Greatest Amusement Industry Blunder of the Decade?

[larrygator]

Six Flags Chapter 11

 

Coney Island is not meant to be some world class resort, it was nice the way it was

 

Coney Island was a world class resort for 50 years!

Edited December 30, 2010 by larrygator

[eddie200330]

Other than parks closing, I kinda vote for Shoot The Rapids. Once it finally opened, it was like "cool, now let's move on to something else". It seemed to have died and you heard no more about it. I think Demon Drop moving got more attention than STR.

[CardCraze]

Coney Island is not meant to be some world class resort, it was nice the way it was

 

Coney Island was a world class resort for 50 years!

It was, but it's not anymore, and attempting to make it something it's not is a blunder in my opinion.

[B-RadG]

Contradictory to most of the things about Cedar Fair/Paramount said, I think that was a great move. Great for the Paramount parks, that is. Paramount was taking horrible care of the parks (or at least Kings Dominion) and stopped really caring. Cedar Fair so far has done great things across the board for the former Paramount parks (except CGA.)

 

In my opinion, the biggest blunder was Arrow's clumsy fall. After being put in way over their heads by Six Flags Magic Mountain, they suffered with a quickly-ordered and produced ride that nobody had ever conceived before. The result was a ton of bugs and a very delayed debut. After that Arrow just collapsed. Right on the threshold of this decade is when Arrow finally "got it." Tennessee Tornado, opened in 1999, is what Arrows could have been had they still been alive. A loss of a great innovator and mostly awesome ride manufacturer.

 

Some other pretty good blunders were Kings Island firing RCCA and RCCA refusing to hand over the blueprints for Son of Beast, Six Flags as a whole (lot of pointless investment and subsequently dumb decisions,) Geauga Lake getting into the hands of Cedar Fair, Southern Star and SFNO, and quite a few good classic coasters getting a premature boot in the ass.

[Fire2box]

CBS and viacom splitting off and CBS getting the theme parks and then selling them off. Not sure what happened to the other parks but Cedar Fair bought CGA and it was already going downhill under viacom/paramount. At first I was like sweet, maybe the park will be like a miniature cedar point. I quickly learned that Cedar fair only cares about cedar point and the others are just gravy, if that. Six Flags only needs to step up it's game with the animals at SFDK and they could really drive California great america under, and possibly steal it's carousal too.. but where would they put it?

 

Also the whole 300+ foot tall coasters that last for about 15 seconds with longer then average lines and even cable's snapping, meh.

[SoCalCoasters]

-Giovandola pulling out of the coaster industry after only three coasters, all of which kick ass.

 

-Caprio, need I say more?

 

-The Intamin cable still causing pain and destruction where ever it goes

 

-Perilous Plunge, and Hydro, both took lives

 

-Permier's ferris wheel lift hill

 

-Disneyland not bringing back The Carousel Of Progress and keeping Innoventions

 

-Granite Park, Fresno CA

 

-Painted Brakes

 

-Pointless Roller coaster gimmicks

 

-Gertslauer rides CRAPacity (capacity)

 

And much more!

[ScottBrown]

I think Hard Rock Park and the near loss of Coney Island tops my list with honerable mentions to Arrow and the whole x fiasco, Astroworlds closure, All of the RCCA coasters not just SOB, the long slow decline of Californias Great America, and lots of Schwarzkopf coasters closing,

[samisthabomb]

1) Hard Rock Park

2) The Mediocrity of the Tony Hawk Coasters

3) Astroworld Closing

4) Ghost Town in the Sky Closing

5) Zamperla Trying to Take Over Coney Island

6) Some people may not agree with me on this one, but I'm really disappointed that Dollywood got a Screamin' Swing instead of some other thrill ride. Seriously, there's a Screamin' Swing right down the road!

Edited December 31, 2010 by samisthabomb

[matteocrepaldi]

You have already posted a lot about US parks so I was thinking about European parks:

 

1) Vertigo at Walibi Belgium.

 

 

It didn't go so well.

 

2)The Eurofighter rollercoaster for a small park in Italy called Fasanolandia.

 

 

I think it was announced for 2006 but it was never built. Even RCDB removed it from the list of the coasters in the park.

 

3) Valmontone's amusement park announced for 2005 and will open in 2011.

[cfc]

2) Death of Will Koch

 

OK, this puzzles me. Did Will Koch "blunder" by dying?

[Moose]

You have already posted a lot about US parks so I was thinking about European parks:

 

1) Vertigo at Walibi Belgium.

 

 

It didn't go so well.

 

I had completely forgotten about this complete blunder. I am guessing we will never see another coaster from this company.

 

This reminds me of the never built fear faller at Hershey.

[jynx242]

Along with all of the other replies - Mt. Olympus building Hades and then not maintaining it. They built a coaster that they could not POSSIBLY (and would not probably) maintain. Also, only having one train for it. And - frozen pigs will fly in hell before they spend money to convert it to Timberliners.

