Smurf Mountain at PKD

Whats that about R. Kelly?...

oh...and one more thing....i kissed a girl for the first time in my life on Haunted River....christy, my 8th grade "girlfriend"...band/choir trip...i asked her to go out with me in line, and about just before we passed that witch in the rocking chair, before the final lift, i kissed her....;) go me!!

man...i could go on and on with memories...but i thought you guys would enjoy that :)

Eh, so what. I'm drunk.

Remix it. Vroom.

... and this one time, on Haunted River ... Hey this morning I made out with someone ... oh wait, that was the dryer, I forgot ... *** Edited 6/8/2004 4:01:38 AM UTC by Impulse-ive***

Mmmmm....Jagermeister......Good......

Has anybody seen my Veenerhasent?

Amen VACoasterfreak.

PKD lost alot of it's charm from it's early years by the late 80's & early 90's & it got worse after Paramount took over the place....but even before that happened they did lose quite a few older rides such as Galaxi(replaced by Shockwave following a fatal accident),Vertigo,Flying bobs & one of my all time favorites from the original kids section Wacky wheels.

Of course we have also seen the removal of the monster/octopus(where DZ is now) as well as Sky pilot & of course Apple turnover,which I never got a chance to ride & how can anyone forget the singing mushrooms near the skyride station over by the kids area?...ohh & the skyride itself not to mention the old dominion line & safari monorail.

Man I could go on & on about how many rides PKD has lost over the past 30 years but I think I've mentioned just about every single one by now...did anyone ever notice that the grove was once the coney island/mall section back when the park first opened?

almost every single one...

you missed the Waterslide tower that replaced wacky wheels (i forget the name of it)
Torpedo was the enclosed tube slide, Then there was the one with the 'camelback hump' which was lame, and the sled-type straight down one.

And, of course, Vacoasterfreak will never forgive you for forgetting about King Cobra, the Schwarzkopf shuttle looper (as well as the animal exhibit with Monkeys which was near the entrance to King Cobra, until it became Anaconda Funnel cakes)

Also, there was a Flying Dutchman (not the Vekoma flyer, more like a Wave swinger where you sat in little boats) which was between the barbeque place and the entrance to grizzly.

Also also, don't forget Paratroopers, which still exists in another incarnation, was sooo much cooler back when it flew out over Lake Charles.

Also also also, there was that domed movie theatre on I street which showed footage of some awesome wooden coaster (don't remember which one)

and finally, Yogi Bear's cave, which has been robbed of all its former charm and whimsy.

This is why Vacoasterfreak was my tour guide the first time I went to PKD.

It really sounds like the park lost alot of its charm when losing its flat rides and Smurf Mountain. I still like the park from my first visit in 2002, its too bad that I missed out on alot of these older attractions though.

~Rob Willi

Time Shaft, not sure if it was the only Rotor I ever rode, but I know it was THE last one I will ever ride...

Oh, and PKD's Anton shuttle was King Kobra, with two Ks...

I also remember driving by Adventure World (now SFA) on the way to PKD several times as a kid....good times!

Themedesigner...

I N C O R R E C T L Y

Shaggy

Kings Dominion is the same as the other Paramount parks....they all were poorly maintained in the late 80s and early 90s under Keco.....then Paramount took over, and while spending money to remodel the parks to fit their cheesy, short lasting television and movie theming took away much of the wonderful original theming that made the parks the most special thrill parks in the country.........when the parks were under Taft, Six Flags could not hold a candle to them as far as good theming.....

The biggest crime at Kings Dominion was filling in the lake for the junky looking water park which could have been build elsewhere...i believe Keco did this........WATER is a key element of making any park special and provides a relaxing atmosphere and the lake at KD was spectacular with the Rebel Yell on one side and King Kobra on the other........gone for asphalt and fiberglass.

Carowinds has done the same thing......lost all of its charm, nice flat rides, water.....its now an asphalt runway of cheesy Paramount theming. Kings Island is a hodge podge of this and that with no real reasoning of placement of the rides and attractions. Good god, look at what they did to Great America in CA compared to the Six Flags version which has pretty much kept its theming (except for the out-of-place superhero rides).......

Then theres the removal of the FAMILY oriented railroads, monorails and riverboats....very few family rides in these parks these days. They are either thrill rides, or kids rides but not a lot for everyone.

Keco was ride removal 101, Paramount is de-theming 101. I'm glad i got to see some of the parks when they were Taft operated......i still can remember how special they were then even with much less coasters.

