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Tibidabo | Merlí | Funtime Drop Tower | 2024

oriolat2

oriolat2

Giga Poster
A 50-meter tall drop tower for Tibidabo has been announced today. Expected to be open in 2024 where the former Huss Top Spin used to sit.

Good news for this park, as the last major ride aimed at thrill seekers was built at the end of 2008.

Rumoured manufacturers: FunTime and SFB Visa. As much as I'd love for them to get a SkyFall by FT, due to recent events with the Orlando Freefall and the working relationship with SFB, I don't think FunTime is on the cards anymore.
 
oriolat2 said:
A 50-meter tall drop tower for Tibidabo has been announced today. Expected to be open in 2024 where the former Huss Top Spin used to sit.

Good news for this park, as the last major ride aimed at thrill seekers was built at the end of 2008.

Rumoured manufacturers: FunTime and SFB Visa. As much as I'd love for them to get a SkyFall by FT, due to recent events with the Orlando Freefall and the working relationship with SFB, I don't think FunTime is on the cards anymore.
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Funtime is confirmed actually. Can someone start a new thread for this?
https://www.elperiodico.com/es/barc...nes-tibidabo-tendra-caida-libre-2024-13912853
 
A report (attached below) issued by the park itself states that the tower will be manufactured by Funtime at a cost of about 2 million euros. Minimum height restriction will be 125 cm, which is quite low for such a thrill ride.

Other manufacturers that were considered were Zamperla and Intamin, but were ultimately dismissed because they did not meet certain criteria: one didn't offer a "pure" freefall tower (Zamperla) and the other because its gondolas didn't feature rotating seats (Intamin, which offered them a SkyJump) and the minimum height restriction was too high (140 cm).
 

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That will be a great addition for Tibidabo, you can’t beat those views over Barcelona.

I don’t think it’s fair to tarnish Funtime’s reputation with the Orlando incident seeing as it was discovered the operator had tampered with the sensors, so I’m glad that they have gone with them.
 
oriolat2 said:
Other manufacturers that were considered were Zamperla and Intamin, but were ultimately dismissed because they did not meet certain criteria: one didn't offer a "pure" freefall tower (Zamperla)
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Good. I've ridden Zamperla's current tallest drop tower model (Z-Max) and while the views are nice, all it really offers is motion sickness due to the weirdly smooth bouncing it does like a fast elevator. You don't feel the claimed g-forces at all.
 
oriolat2 said:
A report (attached below) issued by the park itself states that the tower will be manufactured by Funtime at a cost of about 2 million euros. Minimum height restriction will be 125 cm, which is quite low for such a thrill ride.

Other manufacturers that were considered were Zamperla and Intamin, but were ultimately dismissed because they did not meet certain criteria: one didn't offer a "pure" freefall tower (Zamperla) and the other because its gondolas didn't feature rotating seats (Intamin, which offered them a SkyJump) and the minimum height restriction was too high (140 cm).
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See, that honestly perplexes me since both Highlander and the one at Nigloland have their height minimums set at 1.4m. Tibidabo must’ve managed to wrestle a lower requirement out of Funtime in order for them to secure the contract.
 
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cookie said:
See, that honestly perplexes me since both Highlander and the one at Nigloland have their height minimums set at 1.4m. Tibidabo must’ve managed to wrestle a lower requirement out of Funtime in order for them to secure the contract.
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To be fair, both towers at Niglo and Hansa are at least 100 m, which might be why they are aimed at an older target and thus have a 140 cm height restriction. But yeah, a low height restriction was definitely a deal breaker in this case.

I would have loved for this model to feature tilting seats though.
 
Bump!

Two days ago, the park held a press conference to announce some details about the upcoming ride, which is expected to open in Spring 2024.

Height: 52 meters (173 feet)
Capacity: 24 riders
Minimum height requirement: 125 cm (50 inch)
Cost: 2,400,000 €

https://twitter.com/x/status/1762809511134249129

The park have also mentioned that the ride will be themed to a magic wand (odd choice, for sure), and a huge star will be placed on the tower's appex. Some people are already claiming that the star is a nod to Sagrada Família's, with which it holds a strong resemblance.

