Freestyle Music Park 73 photos HERE at Flickr. It's the final installment from my Florida trip, but it's not from Florida at all. Yes, it is in South Carolina, at a park I never thought I or anyone else would ever step foot in again. Hard Rock Park survived what seemed to be certain doom, and the unfortunately named Freestyle Music Park was born. I was curious to see first hand how well the park handled the transition. Thanks to the court room antics of the former owners, the new ones had a matter of months to completely retheme most of the rides and attractions. Considering the circumstances, they did an excellent job. To try and improve on the disastrous attendance figures of the park's first year, ticket prices have been drastically cut. In a clever move to try and get people to spend the day in the park, entry before 5 PM is half price. For the final part of the season, there were even deeper deals to be had. Incredible deals, in fact. Two people for $19.99 is hard to beat. It didn't matter for me, though, because I had two free tickets from Hard Rock Park that the new owners had promised to honor. That did not stop the lady at the ticket window from putting up a war, though. For some reason she took it as a personal insult that I was trying to use free tickets (that were donated by the park for a fund-raising auction) to get into the park. She was easily the rudest employee I have ever encountered at an amusement park anywhere. For a park that is having trouble gaining the support of both locals and destination visitors, it seems like the most logical place to start would be to make sure your employees aren't complete jerks. Especially the ones that are the first staff you interact with after arriving. After getting her manager, who confirmed the tickets could be used, she gave them to me, refusing to make eye contact or speak another word. Tommy and Barron came down to spend the afternoon at the park. First stop, Iron Horse, a ride on its third name in two years. I really like the coaster, but the music was not working. That's an important missing ingredient at this park. Next, one of the two coasters that were closed when I went on opening day last year. Soak'd, a coaster that looks eerily familiar to me. The ride is identical to the former Hydra Fighter II coaster at Emerald Pointe in Greensboro. Being one of the few people to ever ride that coaster in its very short life span, I was curious to know if this was that coaster relocated. According to Duane Marden of RCDB, Premier says that Soak'd is all new fabrication. So there you go. Credit. I got fairly wet, but not drenched. The capacity of this ride is going to be a real problem if the park ever has big crowds. It was the longest wait of the day. This picture suddenly reminds me, the Beach Boys are totally short changed at this park. I can't remember anything Beach Boys related. Up next, since Barron needed the credit. They could have called this one Surf's Up or Catch a Wave or something. New additions to the park include some children's rides, which were probably sorely needed. Also, for some reason they moved the ropes course from under Soak'd to the other side of the midway. Just a couple of weeks prior I was at the real one. Love the lighter. Most of the name changes and rethemings have no effect on the ride experience for me, or even improve it, with the exception of this. Nights in White Satin was my favorite ride in the park, whereas Monsters of Rock is one of the worst dark rides I have ever been on. Now, for the other coaster that was new to me. I am glad the park was able to retain a lot of the clever little details like this that give the place character. In what was becoming a recurring theme, there was no music on our first ride on Round About. We figured out which cars had music and got back in line, making sure we only rode in a car with speakers turned on. The ferris wheel lift is definitely unique, but I would like to see the cars get to go around a time or two, rather than simply rotating to the top and departing. The ride itself is fairly tame, but enjoyable, especially if the music is actually working. Now here's something that makes me happy. Deep fried candy bars. The final coaster to do, and the headlining attraction at Freestyle Music Park. For me, this ride benefited greatly from a makeover. I think Led Zeppelin is one of the most overrated bands in history, so that is a big part of it, but mainly I just think the new concept adds a big re-ridability value. For proof of that, look no further than the fact that we rode Time Machine three times. There are five different music mixes that correspond to five doors in the queue. We were able to do the 60's, 90's, and 00's. I expected 60's would be my favorite, but the song selection and mix wasn't that great. The 90's ended up being my favorite, with the 00's being the worst by far. I really like the new blimp. Overall, the execution of the concept on this ride impressed me more than anything else in the park. The coaster itself is actually quite good, too. I think it is one of my favorite above the track looping B&M rides. Some of the new names and themes in the park don't really make much sense, like this one. Thankfully, the guitar that forms the centerpiece of the park stayed, and it looks just fine with the new logo. We watched the "Ice Cold Country" show, which was surprisingly really impressive. The venue is really nice for an amusement park (it was a show venue purchased with the property before the park was built), and the skaters in the show are fantastic. Tommy was excited to show everybody his new tattoo, although it looks like he drew a blank on ideas for what to get when he got to the tattoo parlor. What is happening here? Looks like something is coming for 2010. The park could definitely use some new rides, but what they have really isn't bad for a brand new from scratch park. I don't really know what is considered a good crowd here, but we actually had to wait in line for a few rides, so maybe they were not doing too bad. Even though the park is a bit lacking right now, I think it has potential, so I really hope it can succeed. During one of our Time Machine rides, disaster struck. It seems that an unfortunate bird decided to reenact the great Fabio vs. Goose Apollo's Chariot incident of 1999. I have no idea if it actually hit a person, but judging from the remains, I would say it probably got hit by the train itself. Maybe I am misunderstanding something, but why is this an advertising point? Some sort of reverse psychology? As the sun started to set, our day came to a close. The fireworks system had been struck by lightning apparently, so there was no show at night, which was just as well, because I needed to get on the road. I still think I like Freestyle Music Park. There needs to be a bit more to do, but the size of the park fits the ticket price a lot better now, so that is not as big of a deal. My suggestion, as it always is, is to build a woodie. A nice compact Gravity Group or GCI twister would be a perfect fit, and at a cheaper cost than Time Machine. So that ends this series of trip reports. I considered visiting Family Kingdom, but decided to just go ahead and point the car toward Raleigh. I really love Swamp Fox, but I was a bit nervous about riding it with its new trains (with hard seat backs and head rests...). Plus, I think ten parks in six days was quite enough. I never thought I could squeeze so much into one week, but somehow I did, and without feeling rushed. That should be enough to pretty much close the book on the 2009 amusement park season for me. Return Home Content copyright Jonathan Hawkins