Briana Pace | Southern Indiana Business Report
This summer, Holiday World is celebrating its 80th season. What began as just a restaurant, toy store and small kiddie rides, and was called “Santa Claus Land,” has now grown into an award-winning 120 acres theme park of record-breaking roller coasters and water coasters. For decades, people of all ages have come to Holiday World to make memories. Life-long fans shared their favorite ones:
Leah Koch-Blumhardt, Director of Communications
As the daughter of former Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari owner and president, Will Koch, Leah had no choice but to grow up at the park. It’s where some of her earliest memories took place, where she had her first job and her first internship.
Her family history with the park dates back three generations to its opening in 1946. Leah’s great-grandfather, Louis J. Koch, created the park; her grandfather, Bill Koch, expanded the town; and her dad built up the park.
Even though she was part of the ultimate theme park family, she wasn’t a thrill-seeker for a long time.
“I also was a total chicken around the rides,” Leah said, “and I do remember at an early age my parents telling me that they were not going to keep funding my Skee ball habit because that was my favorite part of the park and they’re like, ‘You have to find things here that don’t cost money.’”
Leah was scared of roller coasters growing up, but completely conquered the fear one day in 2000 after karate practice. The Legend was nearly ready for the public and Will kept saying soon they’d be able to ride it, reminding Leah needed to be ready for it. Leah wasn’t completely sure she was going to do it, but she was enticed by the idea of being one of the first people ever to ride it. So, when her dad sprung the chance on her, picking her up from karate practice and telling her the opportunity was now, she just did it.
“I was like around 9,10-years-old when that opened, and so just getting to watch that coaster develop, getting to watch how passionate my dad was about it,” Leah said, “and then getting to ride with him for that first ride was just really deep.”
At the start of her senior year of high school, Leah started campaigning for an unconventional graduation gift from her dad: a steel coaster.
“In retrospect, it’s hilarious,” Leah said, “because it takes so much longer than a school year to dream up a roller coaster and actually build it.”
Will did already have some plans for a steel coaster, ones that vendors had proposed. He would show the family drawings and concept tests and ask what they thought of them every now and then.
He passed before Holiday World got its first steel coaster. After he died in 2010, the family wanted to do something to pay tribute to him and continue passing the park down to the next generation.
They’d teased him long enough about building one; it was time to do it. They also wanted to make a statement as they started to take over the park. They wanted people to know they were still going to be doing and building big things.
They got in touch with the Cadillac of roller coasters at the time, BNM. Will already worked up drawings with them in the past, so they looked through those and decided on the winged coaster.
“It felt a little less intimidating than some of the other types of coasters, you know. We’re not building something 200 feet tall,” Leah said. “At least at that time, we didn’t want to do anything like that. We just wanted to keep it simple, and that felt like the most kind of appealing to the family, to us.”
Will always dreamed of a coaster that mimicked how the Ewoks fought, flying low through the woods on hang gliders, during the Battle of Endor in “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.”
“My dad was a bit of a nerd. So, we liked that, because with nothing above or below you, we felt like you could really feel like you were out in the woods,” Leah said. “You know, it does get pretty low; it gets very high, too. You soar through the treetops, but we felt like that was the most free feeling we could get.”
Leah has a name for each generation that’s developed the park: the visionary generation, the generation that built the town, the generation that grew the parks and, her generation, the storytelling generation. Leah and her sister have focused on the microscopic decisions involved in everything they do.
“Whenever we build a new attraction, we’re trying to build out elaborate worlds and stories,” Leah said. “That’s really important to us, we want our rides to feel more like you’re walking into a new world.”
The storytelling generation is already planning to pass the business down the family line. Even though the fifth generation only spans in age from eight years to six months old, the family is already working with a company that specializes in family business, specifically how to run a family business healthily and help with succession planning. They want the next generation to have the option of continuing the family’s legacy.
“My hope for the next generation is that they can ultimately do whatever is best for them and the community. I want to see Santa Claus, Indiana develop as a destination over the next couple of decades. Which means lodging and park growth,” Leah said. “It’s difficult to tell where life will take them, but I just hope that Holiday World will give them the freedom to be the best version of themselves they can be. Whether that means they’re in or out of the business.”
