The UK Needs Some New Dark Rides!

Last week’s announcement that the construction of Disneyland Paris’ new Ratatouille themed Dark Ride is due to start soon got me thinking. The UK needs some new Dark Rides. This year it has been 12 years since the opening of two of the UK’s most popular and celebrated Dark Rides: ‘Hex – the Legend of the Towers’ at Alton Towers, and ‘Valhalla’ at Pleasure Beach Blackpool. Since then there has been little investment into major Dark Rides in the UK, with one of the latest stand out additions being Legoland Windsor’s ‘Atlantis Submarine Voyage’. But when you compare our Dark Ride offerings to those found at other Theme Parks across the Globe, our roster of rides seems to be a bit thin on the ground.

Some of today’s most popular international Dark Rides include Disney’s classic timeless ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘Haunted Mansion’ rides, Universal’s technologically ground breaking ‘The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey’. Universal is currently upgrading it’s already trailblazing Spiderman ride to HD this year and with more top class Dark Rides due to open over the next couple of years, such as Disney’s trackless ‘Ratatouille Kitchen Calamity’ and Universal’s second high tech Transformers ride, this is one sector of the Theme Park industry where the UK is starting to seriously fall behind.

But with the March opening of Alton Towers’ new ‘Nemesis Sub-Terra’ attraction, could we finally be seeing a very welcome return to heavily themed indoor rides? Whether ‘Nemesis Sub-Terra’ will live up to fans expectations is yet to be seen. And although (if rumours are true) the ride will not be a traditional style Dark Ride I see it as a great step in the right direction towards the opening of some more major Dark Rides at UK parks and attractions.