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More Flags More Fun- Six Flags Announcements 2018

8/31/2017

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Six Flags is one of the largest amusement park chains in the world! Every summer they pick a day to announce all of their upcoming attractions for the following year. One of the best things about the Six Flags Company is that they have guaranteed that every single park will receive something new each year. This is important because not only does it keep the general public engaged, it’s also a great way for them to show that they care about the progress and growth of each of their parks.
Since there are so many Six Flags Parks in operation, we’ll roll through each addition park by park by giving a brief description and analysis of each attraction. So, let’s get started!
Six Flags Over Texas- Arlington, Texas
New Addition: Harley Quinn Spinsanity
This futuristic ride concept has been circling the Internet for months, and it looks insane! It is a Tourbillon 3D spinning ride which allows the gondola-style seat to spin on three separate axes seven stories in the air. This ride is for thrill-seekers everywhere who are NOT afraid of gravity-defying spins and possibly losing their lunch. It’s a cool concept and a good addition for Six Flags but you can count Brittany out for sure!
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Six Flags St. Louis- St. Louis, Missouri
New Addition: Typhoon Twister
Technically an addition to Hurricane Harbor, their Water Park, this hybrid packs the thrill of two water slides into one extreme attraction. You start by dropping into a bowl slide, spinning around, and then dropping again over 50-ft through an enclosed tunnel! You end your ride by sailing back up a 45-ft zero gravity wall making for an extreme thrill! It’s an awesome slide, and a perfect addition to the waterpark, which is included with admission. 
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The Great Escape- Lake George, New York
New Addition: Pandemonium
This classic spinning ride will be located in the center of the park, and will offer guests a 360-degree high speed ride.  Although the ride doesn’t look to be too big, it’s something different than Six Flags parks are used to seeing. It looks like a very modern version of a classic ride and will fit perfectly with Great Escape’s recent ride line-up added in the last few years. 

La Ronde- Montreal, Quebec
New Addition: Carnaval en Folie
This announcement actually involves an entire new area for the park!  With a carnival theme, this family-fun area will see the addition of THREE new rides.
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  1. Toursade- a spinning tilt-a-whirl style ride perfect for kids to ride with parents.
  2. Petite Roue- a small ferris wheel that will offer views of the entire Carnaval.
  3. Tourbillon- commonly referred to as a scrambler, this “whirlwind” as it translates to, will be a fun, spinning ride for all ages.
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Last year La Ronde built a large flat ride, so this new family area will bring good balance to the park. 
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Six Flags Mexico- Mexico City, Mexico
New Addition: Wonder Woman Coaster
This 4D free-fly coaster is a clone of Joker in Six Flags Great America and Batman The Ride in Six Flags Fiesta Texas. We knew Six Flags would be adding another free-spin coaster, we just weren’t sure where. Now that we know it’s Six Flags Mexico, it honestly makes perfect sense. This is Latin America’s first 4D free-spin coaster, and will send riders flipping down two over 90-degree drops. This is also the park’s third coaster announcement in the last 10 years, so they’re doing pretty well!

Six Flags America- Baltimore, Maryland
New Addition: Wahoo River
Just like Six Flags St. Louis, this park’s addition is for their water park, Hurricane Harbor. Wahoo River is an upgraded, faster version of their existing lazy river. This river will feature a faster current and more opportunities to get drenched. It looks like it’s a cool upgrade, but there’s not much to be said about it. It is nice to see Six Flags giving some love to an attraction that needed it, instead of just ignoring it like many parks do.
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Six Flags Discovery Kingdom- Vallejo, California
New Addition: Harley Quinn Crazy Coaster
This figure-eight coaster is the world’s first dueling looping coaster. Before you start to think of this as a full-blown roller coaster, we want to let you know that this is more of a looping ride than a coaster. Riders will experience 12 inversions back to back to back on this continuously lopping coaster. It’s a neat addition since it’s a first of its kind, but you definitely need to be a thrill ride lover for this one!
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Six Flags Great Adventure- Jackson,
New Jersey

