2000 Yearbook

Opening Day: 15 April
Closing Day: 29 October
Adult All-Day Ride Pass: $28.95
Parking: $5
Attendance: ~1,200,000

As the world was celebrating the transition into a new millennium, Lagoon was going through its own changes. The year 2000 was the last season for the 40-year-old Speedway, Sr., as well as the first season of Double Thunder Raceway, which was intended as a replacement to the Speedway.

Double Thunder Raceway opened with the rest of the park in April. The dual go-kart tracks added a third up-charge attraction to Lagoon. Beginning with Sky Coaster five years earlier, Lagoon added a few lower capacity attractions that required an additional fee to ride. With the introduction of Double Thunder in 2000, these rides became known collectively as the X-Venture Zone.

That wasn’t the only new ride that year, though. For the first time since 1987, two rides opened at Lagoon in the same year. Samurai opened in July as a replacement of the Flying Carpet, which was a favorite of many since it opened in 1986, but was increasingly difficult to maintain. Samurai offered a much wilder experience, flinging riders in several different, unpredictable directions.

It would also be the final season of the Prize Center on the Midway where tickets from various games could be redeemed. In the following season, it would be replaced by a gift shop and a new, smaller prize center would open inside the Game Time arcade.

Other notable events in 2000 occurred when the park was closed. In October, the old Opera House, which had been closed to the public since 1989, was used for training exercises for the Davis County Sheriff’s Office Citizens Academy. Apparently the building’s complex layout made it just right for practicing an “extremely difficult” search scenario.

Also in the fall, a major scene of the Disney Channel movie, Luck Of The Irish was filmed at the park. The scene features a St. Patrick’s Day festival and uses Lagoon’s North Midway as the backdrop. It debuted on cable TV the following spring.

GALLERY

ENTERTAINMENT

CAROUSEL THEATER

Club A Go-Go
Rock U2 The Top

LAGOON MUSIC Theatre

Signatures

Main street, Pioneer Village

Pie Fight At The OK Corral

Music Hall, Pioneer Village

Belle Starr

Midway

Dinky The Clown (also at the Old Woman’s Shoe, Kiddieland)
Flower Power (at the Psychedelic Van near the front entrance)

TIMELINE

15 Apr – Pre-season opening / Double Thunder Raceway opens

12 May – Campground opens for the season

27 May – Daily operation begins / Lagoon-A-Beach opens for the season

17 Jun – Bounceback promotion begins, allowing guests to return to the park on certain days for a significant discount.

3 Jul – Samurai opens

4 Jul – Independence Day – Fireworks

15 Jul – The cast of Flower Power performs in the Farmington Days Parade

24 Jul – Pioneer Day – Fireworks, synchronized to music on KSOP

27 Aug – End of daily operation

4 Sep – Open for Labor Day

16 Sep – Lagoon-A-Beach closes for the season

29 Sep – Frightmares opens

15 Oct – Campground closes for the season

29 Oct – Final day of 1997 season

11-13 Nov – Farmington’s annual Pioneer Christmas at Pioneer Village

RIDES & ATTRACTIONS

2000 Press Kit & BROCHURE

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2000 GUIDE MAP

MORE FROM LHP

REFERENCES

Arave, Lynn. Double Thunder Raceway go-carts premiere April 15 at Lagoon. Deseret News, 10 Mar 2000.

Deseret News, 28 Apr 2000.

Reavy, Pat & Derek Jensen. Real-life police work is mostly noise complaints, false alarms. Deseret News, 24 Oct 2000.