Collin on Coasters: Track to the Future

Happy New Year blog readers! I hope your last year was great and that your new year will be filled with great memories as well. It is time to blog about our family trip to the Holiwood Nights coaster enthusiast event at Holiday World this past May. The event is always titled after a specific movie so this year it was titled Track to the Future obviously in reference to Back to the Future. The event was immediately put on my radar when Holiday World announced their new B&M wing coaster Thunderbird back in July. Usually when a park in the area builds a $20+ million dollar roller coaster I find a way to get there!

Event Name

Thunderbird!

That's my girl

The event was held Friday, May 29th and Saturday the 30th. We left Birmingham Friday morning and arrived in Santa Claus,Indiana mid-afternoon. It really wasn't a bad drive topping out at around five hours. The kids did surprisingly well too. So what do you do when you arrive in Santa Claus Indiana? You check in at the Santa’s Lodge of course. Well that is what we did anyway. Santa’s Lodge is, unfortunately, the only hotel to stay at within 10 miles of Holiday World. If you were to say a Hampton Inn was compared to Honda Accord then Santa’s Lodge would be a Ford Focus (and that is being generous). If you go on TripAdvisor, which I always do when trying to choose a hotel, you will notice that Santa’s lodge comes in at the #1 hotel in Santa Claus. That is because it is the only hotel in Santa Claus! I will say this about the Santa’s Lodge; it may be dated in a 1980’s style but it was clean and close to the park which was acceptable in my book.

We all love Holiday World

Ashley has a Christmas tree growing out of her head

We bought our tickets for the event online which allowed us to enter Holiday World on Friday at 4:30pm. When we arrived at the park I wasn’t surprised to see a long line of enthusiasts waiting to get into the park. I was however surprised to see how long it took for us to get into the park. We waited well over 30 minutes before we entered the nicely decorated Christmas entrance plaza area of the park. I try not to be negative (especially when it comes to Holiday World) but they were off their game initially during the sign in process. The good news is that this would be the only time I could criticize Holiday World for the rest of the event.

Welcome to the front of the park

Love the FREE soft drinks!

We now had about an hour before the scheduled ERT session in the waterpark so we made our way down to the waterpark area. Bri enjoyed stopping by all of the decorated wooden cutouts and putting her face through them. We made it to the waterpark, changed, and waited for the start of ERT which could be on the park’s two incredible water coasters: Wildebeest and Mammoth. I am sure I have said this once before but let me say it again with emphasis; WILDEBEEST AND MAMMOTH ARE THE BEST TWO WATER RIDES THAT I HAVE EVER RIDDEN. Like seriously, ever, and it is not even close. If you are able to get to Holiday World simply to ride these two rides then you have gotten your admissions worth.

Bri is a ghost

Bri is a pilgrim

Wildebeest has more airtime than most roller coasters and I am not even kidding. You also get totally soaked when you ride. There are misters in the tunnels and water elements everywhere. Mammoth inexplicably has the coldest water of any water ride out there. I have no idea how Holiday World does it but they must use some sort of magic water to keep it that cold. You can ride Wildebeest and the water is just right, yet once you ride Mammoth you are sent an artic chill that is most appreciated on the warmest of days. Oh, and did I mention that Mammoth has airtime too? Yup, it does and it is a fabulous ride just like Wildebeest.

Best two water rides in the world

Awwwwww

We were each able to get about two rides in on both Wildebeest and Mammoth in the two hours they were open for ERT. In between the ERT sessions Holiday World rolled out the red carpet for everyone, as they always do, by feeding us some tasty finger foods like chicken bites, cheeses, and cookies. The Bahari Wave pool was open during this time too so we took advantage of that. It was amusing to watch Landyn try and think she could swim by running wildly into the waves. I was there to save her from drowning of course!

Bri loves the carousel...

...and Howler

We left the waterpark area and made our way over to the Thanksgiving area of the park. Keep in mind that the park was now closed to the general public. Holiday World graciously had all of the roller coasters open as well as Turkey Whirl, Mayflower, and Gobbler Getaway from 7:30pm until 11pm. Bri wanted to ride some rides so I rode Turkey Whirl (tilt-a-whirl ride) with her. She loves that ride. It is funny to watch her facial expression when the turkey car starts spinning really fast. She has that, “why am I riding this, please stop the spinning” look, but she keeps riding so that is good.

