Alabama Adventure - Now Splash Adventure

BESSEMER, Alabama -- The new owner of Alabama Adventure plans to re-open the facility as Splash Adventure, expanding the water park portion of the venue and selling off the rides that made up the amusement park.

General Attractions bought the park in January and is investing $1.5 million to add four new attractions and spruce up the park in time for a May 12 opening under the new name and aquatic focus, the new owners will announce today. AmusementAquatic Management Group is operating the park.

Kent Lemasters, chief executive of General Attractions and AmusementAquatic, is familiar with the property. His former company, Southland Entertainment Group, bought the original VisionLand in a bankruptcy transaction for $5.25 million and invested $5 million more the first year to create Alabama Adventure in 2003. Southland sold the company in 2008.

The park will keep its Main Street row of shops, eats and amusements, and the water park will expand with additions that extend its reach toward the Main Street area.

The new attractions will be:

?????????Aqua Course, a first-of-its-kind water-filled obstacle course -- think a less painful version of the television show "Wipeout" -- with a range of adventurous thrills to safe-but-fun activities. It will have foot-activated water features, water cannons, splash buckets and other interactive features, and it also can be used as a dry attraction when the weather turns cooler.

?????????A water maze similar to labyrinths at other amusement parks but with the added element of water walls, sprinklers and dumping buckets of water.

?????????The Friday night "Dive-In Movies" program will show movies on a big screen while viewers recline on inner tubes in the wave pool (turned off during movie time) or on a towel or beach chair on the wave pool's "beach."

?????????A zip line is being installed on the back side of the water park between the water slide and the Upsurge attraction.

Meanwhile, the amusement park rides -- including the landmark Rampage wooden roller coaster -- will be sold off to other park owners and that property used for special events and future growth, Lemasters said in an interview Wednesday.

"After two years here, I realized that most of the people were going to the water park," he said.

Source: http://blog.al.com/businessnews/2012/04 ... xpand.html


This is sad that we are going to have to see another good CCI coaster go.