Location: Santa Claus, IN
Date: 7/22/96 (also 5/29/96)
Weather: Cool
Crowd: Light to medium
Admission: $18.95 ($9.00 w/ ACE or NAPHA, possibly other coaster club membership)
Description: Family-oriented theme park. Has 4 themed sections (Christmas, Halloween, 4th of July, and Splashin' Safari (Waterpark). Mostly for kids, with kiddie rides located not only in the kids area (Rudolph's Ranch), but also spread amongst the carnival-style rides in the rest of the park. Gained roller coaster status in 1995 with Raven, a CCI terrain coaster.
NOTE: This ride is no longer at this park :(
A Pinfari Zyklon - c. 1976
Description: A carnival style steel coaster located in the back of the park in the Independence Day area. Grouped with some kids rides but does have a height requirement. The structure is painted red, white, and blue.
Cars: Uses 3 individual 4 seat cars (lap bars).
Opinion: All right, for a carney ride. It rides better with 2 car trains (I hear it works even better with 3 car trains) Between my two visits (may and july) they have turned down the mid-course brake so it is not as jarring as it was.
"The reason to visit this park"
A 1995 CCI terrain coaster (CCI serial # 0018)
Description: A wooden coaster. After climbing the lift (approx. 80') you turn right and run alongside the parking lot. The first drop features a tunnel (Much like Beast first tunnel) and then a second drop before turning right for the swoop turn over Lake Rudolph (you are low to the ground with water on both sides of the train). Turning left after the swoop you hit the rides small drop, but it sets you up for the infamous Drop 5, the "ejector seat" drop a long sudden drop that comes out of nowhere. After the drop you pass through an arch with a low beam to enter the S-curve (lateral city, equal opportunity laterals unlike some rides I could mention), a fly past the on-ride camera and then a quick turn into the station. Has manual console-operated brakes.
Train: 1 red PTC train (no headrests, has traditional lap bars and seatbelts, low seat dividers) 6 cars, 4 per car.
Station-house: Themed like a haunted house, well done.
Platform Procedure: One trainload at a time is admitted from the queue-line onto the platform (blocked by a chain), who are then free to pick from the remaining seats, singles are usually but not always paired up at this point. You then stand behind the quick queue gates for the next train. Specific seat requests are generally honored but you have to wait behind the chain for that seat to free up. When they have 2 or more workers they will have the next group in the queue lanes before you dispatch.
Opinion: Yahoo! My favorite wood coaster. Offers a good show of airtime, laterals and surprise turns. Its only weakness is that it is too short. It is fun watching the platform when they only have 1 attendant, that person then has to admit a trainload to the platform, go over and stop the train, unload it, open the gates, close gates, check bars, dispatch and then admit the next group. They are still fast about it, though sometimes you get to see them RUN to the panel to operate the brakes.
Our informal, unofficial, marathon/ERT on Raven: On my first visit (5/29). It was a school night, the temp. could not have been above 70 and we had a light rain. How many people do you think were in the little park in the middle of nowhere? Let alone on the Raven. One of my friends, Eric, an ACE member we met at the park ,Jason and I proceeded to then board the Raven at about 3 pm, we did not have to get off until about 6:30 pm (only then because the rain turned into lightning) We estimate a 90 second ride time (in the rain) plus 30 seconds to recheck lapbars each time (occasionally letting a family on or off) for a 2 minute cycle. Take a 2 min. cycle over about 3.5 hours of continuous rides gives between 60 and 70 straight rides, PLUS the rides we had taken every now and then in the morning. After two visits, July had a 20 min. wait, we figure we have done approx. 100 circuits on Raven.
A Log Flume. Points of interest are a tunnel, as well as the fact that it uses a concrete, in the ground trough rather than the traditional fiberglass above ground trough. Very spread out, only features one drop at the end. Watch out for line-jumpers, on this ride as we were getting in line we saw one kid jump over the wall between the line and the exit ramp, when we gave him a nasty look he said "Oops, went down the wrong ramp". As we got off the ride we saw him jump over the wall and tell another family "Oops, went down the wrong ramp" Funny thing is there was NO line for the ride, maybe 20 people at best. He probably did not want to walk all the way around.
A O.D. Hopkins rapids ride. Points of interest include a tunnel, a flooded western town, and geysers (both coin-op and operator controlled). You will get off this ride very wet. One of the wettest rapids rides I've gone on (I mean EVERYBODY gets it.)
Potential Line-jump Problem: As popular as rapids rides seem to be, this one uses a traditional queue line rather than a long path. Also the queue line goes down from the midway to the ride via a series of ramps. These same ramps also form the ride exit with only a simple queue-line rail dividing entrance from exit. You can see the possibilities.
The Waterpark.
Features:
Overall,a small slide selection (most people were in Wave pool anyway) and a bad S- shaped layout. From the entrance checkpoint you go down a ramp, past the tube slides, then past the changing areas, then past the lazy river, whose two entrances are right across the path from one another, over a bridge to pass by the kids area and finally back to the wave pool. There is only 1 way to get from point A to B.
Bumper Boats: both kids and adult versions available. The boats were rather slow moving however. This is the only place I have seen who includes the Bumper Boats in the POP admission.
A wax museum, typical quality.
Animal feed available (75 cents)
Also: A vintage toy and doll museum
A High - Dive show
A Country music show
a Stage show
A kids show
Don't Forget:
Visit with Santa any day the park's open in his Kringle Haus.
Also, you must get a block of their fudge.
Very good small park. Has a perfect blend of rides to attract the family. Not a teen or punk park so crowds are usually friendly. The Raven makes the parka stop for any coaster freak. They also host Stark Raven Mad, a coaster event. This and the coaster club discount at the gate would indicate that they welcome to above average coaster rider to their park.
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