Yesterday’s media event for the Tower Topping at Santa’s Merry Marketplace was a ho-ho-whole lot of fun! To begin with, the weather was just perfect and the trees were awakening. TV crews, newspaper reporters, radio personalities, and the HoliDrone were on hand to watch the topping of the six-story tower at Santa’s Merry Marketplace. Want…
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Are you familiar with the concept of parallel play? (It’s when children are playing together – yet individually. There’s peaceful coexistence as each one works on his or her own project.) That’s happening right now at Holiday World as we work together – yet separately – on Santa’s Merry Marketplace. First of all, our Food &…
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Having trouble getting your bearings when it comes to the transition of Kringle’s Kafe to Santa’s Merry Marketplace? Understandable! The “footprint” for Santa’s Merry Marketplace is nearly half again as big as Kringle’s. Lauren and Stephen put their hard hat-covered noggins together and created this 360 video for you to take a detailed look around: This is interactive,…
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Demolition work is underway in preparation for the new Santa’s Merry Marketplace. As fast-paced as this work is, we occasionally pause. That’s Tom, who’s our Carpenter & Facilities Manager, proudly holding a piece of wood. That’s a two-by-four, right? Whatever the measure, it’s a piece of history. #HoWoHistory Because, like all great artists, Tom likes…
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Matt and I flew solo this episode, and were delighted to reveal the movie theme chosen for next year’s HoliWood Nights: As construction begins on Santa’s Merry Marketplace, Matt gets evicted. Here are the “before” photos: Check out how it looks now: Take a gander at how it’ll look when you visit next season:…
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“They’re on their way.” James called shortly before one o’clock. The first pieces of fiberglass slide were about to be put into place at Tembo Falls. I didn’t want to miss this! I’d invested too much time making sure to capture their assembly to not show up for the delivery to their final destination! This is…
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Think of Tembo Falls as a REALLY big toy construction set. First, pieces of fiberglass are delivered to us and then we assemble them on site. There’s still work to do before the slides are moved into place next to Kima Bay, but for now we’re combining the smaller pieces into larger pieces. I took a…
Read More »No one’s knocking our choice of wood in the retracking of The Legend, that’s for sure! Are you familiar with Ipe wood? VP James will bring us all up to speed in this latest episode of the Hard Hat Chronicles … The Legend will open on May 7. Can’t wait to ride!
Read More »^ Been hearing that phrase a lot lately. (Thanks for tuning in!) Until I realized I was being obnoxious and stopped, I had corrected several “viewers” to remind them that a podcast is audio only. (In a nutshell, our podcast is an online on-demand talk radio show.) Then Stephen came up with the idea to create…
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When we started the Hard Hat Chronicles video series early this year, it was to start revving up for Thunderbird construction updates. Only we couldn’t tell you that back then. Here we are at the end of the year as we bring you another episode – number 12, actually – as we throw another curve…
Read More »The first train for Thunderbird is now here! Car by car, they were lifted into Thunderbird’s Maintenance Building. At four seats per car, this train is huge! And yes, Thunderbird’s trains include what coaster enthusiasts refer to as “big boy” seats. So if you’re built a little like Santa, you’ll be happy to know the…
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Well, you figured it out, didn’t you? We moved Sparkler this week from 4th of July to Thanksgiving and re-named it Crow’s Nest. Before we move any further with this, we’re not talking about a physical nest where Mama Crow lays her eggs. No. We’re speaking in nautical terms. See that bucket-looking gold-rimmed brown cone…
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