Having made it all the way to Branson the previous night, we were treated to a later start than usual and a short, scenic drive past some Ozarks to what was probably my most anticipated park of the trip. The weather was showing no signs of relenting however, and you know it’s bad when even the locals are complaining that it’s too hot. We thought we could at least prepare for it this time by, say, putting on some shorts, after it had been a bit of a surprise the day before, but it turns out most things simply aren’t built for this kind of heat.
Day 6 – Silver Dollar City
First impressions – the car park was a bit naff. There’s no real form of organisation as to where you go and the, what can loosely be described as trams, are sporadic and inconveniently placed amongst a sea of unshaded concrete and cars. The options were to wait a long time and probably not get on, while getting burnt, or walk for a long time and get burnt, so getting to the entrance was a battle in itself.
You have a great pass out ahead of you.
#1 Wildfire was first, with a beautifully shaded indoor queue hidden amongst some dense forest. I fell in love with the setting of the actual park itself immediately. As for the B&M, s’alright. One of the better ones amongst the plain old sit downs for having a bit of variety between those inversions. And the views.
It was from here that we got lost, and learnt that this park is all about exploration, which I both liked and disliked. When you’re happy to relax and stumble around, it’s great. When you’re hot and bothered and want to get somewhere, it sucks.
Eventually we found #2 Powder Keg and got launched into some more equally amazing views, spotting just the tips of several more coasters through the thick, mountain top foliage. The ride surprised me mainly for having track that looks like Bullet Coaster. Keeping the old, water coaster ending without the water is a nice touch, hurts the pacing somewhat though. Crashing one of the old boats through the roof of a building as theming was also a nice touch.
Pressing on further, we encountered the fabled RMC. Their first wooden creation. Let’s get this out there – their wood ain’t as good.
I love Lightning Rod, and the wood somehow managed to add to that insanity, but then it also broke it. I love Wildfire, but to me it had always been the weakest RMC and the material itself made absolutely no difference as of opening year. If it deteriorates like #3 Outlaw Run, I feel it will only detract. It doesn’t carry that true, satisfying wooden coaster rumble, but it can carry a headache inducing judder that distracts from the glory, when sat in a wheel seat. I quickly learned to avoid those.
Wildfire is free, to be happy, as Outlaw Run instantly became my new least favourite. It’s deathly short for the size of the initial drop, which is amazing itself. The first, thing, doesn’t really do much for me. The following five airtime moments are lovely and varied, play well with the terrain, with the structural near misses and are undoubtably a very good sequence of events. I really didn’t like the double barrel roll. The end.
Still world class, obviously, we’ve come to expect that as standard by now, but something has to prop up the list and it’s unfortunate as I was rooting for this one to be a bit of an underdog these days, particularly in this style of park.
Suddenly the stakes were raised. There was a clear opening for a Mack launch coaster to be the best ride in the park. After getting lost again, and at the very last second asking a man where #4 Time Traveller was, only for him to point directly in front of us at the entrance sign, we headed in to learn more about where the Happiness all began.
Swing and a miss. I was rooting for this one too and though it also has brief moments of excellence, a lot of the layout is simply suboptimal. The sexy robot set the bar too high, in the future.
First drop, back row, incredible. We never left that seat throughout all of our laps for fear that the ride would suffer even more without that highlight moment. It did a lot of playful things in the inversions with the spinning, sometimes compromising my seating position and other times creating some gloriously disorientating visuals. Then it feels like there are just as many overbanks that slow to a crawl and do absolutely nothing. There’s a couple of cracking, back slamming, airtime moments if you happen to be facing the right way and yet that second launch essentially goes straight into the final brake run. That’s the real killer. You know I’m all about that pacing.
#5 Thunderation eh? Awful. Rode terribly and had that fake out ending again.
It was at the point we took a brief respite to have some food that I noticed a distinct lack of rocking chairs in this park. Whenever we wanted one, there was never a nice place to stop, sit and soak up that atmosphere, of which there wasn’t one really. There was no music, no festivities, no spontaneous banjo players, it was even supposedly too hot to make knives in the knife shop.
We ended up having a subpar meal in what can best be described as a sweaty canteen, with people crowding over and around us, mid eating, while there was nowhere better to go with it. A man here noticed my Dollywood shirt, at this very moment mocking everything that this park stood for, and made the simple statement ‘we live about two hours from there’. It wasn’t to strike up conversation, it wasn’t even a point of interest. It was just a fact. Maybe the heat was getting to them to, but I didn’t particularly rate the clientele here either.
#6 Fire in the Hole was ridiculously popular for some reason and had a hideous queue, while all major coasters were walk-on, but the post lunchtime blues seemed like the best opportunity to get it over with. Is it because they class it as a water ride? ‘Fire in the Hole!’ was shouted many times throughout the layout in an attempt to raise spirits and in anticipation of that all important moment. ‘The Baldknobbers have got me pants’ was also a good line, though I may be crossing it with ‘Gromit, there’s a bomb in me pants’.
Continuing on the dark ride theme, we ventured into the Flooded Mine. Great scenery, great song, shame they went and put guns on it really.
Here’s an obligatory kugel fountain shot for the fans, to mark the moment it all went wrong.
The last cred to mop up for the day was Grand Ex-spite-sition Coaster, not as grand as it sounds being yet another Zamperla 80STD. We got as far as sitting in the train but it simply wouldn’t dispatch. The operator was shrugging and pushing buttons, but not in a fun, Steel Curtain way. It was gone. We were wordlessly evacuated, with no apology to the clearly disappointed families and children (or the heartbroken cred hunters). While sitting nearby to watch what went down, another staff member appeared soon after but only to carry the ‘unavailable’ sign down towards the entrance, so we gave up on it for the time being and went to ride the train.
The train was alright. It came with a bit of a pantomime in the woods, though even the live fire arm wasn’t working in the heat. There was a promise of ‘better views of Outlaw Run’ that wasn’t delivered on. There was promise of a train robbery that wasn’t delivered on. All in all it ain’t no song about a devil on a big black train, with the sheer terror of getting ash in your eye.
Upon our return to the station, we heard a number of people audibly complaining about some other rides being down. Sure enough the rapids ride, Infinity Falls was also closed for the heat. We had a subpar cinnamon bread just to confirm the food situation was also still poor and went back over to Outlaw Run, getting as far as the air gates before it also ‘broke down.’ An engineer arrived and seemed to be looking at a restraint issue but not in a fun, Steel Curtain way, and then quickly gave up.
No communication was made and gradually guests began to leave the station of their own accord. Eventually we asked one of the team what was going on and he said that the heat was causing power cuts, so they had been advised to cease operation of all rides for fear of something getting stuck somewhere. With the day just over half way done by now, surely that would have been useful information to give to their guests, rather than speculative silence? I guess not.
And so we wandered back out of the queue to find that absolutely everything was now closed, yet the park were choosing to say nothing about it. Was it too much to ask for a ‘Sorry folks, but stick around, we’ve still got live entertainment, food and shopping’? I guess so.
It was even too hot for water features to function apparently.
As we headed back to the park entrance, we got swept up in a depressing exodus of souls all exiting via the gift shop in a very solemn mood. One staff member broke the silence in poor taste with a “Well, goodbye then, *awkward laugh*”, to no one in particular.
Thus ended our day at Silver Dollar City, minus the uncomfortable walk back to the car because, of course, no trams.
This was the rival to what is essentially my favourite park ever, and yet not one thing landed the right way. I was worried that a single day wasn’t going to be enough for the place amongst all our other crazy adventures, instead it turned out that we didn’t even need that. I may come off as bitter and jaded about all this as I usually do, particularly when there were obvious external factors that aren’t the park’s fault, but I am genuinely upset that I didn’t like this place.
As we left Indiana (for now) and headed on into Missouri, we faced what was billed as the most difficult day of the trip. There had been various flip flops over whether it was worth it, amongst the many different itineraries that had been invented over time. Once 2022 rolled around, the opening of a certain new coaster meant that this was the only way to open a whole world of opportunity.
Also, let’s be honest, it would have sucked to dedicate a whole day to just
Day 5 – Six Flags St. Louis
Nerves were wracked from the very get go as we arrived extra early to be faced with this. We wanted to allow as much time as possible before park opening to go through whatever rigmarole would be required to once more collect our ‘2020’ season passes that they had promised to honour in 2022. Previous experience with Six Flags had shown that it wasn’t even easy to obtain a normal version in normal times.
