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Europa-Park’s Journey to Rulantica is entering its final week of operations, with the theatre attraction set to make way for a new show ride - the Gameplay Theater
Dark Ride Database | 29 May 2024
Journey to Rulantica is set to close its doors Credit: Europa-Park
With the 50th anniversary of Europa-Park coming up in 2025, it has long since been an open secret that the park is working on a new attraction for that year. It has been revealed by Michael Mack, CEO of Europa-Park, that the park’s revolving theatre attraction Journey to Rulantica will be closing its doors for good at the end of the week.
The final day of operation is set to be Sunday, June 2, after which the old theatre will be making way for a new type of show ride, known as the Gameplay Theater.
The closure doesn’t come as a surprise. The park had expressed interest before in turning Journey to Rulantica, which is still commonly referred to as Historama, into a new type of ride. It was first mentioned in an issue of German trade journal Kirmes & Park Revue and subsequently picked up by Parkerlebnis.de. It just remained to be seen then if this plan would come to fruition.
Earlier this month, Europa-Park founder Roland Mack confirmed in an interview with German newspaper Badischen Zeitung that for the park’s 50 anniversary, a new ride was planned for the Luxembourg area, finally sealing the fate of Journey to Rulantica. Subsequently, the opening year for the Gameplay Theater was announced. Following the Tweet of Michael Mack, the Europa-Park account on Facebook chimed in to confirm that the closure date of the current ride is 2 June. Europa-Park turns 50 on 12 July 2025.
The Gameplay Theater is a further development of the Revolving Theatre concept by Mack Rides, featuring gondolas on an endless loop fitted with interactive guns. The gondolas, in which guests are seated back to back, can rotate around, offering a combination of physical sets on one side and projections on the other.
Journey to Rulantica is located in the Luxembourg area found centrally in the park, in the base of the bright blue cone that houses the FoodLoop restaurant upstairs.
When the ride opened in 1990, it was Mack’s first Revolving Theatre and was known as Das Lila Geheimnis (The Purple Secret). It was an animatronics show, sponsored by Milka, that told the story of how chocolate is made. The show offered six scenes which were on a stationary platform in the middle, with six theatres offering 70 seats each, rotating around it.
The show was turned into eMotional for the 1999 season, doing away with the chocolate theme and focusing on fountains and lasers. Many more incarnations followed until it opened in 2010 as Historama, going over the history of the park for its 35th anniversary. During this retheme, the theatre was redesigned, now offering just three scenes. In 2018, Historama was turned into Journey to Rulantica to coincide with the newly opened Rulantica water park, also owned by the Mack family.
Republished with permission from Dark Ride Database
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