Before the 1964/65 World's Fair could be built on it's site and duplicate it's inability to make money, the 1939/1940 World's Fair occurred. One of the most fondly remembered Expos in American/World History, the fair took place at a time of grave danger for many participating nations, with some being occupied during it's run or being kicked out due to their activities during the two seasons it ran in Flushing Meadows, Queens, NYC. This photo book expressly tells you as you read the introduction that it will not have any pictures of the amusement zone, as the world needs no additional pictures of roller coasters and carnivals. Au contraire, mon ami. Meanwhile, my copy of "Highbrow Lowbrow", freshly handed to me, sits in the pile of books to be read. Almost like I'm suggesting it could wind up here. You do, however, get photos of many international pavillions, show spaces, and of course the large corporate pavilions as well. DO I WANT THS?
How Does It Read?: It's a photo book. You can be illiterate and still get something out of this. Will I Learn Anything?: Always the big question with these - for me, I hadn't really thought of or even knew much about the 1939 Futurama ride at the GM Pavilion, and now I know it was basically an omnimover before there was an omnimover. Fair enough. Some of the other pavilions also featured "rides" of sorts, like the Ford pavilion where cars were driven around a short course. Also I frankly knew little of how many pavilions closed up shop or were replaced during the run of the fair and how some of that tied into the burgeoning World War 2. Did You Take Anything Away From This?: Optimism is great, but without any degree of practicality or realism, ultimately meaningless. Fascist Italy was allowed to keep their grand pavilion as their allies stormed Eastern Europe and they themselves began to enter quagmires in Africa and the Yugoslavic republics. Doesn't seem to have stopped them from rethinking their greatness.
Finally! Light reading and lots of pictures - the sorts of coffee table books this hobby is known for and ones for which I can tear through the contents in about a day or two.
This book was produced by the National Geographic Society in 1997, and my copy was acquired through a name you'll come to see frequently here in this feature: John K. King Books, the largest used book seller in Michigan and among the largest in the world. The former glove factory contains a reputed million books, which is entirely believable given the size and sheer volume of items inside. I go roughly 3-4 times a year on average, and I almost always bring back a variety of rarities and common books. This trends more to the common end.
Going back to the 1970s, the next book reviewed is Gary Kyriazi’s tome, “The Great American Amusement Parks.” The 1970s were really the first period which sees multiple books on the industry published, and Kyriazi’s is an example of a book that isn’t particularly heavy on text. If you’ve read the first couple primers I’ve brought up in prior reviews, you know most of the background information that Kyriazi is going to reveal already. Anyways, Citadel Press put this book out in 1978, and it is nice and chunky, filled with glossy black and white shots of rides from bygone eras.
I opened the blog up with a review of the first history told of the Amusement industry from William Mangels, and this, the second review, is essentially of the spiritual successor. Released in 1991, Adams book is still the closest thing we have to a contemporary analysis of the industry over 20 years onward. The timing of her book was fortuitous: arriving at the death of many traditional parks and at the point in which the regional themers were becoming entrenched and maturing, she writes of an industry much different from that seen in the 50s. Also, because her book is more recent, it is easier to point out flaws or inconsistencies, something that Mangels’ text and its near biblical importance to future researchers doesn’t have.
Adams’ preface describes the book’s three most formative themes: the importance of the 1893 Columbian Expo in Chicago, the reliance on the “future utopian” ideal, and the effect of societal change on the industry. Theme one and two are effectively tied at the hip given the “White City” of the Columbian Expo. The third part, while it is touched on at times, does not get to heavily leaned on. If anything, Adams is more open to looking at social critique rather than change either enacted by or affecting amusements.
In Part One, we detailed what the regional theme park industry was and how it got started. In Part Two, we look at the development of the business to the present day to see how companies evolved, grew, and shrunk. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the 1990s, regional park consolidation had created four significant players; Time Warner's Six Flags, Paramount Parks, Anheuser Busch, and lowly Cedar Fair. Six Flags was bought and sold multiple times at this point, being a subsidiary of Bally's and Penn Central at various points. Time Warner saw the potential in using the theme park chain to promote their IPs and made a steal of the chain, acquiring it in full by 1993 and investing heavily into the facilities with real success. Paramount had wound up with Taft Broadcasting's parks after the company was the target of a hostile takeover from, what else, a guy with no actual entertainment experience but plenty in the realm of convenience stores (he ran it into the ground and lost $560 million in the process). Paramount similarly saw the same opportunity Walt had to promote offerings in the 1950s drop into their laps across a multitude of markets. AB hadn't really planned on running a theme park empire, but when HBJ Inc. sold them the SeaWorld chain in 1989, they had some of the most beloved facilities in the country. And then there was Cedar Fair: they were the little guys. Dick Kinzel was a mere popcorn salesman when he started there in the 1970s, and he rose through the ranks to CEO, masterminding the takeovers of Worlds of Fun (70s themer) and Dorney Park (traditional amusement park).
There were still, however, a number of smaller operators throughout the United States. While most major markets had been consumed, a number of smaller or developing markets were still run outside the chains: Denver, Buffalo, Seattle, and Boston, just to name a few. As the 80s and 90s progressed, real estate development had driven the cost of real estate in these markets higher, while skilled unionized labor to build the parks had equally kept creeping up. There were no great changes to make acquisition and construction more efficient than it had been in the 50s; there still aren't any either. New construction was largely impractical, and when it was being attempted, was failing even harder than it had in the 70s. Alfa Smartparks development of Jazzland and Visionland was a total flop. Only Elitch Gardens, which had been given land by the city of Denver and a package of incentives to relocate downtown, built a "new" park, even then mostly with used rides from their prior location. There were opportunities there for someone with deep pockets.
Gary Story was a theme park lifer who wound up in charge of a small facility in Oklahoma known as Frontier City. He wasn't intended to run it forever; just long enough to get through a season before it could be sold off and dismantled for residential real estate. Instead, he managed to balloon attendance. The owners, a company called Tierco, was primarily in the oil business, but Story's unexpected success opened their minds to the potential in theme parks. Behind Story and a young Harvard Law grad named Kieran Burke, Tierco changed names to Premier Parks and decided to make a go of the thing themselves. Their strategy for expansion was bold: acquire parks, make significant upgrades to the facilities, watch money roll in. In 1995, Premier made its first big move, acquiring Funtime Parks Inc. and with it four parks with "Lake" in the name: Geauga, Compounce, Wyandot, and Darien. Not much is remembered about Funtime, but they had been birthed of ex-Cedar Point management and investors, and had brought such innovations as season pass acceptance across a chain to the US theme park industry. With Premier's purchase of Funtime, they immediately became a real player. But this was only a prelude of things to come.
In 1996 and 1997, Premier Parks spread like wildfire, assuming debt in return for purchases of Riverside Park, Marine World, Kentucky Kingdom, Great Escape, Waterworld USA, and Elitch Gardens. In three years, Premier Parks had grown into the second largest regional park operator behind only Six Flags. Burke and Story's plans had been working too - capital investment continuously resulted in double digit attendance growth. Return on investment for new attractions went from half a decade to just a single season. Looking for a park that could be a centerpiece for their growing empire, Story and Burke approached Time Warner with the possibility of taking over operations of Six Flags over Texas in 1997 and buying into its independent ownership group. At some point, the question came up: "What if we wanted the whole chain?" On April 1, 1998, David bought Goliath, and Premier Parks became the undisputed king of the regional theme park world. The expansion continued on into 2002, with the acquisition of Europe's Walibi Parks chain, Jazzland, Wild Waves in Washington, La Ronde in Montreal, Fiesta Texas, SeaWorld Ohio, and Mexico City's Reino Aventura.
Capital expenditure came hot and heavy at their new parks; Geauga Lake alone was subject to well over $100 million dollars of investment overall between 1999 and 2002. And in the short term, things looked great: Geauga's attendance in 2000 was up 42% year over year. Creating debt is not necessarily an issue if one knows that they can pay it off - think of the average mortgage, for example. But repaying the loans quickly became an issue for Story and Burke, as attendance plateaued in 2001 and began to falter in 2002. By 2003, attendance chain wide was in free fall. The huge initial gains driven by the ride construction proved incapable of retaining guests. But why?
General orthodoxy in the theme park world is that Six Flags' rapid decline was the result not of poor attraction choices, but perhaps of too many and too soon. Revolutionizing the industry to create a new fleet of super parks required far too many managers, maintenance crews, and operations staff with experience, as well as too many new front line employees too quickly for the chain's human resources and recruiting departments to possibly catch up. Six Flags Great Adventure's 1999 expansion was called "The War on Lines," featuring twenty-seven new rides. Without proper staff to run or maintain them, rides like the Evolution sometimes went literally years between days of operation. Today, 14 of the 27 rides remain at the park, with most of the adult attractions having been removed and the kiddie rides being shuffled around and re-skinned multiple times.
The events at Great Adventure were not a unique occurrence: Six Flags Magic Mountain's 2001 headliner X never opened that year. Six Flags Ohio opened 4 roller coasters for the 2000 season, but found the park largely incapable of operating more than one train on their coasters at any given time while their attendance crested 2 million. Physical infrastructure also had not been upgraded to deal with the crowds: bathroom and water fountains were either not built to accommodate the throngs or outright removed as part of expansion efforts. Six Flags America to this day suffers from a lack of bathroom or food facilities in half the park as the Premier regime simply never considered it important to run plumbing back to its most popular attractions and themed areas. The volume of work done also meant much of it was unfinished at opening: one trip report on rec.roller-coaster speaking on Six Flags America's opening day stated the blacktop sidewalks caught fire due to not properly curing.
