History of DreamVision boss leaves people skeptical on plans for new parks

Skeptical would be an understatement.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go hold a press conference about my plans to acquire Disney, Universal and SeaWorld P&E and create one mega-resort in Orlando by combining all the resorts into one.

It came to me in a dream, that night after I drank a box of wine....

I've also scheduled a press conference to announce the theme park I'm building in Daytona Beach. It's called "Traverland" and it will feature all the coasters built by Harry Traver (That's Crystal Beach Cyclone, Rye Playland Airplane, Long Beach Pike Cyclone Racer, Riverview Bobs, Revere Beach Cyclone and Oaks Park Zipamong others for those of you in Rio Linda!) along with examples of the other rides his company built. My parks motto is "You dont ride the coasters at Traverland, YOU SURVIVE THEM!!!

I too will be holding a press conference later this week to announce an exciting new project - a monorail for the town of Springfield! (for some reason the name of the state where it is located escapes me right now.)

^ You should get Leonard Nimoy for the ribbon cutting ceremony!

Weren't the Great America parks built simultaneously by a single company?

SHHHHH!!!!!! No-one is supposed to know that.

The two Great America parks were built at the same time, by Marriott; their plan at the time was to build Great Americas across the country.

Haha, Chitown, I was going to reply with a "SHHHHH" too, but changed my mind.

The two Marriot-designed Great America parks fascinate me because of how they were built exactly the same, and then slowly became much different. It's a chance to see what two different timelines for the "same" park could have been like.

LK -- yes, the Great Americas have always interested me, too. I actually wrote an article on their history a few years ago.

After Marriott soured on being the McDonald's of theme parks by building a chain of identical parks across the country, the Chicago park was a fairly straightforward deal. They sold it to Six Flags.

The California park has a more convoluted history: it was bought by a developer who wanted to tear it down and build houses; the city stepped in and, after a court case, bought the park; they hired KECO, which owned Kings Island, Kings Dominion etc to manage the park, and they later bought the park; KECO was bought by Paramount, which in turn was, of course, bought by Cedar Fair.

It's interesting how each of those owners made changes to the park in pursuit of their particular plans for the park.

Chitown said:

SHHHHH!!!!!! No-one is supposed to know that.

Oh crap. *covers mouth*

The differences now at the 2 Great Americas are interesting. Paramount basically did to the California Park what they did to most of the other parks they managed....rip out all of the original theming and atmosphere. While the Chicago park kept its overall theming. Now, the Chicago park is a run down trashy park with great rides, while the California park is much better maintained with mediocre rides.......if only the best aspects of both parks could be combined there would be a great park!

Chicago's Great America is far, far, far from run down or trashy.

I spent a lot of time there over last summer, and I love that park. It's clean, there's lots to do, and while it gets crowded, there's at least a lot of space for people to move about.

I was just at the Chicago park. Run down and trashy? It was clean, most everything looked new or in great shape, and I had a great day.

Stop smoking so much meth.

Is it really necessary to respond to an opinion with accusations of smoking meth? Really?

I've had the Fort Worth press announcement running in the background. A couple of early notes..

Plans include indoor winter park including an "icecalator" that takes you to a gourmet restaurant, New York City themed section including the New York Stock Exchange roller coaster, a Wild West themed section, and other rides, etc. Target opening in 2020.

They picked a site for the Fort Worth park and will reveal it during a future announcement.

They have a working relationship with Provident Global Capital of Alabama and Thomas Kinkade company.

They're producing their first full length animated movie musical (Nadia) with plans for a broadway production as well.

Malcolm Clulow will be handling the indoor snow engineering. He did Ski Dubai and others. He came out and said he didn't know much about the park's plans.

So as everyone suspected, it's a lot of vaporware. Until there's a deed in hand and proven financial backing, it ain't gonna happen.

Jeff said:

Is it really necessary to respond to an opinion with accusations of smoking meth? Really?

If someone's opinion is that grandiose, I'm gonna respond in kind.

It was a joke. :-)

Why don't we get upset when people accuse Timber-Rider of doing drugs?

Well, seriously, Tek. Everyone knows a meth smoker doesn't realize or care if a place is run down and trashy...

Are you smoking Crack?!

;-)