Adventureland & Worlds of Fun

It's high time I reviewed some parks, so here goes.

On Memorial Day, I visited Adventureland near Des Moines, Iowa. An independent park with a great charm and atmosphere, and a nice selection of rides. First impressions were of a very clean park, sticking to the tradional American amusement park formula of a Main Street section, which then branches out in to the main park area itself. I do love parks like this which keep a little bit of charm and innocence. They feel much less overbearing than the big chain parks, and much more welcoming.

The entrance to Adventureland

The first stop on my visit was a unique coaster called simply "Underground". It's a small wooden ride designed to recreate the feeling of an underground mine (even though the actual ride stays entirely above ground in enclosed sections). 

The Underground coaster

Awaiting instructions from the animatronics!

It featured a couple of small drops and winding track to simulate a ride through the mine. It's a good little ride for families, but bigger thrillseekers will be looking at the 3 larger rollercoasters inside the park. The Outlaw rollercoaster at the back of the park is a fun-filled woodie with some nice pops of airtime, and a compact layout with several crossovers. Apart from the ride, which was pretty good, the great crew of Circus Bill and Co. put everyone in a good mood before the high speed run through several twists, turns and hills!

The first drop of Outlaw.

Circus Bill himself!

The other two rollercoasters in the park share a white paint job, but that's where the similarity ends. The park's largest woodie, Tornado, is over half a mile of big hills, skirting the western edge of the park. There's not much airtime, but the ride is fast, bumpy and definitely gets the adrenaline going. The fourth coaster, Dragon, is a double looping affair, which forces you to hang on for dear life through two vertical loops and a fast ground hugging helix, which takes you back to the station in unrelenting fashion after pinning you to your seat for a good few seconds. Not for those who like their rides on the smoother side!

The train on Tornado dives down the the second drop of the ride (pictured rear).

Dragon's train going through the second of two powerful vertical loops.

Despite a tame start, the second you leave the lift hill, you are praying for a swift finish!

Pictured from the Tornado's station, the final helix of Dragon doesn't show any mercy.

Tornado also had a fun crew getting everyone excited for the ride ahead.

Apart from the big rollercoasters, the park also has a good selection of water rides. Ideal on a hot day to cool you down! Along with a raft ride, there's a rapids ride with a few sections which will leave you wet or soaking wet, and a log flume with a couple of drops guaranteed to leave you soaking wet.

Saw Mill Splash will be familiar to frequenters of Thorpe Park who have been on Storm Surge - it's a spinning inflatable raft ride which drops you into the water after a short run down a chute.

And once you've been drenched, there's two tower rides to help dry you off. Storm Chaser (below left) is a modern take on the old chair swing rides you know and love, taking you up nearly 200ft for a high flying spin over the park, with just a lap bar to hold you in. If that doesn't get your pulse racing or your clothes dry, there's a big short tower just a short walk away (below right), which launches you up 200ft at 60 miles per hour. And if you think it looks like the Ice Blast/Playstation ride at Blackpool, you're right. It's exactly identical. In fact, the S&S Shot Tower is one of the most popular modern rides in amusement parks today, giving huge thrills in a space which would fit in most people's back yards. There are hundreds of these rides around the world, and once you ride one, you can see why they're so popular.

There's no shortage of traditional rides either. Ferris wheel, swinging ship, chairlift, tilt-a-whirl, you name it, Adventureland's probably got it. This mix of old meets new only adds to the pleasant atmosphere of the place. Add in some handy shade tunnels to escape the worst of the heat on super hot days, and this is a park which can offer a great selection of rides for all the family.

If I were to be critical, the park could use a newer rollercoaster (the last coaster to be built there was in 1996, and nearly 20 years without a new rollercoaster is a long time in theme park terms), but for 99% of the people who visit, there's really nothing too much wrong with the ones they have. Yes, there are bigger and better rides elsewhere, but the park's ambiance really makes up for any deficiencies in their coaster selection.




