Heading East we crossed over the Kansas river. Rather amusingly we were crossing from Kansas City, Kansas to Kansas City, Missouri literally crossing a river and ending up where we began.
Worlds of Fun is a fairly big park and belongs to the Cedar Fair chain of parks (those guys that own Cedar Point). It originally opened in 73 with their waterpark "Oceans of Fun" opening about a decade later.
The park employs a ski-rating type system for their ride. I would imagine we'd be visiting the higher end of the scale, with the odd ride at the lower end. I was wondering if by Aggressive Thrill Rides you get beaten up and shouted at - I have an idea for slap-coaster which would fit into that category for sure (for those that aren't familar with the concept just before the ride launches you get slapped in the face by the ride staff - it makes re-riding a true physical challenge)
For the morning ERS the park had us take part in the birthday celebrations for their big steel coaster Mamba. Like Celebration City, 50s theming was in abundance.
Balloons, party hats and party whistles were out. The park had also made some pretty caek, so I can confirm it is real and is not a lie.
Clearly proud of the ride the park had also laid out a gallery containing 10 years of ride photography.
The ride is another big Morgan steel coaster and now my third of the trip, I was fairly knocking these up. This ride was really good too with similar pops of airtime and I particularly liked the helix at the far end which gave Titan type positive forces. The ride staff were superb sending us off with a ridiculously quick safety message and a mamba strike bite dance routine.
Having finished with the Steel coaster we made our way around to the wooden coaster Timber Wolf.
Umm, this looks like a bit of a foreboding ride. How can WOF shirk on their responsibility for their ride maintenance and pass it off as "normal ride sensation".
and as if to scare you a little bit more they don't mind having "chicken exits".
So how was the ride? Exactly as the ride said, full of "jostling" although I'd go a bit further than that. I only rode this coaster the once, you can call me a chicken but I'm a chicken with all my internal organs intact.
One of the French contingent playing one of the games. In this one you pitched 2 baseballs and got the speed displayed. Then you have to guess the speed of the third before you throw it. With a little translation needed it was good to see him win, his prize? A baseball cap.
Coaster number 3 was one of the less extreme rides we'd be riding here. A simple caterpillar coaster situated at the back of the Camp Snoopy section of the park.
Snoopy says "hi"
We had no idea what "Cyclone Sam" was so being the naturally curious creatures we are myself and Jeppe decided to ride it. It's actually a Wipeout ride, which is a ride that spins and then lifts up at an angle, oh too hard to explain so here's a picture of a similar ride.
What makes this different to most is its enclosed, dark, simulates lightning strobes. Basically a storm in a barn. The ride is also pretty intense, no bad thing. One of the things I liked was the UV-lit pictures on the side of the barn that would look like they're whizzing around you. One of those pictures was of a cow, which reminded me of that scene in the film Twister where a cow gets picked up by a cyclone and still has the wits to go "mmmmooooooooooooo". Would it really bother? This is a really good ride, which the park should promote a bit more.
Their skycoaster is different to most as it only has a single pillar. When you release yourself you have to throw your weight to one side so that you go around the pillar rather than back into it.
Spinning Dragons is the park's spinning coaster.
It made a refreshing change from having it themed around Tony Hawks. As with those rides, whilst being a fun ride still wasn't as good as my experience in Denmark.
Some other fools attempt the single-post skycoaster.
The final coaster of the day was Patriot, another inverted coaster that I hoped I'd enjoy more than the ones on the trip so far. Perhaps I'm just growing out of these rides now.
Patriot was built a few years ago and celebrates being an American Patriot. So the theming includes a red, white and blue paint job, a bald eagle outside, lots of rock music etc.
There are lots of good vantage points for taking photos, they ensure the queue line goes under most of it. You can't get all the way out but its much better than say Great White at Seaworld. I understood the theming, but wasn't sure about the yellow on the trains. Does this symbolise America having a yellow streak?
The ride was so really good actually, much better than the generic versions ridden earlier. However we got unlucky with the people riding with us. The first was a total redneck who whooped and hollered expletives all the way around and on the second we had a mental kid who became quite attached to us. Due to those experiences we renamed the ride "Patience".
Woohoo!!! The first time I've seen the Lion Rampant in a theme park.
Later in the day the park allowed us a behind the scenes tour of the park, which gave us some unique photo opportunities.
Oh my god, he's coming right for us!
The first drop and first loop are the bits you can't get to from the queue line as they're at the back end of the park.
Mamba's first camel bump
From behind Patience we made our way into the centre of Timberwolf.
It all gets too much for David who decided to re-enact The Sound of Music
The last thing riders on Timberwolf need is a group of tourists trying to get them to pose whilst they're being jostled.
and finally we got close to the first couple of drops on Mamba, get out of my shot camera people!!
The coaster making its way back to the station
It was very nice of the park to let us see their rides from angles that aren't usually captured.
The final coaster of the day was their boomerang coaster which is called ..... drum roll......wait for it......."Boomerang". I did eventually ride this after 3 toilet trips, not because I was scared of the ride but because of the pesky food poisoning.
A rather strange themed car, which I could understand being out at Halloween but this was June so the skeleton should be packed away. Or perhaps some teenager climbed on top, got stuck and the excessive sun burnt the flesh from him. Yes that'll be it.
A shot of Mamba taken from the freeway as we head out of the park and East to St. Louis. Nice park with some great staff!
