Attraction Name: Night Fury
Based upon:Dreamworks’ "How To Train Your Dragon"
Contestant: Ryan Farrugia
The ride is a wing roller coaster in the same style as Raptor at Gardaland and Swarm at Thorpe Park; the trains are designed to look like a long Night Fury dragon, and the seats and restraints designed to look like they were handmade out of wood and leather.
Like all good rides, the story begins as we enter the queue through Gobber’s blacksmith shop. Hanging on the wall are different attachments for Gobber’s hand; from the back of the shop you can hear him hammering on his anvil stopping so guests can hear him ask out loud where Hiccup has run off to now.
Exiting the blacksmith shop, and along the queue towards the station, guests will notice statues of dragons with wooden signs classifying each one and their individual traits. Outside the station is a sign welcoming you to Hiccup’s Dragon School, the interior of the station is covered in large hand drawn pictures of dragons straight from the dragon manual seen in the film.
Hiccup’s voice plays over the sound of the crowd, informing them that they’ll be training a new Night Fury he found for Astrid. He also instructs passengers how to secure themselves to their dragon and that Night Furys can be temperamental, so it might be wise to hold on. The far side of the station is windowless so the layout will be a surprise to the guests in the station.
The ride is situated around, and over, a small tree lined lake filled with rock structures and arches.
The ride begins with a 90-degree turn out of the station and a quick climb to the top of the 105-foot lift hill before dropping towards the center of the lake and through an 85-foot vertical loop around a large rock arch rising from the water.
The loop exits into a banked turn, rising 70-feet above the trees before inverting into a half-loop towards the ground. Exiting the half-loop, the dragon takes riders along a banked 45-degree low to the ground high speed turn, immediately exiting into a corkscrew over a river fed by a waterfall close by.
The Night Fury turns 270-degrees around a boulder into a zero-G roll over the lake before swooping up into the mid-course brake section. Riders are barely given a chance to catch their breath as the dragon swoops towards the ground in a banked 180-degree turn.
The track turns 90-degrees back towards the lake and quickly turns riders head over heels in two consecutive barrel rolls between rows of large rocks and arches jutting out from the water’s surface.
Back into the trees, the dragon turns 90-degrees before rising up in a final 270-degree helix into the brake run.
Riders exit through an unloading station where Hiccup thanks them for the help over the speakers.
Signs pointing towards the exit also point to the Night Fury pen where two animatronic Night Fury dragons (Toothless and Astrid’s now tamed dragon) can be seen sleeping next to each other and making their purring/snoring noise from the film.
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