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My Canada’s Wonderland International Street Tour


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@MisterSG1..wow THANK YOU!  The was a great surprise to see this evening.  I appreciate you taking the time out of your reserved day at the park.

Cw has a "wonderful" International Street.  It seems Kings Dominion and Cw share alot of similarities.  The bridge is steeper than I thought it would be.  

I was surprised at how little merchandise there was--replaced with food.  Not a fan of the concrete seat walls at either KD or Cw, glad KI ripped theirs out.  

Thank you so much for taking the time to film this and share.  It means alot!

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56 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

@MisterSG1

I was surprised at how little merchandise there was--replaced with food.  Not a fan of the concrete seat walls at either KD or Cw, glad KI ripped theirs out.  

Thank you so much for taking the time to film this and share.  It means alot!

You mean the concrete “seats” about 18 inches high, where else do guests have to take a rest if they need one?

As you could guess, not much time was spent as we had a bad downpour, but I’m glad to get the video in.

 

My main criticism of parks these days, is the “corporate” International Street, Snoopy interrupted me towards the end and thus I couldn’t explain, but practically nothing except the new “La Cantina” is original at Wonderland anymore. Everything nowadays is corporate, why go to Starbucks there, you could easily walk out the front gate and go to Starbucks just beyond the parking lot for a heck of a lot of cheaper.  
 

Ice cream is ice cream but it seems to appeal with the concept of Swiss Dip Cones rather than just an everyday Dairy Queen.

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Also, I spoke of the fountains outside of “La Trocadéro” in Paris, when I visited Paris way back in 2007, the fountains there reminded me of Wonderland’s fountains and it makes me wonder if the main idea or Kings Island’s fountains derive from that.

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1 hour ago, MisterSG1 said:

You mean the concrete “seats” about 18 inches high, where else do guests have to take a rest if they need one?

As you could guess, not much time was spent as we had a bad downpour, but I’m glad to get the video in.

 

My main criticism of parks these days, is the “corporate” International Street, Snoopy interrupted me towards the end and thus I couldn’t explain, but practically nothing except the new “La Cantina” is original at Wonderland anymore. Everything nowadays is corporate, why go to Starbucks there, you could easily walk out the front gate and go to Starbucks just beyond the parking lot for a heck of a lot of cheaper.  
 

Ice cream is ice cream but it seems to appeal with the concept of Swiss Dip Cones rather than just an everyday Dairy Queen.

The redo of International Street at the Taft parks was in the early 80's if I recall.  The concrete seat walls were added then as well as the trees around the fountains.  I have found them to be cold, stark and lifeless.  So glad KI took them out and went closer to the original idea of IS.  They are still around the Eiffel Tower and at the very front of the Royal Fountain.  KD has softened theirs around the tower with brick which look so much better.

KI has done some good work at "decorporating" IS.  Lararosa's Pizza has been in the Italian Building since the beginning and Skyline for several years has been in the Aude Suisse Haus.  Both are local to Cincy, so there is a tie in.  I learned about Pizza Pizza after watching your video, I assumed it was the Canadian version of Little Ceaser's.  I do like our new eatery called French Corner.  I just wish they would make the Festhaus less international and more German ;)

Again, thank you for the wonderful footage.  One of these days I will make it up there to see and experience it in person.  But until then, you have given me something I have wanted to see for a long time.

 

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16 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:

The redo of International Street at the Taft parks was in the early 80's if I recall.  The concrete seat walls were added then as well as the trees around the fountains.  I have found them to be cold, stark and lifeless.  So glad KI took them out and went closer to the original idea of IS.  They are still around the Eiffel Tower and at the very front of the Royal Fountain.  KD has softened theirs around the tower with brick which look so much better.

KI has done some good work at "decorporating" IS.  Lararosa's Pizza has been in the Italian Building since the beginning and Skyline for several years has been in the Aude Suisse Haus.  Both are local to Cincy, so there is a tie in.  I learned about Pizza Pizza after watching your video, I assumed it was the Canadian version of Little Ceaser's.  I do like our new eatery called French Corner.  I just wish they would make the Festhaus less international and more German ;)

Again, thank you for the wonderful footage.  One of these days I will make it up there to see and experience it in person.  But until then, you have given me something I have wanted to see for a long time.

 

The concrete blocks are found all over the park in Wonderland except in Medieval Faire.

I should have explained “Pizza Pizza” more and originally intended to, but yeah it’s a pizza chain mostly in southern Ontario but has locations in most provinces now. As for Little Caesars, their first store in Canada opened in 1969, Pizza Pizza was founded slightly earlier. As a note, in Canadian commercial for Little Caesars that mascot who would say “Pizza! Pizza!” instead says “Hot N Ready”.

