Amusement Park Memories

Since we already started a thread on TV retro thing, how about amusement park? Remember going there when you were little? Some park is still alive and some don't.

I'll start with mine:

*Idlewild Park/Storybook Forest (PA) - my first park visit when I was a youngster.
*West View Park (PA) - my first wooden roller coaster ride and I was scared to death! This park is gone.
*Kennywood (PA) - my first high-speed steel coaster ride "Steel Phantom".
*Six Flags Magic Mountain (CA)
*Six Flags Great America (NJ)
*Knotts Berry Farm (CA)
*Walt Disney World (FL) and Disneyland (CA)
*Cypress Gardens (FL) It is now an amusement park since last year.
*Paramount King Dominion (VA)
*Desperado Park (NV) Just a large/fastest steel coaster on Las Vegas' desert.
*Sea World (OH/FL) Ohio's park is deserted from what I read.

Next visit: Dollywood and Cedar Point (OH). I heard Cedar Point is supposed to be the roller coaster capital of the world and some of the rides are very extreme. I can't wait to go there!

Now, your turn!

 

hmm ok now your making me think....

Pasaides Amusement Park - NY - nothing but a memory these days = gone
Asbury Park - NJ - Also gone
LongBranch - NJ - Again Gone....dern I'm getting old
Great Adventure - NJ
Disney World - FL
Busch Gardens - VA
Hershey Park - PA
Carolwinds - NC/SC

Been to a few of these more then once.....

And probably hitting Dorney Park in a few weeks and Dollywood later this year or next.

 

Carolwinds = a Carol who has eaten too much Taco Bell? :mrgreen: :lol:


Carowinds - NC/SC
Busch Gardens - VA
King's Dominion - VA
Six Flags Over Georgia - GA, duh!

I need to get out more!

 

Kennywood and Idlewild Park!!! They were SOOOOOO Fun! Cedar Point IS the roller coaster capital!!! We used to have oout school picnics at Kennywood and my cousin ued to work there running the Lazer Loop. I miss those days.............:cry:

 

I remeber West View park on PA too. My dad took me there when I was real young. He left us when I was 6 so I had to be 4 or 5 when we went. It's really gone now???? Wow.......I guess it was coming..............

 

What a great post. I love amusement parks and don't go nearly enough. I've only been to a few...Busch Gardens, both Disney parks, Carowinds, Kings Dominion. All great memories though.

-Sprocket

 

Hmmm..................I remember literally having the breath knocked out of me on one of the old wooden roller coasters at "Lakeside" in VA. Kaci and Magnolia probably remember that one. Disney, Epcot, Sea World, Busch Gardens as a kid were fun too. Dollywood gets two thumbs up. Hershey Park was awesome last year!

 

We went to Dollywood this past week on vacation and it was great! My DH and DS had a blast on the wooden coaster and the log flume. My 9 yo son had the sheite scared out of him on the new "Mystery Mine"! We had to buy the photo because the expression on his face was PRICELESS!! It makes me laugh every time I look at it!

 

My wife and kids are headed to Gatlinburg in a couple of weeks...I think that they should spend a day at Dollywood.

-Sprocket

 

Small world! Are you from PA, too? I used to go to Idlewild and Kennywood for my school picnic. I remember Laser Loop!!! It's gone now because of Steel Phantom took over the area. Have you ridden Phantom yet? It's awesome because it was built on the slope of the hill and you get to ride from the edge to down the hill! How about Noah's Ark? That was a fun dark attraction. Like Jack Rabbit? I love the coaster that hopped when reaching the bottom. Thunderbolt is no longer #1 high speed wooden coaster as stated years ago.

 

Sound like fun!! I heard about the Mystery Mine - is it an indoor coaster? Upside down? My son wanted to know since he loves coaster ride except anything upside down! What is the admission cost for adult and child? Just curious.

 

I worked at Lakeside for about 4 years. So did my sister. One night, we were all out drinking and decided to sneak into the park in the wee hours of the morning and play in the kiddie "ocean of balls"...which was one of those rooms made of net with all the plastic balls in it.

My sister twisted her ankle bad, and we took her home and couldn't find enough ice to put on it to stop the swelling, but we improvised.

Imagine my mother's surprise when she work up and came downstairs to find all of us in the kitchen at 3:00am, my sister sitting on the kitchen table....with a bag of frozen peas on her ankle.

Lakeside was swamped when the flood of 1985 came along, and it was ruined. It was a sad, sad day when they announced it would not be repaired and reopened.:cry:

 

Boy, do I remember that flood! I was in high school, I will never forget coming downstairs and stepping in water IN the school. I didn't make it home that night, had to stay with some family friends in town. My two sisters spent the night at their elementary school, they couldn't get them out at all. That flood is the reason I absolutely refuse to live near any body of water. :shock:
We lived in Alleghany county then and it was pretty bad. Our school was shut down for weeks, when it finally opened back up, a lot of us had no books. I believe there ended up being 9 feet of water in the school.

What a trip down memory lane!

Sounds like ya'll had "fun" that night!

 

Yeah...it was awful. I was working downtown at the time and was having lunch with my boss at the Jefferson Club on the top floor of the bank building. We watched the Roanoke River overtake downtown. By the time we got out of there, there was only one exit left out of downtown and what was normally a 20 minute trip home took me 5 hours!

 

Palisaids all the time growing up.
Coney Island small but lots of fun.
Just came back from the mts. took my son to Tweetsie. It was a blast. I fell in luuuuuuv with Dusty. Can Can girls made my sons day.

 

Kings Dominion
Carowinds
Grand Father Mountain
Tweetsie RR

Growing up we started out with a self contained (The Silver Bullet), then a pop-up, then a tent, then a small beach house, then a condo, now nothing. :?

 

You were going backwards.

 

I fondly remember Palisades Park. Actually, it was just west of Fort Lee in NJ.

Do you remember the Margate elephant? It's a national historical landmark now.

 

The Mystery Mine is both inside and outside. It's a small cart, either 9 or 12 seats, 3 in each row and it's a roller coaster but it also has one of those heart dropping free falls. They said you are practically laying on your back going up the hill (in the dark) and then plunge straight down when you get to the top! Yikes!! So...the answer is Yes, it's ALL that! The prices for Dollywood are not too bad, it's almost $50 for adults and almost $40 for kids but you can enter after 3:00 and then go the whole next day too, which is what we did. We still did not end up doing everything. They also said that you could get an annual pass for an extra $31 and go as much as you want until the end of the season. The only drawback I had was that they were only open til 8:00 but that's OK, we were tired (and WET!)

 

Thanks! I will tell my son this. It sounds like this ride is similar to "The Mummy" ride at Orlando's Universal Studio. It's a dark indoor coaster that go high speed then drop and sharp turns.