Animal Attractions
parkworld-online.com
GO ON SAFARI! An efficient way of getting putting large numbers
of guests through an animal habitat, or even an entire safari park, is by transporting them on board off-road vehicles on a guided tour. Providing the blueprint to many such experiences is the 18-minute long Kilimanjaro Safari at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida. Similar concepts can be found at Samsung Everland outside Seoul in South Korea, San Diego Wildlife Park in California and Port Lympne in Kent, England. Not only do such experiences provide great potential throughput, they also offer the opportunity for some wonderful animal encounters. “Our guests go wherever the animals go – even if that is in the middle of a pond,” explains Bill Rives, safari director and chief
Six Flags Great Adventure’s Safari Off Road Adventure
veterinarian at Six Flags Great Adventure. The New Jersey venue closed its former separately-gated Wild Safari park in 2012 and
relaunched it as an inclusive attraction as part of the main amusement park experience last season. Now, instead of driving through the 350-acre preserve in their own cars (and facing the risk of their vehicles being torn apart by the animal inhabitants), guests get to see up to 1,200 animals from six continents on board special off-road trucks. “Wild Safari remained virtually unchanged for 38 years,” notes Six Flags Great Adventure president John Fitzgerald. “The new Safari Off Road Adventure combines the beauty and majesty of the world’s most exotic animals with a thrilling, off-road truck expedition.”
The journey begins in a rustic-themed loading station in the park’s Frontier Adventures area, where explorers are introduced by video to conservationist Damon, veterinarian Tess and children Haley and Luke. Skilled drivers and knowledgeable guides then transport passengers on an exciting excursion, where they come across elephants, rhinos, tigers, giraffes, lions and more as they splash through ponds, climb hills and venture over rugged terrain. Rives is clear about the benefits Safari Off Road Adventure offers to Six Flags over the previous Wild Safari: “The main advantage is we now control the entire experience,” he tells Park World. “By moving from a self-guided to a personally-guided tour, it has more than tripled the amount of daily animal observations we are able to conduct, as well as allowing our wardens to concentrate solely on the husbandry of animals under their responsibility.” There are significant additional benefits for the guests too: “Safari Off Road Adventure features an entertaining, energetic and informative tour guide who is with you during your journey,” Rives continues. “The guests learn about animals and conservation almost by accident! This is by far a superior experience to the former continuously-looping, outdated AM radio commentary we used to provide. You also no longer have to wait for the traffic jam of cars to move by the animal that might be near or in the road.”
The team at Six Flags Great Adventure examined
numerous conveyance systems, from double-decker buses to trams, before its settled on the rugged Army vehicles used in the attraction. Modifications were then made such as extending the truck bed, adding lift gates and audio-visual equipment, painting, theming etc. Although Safari Off Road Adventure can now be enjoyed as part of regular Six Flags Great Adventure admission, the park has added a couple of additional facilities that are available fort a small additional fee, including a raised viewing platform where visitors can hand-feed giraffes, plus a zipline that soars above the animals.
Chessington World of Adventures, the
Merlin-operated park/resort near London that began life as a zoo, launched its take on the guided safari tour in 2013 with the opening of Zufari: Ride Into Africa. Set in a previously undiscovered African land, the adventure begins at base camp with an interactive pre-show in which guests are recruited to the A.C.R.E conservation team and given their instructions by Ghozi the lemur, who they can talk to a screen using technology form Animalive. Then they are invited to hop on board specially converted Leyland trucks for a thrilling expedition.
Splashing and careering through 15 football pitches of African-themed terrain, passengers come face to face with giraffe, white rhino, flamingos and many more species. The animals were recruited from zoos in Holland, France, Portugal and the UK and join Chessington’s existing African inhabitants including zebras, ostriches, Oryx and Sitatungas.
Six Flags’ Safari Off Road Adventure offers up-close animals encounters
“Chessington was one of the first fully themed theme parks in the UK and has a lot of history,” observes resort brand manager Natalie Dilloway. “We have over 1,000 animals across the zoo and Sea Life aquarium as well some amazing rides on offer. We chose to create Zufari as it’s not only a thrilling off- road safari truck adventure but it also unites Chessington’s theme park and the zoo together in one fantastic experience.” Poor weather last winter created challenges for the team from Chessington and Merlin Magic Making (Merlin Studios) as they attempted to recreate an authentic African environment in the heart of Surrey. Yet, as our pictures show, they did a great job. The vehicles used on the attraction are repurposed 7.5 tonne ex-army trucks with tyres that alone are 1.1m tall, but these were key to achieve the off-road drive effect. Following the success of Zufari, Dilloway teases: “There are lots of exciting plans for Chessington World of Adventures Resort in 2014, there might even be something coming soon that involves live creatures and a theme park ride!” In the meantime, readers can immerse themselves in the Zufari experience from the convenience of their phone or tablet by downloading the attraction’s own app from
chessington.com/zufari/app/
LEFT: Chessington World of Adventure’s ZUFARI BELOW: The Lost Valley at Samsung Everland in Korea uses amphibous vehicles at Porcellio Manufacturing
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