Idlewild

The other small park of the day was Idlewild buried deep woods of Pennsylvania. This park was the most efficient of all the parks in getting us in quickly. They had guys waiting at the first entrance to the park armed with wristbands and factsheets who boarded our coaches and issued them all as we drove into the park. A nice touch!

On entering the park everyone headed off towards the rides. Our little group thought the majority had gone the wrong way so we went off towards the other side of the park. It was after about 10 minutes that we realised we were lost inside Storybook Kingdom and we had to ask for help to get out, which Little Miss Muffet kindly agreed to do. I'm sure she wasn't expecting to have to speak to lost Europeans today. Actually this was nice having live actors in the park playing the roles of the stories being told nearby.

Tim tries to draw the sword from the stone, safe to say we're not going to be having a King Tim on this occasion. You can sleep easy now!

Interesting Sign #12
"Grass, Grown by the inch - Killed by the feet.
I liked the way the park had put some effort into the smallest details, even making their signs fun.

Interesting Sign #13
"Smoke free zone, Childrens' lungs at work".
Even this sign was well done, and it was nice to have it at little kid height. I guess they've done this to subconciously bring the adults to the kids level.

It was on the way out of storybook kingdom that we spotted the sign, had we seen it on the way in we wouldn't have gotten lost. Ah well, at least we got to see that bit of the park, which reminded me of Efterling, which has a similar childrens story book area.

Interesting Sign #14
"Fanny's Fudgery".
This is just wrong, plain wrong. But then I guess the American's don't have the same meanings to the words as we do. It reminded me of a great story about R&B singer Sisqo that I won't mention on here.

The park did remind me of Knoebels in places with rides buried inside the trees.
I was starting to like this park for the same reasons that I did that one. Location location location! The park is actually owned by Kennywood, which we would be visiting tomorrow.

Interesting Sign #15
"Please check all guns with bartender".
A different approach to gun crime, why bother investing in state-of-the-art metal detectors when you can just put up a sign and ask them to hand them in ;)

The Hootin' Holler section is located in the centre of the park, seperating Storybook Kingdom from the coasters. It contains a few rides including an old style madhouse and Confusion Hill, a really good lean-in optical illusion walkthrough where balls roll up hill etc.

A nice sign put out for us by the park. Rollo coaster is a fun little ride that hugs the mountainside exactly like Boulderdash at Lake Compounce. Actually this one was built first and was the inspiration for that coaster. Guess who made this one? Yup, PTC again.

Taking pictures of this one was just as difficult as Boulderdash as half the ride was higher up the mountain where you can't get your cameras.

The park has a strong educational aspect to it. How better to have a history lesson in a theme park than use the rings from a large, and now cut down, tree.

You can tell a good park by who original the old rides look. Many parks have this caterpillar attraction; not many of them still have the canopy running.

Interesting Sign #16
"Smokers and chewers will please spit on each other and not on the stove or floor".
You tell 'em! Disgusting habits both of them.
I wonder if locals who chew tobacco are also included in this?

Another reason for visiting this park was to visit the mouse that used to live in Alton Towers before being moved here. Having never ridden it when it was in the UK it was great to be able to ride it here. It is a great ride made even better by being in amongst the trees.

The ride has a strange banked lift hill, which I later found out was due to it being inside a rotating tunnel, when it was at Alton. It added to the rotating effect. After that there are plenty of hairpins and drops, all of them very smooth. It's hard to choose the better coaster, this or Rollo.

Idlewild was the one park on the trip where there wasn't enough time in the itinerary to enjoy it properly. I would have liked to have spent more time taking in the smaller attractions and just enjoying the park, but it wasn't to be. Next time perhaps!

All signs point to Kennywood.