Wonder Mountain's Guardian

**Wonder Mountain's Guardian** (also known as *Guardian* or *WMG*; during Halloween Haunt known as *Zombies 4D*) is a 4D, interactive dark ride roller coaster at the Canada's Wonderland amusement park located in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is also the first ride part of Cedar Fair's Amusement Dark collection. Park management first proposed a dark ride located inside Wonder Mountain around 2004. Technology and budget limitations at the time delayed the project's planning and design stages until 2011. The steel track was manufactured by Art Engineering; it is approximately 304.8 metres (1,000 ft) long and has a maximum height of about 18.3 metres (60 ft). The ride also has one of the largest drop tracks in the world.

Triotech designed the ride's interactive 3D animations, which are accompanied by other special effects such as wind, adding the fourth dimension. During the park's Halloween Haunt event in October, the animations are replaced with zombie-themed effects. Delays during construction delayed the ride's opening until May 24, 2014; three weeks after the 2014 season began. Guardian was inspired by the dragon in Thunder Run—another roller coaster located in the mountain area of the park—and Starlight Spectacular—a nightly light-and-sound show focused on Wonder Mountain.

## History

Canada's Wonderland's first interactive dark ride was Scooby-Doo's Haunted Mansion (renamed Boo Blasters on Boo Hill after Cedar Fair's purchase of the park), which opened in 2000. It was designed by Sally Corporation and relies entirely on physical sets and theming rather than projected animations, and uses basic, moving props. About four years later, park management began discussing the addition of a new attraction inside Wonder Mountain. The technology available at the time meant the cost of building a more advanced dark ride was too expensive for a regional amusement park. In 2011, as technology improved and the costs decreased, the park started planning a second interactive dark ride. Several companies were contacted to design the audio-visual portion of the future ride; park management chose Triotech to do so.

Speculation that Canada's Wonderland would build a new attraction for the 2014 season began at the end of July 2013 when maintenance work on the western side of Wonder Mountain was discovered. On August 8, Cedar Fair confirmed an interactive dark ride would be built at one of the company's parks. Wonderland officially announced Wonder Mountain's Guardian—a ten million dollar attraction—on August 30, 2013, on Breakfast Television, a morning news program for the Toronto area. During the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) Attractions Expo 2013, the characters of the ride were revealed during president and CEO of Cedar Fair Matt Ouimet's keynote address.

The first pieces of track and other parts arrived at the park from Germany in mid-January 2014. A month later, installation of the track began inside the mountain. By the end of February, erection of the framing for the 3D screens began. By the beginning of March, support columns for the outside portion of the ride were installed. The lift hill was completed at the beginning of April. The park opened to the public on May 4 but the opening of Guardian was delayed. On May 23, the park announced the ride would open the next day. The entire project involved 10 contractors and at least 47 workers.

On November 7, 2013, Cedar Fair announced that during Halloween Haunt, Guardian would be altered to a zombie-themed ride. The name of this version of the attraction was later revealed to be Zombies 4D.