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5 Of The Craziest Action Park Rides! (Do You Remember?)

By Terrie Carr

Happy Summer my beautiful New Jersey Friends! It’s Terrie Carr.
Remembering New Jersey summer months of my youth and my visits to “Action Park” in Vernon NJ.
Who else went to this wild, crazy place? I know a bunch of you did. Action Park was a rite of passage in New Jersey and I remember going on various school trips there year after year. I also remember KNOWING I would come home scraped, bruised and battered from some of the reckless rides (and even though we were kids, there was a part of me that was afraid when I would go and yet I still forged ahead as kids do) and wild energy that made up the famed Water and Amusement Park.
If you are hardcore Jersey, you get it. If you aren’t REALLY from these parts, you don’t.
The people who oversaw the rides at Action Park (like our own DJ Matt Murray the king of Vernon) were not much older or wiser than the park goers themselves and it really was every man for themself.
The brain child of Eugene Mulvihill who opened the park in 1978 and expanded the water park and amusement rides to include “thrill seeking” rides, it came to be know as “Traction Park” and then “Class Action Park” in a documentary about the parks many flaws, safety issues and lawsuits.
I look back now and thank my lucky stars I survived so many summers in the “Wave Pool”, riding the “Alpine Slide”, hanging on the “Tarzan Swing” for dear life and going down one dangerous water slide attraction after another.
If you haven’t seen the documentary series “Class Action Park”, you must. It’s a scary slice of New Jersey that reminds us how lucky most of us were to walk away with a few bumps and bruises. Others were not so lucky.
New Jersey summer memories of some of the craziest times and rides at Action Park- Were you there? I was!

  • The Cannonball Loop

    The crazy, infamous giant loop slide was not open for very long when the park was in “action”.
    Considering the legend is that fake dummies were tested before the ride opened and some came back headless, It is no shocker that the “loop” was short lived! The Geronimo Water Slide was another insane water slide experience – no rules, no boundaries! Yikes!

  • The Tarzan Swing

    Basically a cable over a spring fed body of water, I remember going on this and hearing the famous two words – “LET GO” as soon as your body was over the water! The one thing you weren’t told? The water was freezing!

    And of course every person in line was watching you – and the line was LOOOOOOONG!

  • The Alpine Slide

    I can’t believe how scraped up I got and I kept going back for more! WTF? The Alpine Slide was over 2000 feet of a wild ride and I remember the small sleds (I’m super small I have no idea how actual people fit on these) had a control to stop or go. One of the park’s most notorious rides I’m grateful I survived so many rides.
    Unfortunately someone lost their life after getting thrown from the slide.

  • The Tidal Wave Pool

    Sounds simple enough right? It started in 1981 and was literally one of my favorite things to do at the park.

    With the ratio of lifeguards to swimmers in this HUGE pool area and the 20 minute wave intervals, getting pushed into a deeper area of the pool without realizing it was pretty easy!

     

  • Roaring Rapids

    This raft ride was WILD! Hop aboard your raft and whatever happens happens! Bumper rafts propelled by giant water jets with massive amounts of people! What the hell?

My Jersey family, I am grateful we can look back on this together and say “thank god we made it”!
Crazy Jersey times from days gone by that surely bring back great memories of being carefree and feeling invincible, because “who knew”? Well NOW we know! Watch “Class Action Park” if you haven’t.
A timestamp of New Jersey in the 80’s and early 90’s that is absolutely mind blowing.
And don’t forget to check out the MTV Headbangers Ball episode when Alice In Chains visited the Park!
Classic….
Have a SAFE summer!
Terrie Carr

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