Loop 030 printable

Volume 2, No. 7. April 12, 2002

Rebirths

It’s a ski show!
Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California, announces the return of Ski Xtreme, March 30, 2002. Measurements: 9 waterskiers divided into two teams, one emcee, three boats, two jet skis, one jump ramp.

One thing Batman and Robin could not defeat was their predecessors on Marine World’s Lake Chabot. Three years after the dynamic duo’s stunt show displaced the ski presentations the park had been staging since 1968, guests were still walking through the gate asking staff to point them to the ski show. “It is extremely popular,” said Jeff Jouett, the park’s public relations manager. “Batman and Robin are still here as characters, doing meet and greet, posing for pictures and keeping the Riddler at bay, but the skiers have taken over the lake.”

Ski Xtreme divides the skiers into two teams who compete through a series of stunts, including barefoot skiing, jet ski racing and stunt jumps. The show ends with a six-person, three level pyramid carrying the American flag. The show’s first weekend saw the 2,500-seat stadium filled, Jouett said, and audiences responded to both the thrills and spills with the fervour that made the show so popular in the first place.

Marine World also entered the season with a new Alligator Isle exhibit featuring three ’gators, Billy, Lisa and Vador (obviously now separated from his brother Darth).

This month the new Lion’s Den will open to the public across from Tiger Island and become the new home for Nikka, the park’s female lion who has spent her whole 10 years living amid the tigers. “She has had an identity crisis all her life,” Jouett joked. But Nikka will soon have company of her ilk with the arrival by the end of this month of three lion cubs.