Dazzleland Family Fun Center
Attraction Type: Family Entertainment Centre
Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario
Years Operational: 1992-2001
Designer(s): White Hutchinson Leisure Learning Group
Overview of Dazzleland as seen from the Pilgrim Motel, mid 90's.
In 1992, the final piece of the puzzle for Clifton Hill's present day atmosphere would click into place. Welland Securities changed their name to HOCO (Harry Oakes Company) and beginning in the late 80's, took ownership of attractions that were formerly just tenants of theirs including Movieland, The Niagara Marketplace, The Space Spiral Tower, Golf-a-Rama atop Circus World, and the Cliffside Motel (which had its pool removed and was integrated into a wing of the adjacent Quality Inn.) The only attractions that would continue being leased were Ripley's and Circus World, meaning HOCO not only owned all the land on the South-West side of the hill, they now ran everything between Circus World and Ripley's, as well as the Harry's Burgers space and the ice cream stand immediately down the hill from Circus World.
With the driveway in to the former Cliffside wing no longer needed, as it could now be accessed by the Quality Inn lot, it would become the last section of land to be developed along Clifton Hill. In the driveway's place was now a large empty space between Circus World and Movieland, with the Space Spiral Tower (with a relatively small footprint) stuck in the middle. HOCO called upon attraction design and layout firm White Hutchison Leisure Learning Group (WHLLG) to design an attraction around the Space Spiral that would use the final undeveloped land on Clifton Hill. And so WHLLG designed Dazzleland Family Fun Center, a courtyard of buildings arranged in roughly the same layout as the Great Canadian Midway (for reasons we'll get to later) that sits on the land now.
The space surrounding the Spiral Tower that Dazzleland would later occupy, as it looked when it was occupied by Golf-a-Rama and the driveway in to the Cliffside, 1980's.
The buildings around the outside of the courtyard were long and narrow, picture a courtyard of carnival game trailers but permanent, appealing buildings in the architecture style of a European village. Carnival lights adorned much of the signage, and the complex featured an abundance of neon on the attraction's large sign, on many of the buildings' exteriors, and signage featuring the word "DazzleLand" on the wall in many of the buildings.
Bird's eye view of Dazzleland's courtyard taken from the Spiral Tower, late 90's.
At the front of the attraction facing the street, on either side of the large open entrance to the courtyard, were two fast food restaurants. On the downhill-most side, the Wendy's was built on top of Circus World, replacing the Golf-a-Rama mini golf that had formerly been on the attraction's roof. It featured an outdoor patio in the back corner of the dining area overlooking Clifton Hill, but this would be enclosed in later years. At the back of the dining area next to the washrooms was also a hallway that led into Dazzleland, as the washrooms also served as the washrooms for the attraction itself. Across the entrance to the courtyard from Wendy's was a Domino's Pizza, roughly where stairwell just to your right is when entering the Great Canadian Midway now. Unlike Wendy's however who had the option to dine-in, the Domino's was only a take-away counter.
Above: Wendy's in 1993 above Circus World. Right: Domino's Pizza seen along with the Spiral Tower and camera store, mid 90's.
Clockwise when entering the actual courtyard of Dazzleland, the first building, built into the side of Wendy's, was the Whac-a-Mole building. This section housed several Bob's Space Racers (the co-inventors of Whac-a-Mole) late-80's "Version B" Whac-a-Mole machines. In the same building along the same wall was a handful of various redemption games. The next building, running alongside the forested hill down to Queen Victoria Park, was a larger walk-in building that served as the main redemption arcade area, housing all the miscellaneous ticket redemption games. This area was also home to one of the strangest arcade games in the Falls, a shooting gallery utilizing water guns rather than infrared light guns. It was called "Fire Department 911" and appeared to be a custom build, with the targets consisting of cut-out flames. The manufacturer remains unknown.
Above: The main redemption game building, 1993. Right: The Fire Department 911 water gun shooting gallery.
Whac-a-Mole machines, 1993,
Miscellaneous games occupying the back half of the Whac-a-Mole building, 1993.
In the back corner, roughly where the XD Theatre now sits in The Midway, was the largest building in Dazzleland, the main Arcade. This is where the large collection of video games and pinball machines were located, as well as the Cyclone redemption game. This section could also be accessed via a doorway in the back corner of the redemption game building. The building next to the Arcade was also connected via a doorway on the other side as well, and ran along the back of Dazzleland. This building housed various carnival style coin operated games such as the Skee Ball, Boom Ball, and Roll-a-Ball style games. A couple smaller redemption games were also located against the pillars along the front of this building. The final building along the outside (between the Skee-Ball building and Domino's) was the Sports Games building, which included racing, basketball toss, football toss, and pitching games. A section of this building with a checkered floor contained racing-themed games, like 4 linked Sega Super GT racing simulators that would be added in the late 90's, and later go on to also be a staple of the Midway, as would nearly all of Dazzleland's games.
Above top: Entrance to the main arcade. Above bottom: Inside the main video and pinball arcade, mid 90's.
Left: Interior of the Skee Ball building and it's side entrance to the main arcade, as seen in a 2001 brochure. Right: Boom Ball style, Roll-a-Ball, water gun race, and Skee Ball machines, mid 90's.
The racing-themed section of the sports games building with the checkered floor, 2000.
