Ugly Parks..

I have to nominate Beech Bend Park in Bowling Green, KY. The place is simply dominated by black asphalt, lacks trees, a bunch of portable rides, and low-capacity cheap restrooms. In other words, I wouldn't call it a park.

Indiana Beach wouldn't win awards for aesthetics either, but for a place that's located on a small piece of land and above water, it's packed in pretty cleverly. The restrooms aren't that great, however.

SFA has its nice and ugly parts. When you walk in the front gate, the area is neatly themed and inviting... However, the further back you go, especially under the Wild One and into the Gotham City area, it's not the ideal place to be when it's hot and full of school kids (as was my case).

Overall, most parks I've been to have been nice and pretty. Like someone said earlier, Williams Grove may be run down, but it's heavily wooded location gives it some character that many newer, better maintained parks don't have.

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jkpark said:

You also never gave real supporting reason why the park is ugly. The park may be poorly funded, but it's also non-profit.

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The next paragraph did -- but I don't mind elaborating.

It is called Conneaut Lake Park. I've seen old postcards. The place was hopping back in its day. The lake itself is nice but this is a park that does not take advantage of the one photogenic natural resource at its disposal. While you would expect a park to take advantage of the nearby water to erect coastline attractions -- like Cedar Point or IOA -- you have a park that is buffered from Conneaut Lake by two drab blocks.

You have an aging hotel with no A/C. Then, as I had described earlier, you get a park which is really nothing more than a strip mall of amusement park rides on two sides of a pedestrian street.

I'm guessing I didn't see Blue Streak at its best but it was in sorry shape with an ugly fence alongside the park's turnstile entrance road and unkempt greenery surrounding it. It's as close an impersonation to a SBNO that I have seen from an operating coaster.

It felt more like a B-grade carnival pit stop than an actual freestanding amusement park.

That said, the reason I made it a point to check out the park, spend a night at Hotel Conneaut and spend more at the park in concessions than I typically do was to show my support. I would hate to see it go away, even though I walked away with little interest in going back.

Back in April of this year a bunch of us went to Paramounts Kings Island's opening day, then headed on down to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom the next day. Once we arrived to the park and strolled around the midways and noticing that many rides and attractions had either chipping paint or serverly faded paint, and some of the food stands were carnival food trucks. And for the park being run by Six Flags, half the food places where shut down. The only show that was going on was the character concert and the props were pretty shabby themselves. So after seeing all of this we all conlcuded unaminously that the entire park was a " state fair on steroids ". Also one more hint of uglyness was that there was actually racoon poop on the wooden planks of one of the wooden coasters. It was nasty lookin. If anyone else agrees, please say so. Thanx a lot.

P.S. Might I say its location was a bad place too, right next door to an airport, along with a highway dividing it into two parks with a tiny bridge connecting the two halves. Along with a very confusing layout. *** Edited 8/4/2004 4:57:08 AM UTC by DisasterAmy63*** *** Edited 8/4/2004 4:58:09 AM UTC by DisasterAmy63***

Interesting thread...

I too would vote for SFKK. Sorry Kentucky, but the park is horrible looking. The front of it is so tiny, and then the small bridge to the back isn't pretty, and neither is anything in the back half, save perhaps the mini-Hurricane Harbor and the area around Chang. The sights from Twisted Sisters (I refuse to use the "politically correct" name, sorry) were of the surrounding not-so-nice neighborhood, and as someone else pointed out, there is more chain link fence in this park than pretty much all of the other parks combined. The walkways don't always lead where you expect them to go, and it is confusing to trek around the park.

My second vote would go to Worlds of Adventure, not including the "Wild Animals" side. I haven't seen it under Cedar Fair, but between tiny dead-end walkways and cramped quarters for everything, the bit of charm that they tried to put into this park came off as being an afterthought. The Villian looked nice but gave nothing to look at while on it. Add to it the lake under Batman: Knight Flight and Serial Thriller was extremely smelly when I was there, and it adds to a not-so-great time. To top it all off, about 1/3rd of the park was closed that day -- "It's before the regular season, so we only open the front half of the park with no water attractions." -- was what I was told, and considering everything else, this was an UGLY park.

These are just opinions, no flaming please.

This is interesting. I love Conneaut Lake Park and found the atmosphere fantastic! I agree that the park needs a lot of upgrades and repairs but under the chipped concrete and peeling paint lies a true gem.

I don't understand the "strip mall" reference. The layout, the buildings, the rides, the city streets, cottages interspersed here and there, the beautiful Hotel (and you don't need air conditioning if you open the widow and the transom) all gave it more character than any contrived and market researched theme park I've ever seen.

Maybe I just have low standards when it comes to aesthetics, but I have yet to go to an amusement park that I have found to be ugly (and I consider myself to be fairly well-traveled). Sure, some parks are nicer than others, but I have never been to a park that completely offends my eyes like some of you have suggested.

I fail to see how Conneaut Lake is ugly. I'll agree that the layout is a little strange, but the midway (the strip mall?) is gorgeous and the architecture is amazing. The beachfront Hotel Conneaut? Sure, it has no A/C, but how does that make it ugly? And I love the entrance to the park- when the flying scooters, ferris wheel and tilt-a-whirl light up at night, it is really a sight to behold.

