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"Well, there's your problem, there is a brake on the first drop!"
Worlds of Fun was built in 1973, and it is the same kind of park project as Six Flags over Mid America. It's located on IR-35 just outside of Kansas City on an enormous chunk of ground. The complex consists of Worlds of Fun, the Oceans of Fun waterpark, and a campground that includes a section that looks suspiciously like Cedar Point's Lighthouse Point. The park was originally built, as I understand it, by Lamar Hunt's company, and accordingly, across the road from the park is an enormous industrial park, the Hunt Business Center, which seems to be home mostly to trucking companies. Lots of additional land around the park is also owned by Hunt, as there are "for sale" signs indicating Hunt as the seller. Of course, Worlds of Fun is now owned by Cedar Fair, which is convenient for me, as my Cedar Point/Geauga Lake pass gets me in the gate. Much to my surprise, they also opted to accept the 2-park parking credential, saving me a $9 parking fee. I don't think they were supposed to do that, but I mention it for a reason which may become more obvious later.
One major impression of Worlds of Fun is that it is a park that involves a lot of gratuitous walking, a point which is driven home first by the long, largely unmarked walk from the parking area, down a long, narrow path between the administrative (and other back-end) offices and the security building. There isn't a lot of space there, but as I walk down that long path I think about Hershypark's Tudor Square (or whatever they're calling it now) which has a series of shops and restaurants which are nicely integrated into the park...but are located outside the gate. I wonder if Cedar Fair has looked at that model and thought about trying to implement something like that to break up this long walk. I stopped at the customer service booth for my ticket. At Worlds of Fun, the customer service booth is located well outside the park gates, rather than along the edge of the gate, so instead of the "sign in, then walk through the connecting door" method used at Cedar Point and Valleyfair!, here they have to do a bunch of paperwork and issue a ticket. In fact, the amount of paperwork required reminds me of the Stalinesque procedure used at Cedar Point for processing season passes: first, I presented my Cedar Point/Geauga Lake pass, and the person verified that it seemed to be me. She then wrote down the Cedar Point pass number on a clipboard roster, indicating my name, the date, and my home park. Then she produced an NCR duplicate form which she filled out with the same information, which I signed. Then she went to the cash register and rang up a complimentary ticket, which indicated on it that it was for use with a Cedar Point pass. Did you catch all of that? The particulars of my visit to Worlds of Fun were recorded three times, in at least six different places [Footnote 1]. Somebody at Cedar Fair must really like gratuitous, redundant paperwork. Probably the same person who insists on putting "queue line" on all the relevant signs. I wonder if Cedar Fair has a Department of Redundancy Department.
Once inside the park, the day begins in the Scandinavian section of the park. I've talked about this before: If the park is themed around "Around the World in 80 Days," then why does it start in Scandinavia, which did not even appear in either the Jules Verne novel, the Blake Edwards movie, or even the Jackie Chan knockoff movie from a couple of years ago? Never mind, it isn't the last inconsistency I'll encounter today. I did notice that some German theming is creeping into the Scandinavian section of the park, but it doesn't make a whole lot of difference given that the shops in this section are full of Peanuts Gang merchandise, and the theater in this section houses the "Livin' in America" show. The section also features the park's ancient flume ride, which has lovely boats that look like Viking long boats. I'm not sure who built the ride, but given the amount of banging around it does in the flume, and the simple design of the boats, I'm guessing this one came from Hopkins. Oh, and while the ride boards in Scandinavia, most of it actually runs through the Orient[Footnote 2].
Confusion reins supreme in Scandinavia. I already mentioned the gift chalet and the theater. There is also a stand there called "Swedish Sippers" or something like that, a name which implies that it is a drink stand. But don't ask for a drink at this stand...it is one of the two $0.25 cotton candy stands in the park. Down the hill from the drinkcotton candy stand, just past the Rotor is a late model Eyerly Monster, which the park calls an Octopus. Are you confused yet? Because I can find more ways to make Worlds of Fun confusing if you aren't!
There is an unmarked path split past the Boomerang. To the left, as it turns out, is the park's rapids ride, which was very popular on this hot afternoon. To the right and up the hill, technically you stay in the Africa section. But the appearance changes dramatically. The asphalt midway yields to white concrete, to the right is a gigantic steel frame structure supporting a very large, very ugly projection screen, and on up the hill is a 200-foot-tall silver structured, red tracked steel out-and-back hyper coaster. Beneath this is a Coasters restaurant, and inside the restaurant are several photographs of Cedar Point coasters, mostly Mean Streak. On my last visit I suggested that this was the "Cedar Point" section of the park. This time I am more convinced than ever of that, particularly with the projection screen. The one thing about it that is decidedly un-Cedar Point-like is the changes in elevation. Cedar Point is, of course, totally flat. Worlds of Fun...is not. It's up the hill and up the stairs to the Mamba queue entrance, then under the track, up the stairs, and into the station. Since Mamba has so much in common with my favorite, the Magnum XL-200, I went immediately for my favorite seat, the third seat at the back of the lead car.
