Dude, the Tea Cups are still there.
I miss the Smurf Mountain at Kings Dominion in VA. I used to make out all the time on that ride. That and the haunted river in the same mountain. Now both are gone for one ride.
I miss Lightnin’ Loops at Six Flags Great Adventure. The coolest part was the trip backwards, you never knew when that drop was coming.
This is true. But I no longer live in California, I live in scary New Jersey. (Where every drive is like Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, which I also miss.)
I greatly enjoyed the Pirate Ride at Cedar Point too. There was a REALLY strange episode in that funhouse ride where you found yourself swallowed by a whale, and rode through a shadowy place where you saw ribs and an big beating heart and things, and then took a long slide through darkness–and then you were back on the “open sea” and on to more adventures.
Ever hear the expression "ad deep as whale sht?" I think that in that long slide through the darkness, we WERE whale sht!
The “Spin-Out” at Magic Mountain in California. A group of park patrons gathered inside a large cylinder whose walls were of a rubbery texture. The operator latched the door and the cylinder started to spin; centrifugal force kept you against the wall, even when the floor started to lower, which usually brought delighted shrieks…:eek: 
(Remember how a ride was used like this in an episode of Charlie’s Angels?)
The defunct “Magic Pagoda,” at MM, which ended with a darkened room fitted with strobe lights, creating a silent-movie flicker effect.
The “Tiki Room” at Disneyland, with the lovely music and the moving faces on the walls, and a fountain in the middle which had a column of water which turned red (from lighting) and rose to the ceiling, followed by loud thunder and lightning from “outside” the room.
The defunct “America Sings” at Disneyland; an auditorium setting in which the area with the seats rotated around a stationary center stage, showing various mechanical creatures describing songs. (I think as immigrants came into Southern California with different musical heritages the general appeal of “America Sings” was lost and its parts transferred to other, newer attractions.)
It is still there, but part of my overwhelming nostalgia sadness misses the Astrosphere at Funtown in Saco, Maine. The ride as I remember it is unique (I’ve heard of no other ride in the world like it).
You and a group of about 15-20 others enter a small hallway waiting before a door. The attendant closes (and locks) the door you came in through. He then comes around and opens the other side. The reason for this is to prevent too much air from running out of the giant dome you have just entered. The dome itself is very dark save for just enough lights for you to find a seat on the glow-in-the-dark Merry Mixer (aka Scrambler). The ride starts up and throughout the dome blasts ELO’s instrumental hit “Fire on High”. While spinnning around, listening to the music, trippy pictures appear on the ceiling, rotating in both directions. Some are of birds, some are funky 70’s dune buggies, there are flowers, and then interspersed are disturbing images of men and monsters. The right continues until about 2/3 of the way through the song when it is interrupted by sounds of thunder. At the same time, the room goes completely black save for a strobe-lights flashing in the room, which is an AMAZINGLY COOL effect while riding the Merry Mixer. After, the song winds up for another minute or so where the strobe light mixes with the pictures as well as other lights that run around the dome.
You then are lead out through another similar hall where you exit the ride (and you then run back to the line to go on again).
LlamaPoet, that sounds alot like an old Astroworld ride. Originally called the Happening, it too was a similar ride. They put a dome around it and called it the Orbiter. Along the walls, they had black light art that changed with each season. It too was a scrambler. Another similar ride to a scrambler was called The Black Dragon, an octopus ride. Similar in its circle within a circle path the rider took, it also went up and down along the path.
That is exactly what’s there now. It’s called “Yosemite Sam’s Gold River Adventure,” featuring barely-animated figures of most of the Looney Tunes characters in cowboy costumes.
Go to www.parktimes.com to see photos of defunct rides at Six Flags Over Texas. (I wanna ride The Big Bend again!) www.yesterland.com is THE best site to see defunct Disneyland attractions and restaurants and other now-gone DL landmarks. dougie_monty, the Tiki Birds show is still at Disneyland.
There’s also a ton of excellently creepy photos at Defunct Parks.
(Sorry if that’s a repeat, I thought I made sure none of the links already posted lead there.)
The section on Chippewa Park in Ohio-- actually, I think the best pics of that are on a site Defunct Parks links to-- is particularly affecting. Trees growing through a ferris wheel and such.
Thanks rosebud. You put it ad Defuctparkts. Here is the corrected link:http://www.defunctparks.com/
Crap! Thanks, Road Rash 
Nobody will remember this. There was a park on the grounds of what is now the astrodome.
It was called playland park. It had a race track and a roller coaster that went around the track, above the light poles!!
Rides and a VERY fast roller coaster was all a seven year old could ask for! Then a stock car race afterward?
It was heaven!!
BTW , Not to date myself… I actually saw AJ Foyt race there!!
Just checked out the website for Great America in Gurnee. I can’t believe the Demon is still there. I remember it was considered really scary the last time I was there in 1982, but it must seem like a kiddie ride compared to what they have now.
