Escape from Pompeii is a
shoot-the-chutes
Shoot the Chute is an amusement ride consisting of a flat-bottomed boat that slides down a ramp or inside a flume into a lagoon. Unlike a log flume or super flume, which generally seats up to eight passengers, a modern-day Shoot the Chute ride ge ...
water attraction designed by
Intamin located at
Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Busch Gardens Williamsburg (formerly known as Busch Gardens Europe and Busch Gardens: The Old Country) is a amusement park located in Williamsburg, Virginia, James City County near Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Located approximately ...
in
Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 15,425. Located on the Virginia Peninsula, Williamsburg is in the northern part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is ...
.
The attraction is based on the ancient city of
Pompeii when it was destroyed by the
eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Guests board flat-bottom boats that advance through the attraction along a
canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...
of water as if the volcano is alive once again.
Special effects
Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wo ...
include swinging flickering lights, cracking wooden boards, burning walls and ceilings, and tumbling statues. At the end of the ride, guests go through a misty dark room right before they go down the five story drop into the splash pool below.
The ride's fire elements were installed by the same company that made the fire elements for the 1991 movie ''
Backdraft
A backdraft ( North American English) or backdraught (British English) is the abrupt burning of superheated gasses in a fire, caused when oxygen rapidly enters a hot, oxygen-depleted environment; for example, when a window or door to an enclosed ...
''.
History
Development of a new attraction began in January 1993. A concept art was drawn on storyboards as if it was an action sequence in a motion picture. The aim was to put riders in the middle of a narrative, what Larry Giles called it a surrounding experience.
On August 23, 1994, it was announced that Escape from Pompeii would be coming to Busch Gardens Williamsburg as part of the park's 20th anniversary.
Intamin was hired to construct a
Shoot the Chute
Shoot the Chute is an amusement ride consisting of a flat-bottomed boat that slides down a ramp or inside a flume into a lagoon. Unlike a log flume or super flume, which generally seats up to eight passengers, a modern-day Shoot the Chute ride ge ...
water ride that would feature a dark ride portion and special effects. The temple would be infested with fire effects. Over 27 million British thermal units of natural gas would be consumed every hour. The blasts were timed by computers and big fans circulated air within the temple every 30 seconds to lower the temperature. Construction of Escape from Pompeii began in May 1994 with construction crews clearing a plot of land in the Italian section. The attraction would cover of land and the building would be over .
Testing of the ride began in late February 1995.
Escape from Pompeii would be scheduled to open on April 29, 1995. A grand opening party was set to be held on April 28, but this event would be delayed due to the
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorism in the United States, domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by two anti-federal go ...
. However, the attraction officially opened to the general public on time as originally planned. Guests would wait upwards of two hours to ride Escape from Pompeii, but during the first summer - the ride was often closed for 'unknown reasons' to the public. However, these reasons were in fact known and none were actually mechanical ride problems. The ride's downtime stemmed from its building fire alarm system which during the hottest days (when combined with the heat from the fire effects) caused the sprinklers (which worked on a melting point) to turn on in the back hallways and the ride's safety system would spit the boats out of the building then shut down the pumps for the ride. The added downtime was implemented to clean up the water in the back hallways, get the alarm company on-site to reset the sprinkler heads, and to get the ride pumps fired back up.
The main ride building contains a haunted house that is used for Busch Gardens Williamsburg's
Howl-O-Scream event. In 2011, Escape from Pompeii was temporarily transformed into Polar Pathway for the park's Christmas Town event, decorated with Christmas lights and props.
On the evening of July 21, 2018, there was a small fire which temporarily shut down the operation of the ride. The fire started on the roof of the attraction's show building and was quickly contained and extinguished. No injuries were reported and the ride reopened a few days later.
Ride experience
Queue
Guests enter the queuing area near the back of the structure of the ride, where they pass a ruined structure with "Pompeii" written on it, with graffiti-like "Escape From" written above the sign. Guests then walk under the final chute to the ride, where they wind past evidence of the Pompeii disaster and past billboards of an archaeological exploration of the ruins. They continue to a covered structure where boats pass the queue, and statues and columns stand crumbling in water next to the queue.
Layout
Guests are placed in rows to board the boats. After boarding flat bottom boats as if they are touring the ruins of Pompeii, guests are taken up a incline. The boat makes a small drop into the main ride building, where they pass by an abandoned archaeological site and crumbling structures as tense music begins to play. The boat passes under crumbling walls where wooden beams break apart and fall into the water to the side of the boat. The boat floats past the ruins into a room full of crumbling statues and structures standing among the water. Here, real fire begins to spread throughout the room - overhead, on top of the statues, and over the water as dramatic music begins to play. The boat continues through the fiery room, past burning columns and statues. As the boat exits the room, they pass a large statue of
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...
, which also catches fire. The boat then passes under a crumbling wooden structure as ripples of fire burn on the ceiling. A dark room leads the boat past more crumbling structures and directly under a statue, which falls right over top of the boat, but the fall is stopped by a slightly concealed pillar to the right. The boat continues, where the music picks up dramatically, into the dark room, with fog and more ruins and statues. It then advances to where a door blows open and allows guests to see outside of the ride just before plunging down the 48.5-foot tall, 80-foot long chute into the water below. During the drop, the
on-ride camera
An on-ride camera is a camera mounted alongside the track of a roller coaster, log flume or other thrill ride that automatically photographs all of the riders on each passing vehicle. They are often mounted at the most intense or fastest part of th ...
takes photos of the riders. The boat splashes into the water (where water squirters can spritz riders) before the flume runs around a small garden with a Roman
sundial (which replaced many archaeological dig-related props) and returns riders to the loading area to disembark.
References
External links
*
{{Intamin
Amusement rides introduced in 1995
Pompeii in popular culture
Busch Gardens Williamsburg