We sat here in front of the gate for what felt like far too long as a number of cars gradually stacked up behind us, mentally revving our engines and going over the gameplan a million times. A mere 15 minutes before (10:15) the park itself was due to open (10:30), someone appeared and unlocked this gate so that we could wheelspin over to the parking booths.
There was no time to argue the point over season pass collection with a parking attendant so, wallet $30 lighter, we parked as close as physically possible to the entrance without being ‘preferred’, with the car already pointed towards the exit for a quick getaway.
Security weren’t ready for those of us who had now reached this point so there was a little more kerfuffle before we could walk through the scanners. A man at guest services was at least ready for us as we powered over, brandishing out of date tickets and various emails yet again. He seemed cool with it and set to work generating the passes while I could feel myself already burning. “You picked the hottest day of the year for it”, he remarked. Well, that won’t help matters, but gotta run.
It was all for nothing of course, no sooner than were we through the entrance we were then accosted by another member of security who stated that you can’t get into the park proper for another half an hour (11:00). This left us stranded with nothing but a shop, the entrance plaza, and a sliver of shade to stand around in, mentally revving our engines, going over the gameplan a million times and facing down a man with a baton and litter picker.
Because their lineup is pretty trash, ‘members’ of this particular Six Flags gain a whole 10 minutes of early access past these security guards, a policy I first observed in appalling fashion during my debut with the chain when it spited me walk-on Joker at Discovery Kingdom. Several of these members got ahead of us using this method of course, going on the guy’s first whistle, though the joke was on them because why would they want to rush this park? Gladiators, you will go on my second whistle. We were off.
It was all for nothing of course as we raced over to Mr. Freeze. Even though we had now been at the establishment for 90 minutes, the park didn’t have the rides ready and open for us anyway by gone 11:00. A surly ride host told us to come back later. So that membership is even more useless now I thought to myself as we passed one particular member already collapsed on a bench from heat exhaustion, probably thinking ‘worth it.’
Alright then, Boss? 38°C and sweating profusely, this wasn’t the time to have poor route planning but we needed to hit these rides at a rate of knots if the day was going to work. Same story at the Boss, come back later. Have a Six Flags day. A Mr. Freeze test train hit the spike once more to tease us at this point and we reached the original conclusion that it all had to begin there. Low capacity, high popularity, oh and the added complexity of it being Megalite’s 1000th coaster meant it had to be at least somewhat impressive.
The surly staff member was already gone just 5 minutes later and the queue was now open, so what was the point in wasting all that energy? There was no time to wonder. The outdoor queueline was far too long, but then the sheer bliss of aircon hit us in the building. That’s right #1 Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast, you’d better be damn cold.
I like the station track sliding over to the launch, taking your basket of personal belongings with you. There’s a good ominousness to it. Oh yeah, it’s ‘Reverse Blast’ isn’t it. BACKWARDS!!! S’alright. Positive Gs and sunlight are my main memories from the experience. The spike itself is a strange sensation and the inverted top hat is pretty cool. Better than that Flight of Fear nonsense from a few days prior.
Soaked up one more brief burst of air-con before we staggered back outside scalded and half blinded onto the spinner, #2 Pandemonium. In our only semi-aware state it had a lot more offer than we gave it credit for, delivering the best spin I’ve ever had on a Gerstlauer and some high speed drops to boot.
#3 Boss then, now open. The outdoor queueline was even longer, and uphill, with stairs, so we were already half dead upon making it to the station. Awful ride sadly, this CCI layout has so much promise (just look at that photo), but instead the Gerstlauer trains rattle themselves around in poor fashion and grind themselves to a halt at every opportunity in what I assume is an attempt to stop the thing from tearing itself apart. Boss became the joke of the trip, in that everything was always better than it.
There’s nothing worse than forcing yourself uncomfortably towards a #4 Boomerang, but this was the fate we had chosen. Could be worse. +1.
The face of the #5 Screamin’ Eagle on the sign for this ride summed up the situation at this point, but the ride was rather decent. Airtime, laterals and just the right amount of shake, rattle and roll. Much like Six Flags America, the surprise best ride in the park is the woodie no one talks about.
The #6 River King Mine Train had way too many lift hills that led to basically nothing, but the tracking was comedically poor to make up for it. Can’t believe this thing was converted to a stand-up at one point. It didn’t end well.
The wrong #7 Ninja was as bad as it looked. “Wwwelcome back riders, how was your ride?” “My head hurts.” “Oh, I’m sorry”.
And we finished the park on the #8 Batman The Ride clone with it’s metal shed station feeling like a furnace. Staff were literally pouring bottles of water over themselves between dispatches to keep themselves going, which wasn’t a great sign. Ride was running pretty hot itself to be fair and trying to rip my feet right off, which is a great sign.
With that, we had completed the creds in a sliver less than 90 minutes, with the caveat that American Spiter was closed all day. Don’t care, got the clone.
So, Six Flags St. Louis eh? Pretty much what I expected. Some coasters. At least it was quiet.
Having allowed about another hour, which was lost before we started, this put us exactly back on track for a stewing four hour drive to
Worlds of Fun
I like the balloon.
Back to back B&M inverts and the right #9 Patriot held it’s own. It had both grace and force with both unusual floaty sections and tight manoeuvres. Kinda reminded me of a mini Pyrenees, which is high praise indeed as that’s most likely my favourite that they’ll ever make by this point.
Titan Track #10 Timber Wolf was mostly uneventful. Just like I recall from Grizzly at Kings Dominion, those around us were losing their minds over how supposedly rough it was while we were just there, sunglasses on, not caring.
They didn’t let us on Cosmic Coaster sadly, putting it the nice way in that we were ‘too tall’.
And so we entered one of the worst queues of the trip. I’ll say it again – it was too hot. It hadn’t been quite so bad while we were keeping on the move and feeling like we were achieving things. Everything ground to a halt at #11 Mamba, with some pitiful one train ops. They had a crude sprinkler system set up to spray on the final set of brakes, though it was clearly the wrong set of brakes as they were barely putting any work in when compared to all the sets that preceded them.
We also got queue jumped by an overly large group when their youngest member simply walked in front of us, acting all innocent but knowing full well what they were doing. Then, gradually, every single one of the rest of them passed us as if we didn’t even exist. It made no difference by the time the station was reached anyway as it was a total scrum for any and every row, but it was still too much effort to be dealing with that nonsense.
It’s a shame, I liked Mamba, yet there was no way we could have put up with riding it more than once. These medium Morgans all follow pretty much the same formula and the return run of hills here were particularly triangular, delivering a hilarious and satisfying sequence of float and crunch.
#12 Prowler was next, now infamous for being difficult to photograph. I also failed in that regard. A solid GCI, not quite as spectacular as we had been treated to the last few days but still above average for me. It’s more twisty and turny, but there was good variety in there and it ran with that concept better than most. We managed a couple of laps on this one before the heat broke it.
If only to delay the inevitable that we would have to queue for, and ride, a second #13 Boomerang for the day. Even a mere two train wait looked far too unpleasant, but we’d come this far and had to see it through. Eww.
Which only left us with #14 Spinning Dragons, the second Gerstlauer spinner of the day. Gross Worlds of Fun crowds were back again, this time a guy glued to his phone and ignoring his kids for the duration simply cutting straight past us with no explanation. This time it did make a difference, because capacity, and by this point I was already looking forward to the time we could say ‘we’re not in Kansas any more’.
Ride itself was good again, I’m assuming this is the best layout for the model, can’t think of a better one right now.
And so, success, but at what cost? We were battered and burnt by the end of it, though it was probably still the ideal outcome. It simply would have been too much to spend more than half a day at either of these parks anyway, in the weather conditions we were presented with, and though Worlds of Fun in particular had a pretty strong top three, it wasn’t an overly pleasant place to exist in. Regardless, the extra effort was for a worthy cause later in the trip.
For 2 years in a row we’d been booked to visit Holiday World during their famous Holiwood Nights, with tales of a trimless Voyage taunting my very soul. Sadly, because of a certain monarch, I was unable to make it happen this time around and we instead ended up with a purely vanilla visit to the park. Tickets had already been refunded at this point, so no issues there at least.
Day 4 – Holiday World
To make things even more bog standard, we opted to ride the woodies in the recommended order from smallest to largest.
Which meant beginning with Edgar Allen Poe’s The #1 Raven. It’s a solid starter pack, I like the look of the building and the big bird judging you from the front of the train. Claims of this being best wooden rollercoaster in the world at one time seem a bit bold, but it’s easily one of the best CCIs I had experienced up until this point. Decent airtime, excessive laterals, a great setting through the woods and that surprise massive drop halfway through the layout make for a strong introduction to what Holiday World is all about.