 

Interesting information about Skyline being at KI since the start, I guess since it’s a local regional chain moreso that sells a regional cultural product, I guess it makes sense. Toronto doesn’t appear to have any totally unique cultural product to the city. (unlike Montreal which has smoked meat and Montreal style bagels)

Now as for poutine, that didn’t become a Canadian staple all across Canada really until the 1990s. It appears that New York Fries, a chain mostly in malls which does have a single connection to NYC but has no locations in the US popularized the poutine outside Quebec. Albeit using a beef gravy instead of the poutine gravy in Quebec which I can’t describe.

But anyways, New York Fries was in the park from 1998 until 2004 or 2005, they had three locations in the park at one point.

But as you can see, pretty much nothing other than that small La Cantina place that’s hidden on the end or Alphorn Funnel Cakes are original items on international street anymore.

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Good stuff; really enjoyed the videos! :D I'd like to get up there someday, mostly for the cool flat rides and the coasters. It's interesting to see how three International Streets differ between KI, KD and CW, what with all the different shops and even different pathways (like how the pathway that would lead to KI's Action Zone is a dead end at CW - also, your Xtreme Skyflier is really close to the midway!). I also noticed that CW's International Street is more green and shaded than KI's (and on that subject, does that shaded area on the right side of Wonder Mountain lead anywhere?). Also, I would love to see more of the park (the castle entrance to Medieval Faire looks cool and Expo... er, Action Zone intrigues me (even though I've heard Flight Deck is uncomfortable).

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1 hour ago, MDMC01 said:

Good stuff; really enjoyed the videos! :D I'd like to get up there someday, mostly for the cool flat rides and the coasters. It's interesting to see how three International Streets differ between KI, KD and CW, what with all the different shops and even different pathways (like how the pathway that would lead to KI's Action Zone is a dead end at CW - also, your Xtreme Skyflier is really close to the midway!). I also noticed that CW's International Street is more green and shaded than KI's (and on that subject, does that shaded area on the right side of Wonder Mountain lead anywhere?). Also, I would love to see more of the park (the castle entrance to Medieval Faire looks cool and Expo... er, Action Zone intrigues me (even though I've heard Flight Deck is uncomfortable).

What do you mean by the “right side”, can you timestamp the video. Do you mean the path beyond the right side, well that leads to International Festival.

Wonderland has done decent at doing their best to keep Medieval Faire theming intact (going as far as to reintroduce the original names to some tides)

As for Action Zone, that’s a different story. That whole area is kind of depressing these days.

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31 minutes ago, MisterSG1 said:

What do you mean by the “right side”, can you timestamp the video. Do you mean the path beyond the right side, well that leads to International Festival.

Wonderland has done decent at doing their best to keep Medieval Faire theming intact (going as far as to reintroduce the original names to some tides)

As for Action Zone, that’s a different story. That whole area is kind of depressing these days.

Certainly! ^_^ It's the wooded area in the second video around 3:47 (after showing Tim Horton's). And yes, I am referring to the path beyond the right side; the first time I saw the video, I thought that was a dead end near the seating area. I now see that that path leads to another area, as you had mentioned.

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6 minutes ago, MDMC01 said:

Certainly! ^_^ It's the wooded area in the second video around 3:47 (after showing Tim Horton's). And yes, I am referring to the path beyond the right side; the first time I saw the video, I thought that was a dead end near the seating area. I now see that that path leads to another area, as you had mentioned.

Immediately behind the Scandinavian building where the Tims is, that’s a seating area only, those “canopies” over the seating areas look exactly the same as they did when the park first opened, or at least in 1992. 
 

To see some vintage footage of Wonderland from 1992, in which as a very young kid I was there, you can see it in this video.

YTV Fesitval of Friends Part 1

At 0:54 you can see the same area.

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Basically, Wonderland has a very simple design to its international street, symmetrical on both sides for branching paths.

There are four ways out of I Street, the paths between the two buildings on either side which lead to Medieval Faire or Action Zone. And the two paths behind the mountain.

I could continue on and do the rest of the park at a future date if you don’t mind.

These are my ideas on future video series where I walk around and try to give histories of the attractions. 
 

-Possible road video showing the immediate area from Hwy 400, as well as the area from Major Mackenzie and Jane Street. Road video would also show the access road entrance into the parking lot, and also the future bus terminal under construction (which is supposed to be for the hospital but arguably better serves Wonderand)

-Tour of Medieval Faire

-Tour of Action Zone

-Tour of International Festival (completely around the mountain and down by the ‘no man’s land’ that WindSeeker is in)

-Tour of Frontier Canada (encompasses the former White Water Canyon area)

-Tour of Planet Snoopy

-Tour of KidZville (these two areas arguably saw the most change throughout the years and thus need to be separate)

-Possible Tour of Splash Works

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