So in the last 15 years I have written 11 opening day reviews. There are some not so
memorable, so ugly you just want to look away, opening day reviews I had to
write. 2000 comes to mind… nothing like,
"We will open the rides at 35 degrees.." then "We will open the rides at 45 degrees" and then (I kid you not) "we will open the rides at 55 degrees" … and and by
the way our new ride stinks, and we never opened up the Orient Express the season before like we should have so that's all anyone cares about… Followed by the 2004
season opening day, when Orient Express was just removed and Spinning Dragons
was sitting as the worlds largest lawn ornament, in its place… Or it could be the
2003 opening day when the park basically re-opened looking exactly the same as it did in
October 2002. So why am I bringing up
all these old seasons past? Primarily,
because I have spent the last few days reading the Worlds of Fun Facebook page,
and people complaining about how unprepared and "disastrous" the 2012 Worlds of
Fun opening day was. Disastrous? Seriously? Nope, not even close.
In reality this opening day wasn’t all that bad. Yes there were a few snafu’s, a few wet
behind the ears ambassadors, and some not so
great weather, but after all there were
no tornadoes, the rides all ran, (mostly) and personally? I had fun. Speak for
yourselves other facebook people.
So onto the day. Due
to a 0 Dark 30 clinical I didn’t arrive at the park until 4pm. On arriving I was pleasantly surprised and
HOW busy the park was. I don’t think I
can remember when both C &D were both full on opening day. It hasn’t been the last 10 years. I kind of feel bad for those people who I
told that opening day would be dead. Sorry.
It used to be we would park in G lot at this point. We can’t do that anymore because of preferred
parking. When this was introduced last
season, both Jeff and I weren’t thrilled. To me this is the biggest money grab of
anything WOF has concocted lately, yes even more then the Fast Lane thing. YOU DON’T GET ANYTHING EXTRA! Its G lot! I
parked there last year this time for free!
Atleast give people a covered parking area, bottle of water or
something. For those that use it,
really? Regular parking is 10 feet away,
same distance to the entrance. H
lot. Atleast at Silver Dollar City I get
a closer parking spot and feel I get something for my money.
*Disclaimer: Since SOME people don't have a sense of humor I should mention the covered parking comment was a JOKE.*
Rant over
So as we walked into the park, I spied these new ornamental
“cacti” ready to go into Americana. The
old “cacti” are looking a bit thread barren so maybe these are replacing
them. They look nice. I like the
“working towards the theme” theme that we have going on here.
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| Cacti Topiaries |
So as we moved towards the gate, pretty much everything else
looked the same, flags are still there (good thing), and we noticed the first
ADA addition. Instead of having the
replace the gate (dang it!), they found a way to get around the non-ADA
compliant hill into the park, and built a gradual ramp located behind guest
relations.
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| The ADA complaint ramp at the Scandinavia Park Entrance |
On entering the park I realized the park was just as crowded
inside the gate as out in the parking lot, it’s a great sign, and the first
thing that caught my eye, was the Plaza Gifts sign. Now don’t get me wrong I think Scandi Skees
made a remarkably nice transition from arcade to shop, but man, that’s a BIG
sign. The new Plaza gifts is really nice though, its very Cedar Point-like, and
I say that in a good way. The old
doorways are all gone, excepting one, and replaced with windows (one original doorway
headed towards Voyager is still a door).
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| The new Plaza Gifts |
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| Inside Plaza Gifts |
The old Baltic Bazaar is still with us too, originally I had
heard that it might be demolished to have a new structure built. Personally, I am glad they kept the original
structure. Its received a bit of a
face-lift, and new signage. Norma’s
Funnel Cakes (which returned as Norma’s on the map a few years ago), is Norma’s
on the sign now too. I don’t know if the
park realizes this, or you the reader realizes this, but Norma’s is an original
Hunt Midwest name, named after Norma Hunt.
(Lamar Hunt’s Wife), making it one of only two restaurants in the park
to still be named after someone from the park’s Hunt Midwest days. (The other being Big Jack's named after Jack Steadman)
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| Norma's Funnel Cakes |
(For those interested the others included: Lamar’s Libations
in Europa, Daniel’s Dannish Deli in Scandinavia, Clark’s Livery Post in
Americana, and Rick’s Café in Africa)
I have been avoiding this, but I have to mention it. The music. Jeff, my husband and fellow WOF
nut job, has beaten me down to acknowledge that popular music may MAY be
okay for the park entrance, because it is the park entrance. What about lower Scandinavia? Come on it really needs some themed music,
yodeling. Something Scandinavia-like. You have to give me some credit for atleast trying.
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| New Trees near Skyliner |
Some good news, Orient HAS themed music. In fact most of the park does! That’s where we headed next. Not much has changed. All rides were up and running, and Bamboozler
looks like it may have gotten some light work over the winter. On a completely different subject let’s talk
about trees. If you remember from last
year, many (dozens) of Worlds of Fun pines succumbed to a relatively new killer
pine disease. In the Orient (especially
near Skyliner) several were removed.
