Shavethewhales

The American Plunge used to have so much more - the old tunnel was full of animatronics and scenes that would light up as you floated past. The year that PK was added they needed to move heavy equipment around on top of the tunnel, so they re-built the tunnel to be a simple concrete gutter style tunnel with nothing inside. That was pretty disappointing. I feel like it's days are being numbered now... As for the boxes on the back of PK, they hold the computers for the train's restraints. I'm glad you had a great time at the park!

Wow, looks like we might actually make it this time. We've got 10 days to go, but unless there are some major movements in the space of a few days, the park should be a sure-win at this point. It sure would be nice to see, especially if it actually helps the park get off the ground again.

Ugh, which just further points to the probability that this edition will be barely-playable shadow of it's former self. Not only is being based off a movie and loosing Chris Sawyer's guidance going to destroy it's credibility, but Sony or whoever probably isn't exactly going to go through the effort of actually making a realistic or even good game when the fanfare surrounding the brand itself will sell copies effortlessly. I think we're in for a huge disappointment. It was a real piece of luck that someone came along and made a somewhat-realistic amusement park tycoon game, but I doubt we'll be so lucky again in the future until someone or some group actually gets together and makes this happen open-source style. Don't want to rain on the parade too much, but this is a possibility that should be mentioned before everyone gets too excited.

Ha ha, Bartlesville is actually my home town. I haven't been by Kiddie park in a long time, but it looks like not much has changed from the photos besides the lack of some of the big old trees. The ninja turtles-themed tumble bugs is the best ride there. I'm pretty glad to live in a town with the last surviving kiddie park. If anything happens to it, you can be sure I'll fight tooth and nail to protect it.

Here's another batch of photos The "lake" is a little sparser without Splash Harbor. I doesn't look like anything can fit in it's old spot, but who knows... The train ride is still great. They seemed to be doing a better job with the holdup skit, but the audio on the train still leaves much to be desired. Here's the glassblower doing his thing Definitely make sure you catch the saloon show, it's pretty great. The American Plunge is still... plunging I feel like a lot of people don't realize how massive Wildfire is It's big. The drop is 150ft though it doesn't look that high because it dogs up a hill a little ways. The park could add a hyper off of this hill so easily... The view from the top on a clear day is pretty incredible Furniture making The sign in the foreground talks about how the church was built around 1849 and was dismantled piece by piece a hundred years later and brought here I don't know if this was moved here or whether it was here all along Did I mention the MM deals? There are some pretty good ones $2 float! Even without the deals, food here isn't quite so expensive as other parks, and is much higher quality. I didn't eat at any of the big skillets this time, so I don't have any photos of that, but check out some of the other photo TR's if you don't know what I'm talking about Can't wait to see the Dollywood version! The barn facade makes this ride feel much cooler than the normal exposed versions Electro Spin... electro spinning Lots of people joining in the summer dance party. It really feels like they're trying to integrate Celebration City into this park, which I'm not terribly thrilled about Be sure to stop in here and pick up some apple butter. Once you start, you can never go back. Down in the cave Grand Expo rides - this is kind of the butt of the park, IMO. I remember the times when SDC didn't really have any out of the box rides and it felt much more special for that. Hopefully they'll work on this side of the park more someday soon Here's a water fall you pass by in the cave. Looking down hillstreet. Most of the park looks like this. Rugged, wooded, and beautiful. That's all the photos I have ready for now. I'll try to post a few more later on.

