User blog:RCTFan2002/Whatever Happened to... Episode 2: Whatever Happened to...Family Land Florida?

Hey guys, welcome back to the "Whatever Happened to...?" miniseries. Initially, I was going to focus on CD5's Six Flags South Carolina for the next episode, but then me and Stacy4554 decided to do this instead, as a "quickie" episode. Don't worry though, I will still be doing and posting the one for Six Flags South Carolina later this week. So for now, just sit back and enjoy this episode, which will address another one of Fraroc's parks...but not one you might be expecting...

Introduction
Family Land Florida opened in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1962, as a small mom-and-pop boardwalk park with free admission (riders had to buy tickets to ride the attractions). From the time of it's opening all the way to the early '90s, the park saw VERY little expansion occur, as it was basically a small children's theme park, consisted almost entirely of kiddie rides. As a result of this, the park eventually became in danger of being wiped out by some of Florida's MANY other bigger and more popular theme parks, such as Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando. In 1992, when the son of the original owners took over ownership of the park, he decided to give a park a complete rehaul to compete with other Florida parks, adding some more thrilling and exciting flat rides in the mid-to-late '90s, as well as the park's very first roller coaster - ok, it was a Pinfari Wacky Worm (a Big Apple MB28 to be more specific), but it counted!

In 1997, the park added it's first official thrill ride, an S&S Space Shot tower. In 2000, the park got it's second coaster, a family coaster named Coast-to-Coaster built, surprisingly, by Giovanola. It was the only family coaster that Giovanola ever built, and, layout-wise, was exactly like the Santa Monica West Coaster (except built by Giovanola instead of D.H. Morgan, of course). It even had one of it's helixes built going around the Space Shot ride! Given how much of a success these new additions were, it was really odd that the next few years saw really small new ride additions instead. However, the thrill ride drought eventually ended in 2007 with the opening of Family Land Florida's biggest and most thrilling coaster yet - Python, a Schwarzkopf classic looping coaster relocated from Tennessee's Great America! Since then, the park seems to have remained a great success...

...or has it? Since the story for Family Land Florida only ended in 2007, we don't know anything about what happened to the park after that. Has it added anything else? What does the park look like in 2022? Well, find out right here, right now in this blog post, as I go over the history of Family Land Florida from the year of Python's opening to present day!

Family Land: A Brief History from 2007-2022
Needless to say, when Python opened in April 2007, it was a smashing hit for the family oriented park. The park experienced record breaking attendance that year as a result, some of it being contributed to people from Tennessee who previously rode the coaster at TGA and were coming down to Florida to finally ride it again for the first time in 6 years.

Later that year, it was announced by the owner of the park that Python's addition was actually the first phase of an all-new multi-year park expansion, supposed to be the largest one in the park's history. The ultimate goal was to make the park look appealing for people of all ages instead of just families and kids, and make it look at least a little bit as exciting and thrilling to tourists as Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando did. This was also why the park saw only really small ride additions for the last couple years, as the owners had been trying to save up money for the new expansion. For 2008, although no new additions were added to the park, a massive plot of empty land was cleared right next to the park, almost as large as the park itself. This got a lot of theme park enthusiasts riled up, convinced that whatever was to come to the park in the future would definitely deliver...

In 2009, Thrillseeker's Plaza finally opened to the public! An all-new park area, it was the biggest expansion in the park's history so far and consisted entirely of all new thrill rides, as well as an all new coaster! The new flat rides consisted of a Slingshot ride named...well, Slingshot, an S&S Screamin' Swing named Booster Seat, a Gravity Works Booster named Revolver, and a Zamperla Power Surge named Energizer.

But the creme de la creme of the new area was HellPipe, an all-new Intamin Surfrider 20m coaster that shoots riders up and down a coaster track shaped like a skatepark halfpipe, all while spinning them around! When Thrillseeker's Plaza opened in April 2009, it immediately received rave reviews from coaster fanatics and theme park enthusiasts around the country, most of them now convinced that the opening of this all-new, thrilling area was a sign of greater things coming to the park in the near future, that this place was NOT just a rinky dinky little family owned carnival park and was going to go on to become a rival to other major Florida theme parks.

Just a year later, in 2010, the remainder of the empty land in Thrillseeker's Plaza was filled up with the addition of Starliner, a classic wooden coaster relocated from Cypress Gardens Theme Park (now Legoland Florida) in Winter Haven. Initially, the owner of the park had been in talks with companies like Great Coasters International and Gravity Group to build the park's very first wooden coaster around 2011, but after Cypress Gardens inexplicably shut down in 2008 and remained Standing But Not Operating in 2009, the park decided to buy the classic woodie before it could be demolished, figuring it would be cheaper to just buy a coaster than build a new one from the ground-up. They also figured that by buying and restoring the classic woodie, it would make Family Land Florida more popular with coaster enthusiasts as now they'd be known as the park that bought and saved a classic wooden coaster.

