Month: November 2025

Wild West World in Kansas

My Park Hopping Podcast sign-off was usually some variation of this…

“So the next time you’re there, be sure to take an extra picture and shoot some extra video because you never know when something you like, love or hate will go away and never be around again…”

Over the decades, there have been many things I decided to skip during a visit that ended up being shut down or removed by the time I made a return visit.

But I never expected it would be an entire amusement park.

In May 2007, we make a road trip to visit the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival. On Sunday afternoon, we headed back on the eight hour drive home. I was aware of the new Wild West World amusement park opening in Kansas, and we considered making a detour to go see it. Due to the long drive home, it would have had to be a short visit so we decided to skip it this time and come back to see it later.

Later never happened. Wild West World closed less than two months after it opened. Here is the Wikipedia entry for the park:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_West_World

This has been one of my regrets. It would have been a visit to an amusement park that few people know about, and even fewer people ever got to see.

Here is the flyer for the park:

If you have ever been to Iowa’s Aventureland, you may spot something familiar. Wild West World used a photo of Adventureland’s River Rapids log flume ride (with the logo replaced) and a photo of Adventureland’s Sidewinder ride. I think the tea cups ride may even be from Adventureland.

When I first picked up this flyer, I recall contacting Adventureland to ask about it. They were aware, and had given permission for this new park to use some photos from Adventureland. Nice.

I am posting this for the search engines… Did you get to visit Will West Park during the two months it was open? Leave a comment and let us know.

Until next time…

Did Disney’s The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights end up at Silver Dollar City?

During a visit to the Orlando area, we were chatting with a server at a restaurant and mentioned we had been to Silver Dollar City in Missouri. Across the room, a bartender perked up and ran over to join in to the conversation. He had grown up in Arkansas, and had visited Silver Dollar City many times growing up in the area.

One of the things he mentioned was that the Disney World The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights had moved to Silver Dollar City after it was shut down at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (formerly known as Disney/MGM Studios). He said there were photos online showing displays installed at Disney, then later at Silver Dollar City, matching up.

Could this be true? Casual searching does not reveal any confirmation of this, but Disney usually ensures that anything they once had (such as the MaliBoomer drop tower in California) is not to be promoted as an “ex-Disney” attraction when it is installed elsewhere. I would assume the same would go for a light display.

Silver Dollar City began their Old Time Christmas event in 1988. If A.I. results are to be believed (ahem), it was in the 2010s that the park added 1.5 million lights to the event:

2010s: Introduction of the massive five-story special effects Christmas tree and the Christmas in Midtown expansion, which alone added 1.5 million lights.

Bing Copilot

Today, they boast over 6.5 million lights.

So when did they jump to that number?

Silver Dollar City’s “An Old Time Christmas” festival expanded from 1.5 million lights to 6.5 million lights in 2017 with the debut of the Christmas in Midtown Light Spectacular. This was the park’s largest single lighting expansion in two decades, adding 1.5 million new lights to towering structures and tunnels, which brought the total across the park to 6.5 million.

Bing Copilot, reference Missouri Magazine

2017 is an interesting year. The last year the Osbourne lights were on display at Walt Disney World was … 2015 (though, they run Christmas through early January, so technically 2016 for you nitpickers).

So after the 2015 season, Disney took the lights down and prepared for construction of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Two years later, in 2017, Silver Dollar City added millions of lights to their display.

And this, my friends, is how rumors get started.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Osborne_Family_Spectacle_of_Dancing_Lights

For those of you too FULL OF FEAR, one last chance to EXIT HERE.

Is this door still labeled as such inside Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion? I just read a reference that said “it used to be” labeled like this.

I believe this exists outside to this door:

…but in all my years visiting the park and riding Haunted Mansion (starting as a tot around 1974 or so), I have never taken the chicken exit to see it for myself 😉

My 2002 Haunted Mansion adventure game returns!

On a whim, I decided to see if one of the A.I.s could resurrect my 2002 Haunted Mansion adventure game. Back then, Java was all the rage. My game was a Java applet that ran in a web browser. Fast forward some years and Java is no longer a standard feature in web browsers…

My original work-in-progress has been translated (bugs and all) to Javascript so it can now play in a modern web browser. Check it out:

https://www.disneyfans.com/adventure/index.html

Or, if you want to see the new version I am working on now, try here:

https://www.disneyfans.com/adventure-new

I have been working on it tonight adding new commands and things that will let me build an actual game with puzzles to solve. There may be a door to unlock, and a secret to find, already… (But no “game” to win yet.)

I hope to resume work on it (many new features have already been added, thanks to partnering with a robot).

There’s no turning back now…