From The Vault: 1999 Wild Adventures Brochure + Map

© Wild Adventures

Wild Adventure Theme Park is another property that started off as an independent park and struggled to find its footing for a number of years.  After starting to add rides for the 1998 season, Wild Adventures returned in 1999 with even more attractions to draw guests to the property.

The biggest new ride was The Hangman (now known as the Twisted Typhoon), which is a Vekoma SLC.  It joined the park's Boomerang, another Vekoma ride, as the park's biggest thrill ride.

© Wild Adventures

Wild Adventures first opened without thrill rides, so the zoological component of the park has always been a big draw as well.  Later down the line the park also added a water park, which has indeed helped to draw guests under the warm Georgia sun.  Back in 1999 a lot of the park's rides weren't very unique, but they offered an interesting reason to visit along with the animals.

© Wild Adventures

In addition to the rides and animals which we've already mentioned, the park has also always featured a selection of live concerts to draw visitors - and still do in present day.  This page shows that as well, along with different season offerings.  Not many parks were doing both Halloween and Christmas celebrations back in '99!

© Wild Adventures

Here is a look at the park in 1999.  The park was divided into separate themed areas, which have sort of melted away over the years.  The newest at the time was The Wild West, where the Hangman roller coaster was built.

Wild Adventures is now owned by Herschend Family Entertainment, and while not seeing a massive amount of capital investments, it does seem like the company is trying to "right size" the park for its market - hopefully to help it thrive in the long run.

From The Vault: Universal Studios Florida 1996 Guide

Here's a fun one, a Universal Studios Florida brochure from February 1996.  My how this park has changed!

There's a lot of familiar faces on the cover of this brochure... but almost all of them are gone from the park in present day!  The mentality of the park was totally different than it is now, this was no resort at the time and they literally gave away a second day's admission if you were willing to come back.  An adult ticket at the time was $37 - currently a single park admission ticket is $92 - right around a 250% increase from '96.

Here's a map of Universal Studios Florida, a bit smaller than we are accustomed to now without the extension to where Men In Black currently is.  Since the resort had not yet been developed, it is super strange to see a Bus/Taxi Pick Up area out front of the gates!  Also the Hard Rock Cafe was still in the old location, where both visitors to the park and outside guests could have a meal.

The center of the brochure has one point and that is to show off all the rides and attractions that were offered at the park.  Nickelodeon Studios was up and running at the park, filming several shows on property.  Specifically during early February The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo was being filmed, featuring Pat Morita!

In 1996 Universal Studios Florida still offered a Production Studio Tram Tour, something brought to the park to mimic the success of the Hollywood version.  Wikipedia says that the Tour closed in 1995, so I'm not quite sure why it is still listed in this brochure!

Other big attractions at the park are featured here as well, including Jaws, Kongfrontation, Earthquake - The Big One, and Back To The Future - The Ride.  Only one of those four is still in operation, though under a different name (Disaster!).

Barney was a recent addition to the park in 1996, having just joined the lineup the year before as part of an expansive area for kids that was also the home to Fievel's Playland.  Kids were also sure to get a kick out of the E.T. Adventure, and the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera.

Along with plenty of dining and shopping options to fill in a visitor's time, the park also heavily promoted the Dynamite Nights Stuntacular, which took place on the central lagoon in the evening.  Without a second park, Harry Potter, Resorts and CityWalk, guests would often taken a bus back to their hotel in Disney World after spending a part of the day at Universal Studios Florida.  At least my family always did!

From The Vault: Worlds of Fun 1995 Park Map

A great many moons ago Sabrina featured Worlds of Fun's 1995 park brochure in her series here on NPN, and I just came across the park map from that year.  Nothing goes better with a park brochure than a park map, nicely painting a picture of the park at the time.  So... here goes!

The map was tri-fold style, printed on larger size paper that is a quality that does not scan well.  My apologies for the apparent fogginess of these images... I didn't want to mess with them too much though.

