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Failed/dropped plans you wish happened?

GuyWithAStick

GuyWithAStick

Captain Basic
When a new attraction/experience is coming to a park, they usually release some, if not all of the plans. But when a problem arises that makes the project fall through or stop, many people get disappointed. So, what are some plans made by the park that fell through you wish had happened?

For me, there are 2 main projects that fell through at SFGAm I wish were completed.

First was that Chang would come to the front of the park in 2011. It was to be renamed Green Lantern, and was going to be given the first ever standup-floorless conversion. This was back when the Six Flags corporation controlled what each park got. After Shaprio got fired(hallelujah), the plans were dropped, and the park(not the corporation) decided to expand the water park with Riptide Bay. The park would've finally gotten a B&M sitdown multilooper, but it would've meant that X-Flight and Goliath would never happen.

Secondly, was the Six Flags Entertainment Village. This is a bit of an odd topic, but here's the basis of what it was. In 1998, Six Flags had the opportunity of developing the land across the highway. Here's a picture of the area they owned:

sBIL2WK.jpg


As you can see, it was a pretty large chunk of land. It would've included a waterpark, a hotel, employee housing, a pond that included boating and ice skating(in the winter), a conference center, a 12,000 seat event center, and 10 acres of themed entertainment(shops, theaters, restaurants, bars, etc.). And on top of all that, they essentially wanted the Six Flags corporate headquarters in the same complex. It would've made SFGAm the crown jewel of the Six Flags chain, and would've turned Gurnee into Sandusky 2.0. However, the plans fell through due to a mix of resident complaints(for noise), infrastructure(tollway) improvements, and that the little street the park ran under(the one that crosses the highway in the picture above) needed to be redone, which SF didn't want to do. Sandusky 2.0 was cancelled due to a stupid little road. Six Flags can be really stupid at times. Oh yeah, here's the artist rendering of the proposed site:

https://flic.kr/p/8tQqTU
Credit to Rob Cass on SFGAmWorld.

So, any plans you wish happened?
 
There's loads of Disney ones for example Beastly Kingdom and Multi Indiana Jones ride complex thing at Paris. I guess the cross-valley wooden coaster rumour at Alton Towers too.
 
Kingda Ka and the relocation from SFMM to SFGAdv and the lack of a 500 foot coaster in the world.
 
The woodie planned for Thorpe in Saw's spot looked pretty nice; would have been nice to see that come to fruition.

Would have been nice to see Hartenhof at Efteling too (assuming it was the Pandora Box concept)!
 
Liseberg's expansion plans, with a second gate at the south end of the park, looked quite nice. Loefet posted about them on some occasions back when he was active. If I remember correctly, Liseberg would buy an area almost half as big as the current size of the park, an old Volvo factory if memory serves me right. There were plans for a water park, with lots of room for regular park expansion too.

If Geauga Lake had been managed a little smarter, it would have been quite awesome too. The park had flaws on fundamental levels, but had Busch's purchase of the massive park gone through, it could have been saved. Geauga Lake was actually the largest theme park in the world only ten years ago, but it crashed and failed spectacularly. If it had been saved, and succeeded (it did pull in massive crowds of visitors, albeit it didn't make much money thanks to very low gate prices), who knows what it would have looked like today.

I guess the same could go for Hard Rock Park, but that's teetering into another topic.

The whole Dubailand debacle also deserves a mention. The parks planned there were quite impressive, but remain plans even today. At least they haven't been decisively cancelled. The Universal Studios Dubailand park was the most concrete one, quite detailed plans were published, and a gate was even built:

Universal%20Studios%20Dubailand%20%2810%29.jpg

Associated Press, via Theme Park Tourist


Also, four words to end this post on a sad note: Son of Beast RMC.
 
The original Epcot, which was an actual community you could live at. My octogenarian self would have loved that

Sent from my XT1030 using Tapatalk
 
I'm avoiding watching any videos, but based on people's general reactions, and on a purely selfish level, I wish Disney's new Pirates ride/area had gone to Hong Kong as was rumoured before they announced it for Shanghai.
 
A site just outside Wrexham was on the list of possible locations for Euro Disney. Obviously it was never, ever going to happen, but I find it amusing.

Los Angeles
Florida
Tokyo
Hong Kong
Shanghai
Wrexham
 
When Six Flags Belgium was in full progress of being completed, the park was planned to have Europe's first Giant Inverted Boomerang. Warner Bros. Movie World Madrid, still under construction at the time, supposed to have a standard Vekoma Boomerang. However, due to some difficulties between Six Flags and Vekoma plus Six Flags Belgium locals being annoying, it was decided to build the Spanish standard Boomerang in Belgium and the for Belgium planned GIB opened in Madrid as Stuntfall.
 
So I just learned something of interest today.

Apparently Cedar Point was to build a 2nd 300+ ft tall coaster in the back of the park near/on Mean Streak. Those plans were scrapped for Gatekeeper.
 
^ However, this kind of thing has been rattling around for Cedar Point's 150th anniversary in 2020.
 
Well, considering at this point the most insight anyone can share is an over heard bar conversation at the Small City Taphouse in downtown Sandusky of two former summer marketing interns who copied a memo that made veiled references to a meeting between Cedar Point marketing and Cedar Fair planning and design... sure! :roll:

It is all sheer speculation right now. No one has anything to confirm these rumors, outside of 2020 being Cedar Point's 150th birthday and "gosh darn, it'd be nice for them to build something big."
 
If I may be allowed to continue on the subject, it would fit with their time schedule too. They're opening a huge ride this year, after two relatively calm year following GateKeeper. 2017 could be a year without a large coaster. 2018, refurbish any one of the park's mean old streaky rides they've kept around for this long for some reason. 2019, add a flower bed or something, coasting on the success of the RMC they added the previous year. 2020, beat the big drum again.


Back on topic, I wonder how Walibi Belgium would have looked today if Vertigo hadn't been such a nightmare. Vertigo was a big and iconic ride, and it could have given the park a solid attendance/reputation boost. Had it been a success, they might have followed up with another mid-size coaster sometime around 2010, or at least not kept rebranding old rides for years, until finally building a watery shuttle barely-coaster fifteen years after their last addition. At a glance, it seems like the failure of Vertigo had a large impact on the management strategy of the park for many years, putting them on the side of extreme caution and reluctance to build new coasters. Walibi Holland didn't get any new coasters between 2002 and 2016 either.

Then again, looks like Plopsaland took the initiative and out-built Walibi, so something good did come to Belgium after all. But I'm not sure how much that had to do with Walibi's failure. Still, I think Vertigo had a bit of an impact on the Belgian coaster scene, and certainly on the management of the Walibi parks.
 
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