Martin & Cheryl Conquer New England!

[milst1]

We've done so much travelling this summer that the photos have stacked up and I'm way behind. This might be my last chance to post a full report for a while because school is right around the corner and things are about to get way too busy. I hate the end of summer.

 

Anyway, we went to a wedding on Long Island, then took the ferry across the Long Island Sound to Connecticut, and then we drove up to Maine, back down to Connecticut, and then back up to Rhode Island and New Hampshire before heading home. It's a lot of photos, so it's in two parts. Sorry if it's too long, but I hope you enjoy!

First stop, Funtown Splashtown! Yay, new park, new woodie!

Excalibur!

This was a funny sign!

Price Board! I've created a new album on flickr just for price boards.

Whoa, we hit the dippin' dots motherlode!

They had everything, every flavor, and even extra stuff like mix-ins!

Sample of all of the different types of offerings. Of course, I had just started my diet, so it was one child-sized serving for me.

Other dining options for humans and bears.

We were immediately struck by the simple low-key charm of this park.

Antique cars.

Some flats.

Oooh, C on the garbage cans, but points for recycling.

Time for Excalibur! This was in a nicely themed Medieval area.

Good ol' CCI.

It's a decent woodie, but showing its age like most CCIs. It was worth a re-ride or two.

Fun flume.

A casino-themed Trabant!

Here's the other credit, a Maurer-Sohne Wilde Maus.

A last shot of Excalibur.

Next stop was Palace Playland in nearby Old Orchard Beach. This was a typical shoreline park.

Price board 2014!

C- for garbage cans. Points for name on the can.

Not too much to say about this park. Games...

Tilt-a-Whirl...

Dodgem...

Interesting ATM machine that you had to swing by to get money.

Here's a credit, and SDC Galaxi...

...and also a Wisdom Orient Express.

Some higher level flats...

And I always like to see a working band organ at the carousel.

Here's a view of the pier from the Ferris wheel.

Next stop was York's Wild Kingdom.

The zoo section was very wild.

I like tigers, but they're so territorial, they pace a lot. I like parks that do more play activity with the tigers, like Busch Gardens Tampa and SFDK.

Crocs. Forgive my curiosity getting the better of me and imagining the glass to disappear a la Harry Potter.

Lion around.

TheSchwitek, what does he SAY??????

Deer are permitted to jump the fence to harass humans for more food.

Here's the park's lone credit and one hopes that the care of the animals is better than the care of the amusement rides section.

This was the fun house that seemed to be in decent condition.

This was the one that was more or less neglected.

And this walk-through was sorry indeed, although the ticket-taking woman was very nice.

These are becoming rarer.

C-

This was more or less a typical scene. A-yuh.

Incidentally, there are a lot of lobster joints in Maine in the summer and they're good and the food, even the lobster, is priced very reasonably.

It was time to leave Maine.

Incidentally, here's our ride!

We went next to Milford, Connecticut, for the Annual Family Picnic on my mother's side. This is the view of Long Island Sound from my Aunt and Uncle's front lawn.

On a theme park note, the blue dot is where I took the last picture, and the red dot is where Savin Rock used to be. That's the amusement park my mom and her brother visited in the summer when they were kids. The park closed in the 60s, but had six different credits over the years, including two Virginia Reels.

Annual Heyman Family Photo

After the picnic, we headed north again, to Atlantic Beach Park in Rhode Island.

This park is a little bit forlorn, but they did have this Wisdom Dragon Coaster.

They also had a building for the carousel.

I thought it was interesting that there were no jumpers on the outside, but I have no idea if that's common or not. I didn't notice the band organ to the left until I saw this picture later.

I can't remember if this band organ on the right worked or not.

But I did like this Illions print.

There was also this nice deck outside.

It took a few hours to make it to our next destination, Canobie Lake Park. This was our second visit here.

Nice light package through the trees.

We came to ride Untamed.

It's a nice looking coaster, but I'll admit that Eurofighters aren't really my cup of tea. Nonetheless, there were a bunch of people who loved it and they kept re-riding.

I did really like all of the ride's theming.

We had a great ride on the Yankee Cannonball. I think this was Sunday night, so the park was pretty empty. We arrived less than two hours before closing time.

Thanks to Larry for informing us about the dark ride. We sort of missed this part of the park last time.

Some more Ferris Wheel. The park was lots of fun at night.

The next morning we hit Fun World Game Center, an FEC.

The pictures don't really do it justice, but it's a decent-sized facility, with tons of games etc. all over.

Of course there is another Orient Express.

And I love any place that has 8 pinball machines.

We then drove deeper into New Hampshire, hitting some nasty thunderstorms just as we crossed the mountains, which was scary. We made it to Fort Jefferson Fun Park, but there was a note on the door that they'd closed early due to weather. So down the road we went to Santa's Village.

Rudolph's Decaptitated Head

Santa's Village Price Board. We came late in the day and it was rainy and overcast, so they actually gave us a ticket for the next day, unasked.

We had to agree that Santa's Village was the nice surprise of the trip. It was full o' charm and we had a great experience.

I have read that Santa's Village was the first franchised theme park. There was one in Illinois, three in California, one in Canada, and on in NH. They were always full of oversized statuary like this, but the park in Jefferson, New Hampshire has taken the next step and has transformed itself into a modern-ish theme park.

Yes, there was cheesiness. Check out the Jinglebell Jamboree.

It's a pretty scary and outdated animatronic elvin music show featuring Elvin John, Elfis, and, you get the picture.