New Addition: CYBORG Cyberspin
CYBORG Cyberspin is the same addition that Six Flags Over Texas will see. The 3D spinning gyroscope will deliver an intense experience for riders. The theming with this one seems pretty cool, as it is the first ride to ever be themed to the DC character CYBORG. 
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Six Flags Great America- Chicago, Illinois
New Addition: World’s Largest Loop Coaster
Although this ride doesn’t have a released name yet, we are very familiar with the structure of this large loop coaster. This addition will be the world’s largest Larson loop at 100-feet. A Larson loop is essentially a coaster or ride that is literally just one giant loop. It’s a common addition for Six Flags Parks, but Chicago will see the largest of its kind. Rumors are swirling that the park plans on naming this ride The Hurricane or something similar as they have been teasing “a storm is coming” along with statues in life vests to get ready for the announcement. It might be that the park decided it was in bad taste to announce a ride called Hurricane literally days after a devastating hurricane hit the coast of Texas. Good call saving this one, Six Flags. 
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Six Flags New England- Western Massachusetts
New Addition: Harley Quinn Spinsanity
This massive swing ride will reach speeds of up to 70mph while flinging riders over 140ft in the air. Continuously spinning clockwise while swinging back and forth on this pendulum-style ride will give guests the feeling of weightlessness while taking in awesome views of the midway. Harley Quinn is back at it again with the INSANE rides. We see what you did there, Six Flags. 

Six Flags Over Georgia- Atlanta, Georgia
New Addition: Twisted Cyclone
One of the greatest announcements of the day was definitely Twisted Cyclone! The park’s existing wooden coaster, Georgia Cyclone, will see an RMC makeover, much like The Iron Rattler in San Antonio, and the recently announced Steel Vengeance in Cedar Point. It will be a hybrid coaster, combining steel and wood for an awesome ride featuring three inversions and a 10-story drop! Unlike most of the RMC revamps, this coaster will feature a unique blue track, which we think looks awesome and will look even better with the cars flying through the wooden structure. We’re excited to try this one and excited for the park’s new addition! 
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Waterworld Concord- Concord, California
New Addition: Splash Water Island
This water park is a bit interesting, as it used to be a part of the Six Flags chain, but only recently (last year) rejoined the group when Six Flags bought it back. It was a good idea considering that the company did not previously have a water park in the bay area. So, with the new purchase, Six Flags decided to jump-start things by adding a huge water play structure! Sure, this may only be a “kiddie play area”, but it is massive! It’s 4 stories and will cover nearly a fifth of an acre. Not to mention, it’s the park’s largest addition in over 10 years! Honestly, this seems like a really cool, interactive play area complete with a classic tipping bucket, geysers, and climbing nets. It’s a perfect addition for the kids and kids at heart. 
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Six Flags Magic Mountain- Los Angeles, California
New Addition: CraZanity
Magic Mountain did pretty well today too! Not only are they adding the tallest Pendulum Ride in the world, they’re also adding a new section of the park, AND they’ve announced that they will now be open 365 days a year! This is a pretty cool year for Magic Mountain! CraZanity, the new swinging pendulum, is just like the one we described for Six Flags New England- ONLY BIGGER! About 30-ft taller to be exact. It will also feature a neat light-package to light up the new Boardwalk area at night. The Boardwalk area will feature some renovated attractions as well as updated games, dining, and shopping. But, the best part of the Magic Mountain announcement, in our opinions, is that they will be open year-round. This is great news for native Californians, and theme park enthusiasts everywhere! This park has been on our bucket list for a while now, so it’s good to know we can plan a trip for any time of the year. 
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Six Flags Fiesta Texas- San Antonio, Texas
Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster
Finally, the last announcement of the day. Six Flags actually announced this addition a few weeks ago, but we figured we’d include it since it is part of the 2018 news. We’re excited to say that our home park, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, is adding a world’s first! Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster will be the World’s first single rail coaster. If you remember us covering the announcement of California’s Great America’s Hangtime coaster a few posts ago, you’ll know exactly what this coaster will look like. Technically, CGA’s coaster is a clone of this Six Flags one since it will be built after Fiesta Texas’. We’re very excited to experience this one as soon as it’s built. Honestly, Fiesta Texas has seen so many great additions in the last few years. ​Growing up in San Antonio made me a bit blind to the fact that Fiesta Texas is actually a really cool park that people around the country enjoy! 
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​So, overall, another great day for theme park announcements! We’re really pleased with the direction that Six Flags is going and the amount of time and care they’re putting into each of their parks. We would also like to mention to everyone that for the next 4 days, Six Flags will be running a special on their Gold Season Passes. These passes are usually around $200 each, but you can get them now for $65! We will definitely be purchasing passes since you can use them for the rest of 2017 as well as all of 2018! You can use these passes at any Six Flags park, and now that we know what all of the theme park additions will be for 2018, we can start making our vacation plans for next year! It’s gonna be a good one! 
Let us know in the comments what you think about all of the new Six Flags announcements!!
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The Fascination of Knoebels

