If you owned your own theme park

[themeparkman25]

^Self made family launched? Seems interesting, but to me seems very difficult. Not questions your intelligence at all (haha, as a disclaimer), but they just seem so hit and miss even with the big companies that I can't imagine doing it myself. If your looking for a business partner though, I'm in!

[Swiminn6]

For my park I would have very nice themeing and one thing I would deff. do is paint the roller coasters every 4 years to make them look brand new. One thing i hate is faded out roller coasters!

[hobbit]

a very detail nice themed park,

with B&M Rollercoasters,

[Cantrip]

My park would have a decent-sized B&M flyer, a drop tower similar in size to Drop Zone at KI, and there would be a fast-paced coaster with a bunch of unusual elements where you listen to music while you ride (like HRRR). I would make the whole park be a no-smoking area and really push for maintenance. Other rides I'd have are: Giant Frisbee, decent-sized wooden coaster with a dense layout, and an Intamin Mega-Lite, and a bunch of other flat rides. No kiddie rides or racing water slides, but there will be family rides. I also say no to one trick ponies.

[JEAPUgrad]

After reading the first six pages of this thread, I'm surprised no one has mentioned a Sally Dark Ride.

 

Anyway, if I could build my own seasonal park, I'd want something relatively small to start SFA size (105 acres) and eventually build up to around 400 acres (King's Dominion).

 

Theme would be Centuries...1200's through 1800's. Of course there wasn't any rides back in those times but I'd use modern rides mixed in with heavily themed buildings, plazas, etc.

 

For the park's grand opening, I'd have a collection of classic flats, some rare thrill rides, and of course coasters!

 

Classic Flats:

 

Carousel

Tilt-A-Whirl

BUmper Cars

Whip

Zipper

Matterhorn/Muzik Express/Alpine Bobs etc.

Swings

Giant Slide

Pirate Ship

Tea Cups

Flying Animal Ride (ala Dumbo at Disney)

 

Thrill Rides:

 

Zamperla Energy Storm (my favorite flat)

Zamperla Roto-Shake

Huss Topple Tower

Huss Frisbee XL

Intamin Gyro Drop (250-300')

S&S Sky Swatter

S&S Screamin' Swing

S&S Space Shot

 

Water Rides:

 

Mach Splash Battle - custom - potentially themed to the War of 1812 (cannon balls, 'bombs bursting in air' type stuff-I grew up living close to the river where the Star Spangled Banner was written)

 

Hopkins River Raft Ride

 

I don't know what it's technical name is or who makes it but I'd want one of those slides that has the fiberglass trough and you sit on the plastic raft and go straight down at about a 60 degree angle into a pool

 

Coasters:

 

Mid-sized Gravity Group out and back woodie (similar to Dania Beach Hurricane)

 

Mid-sized GCII Twister

 

Customed themed Premier Launch indoor type coaster (Revenge of the Mummy-ish)

 

Intiman Giga - think characteristics of The Beast at KI...low to the ground but not as flat, in the woods, airtime monster

 

B&M Invert similar to Montu

 

Custom S&S El Loco (Steel Hawg)

 

Chance Rides Toboggan

 

Kiddie sized woodie like Teddy Bear at Stricker's Grove

 

Other:

 

Sally Dark Ride - would want it to be interactive in the sense that the riders would not only get to shoot targets but the targets would shoot lasers at your ride vehicle. Maybe lowering your score or something for bad defense.

 

Iconic Tower ride- not an Eiffel Tower knock off but maybe the Space Needle in Seattle or Stratosphere Tower.

[tt.repo.man]

Because I have future Imagineering plans for this park, I can't give out many of the fine details. I've been working on this park for about 3 years now, and hope that Disney will use it in some way shape or form. So I'll give some what of an out line. Remember this is an extremely crude outline!!!

 

The park is a combination of Disney themeing, Dollywood atmosphere, and Busch Gardens thrills.

 

E-Ticket Attractions

Dive Bomber- (B&M Dive Machine) Special Backlot Tour Harbor Attack Effects on a much larger scale!