This is more of a park update than a TR as I tend to forget exactly when I did what, but here's the rundown: We got in about 4 o'clock on Saturday, and I headed for Cowboy Jepp's where I meet up for a friend from the SDC fansite. Then I went down to check out the new River Blast. Wow, they really did do a great job with this thing! I have little to say about it except that it's awesome all the way around! I thought it would be something that I'd do once and pass up from now on, but after riding it I'd say it's definitely a must-do for hot days. The atmosphere surrounding this ride is astounding; it was good to hear people exclaim how nice it looked. All that having been said though, I still think the loss of Splash Harbor is a real shame... but this will make up for it I guess. After that I went over to see what was left of the Waterboggin. I can't believe how many trees are in the area - they'll really have to log the place if they're going to put something else there. They did a great job of hiding it all too - it's hard to tell there used to be something there. I didn't actually notice much KidsFest stuff going on. It seems like it has been much more muted this year due to the 50th celebration. Once you got off of main square there were no signs of it anywhere - although seeing Spongebob and Patrick show up to meet people at the wagon stage was a little surreal. The rest of the day I ran around and hit up all the coasters. PK actually does eat people with all three trains running. I waited all the way through the queue a couple of times and I'm pretty sure it took less than a half hour each time. Wildfire is still a great, smooth, reliable, crowd-eating machine. FITH's new scenes and additions are awesome and really make the ride pop again - I just wish they could smooth out the drops. It felt like the back car was trying to jump the tracks on the bridge drop. ThuNderaTion actually held some massive lines, even with two train ops. That's why it surprised me so much that they went down to one train ops for MM! The queue stretched all the way out of the tunnel underneath the first drop and was moving ever so slowly that night. Not good for people who were new to the park and expected more of a ride... The park after dark wasn't much to shout about. It was so crowded I basically just walked around for two hours and looked at everything. I didn't mind the music so much since so much was closed and it was only noticeable in the queue lines for some of the rides anyway. There were 20,500 people in the park that day, according to the bus driver on Sunday night. Sunday was much better. I got the folks to hit up the Saloon show with me first thing, which I thought was spectacular all around. Then we hit up the train, then the flooded mine, then the buffet at the mine restaurant. We did all this in a little over a couple of hours without hardly waiting for anything except the saloon show. I spent the rest of the day riding stuff, without having to wait too much for anything. Once the sun dropped down I expected the crowds to swell again, so I took advantage of some of the special MM offers - buy one get one peanut brittle and $2 root beer floats, and I picked up the free hat with t-shirt purchase deal on the way out. The crowds didn't actually swell too much that night, but PK ended up closing early, so I just rode Wildfire over and over again in the dark. It's nice to be able to do that without catching a cold. I came by myself for a few hours this morning (Monday) and was a little less entertained initially. At rope drop I headed straight for PK - closed all day. FITH wasn't opened yet either, so I walked to TGS and found it closed as well. Not wanting to ride Wildfire anymore at the time, I opted to take the cave tour, which was pretty neat as always. With PK down, some of the lines at the other rides were a bit larger, so I just rode Wildfire a few more times and then hit up TGS for one last ride. TGS is actually a pretty good people-eater when both sides are running, but with only run arm the line kind of inches along. Luckily, being a single rider pretty much lets you skip the entire last stretch of the queue. So all in all, it was one of the better trips I've had to the city in a long time. (I took over 100 photos, so I'm trying to go through them all and figure out which ones are best to post, might take a few posts) The coasters are a lot more visible from outside the park these days. And did I mention how awesome SDC's FREE parking and shuttle service is? Welcome to SDC's 50th anniversary! I'm glad they made a big deal about it. There was a theme song for the park and everything. After meeting up with a friend from the fansite, I had to make a beeline for the new Splash Battle, as I hadn't seen it in person yet. They did a great job. This ride makes up for the loss of Splash Harbor and the loss of some of the old Tom and Huck attractions at the same time. It's pretty neat how it brings everyone together to play Underneath the 'tree house' that holds a few water cannons Bleh. I miss when you stepped into the park and instantly felt like you had stepped back in time. Time to cool down with some strawberries and cream. This is very good and only cost a little over $5, if I recall. Add this view of the park's waterfall for complete success On the subject of food, this water wheel is still in actual use... ... turning this shaft and belt... ... which drives all this... ... and somehow you end up with this at some point. Back to the rides, PK was running great while it was up. It seemed to suffer from some persistent break downs on Saturday and Sunday, then it went down completely on Monday. This is where you would be launched, but it broke down again as I was taking photos, so I didn't catch one being launched More photos to come

Wow, thanks for bringing back these memories. Bell's was my home park. Now that it's gone there's a huge void in my summer that Frontier City just can't fill. Man I miss Zingo... What saddens me most about all of this is that all of it could probably have been averted, nay, they could probably have been back in business by now, if Robby actually knew anything about running a business. I used to defend the park passionately, but after settling down and reviewing things a bit, it's not hard to tell why they were let go, and why no community wants them. I mean, they still don't even have a business plan? They never even made an attempt to put out any public statements to rally support from all their fans. They were investing pretty heavily in the park just before their lease was discontinued. I mean, they had installed 2 new rides and a coaster was about to break ground! Why did the council not believe they had viability? Robby should have made a huge fuss about this, but instead all we heard from him was "poor me...". If they had put out a public letter to the people of Coweta explaining their intentions and how it would help the town pay for the new SPCA and Exhibition center, maybe they wouldn't have been adamantly given the boot. It's not 1955 anymore! Having the rides sit outside gathering rust in downtown Tulsa isn't helping either. A lot of people know that stuff is there and now think that all the rides will be horribly unsafe (Bell's past history isn't helping there). I just wish the city would contact someone else about building a little park. That would heal over the scars pretty well I think, even if it wasn't as large as Bell's.

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I found this interesting. Remember Rainbow Magic Land? The new park in Italy? The park is opening with 4 coasters from Mauer and Vekoma, but in a photo posted on a blog update on NewsPlusNotes, you can clearly see some B&M on site. Look in the upper left corner: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_fT2KqDFga4Y/TEi03tTdqQI/AAAAAAAADEs/klmml9JDKFY/s1600/2.jpg Are they getting a B&M as well?

