Coaster Community

Valerie and I had been meaning to go out to Worlds of Fun for Halloween Haunt this year, but we hadn't had a chance because we had been busy with our own Halloween festivities. We also needed to go out there to renew our season passes for 2009 while they were still discounted. We got to the park around 3pm and our first stop was to pay for our renewals and get them processed. This took less than 5 minutes and it was much easier than having to deal with it at the beginning of next season. Once the administrative part of the visit was taken care of we headed over to Lore of the Vampire. Lore is the only "Extreme Haunt" open on Sundays. In the past this had been one of my favorites, but I was a little disappointed with it this year. After we went through a few turns in the haunt we came to a passageway where I saw three employees chatting with each other. Once they saw Valerie and I they rushed to their places which were down another corridor. I had heard from another employee that there were some issues with employees slacking in this particular haunt. Since this was my only visit to the haunt this year its hard to say if it was more of the same or just boredom setting in on the final Sunday of the operating season. There were a few scares further in the haunt, but there were also a few people that just sat and watching as I walked by. As I exited the haunt I noticed what looked like the break area for Lore. It looked like there were about 10 people standing around. Hard to say what the reason for that was, but it was frustrating to see as a guest nonetheless.

 

Since Patriot was right next door to Lore we headed over there to take one final last ride of the season. Jennifer from the WorldsOfFun.org site was the main ride-op when we took our ride. While we were waiting in line she spotted that someone had a Sprite bottle in their hands and she stopped the train just as it entered the lift hill. She had one of the other employees go up the lift hill steps to grab the bottle, and once the illegal loose article was back in the station she started the train up again. This should have been caught by the the employee securing that row of seats, but it was a nice catch by Jennifer. Because Valerie doesn't like any other row except the front I had a good ride, but not the excellent one the back would have offered. I had some nice air through the zero-g roll and the drop before entering the final corkscrew. At some points in the year Patriot had developed a bit of a rattle, but that was non-existent on this particular ride. I am definitely going to miss this over the next five plus months until Opening Day 2009.

Next we took a few rides on our other favorite coaster in the park, Timber Wolf. People complain a lot about Timber Wolf being rough, but the re-tracking efforts that had been made over the last couple of years have done a great deal to improve that issue. I think one of the reasons people complain about Timber Wolf is folks have a tendency to tense up while riding wooden coasters. This of course only serves to make the experience worse. Valerie and I figured out last season that if you just relax and let the ride take you along for the journey instead of trying to control it the experience is much better. Today's rides were no exception. The train was running great and I had pops of air in all the usual places. There were a few rides I had this summer that this was not the case and I started to wonder if the trim brakes were slowing the trains down even more than before. Our second ride restored my faith that the Wolf still had some bite as both Valerie and I agreed that it ran faster and had even more air-time than our first run. Some people might think I'm crazy, but I think I will miss Timber Wolf more than Patriot in the off-season.

 

In between rides on the Timber Wolf we took the opportunity to go through the House on Boo Hill attraction in Camp Spooky (the name of Camp Snoopy during Haunt). I had heard some good things about this attraction, and I must say I agree with what I had been told. This was a great attraction to take kids through. There are employees in creepy costumes, but unlike other houses they don't jump out at people. Instead they say mildly creepy things, or they hide around corners and wait for you to see them. Compared to all the gymnasium haunts I experienced as a kid this blew them all away. Compared to any of the Extreme Haunts it was a little lame. However, it is not meant to compete with the adult haunts. It is meant to give kids a spooky but not frightening Halloween experience. The level of theming that goes in to all of the adult haunts was matched here, and it is a great primer for adult haunts.

 

Most of what remained of our day consisted of us causally strolling through the park taking pictures and enjoying the Fall foliage. Those pictures can be seen in my Gallery or on Facebook. Since the sun has set on the 2008 season I'll leave you with a picture of the Sun setting over Patriot.

 

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