Just outside of Chattanooga, my wife and I and two boys made a day trip yesterday. We enjoy these little family amusement parks. Nothing like not having to elbow crowds, and wait in line forever for a 2-minute ride.
Price is terrific--$35 for a standard pass to both the amusement park and water park, and if you're 55, they recognize that many of us won't want to do everything like we did when we were a kid, and knock the price down to only $18. Steal!
We usually take a couple of rides over the Lake on the alpine sky lift, and enjoy the scenery, allowing stomachs to settle if we have engaged one of those spinning, flipping behemoths that masquerade as a "fun ride," and enjoy the cool-ish air.
We ride the wooden roller coaster (the "Cannon Ball"), and enjoy the "Oh-zone," the 14-story free-fall drop ride. I know it's not the same height as the big ones, but it is plenty big enough for me. In fact, I told my son when we were about halfway up that I didn't realize it was that tall. Then we continued to ascend at least the same distance. I know, I'm old. I get it. The Cannon Ball is a pretty mild wooden roller coaster, has a 70-foot vertical drop, 50mph speed, and goes straight out and straight back, 2,272 feet long. Just a fun little trip, and good for old fogeys like me who still enjoy the thrill but want to ratchet it back a notch.
We ride the "Fireball," the ride that goes in a 360 degree full circle. Those are fun for me because they don't spin and don't upset my constitution. You're completely upside down, which is how I feel like my life is much of the time anyway, so it's all good.
I avoid like the plague rides like Twister, a ride that flips you upside down over and over, turns you sideways and all kind of cruel punishment things. In fact, my 16-year old son was ready to go to the car to cool off and let his stomach settle after that. It's a new ride, and appears not to have caught on very well. My two sons were the only ones riding it at the time. It's pretty sickening. You're connected to a device that mixes you up like two mixers, sometimes going one way, sometimes going opposite. and then you spin on an axis. Yech. Anyway, time to cool off after that and let things settle.
Which brings me to the next thing that is cool. Free parking. And they have a picnic area where you can bring your own food and drinks. How cool is that? Rather than eat standard amusement park fare, you can bring your own turkey subs, chips, bottled water, etc., cool off and eat at a pavilion just off the ride area. Or you can go back to your car--we opted to do that, which was only about 150 yards from the front gate, and you have unlimited in-and-out passage.
We rode their Boat Chute, built in 1926, it is the oldest mill chute water ride in the United States. Not my favorite, pretty boring as far as log flumes go, but it's a Lake Winnie staple, and you gotta do it if you go.
Kids rode the Orbiter (version of what we used to call the scrambler), while I watched. No way do I tempt fate with a spinning vessel. They laugh at me. I am happy sitting watching those. Roller coasters, fine. Big loops, fine. Big drops, fine. Something that will spin and scramble my stomach? No way.
They rode the Matterhorn--I would have, but wanted to rest, and watch, they rode the swinging Pirate ship thing called the Pirate--Beech Bend has the one that was purchased from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, and was reputed to be Jackson's favorite ride. Insert inappropriate joke here.
We all rode Conestoga--the pioneer covered wagon that goes up in the air very high, around in a circle, but you don't flip. Got some air time, which surprised me, but it's still pretty tame. Has a "3" on the Thrill Ride meter, which is the highest any of them go. I don't get that, as the Oh-Zone is 2x the thrill that one is, and I don't even want to talk about Twister again (I may post a video of it later today to show you a little of what it looks like.)
For calm times, we do Bumper Cars, they even have an 11-hole mini-golf course we always play. We make up our own rules. We usually play "best ball" (not scramble, but low score between you and your partner each hole). If you make a hole-in-one, you get a "0," rather than a "1." If your partner also gets a hole-in-one on the same hole, you get a "-1." Silly things like that. It's fun when we knock it off the course. We play it no matter where it lies, trying to chip it back on the course with a putter.
We ride the Ferris Wheel (most of the time is spent loading passengers on, but that adds to the fun of it as you're stuck high overlooking the park), and do things like the Wave Swinger (swings that swing you over the lake), the paddle boats, and other pretty tame stuff.
Easy to do in 3 or 4 hours. Stretch it out, take your time, take a lunch break, and it's a 6-hour event.
For about $100, give or take, I'm not sure you'll find a better family entertainment value. Very clean park, everybody friendly, things generally work (the Fly-o-plane was down, as was the small steel roller coaster, but that was supposed to be up later--we didn't go back and see.)
Oh--we did not do any of the water park. We're not big water park folks. They have some big slides there, and a nice, long 868 feet lazy river. We did go look at it, and it looked fun, but we just weren't in the mood to get wet.
