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Post by plokoon on Jan 8, 2007 14:35:31 GMT -5
Robert your right, I rode there new darkride at Ocean Pier MD. It stunk, but had some surprises, at least it was somthing new.
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Post by robert on Jan 8, 2007 15:40:31 GMT -5
I was kidding about the NF Canada thing. Just joking. I was just there last summer and went through all the haunted houses. They have about 6 and they probably don't need any more. And there's yet another one on the NY State side. It really is a bummer that you will need a passport or pass card (cheap passport alternative) to cross the border by land either in 2008 or 2009. So if I ever go back in a few years, I'll need that pass card to be able to access the haunted houses over in Ontario, Canada. Either the Canada immigration or US or both will probably ask to see passports from everyone by then. The haunted houses are really awesome, I was never in ones that were that scary. The article is on this site. The scariest ones are Screamers I & II and Nightmares because they're pitch black hallways with live actors and other surprises. The others Haunted House, Castle Dracula, and Frankenstein are scary, but a bit less scary than the others.
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Post by robert on Jan 8, 2007 15:57:02 GMT -5
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Post by plokoon on Jan 8, 2007 21:39:46 GMT -5
Yeah that was one of the coolest ever! You darkrides like a little piece of the 70's darkride walkthroughs.
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Post by Hollowgraves on Jan 8, 2007 23:14:50 GMT -5
Oh, OK. You're talking about stuff like the window in the floor. When I hear stunts, I think of people jumping off of stuff. haha!
Yeah, our floor always reminds me of when I was a kid going through the Haunted Mansion in Long Branch. If I remember correctly, they had windows in the floor and a green light shining on piles of bones. The picture on the website is of some stupid head that was there when I started working there. For the last two years, I had a skeleton climbing out of a coffin, with a green spotlight on it. It was an intentional tribute to the Haunted Mansion, even if only I knew it.
I was also proud to add in some of the Spookyworld items that we acquired at their auction. Even better was getting to keep a Spookyworld zombie painting for my personal collection and seeing the artwork used on horror music CD, a year later.
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Post by robert on Jan 9, 2007 12:45:40 GMT -5
John, wasn't the Haunted Mansion one of the scariest haunted houses around? It was three floors of terror. It burned by accident in June, 1987 when a fire originated elsewhere on the pier and spread to the mansion. And I heard that Spookyworld is open again at another location in Massachussetts? October only, though. Mass. could use all the dark rides they can get, since they lost their last dark ride in 2004, Kastle Frankenstein at Pirate's Fun Park, Salisbury Beach, north of Boston. It was torn down to make way for ugh, CONDOS. It says so on Laff in the dark. There are haunted houses in Salem, Mass. some year round like Dracula's Castle. There are a bunch of articles on Laff where they added something saying the attraction is no longer in operation or something that indicates the attraction is closed or gone. When they originally published the article, the attraction was in operation when they documented it. Why have so many dark rides (and parks) been lost in the past few years? We lost enough in the 80's and 90's. Is it our society's indifference toward amusements?
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Post by Hollowgraves on Jan 9, 2007 16:47:02 GMT -5
As someone who operates one, I can say a big part of it is that the cost of running one, far outweighs the money that they pull in. We did better each year we were in Seaside but it was starting to level off and it still wasn't pulling in what it needs to. As I've stated, that's NOT the reason WE left though. Anyway, the general public has become such a bunch of wusses in the least decade or two, that people don't want to be scared or they have some weird issue with being touched. You truly have no idea how many times I'd get asked or threatened concerning whether or not we touched people. If this is the general consensus of the people who ARE coming in, then you realize that there are many more people who won't even give it a shot. The less people that visit, the less haunted attractions there will be. We're a very weakened society who are overly protective and cautious to the point where people can't even let down their guard for 10 minutes and have fun getting scared.
And yes, as young child, the Haunted Mansion was absolutely the scariest thing I had experienced....... and I loved EVERY moment of it.
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Post by plokoon on Jan 9, 2007 20:01:05 GMT -5
Man we need to keep these forums alive!
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Post by clnancy50 on Jan 10, 2007 1:28:41 GMT -5
We live in a "strange" society filled with over-reacted people; always looking for something to complain or sue about. Kind of takes the fun out of things, doesn't it? You have to be very careful in whatever you do; for people will take you the wrong way and take offence. And it's just not in this business, either, it's all over; doctors, teachers, etc. I also think the generation of today is a whole lot different than it used to be. Just seems to me that everything was more exciting and thrilling years ago and now I think more are interested in the fastest, highest, that kind of thing.
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Post by robert on Jan 10, 2007 17:52:37 GMT -5
Yeah, when Dorney has their Halloweekends or Six Flags their Fright Fest we should be glad the parks do them at all with the haunted houses. Parks are probably fearful enough over liability and haunted houses only adds fuel to the fire. Dorney's haunted houses has plenty of security guards to make sure no one starts trouble, in fact one time a guard was kicking people out of the haunted house for something. Didn't the old haunted houses/castles of the 70's/80's have security guards or weren't they as concerned over security back then? It's true the haunts were more liberal back then, like up in Canada now, like the actors touching you, pitch black hallways, uneven floors, stairs, and so on. Now people are sue crazy and what not so the haunts have to tone down for the sake of overreactive parents and have no touching rules. Ride throughs are different because there is usually no actors and people are in a cart so less likely of hurting themselves but there's also the problem of kids jumping out of the cart during the ride, electrocuting themselves, or starting a fire. That's why certain parks took out dark rides. I'm sure Knoebel's Haunted Mansion, Ocean City, MD's Haunted House and Pirate's Cove, and Rehoboth's Haunted Mansion will be around for years to come. NJ has so stiff laws on haunted houses which is probably why there are next to nil permanent walk-throughs anymore, but other states/countries still have them.