Leah wasn’t always set on staying in the family business herself. After she graduated college at Indiana University, she took on the role of director of research and development at the park, working on their survey program. After three years, she left to get her master’s degree at her alma mater and was set on not returning. She felt out of sync with the park and like it was time to move on, but when the former director of communications announced she was retiring, who Leah had interned with in college, she felt it was her calling to come back. She’s been in the role ever since.
In the position, Leah has faced her fair share of challenges. The most unprecedented was the Covid-19 Pandemic. They couldn’t open for the season when they normally would and their attendance took a large hit.
“2020 was a scary year,” Leah said. “People didn’t go out and do things.”
Big theme parks merging has also presented obstacles for Holiday World. They remain family owned and operated, which limits the ways they can bring in money. Everything is funded through banks and their own cash flow, but not being owned by a large company allows for more creativity.
“We try not to see that as an obstacle,” Leah said, “but as a challenge, as a way that we can get more creative and more innovative.”
Leah attributes a large part of the park’s success over the last eight decades to remaining family owned and operated. For 26 years, they’ve offered free, unlimited soft drinks. Free sunscreen at the park has been a perk for a long time and Leah can’t remember a time they ever charged for parking.
“There’s just something different here,” she said.
As the world becomes increasingly digital, Holiday World is a place to escape it.
“There are so many things that you can replicate with a VR headset,” Leah said. “Feeling a rush of a roller coaster, you can’t replace it.”
Haley Holdreith
Starting in 1998, Haley’s parents started taking her and three sisters to Holiday World. Haley was 8 years old and her younger sister, Holly, was only 2 years old. From that year on, during the summer they went tent camping at Lake Rudolph, now Sun Outdoors Lake Rudolph, and spent their days at Holiday World.
“We would be the first ones there and the last ones to leave almost every time,” Haley said.
She still remembers one of the first times she went down a water coaster, that no longer exists, with her dad. The wave pool was where she spent most of her days at the waterpark, though. She and her sisters would make friends there and play mermaids together.
When she was a kid, Haley loved roller coasters. The first one she ever rode was The Raven with her dad. The ride photo of the two of them on Haley’s first roller coaster ride is still around somewhere. The wooden coaster with a 120-foot tunnel and 85 and 61-foot drops is still operational today.
[Pictured to left: Holly Holdreith, Haley’s sister, spends a day at Holiday World during the summer of 2000. Haley and her sisters spent many summer days at Holiday World in their childhood]
Now, Haley’s dad gifts season passes to her family for Christmas every year. Haley does the exact same park routine with her kids as her parents did with her. They spend the first hour riding coasters, then head to the water park early to get a good spot for their wagons and strollers, since it’s where they spend most of the day.
“My mom and my dad always kept our little meeting spot at the wave pool, so we would put a couple towels down on a couple of chairs,” Haley said. “So that’s what I still try to do.”
Everyone does their own thing in the water park and rides whatever they want. For lunch, they eat pizza, though it doesn’t taste the same as it did when Haley was a kid. When the waterpark closes, they head back over to the amusement park to ride more rides.
“I’m not much of a roller coaster person now that I’m older,” Haley said, “but, the water coasters are a blast.”
Parents taking their kids to Holiday World has been a tradition in Haley’s families going back three generations. Haley’s grandparents took her mom as a kid; Haley’s parents took her and now Haley takes her kids.
“Making those memories,” she said, “those are some of the best memories I’ve had and I just want to recreate those memories and those fun times for my kids.”
A couple years ago, Haley’s entire family spent four days at Holiday World. Her dad, all of her sisters, and their kids, and Haley’s kids went.
[Pictured left: Maddox Newlin, Haley’s son, poses for a photo July 7, 2012, at Holiday World in Santa Claus. It was his first visit to the park.]
“That was fun,” she said, “making the memories with cousins and sisters again.”
Haley has been taking her 16-year-old son to the park since he was 2, but this summer was the first trip for her 15-month-old daughter and three stepchildren, 14 years old, 7 years old and 5 years old.
“I know they’re going to love it,” she said. “You just cannot beat Holiday World.”
Alex Buley
Alex first visited Holiday World with his family in 1992, when he was 4 years old. He loved seeing Santa Clause at the park and told him what he wanted for Christmas.
