In Theme Park News This Week, April 25th

Bollywood Closes Permanently In Dubai

Dubai Parks & Resorts abruptly announced that Bollywood was closing permanently. The park had been closed for Ramadan and then they posted on their socials that they would remain closed.

It’s interesting to see that their signature building, the Raj Mahal, will remain open for private events.

What does this mean for the future of the park that is less then 10 years old? Well, it was recently announced that Dubai Parks & Resorts would be building a theme park based around the football team Real Madrid. Supposedly opening late 2023 according to the announcement, this new park would be completely themed to the football team.

It’s doubtful that the park will be destroyed, after-all they just recently installed a brand new wooden roller coaster that never even opened. What will most likely happen is the park will get drastically re-themed into this new Real Madrid theme park. The fact that they never opened the wooden coaster means that when the park re-opens, they can call it a brand new attraction and not just a re-themed one.

Will retheming be easy for this park? If you’ve seen our vlog of the park, you would have seen that a fair amount of their rides are screen based. Changing what is shown on these should be easy so they can be re-purposed. However, changing all the exteriors and interior queues of the buildings will be tougher and sad. The park had some real charm to it in its design.

Fun Spot America Confirms New Project With Rocky Mountain Construction(RMC)

I covered last week what other coaster enthusiasts had recently spotted at the Fun Spot Kissimmee park, RMC tracks in the parking lot. This week the park officially released a press release that says:

 Mine Blower Roller Coaster to receive new RMC 208 ReTrack Solution

Kissimmee, FL. – Mine Blower, the only wooden roller coaster in Florida with a Zero G Barrel Roll is going through some changes in part due to the relationship between Fun Spot America and Rocky Mountain Construction.

The excitement is building in the roller coaster community over the retracking project that is currently underway. "Working with RMC on our ArieForce One roller coaster at Fun Spot Atlanta in Fayetteville, Georgia, has been nothing short of incredible. Now, to work with RMC and their 208 ReTrack Solution on Mine Blower is a game changer for our park," said John Arie Jr., President and CEO, Fun Spot America.

The RMC retrack focus will be on the most dynamically loaded sections of the coaster's track in order to enhance the ride. The goal is to complete the project before the busy summer season and Fun Spot's 25^th Anniversary celebration.

"We are very pleased for the opportunity to work with Fun Spot again and help bring thrills and smiles to their guests' faces," said Darren Torr, President and Owner, Rocky Mountain Construction.

If you havn’t yet, check out the media day at ArieForce One at Fun Spot Atlanta by clicking here

Disneyland’s ‘Murphy’ Dragon Catches Fires

The dragon known as Murphy caught fire during a showing of Fantasmic at Disneyland. As it was during a show, there are countless videos and images of the dragon slowing catching fire as Mickey Mouse is right next to it slowly being lowered down the lift platform. No one was harmed in the fire and Anaheim Fire & Rescue quickly put it out. The show is resuming in B-Mode as there is an alternative version of Fantasmic without this mechanical dragon.

Disney Starts More Another Layoff

This week marked the start of a second massive layoff round from Disney. Mostly affecting their entertainment divisions that reported huge losses, Disney will end up slashing 7,000 jobs by the time their layoffs this year are over. No division of Disney is completely safe. Bob Iger hopes to save $5.5 billion in costs in part with this years series of layoffs.

Theme Park Stock Watch

Check out how this new stock watch looks! This is the stock price/difference from the last 5 days based on data from Monday night.

Darkoaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg To Open May 19th

Last week I reported that that we knew Darkoaster would be opening sometime in the month of May. Busch Gardens Williamsburg recently gave us an exact date that the ride would be open to the public, May 19th. This will be a fully indoor roller coaster and will feature a train similar to their coaster at Sea World San Antonio. It will reach speeds up to 36 mph, has a track length of 2454 feet, and feature two launches. The ride is a family coaster so the minimum height requirement is just 48 inches.

New Line of T-Shirts!

We’ll be introducing a ton of new shirt designs over the next few weeks! Up first is our love of Cinnamon Bread found at Dollywood and of course Churros found at most theme parks around the world! Consider buying a shirt as it helps t he channel.

Multiple Cedar Fair Parks Start/Re-start Chaperone Policies

Following the chaperone policy that World’s of Fun recently put in place, several other Cedar Fair parks also enacted or re-enacted a chaperone policy as well. Kings Dominion, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Valleyfair are also requiring that guests under the age of 15 years old be accompanied by an adult if it’s after 4pm. These parks have also had fights break out at them over the last year so it seems like they want to get ahead of the issue before it starts happening again.

Township Approves New Dorney Park Project

Dorney Park seems like it finally might get a new coaster in 2024. The local governing body, The South Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners recently granted their final approval for the addition. The news is that the approval is conditional so there might be some changes the park needs to make to the ride before they build it. Allegedly the ride will be over 160 feet tall. Most of the details on this new ride are secret but eventually they will be leaked as more blueprints are submitted for approval.

From The Editor

In sad news, that super cool item we were trying to partner with to give away to the first person with 500 referrals hasn’t happened. We’re going to try to find something(s) else to give away and hopefully it can be equally cool!

Last week we played around with sending this email from [email protected] instead of the new one this email service had provided. Well, the email hit a whole lot of spam folders. What we would normally average is a 40% open rate but last weeks we only got a 15% open rate. Needless to say, we changed back the sending domain so you can read our newsletter! Please take the poll below and let us know if you received the newsletter to your inbox or spam folder.

Disney Starts Awareness Campaign For Reedy Creek

Disney recently launched a brand new website that helps explain the benefits of Reedy Creek. This is part of a branding initiative to put more of a positive light on the district. In fact, if you search ‘Disney Reedy Creek’ you can see that Disney is sponsoring the website as an ad to make sure it reaches the top of the search results. Here’s one of the highlights from the website

“In the 1960s, Disney proposed building the Central Florida recreation-oriented development that would soon be known as Walt Disney World Resort. Located in the remote areas of Orange and Osceola counties, the property was so secluded the closest power and water lines were 10-15 miles away. Orange and Osceola counties did not have services or resources to support the global destination resort.”

The website goes on further to explain the importance of the district and how Disney has had such a huge positive impact on the state of Florida. This comes on the heels of DeSantis threatening to unleash state inspectors on the monorail system at Disney World. This would require the monorails to stop running while inspectors inspect the system. If inspectors came on a busy holiday and wanted to inspect the system, it would negatively impact guest experience at the parks and cause significant delays.

Liseberg Sets Opening Date For New Hotel

A brand new hotel is set to open at Liseberg in Sweden. Dubbed the Grand Curiosa Hotel. It will be a heavily themed hotel that is opening as part of the parks 100th anniversary. It has 457 family rooms, a restaurant, a rooftop bistro, carousel, and a two story slide! With the theme park next door, this is the best place to spend the night if you’re visiting the park.

This Weeks Comic