Theme Parks / Attractions That Are No Longer Around

[JamesG]

A while ago I was thinking about some of the various attractions that I've been to or known about over the years and I was looking to see what became of them.

I was wondering if anyone knows about some of these lesser-known attractions. This is my own list and the photos are taken from around the web.

If anyone else has been to other attractions that are no longer standing.. please share







Marineland of the Pacific
1954-1987
Palos Verdes Peninsula - Los Angeles, California




The Beginning:










In its day, Marineland of the Pacific was the largest public oceanarium in the world.

It was home to Orky and Corky, two of the most famous Orcas on exhibit than any other sea creature at the time. Marineland was also home to various other sea creatures; such as dolphins, sharks, sea lions..., as well as scuba diver performers and research facilities.









Demise:







In 1987, Marineland was bought by the owners of SeaWorld and Orky and Corky were moved to the San Diego SeaWorld facility. It was there where Corky was given the popular name Shamu.

The new owners then made the sudden decision to close Marineland, six weeks after buying it, in February 1987.









Today:







Marineland of the Pacific stood abandoned for about 20 years, slowly decaying as the years gone by.










In 2008 it was announced that construction would begin for a luxury resort where Marineland once stood.

The Terranea Resort opened in 2009.















Mystery Fun House
1976-2001
Major Blvd - Orlando, Florida (directly across from Universal Studios)




The Beginning:











The Mystery Fun House was a privately owned fun house attraction that first opened in 1976.

The main attraction of the place was its walk-through fun house where guests would pay a fee to enter the Mystery Fun House. Inside were mirror mazes, tombs, swinging bridges, temples, slides… that its layout kept changing throughout the years.

Also throughout the years the Mystery Fun House eventually got an arcade, laser tag, restaurant, and mini-golf course.









Demise:











The expansion of Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Florida (which opened directly across from them in 1990) were to be the end for the Mystery Fun House.

The much bigger theme parks attracted all of the tourists and fewer and fewer people were going to the much smaller attractions.

The owners decided to close up shop in early 2001.









Today:















The Mystery Fun House stood abandoned throughout most of the 2000s where it remained virtually the same as the day it closed. All of the arcade games, machinery, and run-down attractions still remained inside.










The property was eventually purchased by Westgate Resorts.

[JamesG]

Action Park
1978-1996
Vernon, New Jersey




The Beginning:















The owners of the combined Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski resort wanted to do something with the ski slopes during the off-season, and thus the water park Action Park was created.

Action Park was at its most popular throughout the 1980s with jingles playing on the local airwaves and attracting lots of guests, mainly from the Metropolitan Area.

However, it was also during this time that Action Park would go downhill…









Demise:











Nicknamed “Traction Park” and “Class-Action Park” from the local doctors and lawyers during the 80s, Action Park would become infamous for its poor maintenance and various injuries that sometimes resulted in death.



The park had a number of problems such as:


- employees who were underage and would sometimes drink while on the job (as beer was widely available at kiosks)

- rides/water slides that would collapse with guests on them

- exhibitionist guests who would sometimes walk around the park nude

- safety restrictions being ignored by the careless staff; such as sending people down a water-slide when the other guest who went down prior wasn't ready to get off yet





Lawsuits and settlements drained Action Park out of a lot of funds and with less guests coming back year-after-year they decided to close after Labor Day 1996.

Six people were said to have died from injuries at Action Park.







*The Looping Water Slide*







Perhaps the most infamous of Action Park’s attractions was the looping water slide.

Guests would get stuck inside the thing and had to be pulled out by employees.

Employees were said to have been offered a couple of hundred bucks to test it out and many refused to do it. One employee said that, "It didn’t buy enough booze to drown out the memory."









Today:







After Action Park closed new management stepped in and in 1998 Mountain Creek Waterpark opened.

Its safety measures have drastically improved and so far nobody has died there.

[JamesG]

King Henry’s Feast
1986-2000
International Drive - Orlando, Florida




The Beginning:







King Henry’s Feast was a dinner theater that was very similar to Medieval Times.

First opening in 1986 the general theme was to celebrate King Henry’s birthday and the place was filled with court-jesters, knights, acrobatics, and actors portraying the historical people of the time.

Audience participation was highly encouraged and the menu was mainly chicken and ribs with unlimited beer and soft drinks.









Demise:


In 1998 King Henry’s Feast was bought by On Stage Entertainment that ran into financial difficulties.

In 1999 King Henry’s Feast obtained a foreclosure judgment against the company after late and missed payments which caused the eventual closing.

King Henry’s Feast was no more on June 22, 2000.









