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Park News - (5/20/09) It’s been awhile but according to a reader some new big waterslide pieces have arrived onsite at the park, laid out in the overflow lot. It’s nice to see something new finally show up, but it’s a little late, as there is slim to no chance of having a new slide up and ready before the summer is over.
  (4/1/09) A reader took a trip over to Cypress Gardens this past Monday to see the ‘new’ park for themselves, and they were very disappointed. They claimed that the only addition to the ‘gardens’ were freshly planted flowers. Guests are forced to park in the old lots and shuttled to the main gate in busses, past all the closed theme park rides just sitting there. For whatever reason, they mentioned that virtually all the buildings were closed, with only a pizza stand being open during their visit, and they were disappointed to find out that the water ski show was only being run on weekends until business gets to the point where they feel they need to do it on the weekdays too. Nothing new at the waterpark yet, and right now it’s simply too small to be worth a visit on it’s own compared to the other waterpark in Central Florida. So far the new park map and brochures only show off the gardens and nothing more… no shops, no island in the sky, no butterflies, restaurants or ice skating. They did notice that the park was offering some kind of electric boat ride, but that was an extra $5 to experience.
  (3/30/09) Cypress Gardens finally reopened this past weekend, but according to this article, but only a little has been done to “transform” the park so far. The old rides are still being removed from the park before they can even begin making that new parking lot they promised. The entrance has returned to it’s old original location however, and is now separate from the waterpark. The park’s old Island In The Sky however is also down, and in need of repairs before it can reopen again, but that is nothing they are in any hurry to do. Funny... nothing at all was mentioned about the promised expansion of the waterpark either, so I can only guess that may be on hold as well.
  (2/27/09) The Orlando Sentinel has posted the story about who will be taking over the management of Cypress Gardens. Bill Sims, who’s career started at Cypress Gardens in the ‘70s, who later went on to work at Silver Springs and serve on Florida’s Commission on Tourism and IAAPA will be returning to run Cypress Gardens. The owners say that the park will be ready to reopen on March 28th, with new cheaper tickets (about 40% cheaper) and an even cheaper admission for those only wishing to visit the gardens.
  (2/24/09) Cypress Gardens will hold a press announcement tomorrow morning where they will announce the new opening date for the park as well as who they have hired to manage the park. Meanwhile a reader went by the park yesterday and from what they could see the Yo-Yo, Pharaoh’s Fury, Tilt-A-Whirl, kiddie drop tower ride, children’s pirate ship and kiddie swings all look to have been removed. There also spotted someone giving the park’s Disk’O a good look-over.
  (2/6/09) A new update about the status of Cypress Gardens can be found here.
  (1/27/09) If you look at the list of Cypress Gardens rides up for sale at ITAL then you’ll notice that so far the park has sold 9 of them so far. Given that most on the list are smaller kiddie rides, it’s hard to tell from outside the park if they have been removed yet.
  (1/26/09) A Screamscape source decided to drive by Cypress Gardens the other day to see if anything had changed yet. Strangely enough it looked as if nothing had changed at all, looking much the same as it did the day the park closed last fall. From what they could tell, no rides have been removed yet, there was no progress on that new promised parking lot in time for the “reopening” in March… or any sign of progress at all about the expansion of the waterpark. It kind of makes me wonder if the park will even reopen in March or not at this point. Anyone know more?
  (1/7/09) The local news has posted an update on Cypress Gardens where things have been all quiet so far since the park closed, though little if anything has been done yet. It claims that the planning March reopening is on schedule right now, but things are still in development so they aren’t ready to announce any details just yet.
  (12/26/08) While the future direction of Cypress Gardens seems a little uncertain right now, a local marketing class at the University of South Florida Polytechnic has been using the park as the subject matter for the students, asking each of them to submit formal presentations on what should be done with the park. You can read about the class and some of the ideas they came up with here.
   (12/9/08) According to this article former employees of Cypress Gardens are now planning to sue the park for “back pay and benefits” and claiming that they were not given the a required 60 day notice that the park would be closing down it’s entire animal and attractions area.
  (12/1/08) Cypress Gardens passholders are about to get an early Christmas present from Silver Springs and Cypress Gardens who have announced that CG passholders can get into Silver Springs for free during their 16th annual Festival of Lights event on December 5-6, 12-24, 26-27. Passholders will also be able to visit the Traveling Vietnam Vets Wall on Dec 5-7 and attend three concerts: Diamond Rio on December 6th, The Temptations featuring Dennis Edwards on December 12th and Ronnie Milsap on December 20th. “Cypress Garden Pass holders, just show your season pass at the front gate. Welcome to Silver Springs.”
  (11/21/08) An open letter to Cypress Gardens to “Save the Starliner!” has been posted to NewsChief.com. I’m sure it wont be too much longer before there is an organized effort for this as well.
  (11/18/08) A couple more photo galleries taken at the final weekend of Cypress Gardens were posted to Theme Park Review here and here.
  (11/17/08) JohnnyUpsidedown went by Cypress Gardens for the big final weekend to snap up a ton of new pictures of the park with the rides… something you wont be seeing again.
  (11/14/08) I’ve been told that the Rides4U website also has a Cypress Gardens Liquidation section, but they do seem to be listing all of the park’s rides, including the Triple Hurricane and Starliner. One of our sources has also pointed out that is Cypress Gardens can actually sell all of the park rides for the prices they are asking, that would bring in over $11.6 million. Considering that the park was purchased for $16.9 million from the bankruptcy auction, the ride sale will go a long way towards paying that off.
