Small Little Unknown Parks

[CreditCrazy]

I did a search for a topic like this and got nothing, so...here it is!

 

This thread can go in a lot of different ways, but basically it's all about "little" parks. Which small parks have you been to, which small parks do you want to go to, is there any information about the small parks you've been to, or do you need information on a small park you're going to soon. I guess this could be a little like an "advice" thread because you'd be giving advice about a small park or asking for advice about a small park.

 

For me, I've been to a ton of small parks because I like to just get the little credits they have. Some of these may not be small parks IYO, but if they're not owned by a major company, I'll list them.

 

Small parks I've been to: Castle Amusement Park, Scandia Amusement Park, Adventure City, Pacific Park, Belmont Park, Gilroy Gardens, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and, I guess I'll just put Lagoon here. If you need any information on these parks, I'm sure I can give it.

 

Now, I'm interested in tons of other small parks across the country but I'll just ones I might go to in the next couple years, and any information on these parks would be great.

 

Small Parks I want to go to or might go to soon: Castles n' Coasters, Cliff's Amusement Park, Wonderland Amusement Park, Joyland Amusement Park, Frontier City, Waldameer, Idelwild, Lakemont, and Coney Island (Cincinnati's).

[Crazy_Behemoth_Lady_Jess]

I don't know if you'd consider my local "amusement park" a small park as its like the only *real* amusement park with coasters here in BC. It's called Playland and it's in Vancouver. It's an independant park meaning it's not owned by any chain like Six Flags, Busch etc.

 

The closest thing we have to a "amusement park" is like:

 

- Crash Crawly's (They have a laser tag and kids train ride)

- Castle fun park (They have go kart track and video arcade)

- Burnaby Village museum (they have a historic carousel)

- Various traveling "carnie" rides

- Cloverdale Rodeo (they bring in "carnie ride" there)

 

~ Jess "Roller coaster deprived" Chan

[cfc]

Have you tried looking in the TPR Park Index? All those parks you mentioned are there, along with some photos and links to official park Web sites and trip reports.

[Crazy_Behemoth_Lady_Jess]

Yes I have, I guess playland isn't unknown but I'm not sure if it fits the definition of "small".

[CreditCrazy]

Yeah I know, trust me I've looked at more trip reports on there than anyone. I just thought this could be a good topic, I already know what rides the parks have, and when they operate, etc. This is more of an avice thread I guess than a "What does the park look like?" or "What rides does it have?" thread. I don't know, maybe it was kinda pointless...but it was worth a shot. And maybe unknown wasn't the right word, I just meant "small" or "not big". Like you wouldn't be asking about CP in here.

[paulie123]

Dont know how many people have heard of Wonderland Sydney?

If you live in Australia you sure as heck would have.

It wasnt very small, acually probably the largest in AU..

I think it was a better park than the Gold Coaste parks too really.

It was just so much fun. I have so many memories there..

It shut in 2004. Ever since then Sydney has been boring as hell.

Im mentioning Wonderland Sydney because i was surprised by the amount of people that havent heard of it. These being people that live in the US.

Still, Wonderland had a boomerang named Demon, (now zoomerang at alabama adventure)

2 Wooden coasters, 1 being a kiddie one, and the other was a clone of Grizzly.

A Intamin drop tower named Space Probe 7.

There was an Intamin Looping Starship named Bountys Revenge.

The best river rapids in the world.

A whacky ferris wheel. Dodgem track that had way to many cars on it! It was crazy :]

And other various rides such as a Explorer type ride.

There was also a waterpark! Had 4 waterslides and a big pool.

Wonderland really deteriorated over the last few years of it being open.. When i first started going to wonderland it was so good. They always had characters walking around being very friendly and funny.

They had all the shops open. Even the ones down the back of the park..

All rides in tip top conditon.. But,

The last 2 or so years the park became really, quite terrible ;[

Thats when i knew it was going bad.

You never saw characters walking around..

You never saw all that many shops open, rarely many games running..

