Summer’s here and the time is right to scream your head off with joy! While you might get in trouble if you do that in a service centre restaurant, it is definitely encouraged on all the roller coasters and drop tower thrill rides you can find across this great nation.
There is no doubt that any amusement park fans from across the globe have to come to America to show their respect (and have a lot of fun). From coast to coast, you can find an excellent collection of parks. Some of them are part of massive chains and some are still family-run.
The one thing that they all have in common is that they can make memories even as you’re waiting in line for their flagship rides. Here is a list of some of the standouts, and you can be certain that all of them will be accommodating for those who have embraced the RV lifestyle, whether having dedicated parking lot areas, or even full campgrounds.
Holiday World
The name sounds a bit quaint, but that’s nothing compared to the name of the town in southern Indiana where it’s located: Santa Claus. Yes, the entire park is themed around all the reasons kids have a day off from school.
There is Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July and Halloween areas in the park, and while it certainly started off with some quant rides back in the forties and fifties, the park has expanded greatly in the last two decades, and now offers and a very good mix of relaxing family rides and heart-pounding thrills.
Two wooden roller coasters (The Raven and The Legend) are themed after Edgar Allen Poe, so no guesses as to which area of the park you’ll find them in. It’s also nice to know that kids can get a bit of a lesson on American literature while having fun. The third wooden roller coaster became an instant classic when it debuted in 2006. The Legend is a long and winding out-and-back coaster.
Holiday World also runs the adjacent water park Splashin’ Safari, and on hot summer days, there’s no better place to cool off. It’s been rated as one of the best water parks in the nation and has two of the world’s longest water coasters (slides that have jets of water at certain spots to push you back up so you can slide down different sections).
Since it is a smaller, family-run amusement park, admission and food prices are much more reasonable, so you can get a lot of bang for your buck (compare this to some other names on the list where you have to take out a second mortgage or become a straight or trans sugar baby to afford a three-day pass).
Cedar Point
On the shores of Lake Erie, in Sandusky, Ohio (halfway between Cleveland and Toledo) there are seventeen structures rising high out of one particular area. These are the roller coasters of Cedar Point and the sheer number of them – and the records they frequently set when they opened – make this amusement park one of the most exciting in the country.
While it was more of a park and beach when it opened in 1870, it would be another few decades before some of the more basic ‘scenic railway’ roller coasters were added as attractions. Cedar Point remained a locally-known attraction for most of the 20th century, until the addition of the Magnum XL-200 in 1989. It was the first coaster to be more than 200 feet high and go more than 70 miles per hour.
Thrill fans flocked to the park, and ever since then, Cedar Point has added more and more amazing coasters of all kinds to keep visitors’ reasons to come back. The Mantis and the Raptor are two of the best stand-up and inverted coasters in the world respectively, and the park keeps breaking the height barrier with the Millennium Force (300 feet) and the Top Thrill Dragster (420 feet). There are always rumours on the internet of what the park’s next attraction will be, some of these links and articles are just scams that might lead to a squirt gay site.
DollyWood
While it makes sense that thrills are a big part of an amusement park’s draw, offering a unique experience is also important. That’s why the theme park owned by and named after country music superstar Dolly Parton has many different ways to make sure there is Group Fun.
There might not be as many record-breaking thrill rides as the ones we listed above, but the Wild Eagle is a great wing-style steel coaster, and Thunderhead is an impressive wooden twister. In addition to that, there are concert venues (with local and national acts), as well as the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame. It’s also far enough south to stay open long enough to host Christmas events that have garnered several awards.
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Located less than an hour north of Los Angeles, this park (obviously part of the Six Flags franchise) is the West Coast’s answer to Cedar Point, as the two parks frequently clashed over which one had the most thrills to offer. 1990’s Viper is one of the best seven-inversion steel coasters of its era, and Scream is an incredible floorless coaster.
There are several DC-themed attractions in the park, with the crown jewel being ‘Superman: Escape from Krypton’, which takes riders up a massive hill over four hundred feet high….and then back down again.