A perfect storm was brewing for Six Flags; meanwhile, Viacom was in the mood to split itself up and send a new IPO into the world (CBS Corporation). As part of the restructuring, lots of non-core assets had to get shuttled off to make way for revenue that would please the shareholders holding onto Viacom stock. Paramount's theme parks were just such a asset. The only problem for Viacom is that they were selling the asset into a buyer's market. Six Flags divested itself first of its European parks, followed by its Ohio properties in early 2004 to Cedar Fair to raise cash for debt service, taking a huge loss in the process. They were in no position whatsoever to make the acquisition of a successful park brand, and had eliminated most of the other market players during their rise. Anheuser-Busch was out there, but to call AB poorly run in 2004/2005 would be a vast understatement, and they passed. Private capital aside (Blackstone owned controlling interest in Universal Orlando meant they were busy; Apollo and Vanguard seemingly passed the opportunity up), there was just one other player available. Cedar Fair had somehow managed itself competently enough to have a reasonable debt load and a fine history of operating amusement and theme parks. Competent enough that they could borrow the $1.25 billion dollars necessary.
America's Great Recession only worsened things for Six Flags, shuttering Astroworld for a cash infusion and seeing a shareholder revolt as a result. Mark Shapiro came in to run the company on behalf of Washington Racial Slurs owner Dan Snyder, and attempted to perform a family friendly facelift on Six Flags. To fund this, Shapiro ditched many of its smaller market parks to rot (Kentucky Kingdom, New Orleans) or private capital (the properties like Darien Lake which wound up with CNL), and sought to reinforce their largest key markets with more extensively themed attractions. The gambit bore some fruit: per capita spending increased, but attendance continued to stay static or drop, with new attractions built often not meeting the expectations of the general public. Six Flags' Dark Knight indoor mouse coasters were a prime example of this - the ride's preshow elements and theming were some of the best attempted by the chain in over a decade, but the ride itself (a production model Mack mouse housed indoors) didn't meet the expectations of those waiting long periods of time.
In 2009, Six Flags filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That same year, Cedar Fair announced plans after multiple years of poor stock performance to be acquired by Apollo Management. InBev had taken over in St. Louis and divested of the Busch parks to pay back the debt to Blackstone; Blackstone's intent was to spin the parks off into public offering and fill the new corporation with debt. Kennywood Corporation too, a proud family business, was consumed by foreign money as it was integrated into Parque Reunidos' Palace Entertainment arm in 2007. The period between 1997 and 2001 had become known in enthusiast circles as "The Coaster Wars"; now clearly over, it seemed that no one had really won.
Quietly during 2007, Herschend Family Entertainment began to make a series of acquisition. First was Wild Adventures in Valdosta, GA, a theme park which opened in the 1990s and never found its legs in spite of expanding quickly to have ten roller coasters and safari attraction. They also purchased two large aquariums in the Cincinnati and Philadelphia metro areas. Herschend had been steadily increasing their overall portfolio for some time, building water parks to complement their theme parks in Branson and Pigeon Forge while eliminating their competition in Branson via acquisition and closure. Expansions became much more aggressive with bigger themed areas, intellectual property rights, and the kind of large roller coasters the chain had never before built. Their success was such that many of the temporary entrants in the industry sought their assistance: CNL placed many of their parks under their management during the late 2000s.
Another recent entrant to the North American market was Merlin Entertainments; in fairness, they're recent to exist. Merlin was a small time player until Blackstone acquired them in 2005 and ramped up investment, merging a number of European companies into them. LEGO's theme park division was one of these acquisitions, and Merlin began its movement into the US market first in California at the existing Legoland park, followed by the acquisition of Cypress Gardens and its rebranding to the nation's second such facility in 2011. Merlin had other ideas though beyond just building big new theme parks: expanding existing brands like The Dungeon and Madame Tussauds was certainly one, but they went back to the idea of an arcade-amusement facility hybrid experimented with since the 1970s under the LEGO branding. 12 Legoland Discovery Centers have popped up in retail areas around the US and Canada, each offering things like 4D cinemas and trackless dark rides.
The early part of the 2010s saw an economic recovery, and with it a new clarity in the theme park landscape. Cedar Fair's leadership was changed and the shareholders retained control, successfully managing to prevent Apollo from taking over. Six Flags emerged from bankruptcy with some adjusted strategies and much, much less debt. Others were on shakier foundations: SeaWorld was healthy and turning fine profits until the emergence of the film Blackfish, and began to make appeals for foreign investment that led to Chinese minority ownership in 2017. Hard Rock Park came and went. Parque Reunidos was traded between private equity firms, as were most of the CNL Lifestyle Properties.
Experimentation over the lean years had led to the return of some old ideas and the institution of some new ones. In the early 20th century, rides were frequently rethemed or added on to in order to create budget conscious new attractions annually. Six Flags' gamble with a thorough redevelopment of the Texas Giant at it's Arlington, TX park brought Rocky Mountain Coasters to the forefront of innovation in the industry, but also proved that a significant re-imagining of a ride beyond a mere name change or re-theme could seriously improve attendance and pass sales. Lodging was renovated (Hotel Breakers at Cedar Point) or constructed (Great Escape in NY, Lake Compounce in CT). Seasonal parks, starting with Herschend and Six Flags Over Texas, expanded their seasons from summer operation to many running March or April to New Years. Virtually all have also followed the "festival" blueprint of EPCOT and SeaWorld as well to increase return visitation. Dark rides have started to find their way back in with Sally's Justice League and Triotech's Iron Reef and Wonder Mountain attractions, and extended seasons may further push the need for more indoor attractions yet such as flying theaters.
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In Part Three, we look at the "who" of the industry with the major and minor players, operators, owners, and more.
Here on Parkscope and across the Orlando/Cali-centric theme park internet spaces, most pieces revolve around the existence of the two primary chains (Universal and Disney) and their year round operating facilities. There's good reason for this economically: They are the highest performing parks in the World, have huge customer bases who grit their teeth for any announcement, no matter how small, and thus generate ad income, views, replies, and all the usual things necessary to motivate individuals to keep working on writing pieces about them. The market, has, ostensibly, spoken.
What isn't so well understood is the regional amusement/theme park operations in the United States. That's not to say that there isn't knowledge about it out there. There are a lot of people who know that the primary players are Herschend, Cedar Fair, Six Flags, SeaWorld, and Palace Entertainment. But how did those become the primary figures? Why are the parks the way they are? You know, centered around roller coasters instead of big dark rides? Why aren't there more parks being built? This series will attempt to inform you as best we can.
First off, let's make something perfectly clear: the regional theme park scene is an evolution of the regional amusement park scene. In many cases, these parks which were born out of the trolley parks of the late 19th century. Cedar Point, Lake Compounce, Six Flags New England, the deceased Geauga Lake, and Kennywood were literally these sorts of facilities. Kings Island, Elitch Gardens, and Adventureland in Iowa, meanwhile, are more spiritual descendants who are the result of their traditionalist fore bearer being consumed and eliminated. However, that these parks are regional in scope rather than national is not entirely what was desired by their creators. And that is an extremely important part of the story around which everything else rotates.
The basic summary of the genesis of the theme park industry that you'll read almost anywhere is that after the success of Disneyland, several attempts at copying came and went rather quickly. Freedomland is generally a prime example. Depending on the narrative being pushed, either everyone else ever failed from that point because none of them had the success of Eisner-era Disney's growth, or there was an explosion of parks and the story basically ends there because no one saw through the maturation and consolidation periods of the industry in written form. The parks we recognize today as being Six Flags' properties consist of three purpose built Six Flags facilities under the vision of the Wynne Family (Over Texas, Over Georgia, St. Louis), who also has significant financial interest in two of them. Cedar Fair has never constructed a new gate, buying and selling parks over the years beginning with the acquisition of Valleyfair in 1978. Those two operators, in spite of only being responsible for actually producing 4 parks into existence, represent the present operations of 25 "dry" parks with 20 separate founding groups. Add in the parks they've shuttered in the last 15 years (Astroworld, Geauga, New Orleans), and all three of those were constructed by 3 more entirely separate founding groups. If that wasn't enough, Six Flags can claim 4 more branches on their family tree thanks to their water park division.
2 operators. 27 different founders for their parks. How did this happen?
To answer this, we need to go back in time to the boom. 15 of the 25 dry parks owned by Six Flags and Cedar Fair were constructed between 1961 and 1975. 11 of those opened between the years of 1971 and 1976. This is a period of growth in the theme park industry we will simply never see again representing a paradigm shift of amusements away from urban cores to suburbia along with the white people fleeing the inner cities. The idea of following these crowds was, of course, part of the attraction - parks sought to be built near large shopping and residential developments and with excellent access to interstates, but with enough mass as to make them effectively impossible to NIMBY from noise complaints and the like. And virtually every one of these parks was built with the promise of becoming the new Disneyland with Disneyland like attendance and effects to the local economy.
The problem is, of course, that none of these parks were as successful. Disneyland had an incredibly prime location near Los Angeles, guaranteeing it great weather for much of the year. Most parks built in this era didn't have that benefit. Many of those which did have good weather - Busch Gardens California and Texas, for example, or Marco Polo Park near Jacksonville, FL - found their real estate being more valuable for other developments, and they closed up in short order. Most parks were in areas with strong winters, making them seasonal propositions who are deeply challenged at attaining enough revenue in a limited season.
These parks didn't necessarily fail because they lacked intellectual properties that were recognizable to the public or because they lacked innovative and themed attractions either. Most featured large indoor rides or walk through attractions which were actually quite impressive for the time, and the likes of Hanna Barbera and Looney Tunes were regularly licensed for use at these facilities. KECO, the developers of Kings Island, Kings Dominion, and Canada's Wonderland, was in fact a branch of the media company Taft Communications, who used the parks to promote programs appearing on their slates of networks as well as leveraging their position to gain promotion via television productions. The Brady Bunch famously nearly died on Kings Islands' Racer while filming an episode at the park. The parks weren't bad, and they weren't "glorified carnivals". They generally had a theme or series of them and stuck to them. They ranged from Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days (Worlds of Fun, Kansas City), the Li'l Abner comic strip (Dogpatch USA), to, well, America (Great America in California and Illinois).
