Negative-G - Lost Island Theme Park - Construction Tour

Click on any photo to see a larger version of it.

Starting off with the basics Lost Island is going to be themed to a south seas tropical paradise with five themed lands. The lands are the Tamiriki Spirit Realm which will be home to mischievous spirits that keep the parks other realms in balance. The Udara Air Kingdom; which is home to this coaster is the dominion of inventors who dream of flight and harnessing the power of air. The next realm is the home of the Awa Water Nomads. From there you venture to the land of the Yuta Earth Tribe. Finally at the end of the circle around Lost Island you come to the Mura Fire Clan.

Basically you have the four elementals of air, water, earth and fire with the Tamariki keeping Lost Island in balance. The language, cultures and theming are all made up so the park won't be appropriating any one culture but will be somewhere magical where guests can leave reality behind.

The Bertch family got their start in theming with the Lost Island Water Park that they have developed from a corn field into one of the best ranked water parks in the country. In order to be able to put as much as the parks reported $100 million investment several of the rides like this unnamed Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster were purchased used. This coaster came from Ratanga Junction in South Africa where it operated from 1998 to 2018 as Cobra.

Despite being used when it opens next year it will be running like a brand new coaster. The entire ride has been completely refurbished with Vekoma's latest trains with modern restraints (rubber vests and a overhead lap bar instead over the old hard over the shoulder restraints) and should give a good ride when it flies into the skies of the Udara Air Kingdom.

Now you might think I'm crazy if you have been reading my site and know of my distaste of SLC's but I have been wanting to ride this particular model since I first saw photos of it in an article in Rollercoaster! magazine. Unlike the rest of Vekoma's SLC's this one removes the boring and rough dip filled finale and adds a ground hugging helix instead. Mix the helix which fixes my least liked part of the ride with modern trains that build on all of the lessons that Vekoma has learned in the twenty seven years since they first developed this design and this coaster has the strong possibility of being pretty fun. I'm certainly going to give it an open mind when I climb aboard next year.