Original ride area entrance and Der Flitzer location.

Recently several very old Adventureland post cards popped up on eBay that I had not seen before. One in particular showed “The Moat’ which was the original entrance to the ride area of the park. I knew that the location was the bridge at the end of Main Street, but I’d never seen a picture of what was there. I guess in my mind it was someone just taking tickets or something, but it was actually a ticket building of some sorts:

The Moat (entrance to the ride section of the park). Behind it: Der Flitzer.
Back of post card for “The Moat.”

I believe that is the original bridge that was still in the park in 2017, but was rebuilt between the end-of-season and that year’s Oktoberfest. If you notice, there is fencing along the left of the photo, which would have kept visitors from going past the end of the Main Street buildings.

Also, middle right of the photo are the old one-way exit turnstiles like the park used to have at the entrance. That would have been where ride visitors would have exited back to Main Street.

Behind it appears to be Der Flitzer. That roller coaster (originally called Rallye Racers) sits about where the Splash Over is today. This clears up something I’ve wondered about.

On the Roller Coaster Database entry for Der Flitzer, it says it was replaced by the Giant Sky Wheel.

The roller coaster was located in the “Alpine Village” section of the park and the Giant Skywheel (100′ tall Ferris Wheel) operates in its spot today.

– Roller Coaster Database entry for Der Flitzer

Apparently this is incorrect, since this post card shows it’s location further down, towards The Boulevard. Also, we found a photo of the Sky Ride that had the coater in the background, and the coaster in that picture matched the description of Rallye Racers. My wiki entry notes:

It was located somewhere around where Tea Cups is. This is based from seeing it in an old photo of the Sky Ride that was taken in 1975. It shows a coaster matching this description in the background. (Thanks to Johnathan C. for pointing this out.)

http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Rallye_Racers

If Rallye Racers were there (down from the Tea Cups) and the post card shows Der Flitzer in the same location, then the notes about it being relocated may be incorrect.

Does anyone know if Rallye Racers was just rethemed and renamed in the same location to become Der Flitzer?

Fun stuff. I love these old post cards.

3-D photos from Adventureland!

I started shooting 3-D video about 12 years ago, but beyond taking the camera to Disneyland and some Iowa Renaissance festivals, I never did much with it. About six years ago, I picked up a new 3-D pocket camera, but have never really used it beyond some family photos when my son was born.

I came across this camera last week and took it to Adventureland to try it out. I brought it again today, and now have over 600 3-D photos from various spots in the park. I plan to convert them to red/blue anaglyph images and post them online. You will need a pair of red/blue 3-D glasses to view them, and I will have them available if you are interested.

Just for fun, here is one sample image, raw from the camera. The photo contains the left eye and right eye image, squished together. A software program will expand them to the normal width, and process them with red/blue for working with the glasses.

It should be a fun project over the off season…

Adventureland's Tornado in 3-D (unprocessed).
Adventureland’s Tornado in 3-D (unprocessed).