I recently made a trip to Santa Claus, Indiana to attend the Holiwood Nights roller coaster enthusiast event at Holiday World. The event mostly consisted of exclusive ride times on the park's most popular rides, including their three wooden roller coasters, Raven, Legend, and Voyage.
This event also included exclusive ride times on the park's two (count it, two!) ProSlide Hydromagnetic water coasters: Wildebeest, and new for 2012 Mammoth.
I've already written a short review of Wildebeest before, but I feel like giving another just to reiterate what was said before. Wildebeest was the park's first water coaster, and was the world's longest of it's kind when it first opened. It first consists of an easy conveyor lift to the top of the hill while sitting in the green 4-person inline raft, which makes riding this slide easier for people who have difficulty climbing stairs and makes it much less of a hassle to get on the slide.
The lift ends when you are greeted by an operator at the top, and enter the tunnel with a flood of water that constantly pours in from the sides. Then the slide gets going and never stops until it reaches the end. It flies through the entire course at a very quick speed, sending riders down airtime-inducing drops and back uphill at speeds that would match a real roller coaster (hence the name "Water Coaster"). Once the slide reaches the end, it lands on a conveyor belt that brings the raft to a halt at a separate exit station for riders to disembark.
(The following POV footage was shot with the express written permission
of Holiday World & Splashin' Safari management during a private
event.)
Wildebeest is a hit with any roller coaster enthusiast who rides it, and it is definitely a must-ride if you ever visit the park. But of course, it's not the only slide one must experience if they ever come here.
Sitting beside the Wildebeest is the newest water coaster to open at Splashin' Safari for the year 2012. It stole Wildebeest's record for being the longest water coaster on the planet, and absolutely dominates Wildebeest by its sheer size. With its size also comes a suitable name: Mammoth!
Mammoth is the park's second ProSlide Hydromagnetic water coaster. It breaks a record by being the longest of its kind, and is the first of its kind to feature the new 6-person cloverleaf rafts. The rafts are just like the 4-person cloverleaf rafts used by select ProSlide raft slides. The difference is that it seats more people, does not have a hole where you can touch the surface of the flume through it, and the seats are a little bigger and more cozy to sit in.
Mammoth starts with a conveyor lift up the hill side, with an operator to greet you at the top just like Wildebeest. Once you get going on this slide though, you are either facing forwards, backwards, or sideways depending upon where you sat. Another fun part about the round seating is that you get to rotate during the slide, which adds to the excitement.
Unlike Wildebeest, Mammoth doesn't exactly speed its way through the entire course and it doesn't pull any airtime on the hills (except for the fourth drop, which is angled at 45 degrees and can give a good scare for any riders going backwards!). What it does do is soak you with a ridiculous amount of water; more than Wildebeest! In some of the tunnels, the raft will pass through floods of water that completely soak every passenger on board. And when you reach the end, it gives a whitewater finale by ending in a small flowing river of water instead of on a conveyor belt like Wildebeest does.
(The following POV footage was shot with the express written permission
of Holiday World & Splashin' Safari management during a private
event.)
Mammoth is absolutely amazing to ride, and is beautiful to look at. Wildebeest will provide more thrills, but Mammoth is probably more fun to ride with friends because of how you are facing each other and how Mammoth has a higher capacity.
I was able to ride both of these slides once during the exclusive ride times (ERT's). I wish I could have ridden them more, but I wanted to be able to take photos of both slides. Also, the water that morning was freezing! The air temperature during the ERT session was around 60 degrees (Fahrenheit), and the water was cooled the night before when temperatures were around 50 degrees. Don't think that the water is like this all the time though. On normal warmer days, the water is pretty nice. Splashin Safari even has an app on their website to tell you how warm their water is.
Still, even with the frigid water that morning, everyone who rode Mammoth seemed to love it!
I'll have to take another trip back to Holiday World later this summer so I can try Mammoth again when the water is warmer. I definitely can't wait for that!
