Oceans of Fun and Worlds of Fun

To wrap up our time in Nebraska we took a family trip down to Kansas City to go to Oceans of Fun (a water park) and Worlds of Fun (an amusement park). We drove down early Monday morning and got there in time to check into our cottage and still make the early bird entry to Oceans of Fun. Our cottage was just on the other side of the Oceans of Fun parking lot. So it was super convenient to hop over to the park.

The view from our cottage. There's a roller coaster in the background. 

We spent most of the first day at the water park side. We tried out every water attraction the park had to offer, from slides, to splash pads, the lazy river, and of course the wave pool. My personal favorite was a newer slide called Predator's Plunge where you stood upright over a trap door, and after a short countdown the trap door opens and you drop into a fast and winding tube of craziness. Sadly they only had one of the three slides like that working so the wait was quite long even despite it being a fairly slow day. Another good one was the Diamond Head slides. They weren't very busy, but if you laid down just right you could get going pretty fast and get pretty high up on the wall on some of the turns. I almost got flipped over a couple times. The boys also spent a lot of time on lily pad obstacles. I think they felt they could put their Ninja Warrior skills to the test. It was fun to watch and try a couple times with them. It was a fun, sun-filled day, and it wasn't even done. The water park closes at dusk, but the amusement park stays open a couple of extra hours. So we made our way over to squeeze in a few roller coaster rides before the night was done.

Our plan for Tuesday was to spend the entire day at the Worlds of Fun side of things, but for better or worse our entry got delayed by rain. I personally think it was a blessing because I felt absolutely wiped out from the day before and welcomed the nap I got after breakfast. The rain looked like it was going to let up after lunch so we went and grabbed food at Taco Bell just down the road before heading into the park. Luckily, even with the delay, we had plenty of time to ride all of the rides multiple times and then some. It helped that the lines were super short. The longest we waited to get on a ride was probably 10 minutes except for one time where we waited to ride the front car of Mamba. The only downside was that because park attendance was slow they usually only had one car running on each ride, which felt like it dragged out even the shortest lines.

It sometimes took some convincing to get Eli and Cael to try out a ride that initially looked scary. But usually once they tried it once they wanted to immediately ride it again. The wooden roller coaster, Prowler, was the most exhilarating to me. Blake described it well as feeling like you were skiing, just a little bit more violent and fast. Just about every turn came after a little bit of a quick up and down like you were going over a snowy mogul/bump. Patriot and Mamba were also among my favorites because they were pretty fast and smooth. The kids of course really liked two of my least favorite rides: Spinning Dragons and Boomerang. Boomerang was just too violent and shaky. And Spinning Dragons, well, spun too much for my taste. Luckily with that one we could position ourselves in the car such that you wouldn't spin that much if you didn't want to. But of course most of the time Eli and Cael wanted to spin as much as possible. Alas. We did take one little break in the evening to watch an extreme sports show where they had bikers, gymnasts, and trampolinists performing impressive tricks.

A panorama of Spinning Dragons

Cael waiting to get on Boomerang

Eli waiting to get on Spinning Dragons, probably for like the 100th time :)

Still all smiles at the end of the day 

Overall we had a great time. It had been several years since I had been to these two parks, so it was fun to check out again. Ranking wise, I still think Cedar Point in Ohio is better, but I'd go again in a few years. Although next time I think we'd try to bring in our own food because my one complaint was that the food there was incredibly overpriced and not even very good. But you live and learn. It was a great way to wrap up our time together.