RIP Amusement Parks thread.

[MisterCreosote]

Disney World used to have a free day for high school seniors on their graduation. I imagine this hasn't existed for years. I can't imagine them opening the park for free for anyone.
Does anyone remember when this was done?

I remember they gave free tickets to people for their birthdays, but that didn’t last very long. Like, less than a year, IIRC. Probably a huge money-loser.

I looked into running the Disney Marathon once, thinking that since they charged more than twice what other marathons cost that the race entry might include free admission. But, nope.

 

[mpcincal]

There is a defunct Marineland in L.A., too. On the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The structure is still there, devoid of fish and fans. I think they rent it out for social events -- weddings, corporate outings, etc.

I remember going to Marineland in PV a couple of times, even then in my pre-teens, I could tell it was a lesser version of Sea World, which eventually bought the place and took all the decent attractions back to San Diego.
One other SoCal park no longer around was Busch Gardens in Van Nuys. I had a tramautic experience there as a 6-year-old when I got separated from my family and got lost. I had to hang out with a couple of employees in the customer service booth until my folks came and got me.
Our family had relatives in Missouri, near Branson, so I got to go to the original Silver Dollar City. Good memories, I think the fun ride there was Fire in the Hole. Whenever, I've seen it some of the YouTube park review videos, it's generally considered one of the best theme parks around.

 

[HanSenSE]

Another defunct NorCal park that merits a mention is Santa's Village in Scotts Valley, right off Highway 17. You guessed it: North Pole theme, including reindeer and the big guy. Closed about 20 years ago and is now - surprise - condos.

 

[qtlaw]

Disney World used to have a free day for high school seniors on their graduation. I imagine this hasn't existed for years. I can't imagine them opening the park for free for anyone.
Does anyone remember when this was done?

One of my best HS memories was Grad Day at Disneyland, a few days before graduation, those who signed up hopped on a bus and went to Disneyland (7 hr bus ride) at night.

You got a sit down dinner then the park was open only to HS seniors from throughout CA from 11 PM - 4 or 5 AM (??); we had musical acts such as Kool & the Gang, Shalamar and Tierra on stage in various places around the park.
No tickets needed and you got to meet students from all over.

Total blast, then it was back on the bus to go home.

What a fantastic 24 hours.

As for Sea World in SD, 20 yrs ago we paid up for "Lunch with [forgot name of Orca]" with wife and 2 little boys. We were about 2 feet from the tank and saw him/her swimming around. Not PC nowadays.

 

[Gym Beam]

Astroworld died a painful death. It was a nice place to visit before it became the arena for teen gangsters to settle scores.

 

[Driftwood]

I'm posting this here because it's from one of the spots I mentioned earlier.
The last time I was in Maggie Valley about three years ago, everywhere in town has their own version of an elk statue. Every business, every church, every whatever. They've got an elk statue. They're all decorated up and stuff.
We were at a cookout under a pavilion, and about 50 yards off to one side was the most realistic elk statue I'd seen all day. It was laying in an open space.
"Man, that statue's crazy how real it looks. It's just laying there, but it looks so lifelike. That's the best elk statue in town."
Then it got up and walked away.

 

[ChrisLong]

Another defunct NorCal park that merits a mention is Santa's Village in Scotts Valley, right off Highway 17. You guessed it: North Pole theme, including reindeer and the big guy. Closed about 20 years ago and is now - surprise - condos.

There was a Santa's Village in SoCal on Rim of the World Scenic Highway (Hwy. 18), the road between Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake. It closed a few decades ago. Just Googled and it's apparently open again as SkyPark at Santa's Village. Zip lines, skiing. I don't ski. I never heard of this place until now.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Astroworld died a painful death. It was a nice place to visit before it became the arena for teen gangsters to settle scores.

And one of the deadliest concerts

 

[FileNotFound]

Maybe @Inky_Wretch remembers Dogpatch USA in northwest Arkansas? Apparently Johnny Morris bought the land and is redeveloping it into some sort of nature preserve.

 

[I Should Coco]

A couple of Chicago area ones from my youth (1970s and 80s):

Old Chicago was an indoor shopping mall with roller coasters, other rides and a concert stage — long before the Mall of America. Located in Bolingbrook, which in the 1980s was not yet considered a Chicago suburb.

As suburbia expanded out into Will County, the land Old Chicago sat on (near a Stevenson Expressway exit) became too valuable and it was leveled.

Closer to home for me was Kiddie Kingdom, a small amusement park for elementary school kids in Oakbrook Terrace. I went to several birthday parties there and remember my cousin tossing his cookies (and/or birthday cake) on the Tilt-o-Whirl. Kiddie Kingdom was closed in the mid-1980s and a huge tower of condos was built on the site.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Maybe @Inky_Wretch remembers Dogpatch USA in northwest Arkansas? Apparently Johnny Morris bought the land and is redeveloping it into some sort of nature preserve.

