HolidayWorld......World class Coasters, Water Park, and Staff

HolidayWorld and Splashin' Safari, you have probably heard of this amusement and water park if you have ever seen any of the Travel Channel's amusement park shows or even on National Geographic's Tough Fixes. This small amusement park located between Louisville, KY and Evansville, IN in the hills of the Ohio river valley, is the major highlight of Santa Claus, Indiana. Even though it is in a small town in Indiana, this park should be a highlight for any family, amusement park industry worker, or amusement park owner across the United states. Why you might ask? Just for starters, at this park,the owners greet guests on the way in and thank them for visiting upon exiting the park.....IN PERSON. Something that only Walt Disney had been to known to do at Disneyland when he was alive. The hospitality doesn't just stop with the owners, all of the employees seem genuinely glad to work there are take pride in keeping the park "the cleanest amusement park in the world."

Beautiful Saturday afternoon, not a cloud in the sky!

Matt's Firehouse Family Vacation Troop posing for a Picture.

HolidayWorld is smaller than many Six Flags or Cedar Fair parks(Cedar Point, Michigan Adventure, or Knott's Berry Farm) that dot the the United States, but they have world class coasters and record breaking water rides that make any journey to this park worth the trip.This park is divided up into the holidays of Halloween, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas; all the rides are themed to the specific land they are in.

The Raven

HolidayWorld's star attractions are their three World Class Wooden Coasters, The Raven, The Legend, and the wooden Roller Coaster with most airtime in the world, The Voyage.  Guests catch their first glimpse of  The Raven at the entrance of the park. This coaster is very well laid out and a nice jaunt through the woods and over a small section of a lake. This coaster starts out kind of okay, but once you hit the second hill, this coaster shows why it was voted #1 Wooden Roller Coaster between 2000 and 2003; a very nice accomplishment for a small amusement park to have for its ride inventory!

HolidayWorld didn't stop with The Raven; The Legend was the next coaster to be built, running through the woods and beneath the water park attractions with amazing tunnels and tight turns. This coaster was able to lay claim to the #1 wood roller coaster graciously borrowing the title from the Raven. This is a truly amazing coaster. The tunnels add dark thrills and as an added extra touch, there is a wolf howl as you crest the first hill. The Legend truly lives up to its name, this coaster is legendary.

The Legend

The Legend's reign as #1 wooden coaster was short lived until The Voyage arrived in the park. This is truly one of the best wooden roller coasters in existence.  The combination of extreme air time, speed, forest environment, 90 degree banked curves, and massive tunnels easily lets this coaster top any coaster enthusiast list (I am going to have to update my list!), and that is just the first half of the coaster! The return trip is just as exciting and  when you catch a glimpse of the station and think the ride is over, you are surprised with another tunnel and more 90 degree banked turns. This Coaster takes hold of you and doesn't let go of you until the final brake run. These coasters are something any coaster fan should not miss!

Add the element of the dark night sky or silhouette of a full moon and you have pure coaster magic!

The Voyage #1 wooden roller coaster in the United States if not the world.

Matt's Firehouse Family Vacations Coaster Crew having a blast on the Voyage.

Now in the valley of the hills of HolidayWorld is Splashin Safari. In the shadows of the Voyage and over the top of the Legend lies this world class water park which is included in your admission.  There are many standard water park slides and attractions here, all of which are worth riding. The stars that have graced this valley in recent years are the brand new water coasters. That's right water coasters! They aren't just any water coasters either; they are longest and second longest water coasters in the United States! Wildebeest was the first built and held the title of the longest water coaster for about  2 years until its big brother Mammoth opened right next to it this year(2012).  Both of these rides are marvels to look at and a marvel of technology using LIMS to power riders up hill in rafts. We were only able to ride Wildebeest this trip because of the long lines both of these rides quickly gained once the the water park opened; at one point Mammoth had a mammoth of a line at 2 hours long. A nice tip if you are going to ride either of these water coasters, wear a pair of goggles so you can see where your going. Also in the water park is ZOOMbabwe, the World's Largest Enclosed Water slide. This was a treat to ride and there are interesting holes punched into the slide's enclosure that make different  masks designs that zoom by.

The Voyage as seen from the water park, Tubes are free also!!!

One of two wave pools, man this place is clean

Wildebeest is hiding behind Bakuli , it is the red and yellow slide in the background. 

Entrance to one of the two lazy rivers. Notice how clean this park is?

