Earlier this month I went on the
Metro Atlanta Coaster Club's "Outlaws in the Ozarks" tour. I love going on trips like this because we get all kinds of extra perks - exclusive rides on coasters before the park opens, behind the scenes tours, and meetings with park staff. I was particularly excited for this trip because it included Silver Dollar City - a park with great reviews that I'd never been to before.
I flew in to St.Louis on a Thursday and met up with the group. We drove to
Lambert's Cafe, home of "throwed rolls," before continuing on to Branson. On Friday we went to Silver Dollar City. This park is AMAZING. It's my favorite amusement park in the US. It's beautiful, the staff is great, the food is good, and the coasters are awesome. We had some complimentary breakfast before they walked us back to Outlaw Run, which we got to ride several times before the park opened and then got a tour of the ride's maintenance room. Outlaw Run was fantastic - definitely in my top 5 wood coasters. The rest of the coasters are great too - Thunderation is probably my favorite mine train, and Powder Keg and Wildfire are both excellent steel coasters. I wish we had more time at Silver Dollar City, but it was only open until 6PM and we had a long drive to Kansas City ahead of us.
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| Lambert's for a light and healthy dinner. |
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| Lots of "fun" things to do in Branson! It's like Vegas if it was run by Ned Flanders. |
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| Yay! |
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| Best new coaster of 2013? |
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| Up the lift. |
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| Outlaw Run's maintenance bay. |
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| Learning about the maintenance schedule. |
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| The only air launched coaster in the US! |
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| Wildfire has an awesome first drop. |
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| And a great view! |
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| MACC in the front row! |
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| Such a beautiful ride. |
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| All mine trains should be like this one. So much fun. |
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| And they even have a cave tour! |
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| MACC in the cave. |
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| Cave formations. |
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| Bye, Silver Dollar City! |
After leaving Branson, we went to Kansas City for a day at Worlds of Fun. I've been to this park twice before, so there weren't any new coaster credits, but I had a great time re-riding the coasters and experiencing Halloween Haunt. They even gave us special VIP entrance to two of the haunts, and a "Skeleton Key" to go in one of the special rooms in Club Blood. We had an awesome night ride on Prowler, and a very scary journey through the "Corn Stalkers" maze!
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| Meeting with PR and maintenance. |
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| Going in to Worlds of Fun before its open to the public. |
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| Now this is exclusive ride time! |
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| Mamba is still a great coaster after 15 years. |
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| Of course we rode the kiddie coaster. :) |
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| MACC on Spinning Dragons. |
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| Timberwolf could use some retracking, but it's still a good ride. |
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| Good advice. |
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| We left the park for a bit and went to Arthur Bryant's BBQ for lunch! |
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| The start of haunt! Spooky! |
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| The park was very creepy at night! Lots of fog, lights, and scare actors. |
Our last stop on the trip was Six Flags St. Louis. I've been to this park a few times, but I'd never been on their new-ish woodie (American Thunder) or their spinning coaster, so I picked up a few new credits. It was a very cold day, but we were able to ride everything we wanted. By the time frightfest started, the park was pretty crowded! They did a good job with their frightfest as well - lots of neat scare actors. We had some great (but cold) nighttime rides on the woodies as well, and even met the park president.
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| Mr.Freeze is a great ride. |
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| It's not *that* bad! |
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| Scooby Doo's Ghost Blasters! |
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| I got a ghost marshmallow on my hot chocolate! |
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| Some roller coaster history in the line for American Thunder. |
I had a fantastic time on this tour. I got 8 new coaster credits and got to visit the amazing Silver Dollar City for the first time. Too bad winter is coming, because I can't wait to go on another coaster trip!