“I made sure that I was always on the nice list,” Alex said.
His favorite childhood memory at Holiday World is riding Firecracker with his mom.
“I was scared to death on that thing,” he said, “but after riding that one, I had a love for roller coasters after that.”
That is, all except the Pilgrim Plunge, a 135-foot-tall water ride, the world’s tallest at the time, featuring a 131-foot drop at a 45-degree angle, reaching speeds of 50 miles per hour.
“That thing was way too scary to even be on,” Alex said.
As an adult, he goes to the park at least once or twice a year. Now, he appreciates the free soft drinks, free parking, park’s cleanliness and how friendly the staff is. He also has a system to do everything in the park all in one day.
“I’ve got it down pat,” Alex said. “If you start at the waterpark first, then after lunch, if you go to the theme park, you’ll be able to ride every single thing in the theme park because then everybody will be at the waterpark. And that trick seems to work every time I go.”
He’s been visiting the park with his cousins, his wife and their three kids, 11 years old, 5 years old and 3 years old. Alex’s favorite part of taking them is seeing their faces light up on the rides and everything the park offers for little kids.
Like father, like daughter, Alex’s daughter’s favorite thing about Holiday World is seeing Santa Claus. She’s obsessed with him.
Alex has watched the park expand and change over the last 30 years.
“It’s just crazy how much the park has changed and what they’ve taken out and what they’re putting in, but it’s a change for the good,” he said.
The rides Alex rode as a kid, he thinks are getting too old to be worth fixing and sprucing up. He’s excited for the new ride that will be announced in the coming weeks and has predictions of what it might be. He’s hoping for a new, improved boat water ride.
Matthew Powers
Matthew grew up in Ferdinand, only about a 15-minute drive away from Holiday World. He first went to the park in 1996, when he was 2 years old for an Aristokraft, now MasterBrand Cabinets, company picnic. Many people in his family worked for the company and still do today.
“That definitely got me to love the park very quickly,” Matthew said. “I have a lot of fond memories there for that reason.”
One of his favorites to reminisce about was when ZOOMbabwe opened in the park. When it opened in 2002, it was the world’s longest enclosed waterslide, 887-feet-long. It still holds the record today. The ride is completely dark inside and takes riders nearly 100 feet down in a four-person raft with sudden drops, banked curves and twists before dumping the raft into the sunlight.
“I thought that it was such a cool addition to start adding these huge, record-breaking attractions,” Matthew said. “I remember some of my family members getting a little scared because of the faces that were on the inside. I thought that was always really funny. I would always get excited about going on that attraction for that reason.”
The waterpark is where he and his family spent most of their days at Holiday World, but they always made time for Raging Rapids in Boulder Canyon, a ride that simulated white-water rafting through a fictional flooded Western town. It was a 1,182 feet-long combination of calm water and intense rapids, with geysers shooting water into the air. The ride closed in 2023.
He also remembers the excitement and buzz around the addition of The Voyage in 2006. The ride is the second longest wooden roller coaster in the world and also holds the wooden coaster record for the most airtime, 24.3 seconds. There are three sections of 90-degree turns and five underground tunnels. A few of the tunnels riders go through more than once, totaling eight below ground moments.
In 2013, TIME Magazine named The Voyage the best wooden roller coaster in America and it has been ranked with the top wooden roller coasters in the world by Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Awards.
“It was so exciting around here because that was such a huge prospect,” Matthew said.
When The Voyage opened, Matthew was in 5th grade and wrote a story about the ride’s debut for the Ferdinand Elementary school paper.
“Those were core memories for me,” he said.
Today, The Voyage is Matthew’s favorite ride.
“It’s the one and only,” he said. “I mean, I can’t think of another roller coaster like it that goes underground as much as it does, that kind of folds back in on itself the way that it does.”
Matthew still lives in Ferdinand and visits Holiday World regularly. It brings him a sense of nostalgia.
“I remember you could look out and just see trees for miles. You could see the waterpark a little bit and now you just see that big path that leads all the way to Thanksgiving and of course, Thunderbird is there too,” he said.
As a self-proclaimed coaster enthusiast, that’s the kind of ride he heads straight toward when he gets in the park.
