Alabama Adventure
Bessmer, Alabama
May 27, 2011
Page One






I have been wanting to get to Alabama Adventure for quite a while so this was part of the Negative-G 2011 Road Trip that I had been really looking forward to.  The park has a really interesting history.  First off it's the newest amusement park that I have been to in quite a while.  Most parks out there opened up in either the amusement park boom of the late 1960's through 1970's or are parks that opened up well before that like Indiana Beach, Holiday World, Knoebel's, Coney Island or Lake Compounce.  Alabama Adventure opened up as Visionland back in 1998 and was actually the result of several of the surrounding communities getting together and acquiring public funding for a local amusement park as the nearest one was in Atlanta and the Birmingham area needed one.  Visionland lasted from 1998 until 2002 when it declared bankruptcy and closed. 



The park was purchased and reopened in 2003 but the name Alabama Adventure didn't come into use until 2006 when the parks owners decided to rebrand it.

When we got there we had to wait around a little bit in order to get our ticket situation worked out so Paul and the boys had some fun roughhousing.  If you ever met Paul he is such a big kid.  We all are.  That's why as different as we all are over on the Negative-G Forums we get along like family.



There are four parts to Alabama Adventure: Magic City USA the amusement park, Splash Beach Water Park, Marvel City which is a kids play area and the main street into the park which is Celebration Street.



Sitting at the end of Celebration Street sits the parks legendary (I'll get into that later) Sky Wheel which is the focal point to the entire Alabama Adventure complex..



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