And that's exactly what happened when Starliner reopened in 2010. Coaster enthusiasts absolutely RAVED the fact that the park saved a classic wooden coaster from going to the scrap heap, comparing it to how they saved the classic looper Python from TGA just a few years prior. Once again, because of this decision, the park experienced record breaking attendance levels. In unrelated news, Coast-to-Coaster, the GIovanola family coaster, also got a repaint for it's 10th anniversary at the park that year, becoming red with white supports.

2011 was mainly an off-season, as the park was still riding off of the success from Thrillseeker's Plaza and Starliner. 2012, however, saw two new thrill rides come to the park, to celebrate the park's 50th anniversary: a Wisdom Rides Genesis named Avalanche, as the ride was themed to an avalanche, and a Zamperla Air Race named Jet Racer. Both of these rides received overall positive reception from park guests once they opened.

2013 saw nothing new get added, but it DID see Tiki Coaster, the park's very first coaster, be removed at the end of the season. The coaster, approaching 20 years old, seemed to be very outdated and redundant when compared to the park's other, much more exciting and newer coasters. After giving riders it's final goodbye in October 2013, Tiki Coaster was removed from the park, but NOT demolished - the owner of the park actually sold the ride to a traveling fair, where it was rebuilt in 2014 and continues to run and operate to this very day under the name Wacky Worm.

Of course, Tiki Coaster's removal from the park meant that Family Land Florida now no longer had a kiddie coaster. The park was quick and eager to fix that though, because in 2014, Fantasy Spin opened right over where Tiki Coaster's former spot was. The coaster, an SBF Visa MX608 spinning coaster, wasn't exactly the most intense coaster, or intense at ALL, but it's spinning cars seemed to compensate for it's simple figure-eight layout as it proved to be an exciting and successful addition with families and little kids. However, 2014 also saw the removal of the park's Slingshot ride, which, despite being a very recent addition to the park, had quickly outgrown it's popularity after it's first year there and had seen a sharp decline in popularity with guests. Once again, the park said goodbye to one of it's rides at the end of the season, and the Slingshot was purchased by an independent buyer in December of that year. It's current fate remains unknown.

2015 saw a new thrill ride take Slingshot's old place in Thrillseeker's Plaza - Mega Loop (points for creativity), a Larson Fireball ride that was pretty much identical to the Larson Super Loops found at Six Flags parks around the country. The ride sent riders rolling back and forth on a track until they eventually went upside down in a loop, then proceeded to repeat it several times. Despite the ride basically being a Super Loop ripoff, it seemed to fare decently well at the park when it opened, gaining a rather reasonable amount of attention from guests in it's first year. At the end of the season, a small plot of land, not as big as the one seen in 2008, was cleared on the side of the park, opposite of where Thrillseeker's Plaza was. It seemed that the owner of the park had planned to expand the small boardwalk park on BOTH sides...

In 2016, Tropical Adventures, a new park area with a slight tropical jungle theme, opened. It was the first official "themed" area in the park and featured two rides, one of which was a very first in the park's history: Tropical Falls, a Whitewater West Shoot-the-Chutes, was the very first water ride to ever open in the park. It definitely proved to be a success when it opened, seeing very long lines in the summer as people obviously were trying to beat the hot Florida heat!

The other new ride to open was Monkeyin' Around, a Gerstlauer Sky Roller themed to monkeys acting around in a banana tree (which the main tower of the ride was painted and themed as as a result). The ride featured customized seats painted with pictures of monkeys on them to further cement the theme. As for the ride itself, it was similar to Jet Racer, flipping riders upside down while they spun around the tower, the only major difference being that it elevated riders high up in the air during the ride. Because of this, the ride got some mixed reviews from guests and critics alike, who found that not only was it basically a ripoff of Jet Racer, but also thought the theming of the ride was "way too tacky" and "forced", claiming that the type of ride definitely didn't help at all either. Despite this, it still gained a noticeable amount of attention and riders when it opened along with the area.

2017 didn't see anything new come to the park. Most people thought nothing of it, assuming that the park was just taking an off-season due to all the recent new additions. However, in 2018, nothing new opened either, and it was only at this point when people started to get concerned and worried about the park. Were they having financial issues? Would the park soon be shut down? Rumors began to circle around the internet like crazy, some worrying that this would soon be the end of the small boardwalk park as we knew it...

...but in summer of 2018, the park owner stepped in to shut down the crazy rumors once and for all. He confirmed that Family Land Florida was NOT closing down any time soon, and that the last two years of no additions had a good reason to them - he claimed that the park had been saving up money in an attempt to build it's latest and greatest new thrill ride for the 2019 season, a small "passion project", as he called it, that he had been wanting to build in the park for at least 3 years, since the development of the Tropical Adventures area. This only riled up the fanatics even more, but in a good way. What "passion project" was he talking about? What was the new mystery ride opening in 2019? Would it be a coaster or a flat?

