Wild ride

ORLANDO, Fla. – Fans of roller coasters that launch like rockets, gravity-smashing spin rides and water park splashes are in for a treat this year. After a few years of belt-tightening, theme and amusement park owners have spent big bucks improving their attractions following their best year since the 2001 terrorist attacks slowed the $10.8 billion industry’s momentum.

“The purse strings have been loosened a bit, and that is an indication that the parks are anticipating folks to come and maybe spend their money more freely despite the price of gas,” said Arthur Levine, theme park guide for the Web site About.Com.

Parks nationwide have spent an estimated $750 million on new rides and upgrades for this year, a vast increase over the $500 million spent last year, said Dennis Spiegel, president of International Theme Park Services Inc., a consulting group based in Cincinnati.

Six Flags Inc., the world’s largest regional theme park company with 30 parks in North America, has spent $135 million on new attractions – nearly twice what it spent last year – in an effort to reverse an attendance slide.

New rides are especially important for attracting visitors in a mature amusement park market like the United States. Growth peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s, then dipped after the terrorist attacks, Spiegel said.

For starters, several regional parks are introducing rides that approach the technological and storytelling sophistication found at major destination parks in Orlando such as Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando.

Notable examples include The Italian Job Stunt Track ride opening at Paramount’s Kings Island near Cincinnati and Paramount’s Canada Wonderland; Curse of DarKastle at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Va.; and PowderKeg at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo., Levine said.

The Italian Job, a fast-track coaster themed to the movie starring Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron, puts riders in vehicles tricked out as Mini Coopers and simulates a chase involving helicopters, explosions and a ride down stairs.

Curse of DarKastle is a dark ride that re-creates a scary Bavarian castle by using 3-D computer-generated imagery, and fog and cold-air special effects that fans of The Amazing Adventure of Spider-Man at Islands of Adventure in Orlando will find familiar.

PowderKeg is a coaster themed to a black powder mill in the Ozarks.

“These are regional and seasonal theme parks, but the technology has kind of trickled down,” Levine said. “I applaud them for stepping up to the plate and investing some big dollars and putting some high-end rides that are really attracting a lot of attention.”

The most anticipated ride of the season had trouble lifting off.

Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J., is claiming the title of the tallest and fastest roller coaster at 456 feet in height, and launching passengers horizontally from zero to 128 mph in 31/2 seconds. But its scheduled April opening was delayed until May 19 because of the need for additional testing.

“It’s just so sophisticated. You’re launching 20 tons at 100 plus miles an hour, climbing 450 feet, and you have to be able to stop it within inches,” Spiegel said. “It just creates a lot of initial operation problems to work out.”

Spiegel wondered if the estimated $20 million-plus cost of the ride was worth the trouble.

“This isn’t one where you just flip the switch and it goes on and it take off,” he said. “It takes a lot of support to make sure that coaster is running, and as of yet they still haven’t got that down.”

Other thrill rides of note this season include SheiKra at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, a “dive coaster” that drops 200 feet at a 90-degree angle; and MaXair at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, a spin ride with suspended seats that tries to re-create the feeling of weightlessness while reaching a maximum speed of 70 mph.

Knights’ Tournament at Legoland California is a trackless ride that uses 15-foot robotic arms to rotate and swivel riders in all kinds of directions. Passengers can choose the intensity of each ride.

Water parks are making a big splash, with about a dozen indoor water parks and a half-dozen outdoor parks opening this year, Levine said.

Paramount Parks and Great Wolf Resort recently announced they will partner to develop an indoor water park resort at Paramount’s Kings Island.

Later this year, Six Flags plans to open an indoor water park resort next to its Great Escape park in Lake George, N.Y., catering to demand for an attraction that is otherwise available only between Memorial Day and Labor Day in cold-weather states.

“Folks in February can load up the car with their bathing suits and ice scrapers and head to the water park,” Levine said.

Six Flags Over Georgia has added the one-acre Skull Island section, which features water slides, water dumping towers and water blasters; the indoor Kalahari Waterpark Resort in Sandusky, Ohio, has added the Zip Coaster, a water roller coaster; Walt Disney World’s Typhoon Lagoon opened a 420-foot-long water slide, Crush’n’Gusher; and Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari has added Bahari, a wave pool that is part of the owners’ plans to double its water park section.

Water rides are popular additions for the industry because they are smaller and cheaper than traditional thrill rides, said theme park consultant Jerry Aldrich of Amusement Industry Consulting Inc. But they still can lure visitors looking for something new.

At the major destination parks in Florida and California, Universal Studios has milked the synergy factor from the merger of NBC and Universal Studios to create “Fear Factor Live,” a show that re-creates the NBC reality program where contestants eat worms or bungee jump.

The stunts at the theme parks in Orlando and Universal City won’t be as extreme or disgusting.

SeaWorld Adventure Park in Orlando is unveiling a show, “Blue Horizons,” with whales, dolphins, elaborately costumed trainers, aerialists and bungee-jumping divers.

“Those kinds of things make a nice addition, and you’re not spending $15 million or $20 million,” Aldrich said. “It certainly isn’t that expensive to do a show, and if you can bring people through the gates, you’ve accomplished your goal.”

Levine said that the biggest event in the amusement park world this year isn’t anything new. It’s the 50th anniversary of the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., which is being celebrated at Disney parks in California, Florida, France and Japan. A new Disney park opens in Hong Kong in September.

The biggest of the Disney resort parks, Walt Disney World, opened a slew of attractions copied from other parks. They include Soarin’, the hang-gliding simulator that originated at Disney’s California Adventure; and Lights, Motors, Action!, a motorsport stunt show from Disneyland Paris.

Disneyland plans to relaunch Space Mountain, which has been closed for a makeover, and open a Buzz Lightyear ride similar to one at Walt Disney World.

“What’s amazing to me is 50 years later, Disneyland, the original and the parks around the world that are clones of the original, are as vital today as they were 50 years ago,” Levine said.