NCIS Coaster (Premier Rides LIM) Similar to Backlot Stunt Coaster

Smoky Mountain Mines- (Vekoma Mine Train) With Expedition Everest Yeti recasted as Big Foot

Count Olafs Amazing Time Machine- (Reverchon Spinning Coaster) Half dark ride and half coaster similar to the Dark Knight coasters. Themed from the movie Series of Unfortunate Events.

Coney Island Thunderbolt- (Martin and Vleminckx) A remake of the original Tunderbolt at Coney Island.

Timberline Twister- (Intamin Prefab) Similar is design as Bolder Dash.

 

Ok so those are just a few of the many rides I have designed. Now of course I have themed some of the more popular rides such as an Intamin rafting ride or a Zamperla telecombat. Ive worked with the Sally Corp. rides to develope major dark rides for each land of the park.

 

The different "lands" are:

 

The Great Smoky Mountains

Northeastern Wildlife Reserve

Atlantic Harbor

Dunadelta

The Backlot

Future World (Im still working with the name.)

River Country (Adjacent Water Park)

Theme Park Review Central (Yes I know it sounds odd, but I did end up themeing an entire land to Theme Park Review. I was kind of leaning towards a copy of Expedition GeForce and several theme park review favorites.)

 

Well thats some of it. Maybe one day all of Theme Park Review can come and visit it if Disney ever likes it.

[DCody]

I would have the coolest collection of flats ever. Chance Zipper, Chance Turbo (yes!), Eyerley Rock-O-Plane, Herschell double Ferris wheel, flyers, and a custom-made KICK BOODY. Maybe I'd even try to buy the Fly-O-Plane off Lake Winnie or the Skydiver from Lakemont. We'd be all about flats at Diablowood.

 

I would also have an insane classic haunted house, a Schwarzkopf Doppel Looping and a world-class, airtime filled woodie. I'd want my park to feel like Knoebels or Idlewild. Not a ton of attractions, but everything quality. And plenty of trees and awesome food! Dreamy.

[JEAPUgrad]

^they use to have one of those double ferris wheels at Trimper's in Ocean City. I never had the courage to go on because it looked so old and unkept. That and I have a fear of heights!

[Cixot]

Park Location - A year round warm climate. Plenty of trees and foliage surrounding a lake, with rivers coiling around the park. I own about 150 acres.

 

Coasters (All themed, and takes advantage of the lake/river landscape)

B&M Custom Floorless

B&M Custom Invert

Intamin Impulse

GCI wooden

Custom Eurofighter

 

Flats

Your basic flats plus tons of theming[Like what Tomb Raider was at KI])

 

Water rides (All heavily themed)

Log Flume

River rapids

Dark water ride

[BeemerBoy]

I would have the coolest collection of flats ever. Chance Zipper, Chance Turbo (yes!), Eyerley Rock-O-Plane, Herschell double Ferris wheel, flyers, and a custom-made KICK BOODY. Maybe I'd even try to buy the Fly-O-Plane off Lake Winnie or the Skydiver from Lakemont. We'd be all about flats at Diablowood.

 

I would also have an insane classic haunted house, a Schwarzkopf Doppel Looping and a world-class, airtime filled woodie. I'd want my park to feel like Knoebels or Idlewild. Not a ton of attractions, but everything quality. And plenty of trees and awesome food! Dreamy.

 

Where can I purchase my season pass to Diablowood?

[cfc]

I would have the coolest collection of flats ever. Chance Zipper, Chance Turbo (yes!), Eyerley Rock-O-Plane, Herschell double Ferris wheel, flyers, and a custom-made KICK BOODY. Maybe I'd even try to buy the Fly-O-Plane off Lake Winnie or the Skydiver from Lakemont. We'd be all about flats at Diablowood.

 

I would also have an insane classic haunted house, a Schwarzkopf Doppel Looping and a world-class, airtime filled woodie. I'd want my park to feel like Knoebels or Idlewild. Not a ton of attractions, but everything quality. And plenty of trees and awesome food! Dreamy.

 

Where can I purchase my season pass to Diablowood?