ThuNderaTion at SDC is fairly smooth. There's a couple of jolts, but the park has done a good job keeping it maintained. The only other one I've been on is Cedar Creek Mine Ride at CP, which was pretty much too slow to be very rough.

Wow, another PARC park that's really been turned around! Thanks for posting this, I haven't seen much of MS lately. I know PARC has been giving the place a lot of attention just by following them on Facebook, but I didn't know it had payed off this much. They've sure done a lot to get stuff back open and beautify the place. It shows they truly know how to run these parks. I just hope it starts paying off for them. People still dog MS a lot because of its rep. I hope the locals start taking note.

^I have also been wondering about that, but if the track has it's own support system in most places then the building itself won't have all that much to hold up. It is interesting that they would choose to build with all flammable materials though. It'll definitely be interesting to see how it comes together.

The park is looking pretty good. Believe it or not, the place is a world away from where it was just a few years ago. It's too bad several of the better rides were closed for you though, the current management is usually better than that. They've really done a ton of work fixing up the place, I just hope next season they put something new in to put the park back in the spotlight. Thanks for sharing

They did have a massive two-story Bill Tracy dark ride. They still have a lot of the old props, but any re-incarnation will be pretty much completely different. They actually had planned to replace it at the old location with a new re-incarnation anyway. Robby confirmed in another report that Zingo will be back, but no formal plans for the new park have been drawn up yet. I assume they can get it open by next summer though if they are allowed to move quickly.

Bell's Amusement Park (formerly located in Tulsa, OK), has signed a new lease with nearby Wagoner County. If voters approve of a quarter-cent sales tax increase, the funds raised will be used to help Bell's buy new property and also bring in a new animal shelter and expo center. Nothing is set in stone yet, of course, but I personally hold lots of hope that the vote will go through. A quarter cent sales tax increase is a small price to pay for a new amusement park, animal shelter and expo center. Some parts of Bell's reputation may stand in the way, but anyone who actually visited the park will know that most of the negative things thrown at Bell's are false. The new location out in the boon-docks will cut out a lot of the troubles they had in urban Tulsa anyway. Can't wait to see Zingo and any new rides they might add. Here's an article: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100525_12_A11_WAGONE962262&archive=yes ADMIN EDIT: I went ahead and updated the subtitle to include a little bit of additional information and have moved the story link to the top of the quote. Thanks for sharing this with us!

I'm impressed already. With all the sites already out there, there wasn't much assurance from the press release that this would actually pan out to be something worthwhile, but the site looks really good and the shows seem to have a good production value for something you're doing for free. Keep it up!

^I think some of those coaster renderings are going to be as accurate as Kennywood's Sky Rocket renderings were. Looks like Zamperla is going to do more than just out of the box layouts though.

It could easily cost several million dollars to demolish and dispose of this ride. I know it's cool to say just burn it down, but it'd be a tremendous waste considering the main structure is still good. Get rid of the crappy trains and the crappy track and put something good on there. Bring on the Texas Giant style refurbishment, I say.

WHAT?!?!? I'm sorry, but that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Eh, you'd be surprised. I've seen projects locked up for similar things that happen to one guy on the team. These days we try to keep everything on a server that everyone can access, but there's always stuff that people have to do off-line. At this point it hardly makes a difference anyway...

Wow, it's pretty surreal to see those rides back up and operating. Hard to believe I used to ride them back here. I'm still surprised that HFEC bought that Miller coaster, but I'm glad they did. It's one of the funnest little steel coasters out there for what it is. Glad to see the park is continuing to rise under HFEC!

Thanks for posting this, I had not clue this place existed. Always great to find out about another classic woodie.

Like having a massive camera and lighting crew following him around won't give him away. The teaser is on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhSECPw3py4 Seems like they added quite a bit of drama, but there's some good shots of SDC!

Just curious, has there been any GP blow-back yet? I kind of expected some small outrage when people found out this ride isn't quite the world's scariest ride as it's billed to be. I think if this kind of thing had gone down pretty much anywhere but AT it wouldn't have gone over so well with guests. I can't wait to see what the next coaster to use this tech. looks like though. Kudos to AT for leading the way with a prototype again.

This is extremely unfortunate. I know it's not going to be easy to sort out the insurance and run the park with this much destruction, especially with opening so close at hand. That look like a really well done main street for the park. I hope they're able to re-build it as well as it looked and don't put in a bunch of fake-looking steel buildings.

Well, they've succeeded in making me check their facebook incessantly, if only they were getting some sort of ad revenue off this... They just updated again with another new rendering, this one even more advanced than the one posted today on the intern site. Now you can really see the cross-overs in action. At this rate, it'll be completely revealed by Friday, or maybe tomorrow morning.

The intern site has a more complete update with more of the first drop: http://greatcoastersinterns.com/?page_id=125 Looks like another 360 drop/helix like on OzCat. I miss that element... Weird how the photos they post to facebook are different than the one's on the intern site.