[A.J.]

I think the amusement industry's biggest blunder was the bastardization of Vekoma suspended looping coasters (and several other kinds of coasters) by Chinese manufacturers.

[testtrack321]

For pure magnitude, speed of failure, and utter lost cause it is, the Hard Rock Park HAS to be top of anyone's list.

[The_Mad_Hatter]

I think Hard Rock Park and the near loss of Coney Island tops my list with honerable mentions to Arrow and the whole x fiasco, Astroworlds closure, All of the RCCA coasters not just SOB, the long slow decline of Californias Great America, and lots of Schwarzkopf coasters closing,

 

I may be wrong, but didn't RCCA do Space Mountain?

[The SETGO Guys]

Removed by user

Edited January 5, 2012 by The SETGO Guys

[samisthabomb]

2) Death of Will Koch

 

OK, this puzzles me. Did Will Koch "blunder" by dying?

 

Oops, you're right. My bad

[ABW]

California's Great America making a slow, but steady decline

 

Hard Rock Park

 

Son Of Beast

 

Arrow Dynamics goes under

 

enough said

[Blind Idiot God]

Along with all of the other replies - Mt. Olympus building Hades and then not maintaining it. They built a coaster that they could not POSSIBLY (and would not probably) maintain. Also, only having one train for it. And - frozen pigs will fly in hell before they spend money to convert it to Timberliners.

 

The Laskaris family is apparently despised by virtually everyone in the Dells due to a combination of extreme douchebaggery and egregious stinginess. They're the kind of people who would think nothing of hogging a restaurant for an entire night, pissing everyone off in the restaurant via gross misbehavior, throwing tantrums when they're not allowed any more booze, running up a four-digit bill, complaining loudly about the bill to the manager for about twenty minutes, and then leaving a sixty-dollar tip. Complete wastes of flesh.

[Delirium]

I agree with most of the blunders already stated. But I am quite surprised that Rip Ride Rockit at Universal hasn't been mentioned yet. The ride has been nothing but a headache since it was built.

[The Yeti]

Huss Chaos rides. I actually enjoyed them, but they have disappeared from many parks...although we do have on in Omaha, randomly enough.

[Blind Idiot God]

Huss Chaos rides. I actually enjoyed them, but they have disappeared from many parks...although we do have on in Omaha, randomly enough.

 

I believe you mean Chance Chaos. Also, didn't Chance start making them in the late nineties? Eh, I never thought they were anything special... then again, the one at SFNE probably just had a crappy cycle.

[10ryansmith]

In my opinion, the biggest blunder was Arrow's clumsy fall. After being put in way over their heads by Six Flags Magic Mountain, they suffered with a quickly-ordered and produced ride that nobody had ever conceived before. The result was a ton of bugs and a very delayed debut. After that Arrow just collapsed. Right on the threshold of this decade is when Arrow finally "got it." Tennessee Tornado, opened in 1999, is what Arrows could have been had they still been alive. A loss of a great innovator and mostly awesome ride manufacturer.

 

This. Arrow finally got on the right track with Tennessee Tornado. This ride has been around for a decade and the people that I take to Dollywood (new and old)every year loves it. Granted, Dollywood needs some thanks to for keeping it maintained correctly but most of it has to go to Arrow for the design of it. I love the huge loop and the odd inversions in TT. I am always thinking about what could have happened if Arrow didn't go under. In my personal opinion, SFMM were out of there minds to even ask for something like X in the first place. I might be the one out of my mind but I personally think that Arrow was the greatest roller coaster company ever and Six Flags needed to be punished for making Arrow go under.

 

Second for me would be the whole Son of Beast mess. Ride was tolerable in the beginning, then they took out the only smooth part of the darn thing and put trains from the roughest coaster on the planet on it. After the loop was removed, and with the "lighter trains", SOB went from tolerable (being that I would be able to reride two to three times) to being completely unridable.

[pianojohn]

Hard Rock Park (though I visited it in its original form, I couldn't help but feel the owners were too arrogant for their own good and assumed people would just flock to the park with no advertising. Fools!)

 

Geauga Lake closing. I grew up with this park, and it was sad to see Six Flags come in, basically rape it, and then Cedar Fair try to make a go of it, but eventually killing it. Sad.

 

WDW closing Pleasure Island. This was just a mistake from the beginning. They closed it right at the beginning of a recession and when all of the businesses who were going to build pulled out, they were left with a bunch of empty buildings. And CityWalk is laughing all the way to the bank.

 

Son of Beast. What a piece of crap! And I rode it opening season too.

 

Astroworld. Never got to visit it.

[1pizza14]

1. Hard Rock Park

2. Cedar Fair too cheap to demolish SOB

3. World Of Color

4. Crappy skins on Six Flags coasters.

 

Simple