 

"Diablowood"--now there is an awesome name for a park. In the hills near my hometown of Patterson, California, there sits a bankrupt golf course called "Diablo Grande." I'm sure you could get that real estate for a reasonable price (it you don't mind a few rattlesnakes, coyotes, and wild boars).

 

Good luck!

 

EDIT: My mistake. Looks like Diablo Grandeis back in business again. So much for an amusement park for that vital Stanislaus County-San Joaquin Valley market, unless you can work out some sort of an arrangement.

[denning]

Mine would take fastpass systems to a whole new level.

 

All rides by appointment priority.

 

If you buy a reasonably priced admission ticket, or you will have the regular season pass, you get one guaranteed slot for each major attraction per visit, but those ride slots would be spaced out every 90 minutes to keep you busy walking around the park and spending money.

 

Also, the standby line for each ride would be limited to deter loitering in lines.

 

For a reasonable marginal fee you can purchase additional slots or shorter windows.

 

All food and merchandise will be reasonably priced at levels akin to a food court or mall, hoping for retail margins of less than 20% to make money off volume. The key here is that no one feels gouged or resentful, they walk through the park spending money and shopping while going on the occasional ride.

 

The hope is that everything will seem so reasonably priced that you keep spending and never feel resentful.

[spaceace12]

I would build a mid size park somewhere in central Indiana (Indianapolis and West to the state line area). Have a few coasters (a couple steel and a Gravity Group woodie custom made to the land), about 10-15 flats, and a medium sized water park (bigger than Six Flags St. Louis and smaller than Holiday Worlds). It would be admission via a few methods. First would be a gate few and then tickets per ride. Anyone not riding would only have to pay 5 dollars to enter (great for grandparents/parents/and non riders) and then an all day pop band. Food and drinks would be resonably priced (around 1.50 a bottle of soda and 6 for combo meal). It would just be affordable.

 

Other than the coasters, a few signature flats. Bumper cars and flyers that would give Kneobels a run for the money. The water park would have a torrent type river and also a regular, non wave pool.

 

It would not have a theme, it would just be an amusement park.

[DBJ]

I would create a next gen waterpark experience. Imo, sometimes parks put water rides in that just drench you, so then you spend the entire day walking around in wet clothes. So I would take the drenching water rides - Jurrassic Park, Perilous Plunge, Log flumes, and build a thrill oriented water "coaster" park. Use Proslide for their water coasters, bowls, toronados. Intamin for Perilous Plunge with OSTR, a spinning rapid ride, & Atlantis clone rides. B&M for Shrieka clone with a soaker finale. Mack for Seaworld esque -Journey to Atlantis clone. A river raft battle vs. a roller soaker coaster as well.

 

Contract out with Sally for their animatronic work for the

"dark" rides for the kids - for things like a Jungle Cruise or Storybook land. Would be cool to pull off an interactive water based shooter like Buzz Lightyear but using water cannons.

 

Obviously have to built where drought is not an issue.

[andre8]

My theme park won't have a flash pass but some Q-Bot system that works like this.

 

1. Your QuickQ will have a list on it that says "My Ride Waits."

2. You insert your Q-Bot thing inside a machine by a certain ride to add it to the list.

3. When it's a good time to get in line, it beeps.

[TYTL]

My park would be a park that has dirt paths through the trees and wild flowers. A rather large wooden coaster would be the main ride. It would have a good amount of airtime and a large over bank to send it to the drop over the river and over a few more hills, finally, the cars return to the station. I would put in a looping coaster to one of the sides, the more densely wooded area. I'd put a big old Merry-go-round at the entrance plaza, behind the fountain. My park food would be good and cost like 50 cents more than food from outside the park, which I'd let people bring their own food and water. A swinging pirate ship would be at the mid-section. And to top it off, I'd build an exact replica of CRR! Some more flats and shops would be included. The trees would average at 150 feet tall.

[andre8]

Actually, the lake area would be an "Alien Invaded London" area.

 

Rides:

 

Powerfist (B&M Invert)

Alien Attacks (Double Tracked Woodie)

Octoalien (Spinning Ride)

 

I don't know what else...