In 1995 Worlds of Fun was the Place To Be For Fun!  In case you weren't aware.  The middle of the season marked the purchased of the park by Cedar Fair, so the styling here is all Hunt Midwest.  The panels here give some tips to help visitors have the best day possible, and also highlights the live entertainment offered (including dolphins!).  The Health Tips are especially interesting: "If you become overly tired or distressed, take a few minutes to rest and recuperate."  I think this could be applied to everyday life... solid advice here folks!

Here's the goods - the actual park map.  Make sure to click on the image for the much larger version where detail is available.  We're just short of this being from 20 years ago... and the park has changed so much since 1995!  Plenty of rides have been removed, The Plunge, Orient Express, Omegatron, and the Zambezi Zinger are some of the most obvious ones.  Granted there are plenty of new rides to replace these, so most would say it was a fair trade.  The park's original main entrance was still functioning, complete with the Cotton Blossom river boat.  Plus there's no sign of Snoopy anywhere - the kids area is still named Pandamonium.

From The Vault: Geauga Lake 1996 Brochure + Map

Next up we have Geauga Lake's 1996 brochure and map.  During this time period the park was owned by Premier Parks, and they were by no means shy when it came to expansion.  Along those lines, two big attractions opened in 1996 at Geauga Lake.

A roller coaster, named Mind Eraser, and a river rapids ride, named Grizzly Run, were the featured rides for the year.

The Mind Eraser was a standard Boomerang coaster, and utilized the same name that Premier Parks used for that style of ride at several other properties.  Grizzly Run was an Intamin river rapids ride that featured "raging rapids, roaring rip ties, swirling currents and towering waterfalls" according to the marketing.

Since this was before the day of Cedar Fair ownership, the park still had a water park built along the shores of the lake.  That silly looking turtle was the mascot for that area.  This section of the brochure also advertises the coasters that could be found, including two wooden rides, Raging Wolf Bobs and the Big Dipper.

Outside of the water park and big coasters, there was still plenty more to do at Geauga Lake.  A wide variety of flat rides like the Texas Twister and Skyscraper Ferris wheel had guests covered, plus there was more fun with the Cuyahoga River Logging Company flume ride and the even slower paced 1926 Marcus Illions Carousel.

The park's calendar featured weekends in October when "Halloscream" took place, there were also fireworks on all the popular holidays.  Geauga Lake also held an annual Grad Night, staying open from 10 pm all the way through to 4 am.

I have to admit that this park map is both ugly and horribly done!  Sorry, but the map changes perspective several times which gives it a bit of a crazy warped feeling!  But it's neat to be able to look back and see what was offered in 1996.

From The Vault: Wild Adventures 1998 Brochure + Map

The late 1990s were an exciting time for Wild Adventures theme park, located in Valdosta, Georgia.  The park was seeing major expansions, and in 1998 when this media is from that was still quite true.

The cover of the brochure for the year - which is actually a larger sized booklet - advertises some of the additions for the year.  There were both new rides and animal attractions, each of which are key draws for the park.

Here we get a good look at all that was new at the park.  The text here indicates that there were "25 great new family rides for kids of all ages."  The biggest thrill ride that had been added was the Boomerang, but a slew of new flat rides also opened at the park.  These included a Time Warp, Aviator, Chaos, Pharaoh's Fury, and Tilt-a-Whirl among others.  The Plunge was a new wet/dry slide combo that many appreciated during the Summer heat.

While lots of rides had been added the animal attractions at the park were still an important factor in bringing in visitors.  Plenty of exhibits let guests see Elephants, lion, tigers (oh my!), monkeys and plenty more.  The concerts that were held at the park were also a draw - along with the nightly "Wild Laser Adventures" show.

The back of the pamphlet, like most at the time, featured the details such as hours and prices.  Also like most parks they were pushing their season pass, which was a rather cheap $59.95 in 1998.

This is the park map that was given out that year, though it was a bit vague for my tastes.  It has been detailed significantly since then, but it at least gave an idea of where the rides vs. animal attractions were located.  If you compare this to a more recent map you can quickly see just how much expansion has taken place at the park since then!