  (11/13/08) Now that the cat is out of the bag, Cypress Gardens is now officially listing 30 of their 37 rides on the Ital International website. I’m not sure quite why all the rides are not yet listed but the park’s two wooden coaster, Starliner and Triple Hurricane, are currently not listed along with the Super Trucks (SFB), Tilt-A-Whirl (Selner), a couple of trains (Chance) and the Seafari Swings (Chance Yo-Yo).
  (11/12/08) Local businesses who set up shop near Cypress Gardens are now worried about the impact that the change in focus (and downsizing) of the theme park will have on their own business.
  (11/10/08) It looks like our public “outing” of the owners true intentions for the park has forced them to come clean at last. According to a press release from Cypress Gardens this morning the park will “temporarily close on Monday, November 17th, for a major renovation.” The park will not reopen until March 2009 after expanding the waterpark, “while preserving the history and nostalgia of the original park, with a focus on the original botanical gardens”. The new version of the park will also continue to have a ski show, but the existing animal and rides areas will close down.
  So there you have it... your last day to visit the park and take a spin on the rides is November 16th. They also plan to “add a parking area” closer to the gardens and waterpark and will move the park’s main entrance back to where it was when the park first opened. While I can understand the need to make the park more profitable and eliminating the expensive of running and maintaining all those rides, I do hope that the park may reconsider any plans to close the Starliner as it would still be appropriate for this historic Florida wooden coaster to remain in operation at the park, unless they had someone ready to buy it and move it once again. You can read more coverage here.
  (11/5/08) Since we popped the cork on yesterday’s Cypress Gardens story, other Screamscape industry sources have come forward to confirm that they have been hearing the same rumors from their contacts. One source even claims that the old Mega Bounce was removed from the park and sold to the Bates Brothers carnival ride company earlier this year simply to raise funds to maintain the rest of the park’s rides for the year. Another source reports that it has been made known to certain operators looking to pick up used rides that the Cypress Gardens rides would be make available after the start of the new year. All in all… things are sounding grim.
  (11/4/08) Normally I don’t like to spread doom and gloom messages like this, but several of my sources have confirmed that the future of Cypress Gardens is simply not good. In a sad way, it looks like the new owners may have taken notes from how Cedar Fair wronged the Ohio market with the silent killing of Geauga Lake and may be planning a similar fate for Cypress Gardens in order to downgrade the park into a simple waterpark attraction.
  We know they have had every ride in the park silently appraised by IRG which puts them in the position to start selling things off whenever they are ready to do so. Apparently last week’s posting about that lit a fire under the owners and really caught the attention of the employees out there and has uncovered a number of other very odd factors. I’ve been told that the park is not booking any special events beyond New Years Eve, and we’ve also heard that the landscaping budget pretty much been slammed shut with the orders to just make everything last until January 1st.
  My sources tell me the owners are being quite evasive about their plans for the park, and have not really been willing to take any long term actions to improve the park for the future. I was also informed that they had previously been in talks with other park operators looking to possibly take over the park (with the list rumored to include Cedar Fair and Parc Management) but all deals have simply fallen through or been dropped.
  So what might the future hold for the park? The one rumor running wild right now is that the park may be “Geauga’d”... where the owners would simply just announce that the park was closed one day this winter and begin the process of selling off and removing all of the park rides without warning. Some of this area may even be paved over to make a new parking lot closer to the waterpark section of the park, which would be about the only thing that would reopen in the spring.
  I can hope these rumors are wrong... just as I had hoped the rumors about Geauga Lake were wrong in 2007, but my sources here are trusted ones. Lets hope the owners come clean about their plans sooner than later.
  (11/3/08) Screamscape has received word from Cypress Gardens that this was simply part of a private appraisal being conducted for all of the park’s rides, and was never intended as anything to be put online on IRG’s website. (Note: the listing has been removed fro the IRG website at this time). Screamscape was also contacted by IRG’s President as well who also confirmed that, “This was an appraisal that was being uploaded on our site for private access by the owners.”
  I’m sure ride appraisals are all part of the business, especially when your park has been bought by new owners in the last year, but still it kind of makes people wonder. Apparently the appraisal being done was not just for the 11 ride’s listed last week on the site, but was done for 37 different park attractions, which is pretty much all of them. For anyone curious, apparently the Starliner is worth $900,000 and is the 3rd most valuable ride in the park after the two Vekoma steel coasters.
  (10/31/08) About a week ago I had heard a rumor that Cypress Gardens may not be doing well and that the new park owners were preparing to start selling off a significant number of the park’s rides. While doing some research of my own into this, another reader came across the Intermark Ride Group website, a company who specializes in the sale of new and used rides. Scroll down to the bottom of that menu bar and you will see a little entry for something called “Cypress Gardens Liquidation”. While that doesn’t sound like good news at all, the direct link to this page is password blocked. Fortunatly our spies are a resourceful lot and figured out that you only need to see the Sitemap page on the site and scroll down to the very bottom to see the list of 11 rides the park currently has up for sale: Mini Pirate Ship, Pharoah’s Fury, Mini Tower, Kiddie Boats, Jalopy Junction, Hang Gliders, Giant Wheel, Fiesta Express, Dizzy Dragons, Double Decker and Bumper Cars.

2009 - Expanded Waterpark - (11/10/08) When the park reopens in 2009 they will open a new expanded waterpark. No details were given about what will be added.