We’ve missed you, it’s been too long!
Let’s catch up with some theme park news from the last two weeks...
We’re starting with the big news first. Kings Dominion is getting a new roller coaster! The park
recently announced that Tumbili (tomb-bee-lee), an S&S freespin roller coaster, will be joining
the line-up in 2022. The ride will serve as the focal point of a brand new area of Kings Dominion,
Jungle X-pedition, which is essentially a rethemed version of the park’s Safari Village area.
Tumbili will see guests travel 112ft 34m into the air, vertically, before navigating a tumbling
layout, which sees riders constantly flip upside down. Even though it’s only just become official
we’ve known about this roller coaster for a while. Is it a worthy replacement
of Volcano - The Blast Coaster? No. Will anything ever be, probably not because
everyone is too nostalgic of rides, especially the ones that weren’t very good to begin with.
Are you a ride’s manufacturer, do you build roller coasters for a living?
Well have I got an opportunity for you! The London Resort, you know that theme park
trying to get itself built in the UK, yeah those guys, they’ve launched a register of interest.
They’re looking for businesses interested in becoming suppliers for the attraction. You better
be quick though because the new ‘Disney-sized’ park is set to open in 2024 - apparently…
Genting Skyworld’s have revealed their collection of areas and rides!
Guests will be able to explore 9 different themed lands,
mostly inspired by various film IPs. These include Ice Age, Rio, Epic, Robots, Night at the Museum,
Independence Day and Planet of the Apes - phew. Amongst these are an even greater collection of
rides and roller coasters. Visitors will be able to ride Mad Ramp Peak - Full Throttle Racing,
the world’s first dual-powered coaster bike ride, or experience Invasion of the Planet of the apes,
an indoor 3D ride. The park, which is located high up in the Malaysian mountains, has been under
construction for multiple years now, and recently delayed their opening until December 2021.
However, Genting are yet to reveal an official opening date for their new Skyworld’s theme park.
The world’s largest aquarium will open inside of SeaWorld Abu Dhabi in 2022.
The park’s owners, Miral, revealed that the project is currently 64% complete,
with work now starting on the building's facade. The aquarium, which can hold
25 million litres of water, will be accompanied by the Yas Seaworld Research and Rescue Center - the
UAE’s first dedicated research center to study and care for animals. SeaWorld Abu Dhabi will
cover an area of 183,000 square meters across five indoor levels. It’ll be host to over 68,000 marine
animals, and a range of other attractions, including a multi-launch roller coaster.
Walibi Holland have confirmed that their annual Halloween Fright Nights event will return
in 2021! Walibi’s Halloween event is often hailed as one of the best within Europe
due to it’s lively atmosphere and intense collection of mazes.
However, the event was brought to an end after it’s first day in 2020
when it was determined that guests weren’t able to socially distance themselves from one another.
Halloween Fright Nights will now return in 2021 in full force, hopefully making up for last year.
From something returning in 2021, to something that should have opened in 2021,
well, 2020 initially. Busch Gardens Tampa Bay officially announced that Iron Gwazi,
the park’s brand new hybrid hyper coaster, will open in March of 2022 - that’s right,
2022. The ride was originally meant to open somewhere around April of 2020. Obviously COVID
shut the doors on that one but many had hoped for a 2021 opening. Busch Gardens have remained
very quiet about the state of their new ride until now. It isn’t just Tampa Bay holding back on their
rides though. Other SeaWorld opened parks won’t be opening their new roller coasters in 2021 either.
SeaWorld Orlando revealed that Ice Breaker will debut in February of 2022, whilst Busch
Gardens Williamsburg stated they’d announce more about the opening of their new ride, Pantheon,
in due course - obviously that means an opening in 2022 too then. I thought the whole point of
roller coasters was to ride them, are they now just expensive art installations? Beats me…
Fuji-Q Highland have recently suspended the operation of Do-dodonpa, the world’s
fastest accelerating roller coaster. The park confirmed that four injuries have occured on
the ride over the space of 10 month, starting in December of 2020. Fuji-Q says there was no
abnormality in the inspection of the ride on the days of the injuries. However, they did reveal
that all of the incidents have been spinal related injuries. The prefectural government
has asked the park to close the ride whilst they conduct a thorough investigation to determine why
these incidents have occurred. So, as of the 20th August 2021, Do-dodonpa remains closed.
Similarly, Cedar Point recently announced that Top Thrill Dragster, the park’s tallest and fastest
roller coaster, will remain closed throughout the entirety of 2021. On Sunday 15th August a
female guest was struck by a “small metal object” that came off the roller coaster whilst waiting in
line. This occurred along the brake run portion of the ride. The guest was quickly taken to hospital
but currently they’re condition is currently unknown. 5 days later, Cedar Point released a
statement saying that the incident “is at the forefront of [their] minds” and that they’ll
“continue to offer support to the guest and her family”. Cedar Point, “together with the Ohio
Department of agriculture’s division of amusement ride safety and fairs, third party investigators,
engineers and the ride’s manufacturer,” is working tirelessly to conduct a thorough
investigation into the incident. During this time, top thrill dragster will remain closed.
A sad note to end on for this week's episode of dispatch. We wish all the best for the
guests injured on both Top Thrill Dragster and Do-dodonpa, and hope that both parks can
find the cause of the problems. Thank you for watching and we’ll see you next week.