From The Vault: Miracle Strip 1995 Brochure

This week's From The Vault features on a brochure from one of the most commonly missed amusement parks, Florida's Miracle Strip.

This brochure is dated from 1995, though was sent to me the following Summer.  Not sure why they did not have updated materials for 1996, but it doesn't really mater much.  Miracle Strip was located in Panama City Beach, and had its final season in 2004.

The park consisted of Miracle Strip, which had coasters and rides, and the nearby Shipwreck Island, a water park.  The property offered the "Double Parked" ticket plan which gave visitors entrance to both the amusement and water parks on different days, if they liked.

I would be doing myself a disservice if I did not point how that the creatures in the upper left are creepy - I'm not sure many kids would want to have their photo taken with those park mascots!  This center section features shots of many of the parks rides and slides.

The Starliner wooden coaster was the biggest of the thrills, a classic John Allen design.  The coaster is currently in storage and will hopefully be rebuilt eventually by the operators of the New Miracle Strip park.

Plenty of other rides can be seen in these photos as well, such as the Musik Express, Sea Dragon, the Shockwave, and Wave Swinger.

Miracle Strip also offered some live entertainment as well, as seen on the schedule above.  Shipwreck Island Water Park, which still operates today, dominated the second panel of this section.  Nothing better than beating the Florida sun with a day at a water park!

The center of the brochure featured these no frills maps of both attractions.  Other attractions that are often mentioned as being missed were the indoor rides that fans loved.  These include the Dungeon (indoor Tilt-a-Whirl), Dante's Inferno (indoor Trabant), and the Abominable Snowman (indoor Scrambler).  Another sure highlight was the Haunted Castle, a classic Bill Tracy designed ride through dark ride.

From The Vault: Lagoon 2001 Brochure and Map

This week's From The Vault shall focus on Lagoon's 2001 brochure and park map.  Lagoon is located in Farmington, Utah - a little North of Salt Lake City.  Not a park that most people happen upon unless they're specifically traveling there, or of course live locally.  The park has an interesting mix of rides and attractions so let's have a look.

You have to love that the park's classic Schwarzkopf loops is right on the front of the brochure!  Known as Colossus the Fire Dragon, the ride features two vertical loops and an extended helix.  Colossus originally traveled the German fair circuit before making its way across the ocean to Lagoon.

The park's tag line of "you'll never be the same" is actually a bit intimidating!  What's going to happen there that will forever change me!

Rides, slides, water, songs, dance, the great wild west - there's lots that is offered as part of an admission ticket to Lagoon.  In 2001 the park's new attraction was cliffhanger, a Mondial Splash Over flat ride.  It has two rows of seats that independently spin - like a Top Spin - and there are some elaborate fountains that blast up as the ride spins as well.  You can check out a video of the ride here, it looks like a pretty unique ride for the States!

The center of the park's brochure is one enormous long panel, so I scanned it in as such.  At the time this was printed the park had several roller coasters, such as the classic wooden Roller Coaster, a Jet Star, the aforementioned Colossus, and a Wild Mouse.  Since then a new fleet of rides have been added, including two family coasters (Bat and Bombora), along with the spinning Spider and blasting Wicked.

The park had a very simplistic map style for many years, which was still being used in 2001 and can be seen here.  While a bit unflattering, it certainly made things clear for guests as to where they wanted to be headed!  The current map is actually still similar, though with better color and a slight bit more detail.

Lagoon is apparently well underway on constructing a brand new - said to be pretty darn tall - roller coaster, so I think we'll be hearing more about the park quite a bit in future months!

From The Vault: Silverwood Theme Park 2001 Guide Map

It still blows my mind that 2001 was over a decade ago - the years just keep flying by!  Regardless of my quick-aging this week's From the Vault focuses on Silverwood Theme Park's 2001 guide map.  With a special treat at the end.

