User blog:RCTFan2002/Whatever Happened to... Episode 1: Whatever Happened to...Gateway Park?

Hey everyone, hope you've all had a great New Year's Eve! It's 2022, and to celebrate the start of the New Year, I would like to introduce the very first episode of my all-new miniseries, "Whatever Happened To...?" It's basically a revival/continuation series of all those old RCT/PLC park projects that were abandoned or completed years ago, to show us what happened to those parks since the last update and what they look like now in 2022. So sit back and get ready for the very first episode, which'll tackle Fraroc's RCT3 park "Gateway Park".

NOTE: I do NOT own any of these parks or projects. All credit goes to their initial creators.

Gateway Park - 8 Years Later
Last time we saw Gateway Park, it was 2014, and the park was still riding off of the massive success of 2013's new addition - the big, bad Intamin Accelerator coaster "Sanctum.exe", which tied with the D.H. Morgan hypercoaster "Golden Lion" as the best coaster in the park. But so much has changed since then. But don't take it from me - take it from the one who started the hype about Gateway Park in the first place, the one and only coaster blogger Ellen Merridew - or as she may be known now, Ellen Thompson!

By Ellen Thompson, posted May 29th, 2022, 10:13am EST
Hi there, everyone! Bet you didn't expect to hear from me again! I know it seems like I dropped off the radar regarding Gateway Park after 2014, but the reason for that is...well, I got MARRIED! That's right, just a few months after I published my final update of Gateway Park in August of 2014, I tied the knot with my husband Kevin, and right after that we moved out of state to Springfield, Massachusetts, where we now live with my two kids - Jason, who is 5 years old, and Lily, who is 3!

Sadly, since we moved to Springfield, that means I haven't been able to go back to Connecticut to visit Gateway Park until this year, when we recently planned a road trip with our kids to introduce them to Gateway Park for the 1st time this summer. Man, they'll be surprised when they see what the park is like, especially NOW...

Despite not being able to go to Gateway Park the past few years, I've still been keeping up-to-date with the park's yearly additions and other news via the Internet, and MAN...oh man, things have definitely changed since the last time I visited 8 years ago!

So where should I start other than where I left off last time...2014 was mainly an off-year for the park, which was still riding off of the great success of Sanctum.exe. A couple of park improvements occurred, but other than that, nothing major was added or removed.

However, just weeks after my last park update, a tremendous plot of land was cleared right next to Gateway Park, bigger than any new coaster or flat ride I've ever seen. At first, people initially assumed it was some sort of giant park expansion, and, in a way, they were correct. However, it was unlike any expansion the park had ever seen - in October 2014, Cedar Fair began putting cryptic posts on Facebook teasing the new expansion, claiming that "The waters are about to get wild..."

And in 2015, Wildwater Kingdom opened! An all-new inclusive waterpark, it was located right next to the theme park, with the same name as Dorney Park and the former Geauga Lake's waterparks. It featured all sorts of cool, fun and exciting water attractions for guests of all ages, including Castaway Bay, which was a 500,000 gallon wave pool, a lazy river, several slide complexes, and Snoopy's Splash Pad, a children's water play area.

Considering this park was basically the last Cedar Fair park to not have a waterpark in or next to it, this addition was no doubt a VERY much needed one, and it definitely showed - the park experienced record breaking attendance this year, as thousands of guests immediately flocked to the new waterpark upon it's grand opening, and throughout the entire summer, it was crowded, crowded, crowded! (In case you're wondering how I know this despite not being there, I saw photos that people posted from their trip reports on TPR)

That being said, it was almost juxtaposition how small 2016's new addition to the park would be when compared to the tremendous addition of Wildwater Kingdom - just two new flat rides, and one of them wasn't even new! Just an old ride that'd been reassembled, given a makeover, and marketed as new.

The ride that'd been reassembled and reopened was the Action Theater, aka the old Outer Space 4D IMAX theater that only operated for one season in 2012 before being removed to build Sanctum.exe. However, now it'd been rebuilt in a new area of the park, far away from Sector Zero, with it's old space theming gone and a new generic movie replacing the old "exploring the planets" one (don't ask what the new movie is, I haven't seen it).

The second new ride was, in my opinion, much better, even if it was just a family ride - a Larson Flying Skooters by the name of Rocky Creek Flyers. It's actually a pretty cool looking ride, even if it is just a Flying Skooters, and I definitely see why Gateway Park added this type of ride.

However, in the summer of 2016, another large clearing of land was spotted near the Golden Lion hypercoaster, immediately causing speculation from people online (including me) that it'd be a new coaster. I immediately assumed it would be some sort of B&M dive coaster, given how one had just opened that year at Cedar Point (that and a dive coaster at my home park would just be plain awesome XD), but given how wrong we were about Sanctum.exe initially, I knew Cedar Fair would most likely throw another curveball at this...

...and I was right! Eventually, pieces of wooden track were spotted on the cleared land, and a photo of a Millennium Flyer train being unloaded in park storage was later leaked to TPR, cementing what the new coaster would be. And in 2017, Timber Beast opened! An absolutely awesome looking GCI wooden coaster that apparently had lots of floater airtime, intense drops and diving turns, and even a small tunnel section! To be honest, after I heard this coaster being announced for the park I liked it a lot better than my dive coaster theory - not to hate on dive coasters obviously, but it DOES make sense when you think about it, as after Pain Express - oh EXCUSE ME, Rumbler - closed in 2010, the park DESPERATELY needed a much more modern and exciting woodie, and BOY, do I think Cedar Fair delivered on that!