The simple reality is that most of the parks were developed by businessmen who simply didn't understand the theme park industry. The costs of development were as high or higher due to the inflated valuation of land acquisition and labor costs compared to places like Central Florida, making the parks equally or more expensive to develop initially and costly to maintain in their opening state in perpetuity. The sheer volume of cash burn in the theme park industry, something that was well outside the knowledge base of many institutional investors with real estate or entertainment backgrounds who entered the space, drove many an aspiring operator who hadn't outright failed at turning an initial profit off: Marriott (Great America) and Harcourt (SeaWorld) are probably the most well known examples of such corporations. Other park operators (Carowinds, for example) simply came nowhere near to the marks suggested because of a combination of poor attraction choices, wrong/still developing market, or poor timing (The OPEC Oil Crises of 1973 and 1979 also overlaps this time period).
Spending untold sums of money for upkeep on legacy attractions while locals demanded constant updates was a serious concern and challenge for the new themers. While Disney had made its name with family friendly indoor attractions like the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, early attempts at copying that success for the regional operators simply hadn't panned out. What was panning out was the roller coaster, and it was a mighty fine time to start investing in those. Arrow's development of tubular steel track in 1959 directly led to a number of huge innovations in coaster design. While Disney was afraid to install large thrill rides, regional parks looked at the cost/benefit ratio and realized that building inverting roller coasters was the only rational path for them. They had already generally buried their traditional park competition at this point, and the markets demanded that the thrill ride space be filled. And it was: New and Huge won the day, with Dinn/Summers and RCCA constructing massive wood coasters and Arrow and Vekoma building enormous twisted steel creations. Mind you, most of it sucked, but was huge and drew.
In Part Two, we get into the "How?" - The rise and fall of Six Flags, the ascendancy of Cedar Fair, private capital ruining everything, and some guys with a cave.
In the mid-20th Century, the state of Nevada began to move towards a different kind of society than its neighbors in California or Utah. With mineral resources, little water, and harsh terrain, it was our nation's least populated state. To counter act this and encourage development, Nevada chose not virtue, but vice. Counties could license legal prostitution and the state welcomed casinos. When Castro overthrew the Cuban government, Vegas became the de facto replacement, with money pouring in to build increasingly large and ostentatious hotel resorts, and Reno soon after being developed in a similar manner.
By the 1980s, themed resorts were the craze in the state. When talking about "known" amusement entities in Nevada, we're talking primarily about the big Vegas casinos constructed during that era. Among the rides and attractions still open after the maturation and consolidation period of the early 2010s:
-Circus Circus Las Vegas and the Adventuredome is still the primary home for families visiting The Strip, with a large indoor theme park and multiple roller coasters.
-New York, New York is home to the Big Apple Coaster, previously known as the Manhattan Express. This 200 foot-plus Togo coaster is the largest attraction the Japanese manufacturer had built in the United States before their US operations were taken over by with Premier.
-Stratosphere's High Roller Coaster is gone, but the Big Shot S&S Tower attraction and a pair of flat rides still operate on the side of the 1,000 foot plus tower. The Big Shot is perhaps the most iconic ride ever built by S&S.
-Buffalo Bill's in Primm, just over the stateline from California, has the huge Arrow hyper coaster Desperado, as well as a motion theater and a log flume. The S&S Turbo Drop located here has not run in well over a decade.
There were many more to potentially mention: Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, Race For Atlantis at Caesar's Palace, Speed: The Ride at Sahara, and MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park. There's also the rides that were designed and never went up: one old tale is that Custom Coaster International had a 8,000 foot long wood coaster to run along the mountains in Primm at Whiskey Pete's. After Desperado failed to make the kind of impact hoped, the idea was scrapped.
Another thing that was scrapped was Wet N' Wild's location on the strip south of Sahara. After closing the region went without a proper water park for many years until two opened in a span of mere months. The new Wet 'n' Wild is a subsidiary of Village Roadshow, the group responsible for the nearly identically named-but-different Wet 'N' Wild Australia parks, and not the George Millay run chain that started in Orlando. Along with them is Cowabunga Bay, operated by Shane Huish, a long time theme park enthusiast who's old Youtube channel is filled with all sorts of classic and rare park content. The two water parks feature all the kinds of super modern water slides that the major manufacturers can bring to bear. Should you be up north, Sparks' has Wild Island for the Reno area residents.
This is not a surprise to tell anyone, but Nevada is generally hot. Really hot. During the summer, temperatures soar well over 110 and stay there for months. When things are this hot, outdoor attractions are not well received. Indoor ones get a lot more play, and nothing gets more play than arcades. Vegas has two enormous ones on the strip at Excalibur Hotel & Casino (Fantasy Fair) and Gameworks north of MGM Grand. Off strip on Flamingo Blvd. is the Pinball Hall of Fame, operated by the man who once was in charge of the Pinball Pete's arcade empire across the upper midwest's college towns. Well over 100 games are playable here, including some of the rarest in existence. Reno, like in most instances, tries to keep up with the Jones', but in a low rent way. The Boomtown Casino has a sizeable arcade with some small amusement rides, and Circus Circus Reno has been renovated to join their carnival games and circus acts together for additional synergy.
Reno does have some advantages over Vegas, most namely that its northerly and mountainous location makes it cooler in summer and better for outdoors fun. Whitney Peak Hotel opened as the Fitzgerald's, but when gambling revenue cratered and the parent of the Fitz went under, it went to auction and emerged as a rock climbing/adventure themed hotel. Most notable is that one entire exterior wall of this 16 story building has been turned into a massive climbing wall for its guests. Grand Adventure Land in the Grand Sierra Hotel & Casino (the former MGM Grand/Bally's) has a small attraction park of its own with mini golf, go karts, and a Skycoaster.
Riverside Park was my first regional amusement park experience. All my memories and writings pitch my first visit in 1992; my family and I went to see a tertiary family member race his Street Stock at the speedway there and go on some rides. I was mortified of them. Unlike the rides I was familiar with at Disney World (and often afraid of then too), these felt more mechanical and menacing. I was horrified riding the Thunderbolt, so much so I didn't ride the Cyclone until a trip much later in 1996 when I had become interested in being a coaster geek.
By the time I was a regular poster on rec.roller-coaster in 2000, Riverside was almost unrecognizable. The park of the early-mid 90s had been a punching bag online, I'd discover, with the most polarizing roller coaster possibly of my lifetime. It was incredibly weird: there was a Skyride acquired from Coney Island's Astroworld with globe shaped cars. There was a monorail to nowhere. There were several increasingly rare flat rides like the Huss Tri-Star and a Bayern Kurve which I either loved or were too small to ever ride before they were gone. There was a pathetically short prototype log flume, a gigantic ferris wheel, and an Arrow Shuttle Loop that would become my first inverting coaster and often a talk of many a middle school exhortation of bravery. There was even that weird, archaic 1/4 paved race track where legendary local racers went wheel-to-wheel every week in their modifieds (New England racers didn't run dirt late models or sprints. We do pavement and we did big ass modifeds.) And by 2000, almost everything I named and more was all gone. All of it. Even the name "Riverside Park" and its mascot (Ricky The Raccoon) were no more. And by the next year, that polarizing coaster (the Riverside Cyclone) was a shadow of its former self.
Six Flags New England occupies the same space as Riverside Park and much of the same infrastructure, but is different in many fundamental ways. It is better run than Riverside was: to this day, it is the only park where Six Flags' lax attention to detail and capacity were still grand improvements over the preposterous cheapness of Ed Carroll. Policies about assigned seating on rides disappeared and coasters ran more than one train. The park's season was quickly expanded to include Halloween events and start in mid-April. And it got rides. Big rides. The entire race track space became a Super Hero Island-esque section themed to DC with Superman: Ride of Steel being the anchor. A wild west section anchored by a Vekoma Mad House called "Houdini - The Great Escape" was developed, and eventually the park was pushed out into the old parking lot for expansion and the development of a water park. The person I married wound up working there for a season as her final work experience credit for college. Six Flags New England isn't an unknown facility, but its one I have many a feeling about and how it relates to me even writing about the hobby here or anywhere else.
Had I been a little older and been in New England a little longer, I'd have more to tell you about when it comes to the historic amusements in the state. Both Lincoln Park and Mountain Park closed after the 1987 season: I never saw either in any state, though the best man at my wedding can attest to having nearly died climbing the lift hill of the old Lincoln Park Comet 13-14 years after the park shuttered. Pirate's Fun Park in Salisbury was somewhere I could have gone, but never did because I didn't understand why I'd need to travel 2 1/2 hours for a kiddie coaster. By the time I found out about the dark ride and scraped together the money, it was gone.
I can tell you about one park though that closed in recent times: Whalom. I didn't go until 1999, but I met a good number of people there, one of which has been a friend of mine for nearly 20 years. I was one of the last people to ever enter their Fun House. I was at opening day in 2000, and would see the park deteriorate throughout the year the sale of the carousel, and increasing rumors of its demise. I was on the next to last public train on the Flyer Comet: my mom was actually on the one after. We saw the train went around one more time after that, and then it went silent. I wouldn't end up on the grounds again until a brief break from the action at a heavy metal festival in 2005 when my buddy Will and I toured what was left. The Satellite, bought from the legendary Palisades Park, had been torn to bits and was strewn about. The Flyer Comet had partially burned. Roofs had caved in. The bumper cars look like they had been hit by scrappers. There's condos there now. When Whalom's doors closed, the Twin Towers will still standing. It was actually about the halfway point in my lifespan up to now. That's somewhat terrifying to me.
