Name a Park, What You Think it Needs to Do, and How To Do It

[2012jarrett]

Pretty simple thread, name a park that comes to mind and what you think the most important addition to it in the near future could be. Basically, a giant place to just dump your creative ideas directed at specific parks. Not necessarily the Rumor/Crazy Idea Superthread, though, this is supposed to be more for realistic ideas that could benefit certain parks.

 

I'll start with the biggest ones I've had lately:

 

Dollywood

Dollywood is an amazing park with a fantastic setting in the Smoky Mountains and as a result, some of the views you can catch from localities around the park are breathtaking. However, you can hardly get a good glimpse of the mountains from inside the park. The train provides a nice view and the view you get from the top of Wild Eagle is amazing, but I feel like the park needs a sort of observation tower that could allow families to enjoy the view that thrill seekers enjoy on Wild Eagle.

 

The engineer in me that simply couldn't turn on this problem came up with a pretty reasonable solution. A Polercoaster. Maybe do a bit of an upgrade to the Wilderness Pass entrances and use this as the chief attraction in doing so. Cut out the basketball game by Tennessee Tornado (maybe move it to County Fair?) and in that spot open a Polercoaster with a mountain lodge motif. This could be a 300-500 foot tower that could crap all over Gatlinburg Tower nearby (which I believe is the biggest observation structure in the area). At the top of this there could be a two-tiered observation deck, the lower one holding a small park museum (put the Thunder Express car in the tunnel up in there) and maybe a souvenir shop and a full service restaurant, while the top one holds primarily an observation area. This would have so much more use than Skyscraper as unlike the paper-flat Orlando area, there's actually beautiful landscape to look at from this tower. You would ride up a tower painted a nice timber-y brown color with river rock accents in a nice glass elevator giving you a great view of the Smokies. On the actual coaster, however, you would spiral up and glide down on track painted a jade color (think the copper tarnish in some of Wild Eagle's decorations) with a 360-degree view of the Smokies surrounding you. Both the line for the elevators and polercoaster could reflect the "inspirational challenge" feel they used for Wild Eagle. I'd probably ditch the huge LED screen that it would have, but if it's an integral part of the design, use the layer to hold cutout steel sculptures of mountain life, like this picture but adapted for the Smoky Mountains complete with bears, deer, and eagles.

 

 

If not, then maybe an animated mountain panorama on the LEDs, showing a mountainous view with the clouds moving and the occasional bird flying by and maybe a butterfly or two fluttering around in the foreground as a little homage to the park's logo.

 

As for names, I'd elect to call the tower Big Bear Tower or Dollywood Tower and the coaster, which would be tricky to name, I would probably call Smoky Mountain Run or something really basic like that. Maybe Mountain Wings if they go with the butterfly ornament I get to in a bit?

 

FireChaser just filled the two huge gaps the park had open and I feel like this would really bring something nice, fresh, and unique to the area as a whole. It would be something huge that could be seen from the entire park and possibly even outside, and act as sort of a "landmark." Most parks I've noticed have a "landmark"-type thing around them that serves as a visual icon for that park (KI and KD's Eiffel Towers, CW's Wonder Mountain, Epcot's Spaceship Earth, Cinderella's Castle, I could go on for pages if I wanted to) and Dolywood, while it is small, is a park I don't see as fully "regional" as it's located in an area that tourists from everywhere frequent and it aims to cater to those groups, so having a landmark attraction there would potentially make the park more of a Smoky Mountain icon. Maybe they could even put the Dollywood logo revolving on the LED screen if they have to go that route or put a giant butterfly capping off the tower, similar to what KBF initially wanted to do with its Windseeker.

 

 

I think having one of these visible throughout the park and immediately outside of it would be really good for the park and set it apart some from other regional parks, because right now I feel like it straddles the line between a regional and national destination, and adding something that could be seen as an icon of Dollywood would really boost attendance from the tourist portion of the crowd it's trying to please.

 

Just an idea that's been messing with my mind lately that I wanted to get out on paper.

 

Busch Gardens Tampa

When I went last November, Gwazi officially became my least favorite wooden coaster, taking the spot from Son of Beast. I sat down in the train, expected the padding to make it a bearable experience...didn't NOTICE the padding on that awful thing!

 

However, I feel like the idea of a big, long, epic dueling wooden coaster was good and it would be an amazing ride if it wasn't for the Son of Beast-esque texture.

 

My ideal fix would be to get RMC to reprofile (which shouldn't require much considering how well GCIs are typically shaped) the ride and I-box it, painting the I-box tracks the colors of their respective sides. In addition to that, as part of the reprofiling (and yes, I know I've suggested this for SFMM Colossus as well), add in two instances where the trains perform inversions in which one track zero-g rolls over the other and switches sides of the structure. I can think of a few places where this could be done.

