Earth Quest Adventures (Houston, Humble, Jacksonville: hotels, gardens, moving)

[Rocket City]

The article by Roycelyn Bastian which was printed in the Observer Online newspapers a few weeks ago said that there would be roller coasters and water rides (there's still an active link at the top of this page). I bet the HBJ didn't mention rides because there was no mention of rides in their orginal report when the news of the park first broke back in November.

The project is gaining momentum and growing in scale. The original concept didn't mention a theme park at all. It was to be a dinosaur museum, a resort and nature trails on 50 acres, with a cost of $25 million and made no mention of rides. I'm sure there are more investors on board now that realize the enormous potential that a full scale theme park will have in the Houston area. Houston is an untapped market right now for this kind of entertainment. They probably realize that this park is in a position to get a jump ahead of any other investors that might be looking at Houston as a fresh territory.

For $600 million dollars, they are bound to have some good rides. The only way this park will be able to attract the 2.5 million projected visitors is by building some rides. It will not be centrally located like AstroWorld was or the Museum District in Herman Park is, people will have to drive a bit to get there. Parks in other cities that are built out of town (like Magic Mountain in L.A. and Great America in Chicago) always have good coasters because they are needed to get people to make the drive out to the burbs. I don't think fake dinosaurs and nature trails alone were going to do it. But, I'm really excited about the prospect of a 250 acre theme park in the pine forest north of Houston. Sounds like it will be off to a great start.

[jfre81]

They might be able to pull it off without rollercoasters if they put it somewhere on the Gulf Freeway between Houston and Galveston, like La Marque or Texas City.

They should definitely not go the route of the dinosaur museum - they are not going to top the Houston Museum of Natural Science in that department. I would hope that they don't blow a whole bunch of money trying to turn it into Jurassic Park. That's not where the void is - I would like to go around the corner to go board the back seat of the Texas Cyclone, but I can't. I can go up to the museum just as easily and look at dinosaurs. Just saying...

[Spade]

I do know of any theme parks that do not have thrill rides. If anyone can name just one, then "maybe" it could work. But if there isn't one, they'd better build some thrill rides because nobody will be going after the newness wears off. Whether there is one or not, I say build thrill rides.

[Guerilla]

Think of Busch Gardens, but with dinosaurs...you have this park.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by Spade

I do know of any theme parks that do not have thrill rides. If anyone can name just one...

SeaWorld in San Antonio about >15 years ago.....about the closest thing to a thrill ride they had before they put rollercoasters there was something like the old Bamboo Shoot from Astroworld - not exactly a "thrill" ride.

[Spade]

And Sea World saw the error of their ways and added thrill rides. Busch knew that if you want to attract more people to your park now, you'd better add some thrills to keep them entertained. They had or still have the Great White Shark roller coaster.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by Spade

And Sea World saw the error of their ways and added thrill rides. Busch knew that if you want to attract more people to your park now, you'd better add some thrills to keep them entertained. They had or still have the Great White Shark roller coaster.

You're not going to get any arguments here. I had fun at Sea World before it had the coasters, but back then Astroworld was here in Houston, Sea World was something different in San Antonio and Astroworld hadn't started really going downhill yet.

Six Flags sucks. I know that's kind of a random statement in this topic, since they're not involved, but I just felt like putting that there. Even if I lived on the north side I'd go to Galveston or even New Braunfels for Schlitterbahn instead of Splashtown if I wanted to go to a water park.

[Spade]

Of course you'd go to Schiltterbahn. It's the best water park in the nation lol. Did I spell the name of that water park correctly, btw.

But I wasn't trying to pick an argument or at least not intend to. I'm just saying that the attitude towards theme parks changed some time ago in that they want to be thrilled when visit theme parks. Just the simple go and see shows like you saw at Six Flags or Sea World with Shamu was not cutting it anymore.

[jfre81]

Oh yes....and we can't forget the River of No Return or whatever the hell it was called at Astroworld, with the cheesy "cannibal" islands and other stuff that was great and all when the park opened, but didn't cut it for the MTV generation. They tore that thing up ca. 1987 and put the Tidal Wave there. The law of life and business is to adapt or die. AW adapted by seeing that people wanted to plunge down a slide and get thoroughly drenched in chlorinated water, only to stand on a bridge and do it over and over again until you didn't want to anymore. (Doesn't sound as fun the way I mentioned it....memories of wet bluejeans pasted onto wet skin and chafing with every move thereafter suddenly trickle in...what was I thinking?)

I wasn't.

[Guerilla]

But Six Flags does not own Splashtown anymore. The company that does (from Jacksonville, Florida), has cleaned up the park, re-painted rides, and may add some small thrill rides over there. Oh, and the Tidal Wive was fun. I loved the bridge. I would stand there forever, then go get on the Serial Thriller.