Paramount's Great America is getting their first coaster since 2001, to be dubbed Survivor: the Ride. This new thrill will be the first extended Zamperla Disk'O model to debut in the United States, adding more length to the usual ride experience.
Survivor: the Ride will be an interactive ride recreating the atmosphere taken directly from the CBS reality television show, surrounded by jungle sounds and music. The riders will be divided into two "tribes" in the queue line that will try to beat each other out by yelling tribal chants and dances. These chants and dances will make tribal masks spray water on the other "tribe." Riders will enter the ride on a large platform with seats on the outside of the circular passenger car. The riders will then embark on the Survivor journey through the course reaching heights up to five stories while spinning and rocking back and forth along a W-shaped track layout. Survivor: the Ride will be Paramount's Great America's ninth coaster and will further its title as the park with the most coasters in Northern California.
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Thrill-seekers expected Six Flags AstroWorld's rides to end up at other theme parks, but now one of those is finding itself somewhere no one expected.
Bits and pieces of the defunct amusement park are working their way to Clute, where they will be placed in a planned dive park at Mammoth Lake. A mock space shuttle that once was a loop ride was deposited beside the sand pit. Soon, it will be placed thirty feet underwater. Six Flags Astroworld closed in 2005. Since the park has been closed, reports and rumors have flown around about where the rides and buildings would be relocated to. Well, the soon to be dive park plans to place rides from Astroworld under the water. There, wannabe scuba divers can train for their certification. Here, they can dive and swim with the rides. “We’ve got a bunch of boats that we’re going to put together and call it the Bermuda Triangle,” said Michelle Crier. There is no official word yet on what more rides will be coming to this lake. In a focus to improve the family-friendliness of the Six Flags theme park chain, CEO Mark Shapiro announced plans Feb. 16 to add 1,200 new costumed characters to the parks around the country.
"The very best complete entertainment experiences are the ones that let kids' imaginations run wild," Shapiro said. "Our season-long 45th anniversary celebration, coupled with our Looney Tunes and Justice League characters, are enabling Six Flags to redefine its brand." These new characters roaming the parks will be Looney Toons characters and some of the Justice League superheroes. Shapiro says that now, in order to make their parks more family-friendly, the will add greeting sessions, photo sessions, parades and other things into the characters' schedules. Also, as a new addition, Six Flags will have character lunches and breakfasts, and the characters will read stories to children. Also, to celebrate the theme park chain's 45th anniversary, there will be cake celebrations every day for children. In Six Flags' new indoor waterpark, the Great Escape Lodge, children will be able to attend "bedtime stories" with a favorite Looney Toon, Bugs Bunny. Although the park has officially broken ground for the first new ride like it in decades, it may be a while yet until the Flying Turns is ready for takeoff.
Late last month, Knoebels casually announced the addition of a new coaster inspired by bobsled-type wooden coasters of the 1930s through a new page on the official site. That page displayed several images showing off a first foundation being filled with concrete on Jan. 20. However, the park now tells us that Jan. 20 was the only day of progress on the project so far, which is being constructed on the former site of Whirlwind. "We began construction of the Flying Turns on the same lot [asWhirlwind] on Jan. 20, 2006, but we did not progess furtherthan that single day," the park's Bobby Klock stated in an email. "Simply, we are not quite ready yet." Klock says that Knoebels will release details on the new ride, such as blueprints and artwork, "when it is time." Flying Turns was the name shared by a number of wooden rides designed by such legends as John Miller and Herbert Schmeck throughout the 30s. Parks such as Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Paramount's Kings Dominion have constructed modern versions of the bobsled coaster in the past, but those rides fail to use the original wood-troughed design. Whirlwind, a small, second-hand, 1984 steel looping coaster, was removed after the 2004 season and sent to a Costa Rica amusement park, with part of its lot being used for the Herschel flat ride Looper last season. Knoebels has built its reputation around bringing a classic amusement park experience to the Pennsylvania mountains through installing such widely-revered attractions as the second-handPhoenix wooden coaster and 1999's Twister. "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!" That life has ended for the old version of the attraction at Disneyland Resort in California and Walt Disney World in Florida. Due to the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Disney is now including elements of the movies into the ride.
What will the star studded makeover bring? A new storyline based off of the two movies, both the first one (The Curse of the Black Pearl) and the upcoming sequel called Dead Man's Chest. Two new characters from the film, Captain Jack Sparrow and his nemesis Captain Barbosa, will be added as well. Disneyland's version of the ride will hopefully open by June 24th, 2006. Walt Disney World's version will open up on July 7th, 2006, the same exact day of the release of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. |
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