Well, Mamba is no Magnum. The cars are noticeably larger, and there are other, more subtle differences. The seats, for instance, seem to be tipped forward slightly, which is a little unsettling. Also, the lap bar does not come down into my lap the way it does on an Arrow train, instead it kind of rests against my gut the way a PTC bar does. At the top of the lift, there is a bit of a wait to go over the top as the back of the train comes up; I don't know if it is because there is a flat spot at the top of the lift or just because of the dynamics of getting the whole train over the top. But once it goes over, the speed builds immediately, and in the back seat there is a considerable bit of airtime on the first drop. The pull-out is a high-speed, high-force pull-out at the bottom of the first drop, followed by a swift, steep climb to the top of the second hill. This is Mamba's shining moment, at least for people in the lead car, especially for riders in the third seat. There is significant airtime here, meaning several inches out of the seat, feet off the floor, seat belt tight, thighs searching for the lap bar, dangle in the air like Wile E. Coyote honest to goodness airtime. Like Magnum XL-200 on its third drop, Mamba delivers at the top of the second hill. It's over all too soon as the ride plunges into the turnaround helix, a low spiral that reminds me of Superman: Ride of Steel at Darien Lake. Mamba's return run consists of a series of undulations that, again, are very Magnum-esque, but less violent. Then just before the final turn into the brake run, there is a sudden lurch which I immediately recognized from the camelback hills on Phantom's Revenge. Then the train cruises into the brake run where the brakes remain closed until the train comes to a complete stop (no pulsing), then the train rolls down into the safety brake/transfer table uptrack of the station. In all, I still like Magnum better, but Mamba is a tremendous ride.
I stopped in at Coasters for a milkshake, then continued around the circle. Up the hill and behind the ampitheater is Camp Snoopy, which is mostly kiddie rides, but is bounded on one side by Detonator and also houses the park's Scrambler which is noteworthy for the decorative canvas sails attached to the top of the structure.
The train ride at Worlds of Fun is actually less useful than the one at Six Flags St. Louis, as it circles the park, creates some gratuitous walking areas because Worlds of Fun has replaced all of its rail crossings with underpasses (but left the original grade crossings in place but annoyingly blocked off) and offers no stops other than the single station. So it's useless as transportation as it doesn't go anywhere. It is a nice train ride, though. It does seem strange, given that Worlds of Fun is crying out for any kind of useful in-park transportation that their train would have only one station.
Timber Wolf was out of service when I walked by, so I continued into the American section of the park to rides I had never ridden before. First up was Patriot, the park's new B&M inverted coaster. Patriot has some interesting innovations, beginning with the extra electrical connections on each seat apparently to report the position of the shoulder bar back to the control system. A more important innovation is in the braking system: Patriot has a magnetic brake fin mounted on the train just below the primary braking surface, which serves as the main service brake as the train approaches the brake run. The ride itself has a compact layout that packs the elements together in a way that picks up the pacing dramatically from, say, Raptor. Patriot has almost no dead space on it at all, flipping from element to element to keep the forces and the interest up, and easily making up for the fact that it is a kind of a short ride. I was a little surprised at just how much shudder and vibration there is in the train, meaning that Patriot is not quite the butter-smooth ride one might expect from a new B&M. This ride is a more than worthy replacement for the Orient Express, which was one of the worst major steel coasters I'd ridden.
On around the corner from the Patriot, in the Orient and spanning the space between America and Scandinavia, is the Spinning Dragons. This ride was a bit of a surprise. The first surprise was that the cars don't actually spin so much as rotate. As a result, what you notice is not so much the spinning action (as on the Reverchon/Zamperla spinning coaster) but rather that the train is taking the curves and dips at strange angles. Second, the ride is incredibly smooth, actually running smoother than the Patriot. Third, at the end of the ride, the car is actually slowed by a set of magnetic brakes operating on a single fin on one side of the car. As I boarded, I was told that I could not wear my glasses, but the crew relented when I produced a neck-cord from my camera bag. In all, the Spinning Dragons is what I would call, "small, but mighty."