 

As for branding, have RMC try to replicate what a 4-seater Millennium Flyer car would look like and save the front plates from the GCI zero cars to repurpose on the RMC zero cars. Call the ride something like Gwazi Unleashed or Gwazi Unchained and maybe add some small queue upgrades, similar to what they did with Cheetah Hunt.

 

And I LITERALLY just thought of doing this as I typed this, but maybe refit the drops with Medusa Steel Coaster's Smiler-style entry. It's a great layout with plenty of RMC potential, it's just that the texture is awful!

 

So yeah, post away! Love hearing peoples' ideas, especially when they get as detailed as mine!

[JonnyRCT3]

Kings Island needs to sell rain ponchos next to Diaomondback's entrance to generate revenue.

[aCoasterStory]

Busch Gardens Tampa

When I went last November, Gwazi officially became my least favorite wooden coaster, taking the spot from Son of Beast. I sat down in the train, expected the padding to make it a bearable experience...didn't NOTICE the padding on that awful thing!

 

However, I feel like the idea of a big, long, epic dueling wooden coaster was good and it would be an amazing ride if it wasn't for the Son of Beast-esque texture.

 

My ideal fix would be to get RMC to reprofile (which shouldn't require much considering how well GCIs are typically shaped) the ride and I-box it, painting the I-box tracks the colors of their respective sides. In addition to that, as part of the reprofiling (and yes, I know I've suggested this for SFMM Colossus as well), add in two instances where the trains perform inversions in which one track zero-g rolls over the other and switches sides of the structure. I can think of a few places where this could be done.

 

As for branding, have RMC try to replicate what a 4-seater Millennium Flyer car would look like and save the front plates from the GCI zero cars to repurpose on the RMC zero cars. Call the ride something like Gwazi Unleashed or Gwazi Unchained and maybe add some small queue upgrades, similar to what they did with Cheetah Hunt.

 

And I LITERALLY just thought of doing this as I typed this, but maybe refit the drops with Medusa Steel Coaster's Smiler-style entry. It's a great layout with plenty of RMC potential, it's just that the texture is awful!

 

Totally agree.

[BugEyed]

Six Flags Great Adventure needs a zipline running to it from Allentown because the turnpike construction you need to traverse in order to get there from Dorney Park is a nightmare.

[DoinItForTheFame]

Silver Dollar City: Given the success of Outlaw Run they do not really "need" anything right now. However, I would LOVE to see them place a highly themed... Because that's what SDC does... B&M Flyer, or Wing Rider. I know everyone says they are force-less and boring. However given that SDC is such a family park, maybe a nice tame Flyer or Wing Rider would be a great addition for families, and would be able to be really unique given SDC's location. Maybe even a nice B&M Family invert would be nice to see there!

 

Cedar Point: Mean Streak... Needs an Iron Horse treatment ASAP! How do they do this? My bet would be to call up RMC! That's where they should start! Given the size of Mean Streak, they could come up with a really awesome coaster IE: NTG!

 

That's all for now...

[piedude81]

Six Flags St. Louis is in desperate need of a signature steel coaster. I personally think that either a large hyper or a mega-lite from Intamin or Chance would be great fits, providing the park with something to draw tourists from outside the area.

[WildEagle2014]

Several parks here on my list, so here goes!

 

Dollywood:

 

Wow I could go on all day about Dollywood! I'd say start off by each year renovating one of the older rides, especially the water rides. Daredevil Falls could really use a refurbishment like Knott's Berry Farm did with Timber Mountain Log Ride. Smoky Mountain River Rampage and Slidewinder also could use a facelift.

After that, I'd put the primary focus on Timber Canyon, first off renaming it to Timber Gorge to be geographically accurate (there are no canyons in the Smoky Mountains, reference the nearby Little River Gorge). That portion of the park has always felt like it's missing something to me. I have two possible ideas for the former Timber Tower site.

First would be to install a top notch launched freefall. If it's launched you could theme it to a dynamite blast, while if it is a standard drop the theme could be a tree falling. The return of Timber Tower, just as a freefall!

The other and more interesting idea for me would be to turn the pool into a beaver habitat, with the current picnic area serving as an observation site. The current area occupied by Lil' Loggers Landing could be another observation area with educational information for the guests.

Also I think they should put a larger restaurant on that end of the park...possibly replace the pizza place, and finally I think it would be a cool idea to have a lumberjack style show there year round...I know they are debuting one for Festival of Nations this spring.

Finally it would be nice if the park would expand into the train loop area. They could fit a couple of new coasters up that way. If Dollywood just got an invert, fast launched coaster, and some form of giga/mega coaster, their coaster lineup would be perfect!

 

Carowinds:

 

Carowinds needs to replace a couple of coasters...remove Nighthawk (who wants to go through those 2 hour waits anyway to get your head banged around?) and get a nice launched B&M wing or flying coaster in there. Also Carolina Cyclone has just got to go. Last thing on my list would be to convert the Hurler to an RMC hybrid. Those little hills would make some great barrel roll elements!