And in keeping with that theme, we grabbed the first of our many free fountain drinks on route to the Legend. Why can’t all parks do this? But not that net thing, get rid of that.
Once again the station has charm with a big fancy mural of the headless horseman and the ominous bell ringing upon dispatch of each train. #2 Legend is essentially the same concept as Raven, but a bit bigger. It interacts with the water park, has some freshly reprofiled sections, even more excessive laterals and an eerily similar surprise massive drop halfway through the layout. For all that I’d say it’s the slightly weaker of the two just for the sake of pacing – it drags on a bit unnecessarily towards the end, though still a lot of fun.
Oh no. I have to say that #3 Voyage was my most anticipated coaster of the trip, if not the entire world, at the moment we arrived on it’s doorstep. No doubt you know I’m a sucker for the Gravity Group and this was the king, right? Right? It hadn’t really sunk in that we were about to embark on this journey even at the point of parking ourselves in the back car and in my head it could only go one of two ways – the best thing they’ve ever made and therefore by default instant top 5 material, or it would Grand National me and I’d hate it.
Oh no. It was neither.
I knew it from the very second the first drop happened. It didn’t scare me. The best of these absolutely terrify me. The subsequent two massive ‘airtime’ hills are nothing but a waste of wood, steel and momentum. They had nothing to offer. The following tunnel moment and wild pop out of the seat is cool and what I had expected most of the ride to be, yet it follows that up with a third piece of nothingness.
Things do get more exciting at the far end in the woods, high speed lurches, twists and turns are exactly the formula that makes these things so special to me. For the sake of the ride having such sheer size and length however these are all just a bit drawn out and there’s some deathly suboptimal corners in there. The first return tunnel offers a brief glimmer of hope before the mid course brake run, which of course saps some energy that we can’t afford to lose at this point.
Once again it starts to do the good stuff with several back to back bangers, but then halfway through this it feels like they suddenly realised during the design process that they’ve got an awfully long way to go to get back to the station. The pacing is put on pause once more with some overly underwhelming shallow turns as it continues to thunder back to civilisation.
The big twisty hill at the end of this section is a welcome return to form but I found the ride may as well have ended at this point. Many more corners and plaza dodgings finish the event on the wet blanket that is Orion’s brake run, where I can quote my reaction after the second lap – “nahhhh.”
It’s most certainly a victim of expectation. I give it a good slating because I’m a picky bastard with too many comparisons to draw at the point, yet I don’t dislike the ride by any means. It’s middle of the road for the Gravity Group, which still puts it amongst incredible company, I just guarantee that it could have been so much more. It was a learning experience for me on the day as well as for the manufacturer when they were building it – they got better at what they do over time. This was early days and it already has all the makings of best wooden coaster on the planet. Just cut out all that faff.
So with that dream smashing disappointment out of the way, it was time to head up the hill for the last major cred. I do admire the fact that they have a height checking board for Thunderbird all the way down the bottom to save the short from having to make the journey, it is quite the trek in the heat.
I then also had to laugh at this starflyer thing which is both shorter than the coaster and the nearest tree. What are you expected to see from it? Bring back the crow’s nest.
Anyway, #4 Thunderbird. S’alright. It’s an unusual experience to get that launching kick on a B&M wing, though I expected a bit more of a song and dance in the shed to compete with the likes of Baco. The coolest part of the ride for me was the initial inversion, which has an uncharacteristic plunging sensation out of the top if you’re in the right seat.
From there it’s a bit of meandering and trees, the back to back turnarounds felt a little excessive. I found quite a chunk of the ride missed the mark on the on board visual spectacle that these usually provide, it made me recall Wild Eagle with those fun near misses with it’s own supports amongst gorgeous scenery – this doesn’t do that.
It does near miss a shed near the end with a fun attempt at a twisted airtime hill that sadly doesn’t work, then it ends on the classic and uncomfortable slow inline directly into the brakes.
With the major coasters now complete it was of course dark ride time. Gobbler Getaway is a load of silly fun in which I’m not sure whether I was relieved or disappointed that you aren’t actually shooting the turkeys. The ‘guns’ are for calling the turkeys back to where you want them and then, spoilers, thanksgiving dinner ends up being pizza. Which I’m perfectly alright with. Ok, maybe not American pizza.
Last cred in the park is #5 Howler, a Holidog (park mascot) themed Zamperla 80STD, also known as the knee smasher. Gets the job done.
I think it might be for the best that we didn’t get to experience Holiwood Nights, all things considered. We were ‘done’ with this park far quicker than I had ever anticipated. I’m not sure feeling obliged to hang around for two whole days and feigning some enthusiasm for a selection of rides that didn’t turn out to be world class would have been all that beneficial to the cause. The operations were generally and unexpectedly very poor across all the rides during our visit and with the fact that they’ve had to implement measures for reducing the capacity of the special event, there’s every chance it could have been even worse for us.
We did however feel obliged to make the most of our single day ticket and so took another lap of the park and all four of the major coasters, this time sunglasses on, not caring. Opinions were solidified rather than changed in any way and we headed out, satisfied, just before the water park closed and everyone rushed back into the main park.
I’ve always known Kentucky Kingdom as the place next to a tyre fire, so was surprised and confused to be entering the car park via a big, posh exhibition centre entrance.
Day 3 – Kentucky Kingdom
Once again we arrived early and the first order of business was brandishing various emails and tickets dated from 2020 in the direction of a guest services window. We had originally been booked to come on their special event that coincided with the Holiwood nights weekend, which included free drinks, though this was sadly no longer a thing. This also meant we had paid for two days when we only needed one, but as we’ve learnt already you’ve gotta spend money to make money.
Our new tickets were located in a secret envelope in a secret box in a secret drawer in the back of an office somewhere and sure enough they got us straight in.
It was a quiet, murky day and some stuff wasn’t open yet so we ended up on #1 Thunder Run first. I had forgotten this ride exists to be honest, they still have an old woodie here? And two Runs?
Turns out the ride is largely forgettable anyway, though far more substantial in footprint than I had imagined from standing within the structure. Wood, corners, a couple of hills, it had it all.
#2 Storm Chaser was waiting for us at the back of the park, looking grungy as anything. This is what I had pictured for the park and it didn’t disappoint.
I think the aesthetic is rather admirable and special in it’s own way, a nice contrast next to poster boys like Wildfire and Hakugei.
God damn Iron Gwazi is it a good ride too. Flopping out of the seat from the very first moment in that inverted drop before being violently ejected many, many times. It sets out to be an airtime machine and delivers an incredible set of punches. Even the other elements like the overbank had a good sideways kick to them, meaning that they weren’t just filler.
This wonky sequence of multiple hills is a fantastically vicious pre-finale, though it does sort of run out of things to do through the last corner into the brakes. A little too short to compete with the best of the best, but it’s still an easy top 25 and can sure give the bigger beasts something to sweat about.
#3 Roller Skater was ready to accept customers and had a really funky beat playing in the station to set the mood.
Then we got lost trying to avoid the water park in our street shoes in an attempt to find #4 Kentucky Flyer. There it is.
It’s cute and fun, though not the most potent of these things. I always love a piece of Gravity Group, but this one feels like they tried to do White Lightning over half the track length and it just doesn’t quite carry that physics-defiance, relentlessness and longevity that most of the other baby ones manage so well.
Things that couldn’t be further from cute and fun – #5 T3. Fair play to the park, they’re on board with the joke as to how bad SLCs are and even hype up the fact in the station. Far from the worst of these I’ve done so far, but good ride it is not.
We headed over to Lightning Run in anticipation of completing the park in record time, only to discover that the weather had turned against us and it had ceased operation.
Sure enough, it began to rain almost immediately and we attempted to take shelter in the 5D cinema. This plan failed as we were stranded in the outdoor section of the queue for what felt like an eternity, waiting for the next batch, which may or may not have included a technical breakdown.
Nothing exciting going on in here at all, just something dry to do. They were playing the laziest cut of Ice Age 4D imaginable. I don’t really remember the previous iterations I’ve seen in parks, but surely they weren’t this bad? The preshow is just clips from the film with the dinosaurs in it, with no set up. Then the actual film is just more clips from the same film with no pay off. Stuff happens that doesn’t get concluded, scenes chop and change randomly in an attempt to only have ‘things that work with moving seats’ and I’ve already used too many words on this attraction now.
