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Worlds of Fun opens April 16 with 5 new rides
Alex Robinson/KANSAN world of Fun.
David Bywater, director of operations, observes the Snoopy's Junction train ride, one of five new rides in Snoopy Planet at World of Fun.
ANISSA FRITZ @anissafritz
The smell of paint, trucks carrying large metal pieces of equipment, torn up gravel and workers planting shrubbery is the current scene at Worlds of Fun theme park
in Kansas City, Mo.
The park staff is preparing for opening day April 16 and will introduce five new rides this summer to their guests.
To make way for the new rides, the park has demolished Thunderhawk, Crazy
Cars and Snoopy Bounce.
The five new rides and demolition of the three old ones took roughly two months and cost the park around $2 million in construction, labor and parts over the last two months, said Wayne Meadows, director of maintenance and construction.
All five new rides,
Snoopy's junction, Linus
Launcher, Snoopy's Space
Buggies, Beagle Brigade
Airfield and Woodstock
Gliders, are catered to
children and their parents.
Each of the rides are up and running for testing. Snoopy's Junction is a trainlike ride that features live cacti along the ride to add to the illusion of a desert.
"This is a good ride for children who are possibly in arm casts or leg casts who still want to partake in riding rides," said David Bywater, director of park operations.
Woodstock Gliders, which Bywater admitted was his personal favorite of the new rides, features blue and yellow Snoopy airplanes that are link swings.
Meadows said smoothing out and replacing the wooden board on just a quarter of the track of the Timber Wolf, one of the park's most popular wooden roller coasters, cost $600,000, while the five new rides being added cost about $400,000 combined.
"Once riders get inside, they have the ability to use the wings and flaps to utilize how fast they want to go. The riders guide the ride, not us." Bywater said.
Bywater said precautions were being taken to ensure the rides are safe to open when the season starts.
"Typically, a full time staff member needs to ride
the ride and sign off that the ride looks and sounds right. But before that, we test the ride with what would feel like a full load of people. We do this by filling up mannequins with water and use them to test the ride first," Bywater said.
Season pass holders can come a day early, April 15, to experience the new additions.
Edited by Shane Jackson
Snoopy's Junction
NEW RIDES
Linus Launcher
Snoopy's Space Buggies
Beagle Brigade Airfield
Woodstock Gliders
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