Utah's Lagoon has opened a new interactive roller coaster, Primordial.
The 1,985-foot coaster tops out at 85 feet high and a max speed of 40 mph. But this experience isn't just about the thrill-ride specs. The ART Engineering dark ride coaster features interactive elements from Triotech, similar to its older, slightly smaller sibling, Wonder Mountain's Guardian at Canada's Wonderland.
Primordial includes eight media-based scenes and a story with alternate endings. "Set in the mysterious and legendary world of the Dolomite Mountains, visitors embark in this thrilling adventure to free the Dragon Dragnor and the mystical Owl Astradir and restore harmony in the Kingdom of the regal lynx Queen Azdra," Triotech said of the ride in its press release.
"Primordial is pushing the boundaries of the dark coaster concept," Triotech President and CEO Ernest Yale said. "We've included interactivity, pushed the immersion to an astonishing level and most importantly, we've included alternate paths as well as multiple different story twists. These different endings will keep guests guessing, and of course, keep them coming back to the ride to experience all its variants."
The minimum height to ride Primordial is 36 inches, with riders under 48 inches required to ride with a supervising companion. This is the 11th coaster at the Utah amusement park, which is located in Farmington, just north of Salt Lake City. Its most notable coaster has been Cannibal, which opened in 2015. [See Going Beyond Vertical: Let's Take a Ride on Utah's 'Cannibal' for Bobbie Butterfield's review.]
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Robert, any details on how they're going to make it interactive? From the photo, are those blasters mounted on the car?
i had the pleasure of visiting Lagoon but a very very long time ago (carter was in the white house)...our family had a great day there and this park has been on my radar ever since. i watched the youtube video of this ride and along with cannibal, my desire to get back out there has quadrupled. dare i say Lagoon is a destination park?
we'll see how much triotech has improved since the Canada's Wonderland installation of a similar concept because that ride was pretty undercooked. I'm not much of a fan of their work at Knott's Berry Farm either, for that matter.
I think the biggest issue with these Tritech installation is the absurdly low capacity. For a park like Lagoon, it's probably not a big deal, but when we rode Wonder Mountain's Guardian at Canada's Wonderland, the line was incredibly slow moving, which was not helped by the myriad of technical issues. I did find the drop-track element on Wonder Mountain pretty clever (not sure if there's one of those here), but as a whole the coaster aspect of the attraction was underwhelming and the ride would have been just as good with a motion base dark ride vehicle.
Good point Russell. The capacity and downtime of these attractions (it's certainly been true at Knott's) makes them a tough sell.
@Russell Meyer. Not only is the line for Wonder Mountain's Guardian slow moving; the problem was compounded by the fact that there was no Fast Lane entrance. (I almost invariably purchase Fast Lane when visiting an out of area park. Agree about the coaster park. For a dark ride Justice League is superior and it's not even a coaster. Primordial looks more interesting than Wonder Mountain but I'm not convinced that it's worth a trip to Utah. Cannibal certainly was because it's so strikingly unique; Primordial isn't quite as intriguing.
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I do love the concept of a “story coaster” or a “dark coaster” as it’s called here. I feel that the surface is only beginning to be scratched in this area and the results when given a compelling story and ample budget have been stellar. The best ones that come to mind me for are Everest, Hagrid’s and Guardians: Cosmic Rewind. I know that there are many more and I’d love to hear about some of the lesser known ones out there.