The rain was only slight at this point, but all the coasters remained down. The Storm Chaser crew stated that their coaster rides just too damn fast in the wet and breaks itself, which I fully believe. Advice outside Lightning Run ranged from “I hear the weather is improving after 5pm” to “We’re not supposed to give any indication of time”.
It wasn’t ideal, but this felt like a good opportunity to continue the round robin of hotel phonecalls. We encountered a new low from one particular staff member who was beyond rude and obnoxious. From the moment she answered the phone there was a combination of an abject lack of care and a paranoid wariness that we were some form of pranksters. It basically boiled down to no, I can’t update your card details, nor can I guarantee your room, nor can I cancel it for you. “But that’s your job right?” “Yes, but you go online yourself.” Needless to say we didn’t stay there.
Time passed quickly and #6 Lightning Run began cycling to our great relief. We hopped aboard the weirdly elevated seats and experienced the world’s first Chance Hyper GT-X in all it’s glory. It’s good. From an off-ride visual it appears to burn through those elements at a blistering speed, though on-board there’s a few less sensations going on than I had perhaps anticipated. The legit airtime hills are great and it’s wonderfully paced, but some of the other moments were a bit of a let down. Nice and unique in any case and I look forward to a resurgence of the model.
With many laps of that under our belt to be sure, it was now a question of how long can we stay with Storm Chaser before we have to tear ourselves away and get some more creds tonight? The answer – quite long, though it helped that it was a walk on.
Beech Bend
Fortunately our next destination had a time zone change in the right direction to gain a cheeky extra hour of operating day. The park also run a deal where you can get in for extra cheap on a Friday night, which suited us perfectly.
The reason for the visit of course was the #7 Kentucky Rumbler. Such a good name. Is it king of the Kentuckys?
Yes it is. GCI man, they got me again, what’s going on? A curved drop that turns into a violent plummet to start proceedings, backed up by an action packed, airtime filled, rumbling romp of a ride. I loved the perpendicular station flyovers and the fact that it isn’t just 72 corners and crossing points. It tries for other things and delivers them exceptionally well. A surprise hit for sure.
As importantly, there were +1s to be had in the form of #8 Spinning Out.
And I did their Haunted House ghost train for ‘research purposes’. Meh.
Then we got stuck on a block section of the spinning #9 Wild Mouse. Two engineers appeared at speed in a golf buggy, almost tipping it down a steep grassy bank. The issue was resolved in no time and we were treated to a very slow rendition of the spinning second half, from a standing start. Fresh experience I guess.
A couple more rumbles on the Rumbler were sufficient to see the day out in style, and a successful one too! Kentucky treated us very well.
Our next day was dedicated to a full 12 (13) hours at the beast that is Kings Island. I had got it into my head over the various years of planning that this might be a tricky one to complete, there’s always a bit of trepidation when you’re staring down 15-odd creds and thinking anything could go wrong at any time.
Day 2 – Kings Island
We arrived nice and early in order to deal with some business, namely picking up our ‘2020’ cedar fair platinum passes that they had kindly offered to honour in 2022 instead. Brandishing various emails and the original tickets, we confused a friendly and helpful member of staff and, miraculously, ended up with exactly what we wanted, parking refund and all.
Even though the park wasn’t officially open yet, they do let you wander in to wherever you like without any form of batching or rope drop and so we opted to camp out the entrance to #1 Mystic Timbers. It was a rather joyous spectacle, the simplicity of watching several test trains running, a staff member appearing at the entrance at 09:55, getting a phonecall at 09:58 and opening the queue. Just like clockwork, seems rare to find many parks with a performance record like that.
So at precisely 10:00 we were seated on the first train of the day and ready to find out what’s in that bloody shed. I do have to give credit to the marketing of this ride, that phrase has stuck with me like very little else in the industry and it feels like I’ve been saying it for a lifetime already.
Before you get there however, there’s some track to negotiate, a surprisingly awesome layout full of high speed, relentless, bumpy, twisty goodness. GCI are back on top form and I can’t emphasise enough how much I’ve missed this. As you hit the brake run hot, some creepy warnings are played over the speaker system warning you not to go in the shed. The announcement breaks up, losing clarity as you head inside. The first half is standard GCI storage shed, but the second half is themed. We were right at the back so couldn’t actually see what was going on, nor hear the little radio that plays one of several old pop songs so it was a little confusing when the rest of the train were seemingly clapping along for no reason. After much suspense, one of several sequences takes place, themed to one of the rides in the park and you’re scared straight back into the station.
All in all I absolutely adored Mystic Timbers. Not only is it amongst the most standout pieces of hardware that the manufacturer has ever pieced together, it has bags of character and charm and I couldn’t really have asked for more. Except maybe fire.
Headed round to the #2 Beast next to continue on the woodie streak. It was an honour to finally get on this legendary ride and I had no idea what to expect. It’s a laugh. The freshly reprofiled first drop actually felt quite good but it doesn’t really do a whole lot of significance over the remaining 7000ft. But, over that length, it’s just an all round fun time ‘being’ on an old wooden rollercoaster that isn’t overtly offensive. The trims make me chuckle when they hit in all the places that might have otherwise looked exciting, but I think my favourite moment of the whole thing is the timing of the trains – they blaze past each other at a very specific moment that marks the beginning and end of the ride for each respective group of guests and it’s such an on-board spectacle.
After thinking a nearby ugly building was Flight of Fear and then discovering that it was just an ugly building, we doubled back to #3 Diamondback. The longer, stadium seated trains on B&M hypers have grown to concern me as I had until this point found them to be unfailingly inferior to the standard design. I think Diamondback managed to buck that trend somewhat, but by no means did I find it spectacular. It’s average, run of the mill at what it does best. Floaty drops, meek airtime, trims that make me chuckle just when it looks like it’s about to get exciting. Slow it down there, you’re having too much fun.
And so to speed things up, #4 Orion was the obvious next choice. An old technique was reborn on this ride, one that takes me back to the days of the disappointments of X2. ‘Sunglasses on, not caring.’ It will be coming up a lot over the next couple of weeks.
It ain’t no Fury 325, but I still prefer it your average B&M hyper simply for breaking that formula. I’m not big on the sensation of speed as a whole, but at least it feels fast paced and fun, until that same old trim in the same old place on the first airtime hill at least. Just. Design it better. Oh and the brake run being taller than most coasters is a rather facepalm moment too.
The one thing these do have going for them is that they’ve really nailed the giga drop. It both feels huge and it kicks your ass, where other manufacturers have somehow failed.
Continuing on the theme of failings, #5 Banshee, what the hell was that? One of the last hopes in the world for me to fall back in love with the B&M invert again and it just goes upside down 7 times with a similar sustained force throughout. Sunglasses on, not caring.
The one thing the vest design has going for it is that the seats feel wider and you don’t have to rub sweaty elbows with strangers.
Having made excellent time on what we considered to be the ‘big 5’, it was time to start operation mop-up.
The Bat was spiting. Abandoned, with one train parked on the lift hill. That’s going to stop me having the set of Arrow Suspended coasters at some point (unless they just close it) and I’m significantly bothered by that fact.
#6 Adventure Express was a thing. The quirky themed lift hill at the end of the layout was an unexpected highlight that led to absolutely nothing.
#7 Racer was very enjoyable. It felt more powerful and significant than the Kings Dominion equivalent and that endless line of sequential hills is always fun. Suffers from the same issue of you not actually knowing who wins because the trains finish apart from each other, divided by painted walls, but the sheer length of the pre-brake run track with everyone just wobbling in a straight line for 15 unchanging seconds had me in stitches. Of course we immediately went round again for the #8 other track.
#9 Flight of Fear was awful. There’s more to see in the queue than the KD counterpart but it went on forever and then the ride was running really, really poorly. Ruined the reputation of this attraction for me, as is the job of a good clone.
All the other queues for stuff we needed, but didn’t really want, were starting to look bad now. Grabbed a snack and headed into #10 Backlot Stunt Coaster. It’s more nicely presented than the KD equivalent (that’s 3 now) but the special effects part still didn’t work, nor did it have the comedy of someone in the train reacting to that fact.
What else have they got? I’m struggling to rattle them off in my head now.
#11 Woodstock Express. It was a bonus just to be able to get on it, and for it to not have the 90 minute queue that was stated on the app (trying to scare us off I feel).
#12 Invertigo. Worldwide set complete, now let’s never speak of it again.
