The new multi-launch,
freefall, indoor-outdoor, highly themed roller coaster for Busch Gardens
Williamsburg in Virginia this season has been one hell of a surprise from
construction to riding for the enthusiast community. Originally suspected to be
something akin to Busch Gardens Tampa’s Cheetah Hunt, it was announced that Zierer,
a company best known for their tiny kiddy coasters, was to build a ride similar
to Intamin’s Thirteen at Alton Towers. No one quite knew what to expect.
Approaching from Italy
over the bridge, Verbolten first presents itself in a spectator-friendly drop
from a ruined bridge peering out of the trees to your left. The brightly
coloured roadster themed trains slowly approach the drop and dive down towards the river before
veering off and out of sight into the woods. There’s just the right about of
goofy bright colours mixed with subtlety and believability you want from a
theme park. The picturesque scene is accompanied by the whistling sound effects
of wind coming from the Black Forest
and the faint sound of a festival going on in Oktoberfest. Something I really
love about this park is how the themed areas transition. There’s no awareness of
having left Italy and entering Germany in crossing that bridge, you just
instantly forget where you came from. The whole park is very much a passive
experience, arguably like a good theme park should be – an escape from reality.
The cheesy stereotypes blanket the park with the right amount of obscurity
breaking up the monotony of cliché. Everything is self-explanatory to the right
degree, without the need to force-feed you narratives, and much of the park and
its rides simply lack explicit narratives, because until now they have
typically chosen hardware which entertained purely on a visceral level.
