Rye Playland Discussion Thread

[larrygatorObsessive Overlord of the TPR Park Index]

David - I've only been to Rye Playland three times in my life (all in the past 10 years) and never experienced a crowd like TPR members described in 2008. Maybe it just doesn't faze me spending so much time in Manhattan/Brooklyn at night. I've seen rougher crowds on summer weekend visits to SFA and SFGAdv

[jynx242Why do I still have a donkey title???]

^ Oh, the crowd at SFA was much, much scarier than the crowd at RYE that year.

I, personally, found the Rye crowd to be Colorful and interesting (except for the ride-op on their Derby Racer which, I think, really wanted to murder us.)

[cal1br3ttoWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

The place gets a bad rap for the coasters, but the cheesy dark rides alone make it worth the price. The best (most violent Whip) in the country. The Derby Racer. They also have decent bumper cars, probably the hardest hitting non-Lusse ones I've been on. All rides I've mentioned are more fun than the coasters.

(Not that anyone doesn't trust Larry but) all of this is correct.

^And David, all I got the last time I went was "Stop taking pictures of the horses!" which I deemed fair enough. I thought the ride itself might kill me, though.

[coasterbillWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

Wow, I totally forgot this park had a discussion thread... why?

I haven't been to Playland in years despite living less than an hour away but yesterday we were going to my Aunt's house for Mother's Day and saw a promotion on Facebook for $15 bands and a "Mom's ride free" promotion. Since she only lives about 15 minutes away in North White Plains, we decided to pop in for a few hours and convinced my mom and stepdad to join us for some Mother's Day fun (ps: sorry if I'm sounding like I'm just attempting to justify actually visiting this place but that's basically what we were doing when considering the trip, lol). I'll keep this report super brief and I took a limited amount of photos but since nobody has checked in from Playland for awhile I figured I'd put something together.

Happy Mother's Day from Playland, New York's most "oh... that place still exists?" amusement park!

I generally feel like Playland has been on a downward trend since I was a kid but we actually had a blast yesterday and I have to say I'm a bit impressed. The forecast called for pop up storms and as we pulled into the parking lot we were greeted by a torrential downpour and were starting to question that decision. One cool thing about Playland is that the Midways are mostly covered by these weird A$$ Art Deco roof things for reasons that absolutely nobody understands, so during the rain we could walk between rides without getting wet.

We started out with the classic Derby Racer which is basically Cedar Downs on crack. I believe that those are the only 2 rides of it's kind but the one in Rye is much, much better. If you sit on the outside it's legitimate work to avoid being thrown from the horse. This thing was awesome and we all loved it, I forgot how good it was.

The Derby Racer is awesome (a little blurry, sorry about that)

After Derby Racer we saw that not only had the rain stopped, but the sun was out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky (seriously... it was the strangest weather ever) so we headed for the Dragon Coaster. Dragon for some reason has some of the most restrictive restraints I've ever seen (which is weird for a Morgan Train) so getting into the train is tough for taller people but the ride itself was running really well. This ride will never blow anyone away but it's solid, smooth fun.

This park has a great location

At that point we sort of kept heading down the midway and hitting whatever we felt like hitting along the way. The Whip was running great and may actually be my favorite Whip ride, it runs really fast and has a pretty long cycle. Zombie Castle still blows on an unimaginable level but since a few people in our group haven't experienced this horrendous attraction we decided to ride it. Not only do the effects suck but for some reason they're all behind bars, this makes absolutely zero sense since the effects on the Old Mill are just as close to the ride vehicles and they're all out in the open but whatever.

After surviving the world's most disappointing zombie apocalypse we headed to the mouse which has apparently removed their maximum height restriction and will now freely allow anyone to attempt to squeeze themselves into a mouse car. This is great news for me since with a little maneuvering I could finally ride it again and it was definitely a fun little ride. To this day I'm impressed that they managed to squeeze this thing in over there.

After leaving the mouse we saw some more death clouds moving in but we decided to roll the dice and hit the Ferris Wheel before the rain. We had a nice, rain-free ride and as soon as we got under the canopy-midway thing the skies opened up again. At that point we needed to head out anyway, but we snagged one last ride on the Derby Racer and a ride on the Old Mill as we made our way out. The Old Mill is definitely one of the better rides in the park, all of the effects were working and it's a huge step up in quality from their other 2 dark rides. It was definitely a great way to end our visit.

Taking in the views from the Ferris Wheel as a death cloud rolls in to kill us all

While we were only there for about 2 hours, we managed to get on most of the major rides (with the only exceptions being the S&S tower, Bumper Cars and Flume which wasn't quite ready for the season yet). I wouldn't recommend going out of your way for this park, but if you're in the area it's worth popping in. Keep an eye on their social media pages as they've been offering a lot of great discounts lately.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA F*CK NO

[boldikusFounder of the Cult of Skank Mountain]

Nice report!

I haven't been to Playland in almost 10 years but have enjoyed it the few times I've been there. Dragon only has one hill with airtime if I remember correctly but the ride runs incredibly smooth despite its age and who doesn't love that tunnel.

Glad the Whip is still run fast though it's a shame the flume is down. I remember it being one of the better ones I've been on.

[coasterbillWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

Dragon only has one hill with airtime if I remember

You were close, you were only off by one airtime hill. It has a grand total of zero.

I thought the first drop had some in the back and the front had a random pop halfway through but either way this is no Phoenix.

[JcoasterI poke manatees in the butt.]

Dragon only has one hill with airtime if I remember

You were close, you were only off by one airtime hill. It has a grand total of zero.

The Morgan Trains really ruined this ride.

[TheCoasterKid211Girls don't like me because I can play RCT better than you]

Great report! That Volare is probably the smoothest one out there.