For a major theme park, Worlds of Fun has a very good selection of food items, including many options that are not available at the other Cedar Fair parks. The gyro I had for dinner comes immediately to mind, particularly as it was piled high with lots of meat and an unreasonably large serving of vegetable toppings. I also noted a joint called, "Custer's Last Stand," a name which suggested a frozen concoction not entirely unlike ice cream. Upon closer examination I noticed that the joke was not quite so obvious. Instead, the joint's menu featured food items served on a stick [Footnote 4]. I managed to eat my way through the park, quickly outspending the money I didn't pay to park the car. Hmmm...perhaps certain other parks should take note of this phenomenon. Given free parking and "free" admission, I still spent about $25 in the park, which is actually not far off from Cedar Fair's corporate per-cap number. Between the T-shirt I bought, and the food and drink, I think I did all right. The one annoyance was that after my first passes through the park, I still had not ridden the Timber Wolf because it was down for maintenance. But even that ride came up, and I was able to get a ride.
Timber Wolf has problems. To put it mildly. It has the conventional problem of a PTC train without enough padding in it, but that is only the start of the trouble. When the train goes up the lift hill, it bounces around like crazy, and if you look at the track boards on the lift you can easily see that there are many areas where the ends of the boards do not match up evenly. Then, out on the course, the train bucks, shudders, bounces, and in general tries to go everywhere except straight down the track. Some parts of the ride have been re-capped, but for the most part it's just bad track. But the problem is deeper than that. I took a ride in the front seat, and from there I saw what look to me to be obvious problems. The most obvious symptom is found on the curves, where instead of a continuous shiny wear pattern on the outside guide rail, the steel is alternately shiny, then rusted, indicating that the train isn't staying stuck to the outside rail through the curve. Instead, the train is ping-ponging back and forth through the curves, wasting energy, and delivering a very rough ride. On that front seat ride, I think I spotted a major problem: somebody has gone and installed a couple of brake calipers on the first drop. Those things scrub off speed before the ride really gets going, and insure that the ride is moving too slowly when it reaches the curves. That reduces the forces to the point where the train (which, remember, cannot steer and therefore must slide across the curve) doesn't follow the outside rail and roll smoothly through the curve. The bottom line is that the train just isn't moving fast enough to deliver a smooth ride on the curves. If the park is having problems with excessive vertical forces (Timber Wolf does have some nice airtime on the second hill...) on the ride, they really need to deal with that by tweaking the hill profile, not by slowing the whole ride down, as slowing the whole ride down is making it malfunction on the curves. But then, what do I know about wood coasters? All I really know is that right now, Timber Wolf is a bit of a basket-case, and the problem goes beyond a mere need for re-tracking.
It was finally time for me to go. I had a long drive ahead of me, as I was planning to get as far as possible tonight, hoping to get into Denver reasonably early tomorrow. I decided I wanted a tee shirt for Mamba and ended up having to circle the park again to find one. It's the 'one more thing' that Worlds of Fun is lacking: Because of the way the park is laid out, so that so much gratuitous extra walking is required to get from one area to another, some kind of useful in-park transportation would really be nice. But for my purposes, it would have been even nicer if the park had a gift shop in the Scandinavia section, near the front gate, that sold merchandise from all over the park. Something like the Park Plaza gift shop at Cedar Point, a model I have seen repeated at park after park after park, where there is a main gift shop with merchandise for all of the major rides is available.
In all, I like Worlds of Fun. It's a very nice park, with a decent collection of rides. It's hurting for useful in-park transportation, and the layout requires an awful lot of walking; the railroad crossings have a lot to do with that. Mamba is especially good. While it's no Magnum, it has a lot to like.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1:
1. On the clipboard.
2. On the white copy of the NCR form
3. On the yellow copy of the NCR form
4. On the printed register receipt, which is retained at the gate
5. On the internal refeence tape in the cash register
6. In the transaction database in the cash register
[Return to text]
Footnote 2: I'm just trying to make sure you know how the thing is oriented. [Return to text]
Footnote 3: Actually it has something to do with the signs, limited, of course, to a small set of built-in fonts... [Return to text]
Footnote 4: Before you historians send me a bunch of corrective email, yes, I know Custer died of "lead poisoning" (such lead ingested directly through the skull at high velocity, of course) and not at the end of an arrow...but he WAS fighting Indians at the time, and regardless of what they actually fought with, they were known for firing projectiles made of long sharp-pointed sticks...[Return to text]
--DCAjr
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