“Like it can be a 110-degree day with the sun blazing on me while I’m on the coasters, I’m still gonna run straight for those queue lines,” he said.
Matthew didn’t realize his love for thrill-rides until he was 12 years old and he doesn’t want history to repeat itself with his 2-year-old son, Flynn.
“We’re gonna try to break him in a little sooner,” Matthew said.
Things have changed a little since he started bringing his son to the park. Matthew has taken Flynn twice and though, Matthew might not get to ride as many thrill-rides as before, he still enjoys the park, just differently.
Flynn reacted well to the park both times Matthew and his wife have taken him. He likes the mascot characters and gets excited about all the park’s vibrant colors, all the movement in the park and all the excitement in the air.
“That’s been very cute to see,” Matthew said. “He’s just a really excited little guy.”
The Holidays in the Sky drone show has become one of Matthew and his family’s favorite additions to the park. There aren’t many theme parks that do a drone and fireworks show; it’s an ambitious production. He and his wife have found watching the show is a perfect way to wrap up a day full of making memories.
“it’s just been incredible to watch it grow,” he said. “I hope they keep that going because I’ve already made some great memories with my family.”
Allison Walker
For at least 35 years, Holiday World has been a tradition for Allison. Between her parents taking her and her aunt taking her with all her cousins, plus local businesses hosting picnics there, Allison was at the park a lot throughout her childhood.
“I used to drag my dad on the rides like a million times,” she said. “I remember getting on the log ride; I think maybe there were days that maybe it wasn’t so busy and they just let me go on it and on it and on it. Like I didn’t get back out of the line.”
Now that she has kids of her own, Allison feels a little bad for doing that to her parents.
“You know when you’re a kid, things seem a little more, like magical, and everything is so exciting,” she said.
Even as she grew up and her friends started to get jobs, Allison didn’t stop going to Holiday World. Allison had quite a few buddies who worked at the park and got two free tickets with each paycheck.
“They could go free so they didn’t even need them,” she said. “So, I was there quite a lot when I was in high school too, with just my friends.”
[Pictured left: Amanda Porter (then Beck), Allison Walker (then Beck), Lauren Beck and Phillip Beck pose with Holidog in June 1991, at Holiday World in Santa Claus. Allison went to the park in high school, often for free, thanks to her friends who worked there.]
It was a less than 30-minute drive to Holiday World from Allison’s hometown, Jasper, which made for a quick, easy day trip.
Now, the drive is not quite as short for her, almost an hour, but she still visits the park often. She’s even a season passholder now. It’s a different experience when she goes today versus growing up. Allison used to ride the wooden roller coasters all day long, but now they are too much for her. Things have changed, but her childhood experiences live on through her kids.
“I think it’s probably the same for them as it was for me as a kid,” she said. “They’re always extremely excited to go.”
Allison’s oldest son, Landon, is obsessed with Holiday World. In Kindergarten, when they asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said a Holiday World worker. Now at 7 years old, he is constantly reading and looking through his copy of Holiday World’s 75th Anniversary book.
The book has the history of the Koch family, how the park came to be, the timeline of the waterpark and more. Landon likes to ask Allison if she remembers parts of the park history the book talks about.
“I think he’s just surprised how small it used to be,” she said.
Allison has foggy memories of the park before Splashin’ Safari was added. She remembers when the new parking lot used to be houses and farmland. Landon also asks Allison about what her favorite things in the park were when she was a kid.
Recently, she enjoys Good Gravy, a Thanksgiving dinner themed family coaster and the water park. Most of all, she likes taking her kids and seeing them have fun.
Doug Morris
As a young teen, Doug was too cool for Holiday World and Santa Claus. Now, it’s not summer until he takes a family photo with Santa.
Doug didn’t go to Holiday World as a kid. He only visited the park once or twice in his childhood, both times when he was about 13 or 14 years old, but in high school Doug was at the park all the time. Those summers, he worked as a ride operator and costume character.
He worked at Thunder Bumpers, a bumper car ride, but in boats; Firecracker roller coaster, a different ride than the one at the park now. From 1981 to 1997, a roller coaster named Firecracker was at the park; the one there today, a family-style spinning ride, pays homage to the 80’s coaster with its name
Freedom Train, a small train ride, originally named Santa Claus Railroad, was another ride Doug operated.
