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Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari

Santa Claus, Indiana, USA

“Unique theming, excellent roller coasters”

Season’s greetings from Santa Claus, Indiana. Thanks to its unique name, this village sells itself as a place where it’s Christmas 365 days a year. Visitors can visit Christmas Lake, dine at Fat Santa’s Pizza, and explore the Santa Claus Museum. However, the village’s biggest draw is Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari. This leisure resort consists of a large water park and a theme park with six roller coasters. The park has been divided into four different themed areas, each referring to a different holiday. The entrance and Main Street of the park, for example, belong to the Christmas zone. You’ll see beautifully decorated Christmas trees, garlands hang from the facades and the central fountain is decorated with giant Christmas ornaments. Other sections of the park are themed to 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Halloween.

ROLLER COASTERS

Holiday World didn’t only become famous for its non-stop celebrations of the holidays, but it’s also the home of three iconic wooden coasters. Two of them can be found in the Halloween section, including the oldest operating coaster in the entire park. We’re talking about The Raven, which opened in 1995. For several years, this ride claimed the top spot in the prestigious Golden Ticket Awards for the world’s best wooden roller coaster. It’s a relatively modest-looking roller coaster, though. The Raven is only 80 feet (24 metres) tall, the track is 2,800 feet (850 metres) long and trains reach a maximum speed of 48 mph (77 km/h). But despite these limited stats, The Raven provides a world-class experience. The first drop offers good airtime and thanks to recent re-trackings, the trains run surprisingly smoothly. The Raven’s greatest strength, however, is its location. The layout was largely built in a lush forest and there’s even some interaction with a beautiful lake on the edge of the park.

After the success of The Raven, a brand new wooden coaster was added to Holiday World’s lineup in the year 2000. This attraction is called The Legend, referring to the legend of Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman. Don’t expect any storytelling, but Holiday World did its best to create a legendary roller coaster nevertheless. The ride is as long as Tonnerre 2 Zeus, as tall as Troy and as fast as Balder. They also got quite creative with the layout. The designers opted for a twisted first drop, they integrated an intense double helix and the ride is intertwined with some slides in the nearby water park. Furthermore, The Legend’s curves are barely banked, which results in exceptionally intense lateral g-forces. This may all sound fantastic, but it was hard to enjoy this attraction due to its roughness. I’m not opposed to a little rattle while riding a wooden coaster, but this one ride on The Legend managed to give me a major headache. Needless to say… this became my least favorite thrill ride at Holiday World.

Holiday World presents an impressive skyline to visitors approaching the park from the north. Most of the attractions visible from outside the park are actually part of the Thanksgiving zone. The area is home to a 65-feet-tall swing carousel and our eyes were also caught by the giant inversions of Thunderbird. This wing coaster opened in 2015 and it’s one of the few launched B&Ms on the planet. The acceleration is quite forceful and the same can be said about the rest of the layout. Thunderbird treated us to strong positive g-forces, great inversions and an excellently executed near-miss with a wooden shed. This is probably the most enjoyable wing coaster I’ve ridden so far.

Turkeys obviously play a big role in the Thanksgiving area. And you can’t talk about turkeys without mentioning gravy… preferably Good Gravy. This is the name of a Vekoma Family Boomerang that opened in 2024. It’s the only roller coaster at Holiday World with distinct theming. The queue and station are located in Grandma Gracy’s house, where Thanksgiving celebrations appear to be in full swing. The roller coaster train is shaped as a giant gravy boat and it races past all sorts of oversized kitchen accessories. It all looks pretty good and the ride is also very enjoyable: Good Gravy turns out to be a smooth coaster with some forceful curves.

The highlight of the Thanksgiving-themed land is The Voyage. This roller coaster is literally world-famous and coaster enthusiasts travel thousands of miles to experience it themselves. The 159-feet-tall lift hill certainly is impressive, but this Gravity Group creation is also known for its track length. The Voyage contains almost 6,500 feet (1,960 metres) of track, making it nearly as long as The Raven and The Legend combined. In terms of the ride experience, I’d even describe it as (Raven + Legend)², as we are treated to 3 minutes of pure coaster awesomeness. The Voyage consists of a brilliant first drop, several powerful airtime hills and an endless series of high-speed curves. The ride also makes perfect use of the hilly terrain. This is especially noticeable on the mid-course brakes, located at the top of a hill. The train almost seems to come to a full stop here, but it regains its high speed within a few seconds by rolling down that same hill. And despite reaching a top speed of 67 mph (110 km/h), not an inch of this ride is uncomfortably shaky or rough. Holiday World realizes that The Voyage counts as the park’s biggest masterpiece, so they’re continually investing a significant amount of money in renovating sections of the track. I sincerely hope that this star will continue to be treated with the same care and attention for decades to come.

