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| Status: |
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Operated from 1951 to 2006 |
| Phone: |
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918-744-1991 |
| Web: |
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Bell's Amusement Park's site |
| Address: |
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3901 East 21st Street
Tulsa, OK 74114
USA
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| Visits: |
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20 |
| Rating: |
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| More About This Park |
History:
The park started in 1951 with Robert Bell giving local children rides and a train and seeing ponies. Since then, he has turned that into a full-fledged amusement park, which is now in it's 3rd generation of ownership.
Notes:
Bell's is home to 50 rides and attractions. |
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| Reviews |
RllrCoasterFan
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 745
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It may not be the best park in the world or even Oklahoma, but it is my hometown park...so I gotta support it.
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| 9-23-04 13:34:45 |
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RLLrCoastrLover
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 1059
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Bells is my homepark, so shut it up or leave it EGB forever
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| 9-24-04 19:45:26 |
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Sir Willow
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 3553
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Bell's Amusement Park
Date: Monday, June 28, 2004
People: me and Dave
Weather: a bit muggy, and threatening to rain.
Crowds: very light
After being at Frontier City earlier in the day, we made a fairly
brief stop at Bell's on the way to Missouri. Again, as has been
typical, we arrived before the park opened. I had looked for
discounts, but hadn't been able to find to many. However, we were
blessed in that Mondays are "buy one, get one free" nights, which applied to the pay one price wristbands. We took them up on the deal, and when they finally opened, paid for the bands, got our tickets, and then headed over to the guest relations window where we actually got the wristbands.
At this point, we had been admiring the front of the park, which looks very nice. Zingo, their 1951 wood coaster, sits around the front, with the entrance actually being through the coaster, and providing some great looks at it when you come in. So that was the first place we went. We walked in the station, sat down in the front row, and promptly had to wait about 10 minutes for them to get enough people to fill the one PTC train they had on the coaster.
While the station and train seem to have arrived in the last couple of years, everything else about the coaster shows that it is an older coaster- though a very well maintained one. Hand brake levers are still used, along with skid brakes, and it gives the coaster a very nice charm to it. It starts out with a turn around out of the station, up the lift hill, where it turns around again, then starts the out run, which consists of a series of 3 drops and hills, then it turns around again, and gives a series of smaller hills, some of which can give some nice air, though not a whole lot. We tried several spots, and found that the back can give some very nice airtime on the return run to the station, but it comes at a price. The first 3 drops can be quite severe in the back, and the second was downright painful,
with the slam at the bottom managing to tighten my lapbar down another notch quite forcefully. So if you can manage to prepare for those, you can have a good ride in the back. Otherwise, it's fun, but not a lot to it. 7 out of 10.
Bell's has a nice, gas powered, multi-leveled car ride which we passed on, some bumper boats, which we rode and stayed dry on, and a very nice log flume. At one point you go "inside" a mountain they have built for some scenery. There's nothing inside of it except to see the steel framework of it, but it was still nice to see something different. The boats are also a bit odd, in that all there is inside of them is just a plain bench. No handbars, foot rests, backrests, etc., making it a bit difficult to hold on and brace yourself. But it was also very wet, and with the humidity, that felt great!
At this point, we decided to take a walk to the back of the park, and what a change. The front is beautiful, well taken care of, and has the look and feel of a permanent park. The back consists of several carnival rides that look like they were tossed back there as leftovers from the "Tulsa State Fair" that also operates next door. (BTW, when did Tulsa become a state? Hehe) The couple of rides that interested us were closed. So we took a round in their haunted house, which was
alright (the multi-levels were fun) and laughed about some of the signage on it. Then headed back to the front of the park since there was little else in the back.
We took a round on the sky ride to get some pictures (and making sure we didn't do anything to land us in the "spitter's bench") then looked around for a souvenier booth. None. No gift shop either. But rather than just leave this time, I decided to ask at the gust relations window where we got our wristbands earlier. There they had some baseball caps, a couple of shirts, and some bells for sale, but I never would have known that was where to get them if I hadn't been so
determined to ask. But still, the Bell's bells were cheap (only $3
each), but likely because they were desperate to get ride of them since no one knew they were there. At that point, our time was about up, so we headed out and hit the road.
Bell's was interesting. Some of the employees were very nice, a lot seemed very unmotivated to do much of anything- including converse with us when they were otherwise sitting there doing nothing. The front of the park looked great, but the back was just plain ugly, and almost embarrassing after seeing the front of it. So it had a very odd dichotomy to it. I was happy to visit, but sadly I'm not sure if it's a park that I would want to return to very much. And that's not a feeling I like when so many of the parks like this are struggling just to make it.
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| 9-30-05 13:56:18 |
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Zingoman
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 1298
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Well, it's my hometown park, and the Zingo has pluck. I'm afraid that's all there is to it these days. I have a hard time enjoying even an entire afternoon there but the Mind Melt rocks, and the Himalaya is awesome at night with the lights and sound system. This Himalaya is also one of very few to still employ a live DJ.
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| 3-17-06 14:15:14 |
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