2000's, The decade that was.

What will be remembered, missed, changed for the better, changed for the worse, or just most impressionable to you the Costerbuzzers?

For me it would have to be the changing of the guards, in wood coasters with GCII, and even Gravity Group emerging as the top wood coaster companies.

Unfortunately I've lost quite a few coaster friends over the past decade. Whether I knew them personally, or just in passing, we shared a common interest, which made them friends to me.

Other unfortunate losses were parks, and coasters over the past decade, but in there place we will hopefully see new, and just as good replacements in years to come.

Well, in the past decade, we've seen the following:

-The collapse and rebirth of Six Flags

- Coasters that have broken speed, height, and inversion records.

- The sad loss of parks big & small (Whalom, Geuaga Lake and Astroworld to name a few)

- The expansion of Dick Kinzel's ego and consiquenitally, the start of the decline in CF parks.

- On a personally note, my birth as a coaster junkie. Between school trips to Canada's Wonderland (chorus/band trip) and IOA (part of my senior class trip) in '01, to my season slogging trash at CP in '05 (and having one heck of a summer riding coasters), FINALLY riding some of the coasters at SFNE and Knoble's in '09, and discovering CBuzz, it's been a good decade for me.

- ROBOCOASTER!!!!

On another note, I'm curious what innovations we'll see in the coaster world in the next decade. Will we see a coaster go 500 ft tall? Will we ever see another inverted woodie? Will they ever figure out what to do with SOB?

Technically the decade didn't start until 2001, and doesn't end until the end of this year, but I may never win that debate, even if I'm right.

The thing that I expected to go differently was the type and size of coasters. With Millennium Force opening, how could you not be excited about that? Here we are ten years later before another 300-footer opens. Yes, technically we have the two hydraulic launchers over 400, but that's a different kind of experience. I expected we'd see more of the 300 range rides.

Consolidation was a huge part early on among manufacturers. If you could find the 2000 IAAPA exhibiter list, I wonder how many of those companies are gone now, or merged with others. Same with who owns the parks.

With a few notable exceptions, the decade was a period of stagnation or even decline in the industry. So many long standing parks vanished, while virtually no new parks were opened to fill the void -- and most of the new ones that did, closed down in their own right within a season or two.

Gather ye amusement parks while ye may.... Ten years from now, how many more historic, storied parks will have disappeared? :(

I pray Canobie Lake isn't on that list anytime soon.

Ensign, lest you forget, this was also a decade of consolidation, some good & some bad (see CF buying Paramount)

IMO, the jury's still out on whether the Paramount purchase was a good thing or bad. Much will depend on what Apollo does with those properties (assuming that deal goes through).

No matter how it goes, Knzel ( and his minions) should go away.

LOL, ok Hopman, we get it!

Anyhow, the most impressionable to me was the emergence of Intamin wood being some of the best in town. Also notable was the era of the hydraulic launch, B/M hyper coaster improvement, and various Gravity Group masterpieces.

It was also the end of an era for some good coasters, namely BBW.

Another notable occurrence was that some smaller parks became bigger players in the industry. Places like Holiday World, Waldameer, Knoebels, and quite a few others have grown beyond local attractions and regularly draw people who live hours away.

^ Agreed, especially for Knoble's. At lot of those smaller parks in PA are true gems. Not quite diamonds, but definatly rubies, emereralds or saphires. ;)

I'm still kicking myself for not visiting HW when I was out in Indy.

Roller coaster drops have gotten a lot steeper this decade. it was rare for a coasters first drop to go beyond 60 degress, now straight down isn't even enough.

Jeff said:
Technically the decade didn't start until 2001, and doesn't end until the end of this year, but I may never win that debate, even if I'm right..

Wow, I agree with Jeff.

What, you mean to tell me there was no year 0?

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,and 10. Not 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9. Ten is the last number, not 0, and not 9. :p

What I want to know is what is everyone calling this year? Twenty Ten, or Two Thousand Ten?

Also, I'd like to think that we are now in the "Teens". I think that a few years from now, during and after 2013, we would consider 2010, 211, and 2012 to be included in the teens. God I hope we don't call these few years the "Tweens". lol

LostKause said:
I'd like to think that we are now in the "Teens".

I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

I don't want to offend anyone, so I can't reply to that. It might have been funny though. :p

I'll go ahead and say it. The 2000's to me was all about ride technology. Islands of Adventure started making magic, and others followed. The "experience attractions" came with a high price tag, but it really wowed me and a lot of others.

While the end of 2010 might be the end of some sort of official decade, a "decade" is just a period of 10 years. So Jan 1, 2000 to Dec 31, 2009 is a decade no matter how you look at it.

What's funniest to me is this idea that when we change decades-- whatever year we decide they begin and end-- everything abruptly changes on January 1 of that year. Fashion, music, movies and TV, sports, any kind of trend. It all starts on January 1, xxx0, and lasts until December 31, xxx9. Now that it's 2010, everything is going to be totally different from whatever happened between 2000 and 2009, because we're in a new decade now.

1962 and 1969 are both part of the 60s, yet they are so little alike. 1969 is far more similar to 1970 and 1971, yet you can't consider them together, because they weren't part of the same decade.

I think Gonch pointed this out in some form or fashion somewhere (here, blog, FB, somewhere) - but I thought it was an idea that needed to be reiterated. Times are indeed changing, and they're changing faster every year. RGB mentions that 1962 and 1969 are completely different in that SO much changed during that decade. But even so, I tend to think that 1960 and 1969 are more similar to each other than 1980 and 1989, or than 2000 and 2009. As we move forward, the "rate of change" has been accelerating pretty steadily, and there are no signs indicating that will change anytime soon...