Robert Forto

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The Raven at Holiday World Review | Coaster Geeks Podcast

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The Raven at Holiday World Review

The Raven is a wooden roller coaster at Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari‘s Halloween section in Santa Claus, Indiana. It was designed and built beginning in 1994 by the now-defunct roller coaster manufacturer Custom Coasters International, with the help of designers Dennis McNulty and Larry Bill; it opened on May 6, 1995. The Raven takes its name from Edgar Allan Poe‘s poem “The Raven” and features sudden drops and turns which mimic the flight of a raven. From 2000 to 2003, The Raven was voted the world’s “Best Wooden Roller Coaster” at the Golden Ticket Awards, which are presented annually by Amusement Today magazine. It was named an “ACE Roller Coaster Landmark” by American Coaster Enthusiasts on June 23, 2016. On today’s episode of The Coaster Geeks Podcast, we talk about it here!

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I stumbled on Holiday World by accident. It was 2016 and the year Michele and I did our epic second annual coaster tour across America from Colorado to Maine to Texas. We rode more than 100 coasters on that trip. About mid-way through our trip, Michele had to fly back home to Alaska to pick up a service dog that we were delivering to a client in Texas. I dropped her off in Chicago and made my way south. I stopped in a diner for lunch and whipped out my phone and searched “roller coasters in Indiana.” Holiday World popped up.

I turned off of the highway and into the rolling hills and cornfields and saw the massive orange Thunderbird in the middle of a swatch of corn. I knew this was going to be good. If you haven’t been to Holiday World it is in, you guessed it, Santa Claus Indiana and the entire park is, well, holiday-themed. While this is not a review of the park, we will do that show in detail, later on, we are here to talk about The Raven. It is located in the Halloween section of the park and the first coaster you will see as you go through the gates. I was wishing my coaster buddy; Michele was along for this first ride but we did make it back in 2018 and 2019 as part of the coaster tours.

Michele: The Raven is a classic wooden roller coaster at Holiday World in little Santa Claus, Indiana. This is a park well known for its wooden coasters, and it was The Raven that kicked off this reputation! It was the very first woodie they added, built by Custom Coasters International back in 1995, which actually makes the ride surprisingly young. And as Holiday World will be the first to tell you, The Raven had quite the reputation in the years past, racking up the awards to show it. As you walk in the park’s main entrance, the lift hill for the coaster is direct to your left. Adorned on the structure is a sign reminding visitors of The Raven’s past, namely, that it was voted the “Best Roller Coaster on the Planet” for 3 years straight! However, given that those years were 2000-2003, does The Raven still hold up as one of the ‘Best’ out there?

The Lead-Up

You can find The Raven in the Halloween section of the park. One aspect to Holiday World that I didn’t know until getting there was the hilly nature of the park. Between the Christmas-themed entry area and the Thanksgiving section, the path is a winding road on a downward slope. Because of the fluctuating grade, there are a lot of horizontal paths. So, although The Raven’s station is pretty close to the front entrance geographically, it takes a few minutes to walk there. Most of The Raven’s layout, though, is hidden from view off in the woods.

Once you do arrive, you’ll walk under a really cool wrought iron entry sign. And in case you didn’t see the lift hill structure sign out front, this sign also will inform you The Raven used to be the best in the world. Once in the station, you walk through a stairwell corridor painted to be pitch black. “The Raven” name comes from the Edgar Allen Poe poem, so there’s a loose theme here. There’s a statue of Raven atop a skull sitting in the loading area, so I guess that helps? I don’t think most guests would make the connection without being told though. This isn’t necessarily bad, given Holiday World is a regional park, but I think they did a better job with the storylines behind their later coasters.

Ride Experience

A brief dip and turn and you begin to ascend the 80-foot lift hill. At the top, a slight turn and you’re heading down an 85-foot drop into the woods! If you’re in the back here, you really get dragged over the drop for some ejector airtime. The bottom of the drop plunges you into a tunnel. Emerging from the tunnel, you rise up into a hill, which’s purpose is not so much for airtime, but rather to line you up for the next element: a 360-degree turnaround that skims right over a lake.

This low swoop is a great maneuver for several reasons. Obviously, anytime you come really close to the water on a coaster, it’s a cool feeling. But further, if this was your first ride, there would be no way you could even know this lake existed–much less that the coaster interacts with it.

After the lake turnaround, you head back into the woods. A pair of hills with marginal airtime precede the finale of the ride: back-to-back banked turns. This sounds tame, but it’s actually fairly intense. They are hard curves, and you get some nice lateral G-forces. After the second s-curve, you head into the final brake run.