Thanks to a quiet day at Adventureland, helped by good operations, I was able to head over the Kansas City early, and catch a few hours at Worlds Of Fun, in Kansas City, Missouri. A very different park to Adventureland, it's owned by the big American park chain Cedar Fair, responsible for some of the most exciting rides in the land.

Sadly for me, almost none of them are at Worlds of Fun. Now, I should point out this is the enthusiast in me talking somewhat - once you ride several hundred coasters and visit a few hundred theme parks, you don't like to settle for much less than the best. I'm also very well aware that my opinion certainly doesn't reflect the other 99.9% of people who go there. Parks are there to cater for everyone, not just enthusiasts. But I am an enthusiast, and I will be honest in my review.

From a business point of view, as an operation, the park is very slick. The staff look very professional, and go about their job in a very professional way. The park is very clean, and the rides are well looked after, which gives off a very clean cut corporate image.

The park's inverted coaster. Not a bad ride, and operated very efficiently

Patriot features four different inversions, and a number of a fast swooping turns.

However, with the knowledge of what their flagship park Cedar Point is like, it left me a bit disappointed that the great atmosphere of that park isn't replicated here. The staff, as efficient as they are, are quite robotic in the way they go about their work. They can't be entirely blamed for how they work -  management must be responsible too. But I wish they had more of the human touch to make the day feel special.

 A quick example - on entering the theme park, I showed my pass and was asked for my surname, as part of the validation process. But I didn't get a "thank you", or "enjoy your day" after the check was completed. It's little things like this - first impressions - that really set the tone of your visit. A nice word makes you feel welcome, after all you're coming to amusement park, not a prison.

It also doesn't help that the park has some very average coasters which don't do their fact sheets any justice. Mamba, a hyper coaster which takes riders over 200 feet in the air and drops them at 75 miles per hour left me bored out of my skull. Again, it's not a bad ride. It just isn't a very good one.

The same goes for the Boomerang coaster. This ride you'll be seeing a lot of in these reports, because it's a very successful design. Packing in a 125ft tall climb, a total of three inversions repeated forwards and backwards to make a total of six upside down moments, it really does cram a lot in to a small footprint. But like a lot of this ride's clones, it does its job with club feet. I've certainly done worse, but also done better. And again, after you ride this ride many times in many different places, it's more a case of box ticking than a brand new ride to get excited about.

Mamba: Big ride, but very boring for me.

Boomerang. One of the most copied coaster rides in the world.

However, one small corner of the park does have a ride which really stands out for all the right reasons. Prowler, a wooden coaster built by Great Coasters International was a fine way to end a two hour blast round the park that night. GCI are well regarded for building fast and smooth coasters, and this was fast, smooth, and felt fantastic. The crew operating the ride were also having fun, and still being efficient and safe.

The last (and best) ride of the day.

Prowler is buried deep in the woods, so it's hard to get a good photo from the ground.

Whilst riding Prowler, I got chatting to a couple of locals to get their take on the park. Kyle and Kate both live nearby, and we all thought that while the park had some great rides, it could be a bit more special. And it wouldn't take much to do.

We agreed that overall, park employees are simply not paid enough for the jobs they do, especially those who are directly responsible for customers' safety on rides, which can have an effect on morale, performance, and so on. But with better management, this is something which would not take much to remedy.

Forget me - Kyle and Kate are just some of the people who really keep theme parks going.

The next morning, I quickly revisited the park to do a few of the things I missed out on the night before. The Spinning Dragons rollercoaster, the Steelhawk Windseeker ride (a taller version of Storm Chaser at Adventureland) and the Dinosaurs Alive walkthrough were all done in the space of an hour or so, along with a quick re-ride of Prowler.

Spinning Dragons is popular with kids and big kids alike. But not for those with a weak stomach!

Steelhawk. 301 feet tall. In layman's terms, a very tall ride!

Dinosaurs not alive. But still looking scary!

These two parks go to prove that you can spend millions of dollars on big rides, but there's no substitute for good atmosphere. Worlds Of Fun could be a great park, but it could do with taking a leaf out of smaller parks like Adventureland, and it's flagship sister park to find the charm it's missing.