Today, we've got another behind-the-scenes look at an amusement park with a trip to Rye Playland in Westchester County, NY, thanks to a special event run by the American Coaster Enthusiasts! We're taking a look at their newly-updated-for-2024 arcade, as well as some of the carnival games that are scattered throughout the park. If the arcade walkthrough is all you're looking for, please feel free to skip ahead to the 08:30 mark in the video!
Rye Playland is one of the oldest American amusement parks that's still in operation today, with a handful of rides still running from when it originally opened all the way back in the 1920s. These rides include the Dragon Coaster, famed for appearing in Mariah Carey's music video for "Fantasy", as well as the rare Derby Racer carousel, one of only three of this type still running in the world today (the other two at Ohio's Cedar Point and the UK's Blackpool Pleasure Beach). They also are one of the few parks to have a wooden kiddie coaster that's controlled by a manual brake in the station; although this is off-limits to passengers over 55" tall most days of the year, the annual ACE event is the one time that grownups and taller children are permitted to ride!
The park itself is gorgeously landscaped, with a distinctive layout that recalls the classical "White City" style from the turn of the 20th century. There's a lot to like about this, especially with the newer steampunk-inspired rides like the Old Rye Motorbike Factory & Jack The Puppeteer, a new twist on the old Octopus or Monster style rides. However, on a summer Saturday that turned from rain in the morning to blazingly hot sunshine in the afternoon, it was a shame to see a number of rides closed either due to inspections or lack of staffing, such as the Hall of Mirrors, Zombie Castle, and most disappointingly, their log flume.
As I said earlier, the arcade got a complete makeover after being closed for the entirety of the 2023 season. I'm not entirely sure it's an upgrade, though. All of the classics have been pushed aside in favor of the same racers, shooters, and ticket redemption games that you can find simply by throwing a rock in any given direction. Nothing against the modern wave of games, but it's disappointing that what used to be a great, unique collection with something to appeal to gamers from all eras is now just the same old Super Bikes, Mario Kart, Down The Clown, coin pushers, and cranes. The only retro game that's left is a single Pac-Man's Pixel Bash multicade-style machine, but at 6 credits per play, you're going to be paying $1.50 to play a game that shouldn't cost more than a quarter. No thanks. Even the air hockey table only cost 4 credits! But even more surprising is the fact that although it's very heavy on redemption games... there's NO prize counter, and no signage up telling you where you can redeem the tickets you win! If you want to cash in those tickets, you need to walk down to the Skee-Ball alley past the Dragon Coaster and Old Mill, and exchange them over there. Very bizarre. The one plus for this is that this is the first place I've seen in my travels to actually have Andamiro's "Tic Shaq Toe" machine... but that's equally balanced out as a minus by not having it up and running. Oh well!
The "Ice Casino" at the front of the park -- their skating rink which also is supposed to have a game room inside of it, which I remember having a 4 player Simpsons the last time I was in there -- is closed for the summer season, and set to reopen in September. I may make another visit out in the future once it reopens just to doublecheck, but I'm not holding my breath that there's any more classic games in there, given the massive changes they made to this arcade.
If you'd like to see what the arcades in Rye Playland looked like about a decade ago, check out this video from Arcade Hunters circa May 2013:
• The Arcades of Playland in Rye, NY Wa...
00:00 Intro / fountains / main entrance
00:49 Ice casino exterior / "welcome"
01:04 Entering the park
01:51 Jack The Puppeteer ride
02:23 Park before opening walkaround
03:01 The Grand Carousel
03:50 Bumper Cars
04:16 Old Rye Motorbike Factory
04:40 Dragon Coaster & The Whip
05:08 Midway games
06:06 Skee-Ball alley / prize redemption / more games / Old Mill
07:13 Super Flight coaster (SBNO)
07:25 Derby Racer carousel
07:45 Kiddie Coaster but with adults
08:00 Kiddieland rides
08:30 Arcade walkthrough & tour
11:24 Hang Time midway game
11:31 The Bubble Blower
11:53 Rye Beach & boardwalk
12:08 Little Miss Muffet
12:23 Musik Express
12:40 The Whip
12:50 Dragon Coaster
13:08 More performers (penny farthing & yo-yo)
13:23 Double Shot ride / City Hoops basketball game
13:49 Old Rye Motorbike Factory in action
14:14 Grand Carousel in action / outro
Website:
https://playland.com/
Zenius:
https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/ar...
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