The Eiffel Tower was open, unlike the KD equivalent (4). I did have to laugh when the lift operator said it’s an exact replica of the real thing. Despite the fact it’s a different colour, size and shape.
Good views though.
And we saved the worst til last. #13 Flying Ace Aerial Chase was a total travesty in every conceivable way. Sunburn, heat exhaustion, terrible capacity, medics were called to the station, a ridiculous safety announcement that tells you ‘not to stand up’ on a suspended coaster and an awful ride that manages to bang your head at under 10Mph. I was lined up to see a perfect shot of a small child taking the restraint directly to the jaw on one particular transition. Sign of a quality product.
Chores successfully completed, back to the good stuff.
Mystic Timbers had developed a fairly hefty queue, but it was worth the wait of course.
Orion’s queue had also got a little larger, this time we got to queue through the theming, which was nice to see.
Couldn’t be bothered to queue for anything else, so gave the shed one more go as the sun was going down. This time the wait had some great comedy in the form of a bunch of teens deciding to alter the distribution of large quantities of small rocks within the queueline. PASS IT BACK, PASS IT BACK, PASS IT BACK! Everyone got involved. Who needs queueline TVs.
Night had fallen and the ride was hauling so hard it made a noise I’ve never heard GCIs make before. The wheels (either sidestop, upstop, or both) were literally screeching with force and excitement, what an incredible ride. Also 3 different laps, 3 different monsters.
But of course night falling can mean only one thing in this park. Even the op box says it on a sticker. The legendary Beast night ride. We sprinted into the queue just before park close, having only just discovered that there was in fact a firework and drone show on that night (and every night with a 10pm close, to celebrate their 50th anniversary). This meant the only way to ride it involved having to watch the spectacle while standing in the queue, at which point the ride was temporarily shut down for the display.
Some technical faff later, the ride suddenly starting chewing through the queue at an extremely impressive rate. We ended up amongst the last few trains and were treated to a fantastic atmosphere with cries of BEAST, BEAST, BEAST, BEAST! on all sides.
It’s not going to be making any waves, but I get it, it’s just one those things you have to do some time. The tunnels and laterals felt all the more brutal in the darkness and another train of ghostly figures screaming down the first drop towards us as it all came to an end was quite the moment.
Kings Island then, what a park. I’ve never felt particularly positive or negative about a Cedar Fair establishment before. Things have changed.
After not enough sleep I awoke to both blinding sunlight and the deafening roar of a thousand trucks clattering past outside. Fortunately the car hadn’t been towed away overnight and it was with slightly fresher eyes that we discovered the envelope had contained detailed instructions on how to find the hotel room! Oops. After a quick glimpse at Skyrush and a tactical stock up from Walmart, we hit the road to Pittsburgh, again. Day 1 – Kennywood
The view as we picked a prime spot in the free parking area, at the top of an outdoor escalator, was a sight for sore eyes. The freshly painted phantom was gleaming and the curtain, which seems to spend more time down than it does operating was chugging up the lift hill in a welcoming fashion. Everything was back on track.
Sadly the first thing we came across on park is that the Old Mill was spiting for the day, I had been looking forward to checking out the umpteenth iteration of this classic dark ride.
But there were more pressing matters just around the corner and we took our spot in a slow and steady 30 minute queue (it’s back to one train operation already) for the unique stylings of #1 Steel Curtain.
First impression was that the lift hill is extremely loud, especially when on board, pretty much the only factor that would hurt the rerideability of this thing, which I loved. An excellent kick off to the trip.
There’s nothing life changing going on here, but it’s a very refreshing, modern take on the multi-loopers of old and so much more enjoyable for it. It rides very well with decent forces in all the right places and the inversions are interesting and varied. The layout tries to throw a couple of good airtime moments into the mix but they don’t really land and that’s probably the main thing that holds the ride back for me. It may have a silly football theme but I did enjoy the stylised announcements that come with it and visually it’s a pretty stunning coaster, particularly when you catch certain elements at some angles.
Headed straight over to #2 Phantom’s Revenge from there, which was another instant winner. Those trains are like riding in an armchair, strangely comfortable while leaving you in a very exposed and comprimised position for once things get going.
And oh, how it gets going. That second, terrained drop is insane. It’s not the most spectacular in the sensation department due to the profiling, but it picks up a ton of speed from this into a very forceful pullout and turnaround, which is unnervingly smooth. Things only get more exciting from there as you hurtle up a weird kink in a tunnel that always shifted me out of position, left me pinned there for the entirety of the following corner and then the magic happens.
The ridiculous airtime moments that are awkwardly crammed into the final section are frighteningly good, especially sitting in that armchair stance at the back of the train. There’s just so much character to this ride, it’s a total legend.
I did slightly fall in love with this area that it sits in as well. The interaction between Phantom, Thunderbolt and the terrain here is just one of those magic spots in a park that gets me all giddy thinking about all the visual moments it can deliver.
Talking of #3 Thunderbolt, that was a silly bit of fun. I couldn’t work out at all what was going on with the layout from the station, there’s a perfect bit of framing that makes it look like you won’t even make it up the first hill. It’s not overly violent but the crazy laterals that cause them to enforce having 2 people in every row, no singles, are the highlight, along with the very landscape driven layout.
From here we hit the parks only operating dark ride, Ghostwood Estate. The preshow is a little on the nose, in that Mr. Ghostwood both sets the scene from a storytelling perspective, but also rattles off all the safety instructions completely out of character. It’s a fairly standard fare, early style target shooter with spooky scenes, the type that makes me regret playing the game on a single lap because I miss most of what’s actually going on visually. We experienced a short break down, so got to stare at this one particular part for a good while though.
While queueing for that one we had begun to grow uneasy about the hotel situation again, the uncertainty was gnawing at the back of our minds. We took a brief interlude from the park at this point to make some phonecalls. The first one was to the hotel for that night, who were simply unable to accommodate our request to change the details due to a combination of being useless and rude. Seeing how that might have ended up being the case for a further 20-odd establishments, I decided to give the booking company a call instead. I explained the situation to a guy who clearly didn’t know what he was doing – we’re on holiday, all of the bookings appear to have the wrong card details, I’ve updated them on your site (as instructed) but it hasn’t worked, can you do something about it? The answer was no, with the only offer being to cancel all of the rooms for me, then go through rebooking every single one over the phone with him again at that very moment, while none of the original prices I had spent countless hours going out of my way to obtain would be honoured. I was in the middle of arguing that last point when the guy simply hung up on me. Thanks for being a loyal member eh? It was clear we would have to take matters into our own hands and after one more failed attempt with the next hotel, we decided to ditch that one and book something else on the spot, hoping that the rest would be at least somewhat helpful when the time came. For now, that was too much time spent not on park, back in we go.
To add to our troubles, Sky Rocket appeared to have gone down on our way out and had not returned to operation as we passed it again. So it was time for the #4 Jack Rabbit.
I’ve heard the tales of the legendary double down on this ride and even got a play by play of it from the row behind us while on board. “Here comes the double dip. Airtime. Hoho!” While yes, that part is admittedly rather good, it’s very much a coaster defined by a single moment amongst several left turns.
We went back to check on #5 Sky Rocket again and all was well. The prototype is pretty decent to be fair and I much prefer it to the version 2s, not least because they hadn’t yet invented the various awful restraint systems that come with it. Aside from comfort levels, the layout just has more going on obviously and flows much better than straight lines. Both the top hat and hold before the vertical drop are quirky and the rest rides with a similar charm to a lap bar Eurofighter, so, passable.
#6 Racer was now needed to complete the woodie set for the park and the queue was a lot less stewy than it had looked earlier. I rode a ridiculous 49 woodies on this trip, upping the wood count by over 60% and I can see myself struggling to come up with much to say about a fair few of them as they all begin to blend into one. S’alright.
While in the vicinity we took the opportunity for a reride on Steel Curtain and made it as far as sitting in the seats with the lap bar down before being evacuated back behind the air gates due to a restraint issue. Having queued an almost identical 30 minutes and come so close to riding, there was no real option other than to stick it out and watch the comedy unfold. The restraint system makes a very characteristic fast sequence of clicks as it gets activated and deactivated at the push of a button the console. The operator must have spammed it a good hundred times over the course of the next half hour, we believe more for effect than to be of use. An engineer had to come and replace one of the retrofitted seatbelt locking mechanisms on the train in order to fix the issue, and dropping his spanner down under the station didn’t help matters. After many more shrugs from the operator and “I’m just pushing buttons”, we were back in action. More points for Steel Curtain as far as I’m concerned, it became a running joke of the trip to keep pressing the car unlock and lock button in an attempt to replicate the noise.
