Will 2024 be the ‘year of the do-over’ for theme park rides? – Whittier Daily News

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As faculties head again into session and 2023’s summer time trip season involves an finish, theme parks are waiting for their 2024 seasons. A number of parks have introduced new points of interest lately, and if there’s a theme to what’s coming in 2024, I believe it’s this …

The 12 months of the Do-Over.

At the least three of the highest new tasks for 2024 contain remaking traditional points of interest. We have now identified for a while now in regards to the largest of those — Disney’s conversion of its former Splash Mountain log flume experience into Tiana’s Bayou Journey.

After years of pretending that the “Tune of the South” characters and “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” didn’t carry extra baggage than a household of 10 checking into the Grand Californian lodge, Disney selected to remodel Splash Mountain with a brand new theme, this time celebrating “The Princess and the Frog.”

Tiana’s Bayou Journey gained’t change the bodily experience from Splash Mountain however will change its storyline, present scenes, characters and music, in what Imagineers have referred to as a love letter to New Orleans and its tradition. The mountain will turn out to be the house of Tiana’s Meals, designated by a brand new water tower that Disney already has put in at Walt Disney World and shortly will come to Disneyland.

A scale model of Tiana's Bayou Adventure, which is replacing Splash Mountain, sits at the Disney Parks and Experiences booth during the D23 Expo in Anaheim, CA, on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
A scale mannequin of Tiana’s Bayou Journey, which is changing Splash Mountain, sits on the Disney Parks and Experiences sales space through the D23 Expo in Anaheim, CA, on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. (Picture by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

In Ohio, Cedar Level will open High Thrill 2 subsequent yr. The park closed its authentic High Thrill Dragster from Intamin in 2021 after an incident that critically injured a park visitor. The brand new High Thrill 2 replaces the outdated coaster’s problematic hydraulic launch with a multi-pass LSM (linear synchronous motor) launch to drive coaster trains to their high pace of 120 mph, sufficient to clear the experience’s 420-foot High Hat.

The multi-pass LSM launch is a signature of Premier Rides’ Sky Rocket fashions, resembling SeaWorld San Diego’s Electrical Eel. However Cedar Level selected as a substitute to go together with Italian producer Zamperla for High Thrill 2. Zamperla is understood extra for smaller rides, such because the Wild Mouse coaster it constructed for Cedar Level this yr, so many followers — together with me — are curious to see how the brand new High Thrill 2 will measure as much as its predecessor.

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