SPLASHIN’ SAFARI

Access to Splashin’ Safari is included in your admission ticket for Holiday World. This water paradise isn’t themed after an American holiday, but draws its inspiration from Africa. Consequently, the various pools and slides are named after wildlife and rivers on the African continent. We spotted striking attraction names like Otorongo, Watubee, ZOOMbabwe, and Cheetah Chase (not to be confused with the nearly identically named roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa). The whole place looks fresh and vibrant, but we did notice one major drawback at Splashin’ Safari: shade is hard to find. Some queues for popular slides are covered, but 95 percent of the walkways and chairs are exposed to the sun. Summer days can become incredibly hot in Santa Claus, so plan accordingly if you want to spend a few hours at Splashin’ Safari.

Despite relatively large crowds, we didn’t encounter extraordinarily long lines for the attractions in the amusement park. At Splashin’ Safari, however, our experience was negatively impacted by the large number of visitors. It seemed nearly impossible to find loungers and most slides had wait times of 45 to 60 minutes (due to their limited capacity). Fortunately, those long lines often lead to fantastic water slides. Mammoth is one of Splashin’ Safari’s most popular rides. This gigantic installation opened in 2012 and it’s one of the world’s few water slides that uses a LIM system. Thanks to this technology, the circular-shaped boats can be powerfully launched upward, making Mammoth a literal water coaster. The nearby Wildebeest operates in a similar way and is also quite intense.

OTHER EXPERIENCES

I didn’t expect to find a dark ride at Holiday World, so it was a pleasant surprise to discover Gobbler Getaway. This is an interactive dark ride that’s set in the fictional village of Autumn Falls. The idea is to use our laser guns to search for dozens of hidden turkeys. The ride’s interior mainly consists of two-dimensional blacklight sets and painted panels, but the atmosphere is actually excellent. And may I also mention the fabulousness of that grandma animatronic holding a laser gun? She kind of reminded me of Madame Freudenreich at Europa-Park.

Holiday World celebrates Halloween with rides like the antique Scarecrow Scrambler, the spookily painted HallowSwings swing carousel and the Frightful Falls log flume. With over 40 years of service, this is one of the oldest flume rides in the United States, and honestly… it shows. The boats look dated and the theming is very limited. Besides, the attraction only has one drop, so I wouldn’t recommend waiting more than 15 minutes for it. The same goes for the flat rides in the 4th of July area. With names like Star Spangled Carousel, Firecracker, and Eagles Flight, they all evoke typical Fourth of July charm. These aren’t must-dos, though. In my opinion, the only noteworthy flat ride is Liberty Launch, a patriotically themed Space Shot from S&S. Although this tower attraction is ridiculously low at 72 feet (22 metres), passengers are treated to an intense ride with surprisingly powerful airtime. Never judge a ride by its size alone…

WORTH A VISIT?

The Voyage lived up to its status, but this gigantic wooden coaster shouldn’t be your only reason to visit Holiday World. This isn’t a place where everything has to be bigger, faster or flashier, but the park puts great effort in delivering a high-quality experience. The themed lands are original, staff members are friendly and the attraction lineup is excellent. Holiday World owes its reputation almost entirely to its wooden roller coasters, but the other rides turned out to be enjoyable as well. Furthermore, soft drinks are offered for free (!) and admission to one of the USA’s most acclaimed water parks is included with your admission ticket. In short… This park offers good value for money and that’s important in a country where everything has become ridiculously expensive over the past few years. So yes, Holiday World is definitely worth a visit.

Is The Voyage the best wooden coaster in the world? What’s your favourite slide at Splashin’ Safari? And how many cups of free soft drinks did you have at Holiday World? Share your opinion in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

This article reflects my personal experience at Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari during a visit in August 2025.