The kiddie land, Hannah Bomberra land shut. (This was where the small wooden coaster was, along with a flume ride and various kid rides)

There was hardly any shows on, such as the magic show etc..

Then, i believe it was the start of 2004 they announced they were closing..

The park closed in April 2004.

Terrible shame such a great park closed.. I know it mighnt have had the best rides out, but i still always remember having such good times there.

I know going to the Gold Coast parks were fun when i was young,

but Wonderland is where the real good memories are.

RIP Wonderland :]

If you wanna know any info about it go to www(.)wonderlandhistory(.)net

They have loads of pictures. Pics of construction, pics while in operation, and pics of demolition.

Hope that helped if any of you's didnt know about wonderland.

[Electerik]

For the most part, I think I actually favor small parks over larger ones. As for good, really small parks: Enchanted Forest in Oregon is really nice, and the Myrtle Beach Pavilion is sorely missed. I haven't made it to Timber Falls yet, but it looks like someplace I'll like.

[Kooky]

next to my hometown Freiburg (Blackforest - Germany) is one little animal park with some attractions. If you visit Europa Park you can drive to this in 30-40 min...

 

its called "Steinwasen Park":

http://www.steinwasen-park.de/index.php, under "Attraktionen" you`ll find some videos of the rides.

And it has the longest ropeway of the world:

 

 

 

And there is a stand alone Alpine coaster in area, too:

http://www.hasenhorn-rodelbahn.de/

[expeditioneverestfan]

WI only had small parks. Little Amerricka (It is spelled that way so don't ban me for bad spelling) is really cool. They have four coasters. 3 steel 1 wood. The wood one (Meteor) is incredibly smooth. You could make a perfect pov on it. The steel coasters each have some rough parts but are fun. They are putting in a full-size model of the comet from Lincoln Park. They also have some great kiddie rides, go-karts, bumper boats, haunted house, really long but cool train ride that goes through farms, giant slide, scrambler, tilt-a-whirl, mini golf, ferrris wheel, bumper cars and roll-o-plane. They are looking for a log flume and looping coaster. (Wisonsins first!)

 

Wisconsin Dells Parks:

Mt. Olympus - 6 coasters (4 wood, 2 steel) I think 8 go-kart tracks, giant swing, kiddie rides, bumper cars, ball pit, flat rides and water park.

 

Timber Falls - 1 wood coaster, log flume, bumper boats, mini golf, and sky scraper thrill ride.

 

Rivereview Park and Waterworld - 2 small steel coasters, Catch-n-Air, other kiddie rides, waterpark, go-karts.

 

Knuckleheads (indoor) - 1 small steel coaster, frog hopper, go-karts other rides.

 

Extreme World - Go-karts, bungee jump and various versions of bungee jumping.

 

Bay Beach - No coaster, kiddie rides, bumper cars, ferris wheel, scrambler, tilt-a-whirl, other rides. A lot like Little Amerricka

[CreditCrazy]

Dont know how many people have heard of Wonderland Sydney?

If you live in Australia you sure as heck would have.

It wasnt very small, acually probably the largest in AU..

I think it was a better park than the Gold Coaste parks too really.

It was just so much fun. I have so many memories there..

It shut in 2004. Ever since then Sydney has been boring as hell.

Im mentioning Wonderland Sydney because i was surprised by the amount of people that havent heard of it. These being people that live in the US.

Still, Wonderland had a boomerang named Demon, (now zoomerang at alabama adventure)

2 Wooden coasters, 1 being a kiddie one, and the other was a clone of Grizzly.

A Intamin drop tower named Space Probe 7.

There was an Intamin Looping Starship named Bountys Revenge.

The best river rapids in the world.

A whacky ferris wheel. Dodgem track that had way to many cars on it! It was crazy :]

And other various rides such as a Explorer type ride.

There was also a waterpark! Had 4 waterslides and a big pool.

Wonderland really deteriorated over the last few years of it being open.. When i first started going to wonderland it was so good. They always had characters walking around being very friendly and funny.

They had all the shops open. Even the ones down the back of the park..

All rides in tip top conditon.. But,

The last 2 or so years the park became really, quite terrible ;[

Thats when i knew it was going bad.

