A little while ago, we shared a list of 12 Underdog Parks Stuck in Disney’s Shadow. Our intention was to highlight some of the lesser-known parks that simply get overlooked thanks to the massive budgets and advertising of Disney and Universal’s mega-resorts.
The response was enormous, with readers ecstatic to see their local parks featured where Disney and Universal tend to monopolize airtime. These “underdogs” get counted out, hidden in the shadow of Disney and Universal such that people assume they can never measure up. They’re wrong, and more and more we recognize that these seasonal, regional parks have tons to offer in terms of entertainment, attractions, and theming.
So we’re following up our former list with one more. Like the first, this list is NOT exhaustive. There are countless incredible parks out there that deserve to be recognized and celebrated. If your local park doesn’t appear, it doesn’t mean it’s unworthy. Instead, our first list of 12 and the 12 more we’ve collected below are meant to be examples of the many wonderful amusement and theme parks that don’t get a fair shake thanks to Disney’s size and power. If you’re an adventurer (and we know most of you are), take out a note pad. You’ve now got at least 24 destinations to add to your bucket list!
1. Kings Island
© Kings Island
Location: Kings Mills, Ohio
Park Map: Downloadable
For many years, Paramount’s Kings Island was the apple of Paramount Parks’ eye – a sort of breeding ground for unique rides that blended the thrills of a regional-destination amusement park with the movie studio’s unique theme and cinematic tie-ins. When Cedar Fair purchased the Paramount Parks chain in 2006 (allegedly because of the then-CEO’s adamant desire to own Kings Island specifically), the movie names were dropped in favor of more generic titles and the park seemed to briefly lack an identity or direction.
For example, the Italian Job: Stunt Track family coaster reverted to the Backlot Stunt Coaster. Even the world’s tallest gyro drop ride, Drop Zone: Stunt Tower was rebranded as the much less engaging Drop Tower. Most sadly, the park’s incomparable and mysterious enclosed dark ride, TOMB RAIDER: The Ride regressed to The Crypt, which couldn’t find a foothold in the park’s lineup without its outstanding, Disney-quality special effects and closed forever in 2012.
Via Susan M. on Trip Advisor. Click for source.
Signature Attractions: While Cedar Fair’s leadership saw a momentary shift away from theme in favor of outright thrill (more in the vein of the chain’s flagship Cedar Point), things have evened out as the park has grown. Now, Kings Island is supercharged with massive coasters, but retains its themed lands and family feel in a comfortable blend. The park’s stunning indoor Flight of Fear launched coaster retains incredible Universal-level theme and story. Cedar Fair’s towering additions Diamondback (a slithering, coiled 230-foot B&M hypercoaster, above) and Banshee (a shrieking B&M inverted coaster) both set the coaster world abuzz with anticipation, and both seemed to exceed expectations upon arrival in 2009 and 2014, respectively.
The legendary Beast made our list of the Top 15 Coasters on Earth, and for good reason – still the world’s longest wooden coaster 35 years later, it snakes through 35-forested acres hugging the ground throughout. (Its ill-fated sequel, Son of Beast, was much less prestigious during its short lifetime… it was world’s tallest, fastest, and only looping wooden coaster. In fact, both Son of Beast and TOMB RAIDER: The Ride made our list of the 11 Most Infamously Flubbed and Failed Attractions of All Time. Whoops!)
2. Hersheypark
Photo via Tommy Faircloth. Click for source.
Location: Hershey, Pennsylvania
Park Map: Interactive
Whether you’re into chocolate or roller coasters, this is the place to be. Located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Hersheypark is sort of like a jumbo-sized Kennywood – a distinctly family park maintaining many traditions and operations from decades ago. Inside is a pretty impressive collection of 12 coasters running the gamut from classic wooden masterpieces to exhilarating modern thrill machines.
Signature Attractions: Hershey’s Chocolate World is a giant, free-to-enter complex that’s actually outside of the park, but it contains an incredible dark ride called The Great American Chocolate Factory Tour. Inside the park, you can’t miss the classic Comet, a 1946 original. Above it towers the massive Skyrush, a 75-mile-per-hour, 85-degree drop Intamin coaster that soars and twists through the park’s ravines. Fahrenheit and Storm Runner are two of the park’s other great, sleek, steel coasters, each packing an unusual surprise punch.
3. Knott’s Berry Farm
Image via Orange County Archives. Click for source.
