Major Dutch theme park Efteling is currently well underway with the construction on their new ride for 2024: Danse Macabre. The new spooky simulator ride replaces the former haunted castle, an animatronic show. So far, the park has been updating their fans regularly on the progress of the ride’s construction, and today was not an exception: the park showed a couple of pictures on their blog of the placement of the first element of the ride system, which took place earlier this morning.
The element that was placed this morning was the first part of the central mast, which in turn is part of the base of the ride system. Together with a second element, the total mast weighs 45.100 kilograms. In order to place the structure, a large crane needed to lift it through the still open roof, after which the precise job started to install the giant in the right position. Pictures shared by the park show the installation of the mast; see more of these pictures below.
With Danse Macabre, Efteling adds a completely new ride to its park in 2024. The ride system, delivered by Intamin, is designed especially for this experience. It carries 108 passengers at a time, seated in one of six rotating choir stalls. The choir stalls are placed on a large circular platform, which is capable to heave and rotate. Riders will “dance and shiver on the music tones” of the famous Danse Macabre music piece, as Efteling mentioned in an earlier video. The ride platform will be surrounded by decorations depicting a detoriorated abbey, similar to the decorations of haunted castle that was previously located on this spot in the park.
Danse Macabre forms the centerpiece of the new Huyverwoud (‘shivering wood’) themed area. With the ride being set inside the ruins of a medieval abbey, the area’s setting is determined by the other abbey buildings, such as an old carriage house and a tavern. Main characters of the area are the Charlatan family, who came to the ruins and turned them into shops for selling their goods; the first of these, a food&beverage-location called ‘In den Swarte Kat‘, already opened to the public this summer. Visitors of Huyverwoud are dared to enter the abbey building to experience Danse Macabre and find out more about the Charlatan’s great-great-grandfather, a conductor who once disappeared mysteriously along with his orchestra.