Name: Timber Beast

Built: 2017

Manufacturer: Great Coasters International

Type: Wood Track Twister/Oval

Height: 105 feet

Length: 3,100 feet

Top Speed: 51mph

Height Requirement: 40 inches

Inversions: None

2018 was once again a low key year for the park, the only new additions being Liquid Lightning and Thunder Falls being added to Wildwater Kingdom. A Proslide Tornado and a Whitewater West 7-slide complex respectively, both had been relocated from the now defunct Wildwater Kingdom in Ohio. I thought that was a little cool, that a piece of Geauga Lake's legacy still gets to live on - and in MY own home park no less!

However, while the theme park didn't get any new rides that year, it DID get rid of an old one, unfortunately. Revolution, the park's Huss Topple Tower (and the once-greatly abhorred Fear: The Ride), had started suffering from technical issues over the past few years, and by 2018 had become a maintenance nightmare. According to guest reviews of the park dated 2018, the ride was virtually never open due to how much downtime it had, and rumors were spreading like wildfire that the ride would soon be removed. A small part of me wished it wasn't true, as Revolution had actually grown on me a bit (but only AFTER it got rid of that atrocious "scariest ride in the world" BS though), as it was the only one of it's kind still operating in the US.

Unfortunately, for once the rumors were correct, and at the end of the season Revolution was removed from the park and sent to the boneyard. While I actually do kinda miss it a little, it did pave the way for a much more modern and exciting thrill ride - The Music Machine, a Zamperla Endeavour, which opened in Revolution's old spot in 2019! According to the more recent trip reviews of the park, this ride is VERY popular on busy days so I'm gonna have to get on it early when we go!

While 2019's new flat ride was a success with guests, it quickly became obvious that Cedar Fair had much, MUCH bigger plans for the park in the very near future. In summer of that year, a long, narrow plot of cleared land was quickly discovered on the very edge of the park, stretching from where King Kobra was all the way down to the edge of the waterpark. Then, just weeks later, Cedar Fair began to post even MORE cryptic posts online. showing pictures of B&M track sitting on the cleared area and stating that "2020 will be the most MONSTROUS year yet..."

Needless to say, park enthusiasts everywhere went absolutely BALLISTIC at this news, assuming that the park was going to add some sort of massive B&M coaster for 2020. Online speculation discussed every possible B&M coaster possible coming to the park, such as a Giga, a Flyer, a Dive Machine, etc. You'd think I would've predicted it to be a dive machine again, seeing as that was what I thought last time. However, seeing how long and narrow the plot of land was, along with all the teasing in Cedar Fair's posts, and the success of Fury 325, Leviathan, Steel Olympian and Centurion 315 at Cedar Fair's other parks...I knew just EXACTLY what the new coaster coming to Gateway Park in 2020 would be...

And in August of that year, Drakon was announced! A Bolliger and Mabillard giga coaster with a 285 ft tall lift hill and 305 ft tall first drop (hence it's status as a giga), it would be the tallest and fastest coaster in all of New England, with a top speed of up to 91 mph! It got it's name from the drakon, which is basically the Greek equivalent of a dragon, thus truly making it live up to Cedar Fair's hype of it being a "monstrous" new addition. And before you comment on how it's basically a clone/rip-off of Orion at Kings Island, let me just say that it doesn't really matter if it's similar to Orion or not - at least to me. It still seems like a very exciting, intense, and enjoyable coaster, regardless of the similarities. I mean, if that were the case people would get upset every time a new RMC conversion opened at a SIx Flags park XD.

Needless to say, when I first heard about the announcement of Drakon, I was excited. Truly excited. I wanted to go back and visit Gateway Park more than ever now, and I'm pretty sure everyone else around the country agreed with me.

But then, 2020 happened, and...well, you all know how THAT turned out. COVID-19 came in, lockdowns were initiated, and Gateway Park didn't open for the season in Spring like it normally would've. Drakon's construction and grand opening had to be delayed and pushed back, and lots of park enthusiasts, including me, were anxious about whether or not the ride would open for the 2020 season at all. However, thankfully, in May 2020, construction on Drakon managed to continue and finally be finished, and on July 10, 2020, a week after Orion's grand opening at Kings Island, Drakon opened to the public at Gateway Park for the very first time! The coaster, unsurprisingly, immediately received unanimous approval from both critics and park guests alike, complimenting it's high speed and massive amounts of floater airtime. Of course, there are those who debate whether or not Drakon is better than Golden Lion, Sanctum.exe, or BOTH, though I just like all of them equally.

Name: Drakon

Built: 2020

Manufacturer: Bolliger and Mabillard

Type: Steel Track Giga Coaster

Height: 285 feet (with a 305 ft first drop)

Length: 5,315 feet

Top Speed: 91mph

Height Requirement: 54 inches

Inversions: None

2021 saw nothing new, obviously. However, 2022 did see a slight makeover of the Camp Snoopy kids area, which starting this year will now be Planet Snoopy (it is also the last Cedar Fair park in the chain to make this kids area conversion). When I say slight though, I mean slight. All of the kiddie rides kept the same names, with the exception of Woodstock Express, the park's Zamperla family coaster, which became Cosmic Coaster starting this year. But other than some changes in signage and theming, literally nothing else different happened to the area. Kinda lazy, but given the pandemic, it's excusable.

Anyways, that's all I have time for regarding this update on Gateway Park 8 years in the making! Thank you all for reading, and I will DEFINITELY be posting pics and updates on both my blog and TPR regarding my trip to the park in the future! Can't wait to tell you all about it!

-Ellen Merridew, nee Thompson