Holiday World 2023

When Nichole asked if we would want to bring the twins to Holiday World with her family this summer, it was a definite yes from me. I have such fun memories from Holiday World and I couldn't wait to share the excitement with our kids.

After dropping Katie off at daycare, we met at Hardee's to eat some breakfast. Brady and Ashley wanted to sit by their favorite people, Aunt Nik Nik and Uncle Con Con. 

Our drive to Holiday World was pretty quiet as Brayden and Ashley fell asleep about an hour into the drive. I heard that Nikki and Connor weren't so lucky and that Grant and Emily were screaming and excited the entire drive.

We made it to the park, lathered up in sunscreen, and headed inside for some fun! After the typical tourist photo with Santa, we headed to 4th of July to let the littles ride on some rides their size. It took a little convincing, but Ashley agreed to ride a few rides. Brayden would get in the line to wait, but when it was time to get on the ride, he would back out and want to leave. So enjoy a few photos of Ashley on some rides.

Brayden was much more into looking at the park map at this point in the day.

Grant saw the mini Liberty Launch and wanted to ride it. I had hyped Ashley up enough about it that she agreed to ride it with me too. She was pretty excited initially, but I think her face quickly turned to terror while we were riding. At one point in the ride she turned to me and said she was all done and wanted off. I was proud of her for trying it out with me!

I think that ride was just what Grant needed to get him in the riding mood, because after that he wanted to go do the log ride. Eric and I knew that if the twins knew what happened on the ride they would never ride it, so we just told them it was a boat ride. We did our best to not let them see the big drop at the end of the ride. We got in the log and we were off! After going through the dark tunnel at the start of the ride Ashley mentioned she didn't want to do that again, and I knew that she probably wasn't going to like what happened at the end. I don't even know that either one of them screamed when we went down the drop at the end of the ride, but they were both a little upset they got a little wet and I'm pretty sure Ashley was crying. After seeing our picture at the booth, I knew that we had to buy it. Enjoy the sheer terror on the kids' faces! 

Eric and I both agreed that that ride pretty much ruined Holiday World for Ashley. After that she didn't want to ride anything and acted terrified about even the mildest of kid rides we tried to get her on. We thought that the ride would scare her, but then it would turn into an excitement about the ride and want her to do more things like it. Looking back now I feel bad about taking the kids on that ride without them knowing what to expect. But I do think that the ride really opened Brayden up to the idea about the thrill of rides, because he was much more open to trying rides out after that. Regardless, both kids agreed they did NOT want to do that ride again.

We hit up the Lewis and Clark trail so the kids could go on a ride that didn't have the scare factor. We probably should have done rides like that first and worked our way up to the scarier rides, but we will know that for next year! I did have to laugh though because we ate lunch right next to the Legend, and Brayden was talking about how he wanted to ride that ride (I'm guessing because it was Halloween themed). Maybe one day dude.

Then it was off to the waterpark! We made another mistake in our tactic here when we decided to do the Watubee as our first ride. We made it all the way to the top and were about to get in the raft when Ashley flat out refused to get in. We both tried talking to her to convince her to get in, but she wouldn't. We basically grabbed her and held her down and told the person to just push the raft down the ride. I think she cried the entire time. Again, probably not our best decision, but we hoped that she would think it was fun after it was over. She most definitely did not. 

I wish I had my phone in the waterpark, because Brayden was living his best life in Safari Sam's Splash Land and Tembo Falls. I would say he rode all the slides in each area, but I think a better description is that he rode a few slides a million times. He would get down the slide, then climb right back up the stairs to do it again. Ashley, on the other hand, never left my side. She stood in the water, or maybe sat and splashed in it a bit, but hardly did anything else. Emily finally convinced her to go down the tiniest baby slide a few times, but that was about the extent of her waterpark fun. 

Nichole and I watched Emily, Brayden and Ashley while Eric and Connor took Grant on the Wildebeest Water Coaster. Eric and I haven't been to Holiday World since they put the water coasters in, so we were both excited to try them out. Once they got back, we moved from Safari Sam's Splash Land to Tembo Falls, and then Nichole and I went with Grant to ride the Mammoth. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was so much fun! We definitely caught air a few times, and some of the drops were right after each other, which didn't give you much time to recover. Grant did not enjoy it as much as Nikki and I did and said he didn't want to do that one again. 

By that point, the waterpark was about to close. Nichole and Connor took Grant to do one more ride in the waterpark, and we took the twins and changed back into dry clothes. We headed towards Holidog Fun Town hoping the kids would ride a few of the little kid rides there before we headed home. We got them to ride the Holidog Express, I think mostly because we rode it with them.

But they would not even get in line for any of the other rides. All Ashley had talked about before we left was riding in the teacups, but she acted like they were the scariest things ever and didn't want to get in. Brayden did play a little bit on the play gym in that area, but we decided at that point that it was probably best to get out of there and head home. 

I think we made it home between 9 and 930 that night. It was a long day and everyone was beat! We asked the kids if they liked Holiday World and they both said yes. When I asked if they wanted to go back, Brayden said yes, and Ashley said yes, but she didn't want to ride on the boats (ha!). I promised that next time we go we would ride some different rides, and stay clear of the boats.