| TR: Worlds of Fun 6/11+12/08
Hello everyone! I'm at my hotel about 10 minutes away from Holiday World now, so I figured I should get on with my first trip report!
Day 1: I couldn't sleep very well, so I ended up getting out of bed at around 5:40AM. I needed that time to finish packing anyway. After a few goodbyes with my parents, I took off on my adventure at about 8:10AM. It rained lightly off and on most of the way to Kansas City, with the worst happening as I was passing Des Moines. The rain got so heavy that you had to go no more than 20 MPH... I had my defoggers on, my wipers at full speed, and I was leaning over the steering wheel, and I still had a hard time seeing the road. Fortunately that didn't last too long. I arrived at the parking lot of WoF at about 3:30PM or so. I only had to stop for gas once (I love my Subaru Legacy!).
The park was pretty empty. The lines only went outside of the station platform once or twice. Of course, they were only running one train on all of their coasters. The actually had the nerve to run only one train on boomerang (lol A ride op thought the anecdote about the person who moved a sign that said "Only running one train today, expect significant delays" in front of a boomerang was hillarious).
I figured the best way to start the day would be with Patriot, so I headed over there first. To my surprise, there was basically no line. Seeing as how I am a single rider, I got to skip to the front of the line quite a few times, and I even got people to let me sit where I wanted to (Excuse me, Sir/Mam, would you mind if I sit on the _____ side?). I have heard mixed reviews about Patriot, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I liked it a lot, with my favorite seats being 1-RR and 7-RR (Don't inverts usually have 8?).
It has a nice pace, and the first drop is pretty cool. It pulls some nice Gs at the bottom before you go into the loop. I thought the photo section at the bottom of the loop in the little turn was a little awkward though. I have always wanted to see a photo section at the top of an element, because I think that would get a lot funnier pictures. You get some really nice lats in the zero-g roll on the right side of the train, in addition to that wonderful floater air. Now this part seems hard for me to believe: I don't think I have ever been through an immellman (dang I can never remember how to spell that...) on an invert before Patriot. It gives a nice little foot chopper on the way down before the first helix. The ride slows down a little as it goes through the camel back (I thought a wingover would have been a better element choice), but you do get some nice ejector air on the way down. The wingover was really smooth, and gave some more nice lats. The helix followup has some nice positive Gs followed by a quick bit of ejector as you dip down the final hill before the brakes. I noticed a strong pop of lats right as you enter the brakes. I also noticed a cell phone on the brakes, and a ride op said that there were supposedly 12 cell phones lost just that day. I'm glad I have the foresight to wear pants with button pockets.
Overall I thought it was a very fun ride. Nice and smooth, good elements, good pacing, good Gs. I would love to have even a clone of this at VF. I wasn't counting, but I spent most of my time at Patriot, so I think I got about 15 rides in.
After riding Patriot 3 or 4 times, I decided it was time to move on to another coaster. I wasn't familiar with what rides they had, so I looked at a park map and saw their wooden coaster, Timber Wolf, was on the way. The first thing I noticed was all of the signs that said, "Warning. You will experience intense ride jostling. Worlds of Fun is not responsible for any discomfort you experience," which got me a little worried as I have a hard time absorbing the shocks.
There were more ride ops than guests in the station, so I had my pick of any row. I decided to try out the last row. Holy crap do they need to fix this ride. The cars wouldn't stay straight on the tracks, it was really rough (not SoB rough though), and there were several straight, flat sections of track. Some of the tansitions were kind of jerky too. I think the worst part was the big helix. Sitting in the back seat on the right side, I watched how the cars in front of me were moving (ala NL ride testing), and it looked like a noob built it. The banking gets lower about half-way up, and the cars kept shifting and twisting. The front was even worse, especially row 2 of the first car. There was some okay air time in it at least.
After riding Timber Wolf a few times, I headed over to Mamba so I could finally compare it with Wild Thing. One train operation caused what should have been a 5 minute wait to be a 25 minute wait. I headed straight for the back seat (favorite spot on WT). It had about the same amount of ejector as WT on the first drop, and the second drop was basically a smaller version of the first drop. The big helix is really powerful, and has some nice head choppers towards the end. There was some nice airtime on the hill up to the MCBR, and the bunny hops were about the same as on WT. The double up gave a nice pop of air. There is one thing I noticed at the end during the S-curve to the brake run that I have noticed on WT. There is a bit of a jerky transition where the train banks, then turns suddenly, which causes a jolt to the riders and some awkward lats. I noticed the same thing on WT right before you enter the helix around the go-kart track.
All in all, I think that Mamba has a lot more ejector than Wild Thing, but Wild Thing has a better twister section.
I did one more ride on Mamba in 1-3-R, then headed to Boomerang. This was literally a walk on. There was only a few people there at a time, so I could choose whatever seat I wanted with no wait. I went to the back first. I expected it to be sit-n-bang, but was surprised to find that it was quite smooth if you know how to hold your head correctly >^_^< All I had to do was lean forward into the harness so my head wasn't able to bang against the seat or restraints, and look in the direction of the turns. I rode this a few times since there was no line and it was a little entertaining. Then I decided to ride Spinning Dragons (Timberland Twister clone) on my way back to Patriot. After that, I pretty much repeated my pattern from before, but then I just stayed at Patriot until close.
I had some interesting conversations, like with a kid from St. Louis who thought that Mr. Freeze was faster than TTD. I actually guessed right when I told him that it goes no more than 70 MPH. Little kids and their wild fantasies lol.
There was a HUGE storm that night. Lots of super heavy rain and lots and lots of lightning. In fact, there was a power surge that knocked out the internet right as I was in an almost full group in Tabula Rasa owning a control point...
Day 2: I slept in a bit and got to the park at around 11:30. It was even emptier than the first day. The forecast was for rain, so I knew that if I lugged around my VF rain suit all day, it wouldn't rain while I was there (worked at CP two years ago 8P). I literally walked onto Patriot first thing. I walked into the station and got onto the train with zero wait. I basically did the same thing as the previous day, but I only rode Timberwolf once, and I rode Mamba a lot more.
I left at about 5:30 or so after a final ride on Patriot in 1-RR.
My overall impression of the park: Basically the same quality as Valleyfair. Both have Morgan hypers and shuttle coasters, but VF has a way better wooden coaster (Renegade > Timberwolf). Of course, WoF has a custom B&M invert.
Anyway, tomorrow's forcast is cloudy. It was raining with lots of lightning when I got to HW, so I wasn't able to get anything in today, but with any luck I will get to have my first ride on Voyage, and my first rides on Raven and Legend since about 2002 (HW was the 2nd stop on my very first coaster trip).
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^EL TORO^ RULES!!!
Last edited by GaleRazorwind; 06-14-2008 at 08:48 AM..
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