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Epic adventure
Theme park updates from Tampa and Orlando.
By Chelsea Zukowski
When Adventure Island reopens in March, it’ll have two new rides and some of the biggest upgrades in the Tampa water park’s history.
The major draws when the park reopens will likely be the reimagined Wahoo Remix and the brand-new Rapids Racer—both raft rides with starting points in the same hilltop tower behind the Hang Ten Tiki Bar.
Rapids Racer replaces the Runaway Rapids, which hadn’t operated since before the 2020 season. Adventure Island bills Rapids Racer as a speedy, two-person raft ride that propels riders through nearly 600 feet of slide.
During a recent media tour of the construction site, Design & Engineering Project Manager Andrew Schaffer said the ride has “the world’s first dueling saucer element” and “six different dueling elements so that you can your family can have fun racing each other.”
“It’s going to be very fun, lots of twists, lots of turns, lots of dueling, speed, excitement, water splashing all the way down to the end of the ride,” Schaffer said. After racing each other on Rapids Racer, riders can trudge back up the tower to hop on Wahoo Remix, a revamp of the popular Wahoo Run. The ride’s former dark, enclosed tunnels CHELSEA ZUKOWSKI now sport new colors lit up with multi-colored lights that dance to the music pumping through the slide—about a dozen different songs of all genres, Schaffer said.
Wahoo Remix is also getting all-new fourperson rafts to max its new color scheme. Thom said Wahoo Remix is the park’s most inclusive ride with the shortest height requirement.
During the tour, Thom showed off two other big changes under construction at Adventure Island that are expected to be ready in time for the park’s first spring guests. The entrance area is getting a much-needed facelift with two new, larger signs, café string lights across the walkway, palm trees and other greenery and some more modern tropical décor. “For people that walk into the park, it really previews what they’re about to see inside; you know, giving a nod to the quality that’s inside the gates—the rides and experiences,” Thom said. Adventure Island is also getting a seating upgrade to its main beach lounge area. When it’s complete the park’s “Beach” will have a little less sand and a lot more loungers and shade provided by new foliage and what Thom calls “fun-brellas.”
“I think that’s going to be spot number one when that gets finished,” he said.
Adventure Island and its sister theme park Busch Gardens are simultaneously bouncing back with new rides and attractions two years after the pandemic upended the theme park industry.
Days before essentially the world shut down because of COVID-19, Adventure Island was able to open the Solar Vortex water slide. Then last summer, the park’s full-service Hang Ten Tiki Bar opened with a menu packed with tropical classics, local beers and snacks like the Tiki Man soft pretzel.
And in spring of 2022, Adventure Island will boast two new rides while Busch Gardens finally opens the epic Iron Gwazi hybrid coaster, which is set to debut on March 11.
Adventure Island reopens on March 5 and is expected to remain open year-round thanks to the addition of pool heaters. Tickets, passes and more information can be found at adventureisland.com.
Epic Universe, Universal Orlando’s fourth theme park, will open summer 2025 NBCUniversal’s parent company, Comcast, announced on Jan. 27 that the new Epic Universe theme park is set to open by the summer of 2025 in Orlando. The announcement was made by Chief Financial Officer Michael Cavanagh in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. Comcast’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts also announced that Universal Orlando had “ the best quarter in the company’s history for any quarter.” TRAVEL & From those earnings, NBC Universal plans to invest about $1 billion on capital expenditures LEISURE for the theme park. After construction was paused for nearly a year, Epic Universe is “full steam ahead” according to Shell. The 25-acre theme park will include Super Nintendo World, extensive fountains, a direct park access celestial-themed hotel and many other features yet to be announced.—Sofía
García Vargas
AMUSÉMENT BOUCHE: We got a sneak peek at upgrades to Adventure Island
Florida man
Alan Ritchson fills the screen, and some huge shoes, in ‘Reacher.’
By John W. Allman
There aren’t a ton of literary characters who evoke a specific mental image whenever you hear their name, but of the ones who do, few strike as imposing a presence as Jack Reacher, the fictional hero at the heart of 26 novels authored by James Dover Grant, aka Lee Child. Reacher, in the novels, is described as a beast of a man, 6-foot-5 with a 50-inch chest; the kind of person you notice as soon as he enters a room.
That didn’t stop 5-foot-7-inch Tom Cruise from stepping into the character’s shoes for two ill-fated and under-whelming films in 2012 and 2016. To say fan reaction was visceral would be an understatement.
Six years later, we can all rest a little easier knowing that the real Jack Reacher, the brutally-efficient ex-military officer with unrivaled intelligence and cunning, is finally, properly being represented—by Alan Ritchson, a Florida native and current Panhandle resident, no less.
Ritchson, an actor many might recognize from DC’s “Titans,” he played Hank Hall, aka Hawk, might be an inch or so shorter, but his massive frame and magnetic personality still filled a hotel room during a recent press stop in Tampa to promote the new Amazon Prime original series, “Reacher.”
Though he’s never spent a lot of time here, Ritchson said he had visited before, years ago, on school trips to Busch Gardens.
“My Dad was in the military. We moved around a lot. Eglin Air Force Base is the largest Air Force base in the world, and that’s where my Dad was stationed the longest, so I grew up in a little town called Niceville,” Ritchson said. “You know, I couldn’t wait to just get out of town and figure out what life had in store for me. (The) first place I moved was Miami, so I’ve been in Florida a long time.