Location: Buena Park, California
Park Map: Downloadable
Aside from signature boysenberry punch, don’t expect too many berries from Knott’s. Billed as the world’s first theme park (appropriately, given its 1940 opening), Knott’s began its early days as a recreation pioneer town with a very famous chicken restaurant just outside. The park was lovingly operated by the Knott’s family until 1997 when it was purchased by Cedar Fair (owners of Cedar Point and Kings Island). From then on, thrills were the name of the game. Even still, Cedar Fair’s new CEO spent lots of time in Southern California (as president of Disneyland Resort) and has set out to revitalize the park’s dark rides, theming elements, and stories, letting coasters fall by the wayside for a bit. Today it boasts 10 coasters from mild to wild. The park is literally blocks from Disneyland Resort, and accessible for just a few dollars on the ART shuttle system based in Anaheim.
Via Coaster-net. Click for source.
Signature Attractions: In terms of coasters, Xcelerator (above) and Silver Bullet score high for their impressive speed and height. However, it’s the park’s storied dark rides that have earned it so much attention lately. The Timber Mountain Log Ride (on record as inspiration for Disney’s Splash Mountain) and the Calico Mine Ride (likewise, but for Disney’s Frontierland rides) were given floor-to-ceiling refurbishments over the last few years, bringing every single scene new lighting, sound, and special effects while outfitting each attraction with massive audio-animatronics casts so impressive, they made our list of the Top 15 Animatronics in the World. You can also thank Knott’s for being the first to feature horrifying Halloween events. It still reigns supreme with its annual Haunt.
4. Kings Dominion
Location: Doswell, Virginia
Park Map: Downloadable
The younger sister of Kings Island, Kings Dominion was very heavily based on the original Ohio park when it opened. Through the years, the Kings parks have diverged, so aside from their lavish Royal Fountain entrances leading to one-third scale recreations of the Eiffel Tower, the two parks have little in common. Kings Dominion’s placement in the dense forests of Virginia gives it an automatic leg-up in the scenery department. While it’s impossible to name one park the outright winner in terms of attractions (apples and oranges, as they say), Kings Dominion does give its sister a run for its money.
Click for source.
Signature Attractions: Paramount’s cinematic addition Volcano: The Blast Coaster reigns supreme in many enthusiast circles for its vertical launch upwards and through the flame-spewing mouth of a mountain. Just across the way in the same Congo-themed area, a dizzying carnival Top Spin was given the cinematic treatment with flames, water fountains, fog, and a synchronized soundtrack. Originally TOMB RAIDER: FireFall, that ride is now called The Crypt, just like Kings Island’s much larger, indoor, and more ill-fated version of the ride. The park made international headlines with the incredible Intimidator 305 in 2010, an ultra-intense giga-coaster (and the only sister ride to the world famous Millennium Force) that is truly one of the most forceful coaster experiences on the planet.
5. Busch Gardens Tampa
© SeaWorld Parks
Location: Tampa, Florida
Park Map: Downloadable
Our first list of 12 Underdog Parks featured Busch Gardens Williamsburg, the European-themed park in Virginia. Readers pointed out that we hadn’t featured the park that’s literally in Disney’s shadow! Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay, Florida is about an hour south of Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando (with free or dirt-cheap shuttles provided by the park, depending on your ticket package) and is themed to Africa. The park is overflowing with exotic animal exhibits and encounters set amid truly impressive themed areas based on Egypt, Stanleyville, the Congo, and Morocco. Like Busch Gardens Williamsburg, there’s a fair emphasis on entertainment, dining, and animal encounters, but the rides are all top notch.
Signature Attractions: The park is perhaps most recognized as Florida’s most thrilling, with a line-up of incredible coasters, each with wonderful African-style names: Gwazi, Kumba, and Montu are all standouts. The blazing red track of SheiKra stands as one of the tallest and fastest Dive Machine coasters in the world, with a vertical drop, eight-abreast seating, a crumbling tower, and a magnificent splashdown in an ancient pool. Cheetah Hunt is a spectacular family coaster featuring three LSM launches that replicates a cheetah’s immense and dizzying speed, sprinting through canyons and leaping over the Serengeti. Though still in the testing phase, the unbelievable Falcon’s Fury will test the bravery of even seasoned park goers with its face-first freefall from 300 feet.
6. Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari
© Holiday World
Location: Santa Claus, Indiana
Park Map: Interactive
Holiday World seems to represent all the best of the theme park world. The park opened in 1946 (9 years before Disneyland) as Santa Claus Land before expanding to cover other holidays – today it features lands based on Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and the 4th of July. The massive Splashin’ Safari water park is as much a draw as the dry park, with awesome cutting edge water rides. The park has long been owned by the Koch family and wins annual awards for staff friendliness. Altogether, it’s just a nice place to be – free parking, free sunscreen, free inner tubes, and even free soft drinks. Yep. Unlimited, all day. Sounds like holiday, indeed.