One of the several kid's areas Kima Bay

 The water park and amusement park share a record breaking ride that can be accessed from both parks. It is the world's tallest water ride; The Pilgrims Plunge. It is in the Thanksgiving area of the park kind of off by itself currently(maybe that will change with future expansion of the park). It has a very unique look to it and fun elevator ride to the top. The splash down is disappointing, but you will get wet. The view of the park is spectacular from the top and it is worth riding just to feel the un-natural tilt of the boat on the lift to the top. If you don't want to get your belongings wet there are free lockers available, all of the coasters also had free lockers to store stuff as well, another perk this park offers that many other parks don't.

Pilgrim's Plunge the world's tallest water ride

Disappointing Splash down, I was hoping to get more wet than we did.

Looks more spectacular than it is

Long lines were not generally present on either of the 2 days we were at this park. As matter of fact when we arrived at the park on Friday afternoon, we had absolutely no wait on any of the Roller Coasters in the amusement park section. The longest wait we had was for the Turkey tilt-a-whirl and Hallowswings because of load times. We didn't attempt to go to the water park on Friday at all to use the water slides, but did a quick walk through on our way to ride The Pilgrims Plunge.The lines appeared short and manageable at that time. Saturday was a different beast all together. Locals from Louisville, Evansville, and surrounding areas descended on the park quickly filling the water park and lines got long within a half hour of the water park opening( the water park opens an hour after the amusement park). We were able to ride several of the water  slides but eventually gave up and headed back into the amusement park. The lines in the amusement park for the Roller Coasters were about a half hour wait and the other rides were pretty much walk-on until the water park closed. Another great tip about this park, visit during the week, the crowds should be shorter.

So you’re not a roller coaster or water ride fan? HolidayWorld, which is built on a hillside, has something for everyone in the family. Relaxing antique cars, classic swings, merry-go-round, many children's areas, live shows (music and diving show), FREE soft drinks, shaded pathways, home-made fudge, bumper cars, Santa Claus, FREE soft drinks, train ride, water splash areas,a dark "shooter" turkey ride, turkey tilt-a-whirl, and did I mention FREE soft drinks? For you entire stay at the park, you get FREE unlimited soft drinks and Gatorade!!!!At other amusement parks you are lucky to walk away with an overpriced $6 small pop. Oh and if you forget your sunscreen, they've got you covered there as well with FREE sunscreen.



Lodging can be an issue when it comes to HolidayWorld if you plan on visiting for more than a day. We made the mistake of choosing to stay in Jasper, Indiana. Jasper is about 30 minutes away and there is no need to travel to this town for lodging. Located right next door to HolidayWorld is Lake Rudolph Campground. This campground offers many different lodging options from tent camping sites, RV sites, and  nestled amongst the woods very nice cabins. The cabins can be kind of pricey but are worth every penny. We have stayed in similar cabins at Cedar Point and enjoyed them very much.You can walk or take the shuttle from Lake Rudolph to the front gates of HolidayWorld, which is a great convenience. Just down the road there is another establishment called Santa's Cottages, these also are cabins/cottages that are pricey, but well worth it for any family. Both Lodging locations book fast, so make sure you get those reservations in early! We will be staying at one these establishments on our next trip to HolidayWorld(yes we will be going back there again; the 7 hour drive for us, is well worth it). There are a few other lodgings near HolidayWorld which we didn't have time to check out, but once again there is no need to head Jasper for lodging.

If you haven't heard about HolidayWorld by now, that may change in the near future because they were shooting a 'Sizzle" reel recently to possibly have a reality show filmed there. Film crews and TV shows will continue to showcase this place based on its record breaking coaster collection and water rides. The theme park industry as a whole can learn from HolidayWorld and follow their examples in hopes to win some of the awards they have won. Here are few examples of what has been bestowed upon them:

Friendliest Park1998–2008,
Cleanest Park2000–2011
Best Wooden Roller Coaster 2000–2003 The Raven
Best Wooden Roller Coaster 2007–2011 The Voyage
Best New Ride 2006 he Voyage
Best New Waterpark Ride 2006 Bahari River
Best New Waterpark Ride2007 Bakuli
Best New Waterpark Ride 2010 Wildebeest
Best Waterpark Ride 2003 Zinga
Best Waterpark Ride 2010–2011 Wildebeest

We truly enjoyed our visit to HolidayWorld and plan on returning to not only enjoy the parks, but to explore many other of the area's attractions. Seeing this park on TV really doesn't do the park justice.Their collection of record breaking rides, scenic location, and amazing hospitality needs to be experienced in person to understand how amazing this park really is.

