allenhuffman

There are always small things each year, but not rides. They used to have a pretty consistent schedule for adding minor and major rides, and would even mention that in newspaper interviews. With The Monster from last year, we probably have until next year or after before they swap one of the flat rides to. At least, that's been the pattern since I moved here in 1995.

Beautiful night photos. When were you there?

Although there are still many gaps, I have a chart showing yearly ticket prices at Adventureland from opening until 2017. http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Ticket_Prices

The park seems to be making some serious investments with remodels and improvements. It really seems unlikely another huge ride would be added any time soon. The old interviews I've read talked about how they liked to add a new flat ride every other year or so, and a big one every decade. However, all this could change if they see dramatic increases in cash flow from The Monster. But, it would have to be through other spending and off-peak days. During the busiest summer month, the park fills up all its parking and spills out in to the RV campground and hotel parking, with cars on the grass and along the lanes. Folks take their vacations mostly on those big weekends, it seems... I wonder if they saw much of a bump on those already-packed weekends last year. (I'd heard from some parking staff that they'd still had bigger crowds in post-Mosnter years.)

That was a special color scheme on The Monster just for Oktoberfest, and there was an alternate color pattern on the Space Shot that night too.

I finally (somewhat) sorted the last of my Adventureland 2016 photos, including a few hundred from their 2nd annual Oktoberfest. The area around the Sky Wheel was used for a main stage and it was wall-to-wall packed. There were drink stands all over the park, and some very funny ones (where they'd turn a gift shop in to a shots bar and such). Temporary gallery is still here: themeparks.disneyfans.com/photos/Adventureland/ The park has used the LEDs on the Sky Wheel to display the Cubs "W" logo, and later, the Cubs "C" logo (sorta) after the win. They also lit up the Sky Wheel in blue in honor of some police officers that were shot here recently (with folks putting blue lights all over town). The park also lent some lights to light up the police station in blue. Right now, KCL Engineering (the company behind the Monster and Space Shot lights, as well as the Sky Wheel installation) is out at IAPA. I forget which booth they are with, but they are supposedly running a short video reel showing off the Adventureland lights added this year. Lots of neat stuff still happening. Jolly Holiday Lights (yearly Make-a-Wish Foundation fundraiser) flooded out in it's old Water Worlds Park location, and announced it would move to Adventureland Campground this year. It's being set up right now, and looks like it will be a much better location (though we will miss all the trees). The Adventureland Inn restaurant also announced some new food specials. Last night, they began serving the "famous" Adventureland Iowa Cafe fried chicken (all you can eat with two sides for $9.99). It was very good - and the first time I'd had it piping hot (instead of being under a heating lamp). They also have the bucket of cookies (Cookies and Cream) and Main Street Mini Donuts on the menu, too. They don't seem to be resting during the off season.

I set notification alerts up on a handful of accounts, and really only pay attention to what they post. The rest of the time, I use it to crosspost from Facebook pages I manage. I rarely use my personal account.

This is the last weekend, and both days it closes well before dusk, but I will be there for Oktoberfest on Octoerber 1st, and will get photos and video then. Adventureland is using a video I made about last year's Oktoberfest and I'm doing an updated version for them covering this year. My regret is that I didn't set up the camera and get footage of the old wheel before they updated it. At least I have a few clips, which I put in this "after dark" video: [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

Even near the end of the season, Adventureland keeps updating stuff. Last week, new LED lighting was installed on the Giant Sky Wheel. It's not hooked up yet, and the parking-lot side is yet to be done, but a crane was parked behind the wheel so I expect that is what they will be doing this week. A large shipping container was sitting out front, and the label on it reveals the parts came from EWorks Pro 2.0 in Florida: http://eworkspro.com/portfolio/classes/wheels It should be running for Oktoberfest on October 1. I had no idea wheels had this kind of lighting packages. I can't wait to see it. Also, construction continues at the Iowa Beer & Wine Shop. The trees and bushes in two small grass patches (surrounded by small white picket fences) were cut down a few weeks ago, and last week, they were completely removed. This past weekend, it was now a large concrete patch with footings for a canopy or something. There is even the shape of Iowa embedded in teh new concrete... So much stuff going on right now.