You never saw characters walking around..

You never saw all that many shops open, rarely many games running..

The kiddie land, Hannah Bomberra land shut. (This was where the small wooden coaster was, along with a flume ride and various kid rides)

There was hardly any shows on, such as the magic show etc..

Then, i believe it was the start of 2004 they announced they were closing..

The park closed in April 2004.

Terrible shame such a great park closed.. I know it mighnt have had the best rides out, but i still always remember having such good times there.

I know going to the Gold Coast parks were fun when i was young,

but Wonderland is where the real good memories are.

RIP Wonderland :]

If you wanna know any info about it go to www(.)wonderlandhistory(.)net

They have loads of pictures. Pics of construction, pics while in operation, and pics of demolition.

Hope that helped if any of you's didnt know about wonderland.

 

That sounds like a really nice park, too bad it closed. Now Australia is left with even less parks

[Crazy_Behemoth_Lady_Jess]

Still, not as less as Vancouver. We only have a total of 4 permanent coasters! We did have a woodie at Stanley Park along time ago but it got scrapped.

 

Wonderland does sound like a pretty cool park indeed with all those rides.

 

~ Jess "What happened to Vancouver" Chan

[jps294]

When i went to Joyland amusement park in Lubbock Texas i thought it will be fun and it was it just needs a coaster. I really thought that Greezed Lightnin' would but it didn't cause of the soil and such. But that would make a good addition there.

[WFChris]

I think Big Mike's thread would be a fantastic reference for random unknown parks....

 

Chris.

[Teacups Make Me Sick]

There used to be a park in Pinebrook NJ called Kiddie Land (or something to that effect). It isn't mentioned on RCDB...I found a small mention of it in a NJ history book. They used to have a kiddie coaster, a small ferris wheel, an old whip, and a bunch of kiddie rides...which I have to do some serious digging to find a picture of me or my brother on it.

 

It wasn't in the nicest of spots...for those of you that reside in NJ and are curious to know where it was...on Rt. 46 in Pinebrook where the Wendy's and jughandle that goes behind it now sits...across from Milanos (the old gametown).

[alpengeist04]

^I know exactly where it was, I used to go there as a kid. I also had a birthday one year at Gametown.

 

For the record, I was born and raised in Denville.

[andy_e219]

I would like to go to Midway Park, which is on the shores of Lake Chautauqua New York, I drove past there recently, and it seems like a cool place. It's one of those small lakeside parks that you don't find much nowadays. There is not very much on it online either.

 

Another small park I would like to visit is Camden Park in West Virginia. It has 2 wooden coasters, and several old rides.

 

If anyone has and info. on any of these 2 parks, espically Midway, I'd appreciate it.

[Teacups Make Me Sick]

^I know exactly where it was, I used to go there as a kid. I also had a birthday one year at Gametown.

 

For the record, I was born and raised in Denville.

 

My parents always dropped my brother off at Gametown while I went to kiddieland. The only thing that interested me at Gametown was the fortune teller machine.

 

Do you have any pics of kiddieland? I have to go through my parents huge box of slides.

[alpengeist04]

^Unfortunately, I don't think so. But I do remember the coaster and ferris wheel, along with the mini sports cars you could ride through a good portion of the park.

 

Another park I remember as a very young child was Bertrand's Island on Lake Hopatcong in northern New Jersey. Unfortunately, it closed down in the early 80's and I was never able to ride the wooden coaster they had.

[CreditCrazy]

I would like to go to Midway Park, which is on the shores of Lake Chautauqua New York, I drove past there recently, and it seems like a cool place. It's one of those small lakeside parks that you don't find much nowadays. There is not very much on it online either.

 

Another small park I would like to visit is Camden Park in West Virginia. It has 2 wooden coasters, and several old rides.

 

If anyone has and info. on any of these 2 parks, espically Midway, I'd appreciate it.

 

Never been to either, but Camden park has always looked interesting. Unfortunately after reading the PTR's about it in the Park Index, I've lost interest in the park.