In 1984, another traditional park closed in Massachusetts. Paragon Park in Hull sat along Nantasket Beach and was the quintessential shore park. There was a huge wood coaster (Giant Coaster), since relocated to Six Flags America in Maryland, a dark ride, multiple flats and kiddie rides, an early flume attraction (Bermuda Triangle), carousel, and more. 1984 is a year that claimed a huge number of parks in the United States as a result of the liability insurance crisis that year. Deregulation in the insurance industry seems to have led to a situation in which the cost of liability insurance suddenly skyrocketed, often in excess of 300%. For small parks on the cusp of profitability, this massive expense buried many. After Paragon closed, the community rushed to try and recoup some of the loss, purchasing and now operating the carousel on the old park grounds. A Fascination parlor also operated in Hull up until 2014-2015, but seems to have quietly closed. A Dream Machine arcade does still operate, however. Speaking of archaic reminders of amusements past, Joe's Playland and a nearby go-kart facility are the only remaining amusement businesses in the once exciting Salisbury Beach.
Any discussion of themed attractions in Massachusetts shouldn't happen without Old Sturbridge Village. While well known in the region, its national recognition isn't nearly at the same level. It's an open air museum intending to convey life in 1830s Puritannical New England. Lots of people in period costumes, lots of old buildings, lots of craftsmen. OSV is a classic middle school field trip destination for anyone living within 3 hours of it.
More straight up amusement oriented are a pair of exceptional carousels. The island of Martha's Vineyard is a decent length ferry ride from the coast, but it is home to the nation's oldest platform carousel, dating to the 1880s. There's also the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round, which like the machine in Hull, is a PTC Carousel saved from the local defunct traditional park (Mountain Park). It's considered an exceptionally well carved carousel, but also represents a great example of civic pride and resident's organization and determination to keep something great.
Western Massachusetts is like some weird off-brand Vermont. Or a colder Kentucky. Culturally it is as different from Boston as Orlando, Florida is from Guadalajara. It is often very lovely, but also filled with towns no one has heard of or remember exists half the time with such a heavy lean in state politics to Boston and the surrounding area. There are two ski resorts with summer activities here worth mentioning: Berkshire East has a mountain coaster and a canopy trail, while Jiminy Peak has a much more substantive collection. In addition to their mountain coaster, there's a Soaring Eagle zipline (S&S founder Stan Checketts current product), alpine slides, scenic chairlift rides, and the totally bizarre "Giant Swing". That last item seats four, restrains with OTSRs, and basically runs off pure gravity after pulling riders to a release point and cutting them (like a Skycoaster). I've never seen another.
The lone city of commercial value in Western Mass, Springfield, is also home to the Eastern States Exposition (Big E), which features pavilions dedicated to each individual state and their commercial/agricultural products, as well as rides from North American Midway Entertainment. With well over a million visitors annually and as it acts as a de facto state fair for nearly all the states of New England, it isn't terribly unknown or hidden. Closer to that definition, but still substantial events, would be the large fairs in Brockton and Topsfield. Brockton is the largest Reithoffer sourced carnival in the region, while Topsfield is one of Fiesta Shows' biggest gigs.
Edaville Family Theme Park has changed names multiple times in recent years. I always knew it as Edaville Railroad, but it later became Edaville USA, then Edaville Family Amusement Park. What is now known as Edaville is actually a fairly new development: the original "park" - a scenic rail ride - went bust way back in 1992. After several abortive attempts to restart the business, the park as we know it now obtained the Thomas the Tank Engine license and reopened in 2013. There's now two operating coasters on site, with the intent of getting the wacky Kersplash Water Coaster (a one-off Miler contraption originally installed at the Washington State Fairgrounds) running in 2017, but also several family attractions, train rides, and even a scenic monorail.
There is another train attraction of the miniature variety worth mentioning: Waushakum Live Steamers have a couple of public events a year in which individuals can ride some of their larger gauge trains. Their annual meet seems to take place on the last weekend of August.
Discussing scare attractions in Massachusetts used to begin and effectively end with "Spooky World", then based in Foxboro. Now that they've relocated to New Hampshire, the Salem Wax Museum and their array of scares is easily the top dog. Yes, it's that Salem, the one infamous for witch burnings and general nonsense back in the 1700s. Rebranding themselves as a tourist destination with that in mind, there's ghouls and witch talk a-plenty, especially around October 31.
Universal Studios has pushed hard in recent months the specific nomenclature of "Water Theme Park" for the upcoming Volcano Bay. This has, in turn, led to much discourse on social media about the term, what it means, and whether or not it is even a thing that exists. Those against the term suggest that no water park meets the criteria of Disneyland with having multiple themes, and thus it is not an actual thing. Proponents often point out that having multiple themes is not a requirement for a theme park: merely that there is a theme at all is sufficient. While these ultimately very important battles rage on outside the realms of public understanding or care, the reality is that this discussion could have easily taken place and been concluded eons ago. There is an "immersive" water park outside the Disney bubble already in the hemisphere to visit. In fact, it is relatively easy to go to using one of Disney's own methods of cash extraction: cruise ships.
Before I review my experience there, I think it would be good to explain the history behind Atlantis Paradise Island and how it came to be that the present-day most expensive water park in the world exists on a tax haven off the coast of Florida. Why? Well, it's actually kinda interesting. A lot more so than the story of the guy who's orange groves Universal and Disney bought out.
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(Sir Harold Christie)
In 1922, Harold Christie had set up H.G Christie, a real estate firm in Nassau, Bahamas. A lifelong resident, Christie reportedly grew up impoverished [1], but went about selling real estate to non-residents and came to the conclusion that by asking his commission be paid in land rather than money, he would be able to amass a fortune in holdings. Christie recognized somewhat early on that the Bahamas had some key aspects which made it highly appealing: it was a tax haven while still part of the British Empire. There was and is no capital gains tax, inheritance tax, personal income tax, or gift tax on the island chain. It also had geographic proximity to the US which made it an appealing stop for tourists. Christie used these to his advantage, pushing the Bahamas into the global consciousness and associating it with fun and sun. For this, he was rewarded with knighthood.
One of the parcels of land he would come to sell was a significant island near to the capital of Nassau. Hog Island, as it was known then, first appears in historical record in - what else? - litigation. Thirty-two acres of the island had been owned by an individual named John A. Burrows, and upon his death in 1913, it was to be divided amongst children and grandchildren per his will [2]. This section of land was first sold to a non-resident in the 1930s, and became the holiday estate of Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren. Wenner-Gren had an illustrious career, patenting vacuum cleaners and becoming the owner of Electrolux, To theme park fans, he's most well known for the company that was based on his initials: ALWEG. Yes, this is the guy who's company built the original Disneyland Monorail.
(Huntington Hartford)
Wenner-Gren received an offer in 1959 to buy the land from another insanely rich individual, Huntington Hartford. Mr. Hartford was the heir to the riches of A&P Supermarkets and rather than operate the company, chose to sell it and invest in minor things like oil shale. As you might expect, he was among the richest men in the world, and could do things like buy an island in the Bahamas, construct a golf course on it, and have consensus top ten all time golfer Gary Player be the course's pro. Rich as he was, that he was an inheritor and not a great businessman himself is illustrated by the actual acquisition of the land. The terms of the sale were drawn up on the back of a dinner menu and signed by the parties. However it was later determined that the menu contract lacked sufficient information and terms, and was ruled null and void. Hartford and his lawyer were forced to re-negotiate the price.
(Britannia Beach Hotel, now colored pink and named the Coral Towers)
Together with an expat by the name of James Crosby, Hog Island became Paradise Island under Hartford's ownership. Crosby's company, the Mary Carter Paint Company gobbled up 75 of the island's territory in 1966, and construction began on the first tower, completed in 1968. By this point, the company was leaving the paint business and entering real estate, leading to the renaming to Resorts International and with it, a push for casino gaming. The casino business was not entirely a new discussion in The Bahamas; it was actually Sir Harold Christie who had first heard the pitch way back in the 1940s. In that case, the pitch came not from businessmen, but from Lucky Luciano. It has been theorized that the non-committal of the Bahamanians to the idea of the casino contributed or directly led to the murder of gold magnate Sir Harry Oakes [3] in 1943.
Resorts International, while just as hooked on expansion of gaming as the mob (less as a method of laundering money, more because it was profitable) looked to convince the public by finding legitimate businessmen to promote its developments in places like Nassau and Atlantic City. Still, this was not a traditional hotelier, and legalized gambling was in its infancy in America. Most of the known people with high level of knowledge about operations of casinos were at tables themselves, in federal penitentiaries from RICO investigations, or dead following the Cuban revolution. Even while trying to show themselves to be entirely clean, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission managed to unearth evidence that Crosby had paid bribes to the country's Prime Minister in order to obtain the license held by the Bahamian Club. In order to fulfill the desires for the resort, that entire building was picked up and moved to Paradise Island, thus taking with it the license. The name is still attached to a restaurant that operates today in the conference center/Beach Tower complex.
(Atlantis Beach Tower in the Merv Griffin years)
Enter the future 45th president of the United States. In 1986, with costs mounting on the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, James Crosby died on a NYU Medical Center operating table at the age of 58, throwing Resorts International into total disarray. Donald Trump, another child of privilege (his dad was a real estate developer who once tried to pave Coney Island NY) entered a fierce bidding war to take over controlling share of Resorts International in the aftermath of Crosby's death. Unable to drum up external funding for completion of the Taj Mahal, Trump stated he would pay for it himself if he was given 100% ownership of the organization. [4] TV mogul Merv Griffin saw an opportunity as well, and exceeded Trump's bid by nearly 160%. Lawsuits followed, and when the smoke cleared, Merv Griffin owned Resorts International, and Donald Trump owned the Taj Mahal.
