Kennywood continues to provide visitors with a Sum...

Kennywood continues to provide visitors with a Summer day of fun as it has for over a hundred years.

Why, then, am I not giving it 5 stars? While the park continues to offer a blend of classic rides and games alongside some more modern thrills, there is undeniably something that has been lost somewhere in the course of the last 30 years that I've been going.

In my youth, Kennywood featured no fewer than 4 attractions that would qualify as "haunted houses" -- the Gold Rusher, the Old Mill, La Cachot, and the classic Noah's Ark.

All of these rides have been removed and/or replaced, leaving the park bereft of the signature macabre that I once associated with it.

Don't get me wrong: the park remains one of the best of its kind. But the lack of "spooky" attractions leaves me with the unshakable feeling that something is missing, as I imagine it would for many long time patrons.

While Noah's Ark is still operating, most of it has been reworked to be far less scary and more kid-friendly than it once was (though as a kid, I always loved it).