Heading East we crossed over the Kansas river. Rather amusingly we were crossing from Kansas City, Kansas to Kansas City, Missouri literally crossing a river and ending up where we began.
Worlds of Fun is a fairly big park and belongs to the Cedar Fair chain of parks (those guys that own Cedar Point). It originally opened in 73 with their waterpark "Oceans of Fun" opening about a decade later.
The park employs a ski-rating type system for their ride. I would imagine we'd be visiting the higher end of the scale, with the odd ride at the lower end. I was wondering if by Aggressive Thrill Rides you get beaten up and shouted at - I have an idea for slap-coaster which would fit into that category for sure (for those that aren't familar with the concept just before the ride launches you get slapped in the face by the ride staff - it makes re-riding a true physical challenge)
For the morning ERS the park had us take part in the birthday celebrations for their big steel coaster Mamba. Like Celebration City, 50s theming was in abundance.
Balloons, party hats and party whistles were out. The park had also made some pretty caek, so I can confirm it is real and is not a lie.
Clearly proud of the ride the park had also laid out a gallery containing 10 years of ride photography.
The ride is another big Morgan steel coaster and now my third of the trip, I was fairly knocking these up. This ride was really good too with similar pops of airtime and I particularly liked the helix at the far end which gave Titan type positive forces. The ride staff were superb sending us off with a ridiculously quick safety message and a mamba strike bite dance routine.
Having finished with the Steel coaster we made our way around to the wooden coaster Timber Wolf.
Umm, this looks like a bit of a foreboding ride. How can WOF shirk on their responsibility for their ride maintenance and pass it off as "normal ride sensation".
and as if to scare you a little bit more they don't mind having "chicken exits".
So how was the ride? Exactly as the ride said, full of "jostling" although I'd go a bit further than that. I only rode this coaster the once, you can call me a chicken but I'm a chicken with all my internal organs intact.
One of the French contingent playing one of the games. In this one you pitched 2 baseballs and got the speed displayed. Then you have to guess the speed of the third before you throw it. With a little translation needed it was good to see him win, his prize? A baseball cap.
Coaster number 3 was one of the less extreme rides we'd be riding here. A simple caterpillar coaster situated at the back of the Camp Snoopy section of the park.
Snoopy says "hi"
We had no idea what "Cyclone Sam" was so being the naturally curious creatures we are myself and Jeppe decided to ride it. It's actually a Wipeout ride, which is a ride that spins and then lifts up at an angle, oh too hard to explain so here's a picture of a similar ride.
What makes this different to most is its enclosed, dark, simulates lightning strobes. Basically a storm in a barn. The ride is also pretty intense, no bad thing. One of the things I liked was the UV-lit pictures on the side of the barn that would look like they're whizzing around you. One of those pictures was of a cow, which reminded me of that scene in the film Twister where a cow gets picked up by a cyclone and still has the wits to go "mmmmooooooooooooo". Would it really bother? This is a really good ride, which the park should promote a bit more.
Their skycoaster is different to most as it only has a single pillar. When you release yourself you have to throw your weight to one side so that you go around the pillar rather than back into it.
Spinning Dragons is the park's spinning coaster.
It made a refreshing change from having it themed around Tony Hawks. As with those rides, whilst being a fun ride still wasn't as good as my experience in Denmark.
Some other fools attempt the single-post skycoaster.
The final coaster of the day was Patriot, another inverted coaster that I hoped I'd enjoy more than the ones on the trip so far. Perhaps I'm just growing out of these rides now.
Patriot was built a few years ago and celebrates being an American Patriot. So the theming includes a red, white and blue paint job, a bald eagle outside, lots of rock music etc.
There are lots of good vantage points for taking photos, they ensure the queue line goes under most of it. You can't get all the way out but its much better than say Great White at Seaworld. I understood the theming, but wasn't sure about the yellow on the trains. Does this symbolise America having a yellow streak?
The ride was so really good actually, much better than the generic versions ridden earlier. However we got unlucky with the people riding with us. The first was a total redneck who whooped and hollered expletives all the way around and on the second we had a mental kid who became quite attached to us. Due to those experiences we renamed the ride "Patience".
Woohoo!!! The first time I've seen the Lion Rampant in a theme park.
Later in the day the park allowed us a behind the scenes tour of the park, which gave us some unique photo opportunities.
Oh my god, he's coming right for us!
The first drop and first loop are the bits you can't get to from the queue line as they're at the back end of the park.
Mamba's first camel bump
From behind Patience we made our way into the centre of Timberwolf.
It all gets too much for David who decided to re-enact The Sound of Music
The last thing riders on Timberwolf need is a group of tourists trying to get them to pose whilst they're being jostled.
and finally we got close to the first couple of drops on Mamba, get out of my shot camera people!!
The coaster making its way back to the station
It was very nice of the park to let us see their rides from angles that aren't usually captured.
The final coaster of the day was their boomerang coaster which is called ..... drum roll......wait for it......."Boomerang". I did eventually ride this after 3 toilet trips, not because I was scared of the ride but because of the pesky food poisoning.
A rather strange themed car, which I could understand being out at Halloween but this was June so the skeleton should be packed away. Or perhaps some teenager climbed on top, got stuck and the excessive sun burnt the flesh from him. Yes that'll be it.
A shot of Mamba taken from the freeway as we head out of the park and East to St. Louis. Nice park with some great staff!
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