In a matter of months, Merv Griffin's new resort empire began to crumble. The purchase was financed with junk bonds and interest payments to investors stopped coming. 13 months after settling with Trump, Resorts International entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with bondholders ultimately assuming control of the company in exchange for debt forgiveness. Paradise Island was to be sold to drum up cash. At this point, the history of Atlantis includes a future US president, a Prime Minister, a mob boss, vacuums, Disney's monorails, fracking, and an all-time great golfer. The next sale of the resort couldn't be to a run-of-the-mill developer. That would be too boring. It had to be someone with panache. Someone with confidence. Someone with money. Someone who had protest songs written about his work.
Sol Kerzner made the decision in 1989 to buy Paradise Island out of bankruptcy and turn it into a shining light in the Caribbean. [5] Kerzner was not new to the idea of massive, themed, gambling & amusement resorts. He built one of the world's most famous in his home country in 1979. Kerzner was a Russian-Jewish immigrant to Johannesburg who, unlike every one else in this story up until now, actually grew up wanting to be in the hospitality business. He followed his family into management of hotels in South Africa and eventually proved to be the brightest and best of the bunch. Kerzner convinced South African Brewers (The SAB in modern day SABMiller) to go in on a whole hotel chain that he'd manage. Ultimately Kerzner constructed his crowning achievement: Sun City. With huge hotel towers, artificial lakes, a water park, casino, and arena, Sun City is renowned as one of the most gorgeous resorts in the world. And it was also segregated, just like all of South Africa at the time. As tremendous economic pressure was put on the apartheid government, "Sun City" became the theme to the world's frustration, featuring everyone from Joey Ramone, Afrika Bambatta, and Hall & Oates. Sun City, like the country it was in, fully integrated in 1994.
Kerzner saw the tremendous potential on Paradise Island and chose to buy it himself, developing an eponymous real estate company in the process [6]. From 1994 to 1998, the newly branded Atlantis became home to hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements, capping with the construction of the monumental Royal Tower, taking the somewhat dated and boxy 60s-style resort buildings and injecting the flair of Disneysea and Islands of Adventure into the resort. A $1 billion dollar expansion followed in 2007, adding yet more rooms, conference facilities, dolphin habitat, water park attractions, nightclubs, and more.
If you haven't managed to keep track to this point, Paradise Island has been owned by:
-some guy named John A. Burrows
-that guy's immediate and extended family
-Maybe Sir Harold Christie?, the man that developed The Bahamas
-Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren, AKA Mr. ALWEG
-Supermarket scion Huntington Hartford
-Some conglomerate that made paint
-Some conglomerate that used to make paint which had Donald Trump as primary shareholder but wanted to build casinos
-Merv Griffin, the guy that came up with Wheel of Fortune
-Some people that bought bad bonds
-Sol Kerzner, the guy that built Sun City and Mohegan Sun
The Atlantis of today is monstrous in size and acts as the second largest employer in the nation of The Bahamas. As has been the case since the day the first casino license was handed out, Bahamian residents are forbidden to gamble inside this palace to sin. All bets are placed by tourists who occupy the nearly 5,000 rooms and arrive by cruise ship seeking somewhere safe and clean to tour.
Looking to restructure debt incurred during the financial crisis, Kerzner sold Atlantis Bahamas to Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) while retaining the contract to manage the properties under Kerzner International (and subsequently inviting lawsuits from furious hedge fund managers. As wild as all these previous owners have been, BAM is not particularly exciting, but poetic. Brookfield possesses a mammoth 226 billion in property acquired via cash from US and Canadian pension plans. In a strange sort of way, it is millions of former social servants, autoworkers, and machinists that own Paradise Island today and they don't even know it.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] While not impossible for Sir Harold Christie to have grown up poor, I shant mince my words. The Bahamas, like virtually all of the Caribbean, has historically favored whites who's families operated commerce during the slavery years of the 16th-19th centuries. In the Bahamas, the government was white majority until the late 1960s. He would have had much more access to influence important individuals. He may also have had significant holdings of land from his family, as land claims were passed from generation to generation and are/were not racially specific. Christie's son took over the business from him following his death and is still involved in real estate sales in the islands.
[2] Cited from: Katheder, Thomas. "Purchasing Real Estate in the Bahamas." The University of Miami Inter-American Law Review (1997): 197-252. For what it is worth, this was produced by the general counsel for The Walt Disney Corporation, potentially after the acquisition of what is now known as Castaway Cay (referenced inside). The litigation actually took place in the 1960s following Mr. Burrows' sisters passing away. They had tracts on the island as well and claims to their land were put forth at that point. Those have long since been developed.
Oh, and John A. Burrows? Well, there's not a ton out there to work with to help us understand who he or his family was. There are many, many Burrows in The Bahamas, and a great many of them are of African ancestry. A John A. Burrows was elected to be a pastor in the Abaco Islands as reported in the May 1901 edition of "The Missionary Herald of the Baptist Missionary Society."
[3] Oakes was found battered to death, strewn with feathers, and partially immolated. Multiple books and films about the murder and attempted framing of Count Alfred de Marigny have been produced since. Theories about Oakes actual murderer range from the Duke of Windsor (King Edward VII, who abdicated the British throne in 1936) to the Mafia to even Sir Harold Christie himself.
[4] Or did Trump intentionally look to take total control of what would likely be an incredibly profitable enterprise? Well, in any case, it didn't go the way he wanted.
[5] Kerzner also played an important role in the evolution of an industry that has damaged Atlantis' status and caused Las Vegas to turn to nightclubs: the Indian Casino. Kerzner was the force that helped make Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT a reality after the runaway success of Foxwoods (now MGM Grand), also in Connecticut. Mohegan Sun has since expanded beyond the reservation in Eastern CT into the Poconos with an eye to Massachusetts and South Korea.
[6] Kerzner International and Sun International are his two main real estate companies, and aside from the fact that they exist and have separate websites, there's not a lot to tell you about how precisely they operate. Since selling Atlantis in 2012, Kerzner has managed to bring this story somewhat full circle, constructing a casino with his Sun International subsidiary/company/whatever it is inside Trump Ocean Club, a 70 story hotel/condo tower in Panama City, Panama.
According to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, the world's leading trade organization for the theme park industry, 934 million people attend/experience amusement attractions annually. While likely inflated, even a more conservative reading would likely place 1/10 of all living people in the world as visiting an amusement facility annually. Considering that the world's middle class is rated at 1.8 billion people, anywhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of that number experience the amusement industry. These numbers are generated from a constellation of various types of attractions. Not only traditional amusement parks and modern theme park facilities are counted, but family entertainment centers (FECs) based around direct revenue model attractions such as mini golf and go karts, arcades, open air museums, and aquatics facilities (water parks).
As with any recreational activity, fandom has grown around it and allowed for individuals to identify with communities built around their preferred activity. While no specific estimates of their numbers exist, divisions of "casual" and "hardcore" fans play out in the space of theme parks just as they do other artistic mediums or with sports. A cavalcade of enthusiast and brand based communities began to spring up in the 1970s as the amusement industry took off during a great period of American expansion. Later, the advent of the Internet and social media ages have caused these communities to multiply in direction, philosophy, and scope.
This piece intends to briefly examine the relationship of hardcore (diffused) American and Canadian "theme park fans" to the industry which they identify with as consumers. Most importantly, I intend to explore of the perceived and real dichotomies contained within. In doing so, it is hoped to create a clearer picture of the overall nature of theme park fandom, and to open discourse in other aspects of how and why people are motivated to expand to varying degrees of obsession when it comes to the amusement and themed attractions industry. The format of the piece is not traditionally linear. The purpose for this relates to the authorial intent of the individual producing it; by describing the theme park fandom world as it is seen by its largest group and then expanding it outside their traditionally held boundaries, it is hoped to show the true multivariate nature of hobbyists.
As no academic literature has been produced specific to brand and enthusiast communities to theme parks (only general attendance), and only industry studies of overall customer base have been generated, the piece has been titled as a hypothesis. A loose basic framework for testing the hypothesis will be suggested.
In 2017, Universal Orlando Resort will open Volcano Bay, a water park so advanced that they've taken to call it a full bore "theme park" with a price equivalent to its dry park brethren. It will incorporate numerous technologies previously seen outside Orlando, but does so in an integrated fashion that will be unlike any other water park in history. Teaser videos show interactivity utilizing the queue management bracelets, and it has already been tagged as "queueless"; something no other traditional water park has ever attempted. It targets the water park market with a similar sort of coalescing of advancements and refinements to bring about major change in that industry. Volcano Bay may actually be "disruptive" and change the entire future course of the Water Park industry and aquatics design.
This is a lot of hyperbole to take in, and it can end up sounding a lot like press release speak. To better understand where Volcano Bay is taking the water park industry, it is really necessary to understand how it even came to be. Unlike amusement parks, there aren't really comparable watershed facilities for most of the aquatics industry's existence that it bursts forth from in the distant past. There's no St. Bartholomew's Fair, no Vauxhall Gardens, no Coney Island, no 1893 Columbian Exposition. None of those things happen. What happened was a combination of fairly organic factors crossed with government spending and bad feelings with prior investors. In truth, the full history of what we know today as "water parks" is the very sordid history of American aquatic recreation. We must go back. Way back. Back to the very beginning....
IN THE YEAR 4000 BAL (BEFORE AQUA LOOP)
Almost since mankind found his way to regions with seismic activity or swimmable surf, water recreation followed. Records of recreational and therapeutic hot spring use have been found by archaeologists dating back upwards of 20,000 years ago. The Romans loved their baths and made them into some of the earliest recreational developments that we could compare to water parks. The fall of the Roman Empire led to the Middle Ages and a general loss of knowledge in things like plumbing, sanitation, and hygiene, and that meant the baths slowly crumbled away. Western Europe just straight up didn't know how to swim for a period of roughly 1300 years even if it seemed like it should be a necessary job skill. Sailors from merchant to military vessels couldn't tread water, and thought all it would do is prolong death. With attitudes like that, it isn't surprising that they didn't bother to have fun in wet stuff either. Yes, there were some hot springs elsewhere that were still being visited, especially in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia/Finland. Outside of the US and Europe, Japan certainly never shied away from aquatic fun with the parallel development of the "onsen" public bath. Fun fact: they were fully integrated by sex until the Meiji Period when the country was opened up to white folks.
