Curse of DarKastle was a stunning, unthinkable headliner that a regional, seasonal theme park had no business featuring. With a cutting-edge technology that industry experts would never have thought to live outside Florida or California, the ride brilliantly re-utilized the SCOOP ride system in a whole new way… a haunted house! The ingenious new application to a 21st century ride system made DarKastle all the more brilliant.

But to hear guests tell it, one thing the ride lacked was thrills.

Image: Busch Gardens / Falcon's Creative Group / Super 78 Studio

Especially marketed as a headlining E-Ticket meant to put Busch Gardens Williamsburg on a national map (and thus, earning multi-hour waits), DarKastle simply didn’t have the thrilling, heart-pounding, memorable, wild experience that Spider-Man proved the ride system capable of. Aside from a few discombobulating scenes and a simulated free-fall, DarKastle was mostly just a high-tech haunted house, which left guests wondering if the SCOOP was being used to its full potential…

And if you can believe it, Busch Gardens had prepared for just such an occasion.

Plot twists

Falcon’s Creative had placed a failsafe in DarKastle: the ability to wireless swap out scenes in the ride and reprogram its motion. Super 78 Studios returned to re-animate key scenes (ratcheting up the in-your-face “thrill”) while replacing other scenes entirely. Here’s just a sampling of what changed.

Image: Super 78 Studios / Falcon's Creative Group / SeaWorld Parks

• The opening scene outside of the castle’s entry was reanimated from scratch. This time around, it more closely followed Spider-Man’s lead, with the stone wolf coming alive and leaping onto the hood of the sleigh, snapping and snarling at riders during Ludwig’s ominous, disembodied invitation (now rerecorded to sound angrier and more threatening).

Image: Super 78 Studios / Falcon's Creative Group / SeaWorld Parks

• In the dining room and kitchen, the relaxed Ludwig seated at the far end of the table was replaced with a more aggressive, angry king who throws the kitchen table, approaches the sleigh, and appears to slice off his own ghostly head.
• The tilted hallway before the library gained a new air blast effect to startle riders… as a result, though, the three portraits there (of Ludwig and his parents) were downplayed, minimizing the story… an unfortunate sacrifice that would continue in the reformatted ride...

And most notably: 

• The entire finale was reconfigured and the ballroom scene replaced. After spinning through the fireplace, riders now find themselves flying across the castle’s roofs lead by the Queen, who implores us to follow her beyond the castle walls as towers collapse around us. Ludwig, though, catches the cart and pushes us back skyward as a snake slithers from his mouth, striking toward the car. Ludwig then throws the car, spinning us to face “downward” into the “hanging” scene.

Image: Wen the knitster, Flickr

Admittedly, the recast finale and re-paced ride downplayed the exchange between Ludwig and his dearly departed mother (eliminating much of their back-and-forth dialogue, too), adding thrills at the expense of the ride’s lavish ballroom scene and its quietly brooding battle and growing tension between mother and son.

However, it did give the ride the added boost it needed to please those waiting in multi-hour lines. It’s a shame both finale scenes and both paced experienced couldn’t exist. But at the very least, the swap shows just how innovative the ride system could be.

Of course, we have to include a video after the ride’s 2006 update, which closely resembles the ride in its final form. See what differences you can spot, and consider which version of the ride – especially its altered second act – you prefer:

Likewise, you can see the raw Super 78 Studios footage of the animated footage here.

Dark decline

Though the 2006 update might've positioned DarKastle to remain a spectacular headliner, sometimes even the best laid plans go awry.

By the 2010s, things were beginning to change at DarKastle yet again, and this time not for the better. After a while, the park discontinued the pre-show, allowing it to simply play on a loop as queuing guests walk through… Akin to making the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror’s library “optional,” guests (naturally) tended to proceed straight through the room, losing the all-important background knowledge of Ludwig, his parents, the sleighs, and the curse… Of course, better that than an unfortunate test when they ran the pre-show with no switchbacks inside, creating the dreaded bottleneck free-for-all when it ended.

Most damningly, in the decade since its opening, wear-and-tear seemed to have taken their toll on the ride system itself. Insiders say that aging SCOOPs, motion sickness, and spilled beverages forced engineers' hands, and Busch Gardens intentionally toned down the ride… The dizzying, spinning highlight in the pitch black fireplace was removed altogether, with the sleigh simply backing up slowly through the scene…

But even beyond that single unfortunate change, the slamming, spinning, and bucking that the SCOOP is capable of became noticeably tamed – little more than taps, shuffles, and bounces. Throughout the ride, any semblance of motion was been downplayed, creating a surprisingly and unsettlingly tame attraction. The finale “freefall” could hardly convince a Kindergartener due to the out-of-sync and barely-noticeable motion, and that’s a shame…

One-by-one, physical effects, triggered props, and infrastructure simply stopped working.

And as you might imagine, 2006 animation didn't hold up in an HD, 4K world.

The most damning sign of the ride's future, though, was its off-season use. While the ride had remained open during the park's ChristmasTown event (as a warm and fittingly-wintery reprieve), beginning in 2014, it remained closed during the off-season event. Soon, it was closed during the park's Howl-o-Scream event in the fall, too, despite seemingly being tailor-made for the Halloween season. Insiders said that the advanced (and aging) SCOOP technology necessitated off-season care, requiring the ride to remain closed for maintenance... surely, a sign of impending doom...

As the summer 2017 season settled, Busch Gardens announced that DarKastle would be used to house a new, multi-media haunted house walkthrough during the park's Halloween event... Then, the building was decked out as Santa's Workshop for a meet-and-greet during ChristmasTown. Uh oh...

Image: Falcon's Creative Group / Super 78 Studios

All along, fans and park followers supposed that it was inevitable, and that DarKastle was doomed to decline year-after-year until its eventual removal… And voila... On January 23, 2018 – during the middle of the off-season – Busch Gardens announced through its Instagram account that DarKastle had taken its last tours as of the close of the summer season. The structure would be repurposed into a special event space.

Our one-time-Modern-Marvel has sadly transitioned over to our Lost Legends series. 

Happily ever after

Image: zachclarke, Flickr

While the years have not always been kind to Curse of DarKastle, it earned this spot in our lineup of Lost Legends for the way it dared to take a ride system so defined by its original installation and bravely reinvent it. DarKastle was just the kind of ride Disney Parks fans clamor for – an original story with compelling characters, brought to life with thoughtful detail and cutting edge technology.

With DarKastle, Busch was convinced that they could make a multi-sensory, 4D, motion-based dark ride of their own, and they succeeded. Packed with thoughtful details, twists and turns, and a compelling plot, DarKastle was indeed a wonder... even if it might've been more spectacular than SeaWorld could maintain.

Now, we want to know your thoughts. Did you know the icy history of DarKastle’s real-life inspiration? Do you remember the “original” DarKastle before its 2006 swap for thrills? Did you noticed the ride’s steady decline into a C-Ticket family ride? Will you miss this forward-thinking dark ride at Busch Gardens, or was it simply too ahead of its time for SeaWorld to maintain? 

Be sure to make the jump to Theme Park Tourist's Legend Library to set course for another closed, classic Lost Legend.