Time was running a little short now and we still had two creds to get. Well, one, as the Lil’ Phantom was spiting, though I don’t know if it’s one they would have let us on anyway.
Last up was #7 Exterminator, the oddly themed indoor Reverchon spinner which actually made it reasonably interesting, span well too.
Satisfied with the achievements, we spent the final hour of the evening on Phantom’s Revenge, a suitably spectacular way to end the day. The staff were really good fun, the ride was kicking all sorts of ass and I really did love Kennywood by the time we left. It could well be my favourite park of the trip. Which is worrying.
You’d think 2 and a half years of preparation for a trip would make things run smoother. It did not.
This was the life changing, Cedar Pointing, US Beast of a Voyage that I once had planned out for 2020 and that was, of course, cancelled later that same year, giving birth to the epic Eurodemption #1. Our determination to make it happen at all costs saw it re-booked and re-cancelled a further three times throughout 2021 while the indecision over entry requirements remained firmly in place, leading to the excessive Eurodemption #2. By the time 2022 rolled around I had gone over this route plan in so many iterations that it was now firmly etched onto my retinas – there will be no Ange-Michels this time I can assure you, this was Ameridemption and it was going to be amazing. Once the flood gates had been opened once more, the trip finally happened, and immediately went wrong.
Day 0 – Travel
After arriving at Heathrow earlier than ever before, we took our then mandatory covid test and proceeded to check in the bags at a very comfortable time frame. I had noticed during this process that a few of the escalators were closed off, only to assume they were broken. This was in fact to filter everyone down to a single entry point for access up to the next floor where security takes place. On this floor were cattlepen queues as far as the eye could see which, although they looked grim, flowed rather well. After a reasonable 40 minutes or so, by no means the shortest wait of the trip and definitely not the longest, we arrived at the scan your boarding pass barrier. The barrier said no.
According to differing stories from various parties this was either an outright system fault, or an arbitrary feature that (incorrectly) determines ‘whether you’ll make the plane or not from this point’, even though we still had well over an hour at this moment in time. Regardless, the staff at these barriers have no power to override the system and were unable to help in any way. We were scooted to one side by some other airport staff into a small group of other travellers with the same issue. Apparently they were going to ask our airline to grant permission for a visual check in order for us to bypass the barriers. American Airlines said no.
The airport staff then suggested that we all head back downstairs to the airline check in desk to sort this issue out with them ourselves. We did so, only to find that the desks were entirely abandoned and there were no airline staff available to assist. After being shouted at, and subsequently ignoring another airport staff member who was insisting that we had to go through the queue again, we found the upstairs staff once more and relayed the fact that the airline were MIA. This confused them, as they had supposedly just spoken to them and they were now at a loss as to what to do. As were we all.
Suddenly the very man who had checked our bags in appeared at speed and began to argue our case with the barrier staff, who suddenly looked terrified at the sight of our group determinedly pouring straight towards them. We were manually let through with the ‘visual check’ and assured by the airline staff member that “once you’re confirmed to be past this barrier on the system, you will make your plane”, which I can only assume meant we would soon get those announcements over the speakers saying hurry up Mr. Slow, we’re holding up this flight for you.
Security itself with all the trays and scanners was actually operating at the highest capacity I’ve ever seen it, which is strange considering the queues are so bad right now. The sudden increase in demand must be insane. We made it through there very quickly to then see the sign that gave us the good news that our gate was as far away as it could physically be, at what was suggested to be a 30 minute walk. Those barriers clearly underestimate our speed as, along with a few of the others, we sprinted it in under 5. Only to arrive at the gate and see one of the same staff members already there shrugging and saying the gate’s closed mate.
To this day I don’t fully understand how the time sink happened or how seemingly most of the rest of the passengers ever made the plane in the first place, unless 90% of those were from connecting flights. Our little group of stragglers from the barrier incident had all felt that they were way ahead of schedule at every step of the process until the mishap occurred and now here we were looking at a plane that was fully prepared to leave without us. All forms of protest were in vain and a high up member of staff approached us to diffuse the situation. “Guys, there’s nothing we can do to get you on this plane, but don’t worry. We have hundreds of flights leaving for the US today and we will get you on one of them, 110%. Go to our ticket rebooking desk right now and they’ll sort you out” Fearing a repeat of the check in desk incident from earlier, we pressed further and specifically asked if anyone was actually at that desk and whether they were aware that we would be coming. The answer was yes.
Once we had manouevred through the various back alleys of the airport that led us to said desk, during which we managed to lose at least half the group, we arrived to see two staff members who had no idea that we were coming. One was under training and the other was seconds away from leaving for the day. A strongly worded phonecall was made, presumably back to the guy we had just spoken to, to the tune of why have you done this? and I need to go home now. All credit to her though, she stayed on and helped us in our time of need.
The options were nowhere near as vast as had been promised, particularly as it was supposedly now our fault that the airport was useless and the airline shouldn’t have to compensate for that. Option one was the April Orlando special – come back 24 hours later for the same flight to Philadelphia, oh and we won’t pay for a hotel. a) we aren’t losing a day of our holiday and b) we live here. Option two was an 18-hour overnight flight with a layover in Los Angeles (so the complete opposite end of the country). A simple “no” was sufficient to shoot that one down and arouse a long overdue smattering of laughter amongst our fellow passengers.
I was straight with her about our own situation at this point – we’re driving to Pittsburgh tonight so you can dump us anywhere in the Eastern US TODAY and we’ll be out of your hair. (Fun aside, we would have been flying straight to Pittsburgh had this been 2020 and they hadn’t cancelled that route since covid). A plane leaving for New York in 3 hours soon had our name on it, but it was in a different terminal and we’d have to queue for security again. We took a bus to T5 and once more found ourselves in a massive line that this time had various artistic murals of empty water bottles seemingly set up in protest throughout all the temporary barriers that held everyone in place. During this wait we had to make an urgent phonecall in order to rebook our car hire, seeing as we were now going to be arriving into a different city.
Fair play to BA this time, as we had a flight + car booking and they could already see on their system that we had been rerouted, they were happy to oblige, no fuss. We were given an email address and the personal mobile number of an agent in an office in Crawley and instructed to explain our situation via email and text in order to get the quickest response possible. By the time we made it to the gate, which hadn’t been closed in our face, we received a call back from an extremely helpful person who moved our car hire, no questions asked, and delivered the wonderful news that it was now in fact £500 cheaper for us. Ordeal = profit, apparently.
The flight itself passed without much event. I won Who Wants to be a Millionaire (a tradition on planes which I’ve now managed to keep since January 2020), watched a Korean action film and tolerated what some would call food. Soon we found ourselves at JFK, which turned out to be ridiculously quiet, ready for a fight with Avis, the very car hire company that had tried to scam us just a couple of months ago. Though media has tried to teach me things about New Yorkers, they were totally solid and the whole process was so much better than it had been in Miami. Just like 3 years prior we were given El Toro: the car (a Kia Soul), though sadly not in the correct colour this time.
Thankfully JFK isn’t how I pictured it either and doesn’t dump you into 6 lanes of yellow cabs honking their horns and not moving, so we managed to escape the clutches of the city in no time at all and begin the, more arduous than initially intended, first long drive of the trip.
Our estimated arrival time was well past 2am at this point and that was without factoring in a stop for food. Having been stung in the past by American hotels who arbitrarily decide (just like those barriers) that you’re too late and not going to arrive after a certain time in the evening, lie about trying to contact you and then kindly cancel your room without notice, we called ahead to the establishment in order to let them know how late we were running. We’re not out of the woods yet.
The guy we spoke to said that it was fine for us to turn up at whatever time, however he had already cancelled our room without notice because they had checked the credit card details earlier and they weren’t valid. Oh and he lied about trying to contact us. So here was the situation – I had booked almost every hotel on this road trip back in January for the sake of forward planning and cost saving. The credit card which I had used expired at the end of April and both of the systems I used for the bookings had a method for updating your card details against each one. When my new card sprang into action at the beginning of May, I went online and updated these details accordingly. Clearly this didn’t work and now not only did we not have a hotel for the first night, we potentially didn’t have one for any of the rest of the trip because we had to assume they will all be this useless and silently bail on us at any given moment.
