What the amusement park is calling "The Last Ride Experience" will allow visitors a final chance to ride the flume ride, spin on the carousel or shriek their way through the Haunted Hotel.

Last weekend was the final regular weekend at the park. Today the park will be open for only five hours from 3 until 8 p.m.

Only 4,000 tickets will be sold and while tickets were still available Friday, they were selling at a brisk pace, said Jamie Wilburn, who is handling publicity for the event.

Last weekend, about 21,000 people visited the park, according to an official with Burroughs & Chapin Co., which operates the park.

While today will be the last time the public can visit, the park will be lit one last time next month for a private Burroughs & Chapin event.

The Pavilion is a victim of changing times and tastes. Final plans for the 11 acres of valuable real estate in the heart of downtown have not been set. The company is working with the city and other landowners on a renewal project that will involve about 300 acres.

The first Pavilion opened in 1908 and was a wooden structure used for entertainment and dancing. It burned in 1920 and another was built.

That one burned in 1944, and the existing reinforced concrete structure -- which survived Hurricanes Hazel and Hugo -- was built four years later.

That year, Burroughs & Chapin bought a traveling carnival, creating the amusement park.

The park carousel dates from 1912, while the park's 2-ton pipe organ was first exhibited at the 1900 World Exposition in Paris. The company plans to find new homes in Myrtle Beach for the pipe organ and the carousel as well as some of the other rides.