Amusement park Fun Spot in Orlando is bringing virtual reality (VR) to Central Florida, reports Dewayne Bevil of The Orlando Sentinel.
It plans to add a virtual reality system to its Freedom Flyer rollercoaster at it’s Orlando site.
David Hummer, Chief Marketing Officer for Fun Spot said the VR facility would be live on the inverted steel coaster by Christmas. It is currently being installed and tested.
Riders will have the option of queueing for either the ride as per usual or waiting for one of the four seats which will have the VR capacity. VR Riders will experience an immersive storyline including robots, an overgrown city and the coaster’s Freedom Flyer character.
Goggles will be cleaned between rides, Hummer said.
Fun Spot and VR “Synched Beautifully”
Freedom Flyer joins the increasing ranks of rollercoasters “retrofitted” with VR capacity, bringing new life to existing rides. These include Alton Towers’ Galactica and Europa-Park’s Alpenexpress. SeaWorld Orlando is also giving its Kraken rollercoaster a VR system.
The VR software Fun Spot will use comes from VR Coaster, which already has a number of installations at major theme parks. These include Germany’s Europa-Park, Ohio’s Cedar Point and a number of Six Flags theme parks. VR Coaster held a demonstration of its VR system at Fun Spot during last month’s IAAPA Attractions Expo.
Hummer said, “It’s their software that we bought, and they’ve synched it just beautifully to the Freedom Flyer. It rides out just beautifully.”
“We’re not going to increase the price. We know that, traditionally, other parks have done an add-on, ” Hummer said.
Just last week, Fun Spot revealed it was building a $6 million wooden coaster at its Kissimmee location. The unnamed ride, which has a 360 degree barrel roll, will open next summer. John Arie Sr., Fun Spot America’s owner said, “It will be a must-ride coaster for any thrill seeker and coaster enthusiast, definitely bucket list worthy”.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/travel/attractions/theme-park-rangers-blog/os-fun-spot-vr-20161213-story.html
