Today marks to opening of the dark ride Pirates of Speelunker Cave at Six Flags over Texas (Arlington, TX – United States). The opening of the new ride celebrates the 60th anniversary of the park. Pirates of Speelunker Cave is a retheme but features a new storyline revolving around pirates which also honours the park’s original Speelunker’s Cave dark ride.
Guests are taken along to the mysterious cave in question, which is inhabited by the so-called Speelunkers. They guard the treasure a group of pirates who have entered the cave are after. According to the park, the ride is a “state-of-the-art attraction that will place guests squarely in the middle of a pirate treasure hunt thwarted by resident Speelunkers.” Riders takes place in one of 26 six-passenger boats, which take them for a journey along 17 scenes that combine cinematic projections with physical sets and animatronics. A total of 64 Speelunkers characters can be found throughout the ride. A full onride can be found on the park’s website.
The transportation system featuring free flow boats by Arrow Development, is the 1964 original. In that year, which was only the fourth year of operation for the park, Six Flags over Texas opened their first dark ride Speelunker’s Cave (also known as ‘the Cave’) in the Texas section. Riders were taken into a cave where the Speelunkers resided and passed along many scenes showing the life of these creatures. The ride closed in 1991 to be rethemed into Yosemite Sam and the Gold River Adventure, themed after Yosemite Sam and other Looney Tunes characters. That ride closed in 2018 due to severe flooding damage, and is now finally re-opened to the public.
