Holiday World, 2010

Before I start my post on the most amazing trip I’ve ever taken, I’d like to send my thoughts out to the Koch family; owners of Holiday World and Splashin’ Safari.  It’s with great regret to type that Will Koch, Owner and President of the parks, passed away Sunday night due to a complication with his diabetes.

I had the pleasure of meeting Will on numerous occasions the last five years or so on my trips to Santa Claus, IN.  We spoke a few times in the park, and even had a nice, lengthy conversation at the Holiday Foods grocery store in 2007.  He truly was a pioneer in the amusement industry, and it’s a terrible loss to his family, his park, and his enthusiast friends.

To be quite honest, if it wasn’t for Will and his visions, I may never have met the love of my life.  Having been “out of the loop” for many years, traveling for rollercoasters wasn’t something that greatly interested me from around 2002 until 2006; the year Holiday World opened The Voyage.  Will had a huge hand in the development and design of that ride, and it is the single, solitary reason that I started visiting theme parks again.  In the long run, that trip to ride Voyage in 2006 netted me one of my closest friends now, who I most likely never would have met otherwise, which in the end led me to Kara.

So Will, I along with many, many in the enthusiast community and amusement industry thank you for everything you brought us in the years you ran Holiday World.

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Kara, Dan and I left Orlando on Thursday, June 3rd for Columbus, OH where we would eventually meet up with our friend Sean Flaharty.  After a slight delay at our connecting flight in Nashville where the Southwest folks announced, “the baby mess has been cleaned up now, and we figured out which button wasn’t working,” we were on our merry way to Ohio.  That night was spent hanging out and catching up before retiring for an early awakening the following day.

We began our Friday with a stop at Kings Island, where we were joined by Todd and James.  A couple of Sean’s friends joined the festivities as well, and our 5 hours at Kings Island were spent credit whoring, being coerced onto Drop Tower (where I screamed like a little girl; thanks, guys…), sweating like pigs and finding a new Top 10 steel coaster in Diamondback.  I’ve never liked this park, but we managed to have a great time and I’m definitely glad we made the stop there.

Before hitting the road on the 4hr drive to Santa Claus, IN, our group made a pilgrimage to Skyline Chili.  I had never eaten here before, but every single person in our caravan swore on this establishment.  It definitely was a great meal, but I think my food decision set the mood for my stomach for the entire weekend.  I went the Buffalo Chicken Wrap route and when I say I was paying for it the entire trip, I’m not exaggerating.  If there was one downfall over these four days, it was my stomach issues; and I’ll just leave it at that.

As we were finishing lunch the final piece to our traveling group puzzle, Corey, arrive and decided he didn’t drive all that way for nothing, so I agreed to go back to Kings Island with him for another ride on Diamondback while the rest of the crew headed to Holiday World.  We ended up getting there about two hours after everyone else, and just in time to head to the park and check in for HoliWood Nights.

After brief introduction speeches by Will and Pat Koch, Paula Werne and a short question and answer session with Voyage designer Mike Graham, the wooden coaster floodgates opened and we were off to ride, ride, ride.  Dan had never been to the park before, so we opted to go the “work your way up” route and started our evening off with a great ride on Raven.  Dan loved it, as expected, and next up was Legend.  Now let me tell you about Legend:  It was running FANTASTIC this year.  When it opened in 2000, I loved it, but every year I’ve been since then it was merely “mehh” and only got one courtesy ride.  However, whatever they did to it this offseason was amazing, because this ride was tearing up its course.

Finally, the crown jewel of the park and my number one coaster overall that will probably forever be untouchable, Voyage, was calling our names.  The park didn’t have their new Timberliner trains available yet, so in turn they converted a red train from Raven to fit on Voyage so that it could run two trains for us.  The ride itself was running rougher than I ever remember it, but the red train was definitely a slightly smoother experience.  But “very rough Voyage” is so mind-blowing that its still far and away the best coaster I’ve ever been on.

From 7pm until 10:30pm, the park was ours and it was spent re-riding, catching up with tons of old friends and many, many runs to the Pepsi Oasis’ for free sodas.

After the park closed, it was back to the RV at Camp Rudolph to clean up, and the night was spent jumping from bonfire to bonfire throughout the campgrounds til the wee hours in the morning.  We managed to hang out with three different groups of people, at three different fires on three different plots of land.  In the middle of all the hanging out was a ton of walking and exploring the massive grounds.  It was an awesome, awesome night.

Saturday, while Kara, Dan and Todd went back to the park for morning waterpark ERT myself, Corey and James slept in for a bit for hitting up Denny’s for breakfast and then Holiday Foods for essentials.  That trip to the grocery store netted us 18 sets of glowsets (1 necklace per person, and 2 glowing bracelets per person in our RV) that turned out to be the best idea of the trip.  We all purchased blue sets, and throughout that second night of ERT in the pitch-black woods of Indiana, it was amazing to see the glow essentials lighting the way.  It was truly an awesome spectacle, and one that made everyone around us applaud.

The daytime adventures on that Saturday weren’t quite as incredible as my stomach issues, the night’s activities before and fatigue drained any remaining energy I may have had.  Honestly, I didn’t think I’d even make it through one ride that night before having to retire.  We started the second evening off with a nice, cool drenching on Pilgrim’s Plunge (which is “mehh” btw) before giving courtesy rides to Raven and Legened.  The remainder of the evening was spent in Thanksgiving with friends, our glowies, and Voyage.

After finishing the night, and event, off with two absolutely incredible rides, everyone limped back to the campground.  This night was much more relaxing as we spent it hanging out at our RV, taking it easy, and enjoying the last night together.

