ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606140059
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES T. YENCKEL THE WASHINGTON POST
Among other new features at America's theme and amusement parks (check ahead for opening dates):
Mid-Atlantic
*Paramount's Kings Dominion, Richmond, Va., has established a reservation system for thrill seekers willing to try its new Xtreme SkyFlyer skydiving ride. To take the ride, you must pay an additional fee ($24.95 for one person, $19.95 each for two) and pick up a boarding pass with a specified ``flight'' time. Maybe other parks will consider reservations for their most popular attractions (although they should forget about extra fees). Kings Dominion also is inaugurating The Outer Limits: Flight of Fear, a 50 mph roller coaster ride in the dark that is ``themed'' on an invasion by alien forces.
*Hersheypark, Hershey, Pa., is indulging in nostalgia with the inauguration this summer of its brand-new but thoroughly old-fashioned wooden roller coaster, the Wildcat. It is the first ride in a planned nontechnological theme area called Midway America, which will feature such classic rides from Hersheypark's 90-year history as a Ferris wheel, an adult ``whip,'' shops, games, a ballroom, kiddie rides and other traditional carnival midway attractions.
*Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, Va., is celebrating the 1996 Olympics with special Olympic-related shows and a new roller coaster-type ride called Wild Izzy, named after the official cartoon-character mascot of the Atlanta Games. Wild Izzy is located in the Oktoberfest area of the park, and according to park officials, it will send riders ``racing through a maze of revolving dips and hairpin turns.'' Izzy himself and a variety of Olympic competitors will make guest appearances this summer.
*Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson, N.J., introduces Skull Mountain, a 65-foot-high rock mountain. Aboard a roller-coaster train, riders climb the mountain from behind a giant waterfall and then plunge into the totally dark interior for a wild journey of unexpected twists and turns.
The Midwest
*Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio, has constructed Mantis, a stand-up roller coaster named for, as a press release puts it, ``the most voracious predator of the insect world.'' This curious name choice suggests that there are so many scary roller coasters around, the amusement park industry is running out of scary creatures to name them after. Mantis is the park's 12th roller coaster, and four of its loops will turn passengers upside down at 60 mph.
Florida
*Universal Studios Florida, Orlando, has created Terminator 2 3-D, scheduled to open this summer. Based on the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, the new attraction combines a 3-D movie with live action and audience participation. Meanwhile Universal is plotting a major expansion that will offer additional movie-linked rides under the theme Islands of Adventure, due to open in 1999, and a 12-acre entertainment complex, the E-Zone, scheduled for 1998. The park also expects to build four resort hotels, a golf lodge and an 18-hole golf course.
*Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is opening a seven-acre Egyptian-themed expansion that features Montu, which the park claims is the world's ``tallest and longest'' inverted steel roller coaster. An inverted coaster is one that hangs from the tracks rather than riding atop them. As a passenger, your legs dangle freely. Montu is named for a hawk-headed, human-bodied Egyptian sun god. In addition, visitors to this pretend Egypt will find a replica of King Tut's tomb and Sand Dig, a huge sand pile for youngsters supposedly filled with Egyptian ``antiquities.''
California
*Six Flags Magic Mountain, Valencia, Calif., is unveiling Superman the Escape, a rocket ride promising to accelerate riders from 0 to 100 mph in just seven seconds straight up a 41-story tower. After 6.5 seconds of weightlessness, the craft will plummet backward down the tower, again at 100 mph. Six Flags calls it ``the tallest, fastest and most technologically advanced ride ever built'' - an example of how America's theme and amusement parks are in frantic competition with one another for high-tech superlatives.
*Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal City, unveils Jurassic Park - The Ride, which it claims is the ``most technically sophisticated attraction ever created.'' Aboard rafts, riders will make an 84-foot plunge down ``the longest, fastest, steepest water descent ever built,'' according to officials. Within a tropical habitat, they will then encounter five-story-tall dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus rex, who will be stalking them. These creatures are computer-programmed to lunge at riders with ``the quickness of a striking venomous rattlesnake.''
*Sea World, San Diego, is opening Shamu Backstage, a two-acre facility enabling visitors to assist in feeding and training the park's killer whales, including Shamu. As part of the project, a 70-foot underwater viewing gallery has been constructed, allowing underwater viewing of the park's whales for the first time.
*Paramount's Great America, Santa Clara, Calif., is tempting thrill seekers with its own version of the free fall, called the Drop Zone Stunt Tower. It is based on a 1994 Paramount Pictures film called ``Drop Zone,'' in which a U.S. marshal pursues a bunch of skydiving criminals. Riders are strapped into a four-seat, open-air vehicle and hoisted to the top of a 22-story tower and then dropped in a free fall at the rate of one foot per second. The landing, promises a promotional brochure, is smooth and quiet.
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Riders splash down on Escape from Pompeii, a Buschby CNBGardens attraction that takes guests on a wet journey through the
ruins of Pompeii. Color.