Was Triple Play that weird triple Ferris Wheel-type thing, where you’d sit in those barrels hanging off “fingers”? I’ve never seen anything even remotely similar to that.
My favorite ride in the park was The Lobster, which appears to be gone.
I went to Opryland in Nashville, TN many times as a kid and even worked there during the summer of 1989. The park was closed in 1998 and I only recently found out about this. It always seemed strange to me to close an entire park (they razed the entire site to put up a shopping mall, so there’s nothing left to photograph for the Defunct Parks website) but I guess the place was not making much money anymore.
I particularly miss the roller coasters (Wabash Cannonball, Screaming Delta Demon), the Grizzly River Rampage (where a sign out front declared “you will get wet on this ride, possibly soaked!”), The Flume Zoom, the bumper cars, and the cable car (from which you could see just about everything)
Yup. Very much closed. The queueline is now a character greeting area (literally ‘get-in-line’ to meet with many of the Fantasyland characters (Pinocchio, Gepetto, Captain Hook, etc., although Ariel has her own greeting area (“Ariel’s Grotto”).
“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” was closed for several reasons, both officially and speculative. Officially, it was a slow loading ride- maximum of 20 people on each submarine (IIRC). I don’t know how many subs they ran on the track at a time, but the wait time was fairly significant, even in the slow season.
Unofficially, it was called a deathtrap: there was really no way to safely exit the ride in case of an emergency if you were stranded in the middle of the open water (staircases and platforms if you were in the caves, but if you were between the loading platform and the caves (near the fake mermaids), you’d have to swim for it, unless they got a boat out to you in time. Never heard of anyone having to do so, but if you did, I surely wouldn’t want to, what with all the hydraulic oil and other chemicals in the water, yick yick yick.
Also, there was no way to make the ride ADA compliable. You had to walk down 9 very narrow and very steep steps, in very dim light, then flip down and straddle a padded seat the size of a dinner plate. About as comfortable too. People with mobility problems (like formerRoommate) had a helluva time negotiating the stairs. Don’t even consider getting a wheelchair anywhere near the ride.
All this to look at fluorescent plastic fish on a string.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - both the book and the Disney movie. But the ride fell so far short of every possible expectation, even on the first time I rode it.
As for me, I miss Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at DisneyWorld. as lame as it was (careening past fluorescent 60’s style cardboard cutouts of panicked people and farm animals, and buldings weaving side-to-side), where esle could you find a life-sized painting of a (mostly) nude woman anywhere on any Disney property (the painting behind the bartender ducking behind the bar - her hair covered a few body parts, but left little to the imagination. formerRoommate loved that ride…
It was replaced by The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh. Eh. Gets me really nauseated with all the up-and-down bobbing through the ride. I’m the person who rides MGM Studios Rock-n-Roller Coaster (featuring Aerosmith) five to 8 times in the mornings before going to work at Universal Studios, and I can’t handle Winnie-the-Pooh?
It sure was on the main Midway, about 1/3 of the way up on the right side (If walking tward Frontier Village) It was always one of the first to get hit when I went as a kid, as my parents cut us loose after going on a few wimpy rides together as a family.
**That was Avalance Run. It’s actually still there, they just built a giant wharehouse around it and renamed it Disaster Transport. **
:eek: They ruined it! They screwed that one up so badly it sure isn’t recognizable anymore.
BTW, the WildCat still there?
Yes, the flying saucers at DisneyLand were a lot of fun. The original mine train ride, especially when you could ride the mules was a classic- altho the train went into the underground caverns, which was also neat. There was a “walkthru” where they exibited props & stuff from 20,000 Leagues under the Sea that I still miss. I first went there in the first year it opened.
There was a stupid “mars” ride at the old Pacific Ocean Park I still remember fondly. Got onto a moving walkway, and viewed “exibits”.
Then, at the old “NewPike” in Long Beach, there was a “diving bell” which went into a “underwater shark tank”. Cheesy, yes, but fun when I was that young.
I was about to ask that myself. I’d been wondering what had become of it, since I knew that it was converted into something “The Little Mermaid” related when we went there for a family vacation for the last time back in '98. Apart from that, Screech-Owl makes many an interesting point.
What bugs the hell out of me is what’s happened to tomorrowland. The neon tubes and retro-style technology tacked onto what used to be there are really painful to look at. Then they’ve gone and turned Space Mountain into one big FedEx ad–which it was, what with the sponsoring and all, but it just drove me insane how they had to skullfuck everyone with it in the line area. Above all, Horizons will be missed. It was so cool looking. As will the Universe of Energy, since the current one is just a mind-wrenching sketch involving Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Why couldn’t they just make everything nice and current instead of adding all the crap they have?
Why don’t they just get rid of the small world thing? That’s just… ugh. Even when I was 16 I found it disturbing.
How about the haunted mansion? How much has that been screwed with?
And have they added Dubya to the hall of presidents yet, or do they just do that after they’re out of office? I seem to recall Clinton being in there the last time I went in '98.