While I respect everyone's opinion, I think that there is a difference between a park being ugly and a park simply not being your "thing".

There isn't a park uglier then the condos and sprawl-mart that gets built on top of it.

When it was open, Americana/Lesourdsville Lake was always pretty hideous. And it always was that way, a really dumpy looking park. But as far as portions of parks, I think the far end of PKI's Coney Mall, (around Vortex), needs help. And even at CP, at the back of the park where the water rides are at can be lifeless and dull at times. By the way, this thread didn't cross any lines IMO, at the very least, it's something to talk about.

As with Rob Ascough, I don't really think any park is ugly, because they are escapes from the ordinary world.

However, the Area just around Chang seemed kind of ugly, because of a lack of buildings or trees, but mostly because that part of the park had no people in it when I went.

millrace: What hav you got against cookie-cutter Wal-Marts?

Lesourdsville Lake/Americana is actually pretty neat. There really isn't anything outstanding about any individual element but it all seems to work together when put together as a whole.

Rob: What haven't you got against cookie-cutter Wal-Marts? They are the architectural equivelent of fresh pig manure and the effect on the social fabric of the community can best be described as total disembowelment. But I'll spare you how I really feel...

I have to agree with Kentucky Kingdom. Going into the parking lot is ugly, there is not one single themed area, the coasters have more plant life surrounding them than most Rain forests, all the buildings and rides need painted, and its not like its a large park.

I feel bad saying these things, I was only there the first time ever for 2 1/2 hours this week. But it is a sad looking park with (IMHO) some great coasters. Its like they just plopped down some water park attractions in between coasters and rides, and nothing was opened but the coasters and a few flats.

This park has great potential, but poor followthru.

Total disembowelment... I like that, millrace! It sounds so... perfect! I think its funny how a Wal-Mart pretends to be an asset to the community by offering low prices on a small scale but achieves those low prices by total disembowelment of the American economy on a large scale, but I digress. Another conversation for another time...

I've heard the SFKK is pretty ugly, and I've heard the same about SFEG. We could have gone to SFKK last May but we opted for another few hours at Holiday World. I have a feeling it was a good choice we made.

So if we're all going to have to follow the TOS here....
why didn't anybody jump on that girl who posted a couple weeks ago about her trip to CP, when she said her "boobs were flopping around everywhere" on the trampoline?
Doesn't the TOS say that "sexually oriented" material isn't allowed?
There shouldn't be a double standard!!!

If you see something offensive, let a moderator know. We don't sit around reading hundreds of new posts every damn day.

CedarPoint82: What on Earth are you talking about?

CP82-I remember that TR, there were quite a few other innuendos in there too. It didn't offend me personally; I figured it probably entertained the young 'uns (especially those emgees out there who may have missed the boob reference completely due to the mention of roller coasters).
I too was relatively unimpressed with SFKK. I thought the architecture was good & it had potential though.
Lakemont is the "ugliest" park I've been to, but I just may have had a bad day (LTD 100th anniv). It was humid & in the high 90's, & I think that every po-dunct(?)-trash person for miles happened to be at the park that day. We rode for a bit, then went up to DelGrosso's & had a great time. But in Lakemont's defense, I know it has had a tragic history and is working to revive itself. But I have no desire to go back - I just send money to the Leap-the-Dips fund each season instead.

Hi guys I'm some what new here but I do have a some what qualified opinion on this particular matter.I have been to hundreds(literally)of parks aroung the world.MOST,yes Most parks are not planed well and lack the charm that most Theme Parks now have.Disney made it difficult for the tourism industry,and unfortunally most parks still haven't raised to the challenge.As some of you might know already Disney is faltering.Their parks are getting lamer and cheaper.I think thait's a prime opertunity for other parks to step up to te challenge.Universal has,as well as the Bush parks,and some of the old Classic parks,but as a whole we are a nations of poorly concieved,terribly excuted amusements that do nothing more then divert a persons time for a few hours.

A nation of poorly-conceived, terribly-executed amusements... wow, that's a pretty strong statement. Before I begin to debate that one, would you mind telling me why you feel that way?

I'll admit that there are some pretty bland amusement parks in this country, but more often than not, I can find numerous redeeming qualities about any park I visit. I can honestly say that it is VERY rare that I come across a park that wouldn't keep my busy for a day. I just spent an entire day at Seabreeze on Saturday- a fairly small park with three small coasters and a dozen or so other adult rides, but at no point did the park risk losing my attention. If anything, I feel the Six Flags/Cedar Fair-style theme parks are the ones that aren't rising to the challenge. Sure, they have tons of coasters, but how many GOOD coasters does the average theme park have? And how many average theme parks can you go to and ride everything in one day? I find parks like SFMM and Cedar Point drain me of my enjoyment of the experience because the entire day is spent rushing to the next line (notice I said "line" not "ride"). Keep in mind I have nothing against theme parks- I love my home park, SFGAdv- but I think they are the ones that fail to deliver on all the promises they make to entertain, not the smaller, traditional-style parks.

I have never been overseas and cannot comment on those parks, so I'm curious to know why you feel