Shock of the old: eight abandoned and appalling theme parks
I hate fun and the laughter of children, so obviously I can’t stand amusement parks: “The noise, my dear! And the people!” as actor Ernest Thesiger said (of the first world war). How can anyone enjoy simulations of terrifying near misses? Why is this drink blue? Where can I have a quiet sit down?
I have done my time in Europe’s least appealing, from Plopsa Indoor Hasselt – echoey elven torment in rural Belgium with the ever-present danger of a guest appearance from Bumba the clown – to Bruges’ brine-whipped Boudewijn Seapark, where we got stranded in the rain at the top of a ferris wheel, my son howling in terror. The Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris helped me truly understand Jean-Paul Sartre’s “hell is other people” line: dodgems on which feral French tweens repeatedly chose violence, what seemed to me to be a devastatingly sad live bear in a pit, and the carousel, where, to the soundtrack of Sabrina’s Boys, a glowering Parisian carny dangled a grubby cuddly toy on a string – “le pompon” – just out of reach of the maddened infants below, in the name of fun.
These were merely the warmup act for Disneyland Paris, that bleak tundra full of Parisians who have already judged your coat and shoes and found them wanting before you reach Main Street. My husband, after a day of queueing, mandatory emotion and bad, expensive food (his least favourite things), walked wordlessly away on our train journey home, returning with a fistful of miniature wine bottles.
Amusement parks oftenfail, falling into dangerous, creepy dereliction and spawning myriad horror movie, music video and YouTube thrill-seeker cliches. Bad luck, natural disasters, financial mismanagement or putting all your
entertainment eggs in a Mr Blobbyshaped basket: there is no shortage of ways to lose a few million pounds in the theme park business.
It’s an odd experience, studying pictures of ruined fun palaces. They are beautiful reclaimed by nature – I like them much more swarming with alligators – but so redolent of crushed dreams. If you love amusement parks, you will probably hate it: stop reading! There is a rollercoaster somewhere you could be riding that will make you vomit out of your eyes like stoned Cousin Greg dressed as a mascot in Succession! Everyone else, let’s examine some garish rotting metal. There are no height restrictions for this ambivalent ride, baby.
Ho Thuy Tien waterpark, Vietnam
Ho Thuy Tien Waterpark in Vietnam opened in 2004 and closed only two years later; since then, there have been rumours of a curse and several hungry abandoned crocodiles, but the scariest thing you will see here is probably travel vloggers trying to be edgy. There was some talk of renovation last year, but nothing seems to have happened yet; I mean, would you dare touch this majestically terrifying dragon?
Spreepark, Germany
Ah, Spreepark, the classic tale of a man, a woman, the death throes of a Soviet republic and 167kg of cocaine.
When the Berlin Wall came down, the German Democratic Republic’s only theme park was sold, perhaps in hindsight with insufficient due diligence, to entrepreneur Norbert Witte and his wife, Pia. It went bankrupt 10 years later and Witte left for Peru with six rides, hoping to try his luck in Lima. The success of this venture can be gauged by the fact he was subsequently jailed for trying to bring £14m worth of cocaine back into Germany in the Flying Carpet ride. They should turn Spreepark’s crumbling remains into a club; I want to see ravers in leather harnesses riding the swans to a soundtrack that sounds like a fridge being kicked downstairs.
Gulliver’s Kingdom, Japan
Given its wholesome location, nestled up against the Aokigahara “suicide forest” and the Aum Shinrikyo cult headquarters in Japan, it’s impossible to imagine why this Jonathan Swift tribute park didn’t catch on. It’s the kind of thing you could threaten your kids with: “Be good, or we’ll go and see the vast, nightmarish statue of a man in a book you’ve never read.” Did they serve Modest Proposal burgers? It’s been demolished now; probably best for the planet’s collective psychological wellbeing.
Wonderland, Beijing
Why are there so many castles in the theme park-verse? I’ve just scrolled through a gallery of hundreds of them, all as ugly as 1980s new builds and freighted with creepy patriarchal princess dreams. Wonderland in Beijing never opened – after two phases of stalled construction in 1998 and 2008, the site became an outlet mall – but the castle remains.
Six Flags, New Orleans, US
Hurricane Katrina saw the end of the already underperforming Six Flags theme park in New Orleans. Since then, multiple attempts to revamp it have failed, but it earns its keep in film shoots. “A reported 100 alligators were removed from the site,” before Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters filmed a sequence there, and a crew member was hospitalised after a snake bite: take that, Ho Thuy Tien crocodiles.
Diversions Grano de Oro, Venezuela
This is absolutely horrible and it’s even worse in its original context: an Associated Press report about how conditions in Venezuela’s second city, Maracaibo, were so dire that people were stealing gold teeth from corpses. Quite apart from the fact that everyone had plenty else to worry about, such as clean water, food and basic medical care, constant blackouts presumably made running a theme park pretty tricky.
Western Village, Japan
Listen kids, Uncle Woody has had a hard day. He needs a little something to take the edge off. Despite the ambition – horrifying animatronic cowboys! A replica Mount Rushmore! – and expense lavished on Western Village, in Nikko, Japan, it closed in 2007. I’m not surprised: pictures remind me of the time my sons’ Belgian primary school created a lifesize cardboard saloon bar for the school fair complete with giant bottle of (real) whisky and good ol’ cardboard ladies of the night.
Pripyat, Ukraine
The most well-known abandoned theme park of all, Pripyat in Ukraine, was scheduled to open for May Day celebrations on 1 May 1986; Chornobyl happened on 26 April. It’s hard to be flippant about a global catastrophe, so consider the mood definitively killed. I did warn you I hate fun.