Six Flags Marine World
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Six Flags Marine World is an amusement and animal park located in Vallejo, California. It offers a variety of roller coasters and other amusement rides, with a number of animal exhibits and shows. As its name implies, it is a part of the Six Flags chain of amusement parks.
History
The park started as Marine World, a small oceanarium in Redwood City, California in 1968. In the mid-1970's, they merged with a failing land-animal park called 'Africa, USA' (not the same as the one that existed in Florida[link] from 1953 to 1961), and became Marine World Africa USA.
In late 1985, the increase in the value of the property the park occupied became too great a tax burden. Following an intensive search for a new site, construction began on a new and larger park facility in Vallejo, California (about 55 miles from Redwood City). The new facility opened to visitors in 1986, and remained under control of the non-profit Marine World Foundation until the park defaulted on its debt to the City of Vallejo, and thus became owned by the city, in 1996.
The city then hired Premier Parks (now known as Six Flags Inc.) to manage the park, upgrade it, and improve its attendance. Premier started to add some nonanimal attractions, particularly amusement rides, to increase attendance.
The number of amusement rides greatly increased over the next few years, including the addition of several major roller coasters. The park's name changed again, this time to Marine World Theme Park. After more additions of amusement rides, Premier made a final change to Six Flags Marine World in 1999. While the animal aspects of the park have not vanished under this onslaught of steel and lights, they are greatly reduced from what they once were.
The park now has six roller coasters including "Medusa", "Vertical Velocity" and "Roar". Medusa is the park's biggest ride and Northern California's only floorless roller coaster. With the first drop being 150 feet, it lasts 4 minutes and is the park's most visited ride. Vertical Velocity, or just V2, is the park's second newest ride after being rebulit because of height restrictions with the city of Vallejo. Roar is named "Roar" because when in motion, the ride makes a unusual sound, like an "animal roaring". It is also the only wooden roller coaster there and one of the first roller coasters at the park.
Today, Six Flags Marine World provides major revenue to the city of Vallejo, and is now a competitor to the San Francisco Bay Area's other amusement park Paramount's Great America in Santa Clara. Whether these changes are truly improvements, given Marine World's original goal of being nothing more than a high-quality zoo/oceanarium combination, is a subject open for debate.
External links
http://images.google.com/images?q=Marine+world&ndsp=20&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&start=0&sa=N| Roller coasters at Six Flags Marine World |
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| [[Boomerang: Coast to Coaster]] - Cobra - Greased Lightnin’ - Kong – Medusa - Road Runner Express - Roar - [[V2: Vertical Velocity]] |
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