Monday, February 27, 2012

Aerial Antics: Dollywood and Holiday World



While there are no bird's eye views available, two parks that have long been missing from our Aerial Antics series recently received some updated maps on Bing which, as they say, is better than nothing.

First up - Dollywood.  The park that's set among the Smokey Mountains has always had some fuzzy, poor quality aerials available, alas no longer is this the case.


Plus, they're rather recent!  Here we see the large hill that the park circles around with some blue track snaking its way across it.  Yes, that's Wild Eagle going up!  The lift, drop, and first two or so inversions were in place when this was taken.


How beautiful is Thunderhead from the sky?  The twisted, terrain hugging wooden coaster was added to the park in 2004 by Great Coasters International.


So much of the park is covered in trees that there's not all that much to see, which from a visitors point of view is fantastic news.  However, one of the more recently renovated areas is the Country Fair, which features plenty of spinning rides for all ages.  The park's amazing train ride circles the area, almost keeping guard of the park.

Here's a link to the aerials of the park on Bing.

Now, Holiday World.  The last aerial I had seen was black and white, and quite out-dated.  Now, like Dollywood, we still lack bird's eye views, but have some very updated images to play with.


Here is the ride that got all of our attention back in 1995 when it opened, The Raven.  The coaster winds through the trees, pokes out to fly over the lake, then dives back in for the finale.  It also serves as a rather nice welcome sign as guests park!


Splashin' Safari has become one of the most popular water parks around, and here we see their original water coaster, Wildebeest, being joined by a new friend.  The large construction area to the right of the ride is for Mammoth, which will steal the record for world's longest water coaster when it opens this year.


You guys may be wondering what in the world this image is of, but if you look for a minute you'll understand why I had to grab so much real estate.  That's because, well, the Voyage covers a lot of real estate!  The 6,642 feet of track takes guest from inside park proper all the way out into the woods on one of the wildest rides around today.

Here is a link to the aerials of Holiday World on Bing.  Happy flying!


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