NIAGARA AMUSEMENT PARK and SPLASH WORLD
Grand Island, NY
Formerly known as Fantasy Island and Martin’s Fantasy Island
Owned By: IB Parks and Entertainment
 2024 - New Attractions Expected - (8/29/2024) I’m told that Niagara Amusement Park finally opened The Serpent coaster (SDC Galaxi) to guests on August 27th. They’ve also confirmed that this weekend (Aug. 31 to Sept. 2), the park’s will put on Western Town Weekend, featuring the return of The Haunted Shootout along with a new dance at the Golden Nugget and more.
(6/15/2024) Finally some good news from Niagara Amusement Park, who posted a video showing the Silver Comet making a test run yesterday, along with the confirmation that the park’s biggest attraction will finally open for the season today. In addition, they confirmed that the entire back end of the park and attractions that have been closed so far this season will also be opening today. Tickets are said to be just $25 today (on the website) and that they will be celebrating the Silver Comet’s 25th Birthday.
(5/24/2024) The good news is that Niagara Amusement Park will open for the season on Saturday… but the bad news is that the number of rides and attractions open will be limited at this time. Posts from the park say that a number of other attractions will be ready to open sometime in June and that list includes: Silver Comet, Midway Mayhem, Giant Wheel, The Serpent, Flying Witch, Sea Dragon, Balloons, Tilt-A-Whirl, Amazing Flying Machine, Antique Autos and the Dodgem Bumper Cars.
So you may be asking yourself… exactly what is left to be open this weekend? From the look of things, that would be mostly kiddie rides and water park attractions. According to some social media posts, the majority of items still closed until June are in the back of the park where they are working on resurfacing the pathways and other maintenance work at the moment.
While hopefully their schedule holds true, some locals have commented at a number of these same attractions were also supposed to open last season and failed to do so. At the same time I also realize that they sort of bit off a bit more than they could chew at once by buying and trying to restore the park itself. The park has essentially been picked-clean down to the bones by the previous owners who auctioned off everything they could, and left the park is such a bad state that many considered it a lost cause to try and save it.
So we wish the team at Niagara Amusement Park the best, and hopefully this will be the season they really get the majority of the park up and running once again.
(2/9/2024) A very interesting set of photos were posted on Reddit this week, showing that the pieces of the former Mardi Gras Hangover and Revolution rides from Six Flags Great America are now sitting in a lot at Niagara Amusement Park. The efforts to revive this closed theme park have been a struggle over the past couple of years, with very few new attractions being rebuilt and opened, despite big lists claiming they are coming.
At least in this case, the two rides were both set up and able to run at Six Flags last season, so with any luck Niagara Amusement Park should be able to get these up and running this season. I hope…
As a number of the new attractions announced for the 2023 failed to open at the park, there are several now expected to arrived for the 2024 season. This includes the Serpent coaster (SDC Zyklon/Galaxi) and Miner Mike family coaster (Wisdom). Other attraction listed once for the 2023 season that I don’t believe opened include a Giant Wheel, Antique Autos, Caterpilla, Pony Carts and the Flying Witch dark ride.
???? - Schwarzkopf Shuttle Loop Coaster - LIKELY CANCELED - (6/1/2024) According to social media reports, at least half, if not all by now, of the roller coaster track for the former Cascabel 2.0 coaster from Mexico (formerly Kennywood’s Laser Loop) have been loaded onto trucks and shipped over into a storage lot at Indiana Beach instead. Indiana Beach has been home to the trains for this coaster ever since they were broughht into the country from Mexico anyway, so this is sort of putting the collection back together again, but all in Indiana. The park has also posted some comments on social media in responce to guest comments about the fate of this coaster, as it was previously mentioned as something that would be installed at the Niagara park, but now this no longer looks to be the case.
(2/10/22) The new Niagara Amusement Park and Splash World has officially confirmed that they will be adding a classic Schwarzkopf Flywheel launched shuttle coaster to the park. The pieces have started to arrive on site and it is “expected to begin construction as soon as the weather cooperates!!”
For those wondering, this is indeed the former “Cascabel 2.0” coaster that they bought from Mexico’s La Feria Chapultepec Magico park at the same time as the Triple Loop coaster going up at Indiana Beach right now. Perhaps even more importantly though, this coaster started off as the popular Laser Loop from Kennywood where it operated from 1980 to 1990 before being sold and shipped to Mexico.
I anticipate that a lot of old Laser Loop fans may come out of the woodwork and come to the new Niagara Amusement Park to give their old favorite a ride once again, and given the time that has past, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of multi-generational visitors coming to ride this together once again, with grandparents and parents bringing along their children and grandchildren to ride the coaster.
It is also worth mentioning that until now there was only a single Flywheel launched Schwarzkopf shuttle coaster left running in North America, which was Montezooma’s Revenge at Knott’s Berry Farm. Ironically, Montezuma’s Revenge just closed until sometime in 2023 last week to undergo a massive refurbishment project, so when the former Laser Loop returns it will be the only one running on the continent for the first year. There are currently only two other such coasters still running in the world: Psyke Underground at Walibi Belgium, though technically it was upgraded to a LIM launch system is no longer Flywheel launched, and then the Shuttle Loop at Nagashima Spa Land in Japan.
Good timing with the announcement, as a local reader spotted a few truck loads of coaster pieces arriving on site yesterday, parking at the Grand Island Plaza across the street and sent them in. (Photo credit to Logan Benjamin)
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