Snow Coaster Contest

Spoiler Alert: We have a winner! The answer and winner are listed at the bottom of this post.* Thanks to all for your guesses.

We woke up this morning to a beautiful snowfall.

At one point, the flakes were nearly as large as a Mammoth boat.

Really.

Nathan bundled up and headed out to take some snow photos. (Actually, I think he preferred the chill to the racket here in our office – we have some construction going on today.)

To celebrate the beauty (and our gratefulness that this isn't turning into a blizzard), let's have a quick photo contest.

All we need is for you to identify, via email (we provide the address below) the name of the coaster and the portion of the ride that we show. (Hint: the answer is not "the track"; we want you to identify where on the circuit this photo was taken.)

The prize? Two one-day tickets for this season.

… when it's warm and the snow is long gone.

Mystery snow photo

A few rules:

1. Must be 13 or older to enter.

2. Must not be an employee or immediate family member of Holiday World & Splashin' Safari.

3. Just one entry per email address, please.

4. First person to email us with the correct answer wins. If no one guesses exactly, we'll go with whoever came closest. This one's pretty easy, though (not like that last contest!).

How to enter? Must be by email and to this address: contest@holidayworld.com. (If you win, we'll contact you via email, so please be sure to use an address you check frequently.)

Good luck. And stay warm!

*Congrats to Don K. from Kirksville, Missouri, who knew this photo is of the last curve on Raven, just before the train hits the brakes outside of the station.

Gotta sing … gotta dance!

Auditions for Holiday World shows are this SaturdayAre you one of those lucky people who can sing and dance? Or do you know anyone who can?

Then please let them know about our auditions coming up on Saturday.

We're looking for singers, dancers, mascots, and technicians.

Here's a video sampling from last year. The amazing Nick Burroughs was named one of the top three male theme-park entertainers world-wide last fall!

For more information about auditions, please read through this press release.

And break a leg!

Safety first!

Congratulations to our Maintenance & Paint Shop Teams for a full year of accident-free service.

Accident-free

 

Wise words

I had to stop by our HR office this morning (no, I wasn't in trouble!) – and just had to share the quote that was scrawled on their message board.

Abraham Lincoln quote

That first step is a doozy

Wow. It's like going from a backyard kiddie pool to an Olympic-size pool.

Can't wait to see what our High Dive team has in store for us this season!

High Dive pool

 

Queuing up

Any French majors out there?

One of the first words students learn in French 101 is “queue.” That’s because it’s a French word commonly used in English as well.

It’s a massive overuse of vowels, as the word is pronounced simply “Q,” just like the letter.

Anyone who’s worked with me over the years knows one of my twitchy bugaboos is the use of the redundant phrase “queue line,” because queue is the French word for line.

Sort of like ATM machine. PIN number.

But I digress.

The uninitiated among us can always tell construction of a new water slide is moving along when the giant pieces of fiberglass move from the initial just-off-the-truck position (as in the foreground of the photo below), to the assembly queue.

Hyena Falls construction

Hyena Falls‘ fiberglass assembly is taking place over by Giraffica (the nation’s tallest water ride, formerly known as Pilgrims Plunge).

One by one, the fiberglass pieces are matched up and bolted together.

Hyena Falls construction

There are some footers visible along the right side of the photo below. Before long we’ll be “swinging fiberglass” from the assembly queue to their permanent position as part of Hyena Falls’ four slides.

Hyena Falls construction assembly queue

Interested in the construction process? Be sure to check out our live ConstructionCam to catch all the action.

Our tie-in with this year’s Super Bowl

Jim Harbaugh and Ken Dilger riding The Raven in 1996 Did you enter our "A sporting contest" brain teaser?

It was a tough one.

To find the answer, you had to go back to the year 1996, when two members of the Indianapolis Colts football team rode The Raven.

That's Jim Harbaugh on the left and Ken Dilger (a local boy who did quite well for himself) on the right.

As you may know, Jim Harbaugh later played for the Ravens football team and is now the coach of the 49ers, one of the teams in yesterday's Super Bowl.

Congrats to Josh P. from Indianapolis, who was the first to email us with a correct entry. He gets to yell, "I'm going to Holiday World!"

Did Holidog see his shadow?

It's Groundhog Day, and in the grand tradition of awakening a brown furry critter to see if spring is four weeks away (if there's no shadow) or six weeks (when there is a shadow), we coaxed cuddly Holidog out of his dog house for a look-see.

Woooooooooof! Just four more weeks till spring!

Four weeks till spring

Have a great weekend, everyone!