Six Flags Hurrican Harbor in Texas has announced a new slide for their 2008 season, named Wild Wedgie.
The $1 million slide looks to be a Water Fun Products Sidewinder slide, like the one added to Elitch Gardens back in 2005.
Kennywood Entertainment just announced that they are selling their chain of parks to Parques Reunidos, a Spanish park operator that has 61 properties around the globe.
The parks being sold include Kennywood, Lake Compounce, Idlewild, and Story Land (NH).
The founding members of the company and their families are suddenly really rich, or well, even more rich than before. And I'm jealous.
Parques Reunidos is promising to uphold the "gold star" level of service and such that can be found at the Kennywood chain of parks.
Parques Reunidos is really quickly becoming (or is) a heavyweight in the industry. They're the ones that acquired Palace Entertainment this past year. They have all the Boomers FECs, the two California Raging Waters water parks, several other water parks in the U.S., 10+ zoos and aquariums, and many European parks like: Parque De Atracciones, Bobbejaanland, Mirabilandia, Parque Warner Madid, the insane BonBonLand (home of the "Dog Fart" coaster), and also recently purchased TusenFryd.
This is obviously a chain to watch in the future.
© Nova Coaster Fan 2007
Let's hear it for another new dark ride! Yay!
I love darkrides, so Kennywood's announcement of Ghostwood Estate as their new for 2008 attraction pleases me. This news was leaked on the internet pretty badly, but now it's official.
The interactive, trackless, eight room, $2 million ride will replace the already torn-down Gold Rusher ride and will feature over 200 targets, and numerous CGI effects.
They laser system is by LaserStar, and the ride itself is from Halloween Productions Inc., an ever growing Halloween industry company that has already created tons of haunted houses across the country.
Read the official press release and see the art (both .pdf only) at Kennywood's site.
The Great Nor'Easter, at Morey's Piers, isn't red anymore, but I like this photo. It's now all white, bright white, supports and track. We know I love white coaster track, but it needs to have darker supports to make it look great.
I digress. The Great Nor'Easter is going to get the new Vekoma trains for 2008, the ones with the less painful restraints. Morey's is also saying that the ride will have a new name as well, but they're not sure what yet - all of this is a $1.2 million investment.
Here's an article that covers the changes.
Gerry Braun, of the San Diego Union-Tribune, wrote an interesting piece about whether or not Journey to Atlantis really should have been approved for Sea World San Diego.
If you remember back it was a huge deal to get the ride approved because of it's height and the park's location on the coastline.
In the end the author seems not too pleased that the ride exists, but his writing style is what intrigued me. Plus living so close to Dorney and watching the years of bickering over new rides with the locals always makes this subject jump out at me.
Add to all this the fact that rumors are swirling that the parks wants another ride in the next few years, well, maybe this article is more timely than it would appear on the surface.