[I305forever]

Valleyfair:

Give it a B&M. Literally any B&M will work so long as it has inversions and g-forces. I honestly don't care if its a clone that there are a ton of around the world. JUST GIVE IT A B&M ALREADY CEDAR FAIR!!!

[VF15]

^

 

Adventureland (Iowa): This park really needs a new roller coaster. I get that it's a smaller independent park, but it has been 19 years since their last coaster, and 22 years since their last thrilling coaster, which is pretty sad. Even something like a Euro-Fighter would do wonders for this park.

[Canobie Coaster]

Canobie Lake Park needs to upgrade the Yankee Cannonball's brake system so that it can run two trains. This would greatly speed up wait times. I understand upgrading the braking system would be costly, but I would easily take that over a new flat ride.

[Rollercoaster Rider]

Universal Studios Florida

 

- Fix Rip Ride Rockit

 

Modify the restraints into something like Mummy and update the songs. Also maybe new wheels? cause the ride was way to rattly for its layout. Another thing might be to fix the queue line by not playing the "How to ride" video 10,000 times an hour. I would love to see B&M 2 Across Hyper Trains on it. Also make sure all the songs you advertise for the ride are on the ride.

 

I'm sure everyone is going to call me a wimp. Whatever.

[Griffindor]

Knott's Berry Farm:

 

Expand Ghost Town! I always get so envious of parks like Kings Island and Carowinds because of all of the space they have around them while Knott's just seems so boxed in. This one may be a long shot but I believe it could be somehow done so bare with me. I would love to see Knott's permanently expand Ghost Town into the backstage area that is used during Halloween haunt. The wall that divides the area by Ghostrider's exit and the backstage area is an eyesore. The backstage area is already lightly themed since it's used during haunt and already fits the Ghost Town theme. My proposal would be to theme the rest of the (highlighted) backstage area to Ghost Town/the wild west and add a coaster. Knott's would have to move all of the employee facilities on that stretch of road specifically such as HR, rides office, hiring, etc to another location. A solution would be to renovate some of the older facilities to become a two or three story building so departments such as rides and or HR can be housed in the same building but just on separate floors. An Intamin Blitz like Maverick along with a flat or two would be ideal for the area. I'm not saying an exact Maverick clone but now that I think about it, it's like Maverick belongs at Knott's haha.

 

Alternative 1:

 

RMC makeover for Ghostrider. I'm actually torn between whether or not I would like to see Ghostrider receive a RMC makeover or not. Call me crazy but I actually love the ride as it is, however; I haven't ridden any of the RMC coasters yet so I can't really talk. Anyways, if it were to be redone I can imagine it having two zero-g rolls. The first one would come after the first turn around and transition you into the third drop and the second coming right before you enter the helix. As for the name, Ghostrider's Revenge doesn't sound too shabby. Idk why but I think purple I-Box track would look amazing.

 

Alternative 2:

 

Ghost Town expansion along with an Intamin Blitz and RMC makeover for Ghostrider!

 

Like I said, it's a really long shot. If we're talking possibilities within a year or two then perhaps removing Riptide in favor of something more reliable as it's been down for a while now. These are the types of things I daydream about whenever I'm standing at fastlane trying to pass the time lol.

[I305forever]

^^^^ Yeah they really do. I'm hoping they will get something something bigger than a euro fighter but at this point I think that would be good enough.

Edited March 19, 2015 by I305forever

[Rollercoaster Rider]

Isn't that Employee Parking/ Backstage/ Storage?

[I305forever]

^ Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is.

[IdahoKat]

Silverwood Theme Park/Boulder Beach Waterpark needs a flowrider that does it's part in being an awesome addition to the park because it is sooooo much fun!!!

 

If you google or search youtube for flowrider / flowboarding etc. you'll see it's a surf machine. Any waterpark would benefit from having one!

[timetrial3141592]

SFNE needs flat rides because coasters aren't enough.

[Ozstralian]

Busch Gardens, Announce Tempesto, come on everyone knows about it!

[Thunder_Run]

Kentucky Kingdom

 

Steeplechase/Derby-themed Motocoaster

 

There needs to be some sort of steeplechase or horse-themed motocoaster in this state, we're the purported "horse-capital of the world" so it would be so fitting to see one at Kentucky Kingdom if possible, not only due to it being in Kentucky, but also since it's very close in proximity to the famous Churchill Downs. If it was a steeplechase ride of the sorts I'd most likely limit the number of tracks from 3 to 4, seeing as they suffer a bit of a capacity problem with individual cars. If a motocoaster was the choice, I'd go with just a single track at the minimum due to cost measures, but if there was enough cash to go around, adding another track would be a nice idea.

[I305forever]

^ I'm down for a ride themed to horses but not for another one of those motocoaster clones. I hate those. The train are so uncomfortable.

[grsupercity]

^ Im sure Vekoma motorbikes can be easily turned into a horse