Original ride area entrance and Der Flitzer location.

Recently several very old Adventureland post cards popped up on eBay that I had not seen before. One in particular showed “The Moat’ which was the original entrance to the ride area of the park. I knew that the location was the bridge at the end of Main Street, but I’d never seen a picture of what was there. I guess in my mind it was someone just taking tickets or something, but it was actually a ticket building of some sorts:

The Moat (entrance to the ride section of the park). Behind it: Der Flitzer.
Back of post card for “The Moat.”

I believe that is the original bridge that was still in the park in 2017, but was rebuilt between the end-of-season and that year’s Oktoberfest. If you notice, there is fencing along the left of the photo, which would have kept visitors from going past the end of the Main Street buildings.

Also, middle right of the photo are the old one-way exit turnstiles like the park used to have at the entrance. That would have been where ride visitors would have exited back to Main Street.

Behind it appears to be Der Flitzer. That roller coaster (originally called Rallye Racers) sits about where the Splash Over is today. This clears up something I’ve wondered about.

On the Roller Coaster Database entry for Der Flitzer, it says it was replaced by the Giant Sky Wheel.

The roller coaster was located in the “Alpine Village” section of the park and the Giant Skywheel (100′ tall Ferris Wheel) operates in its spot today.

– Roller Coaster Database entry for Der Flitzer

Apparently this is incorrect, since this post card shows it’s location further down, towards The Boulevard. Also, we found a photo of the Sky Ride that had the coater in the background, and the coaster in that picture matched the description of Rallye Racers. My wiki entry notes:

It was located somewhere around where Tea Cups is. This is based from seeing it in an old photo of the Sky Ride that was taken in 1975. It shows a coaster matching this description in the background. (Thanks to Johnathan C. for pointing this out.)

http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Rallye_Racers

If Rallye Racers were there (down from the Tea Cups) and the post card shows Der Flitzer in the same location, then the notes about it being relocated may be incorrect.

Does anyone know if Rallye Racers was just rethemed and renamed in the same location to become Der Flitzer?

Fun stuff. I love these old post cards.

Phoenix spinning coaster coming in 2019

Adventureland has announced a new spinning coaster called Phoenix. It is from Maurer Rides in Germany, and will reside in the location formerly home to The Inverter. They are targeting a June 2019 opening.

Inverter rumors and Raging River status update

Although The Inverter was operating earlier in May, it has been down the past several weeks.

Lately folks have been repeating a rumor that The Inverter will be the next ride removed by the park. This was even mentioned by a few park workers this season, with one saying they heard a new log ride was going to be built “this year.”

The park has made no such announcement But rumors are fun. 🙂

While many would welcome a new water ride to the park, with Adventure Bay being part of standard admission (and it’s nothing but “water rides”), maybe a new water ride isn’t necessary. It also seems highly unlikely a ride would be shut down during the season and construction started on a replacement. Even the huge Monster project wasn’t started until after the end of the 2015 season.

If the park were to remove a ride, which ride would you not mind going away? And what kind of ride would you like to see in its place?

Meanwhile, down near River City, Raging River has yet to open this season.

Raging River hasn’t raged yet this season.

Posters in the Facebook group say that the ride is gaining new foot switches that multiple operators will need to stand on the deploy a raft. This is similar to how rides like Storm Chaser operate, where multiple workers must press buttons at the same time for the ride to start.

A member of Theme Park Review wondered if they would be updating the system to allow loading and deploying two rafts at a time, instead of just one. They pointed out the load area was designed for this, and someone in our Facebook group mentioned they used to do it that way before seat belts were added which added to the load time.

I don’t know. I’m just a guy who likes amusement parks and takes a bunch of pictures 😉

Got any rumors about Raging River? Feel free to post them in the comments…

 

Happy birthday to The Monster!

Sunday, was the one-year anniversary of The Monster opening to the public (June 4th, 2016).

Here is a throwback video of that day, so long ago…