The guide map is small, not cumbersome so as to be handy during a visit to the park.  The front section advertises some of the basics, such as a reminder to grab an entertainment schedule, some information on camping and group admission tickets.  There's also a park schedule and, wait, a map of the Northwestern U.S. pointing out where guests are?  I should hope they're aware of that if they are already inside the park!

And here's the goods, the actual map of Silverwood Theme Park circa 2001.  The park had already added its two wooden roller coasters in the Coaster Alley section:  The Timber Terror (bottom) and Tremors above it.  That specific section of the park has been built up since this time, there's now a freefall and this year's new crazy inverting SpinCycle flat ride here as well (among other attractions).

You can click the image for a larger view to check out the property.

And here's a bonus item that the park sent me that year as well, a fact sheet with some of their roller coaster statistics.  The park is also home to the Corkscrew, a ride that used to call Knott's Berry Farm home.  I never knew that the park's wooden coasters each only have one train!  That must make for some long lines during the Summer season.

From The Vault: Castles 'n' Coasters 1997 Brochure

Here's a fun one that has been buried away for a long time, a 1997 brochure from Castles 'n' Coasters, located in Phoenix, Arizona.  The actual brochure is not date specific, but it was sent to me that year so let's go with that!

The park is a mix of amusement park and family entertainment center, and obviously there is a castle theme going on somewhere in there, too.  The park's small size means they pack a lot of attractions into the boundaries, and also as the name states that includes a couple of roller coasters.

The park opened in 1982 and changed names a few times as additions were make and new attractions opened.  This page of the brochure describes the park as Arizona's "newest" park - I'm pretty sure the list of amusement parks in Arizona is a really short one however!

The park has two roller coaster, Desert Storm which is featured prominently here, and also the Patriot.  Both were created by Hopkins.  Desert Storm has two loops so it is aimed more toward thrill seekers, while the Patriot is a smaller family ride.

The center of the brochure is a map of the park that shows all the rides and attractions that were offered as of that time.  You can see that the mini golf courses take up a lot of real estate, but as an amusement park / family entertainment center they are a must. 

The log flume, named Splashdown, has a really interesting description in that it says its theming includes a logging town, African elephants, and a Polynesian village.  What!

There were also bumper boats, go-karts, and some flat rides like a Carousel, bumper cars, Sea Dragon, and a Magic Carpet.

From The Vault: Adventureland 1999 Brochure + Map

Let's take a look at the 1999 brochure and map for Iowa's Adventureland amusement park, shall we?

The amusement park saw steady expansion during the 1990s with rides and attractions like the Giant Sky Wheel, the wooden coaster The Outlaw inside a new themed area, and flat rides like the Mixer and G-Force.

1999 saw the addition of another towering thrill ride, the Space Shot.

I admit I cheated and moved these two sections side by side, but obviously if you follow the panels left to right they are made to sit atop one another.  Launching riders up "like a rocket" the Space Shot stands over 200 feet tall, according to the park.  Popular additions during the era, the S&S ride blasted the carriage up in two sections and provided a g-force of 4.5.  Plus there's that nice pop of air time at the top!

The park went pretty simple with showing off their other attractions in the brochure.  You can see the Mixer in the top photo, a flat ride that had a couple years of popularity at many parks, then they slowly started to disappear.  The park also featured the Royal Hanneford Circus in 1999, which was a huge hit with park guests.

You also can't forget the park's other coasters, such as the Dragon - a Hopkins looping ride - and the Tornado, a classic wooden ride designed by William Cobb, both pictured here.

The park's map included some information on "The Daily Adventure," a fun newspaper style handout.  Here you can read more about the new Space Shot and the return of the Royal Hanneford Circus.  The park also boasts both an Inn and Campground, which make it easy to spend a couple days at the park on a short vacation.

Here is the park map that was sent out in 1999.  You can click for a larger version where you can take a look around the property.  If you notice a similarity in the park's entrance area to that of Disneyland, well, yes that's certainly spot on!  I haven't been to the park - which in recent years has added quite a big water park - but hope I can get there some day.