Negative-G 2012 Road Trip Day Three: Martin's Fantasy Island Á Niagra Falls Page One

Martin's Fantasy Island & Niagara Falls
Grand Island, New York
Negative-G 2012 Road Trip
May 26, 2012
Page One

Martin's Fantasy Island Amusement Park, Grand Island, New York

I grew up back in the late 70's and early 80's watching the TV show Fantasy Island on ABC on Saturday nights (hey there was nothing else to watch leading up to Saturday Night Live and we didn't have tons of movies on VHS - no DVD's, Blu-Rays or streaming back then). It was a show about an island ran by Kahn, I mean Mr. Rourke (played by Ricardo Montalban) and his midget friend Tattoo who gave people their fantasies. Most of the fantasies were stupid stuff like "I want to live the life of a 16th century serf and get the princess to fall in love with me" or "I'm an ugly librarian who wants to be beautiful and have men fight over me". There was never an episode about a bunch of buddies from all over who wanted to get together for a long ass weekend and travel the world riding coasters hand having as much fun together as possible. If they ever did have an episode like that it would just like all of us on the Negative-G Road Trip.

Martin's Fantasy Island Amusement Park, Grand Island, New York

Once inside Fantasy Island we weren't met by Mr. Rourke and Tattoo driving up in a station wagon with no doors and a cloth top (I guess the shows budget was so low they couldn't afford a car with doors or a roof). Instead we found some scenery depicting how some of Grand Island's past residents might have lived.

Martin's Fantasy Island has been around in one form or another since 1961, mostly as a park geared for kids. It was just known as Fantasy Island until 1982 when it went bankrupt and was purchased by Charles Wood who owned what is now The Great Escape. He sold the park in the late 1980's and then bought it back in the early 1990's and changed it's name to "Two Flags Over Niagara Fun Park" which sounds like kind of a half assed Six Flags if you ask me. A few years later in 1994 Martin DePetro purchased the park and turned it into Martin's Fantasy Island.

The Silver Comet Roller Coaster at Martin's Fantasy Island Amusement Park, Grand Island, New York

The Silver Comet Roller Coaster at Martin's Fantasy Island Amusement Park, Grand Island, New York

Once all of us got in the gates we made a beeline past the kids rides, past the water park entrance, through the wild west town (where we had to thread our way past a gunfight) to the back of the park where all the fun is.

The Silver Comet Roller Coaster at Martin's Fantasy Island Amusement Park, Grand Island, New York

The big fun at Martin's Fantasy Island is the Silver Comet rollercoaster.