Sesame Place's New Family Wood Roller Coaster - Oscar's Wacky Taxi - Opening in 2018

© Sesame Place

Sesame Place has announced their new ride for 2018, a family-friendly wooden roller coaster named Oscar's Wacky Taxi.  The custom designed ride will be created by The Gravity Group, which has already created a handful of similar medium-sized wood coasters that have all been a success.

The coaster will utilize steel supports, painted green in concept art, and a yellow wooden track - matching the theme and colors of both Oscar and his taxi.  The train will be bright yellow and themed as a taxi cab, taxing passengers on a journey filled with "exciting twists, turns, and plenty of airtime hills."

The park has released this video showing off what a ride on Oscar's Wacky Taxi will be like:

The coaster starts with a lift hill followed by a 180 degree turn into a first drop of 40 feet.  The 1,200 feet of coaster track features a large amount of air-time hills, along with a large covered tunnel section on the far turnaround.  The stretch back to the station includes what looks like a gentle double-down, along with a curved dip under the ride's lift hill.  Riders need to be only 40 inches tall if they're accompanied by a supervising companion at least 46 inches tall and 14 years of age.

"Oscar's Wacky Taxi will bring a whole new level of excitement to Sesame Place in 2018," said Bob Caruso, park president. "We're constantly looking for ways to enhance our guest experience, and our first wooden roller coaster is an exciting and thrilling addition to the park."

The announcement did not include any official news on the ride's location, however the park did confirm on social media that the coaster will be built where the park's VIP parking currently is, and that no attractions will be removed in order to build it.

© Google Maps

That's where we suggested the ride might go in a previous post, expanding the overall size of the park.  I updated an image from that post to include a general idea of the coaster's layout - I'm sure it is not perfect though.  The station is in green, and the lift will head toward the park (yellow arrows are the direction of travel).  The far turn with a tunnel (in green) will be out toward the street adjacent to the park.  It looks like the station will be set back from the park, so I would expect the queue to wind under the ride with an entrance somewhere toward the bottom of this image.

This is a pretty exciting and large project for Sesame Place, I'm looking forward to seeing the ride constructed this winter!