Action Park
I got thinking about various attractions in NJ that my family would go to. Museums, hiking, The Land of Make-Believe. I was never a fan of rollercoasters, so we never went to Six Flags Great Adventure, except once to the safari, where angered baboons tore off the radio antenna from my parents' stationwagon. While I didn't like rollercoasters, I LOVED water parks, and there was truly one water park that everyone in northern New Jersey knew of by name: Action Park.
I went there once with my sister and her friends around when I was 10 and I thought it was awesome, well except for getting a little beat up on the rides and some of them just being too scary for me to go on. But the ones I did like were pretty damn awesome, like the Colorado River Ride. The nostalgic little voice in me wonders: What ever happened to Action Park? I heard that they closed it a few years ago. I always chalked it up to not making enough money because people's interests had changed. Or that the property was more valuable to a land developer who would turn it into a subdivision. Nope. Turns out the park was just incredibly, incredibly unsafe. Taking a minor example from the lengthy Wikipedia article:
"Bumper boats: This ride was reserved for toddlers, supposedly since it was safer, but the engines often leaked gasoline, at least once requiring medical attention for one rider when too much got on his skin.
Super Speedboats: These were set up in a small pond, known by staff to be heavily infested with snakes."
I myself remember the Aqua Scoot, th slide featured at the end of the above video. You walked to the top of a tower about 40 feet up, then grabbed a hard plastic mat, sat on in and slid straight downhill in a slide fixed with metal rollers (like in a factory). You then landed on the water at high speed and skipped along the surface of the water of the pool at the bottom... if things went well. I saw one kid skip over 10 times across the water, going practically the full length of the pool. But I saw many more people instantly wipe out and get red faces or chests from the friction with the water at that speed. Then there were the rides I wouldn't even try, or couldn't, like the infamous looping water slide.
Man, the 80s were some good times.
Click to viewI went there once with my sister and her friends around when I was 10 and I thought it was awesome, well except for getting a little beat up on the rides and some of them just being too scary for me to go on. But the ones I did like were pretty damn awesome, like the Colorado River Ride. The nostalgic little voice in me wonders: What ever happened to Action Park? I heard that they closed it a few years ago. I always chalked it up to not making enough money because people's interests had changed. Or that the property was more valuable to a land developer who would turn it into a subdivision. Nope. Turns out the park was just incredibly, incredibly unsafe. Taking a minor example from the lengthy Wikipedia article:
"Bumper boats: This ride was reserved for toddlers, supposedly since it was safer, but the engines often leaked gasoline, at least once requiring medical attention for one rider when too much got on his skin.
Super Speedboats: These were set up in a small pond, known by staff to be heavily infested with snakes."
I myself remember the Aqua Scoot, th slide featured at the end of the above video. You walked to the top of a tower about 40 feet up, then grabbed a hard plastic mat, sat on in and slid straight downhill in a slide fixed with metal rollers (like in a factory). You then landed on the water at high speed and skipped along the surface of the water of the pool at the bottom... if things went well. I saw one kid skip over 10 times across the water, going practically the full length of the pool. But I saw many more people instantly wipe out and get red faces or chests from the friction with the water at that speed. Then there were the rides I wouldn't even try, or couldn't, like the infamous looping water slide.
Man, the 80s were some good times.