8/26/2017

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​This week we’re taking you deep into the mountains of Central Pennsylvania to a retro park that offers a nostalgic past for adults and new and exciting discoveries for kids. Knoebel’s is a classic amusement park that is home to some truly incredible old-school rides and attractions and is by far one of the coolest experiences you could ever have at a theme park. It is the largest operating free-admission park in the United States and has enough coasters, thrill rides, and family rides to keep you entertained throughout the day. As if the rides weren’t enough to keep you occupied, Knoebel’s also has free entertainment, multiple activities, and award-winning food. That’s right, AWARD-WINNING. This park has received the Golden Ticket award for best food almost every year since 1999.  In all honesty, Knoebel’s is one of the biggest reasons we decided to start a theme park food blog, because it is the perfect example of how great park food really can be. While many parks across the country suffer from lack of consistency and variation of food, Knoebel’s excels in creating quality and delicious options throughout their ENTIRE park. From pizza to pierogies to their famous fresh-cut french fries, no matter where you decide to dine in this park we guarantee you’ll love it and you’ll want to try it all! 

Before we get into some of our favorite food options, we want to take some time to tell you about some of the most iconic attractions in the world! Now, keep in mind, the park is full of unique rides and attractions so to cover everything that this park has to offer will take time. But, believe us, we’ll get to it all eventually. For now, we’ll focus on the two attractions that we enjoyed the most and where we spent the most amount of time on our past visit. 
First up: The Grand Carousel. I’m sure many people who are unfamiliar with Knoebel’s Amusement park are probably thinking that a carousel surely can’t be special enough to be included in a review of best park attractions. But trust us, it is! 
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The Grand Carousel is a one-of-a-kind experience that offers two attractions in one! With the ride’s authentic German organ playing while you sit atop your hand-carved horse, it’s hard not to take in the vast amount of history that this ride carries. The carousel is over 100 years old and is one of the largest in the world. But, the best part, without a doubt, is that it is one of the few carousels left where you can still catch the brass ring! For anyone unfamiliar with classic carousels, many used to have an on-ride game, which encouraged riders to reach out from their horses (those sitting on the outter row) and stretch for an illusive brass ring. Every time your horse passes the claw arm dispensing rings, you try to reach out and grab one. It’s easy to grab a ring, but only one per ride is the special brass one! If you grab a brass ring you win a free ride (and bragging rights)!  Some of this may be hard to understand in words, so check out this video below of Brittany grabbing her first ring ever! 

​Also, not far from the Grand Carousel is the Knoebel’s Carousel Museum. This free-exhibit features original carousel horses, painted panels, and other memorabilia from carousels dating all the way back to the 1800’s! It’s a unique experience and it is certainly worth your time! 
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Another experience in the park you don’t want to miss is Fascination! If you’re even the least bit competitive (which we are), you’ll love this skill challenge that is a cross between skee ball and bingo! It is so easy to spend hours in this building, spending quarter after quarter to play this unique game. Each person sits at their own machine and plays one synchronized game hosted by the Fascination announcer. Much like bingo, you are looking to get 5 in a row. It’s up to you to roll one ball at a time down a ramp and land in certain holes to make your board light up. It’s exciting, it’s a race, and it’s super fun! 

​Alright! Well, now that we’ve told you about some of our favorite attractions in the park, we want to share with you some of our favorite foods! Like we mentioned before, Knoebel’s is known for having the best theme-park food in the country, so narrowing down our favorites is tough. But, we’ll start with a Pennsylvania classic and fan-favorite: Pierogies. The park offers two varieties of pierogies at separate stands and, of course, we tried them both. Fans of the park seem to have a clear favorite when it comes to these two snacks, so we needed to taste each of them to see if we agreed. The first location is called The Roast Beef Stand. The pierogies at this stand are sautéed in butter and onions and more closely resemble the classic pierogies that many are familiar with. Park fans tend to favor these over the others, and we would definitely agree with them. We loved them so much that we considered ordering a second helping, but decided to try the other stand just in case. And, we’re glad we did. Even though we both favored the first batch, the second order found at The Round Stand were good as well. While the second order were not sautéed in butter, they did come with a side of sour cream, and we thoroughly enjoyed them. Just further proving that you can’t really order anything bad at Knoebel’s. 
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​Another fan favorite at this park is the freshly made Kettle Korn. While this treat is more of a classic amusement park option, no one beats Knoebel’s when it comes to this salty-sweet snack. Sold in large bags for $6, Kettle Korn is the perfect snack to grab and share with your group while walking through the park. Or, heading out of the park for the ride home! However you choose to enjoy this snack, we’re sure that once you get to the bottom of the bag, you’ll be wishing you bought just one more! 

