Action Park To Return At Mountain Creek Resort In New Jersey
VERNON, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- For many growing up in New Jersey from the late 1970s until the early 1990s, it wouldn't be summer without a trip to Action Park.
Now it seems the park in Vernon, N.J. is making a comeback. Signs for Action Park have appeared at the Mountain Creek resort for the first time since time since 1996.
The park says it decided to go with the original name because several of the original rides are returning and visitors continued nostalgia.
The original Action Park was open between 1978 and 1996, and gained notoriety for its numerous accidents. It was jokingly known as "Class-Action Park," "Accident Park," and "Traction Park," NJ.com recalled.
Among the most infamous attractions remembered in published reports was the Cannonball Loop slide – an enclosed, tubular water slide that turned in a complete vertical loop as might be seen on a roller coaster. The ride was open only for a month in the summer of 1985, before the New Jersey Advisory Board on Carnival Amusement Ride Safety ordered it closed, according to published reports.
The ride resulted in injuries, and a rider also became stuck at the top of the loop because of a lack of water pressure – prompting a hatch to be built at the bottom of a slope, according to published reports.
Former employee Tom Fergus told Weird NJ that he tested the ride and had an unpleasant experience.
"I was one of the idiots that accepted you-know-who's crisp $100 bill to test run it. That was my last ride. $100 did not buy enough booze to drown out that memory," Fergus said in the Weird NJ article.
The old Action Park also drew notoriety for deaths in the park's Tidal Wave Pool, as well a death on the Kayak Experience ride, which used submerged electric fans to agitate the water for kayakers as if they were on whitewater rapids.
But Mountain Creek resort president Bill Benneyan said all that has changed. He said the new park has added safeguards, and told NJ.com the park has "kept the thrills and lost the spills."
The new Action Park is set to open June 14.
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