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Angkor Adventure PortAventura splashes out for 2014
Nothing beats riding a water ride in the heat, which is why PortAventura's big new attraction for 2014 is great news. Opening on 11 April, Angkor: Adventure in the Lost Kingdom will kick off the new season in style.
Theming construction work on Angkor, as seen earliet this month
The interactive boat ride from Mack will be located in the China area of the resort close to Europe’s highest rollercoaster, Shambhala. As always at PortAventura, theming will be completed to the highest standard, inspired by the Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat, considered to be the world's largest religious structure. Riders will enjoy the experience on board eight-seater rafts equipped with water cannons and their journey will take them through mysterious villages and jungle landscapes.
The new attraction is set to cover an area of 10,500 square metres, equivalent almost to a complete themed area in itself. The experience will last about 10 minutes, during which riders are sure to get wet. A total of 14 boats will be used, providing an hourly capacity for up to 726 people.
The world’s biggest circus brand is coming to Spain’s top theme park in 2014. As from this summer, Cirque du Soleil will present its production Kooza at PortAventura. The show will be performed daily throughout the summer months to audiences of up to 2,400. *According to the Catalan News Agency, Investindustrial has sold 49.9% of the shares of PortAventura to the US investment fund KRR. Investindustrial hangs on as majority owner with the remaining 51.1%
PARK BLOGGIN’ continued from page 9
Disney never depended on solely advertising to get the word out. We used a lot of publicity and promotion, and we were fantastically lucky to have ABC do an hour’s live transmission every Sunday night from the park. I would say that for the first four years it was all strictly local advertising; we put a lot of effort into selling where Anaheim was and then when the Santa Ana freeway opened up, outdoor became very important, we put a lot of direction signs out and shaped our advertising around that. We didn’t become major advertisers until we opened Walt Disney
World, and at that time I had responsibility for both sites. I knew that when we opened Florida it would be a totally different ball game. In California we had enough population in the state to exist, but in Florida we didn’t have that luxury. We had to draw people down from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, St Louis; everywhere east of the Mississippi.
I formed the Walt Disney Travel Company because I wanted to be able to feed the parks. Even in California we had a relatively small piece of the pie. Initially we put down the Disneyland Hotel, but then all the other hotels starting appearing around the park and were doing well. With a travel company I saw that we could arrange where people stayed, we booked their air travel and booked their rental car; now we had all the pieces of the pie. You can sell something as hard as you like, but people will only come if the product is as good as it’s supposed to be. And it was. If it hadn’t, I would have had to see what happened after two or three years. It probably wasn’t until 25 years later that I really sat down and said to myself, “You aren’t going anywhere, this is it buddy, this is your career” – and it was a great one. I became director or marketing at Disneyland, vice-president of marketing for Walt Disney World, then park president in Anaheim and vice-president and director of marketing for Tokyo and Paris. I retired 20 years ago. I wrote a book in 2010 (In Service to the Mouse with Melinda J Combs) and now I’m doing a new book with Tim O’Brien, but I have no urgency. If it’s finished and it gets published, good. If not, so what?
Jack Lindquist was speaking to Owen Ralph in conjunction with the Legends and their Legacies panel discussion at IAAPA Attractions Expo 2013
10 FEBRUARY 2014
portaventura.com Demon season at
Heide Park! Germany’s first Wing Coaster opens in March at Heide Park. Flug der Dämonen (Flight of he Demon), by Bolliger and Mabillard, has been built at a cost of €15 million and promises to provide passengers with an awesome feeling of flight with no track above or below.
Although, as our picture shows, the 772m-long ride and its 40m lift hill are already in place, there is still work to do and it is not due to be signed off by the TÜV inspectikon authority until early next month. When it does, riders are in for a treat, as anyone who has ridden Raptor or Stealth at the sister Merlin parks Gardaland (Italy) or Thorpe Park (UK) will testify. Launching on 29 March, Flug der Dämonen becomes the ninth rollercoaster at Heide Park, and the second from B&M following the opening of Krake (Dive Coaster) in 2011.
flug-der-daemonen.de Daemonen – riding soon
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