“Forty years later, I can still almost do the entire, ‘Good afternoon and welcome to the Freedom Train. This is the only original ride remaining from our first season in 1946, opening two years before Disney World,’” Doug said.
The train was removed from the park in 2013 and replaced with Holidog Express.
When Doug got married and started having kids, he was looking for something fun to do with the family, so in 2006, he started taking his family to Holiday World.
“Some of my favorite family memories are taking the kids to the park and the things that led out of that,” Doug said.
His son, Carter, wasn’t a big fan of the water rides or rides in the dark, so getting him onto those rides became one of the family’s favorite things to do. He would scream the whole way down the slide, but begged to go again as soon as they got to the bottom.
“So, we make fun of him,” Doug said. “He’s now 31 now and he still catches grief for that.”
When Doug’s youngest daughter, Beth, was 4 years old, she was so excited to ride the roller coasters, but wasn’t quite tall enough. They had to get creative with how to get her on the rides, so the whole family left the park to go buy sandals that would make Beth tall enough.
“Now we can’t keep her off of the roller coasters,” Doug said.
Even though their family is scattered across Northeast Indiana now, about a five-hour drive from the park for all of them, Doug, his wife and Beth are still season passholders. For the last five years, their family has made visiting the park a Father’s Day tradition because they know how much Doug loves the park. They try to go at least three other times during the summer, plus once in October.
“It doesn’t matter what gas prices are; it doesn’t matter what hotel costs are. We are pretty going to buy our season passes and come down there,” Doug said. “It’s just a great part of our family at this point.”
Josh Shortt
Josh first visited Holiday World on a church youth group trip when he was 12 years old. Back then, free parking, free soft drinks and free sunscreen did not matter to him, but now they’re part of what keeps him coming back.
“That stuff really starts to add up in the best way,” Josh said.
On his first trip to the park as a 12-year-old, all Josh could think about was how awesome it was. That, and wondering if it was Christmas all the time in Santa Claus, Indiana. He realized it wasn’t Christmas year-round; it was all four seasons year-round.
After that visit, Josh went once every summer. He went with the same group until he was a little older and then would just go by himself. When he started to take trips to the park as an adult, it brought a sense of nostalgia. Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving were all memorable parts of his life. The park reminds him of when he was young.
“It strikes that balance of, hey, yeah, I’m getting older, but you know,” Josh said, “you’re never too old for fun.”
Now that he is an adult with a job, Josh goes to Holiday World at least once in the summer and once in the fall, but he never took a break from going to the park between childhood and adulthood. Josh has seen Holiday World grow and expand summer after summer.
Now that he is an adult with a job, Josh goes to Holiday World at least once in the summer and once in the fall, but he never took a break from going to the park between childhood and adulthood. Josh has seen Holiday World grow and expand summer after summer.
“Watching the park evolve over the years,” he said, “I was one of the first people to ride Good Gravy, which was pretty cool.”
It’s one of his favorite things he’s seen added to the park. He even thinks waiting in its line is a good experience.
“I mean that the fact that they put so much love and care into that, they could have really just built the queue to be boring, but,” Josh said, “that whole thing looks like a whole house with the bedrooms and the table set and all that.”
[Pictured left: Josh Shortt holds an ice cream cone during the summer of 2024, at Holiday World in Santa Claus. Shortt first visited the park with a church youth group.]
He also appreciates how friendly the staff is and how much they love their jobs. He’s seen staff members’ testimonials about why they enjoy being there on Holiday World’s social media and when he’s at the park, Josh can tell the employees legitimately like doing their jobs.
“I mean when I was on The Legend this past weekend, the ride operator was giving little witch cackles as the train would take off. Everyone’s getting all into character,” he said.
Josh wasn’t always a thrill-seeker. With rides like The Legend, he used to think maybe it was better to just watch. He looked at The Voyage with fear, but eventually, he was convinced to try it. He screamed at the top of his lungs for the whole ride, but when he got off the ride, he just got right back in line and did it again.
“I give myself at least until 75,” Josh said. “Maybe, you know, I’ll ride The Voyage at 75, see if I can still stand up and if I can, I’ll keep going.”