Climate Catastrophe Theme Park Proposal
Climate Catastrophe, A Greater & Grander Proposal
A river rapids ride that takes you through the streets of a flooded London, as the historical landmarks collapse around you, and you surf the wild rapids through Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery.
Climate Catastrophe Story
Guests are invited to take a relaxing and scenic view of London via a boat ride on the Thames, with THAMES TIDES. This boat river cruise is owned and operated by the husband and wife team, Mr. Jerry Tropical and Dr. Jamie Tropical. Jamie helps track the tides and other environmental data, while Jerry promotes the business, and while she continuously warns him about inclement weather, Jerry (being an entrepreneur) keeps wanting to go off and do his own thing.
The two reside in present-day London, and even though they are married and have many things in common, they want different things. Dr. Jamie Tropical wants to study science and warn people about climate change while Jerry Tropical wants to live life carefree, and be his own boss. Jamie fears most people getting hurt, while Jerry fears most losing out on business.


Climate Catastrophe: Ride Queue
The queue is the most important location in telling the story of the attraction. Here, guests make their first impressions and it is also where story of the attraction starts. The queue that we have designed is modeled after a scaled-down version of the London Tower bridge, to about the size of a pedestrian bridge. This allows us to compact the space by having the loading area under the bridge, while also offering an in-theme walkway from the streets of our land to the attraction.


As our guests enter the bridge queue, there will be audio and video from our London boat tour hosts, Mr. and Dr. Tropical. They will engage in comedic skits that discuss the history of the Thames, and also the pressing science of global warming. The atmosphere is comedic and fun, and designed to play up the conflict on global warming between commerce and science. In order to facilitate the comedic sketches there will be approximately 20 HD flat screens, and 50 directional speakers placed along the ride queue. We have specifically chosen directional speakers to avoid noise pollution bleeding into the greater theme park.
Along the queue area, there will be several coin-operated water guns, colored red and yellow (after the British fire truck designs) where guests can shoot water into the rafts as they begin their ride.
In addition, portions of the bridge will be decorated with engravings and stained glass windows that portray floods through the ages, as a form of foreshadowing. As part of this climate-conscious artwork, we will be reaching out to popular British street artists, including Carrie Reichardt, SpY, and Banksy.

The bridge queue is broken up into two guest demographics, the Standby and FastPass/ExpressPass queues. We estimated that the ride would be quite popular and decided that Disney’s FastPass system (or Universal’s Express Pass system) would help in guest satisfaction. FastPass is a ride reservation system where guests can receive tickets that “save” their place in the queue while they go and enjoy other attractions. At the time printed on the tickets, guests can return to the attraction and “jump” back in line.
After guests have navigated the bridge portion of the queue, they descend via a gothic stone spiral staircase to the banks of the Thames, which will take us to our loading area. Underneath our Tower Bridge, guests will load into 12 person rafts/tubes.
After our guests load into the raft, the raft is hoisted up a special elevator to begin their journey. While in the elevator, a special audio/video track will play about the heart of London, and how the city (and many others like it) is at risk from climate change.


The elevator allows us to minimize the footprint of the park and eliminate lengthy ramps.
Climate Catastrophe: The Ride
CALM BEFORE THE STORM; Our guests exit the elevator, and begin a nice leisurely ride down the river Thames, going under prominent bridges, which drip water ever so slightly on our guests.



STREETS; Suddenly, an alarm sounds, and our guests veer down a dramatic waterfall. The scenery changes as the river has flooded, and the guests are now moving through the streets of London.

FOUNTAINS; The rapids are wild, and our guests pass water fountains like the Shaftesbury Statue and the Temple Bar Dragon Sculpture, which shoots water at our guests.

TOPPLING COLUMN; Guests pass under large landmarks like Cleopatra’s Needle or Nelson’s Column, which gives out under the flood, and crash down, stopping just before it hits our guests.


FIRE EFFECTS; Guests pass Big Ben, when all of a sudden, a huge ball of flames erupts from it. Behind Big Ben is a concrete-enforced barrier with a sky painting background for protection of our guests.



WATERFALL; Guests pass underneath another large bridge, with a waterfall descending down from it the full width of the flume, soaking all our guests.

FIRE TRUCK; As our guests continue on, the buildings get shorter and shorter, giving the illusion that the flood is increasing. Emergency lights flicker as our guests pass a fire truck that is flooded up to the Roto-Ray lights on top.



DESCENT; Our guests then descend into the flooded National Art Gallery (show building).

ATRIUM; Inside the National Gallery, lights shine down through cloudy atriums high overhead, and lights illuminate from under the water, illuminating vague shapes.

GOTTA VAN GO!; Guests pass psychedelic interpretations of classic paintings, including Van Gogh’s masterpieces. Some paintings like Van Gogh’s Two Crabs, appear to come to life, and jump out of the frame, into the water.

PORTRAITS; Guests pass rows and rows of paintings of classic portraits whose eyes are anxiously bobbing left to right.

EXIT & RELOADING; Then our guests exit out of the show building and return safely to the Thames embankment to exit the ride.
Climate Catastrophe Technical Details
Climate Catastrophe is an estimated 3 minutes and 35 seconds ride time. The ride will have a maximum dispatch interval of 20 seconds. Our ride vehicles will have an estimated capacity of 12 people per boat. When fully calculated, the ride capacity will be able to accomodate 2,160 per hour, with the option to optimize the ride to up to 2,500 people per hour.
The ride track uses a folding and weaving method to maximize the use of the space while extending the ride time. This, combined with the elevator system, allows the ride to take up half of the space a comparable ride would take up, allowing more real estate for shops.
Climate Catastrophe Possible Layouts


Climate Catastrophe Guest Restrictions
Like all theme parks around the world, certain attractions may not be suitable for certain guest demographics. CLIMATE CATASTROPHE being high-speed and thrilling in nature, is one of these attractions. Restrictions for this attraction include that guests must be:
- At least 48 inches tall
- In good health, free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness or other conditions that may be aggravated by this adventure
- Able to transfer from wheelchair to ride vehicle, if necessary
Also, pregnant guests are advised not to ride the attraction.
The ride queue sketches will have closed captioning in multiple languages to assist and be inclusive to those who are hard of hearing. Visual disability services are not offered at this attraction. Also, service animals are not allowed to board the attraction.