Let's get ready for the weekend with three news items from around the world of theme parks.
SeaWorld San Antonio publicly has confirmed what many have known for some time now - its new Catapult Falls ride will not open this year. The park yesterday announced that the launched flume coaster will open next spring.
"Sometimes it takes a little delayed gratification to produce something completely innovative; it was important to us to ensure that our first-of-its-kind water flume coaster is perfected in every part of the ride experience and that is what we have done," Park President Jodi Davenport said. "We know our guests are going to agree it was worth the wait once they take their first jaw-dropping plunge on the world’s first launched flume coaster."
In case you've forgotten - cause it's been over a year now - here is the park's CG hype video for Catapult Falls.
Six Flags Magic Mountain has opened a new "QuickSix" retail store. The news here is that the store uses Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology, which eliminates check-out lines. It's Six Flags' second store using the technology, following one at New Jersey's Six Flags Great Adventure. Visitors use their credit card to pass through a gate at the store's entrance. From there, the tech follows you around the store, noting what you pick up and carry out with you. Then the system charges your card for the stuff you got.
"Just Walk Out technology is made possible by artificial intelligence like computer vision, deep learning, and generative AI that accurately determines who took what in almost any retail environment," Six Flags said in its press release.
Finally, UK visual effects company Framestore just posted a video highlighting its work on The Curse at Alton Manor, this year's new dark ride at Alton Towers.
Led by Creative Director Gavin Fox, the Framestore team provided the creative concept and thematic design for the reimagining of Alton Towers' old Duel haunted house ride.
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It is utterly humiliating that SeaWorld San Antonio couldn't get a glorified log flume open for an entire year. After the chain's intentional delays of their 2020 attractions into 2022, they don't have a lot of goodwill left. They're in the same tier as Six Flags in terms of trustworthiness on new attraction openings at this point.
@evan - But they are getting a new Jellyfish tower. LOL
In all seriousness, the Aquaman Splashdown at Six Flags Great America, which was basically an overlay on the old Yankee Clipper (boat version of the log flume) was delayed a year. At least Sea World is building a new ride...
magic mountain also delayed the opening of its Saw X maze. so, things are going pretty well for them.
i'm excited to see new water ride technology as so many parks have removed their old chute the chutes and log flumes seem to be dying off (except SFOT) and rapid rides have suffered some bad PR...just hope this doesn't end up being another shoot the rapids but dang we need something fun and exciting to get us wet and cooled off on those hot (and getting hotter) summer days.
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It's inevitable that tracking tech is going to entice some theme park to ditch the "passport" ticket model and go back to pay-per-ride... with variable pricing on those rides, at that.