Mita and Gillian confirm all the rides – except for carousel, Ferris wheel and wet boats – are on the market
OCEAN CITY – Interested in buying a big piece of Wonderland Pier? For $150,000, you can buy the Moby Dick ride. Don’t have that much room in your back yard or your savings account? Get the Flying Elephant kiddie ride for $20,000.
There is a price list floating around for all of the rides at the park, but Eustace Mita, who bought the Wonderland Pier property in 2021, owns three of them. Those are not for sale. That includes the century-old carousel and the Ferris wheel, which he has in his plans to keep with his proposal for a 252-room hotel and retail complex at the site. His plan would put the Ferris wheel on a platform 10 feet higher than it is at the north side of the hotel and the carousel at the south side.
Mita has been introducing the plan to various groups and will be at Councilman Jody Levchuk’s Third Ward meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 25, at the Ocean City Free Public Library. The site currently is zoned only for amusements.
He said the broker who is selling the other rides included the Ferris wheel and carousel on the list “to garner attention, so in that regard I would say the boy was very successful. It caused me a lot of headaches, but he was successful in his quest.”
The headaches would be courtesy of making it look like Mita was selling the carousel and Ferris wheel rather than including them with his hotel proposal.
Mita said on Wednesday he also owns the wet boat ride.
“I have an affinity for that one,” he said. “If the truth were known, I was the fastest on that ride. I hold the record.” He hasn’t ridden it lately. “I was there last week,” he said, laughing, “but it wasn’t in shape for me to get in it.”
Those three rides may be out of the picture, but there is plenty else to buy for those who are really, really nostalgic for Wonderland Pier, for those who already have an amusement park or who may like to start one.
An interesting note on is that the list includes the year of the item. The year with the carousel is 1965. That is when it was installed at the then-new Wonderland Pier, after Roy Gillian went out on his own after working at his father’s Fun Deck, which opened on the boardwalk in 1929. The carousel was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Co. a century ago. That may account for the carousel’s low serial number – 75.
The rides actually up for sale range in value from $8,000 for the stationary climbing wall to $250,000 for the Music Express.
Other rides include the monorail elevated train for $100,000, the Barock Swing for $100,000 and the Canyon Falls Log Flume, also for $100,000.
The Crazy Submarine is $55,000, the Speedway is $60,000 and the Wonder Bear is $40,000. The Tilt-A-Whirl is appraised at $35,000, the kiddie Dune Buggy ride at $25,000, the Jump Around at $60,000 and the Wacky Worm at $195,000.
Feel like Bono because you still haven’t found what you’re looking for? The Haunted Dark Ride is $60,000, the Samba Balloons $50,000, Wipe Out goes for $175,000, the Kit Flyer for $40,000 and the Glass House for $10,000.
Don’t forget the Fun Slide, appraised for $130,000.
Wonderland Pier closed permanently in October after nearly 60 years in business between Roy Gillian and his son, Mayor Jay Gillian, who decided in August the park was no longer financially viable. Jay Gillian confirmed Wednesday he has the rides up for sale, excluding the three Mita owns.
Mita bought Wonderland in early 2021, saving it from foreclosure after banks called in some $8 million in loans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mita leased the park back to Gillian, who ran it for a few more years before deciding to close it this fall.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff