Street Fest - Food (SDC)

  

FOOD

A major part of Street Fest is the food offerings.  SDC has brought back Tasting Passports to help guests maximize their food spending money and be able to test out these new offerings

STEAK FAJITA LOADED HOT DOG

Lady Liberty

Thoughts: Good combination of flavors.  The steak was seasoned nicely.  The hot dog was a good quality product.  The cheese topped it off perfectly

HIGHLY RECOMMEND

FRESH FRUIT LIEGE WAFFLE

Taste of the City

Thoughts: This thing was pretty yummy.  The one thing (and you will see that it is a common thing this year - the portion is really tiny and we believe this is the full size unless a full size is two waffles instead of one).  The waffle was bathed in chocolate and then covered with the toppings that included whipped cream and strawberries.

RECOMMEND

STEAK FAJITAS LOADED RAVIOLI

Lady Liberty

Thoughts: The steak was good here too and the raviolis were fresh so this was an amazing combination of flavors

HIGHLY RECOMMEND

SMOKED BRISKET TOTCHOS

Hatfield's Tater Patch

Thoughts: This sounded like it would be good on paper, but the execution was just all right.  The individual components were tasty, but together it just didn't really work.  If you think the portion looks tiny in the photo, it was even worse in real life.

DECENT / SKIP

FAJITA CHICKEN BREAD CONE

Taste of the City

Thoughts: This might have been the winner on this food card.  Full sized portion loaded with chicken and the cone tasted like a sweet pretzel.  Very good.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND

STRAWBERRY FANTA FLOAT

Hannah's

Thoughts: This year's version was a major upgrade from last year. The fruit on top made all the difference.  A great treat to enjoy

HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Final thoughts on this year's offerings.  We honestly were disappointed in what was offered.  The portions we saw / got at a lot of places were not really worth a "punch",  Hopefully as the season goes on this improves on subsequent tasting cards.

Street Fest (SDC)

 

Welcome to Street Fest at Silver Dollar City

Let's take a look at the entertainment offerings for this festival

Starting on the square, there are three Blossom Beauties wandering around interacting with park guests

On the Gazebo Stage, Kent Arnsbarger is performing on his steel pan.

This guy is extremely talented.  He actually recorded all of his background accompaniments himself.  He has a degree in music from the University of Indiana

Have you ever wanted to see a roaming band with a cowbell player?

How about a roaming band with TWO cowbell players?

Yeah we didn't get that either, but BOOM! definitely seemed to be having a good time regardless

We Flip Acrobats also performed on the square

Pretty entertaining duo

The Living Garden returned to the Red Gold Plaza for another season

The cast does a nice job

New this year was a fountain

There was a wandering peacock (peahen?) that was walking around near the Red Gold

Eric Haines, the one man band was back again this year.

He is a lot of fun and did a small set over by the entrance to Echo Hollow

Our favorite show this year was the Anastasini Circus.

In the past, this group has supplied a few small acts to be performed on the Gazebo Stage.  This year they were given a real stage and a longer show

The show featured quick change artists, diablos, aerial artist

and ended with this amazing balancing act.  This was by far the best show during the festival

Remember those BOOM! cowbell players?  Well they apparently play percussion in the drumline.  Why they didn't play on their drumlines with the rest of the band, I am not sure.  The BOOM! drumline wanders around Rivertown

In the Opera House was the final show of the festival - Bloom

The show featured a quick painter with dancers

The dancers were amazing, but we were really underwhelmed by the artist, especially after seeing Paint Jam the last few years at the park and the high level art that those painters did

The real star of the show was Kristy Sellers who did an amazing pole artist act synced to the projected background on the screen behind her.  It was amazing and I would have loved to have seen more of her performing

This was the finale of the Bloom show.

Overall a pretty good festival.  Like normal there were high highs and several acts that we will not need to see again.  Great start for the season at SDC.  Looking forward to the next festival

Zambezi Zinger (WOF)

 

The new Zambezi Zinger is still under construction at Worlds of Fun

Starting off with the queue building, they have opened up the building back to its original form.  Here you can see a new window with covering

There is a similar window on this side of the entrance as well.  You can also see what appears to be the start of queue lines being put in - and the opposite of the building appears to be completely open

Another big change here is the color of the building.  It is now a yellowish color where as before it was a dark grey with dark brown accents

This is the exit pathway and more than likely the entrance for Fast Lane which is said to connect to the main queue near the station

Speaking of the station, here it is.  The coloring on the building, along with the roof, is a major upgrade from other coasters in the African section with regards to theme.

We mentioned queue earlier and here you can see how the queue line goes under the first drop out of the station up to the far side where you will load the trains.  You will then exit on the side closest to Boomerang

Time to look at the actual coaster.  For all intents and purposes the circuit has been completed.  Today they were focusing on the installation of the drive tires on the spiral lift

It appears that all of the tires are in place and now they are tightening them down before the adjust phase of the project

GCI promises that the coaster will still be able to operate in moist conditions, which have been a common problem for several tire driven coasters already in existence

Here's the entrance to the spiral lift

It is interesting the transition from the Titan track to regular wooden track on the first drop

Panning out you can see the entire first portion of the ride

The first major turn around after the initial first drop.  You can see here they are still applying lumber to this area.  They will also need to put the finishing metal running pad on this section before it is done

This section leading up into the curve around the spiral lift still has a long way to go

Here you can see that they still need to apply several more layers of lumber for the track

Here's a different look at that section

The curve around the spiral lift is all Titan track

After going around that curve you leap over the train tracks before navigating the back half of the ride

Back to the first drop.  It is higher and steeper than the original Zambezi Zinger

They were doing work on the drop today

This gives a good idea of how steep that first drop is

The back half of the ride is visible through the trees from Prowler.  Here you can see the tunnel and the jump over the train tracks

We are predicting this will be the sleeper hit of the summer.

Are you going to make it out to Worlds of Fun this season to try out the new Zambezi Zinger?