In all honesty, this is probably the most fun I’ve ever had on a trip before in my life.  I tend to say that after every trip, but this time, I really mean it.  The mix of friends, the parks and coasters and the overall atmosphere and fun just made this weekend amazing.  This post doesn’t even begin to describe how awesome it truly was.

Can’t wait til next year.

Give Your Vote to Give Kids the World!

For those of you who are not familiar with the program, “Refresh Everything,” is Pepsi’s amazing way to fund people, businesses or non-profit organizations’ efforts at providing a positive impact on the communities in this country. Every month, Refresh Everything publishes thousands of user-submitted ideas and proposals that are in turn opened to the public for voting on. The ideas are broken up into four monetary categories, assigned by the entities who submitted their idea, and are organized by the price of the funding requested. The four tiers are for $5,000, $25,000, $50,000 and $250,000.

Today, the first day of June, marks a new month of voting, and included this time around is Kara’s company Give Kids the World. I have had the opportunity to tour the Village multiple times, and it truly is an incredible place, however, I am nowhere near as capable as getting the word out as she is. The rest of this post is an entry that Kara penned, and I feel exemplifies the nature of the community and company. For me to try to describe it would be a disservice to the Village, so I have chosen to feature an article that she authored. Accompanying her words, however, are multiple photos that I had the opportunity to take on one of my most recent visits.

For those of you not familiar, Give Kids The World Village is a magical 70-acre, non-profit resort in Central Florida. We work with over 250 Wish Granting Organizations around the world to fulfill the wishes of all children with life-threatening illnesses and their families to experience a memorable, joyful, cost-free visit to the Central Florida attractions and to enjoy the magic of GKTW Village.

Over 90% of the wishes are through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which I’m sure you’ve all heard of. The four categories MAW divides the wishes into are: I wish to MEET (most often a celebrity), I wish to BE (..an actress for a day, a firefighter for a day, etc.), I wish to HAVE (my bedroom made over, a laptop computer, etc.) or I wish to GO (to Disney, to Australia, etc.). What’s impressive and amazing is over half of these kids wish to come to Central Florida– they want to meet the princesses, they want to go to Disney and they want to see Shamu. GKTW isn’t just an ordinary place to stay– it is truly a magical resort for the families — and is a huge reason why most kids decide on coming to Florida for their wishes.

Everything is wheelchair-accessible, the kids can have as much ice cream as they want from 7:30 AM (yes, even for breakfast) until the late evening and the families can meet the characters from Disney, Universal and SeaWorld one-on-one without having to wait in line at the parks. The families have all of their meals provided for them and there’s special entertainment every evening. Here, every Thursday is Christmas—yes, Christmas does come more than once a year at the Village—complete with Christmas music, decorations, elves, gifts, Santa and Mrs. Claus and horse-drawn carriage rides. Each and every day the kids have unlimited access to the carousel, castle, spa, garden, pool, theatre, playground and train station– all tailored to their needs and made for them.

A lot of the families comment that they would actually look forward to leaving the parks for the day because there’s so much to explore at the Village. Most importantly, though, at the Village it’s the rest of the world who are the different ones for a change. Kids don’t feel embarrassed to be bald, be in a wheelchair or have a disability here– they fit right in with everyone else. Because of that, I’ve noticed a lot of kids really come out of their shell and, for once, can be truly happy.

Perhaps what I love most is that GKTW is about the families, not just the Wish child. Oftentimes a child’s illness is even harder on the families than it is on the child, if you can wrap your head around that. Every sibling gets a gift at check-in and each day there are gifts for the family awaiting them when they return from the park. Each family gets their own private villa that becomes their home for the week. Parents, who are often stretched thin at home with medical bills and doctor visits, never have to say “no” to their children while they’re here.

There are over 1500 volunteer shifts that are filled each and every week. The individuals that donate their time week-in and week-out are truly an inspiration. Our “Angels,” as they’re called, are simply amazing. The Village’s Corporate Heroes are also wonderful. They say GKTW was built on handshakes, not contracts, and I’ve found that still holds true to this day. There are so many companies that give monetary and in-kind donations, as well as their time. Even in this economy, companies continue to have huge hearts for our cause.

The Village’s tagline is “Where happiness inspires hope,” and I’ve found that to be the truth. When kids learn that they’ll be visiting GKTW, it gives them and their families something to look forward to while spending time in the hospital. When they’re here, a lot of times it’s the first time the family has really had a chance to laugh and spend time together. After they leave, the memories of their time here makes them stronger and makes the bad days not seem as bad.

It’s important to know that GKTW isn’t a sad place or a place for mourning– it’s a place for the opposite. Everyday is a celebration of life and family and giving these families what they truly deserve– a chance to spend time together and create special memories.

So for those of you have been wondering what this place I work for does, there you have it in my words. If you’d like to donate, please read my disclaimer: This isn’t a limited time offer and no one should feel obligated; I’m just going to keep this page over the next couple of years for anyone who wants to help out. This also is not a plea—but in order to keep giving these families the best experience imaginable, every bit helps. And rest assured, your money really does go to the families– Worth Magazine recently named GKTW as the number one most fiscally-responsible charity in the US.

Voting for this month goes through June 30th, and you are allowed one vote per day. Every vote counts, and anyone who finds this post and company to be as amazing as I do is respectively asked to take one minute a day and please cast your vote to them. I’ve even gone as far as setting my browser’s home page to the voting page for the month so there’s not a chance I’ll forget. Myself, Kara and everyone involved in the company all thank you in advance!

Pepsi Refresh Everything: VOTE for Give Kids the World!