Today:







King Henry’s Feast is now an Olive Garden today.














MGM Grand Adventures
1993-2000
Paradise, Nevada (Adjacent to MGM Grand Las Vegas)



The Beginning:











In the early 1990s many Las Vegas hotels tried to open up family-friendly exhibits to give children things to do while going with their parents there.

The MGM Grand had a Wizard of Oz theme complete with an Emerald City replica built inside the hotel. Kids can go in to meet the Wizard of Oz characters and the adult casinos also had the Oz theme.





MGM’s next route in going kid-friendly was to open up a complete theme park near the hotel. The theme park was built in a similar fashion to the MGM Studios in Walt Disney World that had a movie-theme to it.

MGM Grand Adventures was divided into sections that had Casablanca, replica New York City, Asian Village, New Orleans… and also had its own shows, restaurants, and rides.

When it originally opened the yellow brick road located in the MGM hotel led all the way to the theme park.









Demise:







MGM Grand Adventures opened with an expensive admission of $25.00 per person in 1993. Over the years many of the guests did not go to the park for its price and lack of things updating over the years.

Eventually MGM realized that they weren’t making any money with the theme park and that it cost them more keeping it open.

MGM Grand Adventures closed to the public in September 2000. The Wizard of Oz theme over at the hotel was taken down a couple of years prior.









Today:






In the early 2000s the theme park was available for private events.

Plans were announced in 2004 for the construction of a condo-hotel called The Signature at MGM Grand.

The first tower opened in 2006 and proved to be a success. The project was complete with its third tower in 2007.

[Marvo301]

The only one of these attractions I'm familiar with is Marineland of the Pacific. I visited it while on a family vacation to southern California in the 70's. The park was also featured in an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies ("let's go to Marineland and ask the marines can we go fishing in their pond") and in an episode of "The Partridge Family" in which Shirley Partridge sings a duet (Whale Song) with a killer whale!

[catlover79]

Don't forget about Geauga Lake in Ohio. That looping slide thing from Action Park looks scary. No wonder the employees wouldn't even go on it - even with the offer of a few hundred bucks!!!

[JamesG]

Originally Posted by Marvo301

The only one of these attractions I'm familiar with is Marineland of the Pacific. I visited it while on a family vacation to southern California in the 70's. The park was also featured in an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies ("let's go to Marineland and ask the marines can we go fishing in their pond") and in an episode of "The Partridge Family" in which Shirley Partridge sings a duet (Whale Song) with a killer whale!

I didn't know that Shamu originally came from Marineland. I found that interesting when I found out that info.

[steevo]

Originally Posted by catlover79

Don't forget about Geauga Lake in Ohio. That looping slide thing from Action Park looks scary. No wonder the employees wouldn't even go on it - even with the offer of a few hundred bucks!!!

It sure does. It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they go to Mount Splashmore and Homer gets stuck in one of those rides and other kids are getting stuck with him. I can't imagine the pain.

[JamesG]

Originally Posted by catlover79

Don't forget about Geauga Lake in Ohio. That looping slide thing from Action Park looks scary. No wonder the employees wouldn't even go on it - even with the offer of a few hundred bucks!!!

According to what I looked up, Geauga Lake is still operational but strictly as a water-park. The amusement park is gone.

Yeah, that slide just looks plain dangerous to go on. Action Park still is very popular around here, especially with the popularity of Weird New Jersey.

[catlover79]

Originally Posted by JamesG

According to what I looked up, Geauga Lake is still operational but strictly as a water-park. The amusement park is gone.

Yeah, that slide just looks plain dangerous to go on. Action Park still is very popular around here, especially with the popularity of Weird New Jersey.

Oh, then I see why you didn't add it. It was sad to watch on the news when all the rides were taken down. It looked so lonely.

I can only imagine how people with claustrophobia must have felt getting stuck on that slide. Scary.

[Retro4Life]

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...26tbs%3Disch:1

Old Chicago was a combination shopping mall and indoor amusement park, located in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook. It was the world's first completely enclosed amusement park, and in the beginning it was open 365 days a year. Old Chicago consisted of a large square building with a dome in the center. The rides and attractions (the Old Chicago Fairgrounds) were in the center under the dome, and the shopping area surrounded them. When it opened in 1975, part of the grand opening celebration included a tap dancer dancing on the very top of the dome.

Various events took place at Old Chicago during its short history. Fireworks displays were staged during the Fourth of July holidays, and Chicago radio stations held "back-to-school bashes" and other promotional events. The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon took donations in a glass fishbowl in the parking lot, and sometimes did remote broadcasts from inside the park. Many rock bands and singers appeared at Old Chicago, as well.