I've been collecting all the Oktoberfest information on my site, including a map I colorized to show how much was open last year versus this year (attached). It's greatly expanded this year, with almost ALL the park open except Dragon Island and beyond. Most rides are open on the front side of the park, except for Sky Ride, Splash Over and Inverter. Since Dragon Island is not part of it, there will be no Himalaya, Dragon, Sidewinder, Saw Mill Splash or Outlaw... Most everything else is running except the kiddie rides. Impressive for $15 (no parking fee; and that price includes a free Sam Adam's beer and souvenir photo). http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Oktoberfest_2016

2016 Adventureland Oktoberfest details: 21+ and over. No kids. No exceptions. ID required! Saturday, October 1, 2016 - 11am-10pm. Live music: 13 acts on 5 stages, 11am-9:30pm "Last Call" fireworks at 9:30pm. Adventureland food stands. Gourmet food stands (outside vendors). Many park rides open, 11am-9pm. Tickets go on sale at at www.adventurelandpark.com on August 22, 2016. $15 Oktoberfest general admission: includes free parking and one free Sam Adam's Octoberfest beer. New this year: $20 Belgium Feast: Prepared by Master Belgium Chef, Daniel Joly, and Master French Chef, David Baruthio. $89 Hotel+Admission+Brunch combo: Adventureland Inn room, 2 Oktoberfest admissions, and 2 morning-after brunches at Spectators Sports Bar & Grill. And, the best deal for anyone who plans to "try it all": $200 VIP package: 1. Admission ($15) 2. Oktoberfest refill mug ($12 in the park) 3. Souvenir refill frozen yard with lanyard ($12 in the park + lanyard cost?) 4. Oktoberfest T-shirt ($20-$30? how much?) 5. Belgium Feast meal ($20) 6. FOUR drink coupons for any drink stand (!!!) ($6.50-$9 in the park) 7. Complimentary Sam Adam's Octoberfest on draft 8. Complimentary Sam Adam's Cider on draft 9. Complimentary import and domestic cans 10. Complimentary bottled water 11. Complimentary fountain drinks 12. Complimentary snacks (light to heavy) 13. RESERVED RESTROOMS for the venue! As you can see, if we go by typical park prices, the VIP package easily includes $105-$125 or so just for admission, mug, yard, T-shirt, meal and drink coupons. If you plan to eat other snacks during the day, and enjoy more drinks (even bottled water or fountain sodas), it easy to see how one could spend $200 enjoying an all-day event like this. The reserved restrooms and over VIP amenities are just a nice bonus There will be more details posted to their website: http://www.adventurelandoktoberfest.com Considering a normal day at Adventureland is $10 to park, and $42 to get in, just going out to enjoy a kid-free park with some of the rides open sounds like a deal to me. The live music, fireworks and endless food and drink choices are merely a bonus UPDATE: Tickets here - https://www.adventurelandpark.com/ti…/index.php/tickets.html

Awesome timeline. I have spent much time this season researching park history, and not much thinking about park future. One thing you can add to your light show list: Updating the Giant Sky Wheel lights. I was told that was on the list for next season. Between Space Shot, Monster, and various other updates in past years (even Chuck Wagon got new lights, and LED bulbs on the Scrambler when it returned), it seems the park is gearing up for more nighttime activities. I have been trying to find information on what property they own. I may have to just pop down to Altoona city hall and see what public records are there. That field is still planted with corn and a "For Sale" sign is on it (across from Tornado).

Anyone planning to go to Oktoberfest on Oct 1, 2016? http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Oktoberfest_2016 And the official site: http://info.adventurelandoktoberfest.com

1974-1979 is what it looks like. I started the Wikipedia page back in 2006, and it has many incorrect dates. I have been cleaning it up the best that I can. There just aren't many sources for this, beyond finding old newspaper ads announcing "new for XXXX" and such. Here is the work-in-progress park history timeline. It has some questionable entries, but it is much more accurate than the Wikipedia: http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/History

There used to be trolleys that circuses the park. There were four stops - Main Street station, one behind Der Flinger, one at the end of the park (no longer a guest area), and one where the entrance of the Tornado is. I've been updating my website with info as I get it, and this page now has photos of what's left from this attraction: adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Toonerville_Trolleys

I was there after work today and it was the first Friday in a month that wasn't busy. Ten minute wait for Monster. But the past four weekends have been pretty packed. On the 15th, the park goes back to weekends only as kids go back in school. Not sure what that does to the crowds these days but they used to lighten up.

