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.

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