Rehoboth Beach’s Funland is a timeless treasure
Rehoboth Beach’s Funland features old-fashioned games, rides and prices that have barely risen in 57 years
Many of the beach cottages and bungalows that once filled the town of Rehoboth Beach, Del., have long since given way to modern, multilevel homes that are hulking by comparison. Weekly rentals go for $10,000. At the Tanger Outlets on the Coastal Highway, visitors can pick up bangles at Alex and Ani or Kate Spade handbags, then drive a couple of miles to sip a craft beer at Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats.
But just a few dozen feet away from the beach is a living reminder of Rehoboth’s simpler days. Funland, an amusement park and arcade that has been run by the same family since 1962, offers “old fashioned fun” and “a slower pace of life” at prices that have barely budged in more than a half-century.
No tourist trap here, and no come-ons either. Many first-time visitors simply happen upon this collection of rides and
games on an acre of prime real estate on the boardwalk between Delaware and Brooklyn avenues. Funland didn’t raise prices for its first 25 years, and its iconic green tickets, which are good for life, have increased in price just 30 cents, from
10 cents to 40 cents, in 57 years.
Change is often not easy for a fourth-generation family business such as Funland, but that can be a good thing. Two of the park’s rides — the boats and fire engines, at one ticket each — are the oldest and cheapest operating in Delaware. They date from the late 1940s. That’s the era when small cottages were the houses of choice in this sleepy town founded by a Methodist minister in 1873 as a place to hold religious camp meetings.
The boats and fire engines are two of five rides — the merry-go-round, helicopters and the sky fighters being the others — that Funland’s owners, the Fasnacht family, acquired when they purchased the amusement park Sport Center in the spring of 1962. The rides, gleaming as always, hold special meaning for families who have had three and four generations ride them.
Funland’s games are as big a draw as the rides for many, and like the rides, they are not often replaced. Three games that debuted when I worked in the 80s there are still going strong. The derby horse racing game is the park’s most popular, which has been true from the day it arrived from England in 1982. Players roll a red ball toward holes with the numbers 1, 2 and 3 next to them with the “William Tell Overture” playing in the background. Get your ball in a hole, and your horse moves that many spaces.
Whac-a-mole is an amusement park and carnival staple; what makes Funland’s special is the $1 price. Frog Bog is like something out of “Gulliver’s Travels,” as you place a rubber frog on a catapult, which you activate with a mighty swing with a mallet, sending the frog flying in search of a lily pad. Everyone looks like a winner here, including those simply watching the fun.
My favorite game is Funland’s oldest: Skeeball, which awards prizes for scores of 250 or higher. While the prizes are good, for my family, earning bragging rights by registering the high score is all that matters.
After Skee-ball we often walk to the Royal Treat, an old-fashioned breakfast and ice cream place just a block north at 4 Wilmington Ave., for sundaes. The property the Royal Treat inhabits is also owned by the Fasnacht family, and is operated by a longtime family friend from Hershey, Pa., where most of the
Fasnacht family lives during the offseason. Not surprisingly, the Treat, as it is called, serves only Hershey’s ice cream.
Then it’s back to Funland to ride the park’s signature attraction: the haunted mansion. We get in a long line, which is almost always the case at Funland’s most popular ride, celebrating its 40th anniversary this summer. The ride was pioneering when it debuted in 1979; it was one of only a handful of “dark rides” — the industry term for haunted or spooky rides — with the track up in the air rather than on the ground. This produces more suspense for riders, as you can’t tell which way you are going next, making the tricks and special effects more impactful.
The black haunted mansion car takes us up to the second floor, where the fun begins. You notice different things in every room, and the ride still strikes a good balance of scary and fun. Industry experts such as the Dark Attraction and Funhouse Enthusiasts (DAFE), an organization that documents and supports dark rides, have taken notice. DAFE’S member surveys from 2002 through 2011, the last year it did them, listed Funland’s ride as one of the 10 best in the country. Others on this list included dark rides at Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. Those parks have rides bigger than the entire footprint Funland occupies, on which it runs 20 rides and 17 games.
Funland has made some notable changes over the years. One is an increased emphasis on thrill rides. The best example is the Superflip 360, which swings riders 360 degrees, and at one point provides an upside-down view of Funland from 40 feet in the air. There’s also a continued emphasis on safety, with gates around all the kiddie rides to prevent kids from getting too close while rides are in motion, and winner-every-time games — lifesavers for parents of young children unwilling to leave peacefully without a prize.
Overall, though, I find it comforting Funland has remained so similar in look, feel, sound, smell, pricing, games, rides and fun over the years. It’s like the local old-fashioned amusement park people of a certain age fondly remember going to as kids — most of which are long since gone.