Canadas Wonderland has managed to keep its themeing the best, but its starting to slip with the addition of Tomb Raider.....also where the water park was placed was originally going to be a western theme...... *** Edited 6/8/2004 7:00:22 PM UTC by super7***

Ahh yes,how could I forget about King Kobra as well as the old flying dutchman(similar to SFA's Pirate's flight)? FD was another one of those rides that I wouldn't dare set foot on as a kid (now I can't ride it because it makes me kinda sick) & yes I remember the original Paratroopers ride which used to be somewhere behind the dodgems back in the day.

I remember the waterslide tower quite well,it was added back in 87 & was called Racing Rivers...I seem to remember another ride that was in candy apple grove just behind Galaxi that was called flying carpets,does anyone else remember that attraction?

Last but not least I definitely remember Yogi's cave(now Treasure cave)of all the original attractions PKD had back then why on earth did they have to go & mess with that one?

I used to riide the Srmurf when it was there and I really didn't like it .Because it reminded me oF It's a Small World at Disney World in Orlando which I didn't l like because of all the dolls and that song.

riptide on racing rivers was INSANE....the drop was over vertical...u actually came off the slide, and dropped a second or two in midair....now they have that stupid rugrats turnpike crap...anyway....and the singing mushrooms rocked!!! lol:) *plays the old song in my head....* yea, i forgot about Cinema 180, that was wicked awesome! it was right beside Scramber on International Street.....(Cinema 180 is gone, and Scrambler is now located next to Volcano)...its funny, this is the third location of the Scrambler, lol..guess they just cant get rid of it. and, i believe the old Sky Pilot is actually still on site, as is most of the Sky Ride, back in meadow behind Rebel Yell and the WaterWorks extension.....also, many of the animal houses from the monorail are still standing...prime location for some serious growth;) and, back before Shockwave, and even before Galaxi, there was a giant slide on that site...it was removed before i came around, but ive seen pics....

ahhh, memories:)

That giant slide you're referring to is the flying carpet ride I mentioned in my last post.

It wasn't on Galaxi's footprint at all because that coaster was always there when I went to the park as a kid...that is until the accident in 83 that led to it's closure.

The flying carpet ride was located to the right of galaxi's lift in such a way that both rides could easily fit within that area...if I'm not mistaken the flying carpet was on the spot now ocuppied by nickelodeon splat city.

http://am.joshrcc.com/photos/galaxiemovie1.jpg
You can see the bottom of that slide in this picture. *** Edited 6/9/2004 3:31:25 AM UTC by RavenTTD***

As that picture shows, the Flying Carpets was where Shockwave's exit is now, not Splat City. It was a standard carnie burlap sack type slide, but boy was it fun. I'd do that over and over (no line)

Ahhh yes, Riptide, that was the name of it. That ride was beyond wicked, indeed as Tim said, it gave airtime. I once rode that with a broken forearm in a cast, wrapped in a plastic bag. The ride op tugged on my arm to make sure I had a good grip on the sled, then let me go. I wouldn't let anything keep me away from that thing.

Wow, I had *totally* forgotten about PKD's dry sack slide....AWESOME fun!

Lake Winnie and Wild Adventures still have them, and LL (should it ever re-open) has a set too....I love those things...:)

If anyone has old pictures of PKD, I would love to see them.

In that shot it seems the ride used to be white & green/blue....it must've been when the grove was still known as the coney island section.

When I first went to the park it was after they rethemed that area to candy apple grove because the slide colors matched those of the Apple turnover...speaking of which in the film Rollercoaster Apple turnover was silver & blue,I often wonder just what they called it back then.

I've got some old pics of the park from the late 70's/early/late 80's as well as the 90's....too bad I don't know exactly where they are & I don't have a scanner :( because they certainly are good enough to bring some tears to your eyes if you're among those of us who grew up going to this park,too bad I don't have any pics of the original lost world fantasy mountain however.

I just thought of something:when Flying dutchman was removed from PKD do you think there's any possibility that it went to Wild world as Pirate's flight? as I recall it was removed in the early 80's right around the time Wild World first opened to the public as a ride park & I'm sure the original owners of the park didn't buy new rides but probably bought them used & at a discount from parks that either closed or removed them for expansion/new additions.

I always remember the slide with the white/green color scheme, and that was during the Candy Apple Grove days. I don't believe I ever visited the park when the section was called Coney Island. First time I visited was in '78.