Mach Tower - Going Up! (and Vanish Point, too!)

After quite a bit of waiting, the first big piece of Busch Garden's Williamsburg's Mach Tower has been lifted into place at the Virginia theme park.

It took one mighty large crane to lift the enormous base piece of the free fall tower into place.  At it's peak, Mach Tower will stand 240 feet tall.

The new ride will be one of the many changes seen in the Oktoberfest section of the park this year.  New games, an entertainment venue, and a Bavarian style pretzel bakery have been built as well.  I bet it'll be quick construction now that the tower is going up!

The park also showed off the achievement in this video:



Things are also wrapping up on Water Country USA's new attraction, Vanish Point:

All of the slide pieces are now in place, and the attraction is looking great!   Two of the slides feature a near vertical drop that'll push them to speeds up to 40 mph - the other two use a dropping floor start to send riders down into a "super loop."

Water Country USA opens for the 2011 season on May 21st.