Enjoy some of our other pictures and share your stories about HolidayWorld! 

Scenic drive from the Louisville area to Santa Claus, IN

We are almost there!!!!!

Our first view of the Voyage and Pilgrim's Plunge! Two Record breakers soooo close!

Once in the entrance it becomes Christmas... Look how clean this place is!

Granny tells you how to call turkeys in the "shooter" dark ride

Pilgrim's Plunge splash down pool and station

Turkey Tilt-a-Whirl, our girls decided to name their turkeys...yea they are weird like that.

Holidog!

Splash area for kids.... and adults

Nicely themed bumper cars

The Sparkler New for 2012

wow, this place is clean!

HallowSwings nicely themed to Halloween

It is always Christmas at HolidayWorld.
Hope you enjoyed our pics.

Indiana Beach Amusement Resort.... An Oasis in Corn Country

The Norway Dam that creates Lake Shafer

Indiana Beach Amusement Resort, maybe you have heard of it, maybe you haven't. It has been in  Indiana's corn country and out in the middle of nowhere since the 1920's. It sits next to and on top of Lake Shafer, an artificial lake that was formed with the creation of the Norway Dam on the Tippecanoe River. With the formation of this lake, an oasis rose in an area full of corn farms, drawing many families to the area to snap up this newly created waterfront property for summer vacation homes. Back then one family saw the potential of this newly created water front property and literally built a beach to provide a place for people to enjoy water activities. This was the modest beginnings of Indiana Beach, which since then has grown into "Indiana's largest Resort and Vacation Playground" advertising over 40 rides and attractions, games, fine dining, dancing, an exciting Waterpark, and six roller coasters.

One of the few highlights of the trip to Indiana beach

As mentioned before, Indiana Beach is in the middle of nowhere, making it a boring trip through corn country on two lane roads and through small towns. Occasionally in the small towns there will be interesting sites or signs. One that stood out was near Knox, Indiana  pointed out it was 1080 miles to DisneyWorld. Wish we would have gotten a picture, but we were on limited time and on a mission to see what has made Indiana Beach thrive in the middle of corn country.  Adding to fuel the desire to visit this amusement resort is that this park could easily be on the verge of extinction.

Corn as far as the eye can see

This assumption  is based on the sudden closure at the end of the season of 2011 and protest by former employees claiming the new owners are being lax on safety and maintenance of the rides. I will get to that more later.

After making our voyage through the back country roads and small towns we arrived at Indiana Beach about an hour after opening and had no issues finding parking. As matter of fact, we had our choice of parking spots on this sunny and hot Saturday Morning. The empty parking lot lead us to believe this place was going to be deserted, but as we were stepping out of the truck, buses began to arrive. My  wife quickly got sun-blocked up and we made a bee line for the ticket booths.

Nice picture spot, love the t-shirt

We were warmly greeted  near the ticket booths and directed to specific lines because certain booths could  take cash only due to debit/credit card machines not working. Machines like that go down all the time so no big issue. A major issue we found out later in the day, there are no working ATM machines at Indiana beach, there haven't been for sometime. So if you want to play the carnival games, bring cash.
 Stepping up to the ticket window,  there was a sign posted that The Splash Battle was not working along with the parks signature coaster, the Hurricane Hoosier. So in theory, there were 38 other rides and attractions and 5 other roller coasters we could challenge. We had decided earlier in trip that we were not going to go to the water park because of time constraints and really wanted to explore the rest of the park because there was the real of threat thunderstorms ending the day even earlier than we had hoped. So we purchased our pay one price for rides only wristband which was decent value of $24.95. To include the water park the price would have been $34.95 or if you didn't want to do either the rides or water park, you could purchase a $2.00 boardwalk admission. Wristband on, we head through the south entrance to the park.

The south entrance to the park is across a suspension bridge(the longest in Indiana, or so Indiana Beach claims)  making for a very picturesque view with the Hurricane Hoosier roller coaster that dominates the shoreline. As a matter of fact, this is the view given in  brochures making the park look amazing. The Hurricane Hoosier looked like a fantastic out and back roller coaster over the water making  it unique, but as the sign stated at the ticket booth, it was closed.  After crossing the bridge, it became obvious how old the park was and we got  our first glimpse of how it would prove very difficult for people with mobility problems to enjoy the park. In our opinion, this park needs to work harder on being ADA compliant, it looks like the very minimum has been done just to pass guidelines. To reach the park from the south entrance over the bridge there is very steep slope on to the ground of the park.This would be very difficult for someone in a wheel chair or on crutches.

