Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Thrilling New Attractions Announced for Busch Gardens Williamsburg + Water Country USA


© Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Busch Gardens Williamsburg has announced large new attractions for the 2019 season at both the theme park and also their water park, Water Country USA.

Coming to the Ireland themed village within Busch Gardens Williamsburg is Finnegan's Flyer, a set of S&S Worldwide's popular Screamin' Swings.

© Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Finnegan's Flyer will be located right along the entrance to Ireland, highly visible as guests cross the bridge to enter the area.  Seen above in concept art from the park, the ride's placement will mean that the arms will swing riders out over the ravine below.  It appears as though most of the ride loading area and queue will be supported by a large deck, due to the ground being far beneath it below.

© Busch Gardens Williamsburg
This rendering gives a bit more of a view of the deck and ride location, and even more concept art is available from the park on their website.  The ride has two arms, one orange and one green, that each seat 16 riders - 8 facing forward and 8 facing backward.  However, since the arms swing to great heights in either direction, all riders are treated to thrills going both directions.

The arms are capable of swinging the riders up to 80 feet in the air, higher if you take into account the ravine below, at maximum speeds of 45 miles per hour.

© Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Water Country USA will also feature a large new water slide in 2019, called the Cutback Water Coaster.  According to the park, the slide is "the only RocketBLAST® coaster on the East Coast and Virginia’s first hybrid water coaster."

The new slide will replace the Meltdown toboggan slide, and utilize a similar layout and some of the original slide's hardware - as reported earlier by BGW Fans.

© Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Cutback will use Proslide's latest water propulsion system to keep the 4-person rafts moving through both downhill and uphill sections of the slide - around 856 feet in total.  Mixed among the layout are five of the company's "flying saucer" turns, which are sharp diving turns accentuated by a large saucer shape (though the raft does not go through the entire saucer, half of it is really decoration).  The rafts are able to hit a maximum speed of 35 feet per second on the way down.


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