Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

[Walibi Belgium] Big, spectacular new ride for 2016!

KristofWB

KristofWB

Hyper Poster
Panic in Belgium themeparkloving circles monday, when a Belgian TV-channel announced that Walibi Belgium was not planning to open any brand new rides in the future because of bad results the past couple of seasons.

However today, Jean-Christophe Parent, General Manager from Walibi Belgium said in an official reaction that this news is not true. He came up with some other very interesting news.

The park has started planning a brand new ride that is supposed to open in 2016. Work on this brand new ride is already going on and will still be taking over 18 to 30 months to be finished. As we may believe what Parent says, the designing and building of this new ride will last for another year and a half.

Walibi Belgium has set up three goals concerning this brand new ride. First of all, it has to be in line with the Walibi filosofy, which means the ride will be trendsetting and unique. Walibi Belgium was the first European park to open a launched rollercoaster (Sirocco/Psyké Underground, a mine train (Calamity Mine), the first rollercoaster with two inversions (Tornado), the biggest dark-ride (The Secret of the Unicorn), the highest Drop Tower (Dalton Terror) and the biggest rapid river (Radja River). The new ride for 2016 will also be one of a kind and unique on European or a worldwilde scale. The second goal is that the ride will be BIG and it has to be thrilling and spectacular.

At this point, Walibi Belgium is bending over three different projects which they will have to choose from pretty soon.

Source: l'Avenir and Jean Christophe Parent!
 
Ooo, very exciting, can't wait to hear more. Sad to hear we won't see anything new before 2016 though.

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk
 
Well, I know that the management of Six Flags Belgium and Walibi Belgium always had pretty high standards for new rides. The park has already missed many good rides before. Such as in 2001, the park was ready to get a Giant Inverted Boomerang from Vekoma, but due to internal problems between Six Flags and Vekoma, the installation of this GIB was cancelled and a standard Boomerang was installed, which was actually planned to go to Parque Warner Madrid. The GIB that was ment to be for Walibi Belgium was built in Parque Warner as Stuntfall.

In 2003, when the park opened Challenge of Tutankhamon, the original plan from the parks management was to install an Intamin Hyper Coaster, pretty similar to Superman: Ride of Steel in Six Flags New England. I once found out that when Walibi Wavre was flagged into Six Flags Belgium, they had high hopes for getting a B&M Stand Up Coaster.

Anyway, when Walibi Belgium says they want something big and unique, we can be pretty sure they will succeed in their plans and wishes. The new ride should be on the same scale as Radja River did in 1988, as it was the biggest European rapid river and 1988 became their best seasons ever, having 1.400.000 that season and Dalton Terror in 1997, being the highest Drop Tower in Europe for 5 years in a row.
 
elephant58 said:
^They've just spent a load of cash on a major revamp. Do you really think we'll see a hyper?
Click to expand...

I don't think that will be the problem. The revamp, which is told to be not as succesfull as Compagnie des Alpes hoped for, will be reduced. Besides, the rebranding of the park comes from a total different budget.

I don't know which kind of ride we will get. Will it be a major thrillride? A new waterride? A rollercoaster? All we know is that Walibi Belgium now has three options where they can pick from. After they made their choice, it will take over 18 to 30 months untill completed. To me that sounds like a very long time. So I don't think it will be anything small. And it will be unique and trending. The last unique ride in Walibi Belgium was Vertigo. Yes it was big, yes it was actually pretty spectacular because of the height, but they made a mistake to choose something that was coming from a company that had none experience in rollercoasters.

It has been said by the general manager of the park; this new ride has to be big, spectacular. A brand new signature ride for Walibi Belgium, like Tornado did in 1979 (by the way, say thank you to Walibi Belgium for that one, it was because of Tornado's success that Alton Towers built their first coaster with inversions. When Tornado opened in Walibi Belgium, Alton Towers contacted Walibi Wavre to warn them for the danger rides from that kind would bring...), Sirocco did in 1982, Radja River did in 1988 and Dalton Terror did in 1998!
 
XD it does annoy me when parks start rumours 2 or 3 years plus in advance of new rides, I don't like looking forward to things that much ;) say it opens Apr 1st 2016, that's 799 days. Burden :p

But I digress, it's always good to see really :p 'big spectacular new ride'? My money is on a Pinfari Mini Mega ;)
 
I like that they're being ambitious with this project. I was thinking the long duration for construction might be down to clearing a path for the new ride? Surely most of the big expansion areas have something already on them, whether that be large areas of trees, rides or just buildings.
 
I suppose a big addition people are going to notice that things are happen, like clearing trees, like landscaping. I suppose just confirming it does prevent that speculation.

You've been, John :p I haven't, is it like Thorpe in that everything is really tightly packed meaning things either have to be removed or trees cut down, or is it like Alton Towers where there is space where they could build it.
 
Even though I was starting to think the 2016 new ride was a positive dream of mine, Walibi Belgium announced more about their future ride and rides. Ochtend in Pretparkland, a Belgian podcast, had a very interesting interview with Dominique Fallon. Dominique Who? Dominique Fallon was known as the next big man behind Eddy Meeùs, founder of Walibi Waver. Now, almost 40 years after he started the Walibi-project, Fallon will enjoy his retirement, but not after giving us some small details about the 2016 and future rides!

* It is a fact that Walibi Belgium didn't invest in any new rides the past 10 years. The reason is that the park felt that the actual park needed a major clean-up and total refurbishments of the parks existing rides and parks facilities and accomodations. Walibi Belgium now says that phase is finished and they are ready for a new phase in the parks life: investing in new rides in the near and further future.

* Walibi Wavre was very well known over Belgian and even European borders for being pioneers in themepark world (first European Mine Train, first European launched coaster, biggest rapid river worldwide, first European looping coaster,...). They had many European and even worldwide premieres and that is the same way they will look for any other new rides. Their goal for their future rides is to be or Europe's first or, if they can, a worlds first. Their last worlds first was Vertigo, but we all know how that story ended.

* After 6 years, the park has finally admitted that Vertigo was a fiasco. However, they don't see Vertigo as a flop when we talk about the ride itself, but it was a flop in a technical way. Walibi Belgium said they have learned their lessons and won't be working again with a debutant in the world of rides and rollercoasters. For their future 2016 ride, the park is now working with a wellknown, respected and big manufacturer in the world of attractions.

* In September 2013, a delegation from Walibi Belgium travelled to the UK to do some studies and research for some ideas for future investments. One of the three UK parks they visited during their trip was Alton Towers.

* Other funny fact...when Premier Parcs purchased the Walibi parks and aquired the Six Flags parks, they were very interested in using the Walibi-name for some of their American parks. Walibi Magic Mountain, Walibi over Texas, Walibi Great America,... the first Walibi park outside Europe, Sindibad by Walibi, will open in December 2014 near Casablanca in Morocco.
 
Jordanovichy said:
But I digress, it's always good to see really :p 'big spectacular new ride'? My money is on a Pinfari Mini Mega ;)
Click to expand...
Jordan is this aimed at me lol. Woo new rollercoaster want it to be a hyper or something more interesting. Speaking of them going Alton I'm thinking flying or a psycoaster dive machine but I think they'll be sneaky and nick out title of inversions.
 
Sigh, My first visit to walibi is planned this summer and they annnounced a new coaster :( luckily it's only 3 hours away!

Verstuurd vanaf mijn Z10 met Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top