Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Roller Coaster

2016’s summer blockbuster Jurassic World was filmed in the parking lot of the abandoned theme park Six Flags New Orleans. In the image below you can see the midway of the fake theme park setup in the parking lot of the former real one (which has since been removed):

A sequel to one of the highest grossing movies of all time is scheduled to be released in summer 2018, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom also has an odd theme park tie-in: they built a real working roller coaster to film a sequence in the movie.

A behind the scenes video posted to Universal Pictures shows the gyro-sphere, the hamster ball “ride” from Jurassic World has been placed onto a car and mounted to a roller coaster track with a green screen stuck on the back. The Jurassic World roller coaster takes one sharp drop before hitting the brakes.

Judging by the newly released trailer, it looks like they used the roller coaster to film the part where the hamster ball flies off the edge of a cliff and into the ocean, surrounded by other falling dinosaurs. It’s cool for them to build something to get real reactions from the actors. It looks like it even has some wicked airtime!

We don’t know who manufactured the track, but our best guess is it was a custom job by the production studio or some other small/unknown of shop outside the amusement industry. On first glance the Jurassic world coaster may look like a B&M job due to the rectangular spine (a shape I don’t think I have ever seen anyone else ever use before), but on closer inspection, the size ratio of the backbone and rails is all off for B&M, as well as the fact the track does not look very smooth and like it was hastily assembled. Would not be surprising. It was probably only needed for a few takes then was probably scrapped. If anyone knows more please fill us in!

And if you’re reading this Universal, please create a real gyrosphere ride for your parks!

Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier

Looking for things to do in Galveston, Texas?

 

Galveston Pleasure Pier is one of the few spots in the world that has this many rides over the water! Known as “Coney Island of the South”, the pier juts 1130 feet into the Gulf of Mexico and is 120 feet-wide. The Galveston amusement pier now boasts one roller coaster and 15 other thrilling rides. The original Pleasure Pier stood from 1943 until 1961 when it was destroyed by a hurricane. A soft opening event was held on May 25^th, 2012. The total cost of the project is estimated at sixty  million dollars but will bring new jobs back to the Galveston area.  Three million guests are expected to visit the pier in its first year of operation. The park is located at Galveston Pier 21. There will also be a retail center called Shops at Pleasure Pier on the north side of Seawall Boulevard and a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant will be built to go along with the rides and games.

 

The main attraction is the brand new, 100 foot tall steel roller coaster dubbed “Iron Shark.” It’s a Gerstlauer Eurofighter style ride compacted into a tiny footprint.  The Pleasure Pier's Iron Shark roller coaster will attack when least expected with its 100‐foot vertical lift and beyond‐vertical drop. Tracking at 52 miles per hour, the vehicles will glide the 1,246‐foot coaster track.  Check out the video embedded below to see the ride in action:

The pier will feature a number of traditional rides, including a 36-foot double-decker carousel and a 100-foot tall Ferris Wheel. Another highlight of the Galveston boardwalk is the Texas Star Flyer, a 230 foot tall swing ride which swing your dangling feet out over the ocean. Please note, this ride is not yet open as it is still under construction. Rides closed are the Galaxy Wheel, Texas Star Flyer and Revolution.

The Pleasure Pier Galveston theme park is wholly owned by Landry's, Inc.

Additional tags:

pleasure pier galveston

galveston fishing piers

galveston things to do

pleasure pier galveston tx

paradise pier Galveston

paradise pier galveston tx

Vintage Park Pictures: Geauga Lake 1993

It's time for another addition of our vintage park pictures. I've got two pictures to share that were taken at Geauga Lake in 1993. You can mostly only see a few of the kiddie rides but if you look closely in the background of one of the old pictures you can see a wooden roller coaster which possibly looks like the Big Dipper to me. More vintage park pictures are coming soon so be sure to subscribe to our site via RSS feed or Google friend connect.

Hard Rock Woes

Ever heard of Hard Rock Park? Probably not, which is why they filed for chapter 11. Hard Rock Park announced on its Web site that it is closed for the season "to allow management to focus on restructuring efforts." The announcement says the park will reopen in 2009. The closure will help the park reduce debt and ensure it can stay around. HRP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which will allow the park to stay open and try to cut back on its debt.

To give you a little background, Hard Rock Park is branded just like the restaurant/hotel chain in terms of theme, except here it is executed on a 140 acre, $400 million dollar amusement park. The star attraction is the B&M sitdown looping coaster "Led Zeppelin: The Ride," a steel machine that is set to the music of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". The park features six "rock environs" celebrating rock's culture, lifestyle, legends and irreverence. There's a dark ride called "The Trip" and the theme is, you guessed it, doing drugs and getting high. At an amusement park. Intended for families. Another notable ride is Maximum RPM, the first roller coaster to utilize a Ferris wheel type lift system and karaoke queue line.

Located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the park opened its doors for the first time this past spring with high attendance expectations: 3 million projected the first year. That didn't happen. Not even close. Poor planing did this park in. The rides had surprising low capacity (not that that's mattered thus far). The lack of a proper water ride was a big mistake. They had a water play structure with a dumping bucket that you find at most water parks, which was a stupid choice to put into a dry rides park. And the ticket pricing was probably too high for what the park had to offer.

That is one of the major problems of this park. The pricing versus the perception. Visitors go expecting a bunch of kick-ass rides and leave disappointed and feeling ripped off. There are a few good rides but not a lot of them, and the park is definitely lacking attractions the entire family can enjoy together. HRP is an amusement park but it's focused on the whole "experience" and it's not just about "the rides." The question is how do you market that?

HRP must have had some amount of operating capital or they would've closed in June. I'm guessing the original game plan was that they hoped to make enough money to operate year-round, even if it was at a net-loss for the first few years. It would seem to me that marketing would be even more important than any one attraction, so I wonder why the plan didn't include one less big attraction and a boat load of cash to sell the park to the world. What probably really happened is that they spent way too much operating the park and made way too little, a bad combination of poor marketing and a perfect storm of economic suckage.

Many people compare Hard Rock's situation to that of the now defunct Wild West World in that a brand new amusement park that opened has financial difficulties right from the start and closes soon after. The major difference is Wild West World was some guy who decided to build an amusement park without a proper business plan. He mortgaged his house and hoped people would come to his park. At least Hard Rock Park has investors.

Hard Rock Park is not going anywhere anytime soon. They just need to make some changes in order to be a viable entertainment option in their market, but it could work if the right balance of price vs. product is reached (see Profit-maximizing blog for more). This park has a lot of potential, it's in a great location where families are already going for vacation, and I think there is too much invested for it to go away. I hope they'll get their act together next year.