Old Chicago seemed like an idea that couldn't fail. In retrospect, however, it's easy to see why it did. The mall consisted solely of small specialty shops and restaurants, and without any large chain stores or anchor stores, it may not have been enough of a shopping mall to attract shoppers. Once the novelty wore off, the building didn't seem to attract repeat visitors, except for those who attended special events or lived relatively nearby. Unlike an outdoor park, which can constantly update and add rides, Old Chicago was confined to the space between its walls, and it got old very quickly. It was also in a somewhat remote location, southwest of the city. The cost of operating the building year-round was probably very high. And I'm sure that when Marriott's (now Six Flags) Great America opened in 1976, it didn't help much either.

Old Chicago never did very well financially, and this culminated in the abrupt closing of the ride area in 1980. The mall, with just a handful of stores, stayed open while efforts were made to find a new owner. Nothing came of it, however, and the entire building closed for good in 1981.

As the next five years passed, the building gradually fell into ruin. Officials were reluctant to demolish it, and everyone hoped that both a new owner and a new use for the building would eventually be found. Several ideas were considered - a gambling casino, a convention center, a retail outlet mall and a movie soundstage were just a few of them. Sadly, none of these ideas panned out, and the building was finally torn down in 1986. Currently, a car auction lot occupies the space, and all that remains is a street named 'Old Chicago Drive.'

[James28]

Another no-longer-existing amusement park was Opryland USA in Nashville, Tennessee. Operating from 1972 until New Years Eve 1997, it was initially popular with over 2,000,000 visitors annually. Then space constraints, along with the opening of two new theme parks elsewhere in Nashville's metro area, forced attendance to decline. It was then gotten rid of for a mall. There is a large hotel to the north of the former Opryland site.

[comedyfreak]

As a little kid I remember Santa's Village it was along highway 17 on the way to Santa Cruz. All rides were for kids and were winter themed. It closed probably in the late 70's.

[Tweety]

Cypress Gardens (Florida) was a beautiful place to spend a day. They had beautiful gardens with all kinds of flowers and trees . There were paved pathways that you could take to see everything.

One price got you in the park, then the only thing you had to pay for was food and souvenirs.

They had ski shows several times a day. They had an indoor theater that ran different types of shows (the theater was air conditioned, it was nice to have a cool place to go and sit down for a while on hot days).

They had circus acts under a tent that were always a lot of fun. Clowns, acrobats, animals, the whole works.

Also at C.G. was the world's largest indoor electric train set up... it went all the way around this big room and you'd just walk from one end to the other, and you'd go through several vistas that were set up...little towns, parks, etc. The detail was amazing.

I liked the radio museum that they had as well. Old radios were on display, along with the dates that they came out... lots of early 20th century stuff.

Another thing we liked was the butterfly observatory. An indoor room with a garden setting and butterflies of all kinds were just flying around in there. The room was climate controlled (warm).

Just a whole lot of neat stuff to do there... and there were carnival-like arcades too... you could play skee-ball and a lot of other games.

We first went there in the early 90s, and got annual passes for several years. We would try to go at least 4x a year, because they'd change things around during each season.

They quality started to go downhill in the late 90s, and we stopped going for a while... every now and then we'd go back to see if things had improved, and then they opened a water park next to it with amusement park rides and stuff.

Quite a number of movies were shot at the park over the years, Ester Williams did a number of films and TV specials from Cypress Gardens.

Cypress Gardens opened in 1936. And closed down in 2009 (along with the water park next to it). The 9/11 attacks were not good for business either.

wiki entry for Cypress Gardens, with photos

We were very sorry to see this one go.

[Retro4Life]

Originally Posted by comedyfreak

As a little kid I remember Santa's Village it was along highway 17 on the way to Santa Cruz. All rides were for kids and were winter themed. It closed probably in the early 70's.

When I was about 7 years old, I went to a Santa's Village in Dundee, Illinois, near where one of my uncles (now deceased) lived.

It was a wonderful time for a kid that age, full of rides and games and food and fun. I looked it up and it seems to have closed in 2006. But from 1959 to 2006 is a pretty good run for a theme park!

[MrCleveland]

Living in Cleveland...we had the most talked about Theme Park that was around from 1895-1969 and it was Euclid Beach!

I was never around when it was up, but located by Lake Shore Boulevard, many Clevelanders would come and have a relaxing day at Euclid Beach. Swim in its waters, play at the carnival, dance in the ballroom, it was nothing like it.

But since the neighborhood that it was located in got hit by urban blight...Euclid Beach lost many of its people and in 1969...it had its final summer. Today, its condos but the entrance is still there.