As Europeans conquered their way through the Americas and Africa, the spa idea (revisited beginning in the Renaissance and expanded on in the 18th century) came with them. Here in the United States, resorts built up around hot and mineral springs in places like West Virginia and New York. Iconography from Europe often came with this: The name "Carlsbad" was often used in tandem as an anglicized variation of Karlovy Vary, a famed spa town in the Czech Republic. Many of these continued their development right into the 20th Century, and you can see it in places like Saratoga Spa State Park, French Lick Resort in Indiana, and Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. Pools were often constructed through which water would be channeled, promoting health and well being for all who had the funds to enjoy them.
Paralleling the spas was the movement towards use of lake and ocean beaches as places of recreation and resorts. It seems somewhat strange that the vast coastlines of Europe were not always thought of as places for rest and relaxation, but indeed, this was a novelty that came about in 18th Century Britain. Ocean water, it turned out, was filled with all sorts of minerals, just like spa water, and was quickly cited as a panacea to a variety of ills in the early-mid 1700s. Brighton Beach became the first truly recognized beach resort in modern western history thanks to a kingly visit in 1783. "Modern" and "Western" do have to be specified here: The Romans had no aversion to surf, nor the Byzantines that followed. And Amerindians? One popularly held theory on Tulum's location is that it not only served as a good port for Mayan traders, but was a resort for royalty.
THE FIRST PILLAR: SIMON BARUCH
Class separation became the first real conflict related to aquatic recreation. With beaches being plentiful, but Victorian age industrialization sparking waves of urban migration, space along the water front was still limited both by ease of access and pollution. The British tackled this via creating rail links to potential resort towns. Even today, places like Blackpool and Skegness are seen as being working class retreats. America, with its vast size, had real geographic hurdles to clear for beach going when it came to wide swaths of the population. Enter Dr. Simon Baruch. Born in modern day Poland, Baruch came to America and acted as a surgeon for the Confederate Army before heading north post-war and practicing on the poor and working class of Midtown Manhattan. It is there that he began to investigate the healing power of water. Baruch's popularity with the unwashed masses seeking to be washed spread upward, and led to the push for public baths not only in New York City, but nationally in urban centers.
(credit: New York City Parks and Recreation, link here)
So popular in New York City were the new public baths that "floating pools" were developed for individuals to take dips in the cold waters of the Hudson on buoyant platforms. This construction may have done much to change the bathing habits of people who often still did not have the benefit of running water in their homes and apartments, but it was not necessarily loved by the upper crust. An attempt to build a pool in Central Park in 1910 ran into stiff opposition, as those living nearby preferred the lower castes stay out. All the while, rich New Yorkers began to demand expansive pools at private facilities such as the New York Athletic Club. Expansion of rail to the New York beaches (Coney, Rockaway, and others) ultimately solved this issue, more or less, within the parameters of the free market model. The most extravagant bathing facilities ever were now open to all. This competition led to more and more grandiose designs right up until the stock market crash of 1929.
Amusement parks weren't blind to this development either. If they hadn't started along a bathing beach (and a great many did), swimming pools were added beginning in the 1920s. Name a park and you'll find history of a swimming pool or beach. Kennywood, Palisades, Glen Echo, and others all featured large pools. None of these pools was larger or more impressive than the one still existing today at Coney Island Cincinnati. Early metal slides and water swings offered something extra beyond just swimming and diving for activity. There can be little doubt as to how deeply connected the amusement industry was to aquatics.
THE SECOND PILLAR: FDR'S NEW DEAL
As private clubs and amusement facilities pushed across the country to build ever larger and more impressive pool facilities, the economic base of the United States fell out from under them. In the aftermath, most private clubs were able to sustain on the basis of their rich industrialist clientele, but amusement facilities began to feel serious economic pressure, and closures were common. Riding to the rescue turned out to be the new Works Progress Administration (WPA), who were tasked with much more than just putting Americans to work. Many of the nascent towns and cities of the Midwestern and Great Plains regions simply hadn't attracted enough external capital for significant investment in recreation. Roosevelt's plan of federal spending changed this forever.
Among the targets for massive development by the WPA were major renovations and expansions to Zoological parks (as detailed in "American Zoos During the Depression"), amphitheaters, fairgrounds, golf courses, and pools. 805 new pools were constructed in everywhere from major cities to county seats. It is important to note that these pools were not always simply rectangles with gradually increasing depth. Some were works of art featuring tile mosaics, zero depth entry, fountains, rock walls, waterfalls, and art deco bath houses. While often smaller communities would receive more basic variations, these were significant upgrades over the previously existing nothing that was often found. (1)
While this greatly expanded recreational opportunities beyond just the reach of city folk to those who were living more rural lifestyles, it did not mean that everyone was able to participate. Along with dance halls, pools were often cited as places requiring the strongest defense for segregation. African Americans were generally banned from public and private pools even well north of the Mason-Dixon line, just as they were from amusement parks. Following World War 2, black men returning from war to a separate and very unequal began to revolt against societal norms. Ignoring pleas from pro-segregationist forces who claimed to be "protecting" them, civil disobedience began to take place at aquatics facilities around the country.
THE THIRD PILLAR: THE BATTLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS AND LBJ
It is sometimes surprising to park fans who don't necessarily associate amusement parks with big bands and swimming pools to fully grasp the shift that took place beginning in the 1950s. Traditional amusement parks were highly resistant to integration, and were forced into it. Parks often chose to fill and pave their pools and close their dance pavilions rather than risk any perceived threats from ending the prohibition on non-whites from partaking in those activities. Fights broke out, and multiple parks throughout the country became scenes of racial violence. Very often, this violence began with a desire to participate in swimming activities.
While full integration did finally take place, it came at the toll of many public pool facilities and pools at traditional amusement parks. The denial of access to such facilities and prompt implosion of them once access was forced has had a terrible effect on multiple generations of African Americans (and Latinos) that are now disproportionately more likely to lack swimming skills than their Caucasian counter parts (2). Only in recent years as cities have chosen to reinvest in aquatics facilities and seek money for restoration of the historic WPA facilities has any glimmer of hope that this might be rectified appeared. Still, cost concerns keep many low income families out if facilities are present. In many regions, they simply aren't available, as government has contracted its services in favor of lower taxation and support of theoretical capitalist/altruist intervention.
What happens beginning in 1955 and continuing into the 2000s can be interpreted in two distinct, but not exclusive, ways. The first is that the decline of aquatic recreation in urban spaces was a reflection of "white flight" to the suburbs via the freshly minted interstate highway system and vast new residential complexes. Americans were leaving the cities behind, and with them, the services they provided. In turn, many new housing and apartment developments offered their own amenities, up to and including pools. This was previously the sort of lifestyle unavailable to most until suburban expansion in the post-war era. The second interpretation is a bit more complex, and brings us what was the most recent paradigm shift for aquatics.
THE FOURTH PILLAR: THE NEW ARTIFICIAL
The first book ever written on the history of permanent attractions was William Mangels' "The Outdoor Amusement Industry: From Earliest Times To The Present." Mangels, a ride designer and manufacturer based in Coney Island, NY, published this tome in 1952, and it provides rare insight on everything from roller coasters to water rides and fireworks. As the only living source from the era to offer in depth analysis with a background specific to the business, Mangels' offers an opinion about the closure of amusement parks post-1929 that is significantly different than most other historical takes. Rather than pointing purely at the vast loss of income, Mangels chose to examine the relationship of man to the automobile, which had by the 1920s reached almost critical mass.
Expansion of road systems and automobile ownership, Mangels concluded, had a deleterious effect on trolley parks. Amusement parks in America tended to be built by light rail firms, often at the end of the lines, to provide an attraction for individuals to use the lines on weekends and off periods. They doubled as recreational grounds for local businesses to have outings, and they exploded across America. Literally hundreds of these parks were built. By the 20s, technology had changed significantly in the amusement park industry. Most notably, John Miller's 1919 invention of the "Under Friction Wheel" allowed designers to break out of simplistic ride layouts with linear drops. These rides cost over 10 times what the old style side friction figure 8's did, making them very serious investments. For trolley companies, those sorts of investments were often tough to seriously make as ridership began to drop due to - what else? - increased automotive traffic. Those cars also allowed the people who once were limited to merely the local picnic park to travel far distances and experience much larger, wilder rides. This negative feedback loop led to financial collapse for many of the smallest parks. The era of the first super parks was born.
That long preface brings me to the second interpretation of the aquatic industry evolution: new expensive advancements bring about new consumption pattern. Here on Parkscope, I've been writing a series of posts about rides and attractions which often don't appear on people's radar around the US and Canada. One of the two key innovations to the water park revolution was covered in the Arizona and Alabama portions of that series: the wave pool. Two separate entities claim to have the first in America. The one who is categorically earlier was, without question, Big Surf in Tempe, AZ. However, it is Point Mallard Park's wave pool that is the true technical predecessor of the ones we see across the country. Rather than producing large single waves capable of being surfed on, Point Mallard's system produces smaller, quickly repeating waves. These were both safer and for waders, generally more fun.
