We're back!
Hopefully you've been missing dispatch and are craving some juicy theme park news.
Well, have we got that for you!
Cedar Fair have announced plans to invest 100 million US dollars in their theme parks
this year.
President and CEO Richard A Zimmerman said the company expects “strong pent-up customer
demand” for outdoor entertainment throughout 2021, particularly towards the end of the
year.
They confirmed the 100 million dollar investment in their results for the first quarter of
2021.
Around a third of the money will go towards the completion of some of their unfinished
2020 projects and renovations, another third will go towards essential infrastructure requirements,
and the final third will go towards new projects for the 2022 season.
Are they sure all of it isn't just going to Cedar Point for their new coaster, that's
what they usually do right?
Dreamworld in Australia has unveiled plans for a huge 75 million Australian dollar project
to become a resort.
‘Dreamworld Resort’ will include a 4-star 250 room hotel, 40 bungalows and a 5-star
tourist park built on the land adjacent to the park, not to mention shops, restaurants
and swimming pools.
The resort will be designed to cater to all guests and will offer convenient accommodation
for visitors to the theme and water park.
Dreamworld CEO, Greg Young, said “This announcement is another positive step in the recovery of
our parks post-COVID and will have a significant economic impact not only for Dreamworld, but
also for the northern Gold Coast.”
Disney have announced that they will be building their first ever theme park quality attraction
at sea, the AquaMOUSE.
The 660ft slide will be constructed around the Disney Wish’s upper deck and will be
complete with a storyline, lighting and show scenes themed to “The Wonderful World of
Mickey Mouse”, the animated shorts cartoon.
Mickey and Minnie will take you on an excursion with their new excursion company, Port Misadventures,
in a similar style to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
I'm not sure how a well themed water slide will work, but I'm definitely curious to see
the end result.
Chessington World of Adventures have announced plans to build a brand new roller coaster.
Current concept art released earlier this week show a shuttle coaster layout, which
wraps around the new area.
The proposed ride also interacts with a large animal theming feature.
Chessington also revealed that the ride will have a 1.4m height restriction!
Huh!?
What's more interesting is the fact that other concept images show a proposed station building
with loading gates on both sides.
Will Chessington be home a boomerang-esque wing coaster?
Sounds crazy right!?
All of these plans are located on the ‘picnic field’ site in the southern part of the
park were originally proposed back in 2016.
The plans also show two other children's rides in the area, currently being dubbed 'Amazon
land' - that's not the name, but is representative of the vibe they're going for.
This would also be the first new roller coaster for Chessington since Dragon’s Fury opened
17 years ago in 2004.
RMC has announced a new ‘family coaster’ model.
Their famous Ibox track is now available as a hybrid family coaster model, with a more
modest layout than their usual thrill rides.
This means guests can enjoy a smooth ride with a thrill level more suitable for those
not ready to ride an extreme RMC hybrid coaster.
Up until now, RMC has not offered anything but thrill rides, so it will be interesting
to see how popular the family model will be.
It's obvious they plan to compete with other wooden family coasters currently on the market,
like those built by the Gravity Group.
Personally, I think the more important RMC related news this week is that they’ve added
our RMC Explained video to their about us page - how cool is that!
More theme parks across Europe are set to reopen in the coming weeks and months.
As Covid-19 restrictions are eased and countries are moving along their roadmaps out of lockdown,
more parks across Europe have been given dates for reopening.
The Efteling in The Netherlands reopened today after being closed for the fourth time since
December.
Disneyland Paris will be reopening on June 17th after being closed since October.
But perhaps more excitingly, Liseberg in Sweden is set to reopen on June 3rd after being closed
since December 2019 and not opening at all for the 2020 season.
CEO Andreas Anderson said "We are so incredibly happy to welcome our guests to the park again."
We are so happy to see that conditions can allow for parks to open again, and if you’re
visiting a park in the near future we hope you have a fantastic time!
The theme park season is coming back, wew!
Anyway, that's it from this catch-up episode of dispatch.
We'll be back with a more normal round-up of the week's news 7 days from now.
While we wait, I'm going to call Mr Merlin Entertainments to ask him why Chessington
of all their theme parks, is building the UK's thrill best coaster.