Today, the former Santa Claus Land area serves as the park entry plaza but does not contain any major attractions.
In 1984, the park was given its current name and expanded beyond the scope of Christmas to cover the Fourth of July and Halloween.
In 1995, Holiday World put itself on the roller coaster map by installing Raven, a wooden coaster in the Halloween area of the park. Although a ride on a smaller scale, I was still greatly impressed by this coaster and its wooded setting.
Along with the "Scarecrow Scrambler," the Hallowswings is a lavishly decorated Wave Swinger.
The Legend is the other wooden coaster in the Halloween area, and it opened in 2001. This was another spectacular ride that took me off-guard. It's currently my fifth favorite wooden coaster.
In 2006, Holiday World opened its largest expansion yet, a new Thanksgiving-themed area of the park.
The Voyage is the park's main attraction, and I had high expectations for this ride. I wasn't disappointed, as this 2006 ride - the second longest wooden coaster in the world - is now my favorite roller coaster.
The Thanksgiving section also features a shooting darkride called "Gobbler Getaway," in which you have to "call" (not shoot) turkeys that have escaped. But as you can see below, in the end, everyone just has pizza instead.
The park's next major expansion was in 2015 with the Thunderbird coaster in the Thanksgiving area. This is a wing coaster, which means that the seats are cantilevered out to either side of the track. (It was also a ride made for social distancing!)
The last themed area in Holiday World is the Fourth of July, which is home to an assortment of typical flat rides. This was a park that I had wanted to visit for many years, and despite the less-than-ideal circumstances this year, I still enjoyed Holiday World and its three wooden coasters!
6 comments:
This looks like a fun and well-maintained park! I like the concept for their shooting dark ride and the fact that you aren't shooting at the turkeys. I also like the idea of the family having a pizza at the end!
Is that a water tower in the first pic?
Thanks for giving us your trip report for this park!
I'm glad you liked the post, TokyoMagic! Yes, that is a water tower, and they had just painted it, too!
Andrew, I am really enjoying your blog.
It's so interesting how many small independent parks there are across the country.
Living in California as a kid, most of the parks were in Southern California, and none where I lived except the tiny Storyland in Fresno.
Later the Great America park opened in the Bay area and there was a Marine World park in Vallejo, but these came too late for my childhood, and do not resemble these little parks that you post in any way.
I got one visit to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk where Ken worked, and even that was a long way off.
Thanks!
JG
I'm glad that it's giving you some perspective, JG. California (and Pennsylvania :-) are both up there in the states that have the best amusement parks, so you certainly were lucky. For me, the eye-opener was when I found out about the Disney parks.
Wait - there are Disney parks, too???!!!
Don't bother, Chuck... they don't have any good roller coasters. I mean, they pretty much never even go upside down!
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