The Voyage (roller coaster)

Amusement ride

The Voyage opened to the public on May 6, 2006. It originally operated with three, 28 passenger trains manufactured by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (PTC). The first twenty eight seat reservations for the ceremonial first ride were auctioned off on eBay, with proceeds donated to Riley Children's Foundation in Indiana.

In November 2009, Holiday World announced that they would be replacing their PTC trains with a new train model called a Timberliner. The new model was under development at the time by Gravitykraft, an affiliate company of The Gravity Group. The park's goal was to improve the ride experience, which had become somewhat rougher over the years as the track aged. Anticipating the arrival of two Timberliners, Holiday World sold two of its three PTC trains from Voyage to Darien Lake, another amusement park seeking replacement trains for one of its own – The Predator. However, The Voyage's new Timberliner trains arrived too late for the 2010 season, so the park decided to move one of the trains from The Raven over to Voyage. The transition required modifications to the train, and the move left The Raven with only one train for the remainder of the season. For the 2011 season, Holiday World continued with the same train configuration on The Voyage. The original Timberliner model that was tested at Holiday World ended up on other coasters at other parks – Wooden Warrior at Quassy Amusement Park in Connecticut and Twister at Gröna Lund in Sweden. Gravitykraft was instead planning to debut a newer Timberliner model on The Voyage in 2012. The Raven needed to return to normal rider capacity in the meantime, so Holiday World purchased an additional five PTC cars. With their two spares, they were able to construct a full seven car train to be used on The Voyage and allow the return of the borrowed train back to The Raven. In 2012, a delivery delay of the new Timberliner model trains prevented the park from adequately testing them in the spring. Holiday World decided to postpone their implementation to the 2013 season. In addition to routine track maintenance, Holiday World worked with The Gravity Group in the 2011 12 off season to rebuild and reprofile portions of the "spaghetti bowl" turnaround near mid course. As a result of the reprofiled turn, an additional 0.1 second of air time was created, raising the ride's new air time total to 24.3 seconds. In August 2013, Holiday World officially resigned from the Timberliner project, thanking Gravitykraft for their efforts but announcing that they were no longer pursuing the new trains for use on The Voyage. Instead, they planned to continue using the PTC trains. In 2014, Holiday World shortened the two trains from seven cars to six,

The second floor of the station holds the roller coaster's loading and unloading areas, as well as the two transfer tracks and maintenance bays. On the loading side of the station there are fourteen air powered queue gates, one for each row of the train. On the unloading side of the station there are free shelves and lockers that riders may use to hold their belongings for the duration of the ride. The unloading side is also home to the ride operator's controls and two exit gates: a sliding gate near the front of the train and a swinging gate near the rear of the train. Beyond the unloading side of the station is an area that holds two maintenance bays. These allow unused trains to be stored during normal operation and also provides an additional area for maintenance crews to inspect the roller coaster trains.

The wooden track on The Voyage is made out of numerous layers of Southern Yellow Pine, topped with a single layer of steel along the top, sides, and underside of the track where the train's wheels make contact. The supports for the track itself are made out of an estimated of steel. The total length of the track is 6442 feet (1964 m) and includes 154 feet (47 m), 107 feet (33 m), and 100 feet (30 m) drops in addition to five underground tunnels. The track features a chain lift hill and five block sections, which theoretically allows a maximum of four trains at a time to run; however, this is impractical when considering the time it takes to dispatch 24 passenger trains. The most trains The Voyage has operated at one time is three. The Voyage uses fin brakes throughout the ride to allow the train to be stopped in the final (primary) brake run, the secondary brake run, the mid course brake run, the station, and the transfer track.

Unlike Holiday World's other two wooden roller coasters, The Voyage has a gift shop which is located near its exit. This gift shop offers various merchandise featuring The Voyage and Holiday World & Splashin' Safari. Guests can also visit this gift shop to view and purchase their photo that was taken by the on ride camera, located right before the drop through the station building.

The total ride experience on The Voyage lasts approximately two minutes and forty five seconds.

On June 4, 2021, a 47 year old woman was found unresponsive when the train she was riding in returned to the station. An autopsy later determined that the woman tore her right internal thoracic artery, likely caused by the force of the roller coaster, causing a rapid loss of blood.

The heavy metal band Fozzy rode the roller coaster in their song Sane released on May 28, 2021.