Cypress Gardens is the original Florida theme park. Opened over 60 years ago before Mickey arrived to drain the swamps. It was a very genteel affair with beautiful manicured gardens, water-ski shows on its huge lake, Southern Belles from Gone With The Wind wandering around in big gowns, a butterfly aviary and food stalls featuring ‘Southern’ cuisine (roadkill). At it’s peak in the 50’s and 60’s it was featured in TV shows such as Johnny Carson where Johnny famously water-ski’d on the lake using two sexy boys as his ski’s.
As Disney World expanded fewer folk visited Cypress Gardens and it closed down in a state of shambles in 2003. The owner of a small theme park in Georgia bought the dilapidated park soon after it closed and set about transforming the place to something a bit more modern while retaining that retro and refined mood. Cypress Gardens reopened while we there and we went along on the official opening day. The hurricanes earlier in the year had taken their toll on the gardens but you can tell that they will be stunning after a few months tender loving care. The Southern Belles are still strolling around and the roadkill restaurant has been replaced by BBQ and burgers. The biggest change has been the addition of lots of old fashioned thrill rides set in a boardwalk type of atmosphere. This part of the park will be its saviour as the rides look great in their new setting and should encourage families to visit instead of the predominately elderly customers they used to get. The brand new wooden roller coaster is beautiful. It’s called The Triple Hurricane (in honour of surviving the three hurricanes during its construction). It’s not big and it’s not very fast but it has a classic out-and-back design with lovely steep drops on its outward journey and smooth rolling hills on its return. The park was practically empty on its opening day so we just kept riding round and round on the coaster as no one was waiting for our seats. They’ve added a ferris wheel, two steel family-type roller coasters and several traditional water-based roller coaster type slides (one of which sent us hurtling and spinning round hair-pin bends far too fast, luckily we hadn’t eaten). We loved the way 99% of the folk working at the park were over 65 (even the Triple Hurricane operatives).
We had a brilliant day at Cypress Gardens and will definitely visit again.