In the middle of the courtyard was a small carousel, a small pond that contained an RC boat game, and a building housing the carousel's control booth which had miscellaneous games wrapping around it on the other three sides. A smaller building in the back half of the courtyard outfront the Arcade building was the ticket Redemption Centre and prize counter. The courtyard was also full of claw machines and coin operated rides. The Space Spiral and camera store next door were incorporated into Dazzleland, still being accessible directly off the Hill. As mentioned elsewhere on this site, the tower was exactly where the Fudge Factory now is, as the circular store was once the loading area for the tower. Along Clifton Hill, between the camera store and the Dominos was a fortune teller machine built right into the wall: "Ask the Brain". The brain still lives on inside Movieland, except now he wants a loonie instead of a quarter.
Left: The RC boat pond with the sports building in the background, 1993. Right: "Ask The Brain" in 2000.
To fill the consumer need left after the mini golf atop Circus World was replaced with the Wendy's, a new, much more challenging course would be constructed just up the Hill from the Spiral Tower. It's entrance was right on the Hill, but the course wrapped around the tower and ran back behind Dazzleland, between the back of Dazzleland and the parking lot of the Quality Inn. It would have no real theme for its first two years of operation, and feature generic statues like a comical man teeing off from the course's main waterfall, dolphins jumping out of the fountains, and a replica of the Skylon Tower at the back. It's debatable if this attraction could technically be considered part of Dazzleland. While built at the same time and wrapping around Dazzleland proper, it wasn't technically inside it. It's unknown if this course had its own name or was originally considered part of the complex. It would also outlive Dazzleland in its later form as Dinosaur Park Miniature Golf (see below), moving around the area and eventually evolving into the present-day Dinosaur Adventure Golf.
Dazzleland under construction in 1991, showing the full layout of the mini golf.
Above: The miniature golf course as seen from the driveway into Quality Inn, 1992. Left: A fiberglass statue of a down-on-his-luck golfer tees off from the waterfall at the entrance to the course on Clifton Hill, 1993.
This early version of the Dazzleland complex would be very short lived, with changes coming just two years later in 1994. The Whac-a-Mole and prize buildings would be switched around, and the water gun shooting gallery would also switch places with the miscellaneous games next to the Whac-a-Mole machines. The biggest change however would come in the form of a retheme of the mini golf. Riding off the success of the film Jurassic Park, the course would now become "Dinosaur Park Miniature Golf." Unique fiberglass dinosaurs now populated the course, and a dragon/sea serpent was added to the RC boat pond. It's unknown who sculpted these figures (possibly someone from within WHLLG).
Left: Dinosaur Park Miniature Golf in a 2001 brochure. Right: The dragon in the RC boat pond, 1998.
The sign for the Redemption Centre after it switched places with the Whac-a-Mole building.
Dazzleland was an instant success, being one of the crucial moments in the development of the Niagara Falls tourism industry that forever changed the area. It was the first Family Entertainment Centre in the Falls, combining arcade machines with other rides and attractions all in one arcade-like complex, more accessible than an amusement park yet more captivating than an arcade. Almost every arcade to open in the Falls since Dazzleland has also been an F.E.C., a clear indication of it's influence. The complex had a unique but distinct atmosphere, having no exact theme other than a whimsical, fantasy-like environment as represented by the stars and moons on the attraction's signage. The carnival-like atmosphere and variety in the attraction made it stand out from the other arcades in the area at the time, and it became a go to-hang out for both tourists and locals alike. It's variety also made it popular with all demographics, featuring pinball and video games popular with teenagers and adults, redemption games and rides largely popular with children and families, and an open, appealing atmosphere even drawing in those who wouldn't usually be arcade-goers.
It's popularity however would also be it's demise, and it would be relatively short-lived, only lasting a decade. The success of the attraction led HOCO to expand the concept further, and more games = higher guest enjoyment, and therefore profit. The outdoor courtyard style with it's room for walkways between the buildings was re-designed, and HOCO again called upon WHLLG. WHLLG designed not only a remodel of Dazzleland, but an incredible 5-step plan that would have changed Clifton Hill, however only steps 1 to 3 would come to fruition...
Step 1 was remodeling Dazzleland into the Great Canadian Midway, which opened in 2002. The level, concrete foundation Dazzleland was built on was kept as the foundation of the Midway, hence why it has a similar footprint. Dinosaur Park Miniature Golf was moved to a former parking lot in front of the Comfort Inn. Rather than have several different buildings, the Midway would all be one indoor space, allowing for more games and year round operation, a genius business move. After it's closure, Dazzleland would fall into obscurity. In the early days of research that would eventually evolve into this website, Dazzleland only existed as one-line mentions in old HOCO Attractions brochures and the vauge memories of the author, becoming somewhat of my "white whale". HOCO themselves eventually uploaded some limited photos of the attraction on their Clifton Hill Fun Facebook page, and as time went on and my original historical postings on Reddit began to receive attention, more people began to comment that they remembered Dazzleland fondly. Many details of the attraction came out along with it, and eventually, after years of scouring old tourist vacation videos on YouTube, the full layout and story of the attraction's changes over the years came to light.
Arials of Dazzleland (2000) and the Great Canadian Midway (2024), showing how the Midway was built upon Dazzleland's pre-established layout.
The gorgeous double-sided neon sign at the entrance to the complex, which acted as a beacon of Clifton Hill, 2000.
While Dazzleland may be gone, the Midway took the carnival-like atmosphere that Dazzleland offered and turned it into the entire theme of the Midway, which is actually themed to an outdoor carnival midway complete with strings of lights between the pillars. It also features several attractions around the outside walls surrounding the main arcade space, creating somewhat of an indoor courtyard. This makes the Midway somewhat of a spiritual successor to Dazzleland that builds on the theme and retains the same atmosphere. Dazzleland continues to live on in the memories of those who visited, frequented, and worked there as well as the millions of visitors who have since visited the Midway, whether they realize it's hidden influence or not.