Negative-G - Columbus Zoo & Aquarium, Powell, Ohio 2025

Columbus Zoo & Aquarium
Powell, Ohio
July 18, 2025
Page One

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When the news of Six Flags America's closing hit within a few hours Bond, Travis, and I started planning a trip out to Washington D.C. to visit that park before its unfortunate demise. With D.C. about a thirteen hour drive from Western Illinois we looked into what parks were on the way to break the drive up. Half way there was the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium which gave us a nice place to stop off, see some animals, and ride a couple of coasters.

This wasn't my first time here despite having never visited the Columbus Zoo. In 2004 while needing to break up a long drive to another park Carrie, Bond and I stopped off at what was Wyandot Lake Park for a few hours. That park dated back to the late 1800's when Columbus had a trolley park called Olentangy Park. That park eventually moved to a plot of land across the road from the Columbus Zoo in Powell, Ohio. It was more of a picnic park with a few rides. Through the years it changed names and changed hands until it became Wyandot Lake Park and was owned by the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium. Through the zoo owned it Wyandot Lake Park was managed by several theme park groups such as Funtime, and Premier Parks before being folded into Six Flags when Premier purchased the chain. Wyandot Lake was a small park that had nice mix of rides and a water park. In 2006 The Columbus Zoo & Aquarium ended the management contract with Six Flags, rolled the waterpark into its own entity, and merged the rides into the zoo.

What we had was about three hours to take in all of the rides and to see what we could at the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium.

Most of the rides at the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium are situated in the Adventure Cove section of the park which is right by the entrance to the zoo. The Tidal Twister is a Zamperla twister coaster that was added to the park in 2021. Like most examples of this model coaster the intensity of the spin that you get all depends on the weight distribution of the riders in the car. With just three of us riding instead of the cars four seat maximum ridership our car spun like a top.

Just a quick note that rides are not included with your standard zoo admission as they can either be purchased with a wristband or you can pay per ride.

Adventure Cove has a decent mix of rides that are mostly geared for the entire family such as the Flying Clipper swinging ship ride.