I will be taking next week off to celebrate the Fourth of July week. Here’s to a great 250th celebration! Look for my next article the following week.
With summers getting hotter, more humid, and just plain stickier, visitors have been making a beeline to water parks at places like Carowinds. Jammed with water slides and other refreshingly cool attractions, its Carolina Harbor is a happening place. But guests could also seek relief from the heat among the coasters on the midway by hopping aboard the whitewater raft ride, Rip Roarin' Rapids–until its closure in 2019, that is. Carowinds, which is located on the border between North and South Carolina, recently announced that its replacement, Rip Roarin’ Falls, will bring wet fun back to the dry side of the park.
Instead of a rapids ride, the new attraction will be a flume ride. Or, more specifically, a “Super Flume,” as its manufacturer, WhiteWater, calls it. Befitting the model’s superlative, Rip Roarin’ Falls will include a “mega drop” of 100 feet, which Carowinds says will be a world record for a flume drop. The finale element will accelerate the eight-passenger vehicles to a robust 50 mph and make what will surely be a figurative and literal big splash. The ride will also include a 42-foot reverse drop as well as a 32-foot reverse camelback, both of which Six Flags claims will be records for a flume ride.
Despite the eyebrow-raising stats, Rip Roarin’ Falls will have a 35-inch height requirement for kiddos accompanied by parents. That could potentially include taller-than-average two-year-olds, which surprises me a bit–especially considering flume rides typically do not have any restraints.
The attraction will include some modest themeing to place guests in an abandoned, haunted lumber mill. There will even be some animatronic beavers and practical effects along for the ride. Navigating the 2,240-foot course will take a generous 6.5 minutes.
Passengers will dead-end in the mill’s power station shed where a high-speed turntable will send the vehicles backwards into the reverse camelback. I don’t know whether they will feel any pop of airtime during the drop, but it appears that might be the case. After heading in reverse for a bit, a second turntable will turn the vehicles so that they face forward. Climbing Rip Roarin’ Falls’ final lift, the boats will hit another dead end at the 100-foot summit. A third turntable will send the vehicles down the big drop for the finale.
About that record-breaking drop: The claim would seem to hold up well to the About Theme Parks sniff test. Pilgrim’s Plunge, later known as Giraffica, at Holiday World in Indiana included a 131-foot drop. But that ride closed in 2013. There are (or have been) taller water rides. Both Divertical at Mirabilandia in Italy and Speed, located at Energylandia in Poland, drop 164 feet, but they are water coasters.
As for shoot-the-chute rides, which typically feature larger 16- to 20-passenger boats, Perilous Plunge at Knott’s Berry Farm took the height record with a 115-foot drop at a hairy 75-degree angle until its closure in 2012. The 100-foot-tall Tidal Force at Hersheypark will close at the end of this season. Rip Roarin’ Falls will feature vehicles make to look like hollowed-out logs, but with four benches each accommodating two passengers for a total of eight riders, they will be bigger than a traditional log flume boat.
For more watery fun, Carowinds also offers Charlie Brown’s River Raft Blast, an interactive, splash battle-type attraction from Mack Rides. Interestingly, the Camp Snoopy ride, which is slow-moving and doesn’t ascend any hills, has a height requirement of 48 inches. Younger kids who want to cool down will have to wait and brave Rip Roarin’ Falls when it debuts in 2027.
Have you been on any of the larger shoot-the-chute rides such as Perilous Plunge at Knott’s Berry Farm? What do you make of the reverse drop on Rip Roarin’ Falls?