The Harry Potter theme park may be grabbing a lot of attention lately, but the amusement park industry has other tricks up its sleeve this year. Across North America new and “re-themed” amusement parks have opened, and standout rides at established venues are drawing crowds. Whether you’re drawn to the two thrilling roller coasters named for the NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt, who was known as the Intimidator, or are more inclined toward a junior coaster piloted by Sesame Street’s Grover, you’ll most likely find something in this sampler of new attractions that’s just your speed.
ADVENTURE MOUNTAIN AT DOLLYWOOD Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
More and more amusement parks are unveiling attractions that physically test parkgoers rather than simply offer a passive experience, according to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, and this 2-acre hillside challenge course, which opened in March, is a prime example. Parkgoers strap on harnesses and make their way along rope trails, clamber up net ladders, sway on swinging bridges and are blasted by geysers. A steel framework — designed to look like the stone-and-timber buildings constructed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the adjacent Great Smoky Mountains National Park — supports the course, which offers varying levels of difficulty. If skirting a narrow rock ledge on a cliff 25 feet off the ground is too daunting, you can proceed on a stable wooden boardwalk, or stick to the scaled-down course, for children ages 2 to 6, at the base of the hill.
Fee is included in the general admission of $55.90, $44.70 for ages 4 to 11; dollywood.com.
INTIMIDATOR AT CAROWINDS Charlotte. Named after Dale Earnhardt and designed to evoke the racecar driver’s No. 3 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, the Intimidator, which opened in March at Carowinds, offers eight hills and plenty of “airtime” (when riders lift out of their seats). “It’s based on the idea of the old wooden coaster,” said Lance Hart, editor of Screamscape.com, an online guide to theme parks, “with no loops but up and down the whole way through.” Manufactured by the Swiss company Bollinger & Mabillard, the ride has open-sided red, black and white train cars with T-bar restraints, a peak of 232 feet and a mile-long track. Cars zoom down the 211-foot first drop at a 74-degree angle and reach speeds of up to 80 mph.
Fee is included in admission of $49.99; $22.99 for those under 48 inches, or age 62 and up; carowinds.com.
INTIMIDATOR 305 AT KINGS DOMINION Doswell, Va. The second nod to Dale Earnhardt this summer is the Intimidator 305, by the Swiss company Intamin, which is 305 feet tall at its peak and has a first drop of 300 feet. Those measurements put the ride in the family of ultra-high coasters known as giga coasters. The first drop comes at an 85-degree angle, after which riders in open-sided black train cars with red overhead lap bars and shoulder straps race at speeds of up to 92 mph through a course of mostly low-to-the-ground extreme twists and turns. If you’re the sort of enthusiast who likes high speeds and sudden changes in direction, this one’s for you.
Fee is included in admission of $46.99; $33.99 for ages 62 and up or those under 48 inches; Intimidator305.com.
KING KONG 360 3-D AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD Universal City, Calif.
A fire in 2008 destroyed the original King Kong attraction on Universal Studio’s Hollywood Studio Tour. But on July 1, the big ape will be back, this time in a 3-D version created by Peter Jackson, director of the 2005 King Kong movie. Guests on tour trams will don 3-D glasses and travel through a tunnel to a darkened soundstage. Two seamless compound curve screens, each 187 feet wide and 40 feet high, completely encircle the tram cars, putting guests at the center of the action projected on what is the equivalent of 16 movie-theater screens. “It’s like an IMAX screen all the way around,” said Robert Niles, editor ofThemeParkInsider.com. The featured scene is from Skull Island. Velociraptors appear to snap at the tram, dinosaurs attack, then battle with Kong. Tram cars rock and shudder, simulating impact, and the air stirs as if the creatures are really rushing by. Watch out for that dinosaur “slobber”!
Fee is included in admission of $69; $59 for those shorter than 48 inches; universalstudioshollywood.com.
SESAME STREET SAFARI OF FUN AT BUSCH GARDENS Tampa, Fla. Ernie wears a pith helmet and safari jacket. Elmo sports beaded, embroidered neckwear. Along with other Muppets characters in African-inspired costumes, they belt out “Hot, Hot, Hot” at this new 2.5-acre Sesame Street-themed play area. The rides are amusement-park staples — roller coaster, carousel, spinning swings and a flume ride — all named for Sesame Street characters and scaled down for the pre-K set.
Fee is included in general admission of $74.95; children, ages 3 to 9, $64.95; plus tax; buschgardenstampabay.com.
LUNA PARK Coney Island, Brooklyn The first Luna Park at Coney Island — the legendary pleasure grounds that opened in 1903 and were so brightly illuminated at night that they gave rise to the expression “lit up like Luna Park” — is widely regarded as a forerunner of the modern-day amusement park. Though the original park burned down in 1944, a new Luna Park has just been built on three New York City-owned acres where Astroland, another defunct amusement park, once stood. The new park has 19 rides created by the Italian manufacturer Zamperla (though only 15 were running over the Memorial Day weekend opening). In Air Race, an aerial simulator, parkgoers in fighter jets can corkscrew around a central control tower with up to 4 G’s of force. The Tickler, a roller coaster, is named after one of the original Luna Park rides.
Visitors use debit cards to pay as they go, with rides costing $3 to $5 each; a four-hour wristband for unlimited rides is $26 during the week, $30 on weekends
LEGOLAND WATER PARK Carlsbad, Calif. Many water parks are sprawling affairs geared to teenagers. But this 5.5-acre play area tucked at the north end of the amusement park Legoland California, a shrine to primary-colored plastic building bricks, a half-hour from San Diego, is designed expressly for the 2-to-12-year-old set. The water park centers on a 45-foot tower that has four slides snaking from it. Another tower gushes 350 gallons of water into a wading pool where children can aim water cannons at one another. In keeping with Legoland’s hands-on ethos, children can attach soft, oversize Lego bricks to inner tubes before floating down a lazy river, or turn wheels on a large-scale Duplo polar bear, elephant and alligator to spray water from the animals’ mouths.
Fee is $10, besides the Legoland California admission of $67; $57 for ages 3 to 12 and seniors; legolandwaterpark.com.
WILDEBEEST AT HOLIDAY WORLD Santa Claus, Ind. This cross between a roller coaster and a water slide is the latest addition to Holiday World, a small, family-owned park in the Ohio River Valley known for its three outstanding wooden roller coasters. The new ride, manufactured by ProSlide Technology of Canada, employs linear induction motor technology ordinarily used only in roller coasters. Rather than mount slide-tower stairs to launch, which is how you get started on most water slides, Wildebeest riders climb into four-person toboggan-style rafts at the bottom of the course. Each raft has a 200-pound sheet of steel inside that responds to the magnetic pull exerted by linear induction motors beneath the surface. After riding up the lift hill to a 38-foot first drop, the ride continues on its one-third-of-a-mile course, twisting and turning through two tunnels and over seven more hills with magnetic force taking the rafts up the hills and gravity pulling them down.
Fee is included in general admission of $41.95; $31.95 for those under 54 inches or age 60 and older; holidayworld.com.
1 comment:
Roller Coaster such great exp!
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