Splashin' Safari at Holiday World - Trip Report

My previous posts about Holiday World in general and its dark ride Gobbler Getaway made brief mention of the water park on the premises, but the topic warrants its own post. Splashin' Safari has its own name, but it's not a standalone park. You don't pay separate admission for it; it's included with Holiday World. However, it does have its own operating hours. On the summer day when we visited, the water park closed at 6pm, even though Holiday World itself was open for a few hours more.

The first thing to say about Splash' Safari is that it's HUGE! There are three "water playgrounds" for kids, to give you some idea of the size. The shape is elongated and not very foot-friendly, so it must have grown organically over the years.

You'll find the typical slides built on towers here, both open air and closed-tube. There is a family slide. There are lazy rivers here and there, plus two different kinds of wave pools. Infants have a water area, as do toddlers with their own slides.

You'll find more modern designs, like "toilet bowl" slides or giant "half-pipe" slides.

But most excitingly of all, you'll find water coasters (the Disney equivalent is Crush 'n Gusher). The newer one, Mammoth, is a family raft ride concept done as a water coaster. It's fun, and it lasts a long time on the ride, but expect waits of about an hour. The slightly older one, Wildebeest, is a more standard raft (single file seating), and it's tremendous fun. Better than Crush 'n Gusher, if you ask me.

The free soda of Holiday World is continued here, and there are also stations with free sunblock. Is this park great or what?

You can easily spend a whole day at just the water park. Indeed, that's what a majority of people were doing when we visited; perhaps the locals prefer the water attractions to the regular park, at least during the heat of summer.

At the back of the park, located half in the water park and half in the theme park (and accessible from either) is the world's tallest water ride. It's a simple "tidal wave" kind of ride - just a very very tall shoot the chutes. But that single drop comes from a frightening height, and I was too creeped out by the ride up (your vehicle takes an open-air 'elevator' platform up a single tower) to try.

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Kevin Yee is the author of numerous independent Disney books, including the popular Walt Disney World Earbook series and Walt Disney World Hidden History.

Gobbler Getaway at Holiday World - Trip Report

Most amusement parks outside the "destinations" like Southern California and Orlando don't have a lot of dark rides. And when they do have them, they are often older, or half-heartedly pulled off. So it's noticeable when you see a quality dark ride out there. Well, Holiday World has one, called Gobbler Getaway in the Thanksgiving section of the park.

It's a shooter; you are armed with a laser gun in your car, technically called a turkey caller, and it makes a gobble sound when you pull the trigger. It's hilarious. It had us giggling as the ride started, and imagine our surprise when the ride turned out to be well done. It's got good artwork, a nice variety of things to look and aim at, and it's even got good art direction. It's well-lit for a dark ride; the whole thing just screamed "professional" in a way that most non-Orlando rides fail to do.

The use of full rounded human figures and the general sense of humor reminded us of the Mr. Toad attraction.

We had to ride over and over, but not everyone in this park held the same appreciation for dark rides. It had no line pretty much all day (in contrast with the coasters, and especially the water park).

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Kevin Yee is the author of numerous independent Disney books, including the popular Walt Disney World Earbook series and Walt Disney World Hidden History.

Holiday World - Trip Report

The second park in my series of trip reports is Holiday World, in a tiny hamlet of Indiana called Santa Claus (probably no accident). This park is in the middle of nowhere. You drive through crops and fields, up and down the hilly roads (woohoo! early airtime!), and then all of a sudden, there's a full-sized theme park in front of you. It's a bit eerie.

Holiday World is bigger than you're imagining. And it's a two-fer. It's a real, regular amusement park, with enough rides to fill your day (really). And it's also a full-sized water park, which could easily fill a second day. So you might be looking for a hotel (which are expensive in the area). I'll discuss the water park more in a later post.

The lands of the park are themed after holidays: Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Fourth of July. The theming is somewhat haphazard and superficial; mostly these are just plain carnival rides.

But the coasters are noteworthy in the extreme. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a great coaster that mixes with other rides (it looks and feels like Roller Coaster Tycoon in this park). The Raven won awards a decade ago for being a great wooden coaster.

The Voyage (implying the Pilgrims, in the Thanksgiving section) is my current favorite wooden roller coaster in the whole world. I'm no expert, but I have been on several dozen woodies in my time, so I have some basis for comparison. The airtime here is unfathomable. You are out of your chair seemingly half the time. Loved it.

There's free wifi in the whole park, which is nice. There's free sunblock in the waterpark, which is unheard of. And there is free soda available every dozen paces in the park, which is completely bonkers. It's unreal. Who does this and stays in business? Well, Holiday World does. It made a fantastic park that much more awesome in our minds.

Touring ideas:

• the water park gets very busy in the summer (presumably, with locals here for free sunscreen, free soda, and 'free' slides they paid for with an annual pass.
• the coaster up front (Raven, Legend) have lines in the morning, but not later in the day. Remember to zig when everyone else zags.
• there's a great dark ride (shooter) here that I'll discuss in a separate post

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Kevin Yee is the author of numerous independent Disney books, including the popular Walt Disney World Earbook series and Walt Disney World Hidden History.