The terrain for this park started out as a sinuate landscape surrounded by ocean that I’d made previously. Because this was to be a small park I downsized the park map and removed the ocean from outside the park.

I intended to replace some of the sea outside the park at a later time so I’d have sharks and mantas but with this park’s later development into a lakeside property I didn’t think marine inhabitants to be appropriate.

The initial plan for this park was a simple landscape on which to place a couple of hundred path tiles so that I could try out a path and a queue set I’d made with Path Creator. Because of that I didn’t spend too much time on specifically creating a park entrance area so I did little more than to place one entrance underground in a central location just like the game developers had done in some of the RCT3 Campaign scenarios. The only purpose of this park for the guests at that time was to see how they’d interact with the stair placements on the paths and queues I’d made with Path Creator.

I’d wanted to use in a park the CityJK Elevator I recently downloaded and saw this as a good opportunity to do so. I realized my interest in making this a full park was increasing at about the time I was asking myself, ‘How would it look if I put another elevator next to that one?’ and ‘What would I do with the paths if I put another set of stairs here?’ It was after I got the main staircase built and had placed the monorail station that there was no doubt I’d eventually make this a complete park.

Since the park entrance is centrally located the park doesn’t follow the standard of good park design with gentle rides near the entrance and exciting & intense rides near the back of the park. Notwithstanding this I believe it a good example of an operational park which did turn out to become a financial success, as can be seen here in this park’s financial summary. For your convenience a park map has been included with that article. You may find it helpful to look over the maps on Page 5 of that article while following our park tour.

Let’s start the tour now and look over the layout of Hillside On The Lake. As you see guests enter this property from a tunnel via the underground park entrance.

Guests who have exited the tunnel find themselves on Entry Walkway.

Some of the guests do like to have a seat right after entering the park so they may take in what’s going on. Others might stand around to discuss how they’d like their day to unfold. Near by is as an entertainer who gives a good start to park visits.

As to where they might like to next go in the park guests are immediately presented with a choice: they may continue in the same direction up the stairs into the Promenade and on to the west area of the park, or make a left turn in order to descend the stairs to the park’s East Side.

You may have noticed already there are several levels in this park and a great many stairs. To minimize the number of trips guests make up stairs there are six elevators arranged in two banks; a lower bank of three lifts along with an upper bank of three. The entrances to the upper bank can be seen in the previous image. These lift entrances are just a short distance away from the park entrance.

Central to getting around in this park are the six elevators, the Main Staircase, and the stacked arrangement of paths connecting these to each other and to the remainder of the park. With the elevators being the jewels in the crown of our park’s design let’s spend a little time looking them over. All six of the elevators are displayed in this next image.

The upper elevator bank and the upper levels of the park are shown in this next image.

The lower bank exits onto a walkway covered with a lush display of golden bougainvilleas. In this next image the entrance to Monorail can be seen at the top left. Our Water Tour station can also be seen nearer the lower right.

If you’re wondering how bougainvillea manages to grow on a suspended path there are suspended path planters built onto the paths, as seen at the bottom left in the following image.

There are four such suspended planters here along The Promenade. Water and nutrients are directly piped into the planters at a slow, constant rate so that the soil is kept slightly damp. Although our gardeners don’t themselves water the bougainvillea they do check several times a day to be sure they’re not over- or under-watered, something that’s essential so that this much vegetation can successfully flourish from the limited amount of potting medium provided in these containers. Our gardeners do take care to enrich the bougainvillea soil monthly, with the planters dismantled for cleaning and the bougainvillea roots repotted each Spring.

If you’re the noticing sort you may observe that three of our visiting VIP’s, Clint Bushton, Cami O, and Major St. John Smythe, are enjoying a stroll beneath the bougainvilleas along The Promenade at this time.

Although officially named The Promenade some of our guests and staff have taken to calling this particular path the Golden Walk.

With three lifts at each of the elevator banks guests need not concern themselves about what might otherwise be seen as an excess of stairs throughout the park. The elevators only take guests on trips upwards so all guests who enter the lifts do so at the bottom and alight at a higher level of the park.

Guests looking out of the back of the elevator cars while they ascend may enjoy splendid views of the lake and of the park’s enclosed harbor.