Hey Thrill Seekers,
Recently Universal Orlando announced they would be opening a brand new water park in 2017 called Volcano Bay.
Having looked at some of the art renderings for ‘Volcano Bay‘ we started thinking about what kind of theme the park would be modeled around and maybe what some of the rides would be called.
OK, obviously its a Volcano which is in a bay, but from the renderings there are a couple of hints as to the direction Universal may be taking.
At the front of the artist rendering are a couple of statues, which look suspiciously like Easter Island Statues. Not that we are hanging everything on a couple of statues you understand – there are a couple of other things that are similar. For example;
The shape of the land the water park is being built on. The land just south of Cabana Bay which is earmarked for the development is pretty much the same shape as Easter Island.
At the center of Easter Island is a Volcano, at the center of the artist renderings of the project is also a Volcano.
When you talk about being immersive there is nothing more immersive than an Island.
In an earlier article we speculated about what types of rides we can expect at Volcano Bay. One of them was a lazy river, which, lets face it, is pretty standard at most water parks. Although there are no rivers on Easter Island there are a few fresh water lakes, one of them is Rano Raraku, which is almost at the summit of the extinct volcano Terevaka. Is it possible the Lazy River would be called something like ‘Rano River’?
The main event surely has to be the Volcano itself. We think that there will be at least 2 ride options from the Volcano – possibly more. One of them is likely to be a free fall speed slide like The Bomb Bay at Wet N’ Wild. Trust me, it makes sense; In the center of Easter Island is a Volcano called ‘Terevaka’ which coincidentally sounds a little terrifying? – We think the volcano is screaming out to have a free fall speed slide, possibly called ‘Terevaka Falls’? The highest, fastest, multi drop slide in Florida? if your gonna do it, do it big!
Since there is likely to be 10+ rides at any water park its pretty difficult to try and second guess the entire park. But ‘if’ the water park is being modeled on Easter Island we could probably expect to see a few of the following areas on Easter Island incorporated into the rides and restaurants;
- Hanga Roa
- Hatu Hi
- Vaihu
- Oroi
- Poike
- Rano Kau
- Mount Pui
- Benepu Harbor
(These are just a selection of possible names – lots more options available)
By the way, this is all just speculation. As usual we will all have to wait and see how Universal develop this amazing looking water park.
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts!
Smiles Included…
Karl
