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Might as well include the other Herschend parks:
Silver Dollar City (Branson, MO)
Elitch Gardens (Denver, CO)
Darien Lake (Buffalo and Rochester, NY)
And the KEC parks:
Kennywood (Pittsburgh, PA)
Idlewild (Pittsburgh/southwestern PA)
Lake Compounce (Hartford, CT)
And then of course there's Legoland in San Diego and now Orlando.
Roller Coaster DataBase is by far the best resource for amusement park research.
And here's a map of major amusement parks in the US. Most of Mexico's parks are in and around Mexico City, and the major Canada parks are Playland in Vancouver, Canada's Wonderland in Toronto, and La Ronde in Montreal.
I talked a little in the Disney thread about why some areas (read: the northeast) are flooded with amusement parks and others aren't (most of the South, and obviously most of Mountain Time).
So here's my list of cities I'd love to see get a good amusement park (I know some of these already have small parks):
Seattle, WA
Portland, OR
Boise, ID
Phoenix, AZ
Albuquerque or Santa Fe, NM
Houston, TX
New Orleans, LA
Omaha, NE
Rapid City or Hill City, SD (I have a feeling an amusement park would be really profitable in the Black Hills if they put any effort into it)
Memphis, TN
Louisville, KY (hopefully SFKK will make a comeback and not be terrible anymore when it reopens)
Miami, FL
Columbus, OH Madison or Milwaukee, WI (they need something outside of the Dells other than sketchy Little Amerricka)
And in Canada, Vancouver needs something better, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Quebec City need SOMETHING, and a big park in the Maritimes would be cool.
Madison and Milwaukee also share Six Flags Great America with Chicago. Six Flags Great America actually sits smack dab in the middle between Milwaukee and Chicago, so the theme park is basically for both cities. I believe Madison as well, as it's about two hours of a drive to Six Flags Great America. If anything Milwaukee has the better access with Six Flags close by to the south and Wisconsin Dells close by to the Northwest.
Milwaukee I'll buy. Madison not so much. The few amusement parks/not-purely-waterparks in Wisconsin Dells (Mt. Olympus) are awful, and it's still over an hour away. Milwaukee is even pushing it a little, just because SFGAm is so firmly encased in the northern Chicago suburbs. But I suppose it's close enough.
I'm a big kid so I love going to amusement parks especially being from Northern Ohio I had the pleasure of taking school field trips as a kid to Cedar Point. That made me a fan of roller coasters, but I also have alot of family in Orlando and also as a kid I had the pleasure of going to Disney World for free because I had family working there at the time. That made me a fan of theme parks.
Not to ramble too much, but I always wondered why there wasn't a park that had the luxury of having numerous roller coasters as Cedar Point as well as themed rides and attractions as a Disney World or Universal Studios???? The best of both worlds in one park not two separate parks like Disneyland and California Adventures. The closest example would be Universal Studios and Island of Adventures, but thats not the best example.
I also wondered why a city like Honolulu, HI, that's a major tourist attraction, does not have a major amusement park. Sure it has Wet n Wild water park, but I always wondered why there isn't one there. That would make my Hawaii trips even more pleasurable. If there is one that I haven't heard of let me know so I can check it out next time around.
Also, I now have family in both Phoenix and Austin so I would love to see one in both of those cities. I know Austin is located in between both San Antonio and Dallas, but Im sure there could be a nice size one somewhere close by.
Milwaukee I'll buy. Madison not so much. The few amusement parks/not-purely-waterparks in Wisconsin Dells (Mt. Olympus) are awful, and it's still over an hour away. Milwaukee is even pushing it a little, just because SFGAm is so firmly encased in the northern Chicago suburbs. But I suppose it's close enough.
I wouldn't really call Gurnee a Chicago suburb, it's more like an exurb. It's like saying Kenosha is a suburb of Milwaukee.
Six Flags Great America is 45 minutes from Chicago, 50 from Milwaukee, I think its safe that the park serves both cities well. If you live in the south suburbs of Milwaukee you are MUCH closer to Great America than someone who lives in the south or southwest suburbs of Chicago.
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