Ferrari World Abu Dhabi has introduced two new rides for 2016, including a new trackless interactive family ride.
Benno's Great Race takes visitors on a romp through a cartoon version of the Italian countryside. With wrenches in hand, riders engage in several interactive tasks along the way, helping build a race car and later clearing obstacles along its path.
The ride is a clever mix of practical and screen effects, with the screens hosting the interactive elements. Using that wrench as a controller, corresponding icons on the screens become wrenches, scissors, or hammers under your control. The interactive media were developed by Alterface and Pure Imagination Studios, who worked on Six Flags' Theme Park Insider Award-winning Justice League Battle for Metropolis last year.
Here's a ride-through:
Earlier, Ferrari World opened its third roller coaster, Flying Aces. An Intamin creation, Flying Aces replicates the feeling of an old-timey biplane flight, featuring what the park calls "the world’s tallest loop, the steepest and fastest cable lift incline, and 10 zero-gravity airtime moments."
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Benno's ride is nicely done, but it's hard to care about the story and characters when it's not attached to any IP we already know and love. This is where Disney has such an advantage with their dark rides being attached to cherished childhood memories. Disney also seems able to create new IP, such as Mystic Manor, which feels like a classic Disney story we know but it isn't. In the end, the story and characters in this new ride just aren't persuasive enough to draw me in for repeat rides.