[coasterschile]

I was wondering, if I could start a park I would put:

 

Rollercoasters:

Vekoma MK1200 Tornado

Fabbri Force One

 

Flat Rides:

Ferris Wheel

Zamperla Galleon

Zamperla Vertcal Swing

Chance Carrousel

Zamperla Tea Cups

 

Water Rides:

Zamperla Hydro Lift

Edited May 21, 2014 by coasterschile

[larrygator]

^I moved your thread into an existing thread.

[booink]

It would be a moderate park with quite a lot of flats and four coasters. Here's the list :

Coasters :

• Intamin Mega-Lite
  
• Mack Launched
  
• GCI woodie
  
• Schwarzkopf family Coaster like Whizzard - I know since Schwarzkopf doesn't exist anymore it would be fairly difficult, be we are dreaming here

For the flats :

• Scrambler
  
• Larson Flyer
  
• S&S double Drop & Launch tower
  
• Huss Giant Frisbee
  
• Log Flume
  
• Ferris Wheel
  
• A theme park historical Museum
  
• A river rapid ride
  
• One extremely wacky flat-ride from any manufacturer to add something unique to my park

I would also like to include a small water park with a little lazy river and 5-10 slides.

[Rollercoaster Rider]

Magic Gardens Park

Coasters

- RMC Wooden Twister Coaster/ Clone of Rampage at Alabama Adventures

- Mack Enclosed Powered Coaster (Like Thunder Run at Canada's Wonderland)

- Miler Junior Coaster (Like Canyon Blaster at SFMM)

 

Rides

- Mack Twist N' Splash

- Mack Log Flume

- Mack Interactive Dark Ride (Can you say Package Deal?)

- Chance Electric Car Ride

- Chance Giant Wheel

- Chance 50ft Carousel

- Chance Wipeout

- Chance CP Huntington Train Ride

- Funtime Star Flyer

- Sellner Tilt A Whirl

- Larson Flying Scooters

- Huss Giant Jump 2

- Zamperla Red Baron

- Zamperla Rio Grande

- Zamperla Camp Bus

- Zamperla Jumpin Star

[Hockeydad]

- Clean bathrooms that are plentiful

- Shaded benches

- Reasonably priced food

- Employees who give a crap

- Great rides with an equally great waterpark

 

...oh wait...I just asked for Holiday World.

[gerstlaueringvar]

It will have a mountain terrain like SDC or at least like Liseberg.

 

Roller coasters:

Intamin hyper

Intamin blitz coaster

Intamin ZacSpin

RMC woodie

CCI woodie like Shivering Timbers

Out and back PTC woodie

Schwarzkopf looper like Olympia Looping or Canadian Mindbender

Arrow looper like Demon at SFGAm

Arrow suspending coaster

B&M Batman Clone

Gerstlauer Euro Fighter

Gerstlauer Bobsled

Schwarzkopf Speed Racer

Schwarzkopf WildCat

Vekoma mine train

Miler kiddie coaster

Mack water coaster

 

Flat Rides:

Intamin 420ft drop tower

Intamin Giant Frisbee

ARM drop tower 160ft

Moser Top Spin

Mack Drop N Splash

S&S Giant Swing

Gerstlauer Sky Flyer

Zamperla Air Race

Fun Time Star Flyer

Intamin Viking

And a bunch of kiddie, family flat rides.

 

Water Rides:

Arrow Log Flume

Hopkins Giant Splash

Intamin Rapids Ride

 

Food:

CINNAMON BREAD!!!!! And Coke product

[MrSum1_55]

I would have nice landscaping, a charming appeal, a top ten wood coaster, at least two solid steel coasters, a great classic family coaster, a 300 foot drop tower, top notch operations and employees, and place it in a location known for having attractive residents.

 

So, basically Liseberg.

[Dr. M]

Oh man, is this the thread for me. I've had ideas for what my own amusement park would look like for a long time. My ideas have grown and changed over the years, but here's sort of what it looks like right now. You may think this is all totally unrealistic, and maybe it is, but oh well, it's my imagination. To be honest, there's no racing giga, no 500' coasters with multiple inversions. I believe this is a park that could exist in the reality we live in today, if it had the the right people and the right money behind it. (edit: Maybe I should point out that this would be the "master plan", executed over many years of development.)