Raging Rapids slide at Water Safari in Old Forge, NY, built by Dick Croul
The second parallel development was that of the water slide. The generally accepted viewpoint is that it Dick Croul invented the first thing approximating a modern water slide in 1971. (3) His method was to follow topography and build a channel from gunite (a form of concrete), thus approximating many of the natural flumes he saw when vacationing in Hawaii. Concrete slide construction boomed for much of the 1970s, but sadly few existing examples remain of these early attractions. Mont Saint-Sauveur Parc Aquatique in Quebec, Enchanted Forest/Water Safari in Old Forge NY, Mountain Creek Waterpark (the former Action Park) of New Jersey, and Cool-Off Water Chute in Branson, MO feature the best surviving examples of these attractions. (4)
Central Florida completely revolutionized everything in the late 70s. Disney was first to market with River Country in 1976, providing a leap forward in water park construction every bit a significant as John Allen's roller coaster undercarriage was to amusement parks. While small, River Country's Whoop 'n' Holler Hollow was the first slide complex to be built of fiberglass rather than concrete. By creating a much lighter base for the slide, the ride could be elevated and positioned on structural supports, allowing for construction of extremely tall slides without tremendous amounts of earth moving. Disney was also certainly at the high end of theming with the park, producing a facility that resembled the sorts of natural aquatics facilities that had served people of the South for multiple generations prior, but with state of the art attractions and the "Disney Magic" that only truckloads of corporate money can provide. However, "magic" has limitations; like any other lake fed water park south of the Mason/Dixon, amoeba are a threat to swimmers, and it led to the death of a guest in 1980. Whether you see River Country as a tribute or "hyperreal" imitation, the innovations brought by Disney led to similar attractions being constructed at those very real pre-existing facilities.
Going full circle, the second interpretation of the post-war collapse of urban/New Deal aquatic centers. With tax revenue fleeing, cities began to thrash about. Upgrading aquatics facilities was near the absolute bottom of the priority list as crime skyrocketed in the 1970s. In fact, many cities simply chose to let them decay or close them almost immediately after segregation was ruled federally unconstitutional. As amusement parks were popping up in suburbia, water parks soon followed. These more modern, more exciting facilities with outrageous amenities compared to the more simplistic recreational pools of the cities virtually guaranteed that white families would have no reason to go downtown again and effectively re-segregated aquatic recreation along class lines.
OUR PROTAGONIST, GEORGE MILLAY
Aerial view overlooking the Wet 'n Wild theme park in Orlando, Florida. 1982. Color slide. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Accessed 14 Dec. 2016.
In 1974, George Millay wound up being removed from power at SeaWorld. He had envisioned the park and basically birthed it and the facilities that opened in San Diego and Ohio. Historical accounts of Millay generally suggest that he also had quite the temper, undoubtedly a factor in his dismissal in this instance. Millay, however, was as a consummate a businessman as he was filled with internal rage. When he laid eyes on the centerpiece of Point Mallard Park, he knew he had something to put him squarely back in the game.
While development of the fiberglass slide cannot be denied as being integral for the future of the water park industry, it is also impossible to ignore the fact that Disney never again utilized the technology themselves for anything revolutionary. The 1977 opening of George Millay's Wet N' Wild on International Drive is considered by everyone in the water park industry to be the real start of the genre rather than Disney's more "thematic" predecessor the year prior. There are three truly significant differences:
A) Wet N' Wild featured, like River Country, a mix of concrete and fiberglass slides. Unlike River Country, Wet N' Wild chose to take the fiberglass slides vertically to a place they had never been before with attractions like the Kamikaze. Speed slides are staples in just about every water park since Wet N'Wild.
B) While River Country chose a "sand bottom pool" fed by lake water, Wet N' Wild opted for the all concrete wave pool system installed at Point Mallard in Alabama. Wave pools are almost standard issue now at water parks, with both subsequent Disney parks having them.
C) River Country was based around a lake for sourcing of water and as a focal point for all of the attractions to dump into. Wet N' Wild was designed with the idea of the park and the individual attractions being separable from a body of water. While the Orlando park features a water skiing zone, it was not integrated in the center of the facility, nor did the park necessarily draw in water from that to run. Like most any urban aquatics center, Wet N' Wild's slides and pools used chlorinated water drawn from city sources. (5)
the first lazy river by Millay at the now Six Flags Hurricane Harbor, Arlington, TX
After a substantial loss of money in the park's first year, Wet N' Wild turned a profit. Millay began expanding water parks across the United States under the Wet N' Wild name. Along the way, Millay also managed to create another staple of the water park world - the artificial lazy river - which he credited to seeing a non-moving variation of at the still existing Ancol Dreamland in Jakarta, Indonesia. Millay's idea of completely dominating the market though came to a crashing halt. While the idea was popular, and interest was universal across the country to obtain water parks, the cost of entry to market was much lower than traditional amusement parks had been in generations. Fiberglass and foam slides could be produced at exceedingly low cost and quickly. Long before Millay had a chance to completely control the market, developers across the country had already invaded. Hundreds, if not thousands of water parks were constructed during the 1980s.
The necessity of consistently good product and quick fabrication in the water park market led to a hyper-maturation of the market. Within a matter of merely a few years, water slide manufacturing was almost entirely dominating by two firms: ProSlide and Whitewater West. By the time Michael Eisner had decided to get Disney back into the water park biz, there was no point in using his Imagineers for anything but figuring out where to place the decorative foam. Whitewater West and Proslide were contracted to build virtually everything at Typhoon Lagoon, and Proslide was again contracted to virtually all the slides at Blizzard Beach as well. Wet N' Wild Orlando ultimately moved away from in-house development, and became heavily connected with ProSlide, especially following the the sale of the park from Millay to Universal Studios Recreation Group in 1998. The "Big Two" were and still are the primarily supplier for everyone that's come since, from municipal governments to the traditional and regional theme park players who found themselves needing to re-institute aquatic attractions in 90s.
UPHILL STRUGGLE
Almost entirely divorced from Imagineering or other theme park creatives, slide design has dramatically changed from the early fiberglass body slides of the 1970s. Perhaps no one was as key to advancement of slide technology than Jeff Henry. Henry was the mind behind the expansion of Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels, TX to a regional attraction, and recognized early on the potential of the water sheet technology of the early Flowrider wave simulators as a propulsion system for slides. In 1996, Schlitterbahn completely revolutionized the water park industry with the opening of Master Blaster, the first ever true "water coaster". By using sheets of compressed water, rafts could travel up hills, allowing slides to be built that were dramatically longer and with much more creative layouts.
As the history of water parks is nowhere near as well developed or recorded as that of theme parks, many details are difficult to source. There are some things which are generally agreed upon: NBGS International, which was the development/construction wing of Schlitterbahn, created what we know as the "water coaster". In turn, the other water slide companies spent significant time trying to develop their own models by improving existing patents or creating entirely different launch systems. ProSlide made changes to the nozzles and then developed electromagnetic launches. Whitewater West utilized conveyor belts for their own rides while alternately helping to sell the Master Blaster rides to the larger market. Ultimately, Whitewater West bought the rights out entirely to the Master Blaster. Anyone who's ever been to Typhoon Lagoon has even seen and likely been on one in the form of Crush N' Gusher. Thank the good folks of Hill Country, TX.
Slide design has under this period undergone an incredible change. Water parks across the world now feature shapes previously unheard of: cones, funnels, half pipes, bowls. Proslide recently rolled out a new product line called the "Flying Saucer" combining linear synchronous magnetic launches with compound dipping curves in new ways. Unlike the theme park world, which often sees these developments take place at global destination parks, water park innovation has often taken place at the regional level. Take for example Beech Bend Park in Bowling Green, KY: This drag strip/amusement park/campground was the first place in the US to open one of the new Proslide Rockets. Not Disney, not Universal, not SeaWorld. In fact, water slide tech in Orlando is often of a different era. For Disney, that era is almost entirely the early 90s.
Water park design has also undergone significant change. Disney's first real take on a modern water park was Typhoon Lagoon. Just as it had with the support structures of roller coasters, Disney opted to hide the support structure by covering it in a mass of concrete. As trees and foliage has grown in, it has provided additional shade, but the nature of the beast was always going to make the actual slide area a bit "hard" in look. Disney would go with snow in the followup park, Blizzard Beach. Snow is always a bit of a tough sell in an environment like Florida as a theme, but by and large most guests were accepting given the amount of effort and money spent. There are, however, challenges to this approach. Most obvious of these is the inherent difficulty of renovation or expansion. Blizzard Beach has received no updates since opening in 1995, and Typhoon Lagoon's Master Blaster slides were placed away from the main slide complex.
Taking cues from Disney's "put a mountain at the center and fill it with slides" philosophy, but then advancing past that were a series of water parks that opened throughout the global market in the 2000s. Atlantis in the Bahamas is likely the most well known of these; its theme to the mythic vanished continent was every bit as detailed as Disney's parks, but featured new and often more advanced technology. Following shortly after was Wild Wadi in Dubai, constructed by the Jumeirah Group and designed by Atkins Group. Wild Wadi pushed the envelope in every way imaginable: it was they who first rolled out RFID wristbands for payment of food/souvenirs and use of lockers a decade before Magicbands. Their signature attraction was the White Water Wadi, a massive, sprawling complex of Master Blaster slides that completely encircled the park. Much like Volcano Bay, Wild Wadi was built in the center of large scale development. Volcano Bay will not have the challenge of trying to hide the massive towers of the Jumeirah Beach Resort, nor the 1000 foot peak of the Burj Al Arab next door. In spite of both of these interlopers, Wild Wadi feels very separate from the world around it.
Further refinements came with Atlantis Palm Island in Dubai, and then to Yas Waterworld in Abu Dhabi. Part of the massive Yas Island development, Yas Waterworld incorporates numerous design nods from other locations: the massive mountain in the center a-la Disney, but the souk entry pavilion is a separate beast. There's an integrated suspended roller coaster, updating the ideas that Setpoint and Caripro first introduced at Wet N' Wild Emerald Pointe and Hersheypark. There's multiple lazy rivers, giant Flowrider surfing simulators, pearl diving like at Sea World Orlando (in fairness, Abu Dhabi really was a pearl farming community), and lots of brand new fancy ProSlide attractions. But what Yas Waterworld did that no one else had done is use the integrated RFID technology of the wrist bands at Wild Wadi and turn them into points of interaction for guests.
