Dark Rides
Dark rides are an essential part of every theme/ amusement park and every year we see this classic attraction reinvented to provide more thrills than ever before. Thanks to new interactive technology, innovative motion based ride systems and the increasing use of the latest licensed intellectual property dark rides are more popular than ever before. In Park World’s annual dark ride review, we highlight some of the best new dark rides entertaining guests across the world.
A RIDE IN THE DARK! SYMBOLICA
Efteling, The Netherlands
Efteling theme park. With a cost of 35 million euros, the Dutch theme park have spared no expense in creating the new attraction which revolves around the interplay of universal themes such as reality, dream and fantasy. Six passengers board a fantasy
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carriage and choose one of three routes, each offering a different adventure with interactive elements through the Palace of Fantasy. There are 34 fantasy carriages in total that ensure a unique ride experience as they are trackless, stopping visitors from seeing where they are headed. The trackless multi mover ride vehicles were provided by ETF ride systems and move forwards, backwards, are fully rotating, overtake others and accelerate in certain scenes.
ETF supplied Symbolica with the unique
Efteling designed ETF trackless multi mover vehicles. The design team at Efteling had to work closely with ETF to create a special non-standard route through the ride. This was quite a challenging process on its own as the ride contains three
ymbolica: Palace of Fantasy is the brand new fantastical dark ride, built in honour of the 65th jubilee of
different routes that all show different unique elements of the ride. Symbolica took just over a year to plan,
and a year and half to construct with the base of the palace made of steel weighing 300,000kg. That is including the eight towers built on the palace roof, the largest of those weighing 16,000kg. The highest point of the Palace of Fantasy reaches almost 30 metres high and was constructed by a range of different contractors. With many dark rides now choosing to
thrill guests with large media content and video mapping, Efteling has proven that with all kinds of other technology, high quality decoration and animatronic figures a fascinating seven minute dark ride can be created. “We are thrilled and very proud that Symbolica is receiving praise from visitors of all ages and nationalities,” says Coen Bertens, Efteling’s chief operations officer. “Symbolica proves the universal concept that fantasy does appeal to everyone. It fits very well in our 65-year tradition of story telling, with this wonderful new dark ride we can compete with the very best in our industry.”
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