4. Justice League: Battle for Metropolis

When you think of Six Flags, you probably don’t initially think of dark rides… But if anything could change that, it’s Justice League: Battle for Metropolis. Banking on Six Flags’ association with Warner Bros.’ catalogue of comic book heroes (which have previously mostly been relegated to the names of bare steel coasters), Battle for Metropolis has – to date – provided seven Six Flags parks with an E-Ticket level dark ride experience.

Basically, you can think of the attraction as a maturation of Sally’s Justice League: Alien Invasion dark ride (found at Warner Bros. Movie World in Australia). The Six Flags variant clearly banks on the formula begun by the Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man.

“SCOOP-esque” ride vehicles carry guests through physical sets populated by Audio-Animatronics and tactile effects. There are also sections where – as on Spider-Man – screens act as “windows”. In other instances, screens act as “windshields,” used for brief motion-simulator-style chases, all maintained while riders try to focus on flying targets.

The result is an “all-that-plus-the-kitchen-sink” experience that – in its screen-based moments – can be dizzying and disorienting. But for bringing full-scale audio animatronics to Six Flags parks? Who could call that anything but a win? Basically, Justice League: Battle for Metropolis really set a new standard for a modern Sally Dark Ride. It’s big, bombastic, action-packed, and filled with the best tricks of the trade.

Maybe it was their successful translation of a very important IP into a dark ride format that got Sally their next big IP job…

5. Sesame Street: Street Mission

The idea of a Sesame Street-themed shooting dark ride may sound like the exclusive domain of a pop culture aside on Family Guy or Saturday Night Live. But to that point, the selection of Sally to translate this delicate and beloved series into a dark ride (where its Muppet performers will necessarily be brought to life by animatronics) really does speak volumes… and Sesame Street: Street Mission is a fantastic attraction.

Located at Spain’s PortAventura (which, at least for a brief time, was operated by Universal Parks), the ride is a spectacular anchoring attraction for the park’s Sesame Street themed land. In short, Street Mission positions guests as detectives-in-training alongside the esteemed Detective Grover. Riders take to the taxi cabs of Sesame Street armed with “Clue Collectors” to solve the great Cookie Day mystery…

Traveling through iconic locales from the long running PBS show, riders use their Clue Collectors to gather fallen cookie crumbs as they trace the thief who made away with the World’s Biggest Cookie… without which the Cookie Day Parade is sure to be cancelled. That means playing screen-based mini-games right alongside animatronics of Bert, Ernie, Grover, and even Big Bird himself.

A finale of wraparound screens offers an action-packed return to Sesame Street and a rare trip into Oscar the Grouch’s trash can abode. The whole thing is spectacularly fun.

Seeing how wonderfully Sesame Street can translate to an interactive, trackless, technological dark ride with animatronics at a seasonal park, it feels like a real shame that the Sesame Street themed lands at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks in the U.S. don’t really have an anchoring attraction like this – an E-Ticket for the whole family.

And it’s yet another example that – while Cedar Fair frequentors may equate Sally with simple, 2D, ultraviolet ghost blasters – this company has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. And to our thinking, they all coalesced into 2022’s landmark, award-winning dark ride…

6. Volkanu: Quest for the Golden Idol

The interactivity of Ghost Blasters; the atmosphere of White Satin; the mythology of the Labyrinth; the technology and showmanship of Justice League… To our thinking, it all coalesces in VOLAKNU: Quest for the Golden Idol.

Developed exclusively for Lost Island – the from-scratch theme park that opened in Waterloo, Iowa in 2022 – Sally’s Volkanu is a capstone experience in the park’s lineup, narratively connecting to everything else guests have encountered there. After all, the story of Lost Island is that of five elemental realms recovering from the cataclysmic emergence of a fire demon called Volkanu. Now, with the golden Ora Tika idol that keeps him confined having been stolen, Volkanu threatens to emerge again, destroying Lost Island forever…

Visitors climb aboard trackless Inferno Transports – in-universe, designed by the park’s mascot-ready Tamariki peacekeepers – and venture into the Temple of Fire to harness the power of the five elements, return the Ora Tika, and defeat Volkanu for good. Along the way, they encounter animatronics, special effects, screens, motion simulation, and more.

In fact, we recently dedicated an entire feature to exploring the lore of Lost Island and the attractions within, and a separate deep dive devoted to its starring dark ride, Volkanu: Quest for the Golden Idol. Make the jump to those features for all the details from this mysterious and exciting new theme park, including ride through videos of the experience inside the Fire Temple…

Here’s the thing: Volkanu isn’t just a great ride. It’s a sort of statement on Sally’s last twenty five years, and their quest to return dark rides to prominence even in seasonal, regional parks. Here – in the midst of Iowa’s soybean fields – is a completely original dark ride that uses the park’s baked-in original mythology and characters to create a sort of culminating narrative experience to a day at the park.

In Volkanu, Sally created a ride with memorable lore and characters. It’s even merchandisable, with the golden Ora Tika on sale in the ride’s exit shop. Seriously think about that: a seasonal park in Iowa has custom merchandise based on its own, in-house mythology thanks to a Sally dark ride. That speaks not just to the success of Sally’s accessible, approachable, regional dark ride model, but to the power of this medium of storytelling.

So Many More…

It won’t surprise you to learn that Sally is responsible for dozens of dark rides across the globe. Even reading this and getting a peek at their style, you may have recognized them as the firm behind LEGOLAND’s Lost Kingdom Adventure installations, Hersheypark’s Reese’s Cupfusion, PortAventura’s Sesame Street: Street Mission, or Holiday World’s Thanksgiving-themed Gobbler Getaway.

Sally’s also been involved with classics you may love and miss, like Alton Towers’ Around The World in 80 Days or Six Flags Over Texas’ Yosemite Sam and the Gold Rush Adventure. That’s on top of tons of projects they’ve built, and many concepts they haven’t yet – like a Walking Dead dark ride just waiting for someone to bite (pun intended).

So do yourself a favor – visit Sally Dark Ride’s portfolio. If a ride sounds interesting, look it up on YouTube! Even exploring the differences between Ghost Blasters or seeing a dark ride you never knew existed is a blast. And more to the point, remember as you do that Sally has done the unthinkable: they’ve made dark rides accessible and approachable for seasonal, regional parks. For millions and millions of guests who may never see the multi-million-dollar dark rides of Disney and Universal, Sally keeps the genre alive. And that’s the power of the folks behind the scenes in the industry of imagination…