Get ready to whirl

Landyn is looking to ride something

After Turkey Whirl Ashley took Bri to ride Mayflower the parks swinging ship ride. It was a tad too intense for Bri but she said, reluctantly, that she enjoyed it. We all then walked what felt like a mile to get to the parks newest attraction: Thunderbird. Ashley rode first while I watched the kids. When she got back she said it was a fun ride and that she had enjoyed it. I was able to get back to back rides on Thunderbird since there was no line. I am not going to go into much detail about the ride here but I may write about it in a future blog post so be on the lookout! I will say that I think Thunderbird is a perfect roller coaster addition to Holiday World and is in my opinion the best of the wing style roller coasters out there (I have personally ridden three of them).

Excited to ride Mayflower

Ashley rode a few more of the open rides (turkey whirl, mayflower, and gobbler getaway) with Bri and I rode Voyage back to back after that. I will say that Voyage is a very intense wooden coaster but really is quite shaky/rough now, mostly on the last half of the ride. I still enjoy it though and keep going back for the intense ride it offers. I am no wuss when it comes to rougher wooden coasters, so I will keep riding. I am sure Holiday World will continue to re-track the ride to make it better. I am not saying that I didn’t like Voyage but it has gotten a lot harder to re-ride as much as I used to.

Now your time to sail away, your Voyage begins without delay

We were getting hungry since it was probably well after 9:00pm at this point. The snacks had long last left us. Ashley was gracious enough to go towards the front of the park and grab our dinner (pizza, chips, veggies, and fudge) that Holiday World provided for everyone. I went back up the hill to Thunderbird and I got in four more rides before we all called it a night. We also enjoyed our food at this time and it was very good. I was a little surprised we all left the park together, shortly before 11:00 pm. I had initially planned to walk, alone, back to the hotel but we all made it to the late hour. The kids did fantastic so Ashley decided to stick around until the end. Day one of Holiwood Nights was now complete.

Look! A bird is coming out of the barn!

Thunderbird theming

Day two of the event was now upon us. We made it over to Holiday World around 10:00am when the park opened. Bri wanted to ride some rides so we went into the kiddie area located directly off to the left of the entrance plaza. It is a nice area with a carousel, plane ride, fish ride, Santa ride, and drop tower. Landyn even got to ride the carousel ride which was cute.

Nice kids area

Bri's neck magically gets longer when she rides the fish ride

Awwwwww

We slowly started making our way to the waterpark. Bri and I rode the Scarecrow Scrambler which was fun. Then we made our way down into the waterpark. Once the waterpark was open we played in the Monsoon Lagoon water treehouse structure that Bri loves. She had a blast climbing up the tower and then going down the water slides. It is a great ride for kids and adults to enjoy. After spending a good amount of time there we made our way over to another one of Bri’s favorite rides the Jungle Racers. This is a ten lane across mat racer waterslide with three big drops. It is a really fun ride that both Ashley and I took turns riding with Bri.

Not Monsoon Lagoon but a ride similar

Racing on the Jungle Slides

We took Landyn over to the Safari Sam’s water playground area. They have water jets, a small pool, and a bunch of really great waterslides for young kids. As a parent you can even slide down some of the waterslides with your small child. This was great for us and Landyn. She seemed to have a good time and so did Bri. Bri went down most of the slides on her own. Seriously, more parks need to build this type of thing since it is ideal for families with small children.

Awesome kids water slide area

After we were done with the waterpark, which was insanely crowded, we made our way over to where Thunderbird is located. Ashley and I took turns riding the 60 foot swing ride called Crow’s Nest with Bri. Bri got to ride most things twice because she would usually ride once with me and once with Ashley. Lucky her. After that I waited in a 10-15 minute line for Thunderbird which I thought was pretty good considering it was a Saturday afternoon. Then we made our way down the hill and took a ride on Mayflower followed by Gobbler Getaway.

We love Holiday World!

It was at this point we were getting hungry so we decided to grab some food from Plymouth Rock Café. This is, in my opinion,the best place to eat food inside Holiday World. Where else can you get a full out Thanksgiving feast inside a theme park? All of us shared a huge adult meal portion of food including BBQ pork, mac n cheese, green beans, and sweet potatoes. It was absolutely delicious! They also have many other options for food inside this nicely decorated sit down restaurant.