Sunday, November 11, 2018

Little Amerricka and Santa's Village AZoosment Park Trip Report - June 16, 2018

This is going to be a bit of a different trip report. Rather than one giant day at a park, like the COASTERMANIA! trip reports, this is from a credit whoring day. We had our sights set on Little Amerricka in Marshall, Wisconsin and Santa's Village AZoosment Park in Dundee, Illinois. So did we get every credit and have a good time? Go ahead and read how it all went!

All right. Time for a coaster day trip, this time into Wisconsin!

Quick note to anyone planning a visit to Little Amerricka - beware of deer everywhere. Seriously; on the entire drive up from the exit off of I-90 to Little Amerricka itself, there were a LOT of deer crossing the road, running along the road, etc. etc, there are just a ton of them. So drive with caution.

All right. We're officially in Marshall. It looks like a nice little quaint town at first, until...

...you come across this super sketchy contraption known at the Chance Toboggan. Yup, it's time for Little Amerricka!

Once we purchased our tickets, it was time to pick up some credits, and the first one we hit up was the extremely rare Allan Herschell Mad Mouse!

The reason I say it's extremely rare is because there is only one other Herschell Mad Mouse left in operation, and it's at Joyland Amusement Park in Lubbock, Texas.

On a side note, I think these are the coolest cars. They look so classy, have no restraints at all, and are surprisingly comfortable!

Here I am next to this vintage ride.

Mad Mouse actually started it's life out at Seven Peaks Water Park Duneland (one hell of a long name for a park!) in Porter, Indiana from the 1960s until 1990 when the park went into bankruptcy.

Luckily, out of the ashes, Lee Merrick was planning his brand new amusement park, Little A-Merrick-A (now shortened to just Amerricka), and he needed some roller coasters. And by sheer fate, both the Mad Mouse and the Chance Toboggan were waiting to be relocated, and they became the two big coasters of the new park.

By the way, there's my dad on Mad Mouse. Being so old school, it doesn't feel as stable as most other coasters in existence (except for maybe the Chinese knockoffs), so he doesn't look too sure it'll hold him. Bottom line, he made it out alive.


Right before the final brake run, Mad Mouse has this tiny, unassuming hill that looks kinda dumb at first, but when you ride it, it's brutally rough but with crazy airtime. It's the real 'OMG moment' of this classic steel coaster.


It seems the wide opinion on Mad Mouse is that it's a little sketchy, as shown by these two girls' nervous expressions. Despite the thrill factor in all of it, I really loved Mad Mouse. It's probably my favorite Wild Mouse coaster I've ever ridden, if not it's up there.


See what I mean? =)


Here's a little geek shot for all you die-hard coaster enthusiasts out there.


The large tree behind Mad Mouse created a great backdrop for photos. I especially appreciated it as a photographer!


Here's one last long view of this fun ride before moving on to the second coaster of the day...


...the Meteor, the park's woodie right across from Mad Mouse!


Here's a photo dedicated to my friend Adam Karas - several buzz bar restraints!


Don't these restraints just scream "classy" to you? A simple single-position buzz bar, lots of cushioning, no seat belt, this might as well be Phoenix at Knoebels in training! But there's another reason for this, and we'll get to that real soon.


Here's one last view of the entire empty train before moving on. All you classic wooden coaster fans, rejoice!


I didn't actually take very many photos of the Meteor, something I definitely regret, but I'll just keep it simple here.

Meteor is a great classic family woodie. It has a lot of small dips and with the comfy open trains, a surprising amount of floater airtime (Phoenix in training!), and I just had a ball riding it. It was definitely my favorite coaster in the park, and I wish there were more of these small PTC family woodies around.


Wait, why would two grown adults want to enter the kiddie section?


Because we're coaster enthusiasts and credit whores, of course! =)


Even though we didn't really check out the kiddie section for obvious reasons, it looked to have a lot of cute rides for the little ones, and I'm always a big fan of seeing parks invest in rides for the whole family.

It's time for some classic Allan Herschell fun!

Little Amerricka can be a scary park with some sketchy rides and a cemetery on the other side of the kiddie coaster (see the photo above), but don't worry. It's safe!

The adorable Little Dipper was purchased from an unknown third party in Missouri in very poor condition, so owner Lee Merrick gave it the Merrick charm and completely refurbished it. And they've done a great job because it's a fun little kiddie coaster with a bit of airtime over the hills and has vibrant paint.

