Kiddie Kingdom

Kevinj, I agree with many of your opinions in your 9:50pm post except...... when I was "Kiddie Kingdom age" way back in the late 60's I wanted all of the bells and whistles on the rides to function. If the old fashioned looking cars had a horn button that made some screeching buzzing sound, I wanted it to work or I was disappointed. Same with the rocket ships, I wanted lights, noises, raise & lower action ( I almost said up & down action but that didn't sound appropriate).

Now that my youngest son is older I am happy to not have to spend time in that area. One improvement that they made a couple years ago was removing the Bumper Boats ride. My son loved it, but it was oh so agonizingly slow.

But generally speaking, young kids will want to ride anything with motion. Just look at how crowded Memphis Kiddie Park in Cleveland gets. And kids all wanted to ride those contraptions on the sidewalk outside of Uncle Bills, Gold Circle, Zayers.

Speaking of 60's Kiddieland, anyone remember the roller coaster and the individual train cars that you moved with a hand crank? Loved riding the little coaster but my favorite were the hand crank cars. Rode those over and over until my arms were sore.

The area could use a little update for sure. The rides could receive a little TLC, fixing the buzzers and such. Could really use an actual family coaster in that area, nothing to big maybe along the lines of Zach's Zoomer at Michigan's Adventure.

That coaster was a Herschel Little Dipper. I rode it a lot. There are still some of those around.

Here's the best old park map I have. It's from 1969 and shows the miniature golf and kiddieland both in that location. http://www.rollercoasterfreak.com/CP_Brochures/1969_souvenir_map.jpg

Based on this rough map from 1966, I believe they were both in the same location then as well. http://www.rollercoasterfreak.com/CP_Brochures/1966_pg_map.jpg

JTaylor said:

The rides could receive a little TLC, fixing the buzzers and such.

And here I thought maintenance was doing everyone a favor by making sure the buzzers don't work! :)

JTaylor said:

The rides could receive a little TLC, fixing the buzzers and such.

And here I thought maintenance was doing everyone a favor by making sure the buzzers don't work! :)

Very true, Pete ! I used to work in Admissions, and a few days at Lost Persons (the little building in Kiddie Kingdom. I used to get very annoyed and hated buzzers. Darn buzzers !

Pete said:

Speaking of 60's Kiddieland, anyone remember the roller coaster and the individual train cars that you moved with a hand crank? Loved riding the little coaster but my favorite were the hand crank cars. Rode those over and over until my arms were sore.

Pete I posted a video a while back in this site's history forum that you'll enjoy. Especially check out around the 5:45 mark of the video. Here's a link to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-9ptfEQGU

Yes, I too rode similar Herschell models of these at Memphis Kiddie Park in Cleveland (Old Brooklyn?) that I think are still there today. Yes the Little Dipper and those hand crank cars were the stuff weren't they?

What I think might work is a refresh. New paint, maintenance on the bells and whistles and lights, new canopies to replace the fading ones, a resto job on my beloved carousel, and finally, a reintroduction of Kid Arthur's Court- a large scale playground with a castle theme to tie it all together like the old CAC did- sans the troublesome ball pit.

Smiley5129 said:

JTaylor said:

The rides could receive a little TLC, fixing the buzzers and such.

And here I thought maintenance was doing everyone a favor by making sure the buzzers don't work! :)

Very true, Pete ! I used to work in Admissions, and a few days at Lost Persons (the little building in Kiddie Kingdom. I used to get very annoyed and hated buzzers. Darn buzzers !

I loved the buzzers!

CPfan, thanks for posting the link, video brings back a lot of memories. That was the coaster, speedy little thing for its size.

CPfan, thanks for posting. I enjoyed the memories.

If there ever is a refresh of Kiddie Kingdom I wouldn't mind seeing a B&M family invert show up. The Vekoma ones are fun but I would think a B&M would be more reliable, maybe even have the ability to run two trains.

I'd love to see a family coaster like Firechaser Express at Dollywood....

Wow, you seem lost. 4Chan is that way, good sir. Off with you.

Aww I missed out on some fun to post some dank memes...Ah well.

I did some imagining and came up with a concept of what an entirely new Kiddy Kingdom/Planet Snoopy expansion could look like! I added a B&M family inverted coaster as well as 7 other small flat rides. I retained 2 of the classic spinning car rides and rethemed them, then added a few more new kid/family rides that the park doesn't have yet. I also added a small stage as well as an shaded eating area, making the entire area feel more modern and complete with the existing Planet Snoopy.

That looks good. Kiddie Kingdom does need an upgrade from the annoying beeping circular rides. Yes, a small roller coaster is able to fit in the area given. However, with the inverted roller coaster design, how tall does a child have to be to ride it? With that train, it *might* be 54 inches. If there was a roller coaster in Planet Snoopy, like Camp Snoopy, it should be a ride that a child 36 - 54(or taller) can ride.

Good job. The park details are awesome and the new area looks very, very CP. I like the coaster. It’s a good fit and it’s high visibility would bring excitement.

Question. What did you do with the Denzel menagerie carousel? Because you know it has to stay, right?

KI has an invert for children. Only 2 per row and only one train. To do that in such a small space it would have to be similar to that. 44 inches. The one at KI was a good ride. Enough to have 16-18 year olds riding it without children. Doesn't cycle very fast though. If they built one it would be a bad idea to have it in that location so close to the entrance. Because of all the non-children that wanted to ride it and that it would be low capacity. In my experiences it doesn't matter how great of a ride it is, you cannot get a 4 year old to wait 25 minutes to do anything without a temper tantrum. If it had a larger footprint that would be feasible. Two trains would make it enjoyable. My grandson who is now 6 will ride all the rides he can at KI. Beast, Vortex, Mystic Timbers, Stunt Coaster, etc. But is not going to wait in line.