Silly Mistakes & Stupid Decisions

Every industry has them. Does one stick out in your head more than another?

I still can't believe the events surrounding the install of V2 at Discovery Kingdom. From what I understand SF bought two identical rides for the 2001 season. One for SFGA and one for SFDK - they advertised the one at DK at 150' tall while the GA ride was advertised at 180' tall (the true height).

The city did not allow structures of more than 150' at DK - yet SF built the ride anyway and thought no one would notice - and then had to spend a significant amount modding the ride.

It just baffles me that SF would think that no one would notice - particularly when you have Medusa at 150' already, in the same park.

Opening four major coasters in one year at Six Flags Ohio is the first thing that comes to mind.

Well, remembering back when...

When Geauga Lake covered almost every surface with asphalt. (Conneaut soon followed them.)

I thought Cedar Point chucking the Jumbo Jets was stupid.

The closing of Euclid Beach I thought was a fairly stupid thing.

Garfield's Freakin' Nightmarish Atrocity of a Dark Ride... ;)

Oh yeah, speaking of dark rides...the tragic MonStars of Rock.

Ditto both of those.

And speaking of Myrtle Beach, charging admission for the Pavilion. Stupid mistake. Or maybe they were looking for an attendance drop just to close the place ;).

If they wanted to have an attendance drop just to close the place they could have sold it to Cedar Fair and they could have Geauga'd it.

(insert picture of dead horse being beaten here)

To be fair, Cedar Point inheriting G. Lake is fairly analogous to Obama inheriting the economy...and unfortunately or not (depending on your perspective), it will likely have the same ending.

Assuming that's a true story about V2 and six flags (above), that has to be one of the dumbest decisions I have ever heard int the coaster world.

The economy was part of the deal for Obama.

CF went $40m out of their way to make GL their problem.

That's true. After I hit submit, I realized that it's not exactly a correct analogy to say that CF inherited GL.

I think one of the awards for top mistakes has to go to a certain company that spent billions to build a shiny new amusement park, while theming it to a crappy old amusement park....

That was a dumb mistake at SFDK, but it resulted in the best damn impulse shuttle out there. That 45 degree spike is awesomeness.

I say adorning the bow spirit on Viking's Fury at Kings island with a poncho was a stupid decision!

Six Flags closing AstroWorld to sell off the "valuable land". Yeah, how's that working out? ;)

Same way it's working in Myrtle Beach.

Oaks Park in Portland, OR took a standard haunted house roll-through trailer ride that it had for years, and completely re-themed it to Lewis and Clark's northwest expedition.

IMO, the park now has the best bumper cars (yes, I've been to Knoebel's) and the worst dark ride anywhere. There is a narrative during the ride, but you can't hear most of it. They kept the strobe light and themed that area with a mean-looking bald eagle, for intended scares. The only thing that ride scares up are thoughts of "WTF were they smoking?!?! " The decision was well-meaning, but stupid in concept and silly in execution, not to mention lame-brained, idiotic, pedestrian, asinine, moronic...

...Or Maverick.

Tekwardo said:
Same way it's working in Myrtle Beach.

And opryland.

kpjb said:
That was a dumb mistake at SFDK, but it resulted in the best damn impulse shuttle out there. That 45 degree spike is awesomeness.

Could NOT agree more. Cost the company dearly, but it did give us an infinitely better ride. Honestly, I'd put that ride-enhancement right up there with Premier's OTSR-removal. Someone should have lost their job over it though. Did it ever occur that virtually every other park out there has to go through local zoning boards for variances?

edited to agree with Robo: Oaks has some increadible bumper cars....and Lewis&Clark is one very small step above MonStars and the Funtown Spongebob rides...

...other silly mistakes:

AutoWorld.