Is theme Making a Comeback?

[Coney Islander]

An Amusement park is a place where the point is just to really thrill you. Rides are placed with no real thought of theme or story. The outside world can usually be seen from several points in the park. An example of this is pretty much every Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks.

Originally, Amusement Parks always included two elements. The element of Amusement, and the element of Thrill.

More recently, the thrill element has taken over almost completely, in certain places.

See Cedar Point. They still have shows, part of the "Amusement" category, but their shows, for the most part, are not near the level of their thrill rides. (Not that an impressive show schedule is hard to come by... Sea World, Universal, and Disney all have a large variety of shows, many of which are outright amazing.)

Although Cedar Point's gardens, also part of the "Amusement" category, are truly breathtaking. (If I must say so myself!)

[faeriewench]

What I guess is annoying to me is that, today I went to Cedar Point and rode the train. In the skeleton town on the train (which has been around for quite a few years now,) there's a firefighter scene where a building's two upper windows are on fire, lit by essentially the same flame effects as Backlot. Next to it, a skeleton is holding a fire-hose and aiming it into the air. The hose really shoots a large stream of water up over a fence and into the Mantis lagoon on the other side. And, Iron Dragon still dives through two clouds of fog / mist, which apparently is okay on that ride, but not okay on Adventure Express, Top Gun, The Crypt, Backlot Stunt Coaster, or any of the other rides that are equipped and already set up to handle such effects. Maverick's water bombs go off (well, three of the four) when the train passes, absolutely drenching the track and passers-by.

Quite a few years? Stuff been there since before I was born XP Cedar Point tho, is CF's "crown jewel"

Tho CP isn't a whole lot better as a lot of theming had left there as well (Disaster Transport, the dragon/sea monster characters in the Iron Dragon lagoon, etc)