The railroad crossings played "Jingle Bells". In fact, there was Christmas music constantly playing throughout the park, as you might expect.

There are lots of nice touches and details around the park.

There's a Rudolph credit.

It's one of those super long Zierer large Tivolis.

Check out this cool flat raft race.

A very decently themed and large water play structure.

A very nice Monorail.

Good theming on standard rides.

Animal shows.

Seriously, you can feed and pet the reindeer.

This was a live show on our way out. We were actually impressed by this park. Check it out.

The next morning, we went to visit a huge boulder that had been moved by glaciers during the last ice age.

Big damn rock.

I'm in the shadow on the left so you can see the relative size of the thing.

Continuing our New Hampshire tour, we visited Story Land.

We are here, of course, to see Gravity Group's Roar-o-Saurus.

Nice setting for a raft ride.

There are standard kiddie flats.

Train.

Some parks "get it" and just give kids a place to play.

And here is our dino-coaster. More coming in the next post.

Edited August 14, 2014 by milst1

[milst1]

Here is Part II!

This coaster has a great front piece.

It's a short train, and there's only one, so the capacity is a bit limited.

But people are having fun.

Nice splash battle type ride.

Polar Coaster is the other credit.

Hopkins!

Our last park of the trip was Fort Jefferson Fun Park, formerly know as Six Gun City. I'm not sure why they changed the name. RCDB says that the park was up for sale in the recent past but the same family still owns it. The park has been open since 1957, and it has definitely seen better days.

Gold Rush Express is the credit.

We found horses but we weren't sure of their purpose.

It was a Monday and the place was dead, but there didn't seem to be much to do. The place is decaying.

On the other hand, there was at least one sign of "investment".

And there's a new sign covering up the old one.

For those wondering, I definitely chickened out and did not attempt to drive up to Mount Washington. Thank you so much for enjoying our trip with us!!!!! Hope you liked it!!!

[thrillerman1]

New England has so many treasures. I love going there, and it's been way too long. Always nice to see pinballs at any park! Thanks for sharing this update.

[Vtafro]

Martin nice TR, looking to do a similar trip soon, any suggestions/recommendations for NH/ME?

[cfc]

Interesting ATM machine that you had to swing by to get money.

 

"We cannot cycle the swing ride until someone uses the ATM. Thank you for your patience."

[milst1]

Martin nice TR, looking to do a similar trip soon, any suggestions/recommendations for NH/ME?

 

Thanks, Victor! The report has some gaping holes, namely Quassy, SFNE, and Lake Compounce in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

[coasterbill]

You filthy, filthy credit whores. lol

 

Great report by the way.

[CanobieFan]

Amazing Trip Report! I've been to all of those parks except the one in RI and Six Gun. Yeah, I'm still calling it that, I'm used to it. Santa's is one of my favorite theme parks, I love Christmas, so that's like paradise to me.

 

Canobie I went to Tuesday, and please tell me you rode the back. The airtime is just unbelievable! Almost El Toro level!

 

Story Land this weekend for little mister Roary. Can you explain how that ride was? I heard the airtime is pretty extreme, especially for a park like Story Land.

[RCjunkie]

Fantastic trip report, loved the Doberman Pinscher sign so thanks for sharing. And I learned that there is another roller coaster called Excalibur which hopefully is a better ride than the one at Valleyfair that I am used too.

[jynx242]

Thanks Martin! I love the "out of the way" parks you post reports about! I've been to a few of those, but some were completely unknown to me until about 5 minutes ago

[ScreaminNewEngland]

Martin nice TR, looking to do a similar trip soon, any suggestions/recommendations for NH/ME?

 

Canobie is easily one of (if not) the best park in New England. Beautiful setting, amazing flat ride line up, themeing is great and the Yankee Cannonball is awesome.

 

Funtown Splashtown is another totally underrated park of New England. They have the tallest free fall in NE, (Dragon's Decent), Excalibur (great CCI woodie), Astrosphere (best flat ride eva!) and a nice flat line up. Splashtown is an awesome water park!

 

Nice report, glad you had fun at my home parks!

[Philrad71]

This was more or less a typical scene. A-yuh.

 

I see that you have the Maine accent down pat!

[thesman]

good trip report. just found it weird you went from Maine to CT then back to Maine with out hitting credits on the way up.

[milst1]

good trip report. just found it weird you went from Maine to CT then back to Maine with out hitting credits on the way up.

 

Yes, we're weird. Actually, we were under a time constraint, and it's a long way up to Northern NH. We've been to the Connecticut parks and SFNE so that's where we had to sacrifice. We missed one credit at SFNE, but it's in the neighborhood so we'll get it at some point.

[ScreaminNewEngland]

You didn't miss out, six flags has only lost not gained. Lake Compounce.....meh. BD is the only thing worth going there for. Quassy is great but only worth a couple hours.

[milst1]

You didn't miss out, six flags has only lost not gained. Lake Compounce.....meh. BD is the only thing worth going there for. Quassy is great but only worth a couple hours.

 

We were ambivalent but some weather issues also factored in. We needed the kiddie at Compounce, not that we would get it. We haven't ridden Superman at SFNE since the changeover to Bizarro, not that anyone has cheered about that. OTOH, I know George Frantzis (owner) and Ron Gustafson (Dir. Mktg/PR) at Quassy, and I like to support that park. My mom used to live near there, but she's since moved away and there are fewer opportunities to visit. Ah, c'est la vie.