Honk For Santa In Dundee

I was out in the Dundee, IL area this afternoon and while I can tell you there were several road cones blocking the parking lot entrance to Santa's Village there was a message on their sign board. It read "Honk if you believe in Santa and his village". Maybe this is a good thing since the place had tumbleweeds blowing through the parking lot...in so many words.

Then again I just noticed their website is gone/down...oops! *** Edited 6/16/2006 6:36:53 PM UTC by Marky Mark***

For whatever it is worth, the website is still down.

Yea...I just caught that.

I'm not out there in Chicagoland but I certainly support Santa. I currently maintain online contact with Phillip Wenz, the main Santa at the park for the last 2 or 3 years.

In addition to my interest in the parks, I am a professional Santa myself although my appearances are limited at present because of family concerns. I currently produce a monthly Santa newsletter for an online Santa group.

Regarding Santa and coasters, Tim Connaghan, a California Santa, made a special Santa appearance at Coney Island last summer and rode the Cyclone. He is the person organizing the Branson Santa convention that I mentioned on another thread. *** Edited 6/16/2006 6:52:20 PM UTC by Arthur Bahl***

Yeah, it's not looking good at all for this park. It always opened on Mothers Day, and then the sign said it would open by early June.

Now this. Hate to see it go.

With this and Kiddieland's fate,the Chicago area has gone from a frontrunner of amusement parks back in the day down to just one.

Maybe it's time to plan that vacation to HW if you live in the Chicago area. Santa is still a part of that park. Now what we need is lower gas prices to make it easier to get there. *** Edited 6/16/2006 7:06:22 PM UTC by Arthur Bahl***

Called the number for the park and all the voice recording says is: "Thankyou for calling Santa's Village and Racing Rapids. Look for an exciting opening in summer of 2006"

That was it. Makes you wonder.

Speaking of HW Arthur, maybe we can entice the Koch family to take on another Santa themed park that is only about 7 hours away. :)

That would be so cool if they would Chitown. I don't live to far from Dundee.

Well, there was a Trailblazer or something parked by the main gate. Maybe something is going on over there. This was the first park I was exposed to as a child. That and Playland in McCook, and Playland is long gone. It would really be a shame to let it go.

I've seen some pics from last season...pretty bad. *** Edited 6/17/2006 11:36:19 PM UTC by Marky Mark***

I saw the same sign a week or two ago. I have contacts with this park and they ARE trying to get it ready by end of month. Maintenance is working. Admin is too. BUT< I hear the waterpark may dismantle to make way for hotel/waterpark resort they want to build. Now (sorry to tangent)...

MM, you said PLAYLAND! I grew up across Rt 45 from Playland and that it was got me going in this industry. SO few realize its importance like it being owned by the Rocco family (of Bisch-Rocco Flying Scooter manufacturing fame). Would love to talk sometime. Any pics???

Americana/LeSourdsville very loosely reminds me of Playland, which is why I am so bummed about it.

Let's talk sometime!

Ken

God that brings back memories. Playland! God that seems like ages ago.

I hope this can be sorted out. It would be great to see the place back up and running. =)

Sorry, but to clarify, Playland was in Willow Springs/Justice, Illinois.

KJ

I guess that is Justice. I don't know where I got McCook from. One of my pics can be seen on RCDB under Cyclone, And yes, that's me in the boat thing with my dad. I was 3. I've got a few pics from there but they are all at my mothers place and I would have to get them scanned...don't have a scanner. The next time I go over there I will start looking for them. Only problem is that I am in all of them (I think) cause mom and dad were shooting my first years of life...lol.

COOL! Your pic and my Park History submission to RCDB.com! Definitely would like to see any pics ANYONE out there has of Playland.

Remember, Honk three times.

HOnk HOnk HOnk!

Caught the end of a news segment on WLS channel 7 this morning that basically said Santa's Village will not be opening anytime soon because they owe a lot of money to a lot of creditors. They supposedly owe the village of Dundee over $35,000 for water.

Yikes! That stinks. I haven't been there in like 7-10 years and I was wanting to go back to ride Typhoon. Hopefully they can get that placed reopened in the future sometime!

PLAYLAND! I loved this place and went several times as a kid in the 70's. I have been obsessed with finding any info and scouring the net for any kind of photos of Playland. Whenever we would go there, I always knew we were getting close because there would be this big painted wooden sign a few blocks away from the park with Bozo The Clown on it with him pointing in the direction to "Playland Park". What I liked is that the whole park was sort of closed in by trees and as you would approach the park from 79th Street, you could see the lights of the ferris wheel and the merry go round peeking through the trees as you got closer. It's the only place I ever rode a roller coaster at, which had to have been circa 1974 and even back then, it was very 'rickety' and old. I would love to hear from anyone who can provide any info and of course photos of this long gone wonderful place. From memory, I have compiled a list of the rides that Playland Park had, I'm sure there were several more, but this is what I remember:

Ferris Wheel
Paratrouper
Rock-O-Plane
Roto-Whip
Cyclone roller coaster
Train ride
Caterpillar
Tilt-A-Whirl
Allan Herschel Twister
Airplane kiddie ride
Boats in water kiddie ride
Automobile kiddie cars that ran on a track
Helicopter
Flying scooters
Flying saucer (Bisch-Rocco, and probably moved here from Riverview)
Pretzel dark ride called "De Crazee House"
Frolic
Whale water ride
Bumper cars
Scrambler
Tubs-O-Fun
Octopus
Octopus #2 An odd one that spun in a circle but did not oscillate
Salt and Pepper or ("Roll-O-Plane")
Mad Mouse
Toboggan
Swingin' Gym
Satellite
Roto Jet

There was also a strange looking structure that I still remember which was not a ride, but looked like Paratrouper (minus the seats) and it was covered in lights. It was round with a web like design that was at the same angle the Paratrouper was. The cyclone coaster tracks went around it. I guess it was just a light design or something. They had other cool lights placed around the park that were on tall poles and at the top of each pole was a drum-like frame which had a series of colored flourescent tubes each placed at a slight angle going around the whole frame. Yes, after all these years I did manage to retain a lot of details about this long gone park.

Why did you zombify a thread about Santa's Village to talk about Kiddieland? (The park in Melrose Park, IL is NOT named Playland.)

There is already a thread here about Kiddieland closing. http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/55708.aspx

redman822 said:
Why did you zombify a thread about Santa's Village to talk about Kiddieland? (The park in Melrose Park, IL is NOT named Playland.)

There is already a thread here about Kiddieland closing. http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/55708.aspx

Redman822, I wasn't trying to "zombify a thread about Santa's Village to talk about Kiddieland".. If you would have bothered to scroll up a little in this thread, you would have seen that there were some comments made from CastleKing and MarkyMark regarding another park called PLAYLAND in Willow Springs, IL. (ya got that? not Kiddieland) and I was just adding my input about it!!!