The Dragon opened in 1990, but many sites list it as 1991. I found a 1997 newsgroup post with the Roller Coaster Almanac giving the 1991 date, so it was wrong pretty early. Some mysteries recently pointed out to me: 1. The dragon opened with 7 cars, but today has 6. This happened sometime between 1999 and 2001 (1999 video on YouTube shows 7, but a photo I took in 2001 shows 6). The back row in the queue has been roped off for 15+ years. Wow. 2. Early photos show the front car had 3 rows, but today it has 2. We are not sure when this happened (it was 2 in 1999). 3. They added an extra belt to hold down the shoulder restraints sometime between 2004 and 2008 (I didn't take close up photos every year; lesson learned). And, some photos - including one on the park's official website in recent years - showed it used to say "the DRAGON" on the front, but it no longer does. I thought it was from the original 3 row car, but I have photos of the 3 row car with nothing on the front. Does anyone know where I can find better details of this Hopkins coaster? There is almost nothing online, and I keep finding sites repeating the same incorrect information. The best is when they say it's 7 cars under a photo showing 6 cars. Details, details... Thanks...

Hi Robb. Allen in Des Moines, Iowa here. I have DisneyFans.com, and have been posting theme park photos since 1996. Many (many!) years ago, you and I both had theme park sites on GeoPages (I think it was called GeoCities by that time). I have an archive of my old page and had a link to your first visit to Adventureland. I was sent to this forum recently via Facebook, and realized it was the same one I knew of almost 20 years ago. I think we are old. I cannot afford vacations any more, so my last one was 2009. This year, because of the new Monster coaster opening up in Iowa, I arranged to get a season pass and have been catching up. Glad to see more of us old timers still kickin' in this modern Internet!

For what it's worth, I have spent some time resorting and regenerating my Adventureland photo gallery. I still am lacking specific day information on the first few years (camera was before EXIF) but I sorted them the best I could. At least the year is correct. themeparks.disneyfans.com/photos/Adventureland/ These will eventually move to a new website dedicated to Adventureland. It's basically going to be a dedicated Wiki for the park, covering as many rides, shops, shows, and games as I can document since the park opened to the public in 1974. There are a ton of gaps in the timeline, but it's coming together.

And the changes continue... Cookies & Cream (new for 2016) has added outdoor seating (umbrella tables) in front of it. They built the shop with two serving lines, but workers there don't know of any time they've had enough demand to run both sides. They say people don't seem to notice it (as if those pink/white stripes wouldn't be enough to get attention). The tables may be helping. Later in the day, they were all full and there was a line out the door. Iowa Beer & Wine Shop has been serving root beer floats all year, but they have never been on the menus. You can get a local craft root beer float, or a Not Your Fathers Root Beer alcohol float. They finally printed special menu forms that show this, and also mention several other combinations (I had no idea there was a Not Your Fathers Cream Soda). Anita Bar's menu boards are now live -- two TVs. They show some kind of "beer with frozen topper" drinks, but the worker there didn't think they had the stuff to make them yet. (I don't think he was sure what they were supposed to be.) Lots of other minor things, too... For instance, in Outlaw Gulch, the new food location (which used to be next door) now has a permanent themed counter for the condiments. Originally it was just some table with a checkerboard picnic table type cloth over it, but now it's some different table -- maybe something they built custom in their wood shop. The Ben Ulin magic show had been running just the black light "Glow" show plus one speaking Magic show to fill all six slots, but they have a second speaking show in the mix now. I enjoyed it -- it had two routines I'd never seen him do (either very old routines, or things he's introduced in the past five seasons when I wasn't attending). This gives three different shows there, to go with the three different Brad Weston juggling shows. Speaking of acts ... The Royal Hanneford Circus rotates acts so the three times I've seen the last show of the day they had at least one act swapped out. I finally got to see the motorcycle cage act last week - that may still be my favorite since you just don't see something like that anywhere else. Sidewinder was down for about a week, but it started running last week. Lady Luck was down for repairs this weekend, but may be back by now. The Giant Sky Wheel was down this past weekend, too. I think everything else was operating. The Monster has maintained huge lines down the fence (spilling out of the zig-zag queue and ramp). We have been timing rides to figure out hourly capacity and at some point I want to count and get an estimate of how many people that queue holds so we can know how long to expect the wait to be when it's at the ramp, queue building, or down the fence line. Someone posted on my Facebook group that they waited 1 hour 20 minutes and added that it was totally worth it More to come...