Signature Attractions: The park is universally well known in enthusiast circles for its trifecta of wooden coasters: Raven, The Legend, and The Voyage, each more well loved and well respected than the one before. Few imagined that the park would ever fix what ain’t broke by entering into steel coaster terrain, but they’re poised to do just that… 2015 will see the opening of Thunderbird, a launched B&M Wing Rider coaster that looks set to be one of the year’s top attractions. Read our full preview of Thunderbird for more information.
7. Dollywood
© Herschend
Location: Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Park Map: Interactive
Tucked away in the Great Smoky Mountains, this wilderness retreat headed by country music superstar Dolly Parton is very difficult to describe. Dolly – born and raised in the area and always saddled with poverty – has tried to recreate the authentic experience of the region with real local craftsmen selling their wares in wonderfully accurate lands based on the Smoky Mountain states. She’s also mixed in a heaping helping of imaginative and optimistic entertainment that tells her story and the story of the hardworking folks from the area. Then, she’s mixed in coasters that send riders on adventures through the unforgettable scenery of Tennessee. Of course, you can also expect home cookin’ and a warm, welcome, family feeling.
Signature Attractions: Half of Dollywood’s main attraction is the list of revolving shows that pass through the park, each musical and emotional and outrageous, like Dolly herself. The park also features quite a few very unique coasters. The twisted Mystery Mine is quite unlike anything else in the U.S. while the new Wild Eagle soars over the park’s forested terrain with winged trains and giant, weightless inversions. Equally fun is 2014’s Firechaser Express, a family coaster that packs a few explosive surprises as it navigates the park’s rugged terrain en route to a flaming fireworks factory.
8. Warner Bros. Movie World
© Village Roadshow Theme Parks
Location: Oxenford, Queensland, Australia
Park Map: Interactive
In the early 1990s, it was all the rage to build movie-studio themed theme parks. First, the slogan practically writes itself when guests can “ride the movies.” There’s no need to mess with original stories or creative characters – folks already know and love Scooby Doo, so the character does the marketing for you. As well, forget Disney-level theming… Since the park is meant to represent a “studio,” rides can be placed in box square showbuildings that look like movie soundstages, saving big money! Intrigued by the idea, movie studios jumped into the industry following the lead of Disney (Disney-MGM Studios, 1989) and Universal (Universal Studios Florida, 1990). MGM hopped on board with their own short lived park in Vegas (MGMG Grand Adventures, 1993) and Paramount bought in by purchasing a collection of five sister parks and re-branding them with movie-tie ins (also 1993).
Not to be left out, Warner Bros. opened Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast in Australia in 1991, trying their hand at a German version shortly thereafter. In the mid-2000s, global economic downturn led to many businesses selling off non-core assets. Somehow, Warner Bros. Village Roadshow Theme Parks division kept hold of the Australian park, which continues to spread movie magic to this day.
Signature Attractions: It seems that Movie World takes its DC Heroes branding a little more seriously than Six Flags. Instead of just naming any old coaster after the hero, Superman: The Escape is a very cool dark ride that suddenly and unexpectedly evolves into a launched coaster when Superman himself pushes your subway train to safety. The park also has Justice League: The Invasion 3D, a one-of-a-kind interactive shooting dark ride featuring all your favorite DC Comics Heroes who appear via animatronics figures and 3D screens somewhat like Universal’s Spider-Man… we’d love to see something like it make its way to Six Flags parks in the US. Fans of the world’s bravest Great Dane will appreciate Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster, a dark ride / Wild Mouse coaster that recreates the famous Spooky Island Castle from the 2002 live action film.
9. Six Flags Great Adventure
© Six Flags
Location: Jackson, New Jersey
Park Map: Interactive
Located in the woods of New Jersey, Six Flags Great Adventure is certainly the largest Six Flags on Earth, and indeed bills itself as the largest theme park period. Great Adventure is also dripping with theming and is divided into well-done lands like Fantasy Forest, Adventure Alley, Movie Town, and Plaza del Carnival. In the typical style of old Six Flags leadership, some of the lands are mish-mashed thanks to odd and out-of-place additions (like the superhero-themed Bizarro in the Frontier Adventures area), but new management has made earnest efforts to make the park a beautiful, family one.
Click for source.