Our Take

Easily the best part of The Raven is the fact it is a terrain coaster. It not only flies through the woods, but it traverses a hillside as well and it goes over a lake. The Raven is a great example of how the surrounding environment can boost a ride’s excitement. The top speed is only 48 miles per hour, but it feels much faster because of the trees and ground zooming by around you.

By its modest stats–80 foot height, 48 mph speed, short duration–and relative age compared to its fellow thrill machines at Holiday World, The Raven should be the least of them. But, honestly, it outperformed my expectations; I enjoyed The Raven more than I felt I should have. I liked it more than The Legend, and I rode it more times than The Voyage. Going in, I guess I knew about The Raven’s reputation in the back of my head, but I really didn’t have big expectations for it.

So, is it “the Best Wooden Roller Coaster” in the world? No. It can’t compare to new-age wooden behemoths like El Toro or Lightning Rod. The glory days have gone, but that doesn’t mean The Raven can’t carve out a new niche: as a classic woodie that delivers a better ride experience than its appearance would suggest, but one that still falls short of “great.”

Final Rating – 8.0 out of 10 (Great)

Your Take

What are your thoughts on the first classic woodie from Holiday World? Have you been out there, and how does The Raven compare to the other coasters at the Santa Claus, Indiana park? We would love to hear what you have to say!

The Big Dipper at Camden Park Review | Coaster Geeks Podcast

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The Big Dipper at Camden Park Review

This is the coaster that started it all for me. I rode this for the first time when I was probably seven or eight years old. Located in West Virginia’s only amusement park, Camden Park, the Big Dipper is a lesser-known but classic wooden roller coaster which can deliver a fun ride if you’re willing to trust it. Built back in 1958 by the National Amusement Devices Company, it is still standing as an ACE roller coaster landmark while sporting some stylish trains as well.

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Camden Park was my home park when I was I kid. I grew up in Huntington and Camden Park was only about eight or nine miles away. What was even cooler is every summer Ashland Oil, where my grandfather was a big wig, would have what they called family days. They would close the park down just for the Ashland Oil employees and their families and we would have a picnic, they would make boring speeches, and on and on. This is the first time I even learned about exclusive ride time, or ERT as it is known in the coaster community and we could ride the rides as much as we could handle, it is worth mentioning that in the 1970s the pronto pup (what you guys call corn dogs) stand was right next to The Big Dipper. These were not your ordinary corn dogs, these were foot long and I would slather these bad boys with a gallon of mustard.

The Big Dipper is a lesser-known but classic wooden roller coaster which can deliver a fun ride! Click To Tweet

On our second annual rock n roller coaster tour, Michele and I went about as big as you could go. We flew down from Alaska to Denver and started driving east in a rented Ford F150. By the time it was all said and done we had ridden more than 100 coasters and visited parks from the Rockies to New England, to Texas, and everywhere in between. When It was all said and done we put more than 7500 miles on the brand new truck and started an annual tradition.

This trip included a trip to Camden Park. I had not been there since those days when I was a little kid. The last time had to be back in the late 70s. I know right?!

Anyhow, we were here and there was the Big Dipper!

Right off the bat, the “Big Dipper” gave off some sketchy vibes. When I visited, the first thing you could see was the sign, nearly covered by hedge overgrowth, conspicuously missing a letter. Hopefully, this wasn’t a sign of things to come…

Unfortunately, though, it kind of was. Once you enter the station and take a look around, you realize there is only one worker operating the ride. One! Talk about old school, sheesh. Obviously, this led to less than stellar capacity, but the wait wasn’t bad enough to where it seemed egregious. It’s quite the sight, though–a one-man-ride-op-crew. For one cycle, he had to cross over the track & unlock the single-entry gate, not a row of gates like at most parks, check every row’s lap bar, walk back over and dispatch the train using a manual handbrake, sit there and wait until the train came back, walk over to the exit area and manually unlock every lap bar and finally, unlock the exit gate. And that’s right, I said manual handbrake.

This handbrake had a little, uh, extra assistance, holding it together. Seeing the device that controlled the train’s stopping and started being held in place by a rope is not the most reassuring sight. And it’s funny because otherwise manual handbrakes are so cool and even rarer than they are cool. On the Dipper, the handbrake actually operates the ride.

Speaking of lovable vintage coaster accessories, this coaster is still running its original NAD Century Flyer train. These babies are hot stuff in the coaster community, due to the nostalgic aesthetic and rarity, as they are only used by two other rides: the Thunderbolt at Kennywood and The Cyclone at Lakeside in Denver. Though the Century Flyers on the Thunderbolt look great, the Flyers here on the Big Dipper are showing their age. Overall, it’s not terrible, but it’s still kind of sad to see one of the famous front lights knocked out.

