GREATAMERICAparks.com

Speaking for myself, I've always had an interest in amusement/theme parks since I was a kid. I've visited many parks from Disney, Six Flags, Paramount, Cedar Fair, Busch, etc. Unfortunately the Gurnee park wasn't among them. I knew the other park existed because I always read magazine articles on am...

Alot of people believe that because the main source why Great America in both parks, present day, has lost its family touch is because of the rides that were to extreme for families. Paramount's Great America has quite a few family friendly attractions in the present day. Their coaster count at six...

Does anyone remember the sponsors for the parks in the Marriott days? All I remember for Santa Clara were: AMC "Grand Music Hall" Union 76 "Barney Oldfield Speedway" 1st California Bank "Skytower" I think there were also Encyclopedia Britannica"You Are Here" s...

The owners of Coney Island Ohio built Kings Island because the old site along the river was too risky having been through floods several times. I think there were quite a few rides brought over to the new park. I collect postcards of both parks and even noticed the log flume was the same. The Coney ...

Near the Eagle's Flight station there was Burgers on the Run and near the Delta Flyer station there was Pizza Orleans. Burgers and Pizza were available as their names implied.

That's what I thought. I remember shortly after the Marriott parks opened I read an article about how there were going to be no new theme parks built because the market was saturated (no major metropolitan areas left to support them). Things sure have changed since then.

Excluding EPCOT, weren't the Marriott parks the last of the fully planned and built themed parks from the original "theme park" boom of the 60's and 70's? After that I think it was acquisition and conversion of existing traditional, animal and water parks into full fledged theme parks. Any...

When I see newer photos of the Gurnee Demon it looks like they kept the original coaster train color style; Red w/black trim and Yellow w/black trim. The Santa Clara Demon has the red rails and the coaster trains are all black with red trim. Did they build a hill with a tunnel for the Great America ...

The Tidal Wave opened at Santa Clara in 1977 and at Gurnee in 1978.

The America-go-round in SC was replaced by the Drop Zone Stunt Tower.

Anybody ever notice the different style of rock work between the two Demon coasters? I wonder why they did it differently? In photos it's easy to figure out which park you're looking at. Were there any other subtle differences between the two coasters? How about today? Anything different between them?

I think there were three stops. One in the Hometown Square turn-around loop near Triple Play, one in the Orleans Place turn-around loop near A la Burger, and one behind the Columbia in Carousel Plaza. In SC MGA they called it Hometown & Orleans Street Railway.

Parents trying to get their kids that didn't meet height requirements on rides was fairly common when I was a ride operator at SCBB (70's). I'd explain to them that our insurance policy mandated the height requirement and with good reason. If the parent was really persistant I'd follow up with "...

ewilson: Do you happen to know who Truman Woodworth and R.P. Johnson were? I believe those were the names of the General Merchandise stores in Hometown Square.

The article mentions a "live-steam narrow-guage railroad". I don't think that's right is it?

I remember when I first rode the railroad it sounded like recordings of a steam engine and I didn't see any steam.