Hello hello, it’s theme park news time, and boy do I have news for you.
First up - new roller coasters, we’ve got a bunch of them. A few weeks ago we learnt more about
Europa Park’s new roller coaster. The ride is a MACK big dipper, featuring slightly larger 4 row
trains, instead of the traditional 2 row trains. However, last week plans, featuring the ride’s
layout, were discovered! These show all of the buildings connected with the new roller coaster,
as well as its path within the park. So, what’s the scoop? Well, Europa Park’s new
roller coaster will feature two launch sections. The first will be vertical, propelling guests into
what looks to be some form of inversion. Guests will then negative a mixture of airtime hills
and inversions, before entering a turntable element. The trains will then spin round onto
a different piece of track, track that features a multi-pass launch. You’ll get launched two or
three times between a spike and top hat, before eventually climbing the top hat and navigating
the rest of the layout. Overall, we know the ride features a multitude of inversions, and
will be relatively long. It also looks likely to have some form of onride preshow, or scene, that
aims to immerse you within the story. Some clever people on the coasters world forum have broken
down the plans for us - so it’s worth checking them out. I’ll put the link in the description!
The second new roller coaster comes from SeaWorld Orlando. It’s been long rumoured
that SeaWorld would be gaining another roller coaster, one built by the Swiss manufacturer,
Bolliger and Mabillard. Well, those rumours were true. SeaWorld Orlando posted an image of their
social media the other day of two sections of roller coaster track. The blue track has been made
by B&M, leading many to speculate that the ride will be the also long rumoured ‘surf coaster’.
The ‘surf coaster’ has not been confirmed by either the park, or B&M, and its exact nature
isn’t known either. Some speculate the ride will be a new generation stand up coaster,
whilst others anticipate a large scale launched roller coaster utilising similar trains to some
B&M hyper coasters. We’re not sure, but fortunately time will tell us who’s right.
More new roller coaster news - Tron, the new ride coming to the Magic Kingdom in Florida
has finally begun testing. Tron has been in construction for what feels like years at this
point. The ride was announced in July of 2017, so we really have been waiting a while. Nevertheless,
it’s coming - apparently sometime this year according to Disney. Fortunately, now that the
ride is testing, surely the opening can’t be too far away? I’ll believe it when I see it…
In other news, Grona Lund, a theme park in the middle of Stockholm Sweden had plans to expand.
I say had for a reason sadly. The king of Sweden, that’s right, the king, has apparently put his
foot down. He isn’t happy with the park’s plans to expand, or at least he kind of isn’t? Initially,
Grona Lund wanted to buy some land next to the park, but that land was owned by the King.
Fortunately, at the beginning, King Carl Gustaf was on board with the idea. However, he’s decided
to change his mind - he won’t sell the land to the park. Instead, he might lease it to them for
a long, but finite period of time. In turn, that might make it harder for the park to build the new
rides and attractions it wants, on that plot of land. Sad times King Gustaf, sad times.
Whilst Grona Lund suffers, Futuroscope, a theme park in France, prospers! The park has recently
announced their plans to expand rapidly by 2025. Futuroscope will invest over 300 million euros in
a multi-year investment plan to become a proper resort. By 2025, they’ll construct two hotels,
an aqua-leisure park (whatever that is), an arena, and three major attractions for the theme park
itself. The first is set to be a dynamic immersive theatre, one with real sets and performances,
supplemented by a 120 seat rotating platform. The second will be an indoor and outdoor boat ride,
filled with various dark ride show scenes. The final, and most interesting, is set to
be an innovative thrill coaster. Sadly however, the exact nature of that to be roller coaster
is unknown - but with 300 million euros to play with, hopefully it’ll be a good one!
And finally, some big news: the Florida senate has passed the bill to remove Disney World’s
special district. Let's break that down. In 1967,
the area owned by the Walt Disney World Resort was turned into it’s own district,
the Reedy Creek improvement district. This district is entirely owned by Disney,
and grants them the responsibility of a county government, i.e. to govern over its own land
and environmental protections, and to provide its own medical services and fire protection services.
In a nutshell, it allowed Disney more freedom to do what they wanted with the land they own.
Fast forward to the present, and Florida passed the so called “Don’t say gay” bill, which bans
discussions of sexual orientation or gendy identity with school students of certain ages.
After a scary amount of time, Disney finally condemned the bill,
stating that it quote “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law”.
Well, the Florida senate didn’t appreciate that. They set plans in motion to take away freedoms
Disney have, starting with their own district. Lawmakers passed a bill on the 20th April to
dissolve Disney’s district, on the 1st June 2023. This would remove Disney’s special control,
and instead place them under the jurisdiction of their local county. What does this mean? Well, it
potentially means the tax payers of Orange county paying more to foot the bill of the services that
Disney currently provide themselves. Overall, the bill was a seemingly knee-jerk reaction,
with little economic thought or analysis - so it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
And there you go, that’s all the theme park news from the past week or two.
There’s lots of new exciting roller coasters to come, from Europa Park’s new multi-launch coaster
set to debut in 2023, to Tron at the Magic Kingdom, opening in 2032 - at this rate anyway!