It was at this point we stopped for both food and a minor mental breakdown about why nothing works any more. There was no point in pressing on to what would now likely be a 3am arrival at a hotel that had already spited us, for a worse deal than originally planned. We could just continue the long drive in the morning. I instead managed to find what looked like a last minute steal on a 2 bedroom suite that just so happened to border Hersheypark. A phonecall was made in order to make sure they could accommodate us arriving late. We were assured that the receptionist would be there waiting for us.
They weren’t, but an envelope and key with my name on it was waiting on the desk when we got there. I can only look back and laugh at how gone we were by this point as I recall simply standing in the road in the middle of the night for a good 10 minutes and staring at a sign with what appeared to be a ‘no parking’ symbol above where I had parked the car, in what was a clearly marked parking space. I suppose they can’t crush our car into a cube, it already is one. The room key was marked with a number 2, but the hotel was comprised of several different buildings, so we then spent a further 10 minutes wandering up and down in a daze, trying all the wrong rooms also marked 2, at great personal risk. Finally finding where we supposed to be, up a rickety outdoor wooden staircase, I discovered our actual quarters also had a door down to a basement pulled straight out of a horror movie. I smiled to myself briefly, thinking of all the things that could still go wrong at this point, up to and including death by phantom, locked the door again and promptly passed out.
Well we weren’t due there for at least another two weeks, but at least we could look at rollercoasters from the window in the morning, how many can you spot? Oh right, rollercoasters. Well that will just have to wait until next time.
Time to bring this one to a close then. Not been looking forward to reliving the ending through ranty ramblings. Our final day was allocated to mopping up whatever might have been necessary before sadly departing from Florida. It all seemed over in a flash, as with all good holidays. A flash of lightning you might say.
Day 10 – Fun Spot America
With no major cred catastrophes to amend, all that was really needed was the other Fun Spot. The more popular (conveniently located) but less good one.
Their Kiddie Coaster actually has a name to go with the cute train face, so that’s a plus for #1 Sea Serpent.
Feels like I’ve ridden more than 4 of these 395m models by now and #2 Freedom Flyer just became moving for the sake of motion, but at least they have lap bars. The 453m is where it’s at. Looking forward to the 550m being built, especially because it’s supposedly 569m.
The fact that I keep dropping the word lightning may sound like I’m bigging up #3 White Lightning, but I’m really not. Having ridden Heidi mere weeks ago and spent more time than necessary with the Polish equivalent, this is also nothing more than a +1. S’alright.
Not the most thrilling note to end on in the end, all business really. In and out in ten minutes, leaving time for a lazy afternoon of shopping and trudging to the airport with hours to spare.
And then it all went wrong.
We dropped the car off with barely any acknowledgment (which would later come back to bite us) and headed in for the usual rigmarole. Check in, bag drop, food, security. While we were milling around at one point, we noticed the weather looked a bit rough through the glass ceiling. Big rain and a single flash of lightning. The terminal roof was actually leaking in certain places. Thought nothing of it.
As soon as security was cleared we had to head to the little train that takes you to the gate. The departure board here suddenly said there was a 3 hour delay on our flight. That’s nice.
3 hours of abject boredom and post trip blues at a gate later, we hadn’t been given a gate, we each received an email from the airline saying sorry mate, your flight has been cancelled, try again tomorrow. Very nice.
It wasn’t nice that there was zero presence of airline staff at this gate part of the airport to offer any assistance at this point, but I was surprisingly chill about it all. We left the area and took the little train back again, assuming that the only real point of contact with the airline was the check-in desk again. It was.
Having seemingly beaten most of the other poor displaced souls, we queued for a while before being told to stand to one side while they prioritised checking in the flight to London Heathrow (we were London Gatwick) so that they could ‘deal with us later’. I suppose putting us on that one would be too much to ask. It was.
Once they were all sorted, the airline man began to address the small crowd (it was meant to be a nice, quiet flight) with the dreaded ‘nothing they can do’ spiel. Apparently they had tried to rebook us on the Heathrow flight but had been overruled by some big dogs in corporate. Come back tomorrow at the same time for the same flight. Good luck getting a hotel, we can’t help, the airline might pay you back. Goodbye.
Because half of America had just had flights cancelled due to bad weather, the hotel sitatuation was pretty dire. I dived onto booking.com and nabbed the first thing I could find within a 20 mile radius that wasn’t several hundred pounds, but still more than I’ve ever paid for a night’s stay in my life.
Suddenly we had a day to spare, albeit not much of a useful one, so we considered whether it was worth re-hiring a car. Half an hour not moving in a queue of several thousand people eventually said no, everyone else was having the same idea. Eventually we caved and paid well over the odds for an uber (£50 for 20 mins), finally crashing at the hotel exhausted, yet having done nothing.
Something had seemed familiar in the name of the place I had booked, perhaps it was a subconscious reaction from my inner coaster fan.
Day 11?! – Fun Spot America
So the hotel just happened to be literally on-site at the good Fun Spot.
Which meant a cheeky morning lap on Mine Blower, to turn the mental pain into physical pain for just one glorious minute.
The ordeal wasn’t quite over yet as, upon our dejavu arrival at the airport, two of the three of us were unable to check in. The system had gone wrong and the airline staff were virtually powerless to do anything about it.
Two and a half hours later, after doing nothing but standing at the check in desk in total despair at how much faff it was for at least a dozen staff to put two people on a plane they were already supposed to be booked on, our patience prevailed. And now we have to run for said plane.
Wait, no we don’t, it’s delayed for two hours again.
Well, at least we’re taxiing now.
Wait, no we’re not, apparently there are two bags in the hold that are unaccounted for.
God damn BA.
Summary
Total states – 1 New creds – 40 New dark rides – 37 New parks – 11 New wacky worms – 0 Best coaster – Iron Gwazi Best dark ride – Rise of the Resistance Best park – umm… Distance travelled – not much Spites – 2 we knew, otherwise 0/40 (0%)!
Against our better judgment we allocated time and money to yet another Legoland property for this trip. I’ve skipped past several others in the world by this point but Florida has just the one trick up its sleeve that meant I simply couldn’t resist the hit of extra coasters for the count.
Mercifully rain was in the air, so the crowding at opening seemed very light and manageable. Let’s get this done as quickly as possible so we can move on to better things.
Unmercifully, we walked straight up the queue for the Dragon first, only to be told that it wasn’t ready yet.
Masters of Flight, the flying theatre attraction was just around the corner and already being operated hideously slowly, so it seemed like the best time to get that done. It was nice to see a fresh theme and video on this, giving the park a tiny bit more individuality. I don’t particularly get on with Lego Movie stuff and this was basically flying a sofa around different Lego scenes while Chris Pratt used words. What stood out for me the most was the clever use of scent. The cloud land smelled like sweets, the Minecraft land smelled like a forest and even the sea had a satisfying freshness to it.
#1 Coastersaurus was the main draw for me of course as I feel like I’m on some sort of vendetta now when it comes to wooden coasters. Having basically completed Europe for them, I get the slightest sense that riding the full collection some day isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. It’s good to have at least one unhealthy goal to aim for.
And so even though this one really isn’t up to much, it was a satisfying lap. Barely gets above walking speed and none of the hills have any feeling to them. I know it’s for kids, but the Woodstock Expresses are far better for starters.
In fact the coaster selection here is just poor all round. These Vekoma SFCs with shoulder restraints are awful, somehow still managing to cause grief without even trying. #2 Flying School couldn’t be further from the simulation of flight.
Got to lay eyes on our old friend Jungle Coaster again. What a life it had in Windsor with those terrible scream shield greenhouse pods that folded over the cars. No +1 to be had here sadly.
While I’m on a roll, I think this was the worst Miniland I’ve ever seen. It’s distinctly smaller than average, all chucked in under a canopy. There’s not a huge range of stuff to look at, nothing in the way of a world showcase, just a few American bits and bobs. Some nice little details here and there, but nothing on the scale of any of the others. Doesn’t quite have the heart somehow.
We circled back to the Dragon which now had the staff at the entrance turning people away, backed up by a couple of entertainers with swords attempting to diffuse the mild disappointment. Don’t let us be spited by the stupidest part of the trip.
Short of things to do in the meantime, took a quick lap on the interactive dark ride Lost Kingdom Adventure. Believe this is also the Windsor layout which at least means it isn’t the oval one.
Tried to take a lap on Ninjago, but it broke down as we got to the station. The staff, as with many other rides we had observed throughout the morning, didn’t seem to know a whole lot about what they were doing while handling the breakdown announcement and it was decided we really don’t need to stick around for another one of these.
