www.parkworld-online.com
Industry Insider
MB: What for you is the key criteria that creates an amazing ride for people to enjoy? RH: The truth is it's all about high performance. When we design a water ride, it needs to have pace, it needs to have an entertainment value, be fast, smooth and exceed expectations. Every ride that we've ever done, that's the criteria - It's got to be top performance, it's got to be an incredible experience, and it has to differentiate from other rides as well. It also has to have the highest capacity throughput because that truly is value for the operators - and is also a great thing for the guests themselves; the more rides (what we call 'entertainment units') that you can get in a day, the more fun you have and the better experience you have.
MB: RH: Since back in the 80s, it's the evolution and the growth of the water park industry through the different venues. I'm one of the lucky guys who was there since the beginning, and it was always outdoor water parks in the 80s - that's all there was - but then Disney came along, and you had the super outdoor park. We did ten hotels for Disney because they had their own pools and their own water play areas. And then Europe was first with the indoor water park because Europe wasn't big on the outdoor, so Center Parcs were the model but they were the biosphere, so they weren't the high-capacity indoor water parks. I was there when we were doing the largest water park in America in the
late 80s and through the 90s which was Noah's Ark. When we were on fire innovating, Noah's Ark bought every ride that we put out. They went from 3,000 people a day to 6,000 people a day in an outdoor water park. The indoor water park business plan is totally proven - they're going in
everywhere. We've got them going in the Middle East now beside some of the indoor ski areas. People try to adopt or imitate ProSlide but it's tough because it's nonstop innovation. When you open a park, we're your in-house water park experts for your water rides and attractions. Every ride is a ProSlide ride
“Nobody's busier than we are”
in the Canary Islands. When you love what you do, then - you know - you go for it!
MB: Are there any new ProSlide projects you can tell us about? RH: We have 40 projects currently on the go. Customer retention is a big deal so, for example, we're working on three SeaWorld projects. This year we're working on five Great Wolf Lodge projects. We're working on expansions for Kalahari. The Chinese market slowed down, but we're doing the largest project in China right now with OCT and Happy Valley in Beijing. That's a big dry park, so that's a major one for us. We're working on two more Six Flags projects. We just opened a duelling water coaster at Rapids Water looks amazing. There's another project called Silverwood out in Idaho where we're doing a
really large duelling water coaster as well. The other one that you would know about is The Land of Legends Turtle Coaster - that won a couple of awards last year; it won one in Vienna at IAPPA Europe. It also won a MENALAC Award when I was there in Dubai this year. Those coasters are going totally viral and (although I don't think it's announced yet) in the Middle East there are a number of projects that we're doing that have these types of rides in them. So, I would say to you, nobody's busier than we are. We've always been busy, but we've never been busier.
JUNE 2024
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