Noah's Ark is a type of amusement park walk-through attraction built between 1919 and 1936. It features a fun house in the shape of the biblical vessel found in the Genesis flood narrative. As such, most Noah's Arks featured scenes depicting animals and the biblical prophet Noah alongside traditional fun house gags.
The first Noah’s Ark appeared at Venice Pier (California) in 1919. The attraction was designed and built by Leroy Ramond who sold the manufacturing rights to William Dentzel the following year. [1]
There is only one remaining Noah's Ark in operation at Kennywood Park near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Although there is a Noah's Ark at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in Blackpool, England, it has not been operational since 2008.
| Location | Opened | Closed | Builder | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Blackpool Pleasure Beach | 1922 | 2008 | William Strickler | Closed |
 Kennywood Amusement Park | 1936 | – | Philadelphia Toboggan Company | Refurbished in 1969, 1996, 2016 |
| Venice Pier (California) | 1919 | 1940 | Dentzel | First installation |
| Frontierland, Morecambe | 1920s | 2000 | Park demolished 2010 | |
| Steeplechase Park | 1923 | 1929 | ||
| Old Orchard Pier | 1929 | 1969 | Destroyed by fire [2] |
Noah's Ark is the vessel in the Genesis flood narrative through which God spares Noah, his family, and examples of all the world's animals from a world-engulfing flood. The story in Genesis is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the Ark appears as Safinat Nūḥ and al-fulk.
An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central theme, often featuring multiple areas with different themes. Unlike temporary and mobile funfairs and carnivals, amusement parks are stationary and built for long-lasting operation. They are more elaborate than city parks and playgrounds, usually providing attractions that cater to a variety of age groups. While amusement parks often contain themed areas, theme parks place a heavier focus with more intricately-designed themes that revolve around a particular subject or group of subjects.
Kennywood is an amusement park located in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, just southeast of Pittsburgh. The park first opened on May 30, 1899, as a trolley park attraction at the end of the Mellon family's Monongahela Street Railway. It was purchased in 1906 by F. W. Henninger and Andrew McSwigan, both of whom later formed the family-owned Kennywood Entertainment Company. The company later sold Kennywood, along with four other parks, in 2007 to Parques Reunidos, an international entertainment operator based in Spain. The amusement park features various structures and rides dating back to the early 1900s. Along with Rye Playland Park, it is one of only two amusement parks designated as a National Historic Landmark. Kennywood is also one of only thirteen trolley parks in the United States that remains in operation.
Luna Park Melbourne is a historic amusement park located on the foreshore of Port Phillip Bay in St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria. It opened on 13 December 1912, with a formal opening a week later, and has been operating almost continuously ever since.
Noah's Ark is the largest outdoor water park in the United States. It features 51 water slides and dozens of various attractions. The park is located in the village of Lake Delton, Wisconsin.
Ronald Eldon Wyatt was an American medical professional and explorer noted for advocating the Durupınar site in Turkey as the location of Noah's Ark's landing place, along with almost 100 other alleged biblically-related discoveries.
Noah's Ark was the vessel built by Noah in the Bible and the Quran.
Palace Entertainment is a subsidiary of Madrid, Spain based Parques Reunidos which operates various attractions including amusement parks, zoos, and water parks around the world. Palace Entertainment is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is primarily involved in the operation of attractions in the United States.
Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is a 100-acre (40 ha) zoo developed on a working farm in Wraxall, North Somerset, 6 miles (9.7 km) west of Bristol, England, which promotes a form of creationism that includes a belief that the biblical story of Noah's Flood was an actual cataclysmic event. In 2009 the zoo was expelled from the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the main industry regulatory body, "for bringing the association into disrepute", but in 2018 it regained membership in the body. The zoo has the largest elephant enclosure in northern Europe.
Mount Judi, also known as Qardū, is Noah's apobaterion or "Place of Descent", the location where the Ark came to rest after the Great Flood, according to very Early Christian and Islamic tradition. The Quranic tradition is similar to the Judeo-Christian legend. The identification of Mount Judi as the landing site of the ark persisted in Syriac and Armenian tradition throughout Late Antiquity, but was abandoned for the tradition equating the biblical location with the highest mountain of the region, that is Mount Ararat near Armenia.
Frontierland Western Theme Park was a theme park in Morecambe, Lancashire, England, situated on Marine Road West, which operated from 1906 to 7 November 1999, with a final year consisting of only travelling rides in 2000. Frontierland originally operated as West End Amusement Park, Fun City and Morecambe Pleasure Park from 1906 to 1986 before being transformed into Frontierland for the 1987 season, in an attempt to defeat dwindling visitor numbers.
Playland was a 10-acre (40,000 m2) seaside amusement park located next to Ocean Beach, in the Richmond District at the western edge of San Francisco, California along Great Highway where Cabrillo and Balboa streets are now. It began as a collection of amusement rides and concessions in the late 19th century and was known as Chutes at the Beach as early as 1913. It closed Labor Day weekend in 1972.
A creationist museum is a facility that hosts exhibits which use the established natural history museum format to present a young Earth creationist view that the Earth and life on Earth were created some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago in six days. These facilities generally promote pseudoscientific biblical literalist creationism and contest evolutionary science, which has led to heavy criticism from the scientific community.
The Pleasure Beach Great Yarmouth is an amusement park located in the seaside resort town of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on the English east coast. It opened in 1909. The largest and most popular ride at the park is the wooden Roller Coaster which opened in 1932. There are also around thirty other large rides at the park, as well as children's entertainment, amusement arcades, catering facilities, sweet shops and ice cream parlours.
Noah's Ark is a tourist attraction located on Ma Wan Island in Hong Kong. It is an evangelical Christian theme park centred, according to its own materials, on the themes of nature, art, education and love. The overarching theme of the park is a creationist narrative. It was built by Thomas and Raymond Kwok, Hong Kong real estate developers who own the real estate company Sun Hung Kai.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach is an amusement park situated on Blackpool's South Shore, in the county of Lancashire, North West England.
Noah is a 2014 American epic biblical drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ari Handel. Inspired by the biblical story of Noah's Ark from the Book of Genesis and the Book of Enoch, it stars Russell Crowe as Noah, along with Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins.
Numerous interpretations of Noah's Ark have been built and proposed. Some were intended to be replicas, as close as possible to the Biblical Ark, the builders assuming that such a boat did exist and that it is not a mythological vessel. Others are looser derivatives which were inspired by the idea. The Biblical description of the Ark is brief, beyond the basic measures of length, height and width, and the exact design of any "replica" must largely be a matter of conjecture. Some interpret the Ark as simply a chest-like structure with rectangular sides; other reconstructions give it a rounded bow and stern.
Luna Park Glenelg was an amusement park that operated at Glenelg, South Australia from 1930 until 1935. Plans for an amusement park at the seaside town were first raised in 1928, but not acted upon. In 1929, a lease to build a scenic railway at Colley Reserve was granted by the Glenelg Town Council. This lease was expanded in 1930 to include other rides and attractions, and Luna Park Glenelg opened on 8 October 1930.
Ark Encounter is a Christian young Earth creationist theme park that opened in Williamstown, Kentucky in 2016. The centerpiece of the park is a large representation of Noah's Ark, based on the Genesis flood narrative contained in the Bible. It is 510 feet (155 m) long, 85 feet (26 m) wide, and 51 feet (16 m) high.