I eventually found my way to L.A., and like most 18-year-old, 19-year-old’s do, ‘I’m leaving home and I’m never coming back!’ I’ve got three young boys, and when my first was born, my wife decided it’s best if we have a place near grandparents where they can grow up near them, see them and I can get help with the kids when you’re working…so yeah, we moved to Santa Rosa Beach and it’s been great. I love being there.”
For this new iteration of “Reacher,” showrunner Nick Santora (“Prison Break,” “Scorpion”) and the creative team tackle one novel for the show’s first season, which is Child’s first Reacher story, “Killing Floor.”
Ritchson said he had never read the source material prior to being considered for the role. “The process to get the part was long, so I had about a year, and when I started to realize I think there’s a really good shot at this, obviously I need to do my homework. I picked up the books and I raced through all 24. I couldn’t put them down. So, I’m as big a fan as anybody, and I mean that, sincerely. In fact, I re-read them, just for fun. I’ve read a lot of them twice. I just love the books. I love them,” he said.
And while he’s never seen the two Cruise adaptations, Ritchson said he still felt the weight of meeting or exceeding expectations.
“There’s a unique kind of pressure that
Thankfully, we can report that Ritchson and Co., including his co-stars Malcom Goodwin (“iZombie”) and Willa Fitzgerald (“Scream: The TV Series”), have forever expunged any lingering resentment about how the character was previously presented.
Both “Reacher,” as an eight-episode series, and Reacher, as a formidable, unstoppable blunt force, are calibrated perfectly. The hour-long episodes are well-paced and packed with some decidedly brutal handto-hand combat. And damn near every episode includes a supporting character commenting on Ritchson’s hulking frame, which never fails to elicit a smile.
“Buster Reeves is stunt coordinator, and designed those fights, and he’s one of the best in the world at that,” Ritchson said, his face beaming. “It took a couple of months to get that FILM & TV fight right. It’s a five-onone fight in a prison where everything on his body and Reacher in his environment is a ★★★ ½ weapon. It’s fast and brutal
Now Streaming on Amazon Prime and precise. He fights with this almost like a layer of telepathy involved. His Spidey senses are going off, what’s behind him, what’s around him, so to get all that timing right took a long time. “Fighting is nothing new to me, but this particular style was new and it took us really breaking down my habits and reforming them. I had to reshape the way that I move. We kind of
SHANE MAHOOD/AMAZON STUDIOS
MR. NICEVILLE GUY: (L-R) Malcom Goodwin and Alan Ritchson, a Florida native and current Panhandle resident.
comes along with that because usually there’s this external, everybody’s got an expectation, whatever version of Reacher comes alive in their imagination, they want to see that come to life on the screen,” he explained. “But there was this internal pressure, oh my gosh, I have to get this right, I love this series so much. Usually, it’s about blocking out that external noise; for me, it was also about blocking that internal, better not screw this up.”
The first episode, “Welcome to Margrave,” which has Reacher arriving in Georgia after getting on a Greyhound in Tampa, and promptly being arrested for murder, establishes its bareknuckle brawling style early on after Reacher is sent to a state penitentiary to safeguard a key witness. He soon finds himself surrounded in a cramped bathroom, squaring off against multiple assailants with only his fists and found objects to defend himself. deconstructed my kind of fight style and rebuilt it from the ground up.”
While nothing is ever guaranteed, Ritchson certainly sounds like he wants to continue embodying Reacher for as long as he’s able. “I told them when we started shooting, I told the studio, guys we have to start shooting two seasons a year because I don’t want to age out,” he said, laughing. “I want to see as many of these books come to life as possible.”
Hollins back
St. Pete home of Pinellas’ first school superintendent is for sale.
By Colin Wolf
The home of Pinellas County’s first school superintendent is now for sale in St. Petersburg’s Historic Old Northeast neighborhood. Located at 556 16th Ave. NE, county property records date the house to 1925, though due to a records fire at the time, it was likely built even earlier. According to listing agent Cathy Hypes, of Coastal Properties Group International, the home was first owned by the late Dixie Martin Hollins.
In 1912, when West Hillsborough County became what is now Pinellas County, Gov. Albert Gilchrist appointed the 24-year-old Hollins as the area’s first school superintendent, a job that would require him to travel from school to school via dirt roads on horse and buggy.
The Hollins family also owned the St. Petersburg Printing Company and the Pasadena Country Club,” reads his obituary. Today he’s arguably most well-known as the namesake of Hollins High.
Over the years there have been a few owners of the Hollins house, most notably Dr.
Richard Montague, and his wife Maude, who purchased the property in 1965. Montague was a celebrated concert pianist, an instructor at what is now St. Petersburg College, and an avid wild horse tamer. The Montague family owned the home for over 50 years, until it was sold in 2015 to the current owners, following his death at the age of 98. Since then, the 3,508-square-foot Mediterranean home has had quite a facelift. HOMES “These owners did everything,” said Hypes. “They upgraded the electrical, the plumbing, the kitchen. But they kept the Cuban tile and the lilac bathroom!” Besides a perfectly purple retro bathroom, the four-bedroom, five-bathroom property also comes with an above garage in-law suite, new solar panels, and a saltwater pool. “It’s a special type of house, for a buyer that really appreciates owning a piece of history,” added Hypes. The Hollins house is currently asking $1,949,000.
PHOTOS VIA COASTAL PROPERTIES GROUP INTERNATIONAL
52 | FEBRUARY 17 - 23, 2022 | cltampa.com
