coaster,

which is another of those annoying spinning mice things;

 

 

Housed in a big tent-like structure, not so cunningly hidden behind this

big pile of themeing;

 

 

Next up was the junior woody Pegasus, which is a bit of a triangular

out and back, on a "family coaster" scale. Fun enough and an evil last

turn into the station.

 

 

Moving up the food chain to Cyclops, which has a scenic drop towards the

end that looked like it might give some satisfying airtime...

 

 

 

...but it didn't so much.

 

Now we are starting to get serious, next up is a true out and back woody,

Zeus. This was a bit rough on my first ride, but the next time I was

prepared and it was pretty fun.

 

 

Nicely warmed up then... now we are cooking. The real draw for this place

is of course none of the above, but rather this monster;

 

Hades

 

 

Nice big huge first drop...

 

 

Straight into a long tunnel all full of unspeakable evilness that races

off under the car park (how cool is that!) before emerging in the distance

 

 

only to turn around and do it all again

 

 

Thereafter it does a few ups and downs (one of them REALLY rough) and

speeds back into the station. Great stuff.

 

They didn't let me go on this one though;

 

 

As well as these FOUR wood coasters (and the lame steel), the place is

full of go-kart tracks, so I had a few circuits of them as well. I swear

they gave me the slow kart each time though?

 

 

Pretty interesting place all told, limited diversity of rides - if you

don't like coasters or karts you are stuffed for dry things to do - but

quite clean and well themed. Ride operations sucked a bit though, very

borted looking foreign kids running the coasters (often on their own),

with very little regard to throughput or customer experience. Oh well.

 

Day12 : Thursday 11th June

 

Did a very pleasant boat trip up the river today, and had a quck play on

the other coaster of merit in the town; Avalanche/Hell Cat (which doesn't

seem to make up it mind what it is called - they were still selling Avalanche

TShirts at the kiosk?).

 

No pics of this though, but was a fun ride.

 

Day13 : Friday 12th June

 

Drove back to Chicago, got on plane, got off plane, got into taxi, came home,

posted this (by now its the next day!).

 

Cornball Express is one of the best woodies in Indiana (behind Voyage). If you are in the back seat, you get major ejector air.

 

Nice photos btw.

Great TR! Glad you enjoyed my homepark (SFSTL) - it doesn't have near the amount of mindblowing-awesome-can't-miss attractions most of its sister parks have, but it's one of the best mid-size corporate parks out there. Shame it gets overlooked so much by enthusiasts. Also nice to see some love for Raging Bull. I rate it higher than Nitro and Apollo. As great as those two are, they didn't offer any more air when I rode them than RB does, and at least RB has all those nice twisty bits at the end. Again, great TR.

Holy Dippin' Dots, Batman! This thread is enormous!

Really good pictures and commentary. Well done.

 

I'm tired of defending Timber Wolf in every first-time WoF TR, so I'll keep it short.

It's not that bad, not nearly as rough as Boss or Screamin Eagle, used to be way worse, really fun airtime, I'll grant the double-helix is lame, you may have gotten it on a bad day, etc.

--$0.02

 

Yay for Patriot and Prowler fans!

 

Raven is indescribably amazing in the front row at night, much like Beast.

 

Big agree about Raging Bull. Love that ride.

 

You missed nothing with Twisted Twins.

 

Again, fantastic TR.

Great TR! Great to see some love for Raging Bull, I rank it higher than both Nitro and Apollo's Chariot. Turns out I was there at SFGA the same day as you. Way too many school kids, but the park did empty out nicely towards the end of the day.

 

I agree with you on just about everything else. I don't get the hype about Raven either. Although It's strange that you didn't get any good air on Cyclops on that last big drop. That's probably the greatest single moment of airtime I've ever gotten on any coaster.

 

Thanks for posting!

This was a great TR, thanks! I've been thinking about going on the Midwest Trip next year and this gave me confirmation that it will be totally worth it if I can get the time off.

 

I'm glad you had a great time!

Americans don't half make it tricky walking anywhere, no wonder that they are all **insert trite overweight-American quip here**).

 

Indeed so. As both a pedestrian (I don't actually even own a car any longer) and a fat-ass American, I can tell you with some confidence that it's now a bit of a vicious circle: No one walks, so nothing is ever designed with pedestrians in mind--making it difficult to walk anywhere, and keeping us all in our cars.

 

Been to several of these same parks myself recently. I love both Indiana Beach and Holiday World, but Steel Hawg and Perilous Plunge are weak and out-of-place additions in my book.

 

Anyway, thanks for the TR!

Fantastic TR of my home region. I hold many of the same views as you. Thanks for a really well done & terse TR. Hope you had fun!

Someone didnt sit in the back seat on Cyclops...that last drop is good stuff.

^ clearly not! - The back carriage was roped off* anyway and the furthest back I could ride was 3rd from the back

 

It (the last drop) was better (not as harsh) back there than when I first rode it nearer the front though

 

 

 

* - not an uncommon thing at this park, most of the coasters had at least 1 row roped off!

When you were at Timber Falls, did you see a sign that said an unlimited ride pass only allowed six rides on Hellcat/Avalanche?

 

Nice photos and trip report though, and it looks like you had a good time. As for the buses at Great America, there are always a lot of buses there during the summer, but at least the queue lines still moved quickly.

^ actually I saw a sign that said it was limited to only 5 rides.

Oh yes, by the way, don't go in this building; its a trap.

 

 

Yes it is!

 

Epic trip and amazing TR! Well done. And I'll chime in that you missed nothing with Twisted Twins, but it's almost criminal that Mile High Falls is closed. That ride is awesome.

 

Again, amazing report!

 

Just to put everyone's mind at ease, I had got half (forget which, the one that starts off going to the left looking at it from the midway) of Twisted Twins in a previous visit.

 

Its just that *any* SBNO coaster is a crying shame (no matter how bad it is/was).