America 2022
PBE's American Dream - June 2022
It all started with a simple question; should we do a road trip event in America? That was the question Scott asked the PBE team in late 2019, so after much consideration and seeing if the interest was there via our social media pages, we took the decision in early 2020 to go ahead with this trip. We knew it would need time, dedication and a lot of team work, what we didn't know is covid-19 would bring everything to a standstill.
Originally planned for June 2021, the trip was moved to June 2022.
The trip started at Chicago O'Hare where group transportation began, we had two modes of transport for the trip; a 56 seater coach and a 12 seater mini bus. The reason for this is because we sold every seat on the coach within 10 minutes of going on sale, so hired a mini bus to add some extra capacity to the trip. On arrival at the first hotel, the hotel's management had done us some goody bags to welcome the group.
The first park of the trip was Six Flags Great America, the day started off with early morning access to their RMC roller coaster Goliath. We didn't have an ERT session that day, but we were given early access to the park so we could get to Goliath in time for the opening, and whilst we were waiting for it to open we got to watch them setting it up for the day. It wasn't what we'd describe as a behind the scenes tour, but we did at least get to see an RMC coaster coming to life ahead of a day's operation.
Included in the price of the event was group rate tickets for SF Great America entry, and a discounted rate for "flash pass". There's not too many photos from this particular day, but thankfully there's plenty from the rest of the trip.
The next park to visit was Indiana Beach, this amusement park wasn't on our original itinerary for 2021 because during covid lockdown, they had announced permanent closure. By the time it came around to confirming the new itinerary for 2022, the park was back open and it meant we were able to visit.
Indiana Beach is a classic amusement park, it has a mix of wooden coasters, steel coasters, travelling and permanent fairground rides, water rides and even has a water park.
Little did we know a small boat ride by the park's entrance would be the attraction to keep us all entertained as a PBE water fight broke out in extremely hot conditions. It was the perfect ending to a really fun day.
Next up was Six Flags St. Louis, a theme park with 10 roller coasters including Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast which is where we started the day. The Mr Freeze roller coaster is known for its downtime, so we asked the park if we could ride this before the park was open, they couldn't offer Exclusive Ride Time but did allow us to gain entry to the park before opening, and let us watch this coaster getting set up before giving us first rides of the day. It was fascinating to watch a roller coaster that's quite complex being set up for the day.
This was followed up by everyone taking the park at their own pace, ticking off all the rides that were open in uncomfortably hot conditions, those conditions meant that a Log Flume takeover was inevitable. Before the Log Flume, we had a Rapids takeover where some of the group thought their boat was sinking, and another group was joined by a group of frogs that leapt into the boat midway round the ride. It was an interesting Rapids takeover, that led to the Log Flume takeover. We were all soaked.
This park was never going to be the stand out park on the trip, but it was a fun day and a good opportunity to boost our coaster counts.
Next up was Holiday World, probably the best day of the event. Holiday World is best known for the Voyage, so to start the day with one hour Exclusive Ride Time on it was always going to be a good thing. That was the original plan anyway, but there was a slight tweak to the plan which gave the group the opportunity to look around the ride area of The Legend first, another well known roller coaster at the park.
This was the day of the trip where everyone had the same t-shirt, yellow Pleasure Beach Experience tees with the Holiday World logo on there too. We stood out in our bright colours, and it was great to see train after train of yellow shirts going around on The Voyage during the ERT session.
Holiday World has a fantastic mix of attractions, and included in the park entry price is unlimited drinks with refill stations all around the park. We'll definitely head back to this park on a future event.
Kentucky Kingdom was the next stop, and our day here started on Storm Chaser for an hour of Exclusive Ride Time. Storm Chaser is an intense RMC roller coaster, the airtime is absolutely brutal throughout so to ride this for a whole hour was a fun but challenging experience.
At the time of visiting, Kentucky Kingdom had 6 roller coasters open including the infamous T3, and a water park.
Next was Kings Island, a bucket list park for many and a day that was guaranteed to be packed with thrills. Kings Island had 14 operational coasters at the time of our visit including The Beast. The Beast was the longest roller coaster in the world at one point, but it's still difficult to see it from inside the park, that is unless you're taken into the ride area on an event day. It was SO good to see The Beast up close, and to see all the retracking work that the Gravity Group had done on it.
The Cedar Fair parks were unable to offer ERTs for this trip, but the tour around the Beast was great and so were the night rides on the Beast that we did during park hours.
The last amusement park of the trip was Cedar Point, and we had 2.5 days here. Sadly, Cedar Fair parks were unable to offer ERTs for this trip but did offer a behind the scenes tour of Maverick to get our first full day started. The tour of Maverick took us into the ride area whilst the ride was still open to the public, we got to see some unique angles of this coaster as well as standing in an area that's transformed into a scare maze for their HalloWeekends event.
Our second day at Cedar Point started outside of the park, and on a boat. The PBE team had attended Cedar Point's CoasterMania event in 2019 and got to experience a boat cruise around the Cedar Point peninsula, so we felt it was worth adding onto this event for everyone to experience. We got an extended cruise compared to the CoasterMania version which gave us the perfect opportunity to take in some amazing views.
Overall, as a team we were absolutely delighted how this trip went but we knew we could improve on it and offer an even better America trip in the future. We learnt a lot through organising this, and with the feedback of everyone who attended, we are confident that even better America trips with Your Experience Guide will happen in the future.
Pleasure Beach Experience (as we were in 2022) was responsible for organising group transportation for the group in America, park tickets, park perks such as ERT and tours, hotels and more!
Event trips with Your Experience Guide are the perfect way for you to enjoy an American theme park tour without the stress of organising all of your own transport, hotels and park tickets.
Photos taken by Scott Bickerton, Matthew Bentham, Chris Jackson and Chris Ryan.
We are currently working on our future event plans, for all the latest event information head HERE