The mini theme park inside El Dorado Park has a new addition to its line up of rides and activities: a classic carousel.
El Dorado Frontier park has been getting revamped since its new owners took over a year and a half ago. The ride joins other Frontier-themed rides and activities including a train ride throughout the regional park and a gold panning station.
The new feature excited kids and their families at the park. Aaron Woods and his little brother Connor squealed and jumped as they saw the horses bob up and down as they passed them.
“We came a couple weeks ago and peeked at the horses so we knew they’d be excited,” said their grandmother Michele York.
The process of getting the carousel wasn’t easy, according to the owner, Patricio Wolovich. They bought the carousel sight unseen last December from a seller in Florida and had it shipped to Long Beach to find that the exterior of the ride was trashed, according to Wolovich. Luckily, the interior mechanisms were still in good condition, so he and his staff worked to restore it over about eight months.
“We stripped everything down and started from scratch basically,” he said.
They repaired missing legs from the fiberglass horses, custom-made the artwork around the tent and tore out the old and worn Victorian-themed carriages to replaced them with train cars to fit the frontier theme.
Wolovich said now that the carousel is up and running, his team is working on transforming the metal shipping containers in the back into a facade for a western ghost town that will host puppet shows and a theater.
El Dorado Frontier is open on weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Meet the man creating a mini theme park inside El Dorado Park