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Ideas for Theme Park Areas & Attractions

PARKS

  • Biomes Park.

    • The “nature” park. Focus on climate and landscape, as well as animals and the environment. Interconnected glass domes, which regulate each zones’ climate; eight zones (eight different biomes) laid-out as seven surrounding a central hub: xeric shrubland, taiga, tropical rainforest, montane forest, monsoon forest, and Mediterranean, all around a temperate broadleaf forest.

  • Park of “Disbelief”: fantastical scenarios, environments, areas, and attractions.

    • Teutonic medieval area—realistically Germanic, with a Tudor village incorporated within castle walls. There’s also a dragon, and a princess (and a whole royal family, for a musical show). Have Teutonic area be an elaborate steepled caste with the Tudor village branching out of it to double the size.

    • South Pacific tropical area where native cannibals conquered plundering pirates. Ferns and leafy trees, with jungle animal background noises and running water – hot, with sandy areas, and buildings made of trees and planks nailed and roped together.

    • Sci-Fi area based on HG Wells, Rod Serling, and Ray Bradbury. Ranging between a space-age art nouveau, international style, Streamline Moderne, PWA Moderne, and Googie (with splashes of De Stijl and Prairie School). Emphasis on the eerie and the intergalactic – stories of space travel lore and of twisted other dimensions.

  • Waterpark that’s both indoors and outdoors; have indoor area be concealed within a mountain, and the inside being a cavern, with the passage between them concealed by a massive waterfall.

  • New York State Park

    • Coney Island (kitsch, thrills, amusements), Manhattan (city, stores, shows), Sleepy Hollow (frights, history), Borscht Belt (fancy dining, stand-up comics, skiing, hiking).

  • A luscious, jungle-like, cozy waterpark, encircled by a large miniature golf course.

AREAS

  • Venice Renaissance area

    • Modelled after Florence and Venice, with hints of Rome. Some remaining Gothic influence, much revived Ancient Roman style and Classical Antiquity, with a bunch of increasing Baroque influence. A Roman temple with Corinthian columns, a Baroque-Renaissance church (basilica with brick slate dome roof), Fountain of Neptune, Palazzo Vecchio, plaza market on waterfront (where Carnevale di Venezia is held, with masks), waterways between tall buildings (used for travel amongst the city via gondolas) and bridges cross over waterways, canal with waterfront buildings styled in Venetian Gothic, opera house, gilded baroque banquet hall with huge chandelier, Piazza San Marco, twisting alleyways, colorful mooring poles for the gondolas, etcetera.

  • Colonial America area

    • The period of time in which the United States fought for its independence, indiscriminate between the beginning and end. Half Bostonian-Philadelphian (bold antique city), half Sleepy Hollow (eerie historic town). Church tower bell tolls hourly.

  • Post-Nuclear Apocalypse USA area

    • Circa 2000, outside of its Ground Zero, where the buildings are empty shells or ruined entirely.

  • “Tom Sawyer Island”-esque area, with frontier trails, cabins, and cave networks.

  • Jagged shrublands in a western desert—a prospectors’ mining town

    • Caves as decompression zone, as well as a subterranean eatery.

    • A saloon that sells victuals (aka food and drink), a sheriff and jail, bank, town hall, a hotel, and a schoolhouse, as well as many storefronts and homes.

    • On the other side of the plateau, in a canyon, there’s an ‘undiscovered’ area like Petra, Jordan – in a thin canyon, a city is built into the wall. Inside is a hall, housing a subterranean rollercoaster?

    • Ghost Town area

      • Near the mining town, abandoned – spooky western mixture.

  • Antebellum plantation area

    • Bayou as decompression zone behind the manor (gazebo and mangroves on riverside).

      • A walk-around route gets you to a “hidden” separate shack, which is a ‘juicy meats’ eatery (barbecue joint): a small, intimate, ramshackle building with a guy who sits on the porch that overlooks the swamp and plays the banjo.

    • Manor is big, white home with columns out front; complex includes shops, shows, and exhibits (period showcases); manor interior is a museum for the Civil War and Reconstruction (and burgeoning Industrial Revolution).

      • Civil War regalia (history and battles), Slavery debate retrospective and dueling ideologies, Lincoln, Confederacy, and Reconstruction.

      • Landscaper’s building in the back with machinery as a cotton looming factory, as a way to briefly introduce the Industrial Revolution supplanting agricultural dominance.

    • Grassy fields are home to a pitched tent that is used for a celebration: a pop-up banquet hall, with eatery and dancing, as if it’s a wedding reception in 1880.

      • Also, have the nearby slave’s quarter’s entrance lead into a hidden slaves’ entry into a subterranean queue on the path to freedom: the Underground Railroad is encapsulated in a ride (a walkthrough, boat ride, or on-the-nose train ride).

  • Spanish Colonial area

    • Think of 18th Century Florida, representing the influence of Spain on the New World; a city built from the center out, with a cathedral and many dome-topped buildings on the waterfront. Buildings are generally beige stucco with red slate roofs.

