Now this is a theme park I'd love to visit: Dracula World

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From reuters:


Dracula Park to Lure Fans to Romania
Thu Mar 18, 2004 08:24 AM ET

By Radu Marinas
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Diehard Dracula fans may be able to sate their thirst for jelly-and-blood puddings by May 2005 when a theme park dedicated to the infamous count is expected to open.

The Balkan country wants to boost its ailing tourist industry by luring visitors to the park near Bucharest, which would feature horror rides, a vampirology institute and gory menus.

The long-delayed plan to build a park is back on track after securing private investment. But the park will cost more than double the original amount, said Sorin Marica, the head of the Dracula Park SA firm, which owns the project.

"We'll open it by May (2005). The season starts then, so that's the best timing for Dracula," Marica told Reuters on Wednesday.

Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling and Brau-Union AG of Austria were among the investors already committed to the project, sources close to the deal said.

Marica said the park needs financing worth up to $70 million against $30 million originally, because the project has been expanded to include golf-courses, horse racing, a karting track and an water park.

The park ran into trouble in 2002 when the project was forced to re-locate from a 13th century Transylvanian town of Sighisoar, a World Heritage Site.

UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, said the onslaught of millions of tourists would ruin the medieval birthplace of Vlad Tepes the Impaler -- believed to have inspired Bram Stoker's fictional Count Dracula.

The Romanian state has now offered 1,137 acres of state land in Snagov, 25 miles from the capital of 2.5 million people, hoping to capitalize on one of its most recognizable names and attract much-needed foreign investment.

"We're close to finalizing talks with the investors...they include foreign tour operators and investment banks," Marica said adding that the project has secured most of the money.

Construction at the site, 11 miles from the capital's international airport, will start this summer. The park expects to draw about one million tourists annually -- 20 percent of them from abroad.

The headless body of Vlad Tepes, the real-life 15th-century Wallachian prince notorious for impaling his Ottoman prisoners, is believed to be buried at a monastery in the middle of Snagov Lake, near the planned theme park.

Vlad is thought to have been born in Sighisoara around 1431 to Vlad Dracul or Dragon. The young Vlad was named Dracula -- meaning son of Dracul -- by his father. In Romanian, the word also means the devil.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

 

It'll probably suck.

 

That bad joke left me drained...

 

Do you think it'll have a steak restaurant

 

no offence, but still, worthless. Playboy mansion, now that's a 'theme park' that worth visit, spend a whole life in.