Vertical Construction Has Begun!

Looking at that photo, do you think the area between the Giant Wheel, and Wicked twister will be blocked off still, or will we be able to get to Gatekeeper from that area.

It will open up a lot of walking space if it opens up, or that may be the queue area, and stay blocked. hmmm

Hasn't the area between Giant Wheel and Wicked Twister aways been open? That's the exit side og Giant Wheel. Is there more space there than before? Is that what you mean?

I think PB-Reader meant adding a walkway around the back of Troika.

Ah. That makes better sense to me.

Jordan_Vanichek said:
Does anyone know where exactly the on-ride camera will be on the ride?

Dollywood's Wild Eagle has 4 different photo spots with blinding flashes. For night rides on Wild Eagle, the flashes can get ridiculously annoying. Hopefully CP can find a way to place these without inducing seizers or requiring a guide dog at the exit. ;)

I wonder if they're going to do anything special where Space Spiral used to be.

The area where all the Giant Wheel cabins are stored, in that photo. If that opened up, you could potentially walk from the exit of Wicked Twister straight over to GateKeeper, instead of forcing your way through the bottleneck near Max Air queue line entrance.

I'm not saying they should have kept it. But, that photo seems to show that Space Spiral would not have been in the way.

Then it would have been really interesting to see if they could of made Space Spiral fall between Wicked Twister and GateKeeper, There is room, they could of done it.... :)

I'm not so sure about the concrete wall in this picture. I thought it was going to be similar to Wicked Twister's fence.

I know this is all about GateKeeper and the rumor about a boardwalk has been long disproved, but I still think it would be cool to have one. Looking at the picture facing Giant Wheel and the rest of the park, I can visualize it pretty well. The area around Troika/Giant Wheel/Gatekeepr/Wicked Twister would be a nice new little midway connecting the old midway to the new boardwalk. This would allow for easy access to the boarwalk and also from getting between all the rides in this section of the park. I can see the boardwalk splitting in two directions running parallel to the beach, one way going along Wicked Twister and ending near, let's say, Windseeker. The other branch would run parallel to GK's lift hill. Along this boarwalk, I think several rides and attraction could be added such as a wild mouse coaster (small footprint, bump up the coaster count, replace/upgrade Wildcat, and improve the family ride deficit), maybe a Jet Ski Coaster (small footprint, bump up coaster count, and also help fill the family coaster gap). I can also see maybe a few small flat rides going in, especially a Sky Wheel. Lastly, add new retro themed shops and a diner, and alongside Beach Boys music and other 50s songs, the whole area would be awesome. It would open up the beach even more, and would give this part of the park a much needed "beachy" feel to it. I know this will probably never happen unless one day I somehow become CEO, but it's nice to dream.

I think that if there's ever a chance of that happening, it would be soon. In that video, Rob Decker stated that they really want to open the beach up even more so I see the Extreme Sports Stadium even going in the next 5 years. I actually see some kind of sitting area being built on the other side of GateKeeper so people could sit and eat on the edge of the beach.

Maverick00 said:
I'm not so sure about the concrete wall in this picture. I thought it was going to be similar to Wicked Twister's fence.

Well that's disappointing. Maybe they'll be something more to it? I don't know, I'm getting desperate. But if they wanted to open up the beach view, why add a concrete wall to it? Unless it will be used for a future boardwalk like I've mentioned...

@Maverickoo, I hope it would happen. And I can also see the stadium gone in the next several years. Maybe.

I just thought that they still have to pour the concrete on the ground so maybe that fence isn't as high as it looks and they'll built the fence on top of it.

^IDK. If you look closely, you can see a construction worker standing right next to the wall at the corner where it curves out. The view may be deceiving but to me it looks like the wall is about the height of that person.

I am fairly certain that that isn't the fence that they are going to use. I'm pretty sure they are using a similar type of fence that surrounds Wicked Twister. That's not to say it will be the exact same though.

I forget where, but somewhere it was mentioned that they were adding a retaining type of wall to protect from waves and the lake.

It looks like the worker is standing in a trench next to the wall. It may act as some kind of break wall/retaining wall....with the fence going on top.

You can definitely tell they dug down a good 4-5 feet. So, there will probably be 2-3 feet of of concrete above grade/ground with the fence on top of that.

Jason Hammond said:
I'm not saying they should have kept it. But, that photo seems to show that Space Spiral would not have been in the way.

Assuming that area is open space (pavers or otherwise), they should mark the former location of Space Spiral as a tribute. Something like the Rock Hall markers or even less elaborate.

Perhaps it is to keep people out as well? With DT, they only needed a chain fence since DT was a giant wall itself.