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Post by clnancy50 on Jan 10, 2007 20:31:52 GMT -5
You know, to be honest, I don't ever remember alot of security with the old haunted houses and darkrides from years ago. I went to quite a few haunted houses around Halloween and some of them were REALLY pitch black with uneven floors, etc. That's what made the adventure!! But all you need is for one person to get hurt and then you'll have trouble. Even on movable rides, kids don't follow the rules, but guess who gets blamed? Certainly not the ones enjoying the ride. There is too much responsibility nowadays in owning and operating any kind of rides and attractions. It only takes one incident to ruin it for the rest.
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Post by robert on Jan 12, 2007 3:58:26 GMT -5
Yeah, like what just happened at Rye Playland last year, a 7 year old boy was killed on the Old Mill when he climbed out of the boat and fell under it as it was going up the small lift in the dark. And before a girl was killed on the Mind Scrambler, a Scrambler under a tent, she got out of the ride or something. Also at Rye Playland. Now the park has a rule that adults must accompany children on the dark rides. There's a lot of liability in running an amusement park which is probably why many parks closed and are still closing. A park would be glad to exit the business and sell the land for subdivisions. The problem is that future families that move into those homes as well as existing residents in the same town/city will have to tell their kids that there's no more amusement park in their town, that they'll have to travel once a summer to a park 100 miles away or more. We're so lucky in our area to have Dorney Park AND Bushkill Park despite what has happened to these parks, Dorney with all the fires, and Bushkill with the floods of 2004. The parks are still with us. Despite nearly losing all the dark rides at both parks. The Haunted Pretzel will be rebuilt at Bushkill soon. I don't like how parks in other areas especially at beaches are valuing the dollar from the price of the land more than children's laughter and a place for traveling families to go and have fun. You can't have fun at a new condo complex. There are two major beach parks in the south that closed their doors forever two years apart recently for "new development". Those parks were Miracle Strip, Panama City Beach, FL and Myrtle Beach Pavilion. They just RAZED the 1948 Pavilion building just like WW razed the old Shore 4 theater. The company at MB who ran the park claimed they had no use for the pavilion building which formerly housed an arcade and dance hall. Bull! They're just greedy little snobs who want their own way and redevelop it as they see fit. Screw the thousands of families and people who visited the park over the past few decades.
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Post by clnancy50 on Jan 12, 2007 23:59:44 GMT -5
Most of the businesses today are in it for the money, not thinking of the families and children. I smile when I look at Ocean City, Maryland's kid's rides because they're the same rides MY kids rode when they were kids and now my daughter is putting HER little girl girl on them. We don't have that too much anymore; only what "used" to be. If kids today never went through a REAL dark ride and haunted attraction; they will never know what they're missing.
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Post by robert on Jan 13, 2007 20:10:31 GMT -5
Ocean City (MD not NJ) has some great dark rides that were built by the late Bill Tracy in 1962. You don't see ones like that much anymore. I'm sure you saw or rode the Haunted House or Pirate's Cove, nance. Most bigger parks got rid of their dark rides although there are several big parks in the Paramount and Six Flags chains that have them such as the Sally built Scooby Doo haunted mansions/castles and a few Six Flags parks still have the classic water dark ride. Even Six Flags GA in NJ has the Skull Mountain and Houdini's House and Fright Fest but they build these mega coasters to appeal to the young crowd. Coasters sell more than dark rides. How many new dark rides are built vs. new coasters? A lot more coasters than dark rides. Dark rides actually have a higher liability than coasters. Still I read lists of parks on sites that people have been to and there are a bunch that haven't been to a park with a dark ride because there aren't as many as there were in the 70's, 80's even though new ones were built in the 90's by Sally. Remember, both Pretzel Dark Ride Company and what was Bill Tracy's company taken over by Jim Melonic upon Bill's death in the early 70's and renamed Fantasies and Dreams went out of business in 1979. Jim built the Haunted Mansion at Rehoboth Beach (still there) and did some work at Dorney Park in the 70's such as remodeling the Pirate's Cove into the Bucket O' Blood and the Iceberg. Man, I miss those rides. The Iceberg was real cold inside. Most of my school classmates rode those rides. I graduated in 1992, the same year Dorney Park was sold to Cedar Fair and I got my final rides on Journey to the Center of the Earth. If more and more small family run parks with dark rides close then there will be less dark rides to go around. There were about 4 parks with dark rides that closed within the past few years, 3 of them closed last year. MB Pavilion, Erieview, OH, William's Grove in PA. The Bill Tracy dark ride at Erieview was saved and will be relocated to a park in western PA. It was built in 1963 around the same time he did the Whacky Shack at Hunt's Pier and a year after the Haunted House at OC, MD. The dark ride looks like this www.laffinthedark.com/articles/erieview/erieview.htm Here are articles about park closings. Read and weep. www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/news/stories/20060805_02.shtml www.mbchamber.com/pavilion/default.html www.roanoke.com/extra/wb/xp-78863 Pavilion's dark ride www.laffinthedark.com/articles/pavillion/hauntedhotel.htm Why, oh why do traditions have to end? Tomorrow's generations will have nothing! I hope to God that none of the parks at OC, MD, Morey's Piers, Knoebel's, etc. ever close!
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Post by plokoon on Jan 13, 2007 23:00:33 GMT -5
ROBERT! Sheck out mrboardwalks main page Dr blood is no more demolition has took its demise! God dang no one cares. ITs now a memory sadly!
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