 

Overall description: A park that's deeply rooted in the surrounding community, combining a small, family-owned park atmosphere with world-class thrills. It would also work closely with the local artistic community, with constantly rotating installations and performances from local musicians and theater groups (as well as touring talent). The main midways would always be lined with street performers of every kind. Music would be extremely important to the park, even hosting its own avant-garde music festival. The location would be heavily forested of course, with a decent amount of interesting terrain.

 

Theme: The theme along the main midways would be total over-the-top fantasy land, with big incandescent bulbs strung over every pathway and hanging from every building, with larger-than-life statues and architecture that meld a blurry, idealized vision of turn-of-the-century amusement parks (Coney Island and the like) with European high-fantasy, wizards and witches and such. The outer rims of the park would delve into slightly darker territory, as you'll see in some of my descriptions of the rides.

 

List of rides, in the approximate order of construction:

 

Grand Carousel: This would be the centerpiece of the elaborately-themed entrance plaza, located in a courtyard surrounded by tall Gothic architecture, but done in a playful way, with many statues of pixies and gargoyles and such, sort of like Cinderella's castle on drugs. It would feature the world's largest carousel organ, and the only one that also uses the space around the carousel, with ranks of pipes and percussion hidden all around the surrounding structure. The smooth stone walls would create a very live, echo-y space giving the organ a truly magnificent, almost church-like sound. All musical arrangements would be done by yours truly, and live concerts would be held just for people to sit and listen to the organ, occasionally combined with live performers.

 

Classic woodie: Located not far from the entrance and mostly visible from the midway, this would be the starring attraction in the park's inaugural year, a standard classic wooden coaster featuring fast-paced airtime hills and high un-banked turns, with of course buzz-bar-only restraints. All lit up like a postcard from Luna Park, circa 1905.

 

Dark ride: This would go along with the over-the-top theming of the main midway (with a facade to match), a classic dark ride that takes place almost entirely in darkness, with extremely loud terrifying things that pop out at you. The most notable unique gag: A room of seemingly endless cobwebs. A pulsating egg sac comes into view, you seem to be heading straight for it. Suddenly the lights go out, it's pitch black, there's the sound of a million tiny legs racing toward you, and the car passes between giant rollers, kind of like the rollers in a car wash, with millions of long thin fibers hanging off of them, that start at the bottom of the rollers and travel upwards, brushing past the riders and simulating the feeling of getting swarmed by baby spiders.

 

Steel looper: This coaster is really what puts the park on the map as far as thrill rides go. Located away from the main midway, it starts with a long chain lift up a densely forested hillside. It has an extended terrain section that starts before any big drops occur, cutting a few switchbacks through the forest, slowly, slowly increasing in speed, with a very tight barrel roll thrown in for surprise, taking place only a few feet above the ground. Finally there's a flat section of track leading directly away from the hillside to the main ~160' beyond-vertical drop, hit at a pretty decent clip resulting in one of the strongest moments of airtime on any first drop in the world. The second half would be similar to Stormrunner with three or four elements, either inversions or straight airtime hills, that take place high in the sky, zooming down to the ground between each one right along the midway and then back up again. This coaster, possibly entitled "Coven", is themed to the idea of a coven of witches running off into the woods to perform rituals and conjure spirits, and then returning to the town possessed by said spirits, ready to wreak havoc. It has a sort of haunted rural theme, with the station structure a typical American barn seen through a fun house mirror, impossibly tall, with a vaulted, almost Gothic wooden ceiling, and tall, arched windows illuminating the space from high above the guests' heads. It would be advertised cheekily as simply "the greatest roller coaster ever built".

 

Launched Woodie: Exactly what it sounds like, this traditionally-tracked coaster starts with a sharp drop from the station, around a curve or two, and then enters the launch track located directly beneath the station track (like Maverick), through a pitch-black tunnel where you're accelerated to ~60 MPH. The rest of the layout is intense and stays as low to the ground as possible.