Uh oh... THIS is the fourth credit?

Yep. The last permanent Chance Toboggan last in existence. Over 25 of these rides were constructed by Chance Rides, and this is the last one operating at a park. There is one traveling with the Skerbeck Brothers Show of Michigan.

The Chance Toboggan is considered one of the worst coasters in existence. It ranked as the third worst steel coaster in the 2013 Mitch Hawker Poll. So when I pulled down the car on top of me for the first time, I braced myself and was very happy to find tons of padding everywhere in the car.

You won't believe this... I liked the ride. Maybe it was the padding, maybe it's because Little Amerricka is a great little park and knows how to maintain their rides, but the vertical lift hill, hundreds-of-degrees helix and final dips were all smooth if a little awkward, and I was able to enjoy the unassumingly intense ride.

Here I am trying to figure out how to enter the bizarre trains.

This is the "help me" face.

I'm supposed to trust this, RIGHT?

In the end, despite it's reputation, I did seriously have fun on it and I think it's an underrated coaster.

Goodbye Little Amerricka. Hopefully we'll see you again soon! But first, it's time for some more credit whoring to finish out the day.

Ah... back into our home state...

... for the only decent sized park in Illinois I had not yet visited! Santa's Village!

Santa's Village actually has a very long history, starting back when the park opened back in 1959. They've been a small park with lots of family rides ever since then, and a lot of thrilling coasters too, including the infamous Typhoon which now operates as Rainier Rush at Washington State Fair. They spent a few years closed, from 2006-2010, and have been operating since then. Since my name is Illinois Coasters, let's get onto the coasters of the park, starting with...

...the Wacky Worm!

Here you can see both coasters of the park... Wacky Worm in the foreground, and the newest, opening in 2017, Super Cyclone, in the background!

After adding another shameful coaster to our count, it was time to check out my first every Galaxi / Zyklon type ride.

The "theme" of Super Cyclone is rather bizarre. I like the way the orange track and gray supports stand out, but with the 60s design of the station and cars, I'm not 100% sure how it all fits.

Ugh... OTSRs on a Pinfari coaster. =(

I can hear the coaster boys already yelling at me that this ride was made by Interpark, not Pinfari. But after Pinfari went defunct, Interpark rose out of the ashes, so I'd say I'm close enough on my facts.

And yeah, technically they're more vests than a restraint, but I'd still rather have lap bars. Anyhow, enough complaining. Onto the ride!

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the bright yellow flowery cars on sharp orange track.

So my first ride on it was... interesting. I rode with my dad in the second to back row, and it wasn't the most comfortable ride ever, with the OTSRs and some heavy braking. But we came back, and hoped that it would improve maybe in some other rows.

Here goes Super Cyclone through another slow turn.

All my local Illinois friends continuously rave about Xtreme Elevation, the supposedly powerful Larson Drop Tower. So, of course, I took it for a ride!

"Patience, please... your drop and genital pain will come momentarily!"

So far, so good...

Jeez, how long does it take to get to the top of a 140-foot drop tower?

HOLY CRAP! How is a smaller-sized drop tower's drop so intense?!

Wow, that was actually as good as my friends made it out to be. It might be 100 feet smaller than Great America's Giant Drop, but I don't get how that inital drop is just as intense, if not more than Giant Drop. It's so good I don't care that it caused minor pain.

Okay, it looks like the line has gone down for Super Cyclone, given the end of the day and all. Let's try this again.

No lines means an easy front row ride. And an easy front row ride means a happy Josh!

I rode it a couple times again, in the very front and very back, and it is much better in those rows. Nice job with this one Santa's Village! I know your last big coaster, WildCat (actually from Pinfari!) only lasted a couple years, but I hope this one lasts longer.

This ride is very tall, moreso in person. This photo might do it a little bit of justice, but it rides as good as it looks =)

So yeah. That's about all I rode at Santa's Village. It has nice theming and tons of other rides for the family, but with the park nearing the end of the operating hours, I was there for the thrill rides.

1 comment:

  1. In addition to being good, Little Amerricka surprised me for 2 reasons:

    Meteor goes around 2x
    I was able to ride Little Dipper

    ReplyDelete