Please don’t traumatize me by dredging up those memories.

That was the de facto summer trip for Methodist youth groups for a bit. Not Six Flags over Dallas. Not Silver Dollar City. Effing Dogpatch USA. It did wonders for the self-esteem of a generation of Arkansans to see our state venerating characters from Lil’ Abner like they were historical figures.

Yeah, Mr. Bass Pro Shops bought it and is supposedly turning it into another Dogwood Canyon - where you drive golf carts on a paved trail through “nature.” The Walton scions are also buying up land all around there which is pissing off the locals who want the Buffalo National River left alone.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

I remember seeing Dogpatch off to the side on those long trips up Number 7 to Branson. For the longest time they kept the old attractions up and the property kept, I guess in a bid to attract an investor. Sounds like that went away.

Second Act Forthcoming: Dogpatch USA Awaits Its Remake

The bigger decline story is the adjacent Marble Falls ski resort, which degenerated to a tweaker and biker haunt.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta is still going strong. I have a ton of memories of that place. Concert pavilions were mentioned above. I saw Billy Preston play one there. It was the first time I watched a performer that I had no doubt whatsoever was coked out of his mind. This was when he had charted with "Outaspace" and "Nothing from Nothing", so he had a bit of popular material to work with. He was doing the full James Brown dance schitck, only he was moving at about 90 miles an hour and never ever stopped. It was wild. I about had a coronary just watching him go.

The year after I quit working there was the first year that they offered a season ticket to the park. It was $25, so I snapped one up. All it cost to go was the stupidly expensive parking, which could not be avoided. I never ate there, again stupidly expensive, plus I knew enough about what went on in Food and Beverage behind the scenes to avoid it like the plague. I'll never forget going up the employee access path behind a Baskin-Robbins to chat up a girl I knew who worked there and finding an employee out back of the shop with his bare feet in a half empty ice cream container, cooling them off.

Anyhow, I still knew a lot of people there and I'd go hang out and chase girls, both park visitors and employees. My success rate was a lot higher there than anywhere else at that time. I met my first steady girlfriend there, the girl who copped my cherry. We're still in touch, lo these many years and a couple of her ex-husbands later.

 

[Huggy]

In the summer of 1984 I worked at Kingswood Music Theatre, a 15,000-seat shed at Canada's Wonderland, just north of Toronto. It was a great summer job, I saw the Dead, Pretenders, Stray Cats, BTO, Aerosmith (awful) and others. I knew some people who worked in the park in various capacities and a couple of times that summer they let employees stay after the park closed to ride the rides and hang out. I went to a lot of shows at Kingswood after that summer, they had a popular $5 concert series if you paid the GA price (which i think was $15 or something).

Eventually the opening of the Molson Amphitheatre on the shores of Lake Ontario downtown ended Kingswood (which was a hassle to get to from the city). Wonderland is still going strong, when I worked there there was nothing around it but fields, now it's jammed in with houses and big box stores. I wonder if they'd wished they'd purchased more land around it to expand since there's nowhere to go with it now.

 

[dixiehack]

wonder if they'd wished they'd purchased more land around it to expand since there's nowhere to go with it now.

A lot of the motivation behind Disney in Florida was Walt regretting that he let Disneyland get landlocked.

 

[DanOregon]

This was the best damn carnival ride I ever experienced. Amusement parks included. Surprised someone hasn't found a way to make the thing economically viable. Although after listening to the history of it, how it was put together, I might even be more terrified.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

My daughter is taking her class trip in a couple weeks to Lake Compounce and she loves scary rides. It was a whole thing in her friend group who was going to pair with whom to go on the rides.

Last year, we went to Lake Compounce and. she wanted me to ride the roller coaster with her. I don't like much of anything that goes off the ground, so I literally said a Hail Mary as we were taking off and she had the time of her life. #LivedToTellTheTale.

 

[Driftwood]

Going to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg on Tuesday. I’ve been there a dozen times but not in the last 33 years. Looking forward to it.

 

[Fred siegle]

“No one should have to be the second person to die in a wave pool.”

That’s an attention grabber.

My friends and i had several trips to action park, and two of us left the park with trips to the hospital. The one i remember most was a friend who went down one of the water slides, went under water at the end, his head hit a screw on the ladder that was for getting out of the pool, and he needed stitches. I don’t want to talk about the number of scrapes and bruises from the alpine slide (think going 30 or 40 miles per hour on a small cart on a cement course.). It did have a really good mini golf course, and other equally dangerous things like a really, really high cliff dive.

 

[Fred siegle]

The six flags a half hour from my home back in the day had a terrible Halloween fire that resulted in 8 teenagers dying.