This picturesque view from the south entracnce

We did quick size up about the lay out of the park heading from the south end to the north end and the layout is a jumbled mess. Space is limited and rides are shoe horned into odd places. It felt and looked like a carnival came to town and this was were the rides came to die. A coat of paint can go a long way. We began to think the former protesting employees were right about there being safety issues in the park. Rides were rusty and signage out of date. It literally looked like a project was started and left unfinished.

A solitary hole from a golf course that has vanished.

To cement this opinion, a few of  the biggest signs were, signage laying all over the place, one hole, presumably the last hole, of a miniature golf course, just left to sit all by itself, and also signs that could have been easily painted over that had old information stating in order to ride the ride proceed "across the street to purchase tickets". There have been no single ticket sales in nearly 2 years.

The Hurricane Hoosier  is built over the water in places.

In all, there were some really decent hidden gems in this park. The Cornball express and Steel Hawg where very nice roller coasters. The Cornball Express has some great pops of airtime in its tight configuration. This would easily be a great wooden coaster if it were maintained better, it was by far one of the roughest roller coaster I have ridden, but not the roughest in the park. The Hurricane Hoosier did indeed open later in the day, but besides it being scenic and unique by being built over the water, it was very rough(the roughest in the park) and boring.  Steel Hawg was short, but enjoyable steel coaster with an fun 111 degree beyond vertical first drop. It definitely is re-rideable but with it's relativity short ride time and lack of excitement after the first drop, it could get boring quickly. A classic and must see attraction here is Dr. Frankenstein's Haunted Castle. This is a very nicely done haunted house that uses black light and the element of surprise to send chills, giggles, and screams through this haunt. The downsize to Dr. Frankenstein's Haunted Castle it is an up charge attraction.

Dr. Frankenstein's Haunted Castle it is worth the up charge to experience

The largest attraction to Indiana Beach is by far it's location on and over Lake Shafer. Now that we have been here, we won't make a special trip out of our way to go back. If for some reason when we are traveling somewhere and this is somehow on the way(it is out in the middle of nowhere), we would stop because it could make a nice break in the day. I must mention, based on what we saw. We would never pay for the water park. It was very small, the slides looked beat up, and lack variety. We easily did this park in a few hours and missed out on two of the six coasters because of thunderstorms. The thunderstorms also brought to our attention that there may be poor policy for weather. We saw lighting and it took them over 15 minutes to spread the word to all of the rides to close.We were in line for a coaster and were the last ride shut down, the other coasters and rides had closed long before the one we were at did. Instead of the employees seeking shelter from the intensifying storm, they huddled together in the middle of the street to talk. Not much longer after our ride was closed, lighting hit so close to the boardwalk, it took out their security radios and computer systems for the stores, it also had people screaming and hitting the deck. I would agree that this park could use some better maintenance on their rides which could increase safety. There is potential here to be a great small town amusement park as is there the equal potential of this park closing it doors forever.

 Here are some more photos for your enjoyment of Indiana beach

It's not every day you can have a party in the water next to
a roller coaster.

Welcome

Steel Hawg's beyond Vertical drop

The kiddie area at the water park.

Could someone please fix this sign,it is supposed to be a historic place to eat

This must be in the doghouse,
 it was separated from the rest of the park

Cabanas for purchase.

Na, I will pass.

The Original since 1975...and good

Bumper Cars

Tilt-a-Whirl

Nice old fashioned dark ride, updated with a shooter game.

Inside the Den of Thieves 

Backside of the water park.

The Sea Dragon

Rides out over the water.

Skeleton Band From the haunted house

There is a restaurant under that coaster.

Flume in between Cornball Express and Hurricane Hoosier

The beach at Indian beach, ith the water park in the background.

Steel Hawg. Nice Drop

Tilt-a-whirl from up above.

more aerial views

aerial view of part of the park.

How many roller coasters can you count?

very nice, unique family antique cars over the water. 

Aerial view of Splash Battle that  has not operated in some time. 

carnival bi-planes for kids.

Kiddie ride cars...paint please?

Kiddie Ride shoe horned under a roller coaster, some steps and behind a cookie vendor.

Kiddie land stuck under the coasters.

Kiddie ride

The train, there really is no line here just some paint  to show you  where you should stand.

It is a pizza place, no its a hot dog place, oh forget it  just leave the sign we will get it next year.

Up charge Ropes course at the south end.

Hope you enjoyed our photo journey, tell us what you think about Indiana Beach.