Signature Attractions: In 2005, the park opened an incredible new themed land called The Golden Kingdom. Based on a misty Asian jungle, its signature attraction is Kingda Ka, the tallest roller coaster on Earth. In 2014, the world’s tallest drop tower, Zumanjaro, was affixed to Kingda Ka, creating one mechanical contraption of terror. The park’s coasters are its highlight. The incomparable El Toro does things totally unexpected of wooden coasters, and even ranked in our Top 15 Coasters as voted by our readers. In 2012, Six Flags closed the separate Six Flags Wild Safari drive-through animal park located Next to Great Adventure. Instead of letting the safari park disappear, it was combined with Great Adventure in 2013 as the Safari Off-Road Adventure ride in the style of Disney’s Kilimanjaro Safaris.
10. Canada’s Wonderland
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Location: Vaughan, Ontario, Canada
Park Map: Downloadable
Located just outside of Toronto, Canada’s Wonderland is no doubt Canada’s premier park. Born of the same minds that built the Kings parks, Wonderland features very similar Royal Fountains. Instead of the Eiffel Tower, however, they lead to the mysterious Wonder Mountain. Wonderland’s themed areas include International Street, Action Zone, White Water Canyon, and Medieval Faire, with top-notch theming here and there, thanks to the earlier success of Kings Island and Kings Dominion relaxing the budgets for a third park. Like the rest, Wonderland was owned by Paramount just long enough for a few movie themed rides, and has since been put back in the fast lane for massive coaster installations that are more Cedar Fair’s speed and style.
© Cedar Fair
Signature Rides: Wonderland built Canada’s tallest and fastest coaster with Behemoth, named after the mythical ancient land creature said to tower over mountains. The blazing orange track of the super-smooth B&M 230-foot first hill dominated the park’s skyline for just a few years. In 2012, Behemoth was overshadowed by a coaster based on its real, legendary water equivalent: Leviathan. At 306 feet tall, the ride is the fourth giga-coaster in the world, and obviously Canada’s tallest. 2014 saw the opening of yet another coaster, this one located inside Wonder Mountain and called Guardian. The ride is half coaster, and half interactive dark ride in the style of Disney’s Toy Story Mania as riders blast through mythical creatures to find a dragon hidden in the mountain’s core.
11. Ocean Park Hong Kong
© Ocean Park
Location: Southern District, Hong Kong
Park Map: Interactive
Opened in 1977, Ocean Park in Hong Kong is a mega-park that’s often overlooked. Located fairly close to Hong Kong Disneyland, international interest in the Chinese park was renewed when tourists started traveling to visit Disney’s resort. However, Ocean Park has been going strong all along. The park is actually located in two areas divided by a mountain. Guests enter at the Waterfront where many of the park’s zoological animal exhibits are located including pandas, birds, pinnipeds, and alligators. Then, guests must take either a cable car or a train around the mountain to reach the second area. The Summit contains many of the park’s thrill rides, located on a steep cliff overlooking Deep Water Bay.
© Tamir Oron
Signature Attractions: The Wild West Mine Train put Ocean Park on many enthusiasts’ maps when it opened in 1999, precariously perched high up in the Summit. 2011’s B&M floorless Hair Raiser (modeled after Luna Park at Brooklyn’s Coney Island) used a similar cliff-side vantage point to truly thrill guests.
12. Chessington World of Adventures
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Location: Chessington, England, UK
Park Map: Downloadable
Located just a few minutes south of Central London, Chessington began its life in the 1930s as a zoo. Over the years, a few amusement rides were added, culminating in its official rededication as a theme park in 1987. Today, the zoo and park continue to coexist, though the latter has greatly outgrown the former. The park itself contains wonderfully themed areas: Mexicana, Forbidden Kingdom, Mystic East, Market Square, Transylvania, and Land of Dragons. Decidedly a family park (sort of on par with LEGOLAND), Chessington continues to thrive as it transforms into a full resort with a new on-site hotel and a SeaLife aquarium.
© Merlin
Signature Attractions: Since it’s owned by the same forces behind Alton Towers and Thorpe Park, Chessington follows in their footsteps with family attractions that are decidedly well themed for such a park. Tomb Blaster in an interactive dark ride located in the Forbidden Kingdom section of the park. Nearby is the new Scorpion Express family mine train coaster. The new Wild Asia area contains the dizzying Kobra spinning flat ride, while Transylvania is home to the fan-favorite Vampire suspended swinging family coaster. The park’s big addition for 2013 was ZUFARI: Ride into Africa, an off-roading JEEP adventure through very real animal habitats – homage to Disney’s fabled Kilimanjaro Safaris and a testament to the park’s zoological origins.