The app was still saying Dragon was down and things were getting desperately dull, so we headed over to guest services to see if they had any better intel than ‘I really can’t say if it will open.’
To our surprise, they said it was open. But your app and the queue boards say… well that was bad timing.
+1. It was rather novel to have the #3 Dragon dark ride experience bolted onto yet another Vekoma Junior for the trip. A clever mod at the very least.
With that we walked over to Peppa Pig land to see if they had any deals going on entry tickets for Legoland visitors. We had actually booked our park tickets online before the announcement and eventual opening of the second gate (if you can call it that) and, not through lack of trying, were unable to upgrade to the combo version afterwards. Nope, nothing doing, full price at 30 quid on the door or go home. Even I have my limits.
Could actually be riding something good right now.
Busch Gardens
Though we had completed the park very successfully on the first visit, our business here wasn’t done just yet.
God damn Iron Gwazi was of course the main draw in that, perhaps the only one if I’m really honest.
Here’s an angle I’m sure you’ve not seen yet.
We whiled away the afternoon getting as acquainted with it as we dared, only pausing to break things up a bit with some courtesy laps. Nothing in the park had any queue at all, so that made things somewhat easier to digest.
Montu didn’t really benefit from a second go. Still left me feeling jaded at best.
Kumba was worse from a second go. Not as refined in the outside seats.
I already knew enough about Sheikra.
Cheetah Hunt earned that second go, I kinda like it.
As did Cobra’s Curse, at least it’s something a little different.
As the night with Gwazi wore on, it began to break down a lot as with everything new in Florida right now and operations ground to a halt again. It was a little frustrating given that we had been walking straight onto it mere moments before. We had a chance encounter with Rollercoaster David, who happened to be directly behind us in the queue before the final lap of the night and was in the midst of a much more adventurous trip than we were – clearly I’ve got to step my game up. As a season pass holder, he very kindly offered up a sizeable discount on a t-shirt one of us had been eyeing up, have to say thanks again for that!
As for the ride itself, it quite clearly stood out as the highlight of the state upon return. I had pretty much figured that out anyway, but you never quite know how these things are going to behave from one day to the next. It’s fast, intense, out of control, wonderful, insane and a whole other bunch of superlatives.
Competition is terrifyingly tight at the top though and it hit that ceiling for me where I didn’t quite get emotionally attached to the thing. Technically brilliant, I can’t even begin to fault it. My head says top ten, but my heart says no, that’s not possible any more because it’s only my third favourite RMC. Better than Zadra. I prefer Hakugei. and Twisted Colossus.
Tonight’s story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction.
Day 8 – Hollywood Studios
Of course we couldn’t miss out on The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, even with our faillings of the previous visit. It was once again running at half capacity and therefore the queue was moving particularly slowly. In a very RollerCoaster Tycoon moment, the park had deployed an entertainer to the line, by the name of Goofy. I hear that as long as he’s within a few tiles of you, you’ll be happy to queue forever.
It was undoubtedly worth the wait, for me these attractions are amongst the best ever. What makes Florida even more special is that the ride system is even more complex and insane. It’s so weird when those doors open and your lift starts shuffling forwards through a dark ride section and out into the actual elevator shaft.
The drop sequence was glorious yet again, which makes 3 out of the 4 in the world an absolute smash hit. That raw stop start lurching with nothing but a seatbelt over the lap is killer.
Couldn’t say no to another crack at Rise of the Resistance after that, even with another multiple hour wait on the cards. What if all the effects are working this time?
Well we got one out of the three back in action. The lightsaber came through the roof of the elevator this time, though it wasn’t quite the enhancement I had hoped for. It looks a little too much like a shop bought plastic one to strike any real fear into the hearts of the resistance. Sadly that means the main showpiece was again broken, but there’s so much other amazing stuff going on that this thing simply is in a league of it’s own, regardless.
Opted for a courtesy lap on Star Tours, which is incoherently located well outside the rest of the Star Wars stuff, having come first of course. It looked really neat and fresh inside, which was nice to see – I suppose they spruced it up again once they knew all the fans would be flocking.
I do like the rerideability factor on these with so many combinations of video sequences up for grabs. Kylo clearly wasn’t done with us yet as he was the one who rocked up to try and kill us on this occastion. We also got a surprise visit from hologram old man Lando, which was technology I hadn’t seen on the ride before. Sadly we then joined the battle on Exegol with our well equipped Star Tours cruiser; you know that storm cloud place where the head on a stick, who came back and ruined the franchise, lifted a million star destroyers out of the ground with a flick of the wrist, spoiling so much film history.
So then I got mad at Star Wars and we left for our early shuttle bus.
That’s it for Disney for the trip, so I’ll do a little summary of the parks as I found them.
Magic Kingdom – really lacks a standout attraction to me. I loved the fresh experiences of the fun, old Tomorrowland stuff but they’re likely only things you need once in your life. The rest does fall foul of having visited other resorts and I think it’s far from the best overall selection at a castle park, particularly when you’ll most likely have to deal with much heavier crowding than you would elsewhere.
Hollywood Studios – contains the three clear standout attractions of the entire resort for me. Any combination of Rise, Tower and Mickey on their own would make WDW worth my time and having all of them in one park is rather intoxicating. I can only imagine how high emotions would have been running had Fantasmic been back in action. This comes at a price however, as there aren’t enough other attractions to spread the load, even with Toy Story, Aerosmith and lesser Star Wars things trying their hardest to suck up the queues. It results in a very long and draining day with a pitifully low ride count in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like the quality is just about justified. As it stands they’ll have to get something pretty special to shift enough people to another park.
Animal Kingdom – easily the nicest park to exist in. You could hardly tell it was Disney, outside of the visual wow moment of Pandora, with the rest being sprawling pathways, a lush green vibe and a big, posh zoo feel. I really liked it, but the lack of Everest was pretty crippling and let’s not talk about the fairground area. Pandora was a faff, with one ride being far better than I was expecting and the other somehow managing to be worse, so even with the Yeti back in action I’d boil it down to to very few worthwhile attractions. This is noticeably far less than any of the other parks and then only leaves you with a zoo which, to me at least, feels like time wasted on your Disney dollars. We have zoos at home and they didn’t bring enough to the game to make it any better than one of those.
Epcot – was good, I guess. Much like Tomorrowland I loved how many unique ride experiences there were, though I do worry about the ability of most of them to remain exciting in future. If you’re not really swept up in the wonder of it, there’s a lot of one and dones. Even for my favourite, Mission Space, I don’t know if I’d want to do it again knowing as much as I know now. Their most popular rides aren’t quite deserving of that status on a world stage and it will be interesting to see how Guardians upsets the balance. Which then only leaves you with some replicas of stuff around the world which, to me at least, feels like time wasted on your Disney dollars. We have the Eiffel Tower at home.
10/10 would recommend though. Don’t worry about the fear-mongering around planning, it can be as stress free as you want to make it.
Islands of Adventure
The real reason we left was to go and spend another evening with Hagrid and dinosaurs. The preshow was fixed this time, which was cool. I did wonder what could go wrong with just a screen (what is this, Wicker Man?), but there’s a lot of fun physical effects that happen too during the calamity that unfolds on screen. Got a bit wet to say the least.
Had a go in the sidecar to mix things up a bit, though my assumption that the bike seat was better turned out to be entirely correct. It was even more magical of an experience in the almost dark, but then the illusion of storytelling wonder was shattered by the ride ceasing operation immediately after the drop track dropped.
This led to other wonders of geeking out about how stupidly complicated this ride is, but then a fellow rider started having a panic attack and her companion was showing alarming concern that another train might come careering off the exposed track above our heads and kill us all. A fair assessment in an emotional state, though we then did our best to explain in simple terms why we were perfectly safe.
It was a little unfortunate that there was no communication via staff announcement to diffuse the situation or back us up, I assume they thought it was a quick fix even though it went on for several minutes. Eventually we saw the train from the adjacent drop section (yes omg there’s two) drop and hit the launch in front of us. Hey, watch that little switch track now, it’s going to change so that we can start moving again. Sure enough it did and we made it back to the station in one piece, but with many a tear flowing.
In other news, Velocicoaster was being hideously unreliable too. With plans to get much more acquainted with the ride, we still only managed another hat trick of laps in total due to several untimely breakdowns, the same as a day jam packed full of completing the park.
We got to try a few more different seats at least and it was a suitably special experience once again. Didn’t sway any opinions though, just settled in comfortably as one of the best in the world.
