Theme Park Insider

Get News by E-mail

Nev. middle school pulls a Chevy Chase, visits closed theme park

2006-04-26

By Robert Niles: Here's the funny story of the day, courtesy the AP:

The buses were loaded and the students were excited, but when they pulled up to Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, Calif., they found the gates closed.

School officials at O'Brien Middle School in Reno, Nev. hired a tour company to plan the theme park trip to reward top students, but, um, it appears that no one from the school or the tour company bothered to check the park's calendar to see if it would be open.

Fortunately, no one appears to have done the Complete Chevy Chase and pulled a fake gun on a security officer to demand a turn on the closed rides. Perhaps next year, school officials might consider rewarding their top students, and themselves, with a little Internet access?

Readers' Opinions

From Gareth H on April 26, 2006 at 10:46 AM
That is fantastic..

I wonder how they made it up to them after?

From Tombraider Ty on April 26, 2006 at 12:30 PM
Poor kids :(
From Chris Walton on April 26, 2006 at 3:36 PM
Not exactly Wally World...but close enough.
From Claudia Renard on April 27, 2006 at 5:31 AM
I hope the kids got a reward afterwards ...
From Madeline Kimmich on April 27, 2006 at 6:11 AM
Responsibility really falls to the tour company as they should have checked all the details. The sad thing is that was a long way for all of those students to travel for nothing. I hope they did something very nice for them instead. It seems funny at first but it really is not a funny story when you imagine that these kids worked hard all year for the trip.
From Robert Niles on April 27, 2006 at 9:21 AM
For the students, I'm sure this incident falls under the category of "it made me mad at the time, but I'll be telling this story for laughs for the next 50 years."

All in all, the day will be more memorable, and generate far more laughs, because of the screw-up than it would have had the students been able to visit.

And if Six Flags is smart, it has already arranged for a free make-up trip for the kids, and arranged for several TV news crews to be there when they arrive.

From Gareth H on April 27, 2006 at 2:07 PM
Oh yeah, free publicity for this one! It made it on here so its gonna make it elsewhere!!
From Robert Niles on April 27, 2006 at 9:17 PM
And what did I just write?

Check!

From Jake Countiss on April 29, 2006 at 6:30 PM
Maybe this was on purpose. Maybe the tour planner had this planned to make sure that the students won't get mad about going to a crappy theme park. If I was a student I would say go to Knotts.

This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.

Search Theme Park Insider

Reader Reviews, by Theme Park

United States/Canada Top 20 *

Other U.S. parks

International parks

Water parks

Theme Park Insider on Twitter

@ThemePark

New HD video of Cedar Point's Millennium Force: http://bit.ly/5u8iiI That'll fire up your Friday!
2009-11-20 18:02 Link

By the way, @HolidayWorld. We're demanding cranberry sauce on the turkey next time! :-) http://bit.ly/6zDSup
2009-11-20 17:34 Link

Our vote of the week: Holiday traditions and cranberry sauce: http://bit.ly/6zDSup
2009-11-20 17:32 Link

Five Disney legends recall Walt's management style: http://bit.ly/uhv5B #IAAPA2009
2009-11-20 00:00 Link

Theme Park Reviews, Features, Advice

Theme Park News Archive

2009

Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov.

2008

Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.

2007

Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.

2006

Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.

2005

Dec.

2004-2005

Staff column archive