why doesn't gatekeeper have a theme?

operative_me said:

Altor said:
CCMR - trains shaped like coal cars. Boarded up tunnel entrance.

Ha. Who else remembers when that WAS the the entrance?

And while it may be a flop as a ride, STR has some decent theming. Sorry Shawn Meyer.

No offense taken. All you said was flop. You're right, Shoot the Rapids has great theming! I won't get off topic here though. Thabto, that was funny!

Gatekeeper is fine the way it is! I love the park entrance with the key holes, which to me is my favorite part of the ride. It's a great ride overall and has great airtime to it. For me, the best theming that I've seen so far on a winged coaster was Thunderbird at Holiday World.

No theme? Are you kidding? Look at the name of the ride and what it has. Its name is GATEkeeper. It literally has a gate built right into it. How many rides really have an item of that extent as part of its theming, as good as STR is? Case closed. Then there is taking it from another angle and asking yourself when Cedar Point has ever cared about theming.

Gatekeeper2013 said:
.Then there is taking it from another angle and asking yourself when Cedar Point has ever cared about theming.

I'd say Cedar Point tried hard to theme between 1960 and 1980. They were even referred to often during that era as the "Disneyland of the north". During that time period, they took the Pirate Ride and the Earthquake ride from Freedomland when it closed, had the Paddlewheel boat ride, Oceana and the aquarium, and Jungle Larry's. The railroad even featured live actors at one time. I'd say the last time the park cared about theming was in 1990 with Disaster Transport. They even hired the same firm that put together Star Tours for Disney.

I noticed looking at older pictures that the Sky Ride stations used to have flags on them to give them a European look like they were in the Alps or something.

I'm just happy that they put the gondolas on in color order now, instead of a random array.
I think it Looks much better.

Theming? All you have to do is look up the history of he Frontier Trail and Frontiertown. There was a time when you could walk the Trail and there wasn't a steel forest surrounding it. It was designed by Ray Wallace, a former Disney Imagineer. While not quite up to Disney standards, it was still very well done. I have fond memories of walking the trail at night after getting off shift, getting about half way to "funnytown" and being able to hear the band organ on the Frontier Carousel. That was about as close to hearing midway noise that you would get until you actually got down there. That and my fellow employees on the RR whistling for the crossing just before the FT station.

It's a shame that this for the most part fell by the wayside. A change in management style will do that. Many say that it was for the better, others like me lament the loss of something special,

XS NightClub said:
I'm just happy that they put the gondolas on in color order now, instead of a random array.
I think it Looks much better.

Disagree, I like the random color order much better. It looks kind of strange to have all the gondolas of one color in a row.

The fact that they painted them all the same color makes you wonder if someone got a really fantastic deal on that color.......