Verbolten at Busch Gardens Williamsburg - Review

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.

Realism of Theming at the Merlin Theme Parks

Realism is a funny term with various meanings. When realism is discussed in artistic theory, it’s not usually looking at the accuracy with which something was visually drawn or painted. It’s not interested in the accuracy of portrayal of perspective, for example. Realism is concerned with objective reality – in portraying the mundane truth, not romanticized ideas. This is usually achieved by exaggerating negative aspects such as ugliness or dirtiness.

With regard to theme parks, there are so many things to consider when exploring “realism”. Typical theme parks are fake by their very nature, removed from site history. They are purpose-built environments, usually trying to emulate some real place elsewhere; think of somewhere like Walt Disney World, built on otherwise useless swampland. There are exceptions, such as theme parks that have long been leisure venues of some kind like Alton Towers, which was once a pleasure garden and holiday home. The oldest amusement park in the world, Bakken in Denmark, started its life as a pleasure site when a natural spring was discovered in 1583. Along the way, it’s evolved into the amusement park of today, acquiring various entertainment venue qualities along the way.  These spaces can feel more genuine because their history is accumulative and feels less purpose-made. But the art of hiding that, and making you feel like the environment has been that way forever with the use of scenery, is another kind of realism altogether - realism in the skill of fakery. How much like a rock does this pretend rock look? It’s very difficult to make an imaginary place seem real, and in complete juxtaposition of the realism which seeks to portray objective reality, making the imaginary look real involves using a lot of romanticized clichés. In trying to communicate to someone what something looks like, it’s easier to conform to stereotypes, which may be less accurate, and so less real. It’s funny how being more realistic in some ways makes something less realistic in others.