We were practically the only people in the park. It was later in the evening when we arrived, and it was raining pretty good. Robert pulled up and had me jump out and run up and ask the girl in the ticket booth if the Big Dipper was even open. They assured me it was and we bought our tickets.

We were the only ones to ride the coaster that day and Robert sat in the front car. I quietly asked the ride attendant if I could film the whole thing. He said sure. In most parks, this is a big no-no. You can get thrown out of most parks if they catch you with your phone out, much less recording. I settled in the seat behind Robert and started to record.

Now that you’re in the station, you also can look out into the coaster structure… where you see semi-rotten wood mixed with re-tracked sections. Some of the support bents got quite the shakedown as the coaster traversed the layout. Again, not the best sight for oncoming riders.

Once you board the trains, if you’re at all tall you might find the seats a bit of a squeeze, as for me and Robert found out–both of us having to angle our legs sideways to even fit inside! After all this buildup of uncertainty, the one-man-band ride op releases the handbrake and you begin to roll out of the station, looking up at a crooked lift hill.

Ride Experience

After a short climb, the train disengages from the chain lift and you go down a modest dip before rising back up to about the same height as the lift. A wide panoramic turnaround follows, and then you drop down the “Big Dip” of the ride. Going down that actually can provide some ejector air because of the Dipper’s lack of seat belts. That’s right, it’s lap bars only here, ala the Phoenix at Knoebels, and that does add a lot to the ride. You certainly don’t bounce up and down to the extreme that you do on Phoenix, but it does give the Big Dipper a little of the throwback, out-of-control sensation that wooden coaster enthusiasts crave.

After that main drop, you take another wide, slow turnaround before a second larger dip into an enclosed turnaround. This elongated tunnel section is kinda cool–again, another feature that adds to the ride experience. Following this, you hop over one more bunny hill and then coast into the brakes. That’s it from this relatively short, figure-8 layout coaster.

My Take

Because of the apparent state of the structure and the operations (of the ride and the park), I can’t say I really let myself go on the Big Dipper–aka I couldn’t trust the technology and enjoy the ride as I do on most roller coasters. Once on the ride, the lack of seat belts and old rumbly wooden feel was fun, as long as I kept the visions of the support structure out of my mind. I do believe the park has continued to re-track more sections of the coaster since my 2016 visit, so maybe it looks more solid now. I don’t recall it being rough, just appearing as if it could use some TLC. I know a lot of people have praised this ride for having a classic, old-timey feel, but when I visited, I got more of a negative run-down vibe than positive nostalgic enthusiasm. That’s too bad. I know Robert felt the same way, right? Yes….

Because we were only there for a brief time before moving westward on a big coaster road trip to come, and because of our experience on the first ride, it was my only one. This rating is based on that, but if the park does continue its upkeep maybe I’ll have to give it another shot sometime. It wasn’t a bad experience; it just was one of the few coasters to make me uneasy. The Big Dipper scared me more than Valravn at Cedar Point ever could. In a positive way though

Robert, what are you giving this coaster on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being the worst ever, say an old concussion ride like an Arrow clone at any number of parks or a ten being, say Banshee or the Voyage?

I am going to give it a four. While it was my first coaster and one that started it all. I am surprised it is still standing, and I am glad we got to experience it, especially all these years later. It sure did bring back a lot of memories.

Ok, guys, that’s the show for today! We hope to be back on the road later this summer in 2021 if all goes well with the COVID vaccine and we have plans to visit Dollywood, Holiday World, Kings Island, Kentucky Kingdom, Sea World San Diego, and maybe a few more. If we do, we plan on doing a live show and of course a full podcast after our visit. Please be sure to follow us on social media. Just search for Coaster Geeks pod.


 

Rock n Roller 2021 Tour

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The planning has officially begun on the sixth annual Rock n Roller Tour across America. From our trusted sites it looks like travel will rebound in the second quarter of the year with the roll out if the COVID-19 vaccine and our fingers are crossed that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. While it has been a troubling year, we miss traveling, ridding roller coasters and listening to live music. Let’s hope that we will be on the road again this summer.

Our plan is to travel to Podcast Movement in Nashville in early August and hit up Dollywood and other attractions in Pigeon Forge, TN while we are then. We will be staying at the world-famous Opryland Resort during the conference. In September we have tickets to travel back to Louisville, KY for our third Louder Than Life festival and will hit up Kings Island, Holiday World and Kentucky Kingdom.

In late October we will be traveling down to San Diego to jump on a boat for a week of shark diving in Mexico and hope to hit up Sea World and Belmont Park during that trip.

We hope to broadcast live for our Youtube channel and our Coaster Geeks podcast too. Stay Tuned!