Re: Fun Spot Action Park/America, Orlando | Expansion
I needed another day to get my report together & I wanted to lead off this post with the videos Ian posted earlier today in the White Lighting construction topic, so I moved them here. I recommend watching both to get all the info on the expansion, as I will not be repeating everything in this post.
Here is my interview with Mark Brisson, the Director of Marketing for Fun Spot America.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUAPN0Xtcmo[/youtube]
The first 14 minutes of this video is the guided tour & the rest are clips of construction filmed the previous day - for anyone interested in that sort of thing.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Y9sYxQ92A[/youtube]
For those that couldn't be bothered with watching the first 14 minutes of the construction video - Mark gave us exclusive information that the park also purchased the acreage across the street from the current expansion area (see the areal photos in my previous post), which is going to be leased to one of three bidders for another attraction area. You can skip to 6:40 minutes into the video to hear details about the adjoining attraction area.
All photos were taken over a two day period, with the first day being taken from around the park perimeter & the second day closeups taken during Mark's construction tour.
The park expansion encompasses 10 acres so I'll start off with some (rough) panorama shots to give you an idea of the size.
White Lightning, the GCI woodie will run the length of the entire expansion area.
The full layout of White Lightning.
Along here is where the water park will be built in the next expansion phase.
The area with all the Vekoma track will be the new parking lot, with the main entrance building on the left.
New Main Entrance
I'll start with the Chance-Vekoma suspended family coaster & lots of photos of Freedom Flyer's supports & track.
On to Freedom Flyer's construction.
Footers being finished off one day...
...and completed the next.
The lift hill start (foreground) & helix supports.
One of the station foundations.
Since 2006 Chance & Vekoma have worked together to build three suspended family coasters under license in the U.S. market. This one will be the last under that license agreement, but Chance Rides will continue to provide spare parts & technical service for all the rides built together with Vekoma.
Now on to the GCI woodie.
The future parking lot is also being used for White Lightning's support assembling area.
The station foundation has been poured & the final brake run supports are starting to go up.
The poles behind the turnaround are for the expansion of the green go-kart track, which will be three stories tall when completed.
The turnaround will also be taller than any of the go-kart tracks.
Here you can see how they use temporary wooden support beams (on the left) to erect the steel support structure.
Other than the entrance building & the restrooms (small white building that can bee seen in the first panorama photo), the merchandise/sky coaster prep station is the only other building currently up.
The sky coaster was relocated from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas & at 250 feet is the second tallest in the world.
The world's tallest is at the Fun Spot USA park in nearby Kissimmee, Florida & is 300 feet tall.
So that about does it. Hopefully everything was covered between the videos, photos & the little amount of text I've written, but if you have any questions post them & I'll do my best to answer. Also feel free to give me any advice/pointers for my return trip & the next update.
