However, my luck ran out on August 2, 2008.
Adventureland is not a horrible park by any means, but it is tragically flawed to the point that I would not plan to visit again anytime soon. Nor would I recommend that anyone else travel to Des Moines/Altoona just to visit Adventureland.
The first section of Adventureland is called Main Street, USA, and it is definitely similar to the Main Street, USA, corridor at the Magic Kingdom. Now, I know Walt is rolling over in his cryogenic chamber because of what I just wrote, but, in my defense, the Adventureland Wiki is quick to point out that the Disney Company actually assisted with some early park planning. So, at least Adventureland went to the pros to get started. However, the similarity between Adventureland and the Magic Kingdom ends far too quickly, and the next thing I noticed was that the park was a complete pigsty. Every building, sign, and ride was in desperate need of a paint job and some fundamental maintenance. Even more disturbing than the layers of dirt and grime, were the duct tape used to patch up broken lights and the seemingly never-ending streams of oil/grease leaking from the midway rides. Additionally, much like you would expect from a park like, oh, let us say, Six Flags Saint Louis, the foliage was mainly weeds. Tall weeds. Weeds that had been allowed to grow for a long time. Small, independent parks like Adventureland really should take every other year off from ride purchasing and spend their entire park budget on general upkeep. My local park, Cedar Fair’s Worlds of Fun, spent all last of season making the park “pretty” and it shows. Adventureland needs some clean up love. If I seem too harsh, you must forgive me, but there really is no excuse for a park to be as filthy and unkempt as Adventureland. If they do not have the wherewithal to keep things tidy and maintained, then close the gates before a major accident occurs!
One very nice aspect of Adventureland is the staff. Generally speaking, an iron ride park is run by teenagers for teenagers, but Adventureland appears to have been staffed by Wal-Mart. And I mean that as a compliment. Mature, jovial, upbeat, friendly, and customer focused: those are words I would use to describe the people who work at Adventureland. I was very impressed. In fact, the high quality customer service was in stark contrast with the trashy appearance of the park and was largely responsible for the okay day of touring that we ultimately experienced.
On to the rides. Much like a state fair or touring carnival, Adventureland is a midway ride Mecca. Spinners, flat rides, kiddie rides, you name them, and Adventureland has them. Scramblers, ferris wheels, pendulum rides, wave swingers, bumper cars, space shots, all the common midway rides are represented. Unfortunately, I generally regard midway rides with the kind of contempt most people reserve for socially transmitted diseases. They are the bane of my theme park life. I accept midway rides, deal with them, even try to treat them, but they never seem to go away. And in a park proliferated by midway rides, I am generally one unhappy camper. I just wish park designers would try to be a bit more creative…dress things up a bit…try to make each ride somewhat unique. I hate knowing exactly how a ride is going to make me feel BEFORE I even ride it. Still, if you like midway rides, and do not mind leaking oil, duct tape, and weeds, you could do worse things with $30 than go to Adventureland.
The park does have four coasters. All of them are short rides, with very low height requirements (42”), and are only moderately thrilling. And all of them operate ONE TRAIN AT A TIME, no matter how crowded the park becomes. Therefore, ride Adventureland’s coasters first thing in the morning or in the last hour before closing, or be prepared for a long, boring wait. One nice thing about the queue lines for the coasters is that the associates (did I mention the people who work at Adventureland are awesome?) micromanage the lines, filling every train as much as possible, and preventing the bottlenecks that frequently occur in the back and front cars. If you like to choose where you ride your coasters, then you will have to be very clever and arrange your place in line accordingly before you reach the final queuing area.
We rode the three outdoor coasters twice each (day and night), and the indoor coaster once.
Tornado was the first coaster on the tour. It is an old school out and back woodie designed by William Cobb. Once considered among the best coasters in the world, it is pretty bland by today’s standards. It is also fairly old looking, and rough. I give it a 5/10 rating for the morning ride, however, a 7/10 for the night ride when the darkness kicked the coaster to another level.
Dragon was next on the tour. It is a double looping steel coaster with about 35 seconds of old school fun once the lift hill completes. I liked this coaster as it provided some real nice thrills during the loops and the subsequent helix afterwards. 6/10 for the AM ride, and 7/10 for the PM ride. If it were a little longer of a coaster, it could really be a winner.
The last outdoor coaster is the Outlaw. Built by Custom Coasters, International (the same folks who provided two of the three great wooden coasters at Holiday World), this woodie provides excellent twists, turns and thrills. Not a long ride by any means, but smooth, fast, and fun. Clearly the best, most modern coaster in the park I give it an 8/10 for both the AM and PM rides.
The Underground is Adventureland’s only dark ride, and really the park’s only real attempt at theming and narrative. It has a preshow to set the scene and nice set pieces throughout the ride, but because it uses a coaster for the ride mechanism, the attraction just begs for a furious finish of twists, turns and drops, none of which ever happens. So, ultimately the ride is very boring and disappointing. Too bad too, because it could have been a very good coaster. I only rode the Underground once, and I give it a 3/10.
The only other ride in the park worth mentioning is the Saw Mill Splash. It is a variation on a Shoot-the-chutes (Monsoon) ride where a large boat carries riders up, then goes on a big drop sending a wave over the boat and on the nearby spectators. In Adventureland’s version, a large, 6-person raft is used, and the drop is more like a water slide than a log flume. I thought this ride was decent, and a nice attempt at something new. Ride it early in the morning if you want to avoid lengthy waits.
Besides the coasters, Saw Mill Splash, a mediocre log flume, and an average white water raft ride (with a line that was out of control from open to close), the only thing left to do at Adventureland is ride midway rides. There are a few shows (the magic show was pretty fun), a small circus, and some standard amusement park eateries (btw, there is an outstanding ice cream parlor right near the entrance to the park in the Main Street section), but nothing that leaps out at you. Nothing that overcomes the fact that the park itself is a pit. However, we managed to spend about seven hours in the park (we left for an extended afternoon break) and had about as much fun as can be expected considering our snobby, Orlando-centric, theme park ways.
So, if you are headed to Des Moines, and you have a few hours to kill and $30 burning a hole in your pocket…I guess there are worse ways to spend your money than Adventureland Park.
One think I learned the most from this and other reports is SFSL is not very good. I guess I will stick with my SFGA.
SFSTL has some decent rides, however it is poorly organized, filthy, and lacks customer focus. The standard Six Flags modus operandi. Sometimes, in a bigger Six Flags park there are enough coasters to keep your mind off the fact that the park is pretty lousy, but SFSTL needs about three more major new coasters to reach that point.