​By only covering two attractions and food options, we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface on all that this park has to offer. Knoebel’s is a fun and totally different experience than many park-goers are probably used to, but it is so worth it to check out. The park has so much heart and nostalgia that it’s impossible not to fall in love as soon as you walk in. We look forward to returning and to covering more of our favorites soon! 
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Roller Coaster Day Round-Up

8/16/2017

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Happy National Roller Coaster Day! At least to everyone reading this on Wednesday night. If you're not reading this until Thursday, which will probably be most people, then you may have heard that several of the biggest parks in the country made their announcements for their 2018 additions! This week we wanted our blog post to recap all of the announcements as well as share our thoughts and opinions on them. So, let's get started!
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The first major announcement of the day came from King's Dominion in Richmond, Virginia. Unsurprisingly, information about this park's new coaster leaked a bit early, and the majority of theme park enthusiasts were left feeling underwhelmed with a reveal that they already knew by name. However, don't let that take away from the fact that KD's new addition will definitely be a wild ride. Twisted Timbers, a Rocky Mountain Construction revamp of Hurler, a previously existing wooden coaster, will feature the coaster's original wooden structure with an all new steel track. It will feature 3 inversions and travel along over 3,000 ft of track. 
We're also very excited to see the addition of WinterFest, the park's new holiday event! This festival is something that we've seen being added to many of the Cedar Fair parks over the years, and King's Dominion was next in line. The event will allow guests to experience some of the most popular attractions, holiday shows, and everyone's favorite man: Santa Claus! 
Overall, these were some great choices for King's Dominion. Cedar Fair has done a great job of improving not only King's Dominion's Roller Coaster line-up, but also the entire atmosphere of the park. 

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Next up today was Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. While every single park had their own unique live-stream announcement videos, this park's was HANDS DOWN the best. They did a great job with theming, and had a fun and engaging video to publicize their new roller coaster: Time Traveler. This coaster is an epic addition to this park, breaking a ridiculous amount of records. Time Traveler will be the fastest, steepest, and tallest spinning roller coaster ever created! A Product of MACK, this coaster will cost a whopping $26 million to build. But, from the looks of it, it will be worth it. This ride is definitely not for the faint of heart, but also may just be impossible to pass up. Make sure not to eat too much park food before getting on this one! :p 
Time Traveler will be Silver Dollar City's 4th major roller coaster, and just like King's Dominion, this park has made strides towards being one of the top coaster parks in the country. 
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 At the same time as SDC's announcement, the roller coaster capitol of the world, Cedar Point, was making their record-breaking coaster announcement! 
Over a year ago, we saw Mean Streak (once the tallest wooden roller coaster in the world) close and rumors began swirling of Cedar Fair finally working with Rocky Mountain Construction Co. Today, all of the speculation was finally answered with the announcement of Steel Vengeance. This coaster is RMC's largest project ever attempted and it is only fitting that it will be part of Cedar Point's already epic line-up of record-breaking roller coasters. Steel Vengeance will be the world's first hyper hybrid coaster meaning this bad boy will reach 205 ft and feature both wooden supports and steel tracks. This ride will also take the record for most air-time on any coaster, which will add to the thrill of weaving through the wooden structure. 
As always, Cedar Point continues its streak of world-class, record-breaking rides and we can't wait to ride Steel Vengeance!

The last two park announcements for the day were on the West Coast. First was California's Great America, an up-and-coming park located right outside of San Francisco. This park has seen many additions over the last few years and is quickly becoming one of Cedar Fair's most well-funded locations. CGA faces the struggle of not having as much space as some of their sister parks, so Cedar Fair has had to get creative in keeping the park innovative in their coaster line-up. The company has transferred rides to other parks, revamped a roller coaster, added a GCI wooden coaster, and announced Rail Blazer as their newest addition. Rail Blazer is a product of RMC. It is a single-rail style track as opposed to the hybrid coasters that we previously mentioned. It may look familiar, especially to all the San Antonio natives out there, because it is a clone coaster of the recently announced Wonder Woman roller coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. This is not necessarily a bad thing for California's Great America, considering how far away from each other these coasters are, and that Rail Blazer appears to have better theming. Its compact design will feature 3 inversions and be perfect for a park looking to save some space.
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The last announcement of the night came from Knott's Berry Farm in California just 2 hours ago. Not unlike its fellow Cedar Fair parks, Knott's made the announcement of a new roller coaster that ultimately replaced an existing coaster in the park. Hang Time, the park's new dive coaster, will stand at a staggering 150-feet and feature 5 gravity-defying inversions. The coaster train will stop just after the lift hill at the highest point on the track and hold riders for a few seconds before releasing them down the beyond-vertical drop. 
Hang Time will be located in the newest section of Knott's Berry Farm: The Boardwalk. It will be a welcomed addition next to some of the park's other newer attractions, and will feature colorful nighttime track chase lighting to really help bring that cool boardwalk feel to the area. 

