Fata Morgana

Development on Fata Morgana began in the early 80s and was to become Efteling's first dark ride. Five years prior to opening, Efteling already introduced a tow boat ride on one of its lakes, Gondoletta. It is rumoured that designer Van de Ven originally planned for Fata Morgana to be an expansion to Gondoletta (to be build on an island in the lake) but as the project grew in ambition, it could no longer fit on it and was moved to another part of the park. Nevertheless, Gondoletta turned out to be popular enough on its own and remains a stand alone ride to this day. With Fata Morgana still some years away from completion in 1983, it was decided to build Carnaval Festival for the 1984 season, for which the development was largely outsourced.

Designer Van de Ven took much of his inspiration for Fata Morgana from Anton Pieck's drawings for a publication of One Thousand and One Nights. The sets and animatronics were almost entirely constructed in-house. Much of the development time was spent on finding a new and cost effective way to power the over 130 animatronics, for which Efteling ended op obtaining a patent. Some of the animatronics were outsourced to Hofmann Figuren, though most of these have been replaced with in-house build figures over time.