I am glad you enjoyed visiting my home park. I am a fan of dark rides, so The Underground is my favorite thing in the park. It was really in bad shape when I last visited in 2010, but they have refurbished it since then so it's much better than it had been. The park has been doing nothing but building spinny rides I cannot ride, so I was glad to see The Monster added this year. There have been rides that have come and gone without me ever riding them because I don't do spinny any more I came from "big" parks (grew up with two Six Flags parks in Texas) so Adventureland was just so quaint and tiny to me, but it had a fun feel to it. Kinda how Kennywood in PA feels to me -- you can feel the Mom-and-Pop history of the park. On my Facebook group, there have been many posts about the early years of the park and it seems to have a fascinating history. Hopefully some day someone will put together a book about it.

Oh, wow. I just realized I linked to "Theme Park Review" back when it was a GeoCities free web page, like my Adventureland page was! I wondered if it could possibly be the same "Theme Park Revier" and looked it up in the Web archive: https://web.archive.org/web/19990202153507/www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/9002/hmoon25.htm Wow! For what it's worth, I had my first free website at GeoPages (before it was called GeoCities) and put up some Adventureland info. At the time, me and some guy named Mike were the only two references to the park I could find online. Here is a mirror of my old site: alsplace.os9al.com/advland.html What a small world!

This can work in reverse, too. I cannot do spinny rides any more (unless they are short) and once I realized the ride op was controlling certain rides, I knew those were off my list. I can barely ride a few there because I know the ride cycle is short enough I won't get sick. But, on a slow evening last week, I asked a work camper running one of them about how he times it. He said there is a kitchen timer, basically, he uses, but can go longer or shorter. He said he'd always stop it if he thought someone was having problems. No one was in line, and he let us ride with my understanding he would stop it if I raised my arms. I made it through just fine - the first time I've ridden that thing in almost twenty years. It gives me hope I may finally get to ride some of the newer spinny rides they have I have been afraid to try

Not that I have seen. I see people leaving the front gate to go smoke outside of the ticket area. I'd drop them a note from the Contact Us form on the website to be sure, though. Adventureland was actually pro-active with making the park smoke-free. They put up signs a year or so before the "Iowa Smokefree Air Act" was passed as a law. They were inside the train station tunnels and said something like "Try a smoke-free day at Adventureland." Hmm, looks like the park started calling itself a "smoke free" park in 2008:

Fun review! I wish you had stayed 'til dark to see The Monster nighttime lights. THey are truly fun to watch. I grew up in Texas, so my first parks were Astroworld and the original Six Flags, but family vacations to Disneyland, Disney World, and many others. When I moved to Iowa in 1995, Adventureland was $18 to get in! Prices have really increased since then, and parking was just $3 not too many years ago ($10 today). It's always fun to hear an outside perspective when us jaded locals think the prices have really gone sky high in a lot of areas ($6.50 for a can of beer?). I agree about Iowa Cafe -- even with prices double what they used to be, the season pass discount still let's me get a 1-piece chicken and two sides for about $4.80 (it's not listed on the menu, but is more than enough food for me when I go). Other great values are the Subland sandwiches - freakin' HUGE for $5.75 (way bigger than a Subway six inch), the soft tacos are a real good value, and you can easily split a huge Tenderloin (cheaper to get it at Iowa Cafe than in Outlaw Gulch - not sure if it's the same or not). There are refill cups and mugs for sodas, beer and even popcorn. With the popcorn bucket, you get popcorn for $1. The 24 ounce Oktoberfest beer mug gets you the $8.50 24 ounce beer for $5. There are 24 ounce tall Icee cups that can get cheap Icee refills or discounted adult frozen beverages (you get the 24 ounce amount for the price of the 16 ounce, basically - and you can even use them at the full bar in Adventure Bay). So many nice little discounts! I am glad you caught the Free Gum thing I took the same picture. The Tornado uses square wheels, which you found out. They haven't ran both trains on it for many years, but they used to. I rode in the middle last week and it was VERY pleasant. I've spent so many years only doing first and last cars, I forgot that the middle had some appeal. It's the only way I will ride The Tornado now that I know it offsets those square wheels. Thanks for visiting our "dinky" home park I'm stunned at how many nice things people have to say about it.