Good news, these pines have been replaced by new young trees. In fact, as we will try to highlight MANY of
the old diseased pines that were removed last year have been replaced.
Moving on to Americana a few minor changes, Pizza Pier and
the surrounding food joints received new picnic tables and new concrete. I wish they had replaced all the concrete in
that area, but still it was a nice surprise.
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| Near Pizza Pier, new concrete and picnic tables |
Of course, one of the eatery options on the park is Caribou Coffee, which opened in the old Pig Pen’s (plush
animal shop). Now I’m not a coffee
drinker, but if I was, it’s a nice looking place to get coffee. And for a positive outlook, atleast its not
that coffee chain that starts and ends with “S”, yeah you know the one. Also suprisingly enough the prices are extremly inflated, coffee runs about $3-4 each.
I also really wanted to make a comment about the photos on the wall, including Cotton Blossom, Sam Panda, and some original park
concept art. I’m not sure what others
think about it, but I think it’s a nice touch.
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| The new Caribou Coffee |
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| Inside Caribou Coffee |
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| One of the framed photos on the wall in Caribou Coffee |
We next moved on to Timber Wolf. The good news? Timber wolf not only had both trains
assembled and ready to run (an improvement over previous seasons), but they
were RUNNING both trains. That's good, but
truthfully, I shouldn’t be mentioning that as an improvement, it should simply
be done. Timber Wolf the ride on the
other hand… Can we just give GCI a call and re-track the whole thing? Yeah I know lots of $$$ but really even I
didn’t enjoy it all that much and I usually really like Timber Wolf. Yes it was fast, and I think there was some
airtime in there, but I was so concerned about holding on and not being beaten
to a pulp, that I hardly noticed.
In another improvement (should be happening anyway)
ThunderHawk was open. If I was the park
I would have certainly made sure it was open for opening day, I think it was
closed 75% or MORE of last season.
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| The old Uncle Sams Skeeball Hall, now Snoopy's Arcade. There used to be a large trim piece above the door that was removed at the end of last season, instead of simply being repaired. |
The old Uncle Sam’s Skeeball Hall received some new
landscaping and trees around it, and some new doors (from the look of it) but
the building itself really needs some love, both inside and out. A lot of its trim was removed last year,
probably due to wood rot, which is sad. Of course it is now home to the parks only
remaining skeeball machines.
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| Wacky Worm gets a new theme, but is a little late to the party. |
Next to Timber wolf is another coaster… Wacky Worm, Cosmic
Coaster, still Wacky Worm to me. (Hey that rocketship isn't supposed to have FEET) Yep its
not open for opening day. Originally, I
was planning a long-winded harp about how every ride should be open for opening
day. AND every ride SHOULD be open
opening day, especially when you have a winter that has on 3.9 inches of
snow. Can someone remind me again what
ride maintenance does for half of the off season? I want that job. There really is VERY little that bothers me
more then rides not being open on opening day.
However, there is one thing that bothers me more, and that’s mud
slinging. Lately on Facebook I have seen a lot of whining, about simple human mistakes. It seems like a lot of supposedly mature adults forgot what it was like to work their first day of their first job when they were 16 years old, and are following a rather disturbing trend in the US of expecting everyone (except themselves) to be perfect.
Worlds of Fun may NOT be perfect, and as you will see soon
in my Europa review, they are FAR from.
Worlds of Fun is ran by human beings, who make mistakes, and while I
firmly believe we should learn from mistakes and not keep repeating them year
after year, after year (cough cough cough), some small degree of learning curve
should be expected on the first day of the season.
Now with that being said one last comment about Planet
Snoopy and children’s rides in general.
So last year the park added eight new family/children’s right? But did they REALLY ADD 8 rides? No. In
the last two years the park has gotten rid of Bouce-A-Roo’s, Head Over Wheels,
Pony Promenade, and Too Too Train.
That’s four. So the 8 new rides
is really fuzzy math. Still the ride
subtraction/addition is a positive number, the park still ended up with 4 new
rides overall. And I don’t care who
you are I will take the Grand Carrousel of Bounce-A-Roo’s any day.
So Europa. I have to wonder if the powers that be realize
the park really has a section called Europa.
Walk through it, take a look at the rides, shops, restaurants. Yeah. There
is enough there for me to write 50 pages about.
Honestly, I am beginning to think maybe the park should bulldoze the
entire section, leaving of course Le Taxi Tour and Flying Dutchman (hey I LIKE
Flying Dutchman) and of course rebuild it. Last year I harped about Autobahn
and its pathetic seven cars in operation.
