After visiting Holiday World for the very first time ever in August and Draven, Lauri and I loving the park and declaring it our favorite park ever when I saw that they had Halloween weekends I made a plan to take Lauri here for her birthday (which was October 13th).
We got lucky, because apparently this shindig hasn't caught on yet...
We got in the night before and when we got to the park, we were greeted by an old friend...
I love the Raven, but it holds no candle to my all-time favorite nestled back in the Thanksgiving section...
We are looking around and Holiday World true to form has made a family friendly low key Halloween theme. It's a vast difference from your typical, but we expected it, and honestly, it's sort of welcome compared to the "in your face" style that Six Flags does - I still love that style, but this is a nice change of pace.
Here's Lauri and Draven at Santa Claus.
and Draven and I in front of the haunted Tram. I know, please hold back your pure terror
As we are walking through the park, you can see the cool internal decoration contest done by each of the departments. Here's some of the best / ones I liked the most...
Rides
Management
and my personal favorite... The IT Department - shocking, I know...
Office Space FTW!
We race to Voyage to ride it first thing in the morning, and thankfully, we get right there, and I score the vaunted 1.2 seat (Thanks Paul!). And don't move my ass for a good 35 minutes as we ride continuously. All in all, in 1 hour of riding, we got 13 rides in. It was awesome.
The Lead Ride Op sees me trying to take a picture of Lauri and Draven, and next thing you know she's taking my camera on the track and getting a vantage point NOONE could ever get
It's stuff like this that makes my family love this park and why it was our favorite after 1 visit.
After we ride for a ton, we decide that we are gonna hit the Corn Maze, (which the overhead view is phenominal).
From that vantage point it doesn't seem like much, but after 25 minutes and seeing this, it was no joke.
I'm slightly mazed and cornfused, but since I'm normally like that, it phases me not...
After the corn maze and walking, we decide we need a nice relaxing sit.
After our relaxing sit down, we checked out the shows such as the magic show and their music review. I'm no huge fan of shows like these as I am a "road dog" and go to amusement parks to ride rides, but since we only have Voyage and Raven to do, I thought it would be cool to check them out..
Both were really cool, and fun. At this point I am convinced that Holiday World is so world class from the last trip and this one that anything they do is phenominal. I was a fan before, but hooked now. I wish I lived closer then 6 hours away
Some of the other stuff they had going was a chainsaw carver, pumpkin decorations and Trick or Treat trails. All super cool! All fun...
Everything there decoration-wise was pretty low key but they really put some thought into incorporating it...
Kringle's Kafe - now with Kreepy!
Eagle's Fright - which by the way is a great flat...
Spookler
Hallowswings. Yes. I know. Not changed. Like at all. I just like this picture
The Christmas Tree looks a little different. I just can't place why per se...
We went into Holidog's 3D Adventure / spook house, and wow, the blacklight 3D effect really popped and seemed very cool. I only hope they do more of these "haunts" next year!
I'm sure I broke some fire code / turned a kid goofy by taking a flash picture inside of the 3D house.
It was getting dark, so we went immediately to get some night rides in. First off - Voyage!
After riding it 2 times in a row (I couldn't let Draven ride by himself. See, I'm selfless like that!) - all I can say is wow. The ride is super fast and fluid and dare I say, vicious in daylight. But under the cover of darkness, the ride is so SO much better! It was a 9.5 during the day, but at night I have to give it my highest rating. 10 Thumbs up (kudos to anyone who gets that reference)
Draven says that the Voyage is a demon at night. I tend to agree. After our onslaught with The Voyage we rush to Raven, which last visit gave us an awesome night ride through the woods and lake, and this time was no different. It's no Voyage, but lord, what is...
And apparently hanuted by ghosts as well...
Some random night shots...
At the close of the night they unveiled their new Laser light show. Thinking that it would be a couple minutes and sorta hokey / kiddish, Holiday World blew us away with a super cool multimedia "explosion". To call it hokey would be a vast overestimation, and we all had a ton of fun. I'm stoked that they have announced they are continuing this during the summer at night, as the ENTIRE crowd that was in the park had a ton of fun.
As a surprise I captured the entire show to place on YouTube - since not many people from here could come to the park during Halloween.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ghuushmFUs
Always bummed to see this sight at the end of an awesome day. But, Holiwood Nights isn't THAT far away!
To see all the photos above as well as the other 70+ click on here to see them in Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 082573e99c