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Photos from Cypress Gardens closing weekend


WillMontu

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It's been quite a while since I last posted a trip report (not counting my Curiosities thread), as most of it is stuff that other people cover already. When Cypress Gardens announced they were closing the rides, I notified the person in charge of running an amusement park group on campus (especially since I didn't have any of the credits). We ended up going today, arriving not long after opening.

 

I also shot a lot of video, as well as stitches and some HDR exposures, and may post them here.

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Thanks for reading.

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As for things that can be easily moved, this bathroom looks like it could be one of them

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We finished off with another ride on Starliner

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The plastic food on the seat does not look very appetizing, especially the fries

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We saw this Chevy parked over in the rides section

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The banyan tree

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Buddha

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These looked like gravestones from a distance. Can we expect to see Starliner and Triple Hurricane on these in the future?

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Artsy shot

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It's one of those superheroes! I wonder if he has X-ray vision

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It doesn't look quite like it does in the brochure

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What will happen here?

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These two were making out. I'm serious. The one on the left kept trying to put its wing around the other one.

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Let's see the "beautiful birds" then...

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Some of the gardens

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[insert Cedar Fair joke here]

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Noted!

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Big rodents!

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This one looks a little hung over

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Welcome to Wallaby World!

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The pirate show is so cheesy that it's funny. Plus they make fun of FSU!

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We need some of these signs around campus

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I guess they aren't as heavy as they look

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[insert Samuel Jackson reference here]

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Although this one might be an enthusiast

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The park has animals too (and I don't mean the coaster enthusiasts)

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A lot of parks have these shirts

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Cypress Gardens has a boomerang, but this one doesn't bash your head in.

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Hey Erik, been down to Cypress lately?

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Random overview shot

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Artsy shot

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Another shot of Rampage

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Reminds me of Stricker's, but not as smokey

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It is supposedly painted orange and blue because they are the colors of the Florida Gators. Why did it have to be so rough?

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The park had a Cedar Fair-like rain policy in which everything closed during the rain. Usually most rides open up relatively quickly (being that Florida storms are over within minutes), though Swamp Thing was down for a bit longer

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This is probably the worst of the Vekoma junior hang'n'bangs I've been on.

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Swamp Thing

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You guessed it

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The Disk-O, made by...

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Who knows where these will go, if they go anywhere

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The infamous "bootleg flyers"

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The train ride is a nice small ride, though it sounds more like a diesel than a steam train

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The second of many

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We did not spin at all, probably because we weren't weighted too well

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Galaxy Spin is a regular spinning mouse

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This park is known as a "Zamperla Showroom" and for good reason. In addition, many of them can be loaded onto trailers and moved to new homes without much difficulty

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There is someone riding this in the front, and she definitely was not a kid. We did ride and get the credit of course

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Triple Hurricane.

 

When we rode, we went around three times because nobody was waiting

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Starliner and Rampage

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The line for Starliner earlier in the day

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They still have some Halloween decorations up--and Christmas stuff too

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$10 for admission

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Unfortunately, the Flying Island was among the closed attractions, along with the drop tower. All the coasters were operating though

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Parking was $7

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The poor man's parking lot tram

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The "Adventure Park" subheading may be gone soon

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But Cypress doesn't have a castle (not even a tiny one)

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No.

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Umm?

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I wonder what's going to happen with all these billboards

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Gainesville is about 2.5 hours from Winter Haven and we noticed a few things along the way, such as these two gas stations (although there was a Kangaroo station here in Gainesville selling for $1.97 and Gainesville is usually expensive)

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^A lot of the time Cypress Gardens will assign a ride op to more than one ride, so that op will have to rotate which ride he/she will run. Because of that a lot of rides will be open for one portion of the day and then closed during other times. I wasn't there that day, but that would be my best guess.

 

 

 

As for the "nice park" comments, I have to say I really disliked this place as a whole. There are really nice parts of the park, but the rides area isn't one of them. The gardens and waterfront area are really nice, but the area that has all of the rides in it is pretty much a long shadeless path with mostly portable rides.

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^

1) What GCI? Did I miss something on my last visit?

 

2) Neither Wild Adventures nor Cypress Gardens have a theme song that's as catchy as the Alachua County Fair. Maybe that's where Cypress Garden's marketing department went wrong...

 

3) Florida 49 - Georgia 10

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When was the zamperla Disko operating? I was there that same day and when we went by it wasn't operating. Oh well. IAAPA is coming this week and hopefully they will bring a Disko again like last year.

 

They were running it towards the end of the day... I was taping a stand up at the old Cypress gardens sign and had to work around the crowd that was getting off and on it.

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^^I think that GCI are doing up/have done up some of the bits on Cheetah that need work, but it's a CCI creation from the start.

 

Can't say I'm suprised that Cypress Gardens didn't work as a rides park. There was nothing about the place that stood out, it just seemed like it had no heart or soul to it.

 

...except the gardens, which were quite nice, but I wouldn't pay to see them alone, plus parking, etc etc.

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We did not spin at all, probably because we weren't weighted too well

 

Did it ever spin? We had four people in a car back in 2007, and it didn't spin once.

 

Thanks for the thorough look at Cypress Gardens' (the Adeventure Park's, at least) last day, Will. The Starliner was the best ride they had, so I hope it can find a good home.

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Kinda hated how life threw stuff at me at the last minute and that I couldn't go to Cypress Gardens. Aside from that a great TR.

 

Fun kind of fact: Swamp Thing was originally going to be named Navi-Gator and have a UF theme. I guess nothing formulated from there except for the paint job.

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While I don't like to bump my own topics, I have recently been experimenting with HDR imaging. In this case, I shot three pictures for each image, one at two stops below and one at three stops above the original image. I then used a trial version of Photoshop to merge them together.

 

The output depends on how you convert the HDR image to a conventional 8 bit image. PC monitors cannot accurately display HDR images in their full spectrum. To overcome this, it means having to perform an algorithm to convert it into something the monitor can display

 

You do NOT need an expensive camera to do HDR. In fact, you could even do it with a decent camera phone.

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Waterfall

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Swan

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Swamp Thing...You make my head bang!

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The Starliner lift. You can almost make out the train on the lift from the three exposures.

 

I would like to see this ride find a good home. Florida doesn't have much in the woodies department

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Bunny

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The lake

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Almost looks like the brochure

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Gardens

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Gardens

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Gardens

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Gazebo

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Gardens

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Gardens

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Ferris wheel, Galaxy Spin, and Bootleg Flyers

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The Ferris wheel

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The entrance tent

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Side view of Buddha

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Buddha. Does Terrance have this credit?

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