That can be solved with a little bit of backstory: back in 2015, before the public announcement of Tropical Adventures, the owner had confronted Rocky Mountain Construction about a possible coaster at the park, after having seen them build Goliath at Six Flags Great America from the ground-up. He initially planned for them to build the new coaster as the third ride to open with the Tropical Adventures area in 2016, but due to budget restraints, the coaster was considered too expensive and cut out of the plans, and only the two other rides (the Shoot-the-Chutes and Sky Roller) were built since they were cheaper. But the owner was not going to give up - he planned to someday, somehow, build what he considered to be Family Land Florida's greatest coaster yet, even more so than Python or Starliner. It took him 2 years of saving up his park profits, but he did it, and eventually, in August and September 2018, not only was a huge plot of land seen being cleared in the Tropical Adventures area, but also pieces of RMC I-Box track...

...and just a few months later, in late 2018, Bengal Tiger was announced! One of the very few ground-up RMC hybrid coasters ever built, it would not only be the tallest coaster in the park's history, at 105 ft tall (with a 95 ft 80 degree first drop), but also the park's most extreme and intense coaster ever! It featured 3 inversions - two barrel rolls and one zero-g stall - and would have a top speed of 52 mph, also making it the fastest coaster in the park. Needless to say, when the coaster was first revealed to the public, people went absolutely NUTS over it. It was basically one of the biggest investments ever put into the park, and by the looks of it, it was one of the most appealing and thrilling coasters that Florida had to offer. When Bengal Tiger opened in 2019, the park saw yet AGAIN record breaking attendance, and the coaster, which quickly became raved about as one of the best coasters in Florida, if not the country, received unanimous acclaim. The park seemed to be on top of the world, having quickly grown in just over a decade from a small rinky dink boardwalk park to a truly great and appealing coaster-tropolis...

...then 2020 happened. COVID hit, and everything across the country had to shut down, including Family Land Florida. Because of this, even when ot did eventually reopen that summer, the park saw a sharp drop in profits that, mixed with the costs for Bengal Tiger the year before, caused the owners to spiral into near debt. For the 2021 season, nothing new was added to the park, but the owners struggled to keep the park afloat during the pandemic, and bring their financial assets back up to preferable standards. Then, if THAT wasn't hard enough, in July of 2021, a scandal broke out regarding the owner of the park (the original owner's son), claiming that he had sexually harassed and abused several female employees at the park years ago.

A former worker at the park, under the pseudonym "Kate", claims that she was abused by the owner back in 2006. "I was 20 years old and working there part-time to pay for college", she claimed. "He seemed like a nice boss at first, acting friendly and always trying to strike up conversations with me. A couple weeks later though, I noticed he wouldn't stop looking at me, and it made me feel a bit uncomfortable as he seemed to be eyeing me up and down my body." She then went on to describe how he violently abused her one night at the park in his office: "He grabbed me by the head with both hands and started kissing me, forcing his tongue in my mouth. I was scared, I was anxious, I was panicking. I was pushing him off, yelling at him to stop, but he slammed me against the wall and screamed "SHUT THE F@*K P!" He pinned me to the wall and started rubbing one of his hands on my crotch through my pants, making sensual noises...I felt so violated and weak in that moment." Another woman, under the pseudonym "Abby", claims that in 2009, when she worked at the park, the owner made remarks about her body and, at one point, grabbed her inappropriately between the legs through her pants and commented on her privates. "He told me outright, 'someday, i'm gonna f@*k you', and that really scared me", she told reporters, and reveals she quit after just 5 weeks on the job due to the harassment.

With the ongoing pandemic, the costs of the new coaster, and now a sexual harassment scandal, it was all too much for the park owners to handle. The owner resigned from his position as owner and operator of the park, was eventually taken into custody, is currently awaiting trial, with a scheduled court date of June 2022. His ex-wife, who filed for divorce after the scandal broke out, took over operations of the park for a brief time as she struggled with finding a new owner.

Finally, in spite of the ongoing pandemic, in October 2021, Family Land Florida was sold to the small theme park chain Fun Spot America, who operated two other parks in Florida as well as one in Georgia. They were deeply impressed with the high standards that the park had made for itself in the past 15 years or so, and so had no problem taking it in. A few days later, the official announcement broke out of the park being purchased, and it was also announced that for 2022 Family Land Florida would get it's name changed to "Fun Spot West Palm Beach", just like how the other Fun Spot parks feature cities at the end of their names (Fun Spot Orlando, Fun Spot Atlanta, etc.)

But whether it's Family Land Florida or Fun Spot West Palm Beach, one thing we can all agree on is that the park has really made a good image of itself in the past approximate 15 years. The addition of Python in 2007 seemed to be a completely new turning point for the once small mom-and-pop boardwalk park, and it seemed to grow almost exponentially, creating a snowball effect of some sort that turned the park into the top-notch, exciting rollercoaster-and-thrill-ride paradise it is today! Even when the park reopens in April 2022 under it's new name for the first time, the people of Florida and West Palm Beach will still remember it as Family Land Florida, and know just how much it has grown, prospered, and built a good reputation for itself over the years. Truly, it has gone a long way, and hopefully it will continue that way for a long time.