Abandoned Theme Parks, when you just dont love them anymore..

Usually when business become unviable they close, everything of value is removed and one day it becomes something else. Not so with certain theme parks though, around the world there are a number of them that when the crowds stop coming they were just abandoned. There are various reasons why they closed, some good stories. Some parks were long established, one lasted just one day.. 

Just as there are people who tour the world looking for the ultimate thrill ride, there are those that travel the globe evading security and more to visit the abandoned parks.

Here then, our favourite theme parks you will never get to go to..


Prypiat Amusement Park, Ukraine.
It’s commonly believed that Ukraine’s Prypiat Amusement Park closed on the very same day it opened: April 27, 1986, exactly one day after the catastrophic Chernobyl nuclear disaster brought the world to a standstill. The entire city of Prypiat, with a population of around 50,000 at the time, was completely forsaken, not just its namesake amusement park. Radiation levels in parts of the park are still dangerously high, but that doesn’t discourage adventurous shutterbugs from entering this particularly chilling section of the Zone of Alienation to get a shot of Prypiat’s iconic abandoned Ferris wheel.

Jazzland/Six Flags New Orleans
When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, park operators at Six Flags New Orleans were in the planning stages of opening a water park. Well, they got one. Severely damaged by Katrina’s devastating floodwaters and forced to close, Six Flags New Orleans, which originally opened as Jazzland in 2000, remains in an arrested state of decay to this day and is perhaps more famous now, thanks in part to numerous camera-wielding urban explorers, than it was when in operation. Home to still-standing Cajun-themed attractions like the Zydeco Scream and the Muskrat Scrambler, the future of the property, now owned by the city of New Orleans, is unclear, although Southern Star Amusement is leading an effort to redevelop that park. 

Okpo Land, Geoje Island, South Korea 
While we don’t know much about the history of Okpo Land, a seriously foreboding abandoned fun park perched atop a hill on South Korea’s tiny Geoje Island, we do know this: The park was shut down in 1999 after a number of fatal accidents, the last when a young girl tragically fell to her death from a ride. Immediately after that incident, the owner of the park disappeared and was never heard from again. Although Okpo Land has the dread-inducing looks and disturbing back-story seemingly plucked from a K-Horror film, that hasn’t stopped hordes of fearless urban explorers from making a pilgrimage.

Heritage USA, Fort Mill, S.C.
At its height in the mid-1980s, Heritage USA, a Jesus-y theme and water park built by fiery American televangelist Jim Bakker and his then-wife, the late Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, was a top holiday destination on par with Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Then, fraud, the IRS the IRS and Hurricane Hugo hit and not even the Lord himself (or Jerry Falwell) could save the park from closure. Since then, some of the park’s 2,300 acres have been repurposed and redeveloped, but the creepiest castle in all the land, once home to a Christian arcade and go-kart track, remains standing.

Spreepark, Berlin, Germany
One of the world’s more photogenic derelict fun-zones, this district of toppled dinosaurs, rusted Ferris wheels and vandalized swan boats operated for 20 years as Kulturpark Plänterwald in the former East Berlin before becoming Spreepark in the wall-toppling year of 1989. Although the reason the park was shuttered isn’t exactly scandalous, good, old-fashioned bankruptcy, what happened to its former owner, Norbert Witte, is. In early 2002, a bankrupt Witte fled from Germany to Lima, Peru, taking his family and several of the park’s attractions with him. There, Witte tried to open another amusement park but that didn’t work out apparently. In May 2004 he was sentenced to seven years jail time for attempting to smuggle 400 pounds of cocaine back into Germany, hidden in the masts of a “flying carpet” ride. Witte, understandably quite the tabloid fixture in Germany, was the subject of a 2009 documentary film, “Achterbahn,” and is said to live in a trailer parked on the grounds of his failed amusement park.

Gulliver’s Kingdom, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan

Although Japan has its fair share of uncanny abandoned amusement parks, we think that Gulliver’s Kingdom, a failed theme park based on Jonathan Swift’s classic tale, takes the proverbial biscuit. Although demolished in 2007, the several-year span when the Lilliputian theme park sat disused and neglected was a high point for the many intrepid urban explorers looking to crawl all over Lemuel Gulliver’s lanky, 147.5-foot-long concrete frame. The park’s closing, the result of poor ticket sales, probably had something to do with its rather unfortunate locale: although located at the foot of Mount Fuji, the park was adjacent to Aokigarah, Japan’s infamous “Suicide Forest,” and in the same village where the Aum Shinriyko doomsday cult, the group behind 1995’s Sarin gas attacks in Tokyo, was headquartered. Tourists on a day-trip with the kids to a theme-park would have been likely to steer clear. Now every reminder of the place is gone, the village has been rezoned, and the name Kamikuishiki removed from all maps.

Nara Dreamland, Japan
Dreamland opened in 1961, inspired by, and hugely copying Disneyland in California..including the Train depot, a Main Street, U.S.A. and the familiar Sleeping Beauty Castle at the hub. It also had a Matterhorn-type mountain (with a Matterhorn Bobsleds-type ride, called Bobsleigh), and the skyway running through it, as well as an Autopia-type ride and a monorail. The park also had its own mascots, Ran-chan and Dori-chan, two kids dressed as bearskinned guards. For 45 years its central fantasy castle, massive wooden rollercoaster Aska, and corkscrewing Screwcoaster pulled in the big crowds. 

By then though it was outdated, and dying a slow death as Universal Studios Japan (built 2001) in nearby Osaka sucked all the oxygen out of the business. It closed its doors permanently in 2006. Unusually almost everything in the park remains to this day and with light security it is very heavily visited.

And finally, here in Britain..
Blobbyland, Somerset.
He attracted nearly 17million television viewers at the height of his fame, and even had a number one hit, but today Mr Blobby's empire is a mere shadow of what it once was.The park closed its doors in 1999, after the popular Saturday night television show Noel's House Party on which Mr Blobby featured was axed by the BBC. It had been open for two years. Now in a state of total disrepair, buildings are covered in moss, while windows and furniture lie broken after all-night raves that take place on the site.
The entrance to Mr Blobby's home, named 'Dunblobbin', is surrounded by dead trees and a carpet of decaying leaves. The bedroom and living room of the house are now a complete mess, with burned out mattresses and Mr Blobby merchandise, including a high chair, toothbrushes, toaster and sofa, all in his trademark pink with yellow spots, are strewn in pieces throughout the house. Justice.