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It was hinted that the ride will have a special lightning package synched with the ride program, which will stop halfway to the top so people can soak up the views before continuing to the tower's max height, more than 500 meters above Barcelona.

Stats aside, the tower, which is yet to be named, has made the news for a grammar error that has led a Catalan news outlet (324) to assume that the ride will be called Render. The post has gone viral, and people are already asking the park to name it after the poor CM's mistake. Of course, the park's CM has been toying with Spanish thoosies about it!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1763104598326186416

I wouldn't be surprised if we see vertical construction very soon, as it was also mentioned that parts of the ride are already onsite. Busy year for FunTime in Europe, it seems, with this one and El Grito at Djurs Sommerland!
 
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Hope it’s ready by June. El Grito went up quick so hopefully the terrain doesn’t create any challenges for construction here.
 
cookie said:
Hope it’s ready by June. El Grito went up quick so hopefully the terrain doesn’t create any challenges for construction here.
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The terrain where it sits is completely flat and was home to the former top spin, so there will be no problems, I expect. As for the opening, the park stated that they want this to be running in Spring, hinting at a possible late-April/May opening. After all, this won't be as themed as El Grito. Once the tower is up, I don't think it will take that much longer to open the ride.
 
davidm said:
Ahh their old drop tower had the views....

(pic from 2005)
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Think I read somewhere that the park had a couple of its highest attendance years in 2004 and 2005 due to this drop tower, kind of makes you wonder why they didn't try and add another one up until now.
 
TPoseOnTantrum said:
Think I read somewhere that the park had a couple of its highest attendance years in 2004 and 2005 due to this drop tower, kind of makes you wonder why they didn't try and add another one up until now.
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The one they had in 2004 and 2005 was not theirs, but it was a fairground model that they had rented from a Spanish showman to turn the park around. After a smashing success, the park wanted a permanent ride, but acquiring exactly the same model would not make sense from a marketing standpoint, so they went to Fabbri (the make of the drop tower that they had rented), who pitched the infamous Air Diver. At first, it sounded great: it was a highly-marketable, high-thrill, innovative drop ride, so they got one called Pèndol for the 2006 season.

When the park's Air Diver collapsed mid-ride in 2010, the park decided to go without any more thrills, and just invest in kids and family rides (as if those could not be dangerous, oh well), to regain popularity as a safe park amongst families.

After many years of people asking for a proper thrill ride, the park made the decision to invest in a new drop tower to replace their top spin. Alas, we lose the park's ONLY thrill ride and replace it with another one. Hopefully, this will turn the situation around and will convince the park to invest in proper adult rides, especially one with inversions. I am sure this drop tower will be a big draw to the park, which has already been doing exceptionally well financially and in terms of attendance, despite making modest and irrelevant investments in ride hardware.
 
And finally we have vertical construction.

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I was not expecting the gondola to be as colourful as it is, and I am a little sad that there are secondary seatbelts for this one. If it had a tilt feature I would understand, given the unfortunate Orlando accident, but this is as standard as it gets.

Hopefully, the full tower will be up in no time, and I am expecting this thing to be running by late May. However, the park has not given any name yet.
 
oriolat2 said:
And finally we have vertical construction.

22fc1ed6-0237-4649-89dd-749eb6e1bde2_16-9-discover-aspect-ratio_default_0.webp



80b8c38b-90d3-4d96-a52c-0027898a39be_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.webp


I was not expecting the gondola to be as colourful as it is, and I am a little sad that there are secondary seatbelts for this one. If it had a tilt feature I would understand, given the unfortunate Orlando accident, but this is as standard as it gets.

Hopefully, the full tower will be up in no time, and I am expecting this thing to be running by late May. However, the park has not given any name yet.
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Nah, seatbelts can and should be a safety feature on these rides going forward. I became a ride op in Orlando shortly after the incident and the effect it had on guests and ride ops (I even worked with a former Freefall attendant) can't be overstated. At least this way no one can mess with the restraints as much.
 
The park has posted the following short video on their social media:

Odd that they would post this when they already showed the first section of tower already erected with the gondola fully assembled.
 
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