In case you’re not a “read all the way through a blog” kind of person, please note that The Legend will close early for the season starting October 2 so we can get a jump start on our intensive off-season maintenance project. The last weekend to ride will be September 25-26. We’re excited to deliver an even more legendary experience than ever before in 2022. Now humor us and read more below. 

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If you’re a fan of Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari–especially in recent years–you’ll know that we believe strongly in preserving the art of wooden coasters. Starting back in 2016, with The Legend: Reborn project, we started taking on bigger off-season projects than we had in a long time, and we’re hooked. 

In 2017-2019, we focused a lot of attention on The Voyage, and in 2020, we redid the “Lake Turn” on The Raven. 

This year, we’re going back to The Legend. As many of you may know, I’m very partial to The Legend–it is my “sister coaster” after all. And yet, many of our Guests have called my favorite coaster here their least favorite. 

And yes, it tends to be the lowest-ranked of our three wooden coasters, but it just moved up back into the top 25 yesterday in Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Awards rankings. 

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I get it though. The Legend was designed for lateral (side-to-side) G-forces. Laterals are often an acquired taste. Everyone loves airtime (that feeling of weightlessness caused by negative G-forces).  But you won’t overhear a ton of coaster nerds bragging about lateral G-forces. And that’s how this coaster has gone underappreciated for a while: just like it would be weird to compare Rembrandt to Warhol, or Mozart to Paul McCartney. It’s weird to me to judge an airtime machine against a lateral machine. 

Laterals are different. And I like that this coaster delivers an experience truly unlike any other. 

And yes, I’ll stop comparing roller coasters to great artists now and get on to the exciting work coming up.

We’ve been planning this project for a while. But it’s been officially on our docket since we finished up The Raven’s Lake Turn this past season, and we’re excited to be partnering with Gravity Group to work on the top two layers of track in the second half of the helix, the spiral, and more. That said, we weren’t sure how the off-season would look this year, but in order to build in time for weather and for our team of eight to take on this tremendous project in addition to the regular track repairs they need to make every season, it all stacked up (get it?) to too much for the regular November – April timeline, which means it’ll close early this year. 

The last weekend for The Legend in 2021 will be September 25-26. Don’t miss it. 

We’re sorry if you’re going to miss it this year, but the result will be a smoother-than-ever-before experience that will truly make this ride Legendary. It’ll be so great, you won’t want to look back. Woodn’t you know, a few adjustments will make this ride more comfortable and re-rideable than ever. 

Anyway, as my puns and I digress, I am genuinely so excited to see The Legend getting even more improvements headed its way, and I can’t wait to see what The Gravity Group and our talented shop of wooden coaster technicians can do. And don’t worry–those laterals won’t be going anywhere. 

I have a good feeling that after this project, you won’t want to look back.

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