Great Wilderness Resort

The Great Wilderness Resort, formerly known as Little Island Theme Park and often referred to as just Great Wilderness, is an amusement park and resort located in. The park was acquired by Vista Parks in 2003, and is their largest park to date.

1952 - 1995: as Little Island
In 1952, the park opened with only a few rides and one rollercoaster - a PTC wooden coaster named Rollerama. Despite the small number of rides, it immediately became known as a popular family park.

1995 - 2002: Grand American Parks era
In 1995, Little Island was bought by the-then fledgling theme park chain Grand American Parks, who also owned and operated Pacific Playland in and Southern Springs in  at the time; both of which are now owned by Carwardine Parks. Following the acquistion, Grand American Parks announced that they would be investing into the park to transform it into a resort complete with on-site camping grounds and a water park; the plans for the latter would be scrapped a few months later as Grand American Parks did not operate any water parks, nor had any experience in operating them.

After the conclusion of the 1995 season, work began on expanding and renovating the park. The park did not open for the 1996 and 1997 seasons, but "special admission days" were held, in which visitors could ride the rides from Little Island and observe the construction of the new areas of the park and the camping grounds. On November 12, 1997, Grand American Parks announced that Little Island would be renamed to the "Great Wilderness Resort"; this change was met with mixed reception, as long time visitors of the park were disgruntled with the name change and voiced their hatred for the new name on newsgroups and early forums.

On December 29, 1997, construction of the resort was declared finished. Five months later, on May 6, 1998, the Great Wilderness Resort opened to the public. Immediately after it's opening, the park attracted criticism from both long-time and new visitors. Most critics of the park pointed out the sloppy theming, poor layout, and underwhelming new rides as the main reasons for their disliking of the park; however, some visitors were more positive about the park, and the park did attract many guests in it's first year.

While the attendance numbers stayed constant in 1999, 2000 was the first year in which attendance dropped. The park also received a new wave of criticism for what guests perceived to be poor management, and near the end of the year, Randall Porter, the general manager of the park, as well as the owner of Grand American Parks, was taken to court for supposed accounting fraud, for which he was found guilty of in early 2002. This scandal proved to be the final nail in the coffin for not just Great Wilderness, but also the rest of the Grand American chain, as Grand American Parks would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 12, 2002, indefinitely shutting down all three of their parks at the time.

2003 - present: Vista Parks era & turnaround
In 2003, Vista Parks had their first near in operating the park, a new coaster, Falcon Flight opened.