This year… the same thing. Now I
know money does not grow on trees but this is just pathetic. Right next to Autobahn is State Fair Mini Donuts… in Europa. This is the snack
stand formerly known as Lamar’s Libations.
What I have a hard time understanding is that the park can return Norma
Hunt’s namesake, but not Lamar Hunt’s?
Plus the signage is just extremely tacky, and I have yet to see it open
this season.
Then there’s Taxi’s, FOUR whole cars. FOUR.. There are FIVE parking spots at the loading
dock, but only FOUR cars. Well that’s a
whole whopping capacity of a hundred or so an hour. This is on a ride that
used to operate with 18 cars on average.
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| Some shabby looking trim in Europa. |
Not only is State Fair mini donuts not open, but neither is Bonici Bros
(atleast that I have seen), and its façade is looking especially shabby. Now that might be made worse by the fact that
the rest of the park is looking better, but wow. Unlike Arrow Taxi Cars, and Bumper cars I
know for a fact that sandpaper and paint is pretty cheap. (wood trim isn't horribly expensive either) I just get this feeling that if Europa could
talk it would be screaming “help me!”.
Really the poor section hasn’t had a new ride since 1977, 34 years.
A couple of good things going on in Europa though, Jeff was able to check out the new Trax show at Moulin Rouge, and commented that it was a really good show, sort of along the lines of the old Tivoli show. So definitely check that out. Europa also, like western Americana and the Orient still has its themed music!
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| The new Trax show at Moulin Rouge |
Last thing about Europa, the Europa/Africa hill is sporting this nice new landscaping wall...
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| A new landscaping wall on the Europa/Africa hill/ |
So moving on to Africa.
Of course the big update is Boomerang’s paint job. Looks nice, and its good that they also took
care of the station and metal walkways they were looking really bad. Couple other things, Same Day Gateway/Ride
and Slide Gateway has been replaced with an ADA compatible entrance. Opening day it wasn’t open, but second
weekend it was. Checked it out, looking
good.
While were in the area (near Mamba and Prowler) I thought I
would add a few comments about the new Fast Lane. First its $50 per person for those unaware,
which is a)expensive and b)probably means not a lot of people will be using it. Couple of things I noticed, on at least
Prowler and Mamba, the Fast Lane queue works very similar to Fast Pass at
Disney, those with Fast Lane don’t get RIGHT on, the lines join up at the
station, so if they want the front, they still have to wait for the front. Again as long as the park runs decent capacity (two trains when the line is out of the station for example), then I'm okay with the Fast Lane idea, not my most favorite thing in the world, but okay with it.
However, I still have to voice a concern of both Jeff and I. What if for example Patriot is running one train and the line is down the stairs and around the station, people are waiting 45 mins plus for a ride, which is basically being run at half capacity. A Fast Lane user may bypasses a line, but they are bypassing a line that SHOULDN'T EVEN EXIST. In this case I see Fast Lane as a simple money grab. The park COULD take the cheap and easy route and run into disgruntled park guests or they could do the right thing, and run capacity.
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| Sorry for the bad quality photo, Gorilla Grill |
One of the big name changes besides Norma’s is the change of
Congo Clearing to Gorilla Grill. I am
going to say something that some may not agree with. Its themed appropriately, and as much as I
liked the name Congo Clearing, I really like the new signage for Gorilla Grill, its
bright and makes that restaurant really stand out.
As far as Prowler (besides it being just a great ride) for
those that remember opening season last year, we had to wait about a month
before even the second train was fully assembled, so it’s a good sign that not
only is the second train fully assembled, but both were running.
So moving into Scandinavia once again. Lower Scandinavia,
isn’t changed much, it has the same music selection of Upper Scandinavia,
basically popular music. Are they on the
same track? Guessing so, am I asking for
to much to have themed music in atleast HALF of Scandinavia? Well I can try.
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| Not a great photo, but if you clip to expand you can get a better view |
Oslo’s Chicken and Waffles is another one of those restaurants
I have yet to see open, but I have to admit, I really like the logo, putting a
chicken in a Viking helmet on the logo, just speaks old Worlds of Fun to me for
some reason. Maybe its just I’m a girl
and I think its cute. Why a chicken in a
Viking Helmet is cute, is like questioning why giant plush panda balls are
cute, they just are (check out Plaza Gifts)
Still waiting for the restaurant to open so I can see live and in person
the concept of Waffles and Chicken. Supposedly
a southern dish, we shall see.
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| The new ADA compliant entrance for Viking Voyager |
So that’s it, another opening day in the books, and next
year May 28, 2013 we will be celebrating the park’s real 40th anniversary. There have been some dark years in there, and
I would like to say I think its all clear sailing ahead, but there are still a
lot of problems that I see that need attention.
However, I think the park has made clear, obvious strides between last
year and this year, and it looks like attendance is reflecting that, here’s to
a great 2012 season! See you at the park.