 

Indoor Coaster: This would also be along the outer reaches of the park, the centerpiece of an area themed to post-industrial urban decay. It would have narrow pathways winding around an abandoned factory complex, appealing to the "urban explorer" in all of us. In the largest part of the building is the most intense indoor roller coaster ever built, with extremely tight turns and inversions. It would constantly be switching between pitch blackness and incredibly bright lights pointed in your face, the whole building being pumped full of grating industrial dance music, total sensory overload, almost like the abandoned building has been taken over by some insane, very angry spirits. Like Space Mountain from hell.

 

B&M Invert: This would be the first B&M invert to feature lapbar-only restraints (ha). It would be fast-paced and intense, never far from the ground, weaving around and through the buildings of Post-Industrial Decay Land (I'd think of a better name for it), kind of like Black Mamba (only more intense). It would feature probably four inversions, the world's tightest dive loop, zero g roll and two corkscrews. Like many of the coasters the layout would be on the short side, no MCBR, favoring pacing and intensity over length.

 

Backwards Vekoma Tilt coaster: This would be the tallest coaster in the park, possibly a hyper coaster. Only the tilt-drop mechanism would be supplied by Vekoma, not the entire layout. The seats would be designed with every other row facing backwards. The tilting platform would have a fake-out drop to it, so when the train was tilted about 80º or so the train would suddenly lurch forward maybe six inches. The rest of the layout would be your standard hyper layout, focusing on airtime instead of inversions, for the sake of the backwards-facing riders' necks and backs. Advertised as the world's tallest true vertical drop, and the only one you can experience facing backwards.

 

Pneumatic Launch Coaster: Again, only the launch mechanism would be designed by S&S (all track designs in this park are done at least partly in-house, myself taking a John Wardley coaster auteur approach). It starts with a short trip through pitch blackness, with a voice from the darkness reminding you to keep your hands down and your head firmly against the head rest, before it suddenly starts glitching out and fades to static, like a radio losing its frequency. You're left sitting in total darkness before an array of flashing lights and obnoxious industrial warning buzzers lights up in front of you as the doors ahead open to the outside, but before you even have time to react you're accelerated to 110 MPH in 1.5 seconds (the world's fastest acceleration). There's a very brief stretch of flat track that's right next to the midway. You turn away from the midway and race high up over the forest, a shallower hill instead of a vertical incline to take more advantage of your tremendous speed. At the highest point the track twists around the heartline into a flying snake dive (still with a very good amount of speed), diving vertically down towards the forest. Following this is a gigantic ejector airtime hill and then a long ground-level helix to point you back in the direction of the station. A main midway attraction, this coaster has a carnival theme, the front of the station building adorned with a gigantic statue of a boy's head, cartoony, looking like he's riding the ride, his hair blown straight back, his eyelids peeled back, his mouth wide open, his tongue hanging down over the outside queue area (it drips water during the hot summer months). Next to his head is a giant canon which the train appears to be launched out of. A puff of smoke emits from the mouth of the cannon every time a train is launched, sort of like the water jet effect on Summit Plummet.

 

Other Rides: A tunnel of love, a log flume, an entire fantasy-themed children's area, a drop ride, other assorted flat rides.

 

Laser Tag Arena: An upcharge attraction located in Post-Industrial Decay Land (but accessible from outside the park as well), the world's largest indoor laser tag arena, with it's own technologically advanced in-house system offering more types of gameplay than any other system in the world, even allowing large groups of guests to define their own rules. An annual tournament would be held.

 

Halloween event: Of course a park with entire sections themed to horror elements would hold the most epic Halloween event you've ever seen. The daytime would have a fun, kid-friendly atmosphere with pumpkin carving and the like, but as night falls, legions of costumed actors would descend upon the midways, most of the lights would be turned out, the organ would begin playing horrible discordant music. There would be three or four long walk-throughs, focusing on quality over quantity (and coming at a rather steep upcharge), including one that's very expensive and takes reservations in advance, something along the lines of, well, this.

 

Oh, and

 

No Water Park

 

Well, that's about all my ideas for now. I highly doubt anybody read all that, but it was a ton of fun typing it all out anyway.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Dr. M