PearlMasters wasn't the first time a theme park had created an interactive game element within the park. Disney, of course, had done this long before with Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure. What was different about Yas Waterworld's system is that it allowed one to play a game much like Kim Possible and interact with objects throughout the park, but do so 1) in a wet environment 2) using a preexisting device. Guests already had the RFID bands on to begin with when entering the park for point of payment and lockers. Why not integrate it into a game? Operating not unlike the Muppet Midship Detective Agency aboard the Disney cruise liners, PearlMasters integrates video along with the ever popular "make things move/flash" scenarios RFID games at theme parks historically have produced.
Wristbands have been introduced to American water parks as well: Accesso offers(ed) a queue management system via band at several water parks in the United States, including Columbus' Zoombezi Bay and Long Island's Splish Splash. Wet N'Wild used the bands for a time as well. However, there were effectiveness issues in all of these places because the bands had to be integrated into a structure intended for traditional water slide operations. Staircases had to be compressed and additional personnel and device management had to be added to the already employee strapped lifeguard tasks. Aquatica Orlando (and several other parks) feature basic UPC scan wrist bands for things like dining plans.
As of now, the outdoor water park industry in the United States is fairly mature. That is to say that most major markets are served by water parks, often plural. Social migration and improvements to older aquatics facilities with newer slides has, to some degree, helped to "reintegrate" aquatics. By no means is it perfect, as access and cost are still certainly issues for many of the largest water parks in the country. However, it certainly has improved and is continuing to get better. With this maturation and the capacity concerns of water parks (slides are generally awful at throughput), new sources of revenue were sought after. One of the more universally adapted was the introduction of the private cabana. As a retreat from the masses and the confusion of beach chair roulette, cabanas in these increasingly integrated large scale water parks took off. Cabanas can be argued as having created a striation of class, much as for-pay "line cut" systems did in dry parks. This may still be an overall preferable scenario though to the scenario of years past when access simply was not granted or impossible due to distance.
BIRTHED FROM NECESSITY
In the 1970s, the motel market was seemingly peaking, oil prices were high, and competition was stiff. Looking for something to increase occupancy during off peak times of year, Holiday Inn executives brainstormed. Ultimately, a "eureka" moment came out of it: they would use the existing infrastructure of hotels in oppressively cold winter climates as the base for major renovations. By building an enclosed pool and supplementing it with a variety of other fun diversions (arcade games, bar, billiards tables, miniature golf), and then enclosing rooms in that same pool space, Holiday Inns could then sell themselves not merely as quality hotels for travelers on summer road trips, but as winter getaways for locals. The Holidome was born, and was promptly reproduced well over 100 times in hotels across the US. Some Holidomes even received themes: The Holidome in Kearney, Nebraska featured an Asian look, with Oriental bridge and pagodas. The Perrysburg, OH Holidome still retains its "New Orleans French Quarter" design even today (6).
The Holidome stayed the state of the art until the West Edmonton Mall opened the audaciously large World Waterpark in 1986. The largest purpose built indoor water park in history and the second largest operating behind Germany's Tropical Islands Resort (which occupies a dirigible hangar), the World Waterpark was more than just pools and small plastic slides. It featured full size & modern fiberglass slides, a bungee tower, wave pool, and more. However, while entirely appropriate for Edmonton, Alberta, the cost of the structure and the massive glass roof made duplication of this design far and wide simply unreasonable. Another 8 years would pass before the idea was revisited.
For the Polynesian Hotel in Wisconsin Dells, the intent was exactly the same as it had been for the entire Holiday Inn chain 20 years prior. The Dells boomed in the summer time, drawn by Noah's Ark water park, amphibious vehicle rides, natural beauty, water skiing spectaculars, and mini golf/go karts unparalleled in America. But in the winter, business was hurting. Other than casino gaming, what else could bring people into a barren, frozen wasteland? The gamble they made caused an explosion which reverberated across the country. Within a matter of only a few years, the Dells became synonymous with indoor water parks, with five resorts featuring indoor water parks exceeding 55,000 square feet, and many others featuring smaller ones.
Expanding from this were two of the largest players in the modern indoor water park industry, Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari. Much like with Wet N'Wild's attempts to completely control the market, the cost of entry and potential revenue stream meant that developer after developer chose to take the proverbial plunge. From Native American Casinos (Soaring Eagle in MI, Seven Clans in MN) to Ski Resorts (Camelback in PA), indoor water parks went from novelty to all-pervasive in about a decade. Sandusky, OH has 4 such facilities today exceeding 35,000 square feet, and one of them (Maui Sands) is in a merged mess of two hotels. Fittingly, one of those hotels was a Holidome equipped Holiday Inn. (7)
Since the expansion of indoor water parks came at a time of great technological upheaval, the resorts very often found themselves at the cutting edge of the theme park world. Great Wolf Lodge integrated a system beginning in 2006 that included hotel room entry, room charges, lockers, and arcade play into an RFID wristband. There was no inclusion of queue management, but most indoor water parks limit entry primarily to those staying overnight, preventing overcrowding. Still, the effectiveness of Great Wolf Lodge's system isn't that far off from the abilities of the Magicband, just done much more cheaply and many years prior. The lines were further blurred as Great Wolf Lodge partnered with the interactive game company behind Magiquest and installed it in many of their resorts as an additional attraction to go with the water parks, spas, arcades, mini golf, simulator rides, etc.
ALL TOGETHER NOW
The development of the modern water park and its association with amusement/theme parks can be traced all the way back to the dawn of aquatic recreation. Just as the idea of the modern theme park is not necessarily a wholly new invention, but rather an refinement and combination of many separate ideas as assembled by Disney and Wynne, George Millay did the same with the water park. Thematic elements were added to the slide complexes to make them more akin to the expensive dry parks, then as technology progressed, other advancements (interactivity, queue management/"pay to cut", water coasters) were introduced with varying results into existing parks and toyed with in new build facilities. An entire sub-classification even managed to pop up - the indoor water park - further providing test beds for the integration of new technology.
All that leads up to Volcano Bay. Volcano Bay is not the first park to merge these more modern slides with updated personal tech. It is the first park to have been designed taking into consideration how this technology was integrated and how it affected the overall enjoyment by guests. The end result is a water park that will be among the priciest in the world to visit, but will be the most advanced in every manner. Because this tech was not merely seen as a companion, but as a core part of the experience for all that visit, the framework of Volcano Bay has been built around it rather than the tech implemented within it. That the tech has come first is unbelievably important in making this idea even possible.
Some consider the argument that Volcano Bay is "revolutionary" to be hyperbolic. Let me provide you with some unvarnished truth: Disneyland featured a number of "off-the-shelf" attractions and even a used ride. Examining rides and even entire sections of the park on an individual basis, there was little to nothing that Disneyland did in 1955 that was revolutionary aside from perhaps the preponderance of corporate advertising. Disneyland was very much a set of refinements to an existing and proven business model. It was how those refinements were integrated and pieced together that was what made it so dramatically different than everything else in the market. We cannot say with honesty that Universal has managed to do this same kind of paradigm shifting move in the water park industry. The park isn't even done being constructed. However, the aspiration is to accomplish precisely that.
The aspiration? No queue lines. How can it be fulfilled? Large, "endless capacity" style river attractions, conveyor belts, themed interactivity, and the smartest tech ever produced for queue management are what have been lined up to get the job done. If successful, Volcano Bay will revolutionize the water park industry in a way that hasn't been seen since Millay sought revenge for his exit at SeaWorld. What are the stakes? Many existing parks may be rethought and heavily renovated. Entirely new parks will eventually duplicate what Universal does, and they will probably cost more than the "traditional" water parks as we may come to know them. Any number of events are possible. Perhaps we see a re-segregation of aquatic recreation along class lines with new waves of suburban parks to replace the old? Or we may see an expansion of cheaper water park facilities which use technology to keep staffing costs low and provide a higher quality of experience to those living in newly revitalized/gentrified urban centers.
After 40 seasons, the park that is credited with the dawn of the modern water park will be closed for the theorized start of a new era. Wet N'Wild Orlando, as most reading know, will close after the operating day of December 31, 2016. The land will be redeveloped into hotels for the ever growing Universal Orlando Resort. Like Dick Croul's original water slide, it will soon disappear beneath earth movers.
(3) One of the interesting challenges I ran into when doing research was trying to find out precisely where the first water slide Richard Croul built was. A LexisNexus search provided the answer from the April 4th, 1972 issue of the Los Angeles Times (pg. H2) - the frontier themed Crazy Horse Campground in Shingle Springs, CA. The site of the campground would be roughly here, on what is now a residential development. Croul then started his firm, Surf Construction Inc, later renamed or reformed as Richard Croul Enterprises, to market slide construction. He was successful in either collaborating or outright operating multiple proto-water parks prior to Fiberglass becoming the de facto standard for construction.
(4) Gunite had a second recreational slide use too: In 1975, Patent # 3858517 was granted for the alpine slide, forever altering ski resorts' ability to generate revenue during the summer.
(5) The early water slides of Croul were primarily built at campgrounds leading into ponds/lakes (aformentioned Crazy Horse, Butterfield Country in Rancho, CA; Lake Myers in Mocksville, NC, the latter is still operational), not terribly different to the "swimmin' hole" of River Country with its predictably close proximity to Fort Wilderness campground. It wasn't until Croul worked with Dwight Myers to construct Myrtle Beach's Water Boggin (opened in 1976, same year as River Country) that his slides were constructed with the intent of being entirely separate commercial entities. Myers and his partners expanded the Water Boggin name throughout the south, and was given credit for the water slide in 1978 by the Chicago Tribune. Like lots of early pioneers in amusements, Myers was quickly forgotten. He since passed away in 2013.
(6) It may seem incredible now, but no list of Holidome properties has ever been generated. Considering that the history of just about everything else in the amusement world has been charted and analyzed to death, you'd think this would have a database to reference out there. No dice.
