It’s theme parks news time, which means if you’re watching this straight away, it must be Wednesday!
First up - some big news. Last year a metal part from the train of Top Thrill Dragster
severely injured a woman waiting in line at Cedar Point. Last week, after a thorough investigation,
we’ve heard that the Ohio Department of Agriculture has concluded there was no evidence
to suggest that “Cedar Point had knowledge of or reason to believe that the Top Thrill Dragster
was in an unsafe condition that could cause a hazard to riders, employees, or the public”.
I.e. that the ride was seemingly functioning correctly on the day of the incident.
However, despite this, the park has confirmed that Top Thrill Dragster will remain closed for
the 2022 season. It’s unclear what’s next for the park, with the investigation coming to a close.
Onto the good news: there’s a new awesome indoor roller coaster now open Dubai Hills Mall in the
UAE. The ride, named Storm, is an Intamin launch coaster, featuring a vertical launched ascent.
Storm seems similar to the by-gone polar-coaster concepts, as it follows the inside of a large
cylindrical building which encases the attraction. The coaster features a multitude of intense drops
and inversions, as well as an interesting theme. It even features a pre-show that guests experience
before boarding! One ride costs about £10, 12 euros, $13 - so it’s not exactly cheap. But there
aren’t many roller coasters around the world like it, so I’m sure Storm is worth the money!
More good news, Legoland Germany is getting a brand new roller coaster.
The legoland resort confirmed a few days ago that they’ll be expanding the park with a new
15.5 million euro area, which will include a roller coaster and other supporting
rides. This makes it the park's largest single investment since they opened over 20 years ago.
It gets more exciting though. Legoland Germany stated “We’re excited to build a worldwide first
rollercoaster of its kind in a LEGOLAND Park” - very interesting. They also go on to say
“The coaster will already be accessible for children from primary-school age, a first thrill
they can share together with their older siblings – an experience for the whole family.” Naturally
this limits the size of the ride, so don’t expect Europe’s next RMC. Ultimately, Legoland theme
parks aren’t known for their large collections of roller coasters, many well-known coaster models
have yet to be built at legoland parks across the world. So, it could be anything at this point...
A few episodes ago we heard about a teaser trailer from Drayton Manor, hinting at a new ride they’ll
be bringing to the park in 2022. Well, we now know what that is. Ride parts have been
spotted at Drayton Manor, making it painfully obvious what the new ride will be. You see,
Drayton Manor is getting a zamperla Disk’o coaster - one with a hill in the middle apparently.
Based on the teaser campaign, the ride will feature a viking theme. Construction seems
to be taking place alongside the park's lake, on the opposite side of the lake to Shockwave.
Only a few years ago Drayton Manor was bankrupt - now they’re putting in new rides and attractions.
Even if the UK has 500 disk’o coasters already, it’s genuinely great to see the park improving.
Here’s a shocking piece of news. You know that theme park in Ireland named after the brand of
crisps, or chips if you’re American, yeah Tayto Park, it won’t be called that for much longer.
They’ve recently announced that Tayto’s sponsorship with the park will end this year,
and instead of renewing it, the park plans to create a new identity from January 2023.
Tayto Park believes that in order to expand and meet their ambitious targets, they need a name
that better reflects the rides and attractions on offer. The theme park is set to expand quite
rapidly in the future, with the debut of three new roller coasters, worth more than a combined
30 million euros. I wish them all the best with their non-crisp related future endeavours.
Talking about 30 million of currency. Liseberg have confirmed that Balder will be closed until
the end of summer for a full retrack worth 30 million SEK. A design defect has meant
that moisture has been able to penetrate the wood, causing rot damage in the rails. CEO of Liseberg,
Andreas Anderson said "It's clear that it hurts, but maintenance must be done and after the repair,
Balder will last a long time." So far, about one third of the ride's track has been replaced,
a process which a similar ride, Colosssos at Heide Park underwent a few years ago. If you're
going to miss out on riding Balder this year please put a big F in the comments - so sad.
And finally, not too long ago we heard that SeaWorld Entertainment wanted to buy Cedar Fair.
Well, SeaWorld released a statement on the matter explaining that their offer to acquire Cedar Fair
was… rejected, I mean of course it was. More interestingly, they also said that
“we do not see a path to a transaction”, so for everyone panicking about the situation, you can
now relax - deep breath. Theme parks around the world have been bouncing back from covid recently,
with Disney parks posting their second best financial quarter of all time recently. It’s
likely that SeaWorld tried to acquire Cedar Fair while they were down from covid, but Cedar Fair
knew their true worth - it’s what's on the inside that counts and SeaWorld just couldn’t see that.
So there you go, that's all the exciting news for this week. What we've learnt from this
episode of dispatch is that Intamin can't produce reliable rides and you need to ride every single
Intamin roller coaster in the world before they all crumble and fall apart. Good luck!