    • Nearby is a steppe area, like Machu Picchu, with upwards-expanding levels of terraced agriculture.

  • A dystopian 1901 company town area

    • Walled city, with buildings either being manufacturing plants or communal living spaces – some tenements, many monuments. A company store that “only accepts company money”. It is a few weeks into a new revolution as its occupants vie for independence and authority.

  • Cold War Russia area (think Mt. Yamantau in Black Ops) with skiing, archery, paintball, jungle gym, science facilities, obstacle course, etcetera.

  • Roma gypsy camp area

    • Parked caravans, in forest, around a campfire – quaint zone with folk music and curios stands, for purchasing eccentric goods (jewelry, clothes, instruments, knickknacks, pottery, sheet music, snacks, wooden toys, etcetera).

  • Beatrice Potter area, for kids. (Who has the rights to Peter Cottontail and her collective works?)

  • Pokémon area (preferably Kanto, or Johto)

    • Maybe Pallet Town or elsewhere iconic? A place with a gym – Ecrutek? Celadon? Cerulean? (Gym could be a ride, or show.) Could also be a scaled version of the entire map, with different amusements per locale. (With Pokemon Go, now, you could have the AR app be hyper-touchy, so that you could encounter different kinds of pokemon in the different area as you would in the region depicted in the game.)

  • Creole area: an Art Nouveau New Orleans-like area adjacent to a swampy bayou with bungalows.

  • Morocco area, as from Casablanca—the Westernized 1940s Moroccan coast, war-torn.

ATTRACTIONS

  • Werewolf anti-hero ride; transformation is heartbreaking, but a music box calms him (it is brought by female love interest, who quells him with it). This ride is a film that is instead turned into a ride, playing out with scenes and emotion; it is not short.

  • Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, as a series of rides; see also, demonic skeletons.

  • Story Ride where hero has telekinesis. (In the queue, guests can pretend to use telekinesis via motion-detection screens.)

  • musicals, both interactive and non (non being legit stage shows, whether 10 or 90 minutes)

  • air trolley (of the past's future that never was) boarded at aerodrome

  • Hall of Esteemed People from History, in all walks of life [which are divided by wing]

  • Games (midway-style arcade games): give guests control of something.

  • A concert venue, like RCT3 had (or make it more of a dancefloor, like in Tomorrowland).

  • An area in a park with friendly dogs, so that kids can pet them and play—like a petting zoo with dogs, or would that have too many liabilities?

  • Looney Tunes — A walk-in, walk-out theater could show their cartoons nonstop. (I know Six Flags uses them, but Looney Tunes far surpass the Mickey Mouse cartoons, and are reliably entertaining and funny.) Perhaps in the Decade 1980 in the Decades theme park.

  • A movie theater in Decade 2000 could act like a normal movie theater (with reservations instead of purchasing tickets) where you can see a number of films playing that day, none of which are currently in theaters (and possibly haven’t been for some time), because it shows films that haven’t meaning in our culture (ranging from Citizen Kane and Casablanca to Top Gun and Die Hard). It could even be sponsored by and modelled after AMC or Lowe’s (or Grand Cinema).

  • 4D show, like the pirate-themed one that Sea World had in the 1990s (the first one I ever saw), or like a better PhilharMagic – 3D plus theater effects that affect the guests’ senses.

  • Museums with display cases (both built into the wall (including section cuts) and tabletop ones); glass cases around scenario-depictions (settlements, battles, cities, events, and landscapes, etcetera) of miniatures and dioramas. And on the other spectrum, have things that are life-size (and therefore impressive) and real artifacts as well as replicas and documentation (like placards, graphics, text, and signage).

  • People with traveling carts, going down the streets, performing puppet shows, marionette shows, and silhouettes shows—intriguing (comedic, dramatic, epic, legendary) stories.

  • Explore Aztec ruins: treasure, traps, architecture, history, and thrills. For instance, step on pressure plates in a hallway, and they trigger “poison darts” that are pressurized air to blast you, as if you’re being shot at; a walkthrough attraction (the story unfolds at your walking pace).

  • Swashbuckler ride, that puts you behind the eyes of a new recruit to the seafaring lifestyle, aboard a kick-ass pirate ship.

  • Wet ride in a dry park, where you MAY get wet but that's not the point of the ride.

  • Ride car jostles on flat track rather than vice versa (think the simulator car for "Dinosaur!")

  • Attraction where tour guide leads you through a voyeuristic locale (like Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse) and tells facts (half true, half made-up).

  • Aquarium.

  • Dinosaurs.

  • Spaceship simulator with consequences. Roles with buttons that have effects, which you could totally press all of them at once and sabotage your endeavor or you can press them strategically and succeed; it’s your call, whether or not you want to doom the whole mission.

  • Science institute?

  • A concert hall hosting an attraction that shows five different 3D shows (one per three days? Or one per week, maybe?) – all are same length, to keep runtimes similar.

  • A theme park, especially if museum-inspired, would greatly benefit from an IMAX Dome Theater.

  • A flying theater thrill ride, like Soarin' or Wings Over Washington.

