Sabrina's Brochure Spotlight: Holiday World 2000

As usual, Mike has read my mind and published a great lead-in post for this week's SBS. From one wonderfully themed park to another, this week we take a virtual trip to Holiday World!

Oh, to be the middle child... A Legend was born at Holiday World in 2000 [cheesy pun intended]. At the time, its older sibling The Raven was a rambunctious 5-year-old. And The Voyage? Well, it wasn't even a twinkle in the Kochs' eyes! Today this trio of wooden prodigies makes a lovely family, although one can't help but wonder if The Voyage is also destined to become a middle child someday... *COUGH COUGH* Oh, excuse me--I seem to have something in my throat!!

The Legend was obviously the big headliner in 2000, but it was (and still is) in good company. The folks at Holiday World have a real knack for taking basic, staple attractions found at parks across the globe and kicking them up a notch with fantastic theming. And c'mon, where else can you visit jolly old St. Nick any day you want? He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, and he knows when you're screaming your head off! [Another cheesy Legend pun there. Anybody get it? No? Stand-up comedy is not in my future? Sigh... Do I at least get an "A" for effort??]

This spread gives a great overview of all the water attractions featured at Splashin' Safari back in 2000. Hey, were those inner tubes made to look like they have tiger stripes? How quaint! Obviously the theming does not end with the dry rides at this park.

Normally I wouldn't include lodging pages in SBS. But when you have the option of staying at places like "Lake Rudolph" and "Santa's Lodge"? Well by gosh, by golly--That's just fun! The map section is also helpful, and includes estimated driving times from various landmark cities.

Who said there's no such thing as a free soft drink? Holiday World challenges that statement! Truth be told, I'm sure this perk is built into the cost of admission. But regardless, it is a really convenient perk, and one that I wish more parks would adopt.

And finally, we conclude with this great shot of Monsoon Lagoon and its "twelve levels of interactive family fun".

Pilgrims Progress

© 2009 Holiday World

New photos of Pilgrims Plunge are available on Holiday World's official Facebook page. Now that vertical construction has been started, the ride is going up fast. The park expects to 'top off' the ride sometime next week, so long as things go to plan.

Even though I've said it before it also still stands true that the ride's station and queue building is awesome looking!

Click here to check out the photos.

Aerial Antics: Wiener Prater

Wiener Prater is an amusement park located in Vienna, Austria. It's almost a Coney Island type set up where many vendors share the area and each attraction is pay as you go.

This makes for some great competition between operators to have the newest, coolest, baddest rides though, which is pretty great. Just check out the rides page on their website to see the variety of what's offered on property.
Here's an interesting coaster, it's a custom Vekoma ride called Megablitz that was added back in 1994. Lots of track packed in a small space on that one. Also the blue tower in the bottom left of the image is a Starflyer - which is something I'd love to ride.
Here is the Hochschaubahn - this is really a scenic railway at heart, opened back in 1950. The side friction wooden coaster actually has brakemen on the back of the trains to control the speed!

And here's two more attractions - like Volare, a Zamperla flying roller coaster painted in bright red and yellow. The park also has a Vekoma Boomerang as well.

The unique water ride on the left is Wildalpenbahn. The River Splash was created by ABC Rides and has a vertical lift hill and sections in a flume like a water slide and parts that are in a river, like a more tradition river rapids.

As always, to check out the aerials of Prater yourself, click here.

A Cobra and a Nighthawk

Carowinds has uploaded some new photos of the Carolina Cobra's new trains on the track ready to be tested. I hope the reviews of the new style of trains are good once the ride opens! Boomerangs do not have the best reputation for rider comfort.

Here are those photos.

The park also released some new photos of the new paint job for Nighthawk which I think looks wonderful. The ride really stands out now.

Drachen Fire POV Video

I know this is rather random, but Drachen Fire's decent place in last month's poll led me to seek out a POV of the ride for old times sake.

Plus - I really got nothing interesting today - slow news day!

1990 (?) Worlds of Fun Map

Moving things around in my big closet-o-amusement-industry-stuff is always fun because I end up finding treasures like this 1990 park map from Worlds of Fun.

I have the question mark in the post title by the year because I can't be sure it's not from 1989. Timber Wolf was new that year, and the press materials I have are a jumbled mess of items from '89 and also from '90.

The Timber Wolf was - understandably - a huge deal for the park and really put it on the map for enthusiasts and the general public as well. Don't get it wrong, it wasn't struggling before the addition of the ride, but the park started a new era of sorts with the wooden coaster.

But here's the map that this post is supposed to be about. Warning for those clicking on it, it's like a 2 or so mb image.

So what can be seen on this map that's of interest? Let's look...

• The Orient Express is still at the park, the big coaster at the bottom of the map. The Arrow custom looping ride was removed after the 2003 season.
• On the far left we see the Python Plunge wet/dry slide tower - removed a while ago but worth pointing out as that is generally the location of Prowler's station and plaza.
• Also in the Africa section of the park we see the Zambezi Zinger, a Schwarzkopf speed racer coaster, the ride was removed after the 1997 season. You can still ride it if you find yourself in Columbia, though.
• Both entrances to the park, one in Scandinavia and one in Americana, were in use.
• The upper right corner features the Timber Wolf, the still new and super popular wooden coaster.