Overall, this may have been the biggest roller coaster announcement day that we have ever seen. Today, we saw the additions of 5 new coasters for 2018, and these are only SOME of the parks that have made announcements this year. It's definitely looking like 2018 will be a great year for theme parks, and we couldn't be more thrilled. 
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On Holiday

8/3/2017

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PicturePhoto Cred: Negative-g.com
Over the last few weeks we have covered the most well known theme park chains in the world. And, although they are undoubtedly some of the best parks imaginable, this week we are very excited to be sharing with you a park that may not be as well known as the others, but has just as much heart. We’re taking you to Santa Claus, Indiana to tell you all about one of the greatest and most uniquely themed parks we have ever been to: Holiday World! 
Family man and father of 9, Louis Koch, founded Holiday World after he and his children visited Santa Claus, Indiana in the 1940’s. Upon arriving in Santa Claus, the family was quickly let down when they realized that the town was not as well-themed as they’d hoped based on its name and that Santa was nowhere to be found. Thus, an idea was born. Fast-forward to present times and you’ve got a fun, family-friendly park themed to four major U.S. holidays! Holiday world features distinctive sections of the park themed to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and 4th of July, all of which offer food, drinks, and rides themed to their particular holiday. There are so many great things to write about each section, and we will review all of it eventually, but for the sake of not writing a novel here we want to focus on one particular holiday this week. Considering we are a theme park food blog, it seems only fitting that we start with the holiday whose main activity involves eating until you can’t breathe, and literally stuffing foods into other foods. We are of course talking about Thanksgiving! 


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​The Thanksgiving section of the park offers a few different options for hungry guests. There is a stand called The Smokehouse with a wide variety of paninis, loaded fries, and hand-dipped ice cream waffle cones. The Smokehouse is more of a refreshment stop rather than a restaurant, but it’s still a great option if you’re looking for something delicious but quick. 
However, the main star of this section of the park has to be Plymouth Rock Café! This restaurant is one of the larger dining options in the park and features classic Thanksgiving meals. You can choose from fried chicken, pulled pork, chicken and dumplings, and of course TURKEY. An adult meal comes with your choice of two sides, or you can opt for the Pilgrim’s Feast which comes with three sides! We, of course, went with the feast and chose turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and mac and cheese (we really loves carbs!) Overall the meal was really good, and was the perfect amount of nostalgia to get you missing the holidays. The only concern here is maybe that heavy, starchy food like this isn’t exactly ideal when you’re planning on riding rollercoasters and walking through a park in the heat. But, for us, we ended our day with this meal, so it all worked out. If you save room, don’t forget to add on a piece of pumpkin or pecan pie for dessert! 

The coolest thing about the Thanksgiving area is that not only can you get what feels like a home-cooked meal; it is also the newest section of the park and features the two largest roller coasters! The skyline is shared by The Voyage, a long wooden roller coaster, and Thunderbird, a first-of-its-kind launched wing coaster.  
The Voyage was built in 2006 and was one of the first coasters ever created by The Gravity Group. Until this ride was built, the largest roller coasters the park had to offer were Raven and The Legend, which pale in comparison to the size of this beast. Although those two coasters pack a punch, building Voyage definitely put Holiday World on the map as a contender in the coaster game. Holding the record for most airtime on a wooden coaster, this epic ride keeps you out of your seat for a whopping 24.3 seconds! It also features 5 underground tunnels, and a 154-ft drop making this roller coaster one of the most intense wooden coasters in the world. If you’re a die-hard fan of wooden coasters, you will definitely appreciate this 2 minute and 45 second thrill ride; just be prepared to collect a few bruises along the way! 
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For those looking for a smoother ride, not far away is the park’s newest roller coaster: Thunderbird. Holiday World is mostly known for building amazing wooden coasters, so when the park announced that they would be adding a major steel coaster, enthusiasts everywhere were extremely excited to see what they would come up with. Thunderbird is a wing coaster, meaning that riders sit along the side of the coaster track, rather than on top of it. The thing that makes this wing coaster so unique, is that it includes a launch, making it the first of its kind. It also features the largest loop on a wing coaster in the world! This roller coaster is definitely one of our favorites and we can’t wait to see what Holiday World will come up with next. 
All in all, Holiday World is one of the best parks in the country, and we hope that this post has given you just a small sample of all the park has to offer. We will definitely cover the other park sections and world-class water park in a future post, but until then, Happy Holidays! 
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    Authors

    Parker and Brittany Ruhmel- Lovers of all things food and theme park related! 

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