  • Get the license to MST3K as the basis for a theme park attraction: a theater that routinely plays a series of B-movies, with audience seating for ~120, with the silhouetted seats (Crow, Tom Servo, and Joel/Mike) placed ahead of them in real life, but backlit so you can't see them; they would be animatronics synced to each corresponding episode's riffs.

STORES

  • Restaurant in a manic inventor’s workshop, full of fluttering gadgetry, cluttered contraptions, and a number of electronic servants that malfunction joyfully. Food is either delivered by conveyor belt or by helicopter drone.

  • Two breakfast food restaurants (like IHOP, Denny’s, or Perkins), inside a park and a resort.

  • Bookstores as gift shops after rides/exhibits (like museums have) and on their own.

  • Third party vendor: Beard Papa's cream puffs.

  • Candy shop. Bakery. Ice Cream. Hotdogs.

EXPERIENCES

  • Mascots, incl. a character geared towards younger children, named Mebo, who is adorable, round, and orange; fuzzy plush toys of him are available.

  • machinations & automatons (one is a large bird)

  • parades

  • fireworks

    • Atlas Fireworks (from NH): savvy at coordinating fireworks to music; hire for 4th of July Fireworks in 1920 Summer in Decadia (or other firework events).

  • things to happen upon and experience, like the Sword in the Stone.

  • a scavenger hunt available within the park, by using a list of clues, questions, and a map.

  • Sign up for an Adventuring Party, and an Exploration Guide will lead you through the Park of Disbelief and go on all of the Story rides (cut to front of the line) with you; and have a narrative to string the rides together, in order to pretend the tour is real and a story of its own (perhaps a time traveling tourism group). – You’d have to pay for this experience, and would definitely have to schedule it in advance of arrival.

FEATURES

  • Scenic areas to stretch, sit, eat, and people-watch.

  • Bubble blowers mounted on roofs, out of sight, with reciprocating fans blowing them amongst the wind, to all parts unknown.

  • Helmet with eye wear—like a WWI aviator’s hat, with round goggles, and with the flip/turn of a switch/wheel, polarized lens are lowered over the clear ones of the goggles, which [act as sunglasses and] can be used for ALL of our 3D (and 4D) shows. (These must be purchased.)

RESORTS

  • Have a 1920’s themed resort on the furthest opposite side of the lake from the Summer 1920 area of Decadia (the Seasons Park) which is Art Deco and Renaissance Revival themed, to match the Summer 1920 theme.

  • A resort like Levittown, where each home has two rooms on the second floor (each comprised of two bedrooms and a bathroom) and a shared living space on the ground floor (living room, den, kitchen, and bathroom). — See the Autumn 1940 resort for Decadia.

    • Can get iced tea and lemonade served to your porch so you can watch the sunset with a cool glass in hand, watching neighbors take strolls or toss the ball; rocking chairs on the porches and lawns spread before them.

    • A nearby soda jerk counter serves ice cream, iced tea, and popcorn.

    • Homes have garages with bikes and jump ropes and sidewalk chalk and balls.

    • Maybe each house has a live-in housekeeper, like Alice from the Brady Bunch.

  • Have a 1900-themed resort outside of Carousel Island in Decadia (on the other side of a few garden paths which connect the resort to the park’s Spring 1900 entrance). It’s a Beaux Arts-styled central building (lobby, food court, shops, lounges) with American Renaissance décor, connecting other Beaux Arts residency buildings (as if it were the 1893 Chicago World’s Fairgrounds), with a sprawling City Beautiful landscape amongst the buildings, with a riverwalk and arboretum, reflecting pool and monuments, and tree-lined streets connecting the buildings.

    • Should have a convention hall, and the appropriate rooms enough to accommodate businesses coming to visit (business 9-5 and relax 5-9).

    • One of the monuments is for Daniel Burnham, which has a quote of his in prominence: Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.

  • A resort themed after the Japanese Edo Period, as if designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

  • An optimistic space-age resort themed to reflect the 1964 New York World’s Fair, with Mid-Century Modern architectural pavilions, as the complexes, and a reflecting pool and unisphere at its center.

  • A constructivist resort with 1930s Soviet Union pride and aesthetics.

  • A resort that is a Fatimid-style town on an oasis in the desert of the Arabian Peninsula, reminiscent of the Islamic Golden Age.

  • A Southeast Asian Khmer-style resort, reminiscent of the temples at Angkor Wat.

  • Interconnected treehouses (two stories off the ground, or more) with woodland tree-dwelling people, rope, and whistling birds. (Elven design or ramshackle construction?) Shacks of luxury, too; built of wood planks and twisted iron, fastened to tree notches.

  • 1961 tall angular beachside hotel (made of steel, glass, and plaster); interior rooms all smell like lemon citrus and cold AC (freon). On beach, aligned rows of colorful umbrellas for shade, all permanently tilted the same direction. ‘60s-style faux-Polynesian restaurant on a pier beside the hotel.

Original document created 01/21/2015.

The Fountain Pen (short film)

ShortList (6/6)

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